A Conversational Journey through New Who – S1E012/13 – Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways

Watching New Who – in conversation with David McDonald, Tansy Rayner Roberts and Tehani Wessely

 David is coming to New Who for the first time, having loved Classic Who as a kid. Tehani is a recent convert, and ploughed through Seasons 1 to 6 (so far) in just a few weeks after becoming addicted thanks to Matt Smith – she’s rewatching to keep up with David! Tansy is the expert in the team, with a history in Doctor Who fandom that goes WAY back, and a passion for Doctor Who that inspires us all. We’re going to work our way through New Who, using season openers and closers, and Hugo shortlisted episodes, as our blogging points. Just for fun! We have already talked about:

“The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances”, S01E09/10

BAD WOLF/THE PARTING OF THE WAYS – Season one, episodes twelve and thirteen
The Doctor – Christopher Eccleston
Rose Tyler – Billie Piper
Captain Jack Harkness – John Barrowman

TEHANI:

These reviews have come thick and fast for the second half of the season, thanks to the way the Hugo voters nominated, and there’s only one episode between our last chat about “The Empty Child/ The Doctor Dances” and this one. “Boom Town” was another Slitheen episode, featuring Jack and Mickey and some interesting conversations, but not much else?

TANSY:

“Boom Town” is one I disliked originally and slowly came to love. It pulls the season together as a whole I think and provides lots of lovely character stuff, but there’s not a whole lot to talk about. Moving on – “Bad Wolf” and “The Parting of the Ways”!

DAVID:

Wow, certainly lots to talk about after the series finale! We have the lot – Daleks, the Time Vortex, the wrapping up of the Bad Wolf arc and, of course, a regeneration!

I found the first episode a bit underwhelming to start with.

TEHANI:

I agree. The dislocation at the beginning was great, but overall, the tone of “Bad Wolf” was very different to that of “Parting of the Ways”, and I’m not sure it entirely worked for me as a two-parter.

DAVID:

I suspect at the time it might have seemed a bit more topical, but it is a little dated now. Obviously, a certain degree of suspension of disbelief is always required when watching a show like Doctor Who, but I think that they would have been much better served by putting it in about the year 2300 and saying that culture was going through a nostalgia phase rather than entertaining the idea that in the year 200,000 people were still speaking in English accents. It’s a bit like how ’80s sci fi movies always show people in the future dressing in glammed up ’80s fashion, it’s not a very ambitious treatment of where humanity might be so far into the future. However, I did like the concept (which was very Running Man) of the various game shows, I don’t think that I am alone in having a vague suspicion that one day reality shows may have a fatal element!

TANSY:

I think “Bad Wolf” – or at least the reality show bits – are the only part of this season where the cultural references don’t entirely translate from British to Australian. We had Big Brother, of course, and the Weakest Link, but not with those particular hosts. I don’t entirely feel it’s dated but that’s mostly I always found a slight disconnect with the obvious TV tie-ins from a different country. Having said that, I really enjoy this episode – especially the way they appear in the odd situation without the transition from the TARDIS scene, and the whole concept of adding death stakes to reality TV – hardly a new idea, but this was before The Hunger Games went viral!

TEHANI:

Even thought I thought it was a bit silly (and it seemed a very convoluted set up to the pay off in the second part), I loved the way the Doctor behaved in the Big Brother house – it was like he was channelling one of those contestants we love to hate, with the flouncing and the lounging and the rule-breaking… And Jack with his “Ladies, your ratings just went up.”

TANSY:

I like the outright comedy because of the sting that follows it, where their jolly romp turns deadly! Also, Eccleston and Barrowman are so much fun to watch when they are enjoying themselves, and you feel the energy crackle in those early scenes!

DAVID:

There were lots of fun little bits, especially Captain Jack and his make over, but compared to the second episode it was a bit lightweight. One thing I thought was done quite well, though, was Rose’s initial reaction of not taking the show seriously, and her dawning horror at the realisation of the stakes. And, while I didn’t think for a moment believe that she was actually killed, the impact her apparent death had on the Doctor and on Jack spoke volumes for the relationships that had developed over the season. Then, things started to get really exciting with the reveal of the Daleks and the Doctor’s awesome little speech, all of which set us up for a wonderful finale in the second episode…

TEHANI:

Tansy, on the first time viewing, did you KNOW Rose wouldn’t be dead? After all, we’ve just met Lynda with a “y”, who has already invited herself along with the Doctor – kill off one blonde, replace her with a ditzy(er) one? The reactions of the Doctor and Jack here were pretty believable – Jack went all macho and the Doctor stone cold – it *could* have been real?

TANSY:

I’m trying to remember – I don’t think I believed she was dead like I did believe Jack was going to die back in “The Doctor Dances”, and I can’t for the life of me remember if that’s because I had been spoiled by anything (ahh the days before Twitter, the blissful easy-to-avoid-spoiler days).

I’ve said before how much I like the TARDIS team of Nine-Rose-Jack, and I think this two parter shows them off to great effect. The emotional reactions by both men to her “death”, and the later scene when Jack figures out she’s not dead, really resonated with me. Despite all the threeway flirting, the overall sense I get here is that they are all very good friends who care a lot about each other, and I liked that emotional dimension.

I do think I was a bit alarmed by the obvious grooming of Lynda with a “y.” Sweet and all, but not overly interesting. I definitely knew by that stage who the next Doctor was going to be, so it is likely I knew Billie Piper was sticking around. So … did anyone else think Lynda was going to be the new companion?

TEHANI:

I guess I knew Rose was still there in Season 2, but even then, I was really hoping Lynda wouldn’t be! She grew on me in the second part though.

DAVID:

I had her pegged as a casualty, I’m afraid. Which was sad, as she was rather sweet. Speaking of casualties, talk about a body count!

TEHANI:

Yeah, we got to know quite a few people only to have them killed off!

TANSY:

One of RTD’s best qualities as a writer is his ability to convey character in one or two lines, and he uses that to devastating effect here as a whole bunch of perfectly nice people get slaughtered.

DAVID:

I loved the portrayal of the Daleks in this episode, even more so than in “Dalek”. For one thing, the visuals of swarms of Daleks were extremely powerful, and gave a sense of there being a lot at stake and there being terrible consequences if the Doctor failed. They were ruthless, and it built on the good work of “Dalek” in presenting them as terrible killing machines, rather than just a joke.

TANSY:

It’s easy to forget now how impossible it seemed back then, the idea of Doctor Who coming back and being good, being equal to American science fiction shows in terms of special effects and how it looks on screen. Now, I don’t really give a damn about special effects as it’s all about the character and dialogue for me (and New Who delivers that in spades) but throughout this season and this final two parter in particular, it’s astounding to see how good they were able to make the huge imaginary universe of Doctor Who. Getting to see Daleks in a literal swarm, to see the deadly force rather than just being told to be scared while looking at blips on a screen or the same 4 Dalek suits … that was huge. Daleks hadn’t looked this effective outside comic books before.

TEHANI:

The Daleks are still the scariest monsters to me – I think it’s the voices. Freaked me out as a kids, and still has that power!

DAVID:

The whole idea of the Dalek Emperor driven insane by the fallout of the Time War was very clever, especially given the way the Doctor’s emotional damage has manifested throughout the season, and I LOVED the concept of a race obsessed with genetic purity and racial supremacy being unable to deal with the measures they were forced to take to survive, and being driven to a religious mania in response. The degree of self loathing would have been incredible!

TEHANI:

I was thinking of Alisa throughout that whole bit though and imagining how triggering something like that could be to people who have cultural history with genocide and genetic purity – which makes it all the more frightening because it’s far too close to our real historical home.

TANSY:

Yes, speaking as someone who knew what a Dalek was long before I knew what a Nazi was, I find it very hard to make that real life/historical connection, and I’ve only learned quite belatedly as an adult that what the show has treated like a clever metaphor since 1963 actually can have deep real-life psychological resonance.

Getting back to the Dalek Emperor, I remain deeply uninterested in him as a villain – he works fine here as a head Dalek or whatever but I don’t really get excited about individual Daleks except maybe in the Peter Cushing movies where they had a lot more personality. I associate his part in this story with a deep sense of disappointment because at the time there was this huge ‘NEXT WEEK’ teaser about who could possibly be the big bad, and to be frank, I was hoping it was Adam.

We sort of skipped over Adam in our reviews, the boy genius who joined the TARDIS crew back in Dalek and was forcibly ejected the following week thanks to Not Being A Good Companion. I really wanted the Doctor to have some consequence for leaving a kid with a head full of alien tech back on Earth, and the idea that he might have grown up to be some kind of Dalek ruler was one of many theories flung around in that week before the finale reveal. Sigh. It would have been awesome.

DAVID:

I did find the Adam thing a little odd, it really shows how different this Doctor is. I’m not sure what you think of the comparison to Turlough, who was guilty of a far more serious transgression and yet got a chance at redemption, but the Doctor didn’t even think twice about sending him back. Perhaps that was because he was a rival for Rose’s attention! But, yes, sending him back with a head full of anachronistic technology (literally) seemed a bit irresponsible, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to see consequences from that. I didn’t even link him and the Dalek Emperor, though, my first thought was Davros.

TANSY:

Well, this is a different and less forgiving Doctor! I enjoyed Adam actually, I thought the actor did a great job at portraying a character who is all too human. Two episodes was about enough of him, though! Turlough’s one of my favourites, possibly because he was one of the few companions in the old days who got something of a story arc. But then I tend to like characters who have a bit of moral ambiguity going for them.

TEHANI:

There’s a few things about the ending that bugged me, but more from an approach of knowing what comes down the track, so I’ll save that discussion for the end of Season Four, shall I?

We get a fair bit of Mickey and Jackie in the final episode. Mickey impressed me here – he’s slowly coming to terms with the fact that Rose just isn’t that into him, and even when she’s casually hurting him, completely oblivious to anyone’s feelings but her own, he still supports her and helps her in any way he can. Jackie too, understanding that Rose has bigger things in her life and just can’t settle back to how things were, shows herself as a good mum, even though she wants nothing more than to have Rose stay.

TANSY:

I was disappointed that after giving Mickey some great progression in the “Aliens of London” story, he was back to whining and being needy in “Boom Town”. But I love him in this story, the way that he accepts that Rose has to be with the Doctor, and helps her. Jackie and the yellow truck and the way the two of them support Rose when it would be so much easier for them to let her grieve and move on is a fabulous end of season pay off for both their characters. (I’ve enclosed a favourite old YouTube vid featuring that truck at the end of this post) Also worth noting here that this is the closest Rose actually comes to formally breaking up with Mickey. He got a lot of stick for being clingy or whiny about Rose at the time this first screened, and probably since – he’s certainly one of the least beloved of all the companions of this era (accepting that most people forget about Adam) and yet she did something quite terrible to him in that she never broke up with him, never officially told him it was over.

DAVID:

He is the archetypal “nice guy”. isn’t he? Of course, it’s good that they didn’t go the easy, Hollywood way and let him get the girl in the end. What I really liked was that, while both Jackie and Mickey get portrayed as fairly shallow and self centred at times, when it really mattered they did the right thing at the expense of their own desires and put Rose first. That, to me, sums up how much they truly care.

TANSY:

Mickey’s decision that he’s not actually cut out to be a companion is a very cool and honest one. I like very much where the story takes him, and this one is the beginning of him becoming braver and more central to the action. Hooray for Mickey!

TEHANI:

I think there’s some foreshadowing here of what’s to come later, with the exploration of what it means to be a companion to the Doctor, and what it means when you no longer are. But more of that in future eps!

And then we get to the end. No more Nine, *sniff*. Tansy, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the final scene with Rose and Nine.

TANSY:

I think that the whole final section of the story in which the Daleks are basically – well, they could be any monster, it doesn’t matter, all that’s important is that death is coming – we see some great stuff from both Nine and Rose. His choice to trick her into the TARDIS and get rid of her is fabulous. That moment where he’s all energetic and doing his ‘yes I can just save the day if I bzzzt-ching’ act, and then the second she’s safe, he just stops pretending, is amazing. I love that he follows through on his promise to Jackie, and that Jackie actually appreciates it.

Rose’s journey back, quite apart from the fabulous contribution from her Mum and Mickey, is likewise wonderful. Condemned to return to ordinary life and let the TARDIS fall into quiet hibernation, she decides no, screw it, I’m going to do something else. So she rips the TARDIS apart to get back to the Doctor. Hugely symbolic, and shows that she is after all a worthy companion, not just someone along for the ride. I also love how the Bad Wolf revelation is shown through the graffiti, very effective.

But the final FINAL scene, oh yes. I adore it. I don’t care that the Daleks are literally handwavied away – have I mentioned that really the Daleks themselves aren’t intrinsically interesting? – and I think seeing Rose Tyler become effectively a Time Goddess is hugely powerful. Even better is that you can’t do that sort of thing without consequences, and both Rose and the Doctor pay big time. Well, mostly the Doctor.

(heh and in a not-to-spoil David aside, Tehani, I have to say I had a whole different view on this scene after “The Doctor’s Wife” in season 6)

TEHANI:

Yes!! I was thinking that too, second time around!

DAVID:

Rightly or wrongly, I’ve judged Nine against the Doctors I grew up with, and I thought the Doctor sending Rose away was very true to the earlier incarnations. It was a lovely moment that said a lot about his character and sense of responsibility.

TANSY:

I don’t think you can NOT judge him against the other Doctors – I’ll bet even Tehani did that, thanks to watching New Who in the wrong order!

TEHANI:

It’s true. But I’m kind of glad I did fall for Eleven first, because I’m not sure I would have loved Nine in quite the same way otherwise. That’s a bit weird maybe, but Matt Smith helped me enjoy the two who came before! I’ve no idea why.

DAVID:

If Rose had simply restored everything, brought everyone back to life and all that, I would have seen it as a massive cop out. But, I found the idea of Rose possessed by the Vortex an extremely potent image, and I liked that there was a price that had to be paid. I think it says a lot about her development that in the end it is Rose’s choices and actions that save the day, she is not just a passive spectator.

TEHANI:

This is a really good point – she took things into her own hands and refused to be a damsel who got rescued and sent away. I really liked her in this episode for that.

DAVID:

The idea of Rose seeding time and space with clues was brilliant, and it was a great way to resolve the “Bad Wolf” arc. I have to say I was very satisfied with the finale and how the writers brought the season to an end.

The Daleks not interesting? lol I’m afraid I have to disagree, vehemently.

TANSY:

When it comes to Daleks … okay, interesting, yes, they’re not boring as such. If you’re going to have a huge army of robots pursuing the Doctor and his friends I’d prefer it to be the Daleks (or, you know, those Other Ones) because of the baggage they bring to the story. But I don’t feel the need for the Daleks to be anything other than a reason for the characters to be terribly afraid, and do interesting things in response. The Daleks are mostly interesting to me because of the way the Doctor responds to them, rather than in and of themselves.

TEHANI:

This Doctor has a really visceral reaction to them. Is it because the Time War was relatively recent for him? Let me get this straight though – the Time War is something that hasn’t actually been shown in the show? It’s something that we’re only seeing the aftermath of?

DAVID:

As far as I am aware, the Time War is a new concept. I can’t remember it from Classic Who, though I may be wrong.

TANSY:

The Time War is definitely something that was created for this season as a nice backstory buffer between Classic and New Who. It is alluded to many times but we only find out details as we go, and it’s something that works incredibly well because it allows the Doctor’s very complex backstory to be explained with a minimum of words and maximum emotion. Most of what happened before is irrelevant because the Time War pretty much trumps everything else. Gratuitous Unnecessary Backstory Detail is one of the major crimes committed by the TV movie which I’m pretty sure RTD analysed and used as a manual on How Not To Bring Back Doctor Who. Except for the bits to do with kissing.

TEHANI:

That TV movie is one you’re going to make me watch, I just know it! Okay, this is good to know – it *feels* very honest, like it belongs to Doctor Who as a whole, so I’m terribly impressed with the fact it’s unique to New Who. Kudos RTD!

DAVID:

I haven’t seen it either, the impression I got was that it was to be avoided! But, I am sure we will have to go back and cover it … just to be thorough :-P

I agree about the Time War, they have done an excellent job of weaving it into the mythos so far, and I am really looking forward to seeing how it plays out, and desperately trying to avoid spoilers.

TANSY:

The TV Movie is totally worth watching, and the Doctor in it is marvellous, but apart from him it is totally a lesson in what NOT to do. I am really looking forward to watching it with the commentary by Paul McGann and Sylvester McCoy together … but yes, that’s for another day.

Let’s get back to the romancey parts, as Raeli would say! It was the kiss that was heard across the world of fandom – though none of the old school fans railed as loudly as they did back in 1996, so thank Eight for taking all the flak about Doctor snoggage – and I have to say that much like snow in a Christmas episode, kisses in this era of Doctor Who are mostly fake-outs rather than actual kisses. As in, we have a pretendy plot reason why they are kissing, but we’re going to totally put it in the previews so people think the Doctor randomly goes around snogging girls, hahaha! (having said that, while there is regular complaint about the Doctor and all that girlkissing, I’m not sure if there was any reaction at all to the fact that he and Jack also share a kiss in this episode, and one that has nothing to do with the vortex).

TEHANI:

Heh, my eight year old reacted to it though! “Mum, the Doctor kissed another boy!” Very cool.

TANSY:

Raeli just laughed hysterically. I like to see it as normalising the idea of same sex relationships, or something. She hid and went ‘ew’ when the Doctor kissed Rose. Speaking of which, the Doctor must have been able to remove the time energy from Rose by a good firm handshake if he really wanted to, and the slightly cheesy, ‘You need a Doctor,’ line does rather suggest he’s been Thinking A Lot About Kissing Her Actually. So I’d say it’s one of the rare real kisses in RTD’s Who rather than a Pretendy Fakeout Kiss, myself.

DAVID:

The Doctor/Jack kiss was rather passionless, though, like a European greeting. It didn’t really register for me as anything more than that. I thought him kissing Rose was well within character as presented through the season, the opportunity presented itself so he took it! After all, he was about to do something that might very well kill him.

TANSY:

I think the goodbye kiss meant more to Jack than it did to the Doctor, personally! What I like about it really is that he treats them equally – they’re both his dear friends, both people he fancies a bit, and he kisses them both goodbye. I also like the fact that the Doctor takes the kiss politely – not making a big deal out of it. But, you know. First same sex kiss on Doctor Who. A lovely precedent as well as being something that tells us more about character.

TEHANI:

I love that it’s just something that happens, no big fuss. It makes me feel like we really can be accepting of all sorts of relationships in our society, and Doctor Who is, to me, doing a really good job of making such things normal.

TANSY:

Jack, of course, trots off to his heroic death by Dalek. Which, ONCE AGAIN, I assumed at the time was going to be his, you know, actual death. But – and as Tehani can understand, this is going to be hard to discuss without massively spoiling David for future seasons, so I will tread carefully – he is brought back to life thanks to Rose and the Time Vortex. After which, the Doctor picks up Rose, takes her into the TARDIS and FREAKING FLIES AWAY, leaving Jack in a pretty appalling situation. I was furious about this at the time, and it took the show so VERY LONG to resolve it in any way. OK, I didn’t have to wait as long as Jack, but it still really upset me to see them ditch him. I do think it suggests that both the production team and the Doctor himself are a hell of a lot more cavalier when it comes to the male companions than the female, and it is something that still makes me cranky even when the show (and to some extent the Doctor) acknowledges this fault.

TEHANI:

But they didn’t KNOW he was alive again, did they? My kids were most distressed about it when they watched it: “They left him behind!” But the Doctor knew he’d died, and Rose didn’t remember bringing him back to life, did she?

TANSY:

(and for further discussion on this topic please make sure you watch the Children In Need special scene before “The Christmas Invasion”!)

TEHANI:

Ooh, didn’t know about that! *goes to watch*

Hmm. You know, that works for “The Christmas Invasion” but not so much for the end of “The Parting of the Ways”. Darn.

TANSY:

Most importantly, THE DOCTOR TOTALLY KNEW JACK WAS ALIVE. Which is also confirmed much, much later. It could have been a clever lie, so as to shield Rose from Jack’s death, but a) that would be appalling and infantalising of her and b) he totally knew.

DAVID:

I am afraid that Jack’s death is another moment where I didn’t feel the full impact, which I guess is some sort of punishment for waiting this long to watch the series! I was confident Jack was only mostly dead, as Miracle Max might say, and that something would happen to bring him back. As for the Doctor leaving him behind, I have to admit that I was so caught up in the regeneration and what had just happened with Rose that I didn’t really think to much about that, but now that you mention it, it does seem a little rough. The Doctor is always a little flaky after a regeneration, though.

TEHANI:

Hee! You are such a nerd, giving us a Princess Bride reference! So this was my first regeneration, and I can’t wait to talk about the end of Tennant’s reign in comparison.

DAVID:

Maybe this is covered later (and I have to thank you both for being so considerate about spoilers, btw), but I wish they had given a reason for Rose not bringing some of the others back to life, especially poor Lynda-with-a-y. I am glad that she didn’t, as I would have probably seen that as minimising the impact of the episode and a bit too much hand-waving, but a nod to the fact might have been good.

Oh, and I prefer the term “geek” :-P

TEHANI:

I don’t know. I was glad Jack didn’t stay dead, but it didn’t bother me that the others didn’t. When I say it didn’t bother me, it was more that it MEANT something for them to be dead – it made it more powerful I think, and reminds us that sometimes people do die. Although yes, some dwelling upon this fact would also have helped. Maybe the Doctor’s sadness before Rose returned was the nod?

TANSY:

The Dalek video!

TEHANI:

Tansy, that is terrible! It does somewhat take away the scare factor… :)

DAVID:

That is wrong on so many levels! Just a warning to our readers, turn down your speakers *before* you click that link. I jumped about three feet and I am not very popular with the person it woke up. It didn’t help that I was laughing hysterically, either!

TANSY:

The internet is a wonderful place, this is all I am saying.

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