Anna's view on Doomsday (SPOILERS)

I know that some of you will have missed it. I know that for some they won't yet have had the chance to see it.

Either way, for those who haven't watched the finale of Doctor Who new series two yet (Doomsday), don't read what's below.











But I have to say that Anna's right you know, about the unecessary pilfering from His Dark Materials for one. It wasn't without flaws. But we all know what was really important about this episode, and why I could never have written about it last night when I was too raw, too drawn to flashbacks in my mind. So I waited for Anna (apt huh?!) and she writes this fabulous little paragraph that totally captures my thoughts:

The look on his face as he leant his head against the wall... well, it brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. He didn't need to cry to show us what this meant, just an expression that conveyed utter desolation, as though his very soul (daemon?) had been ripped out. He could have played the rest of the series with a limp and I would still forgive him. That look was incredibly special. As for Billie, well she was as brilliant as she has been all through the two series she has graced, enriched, improved. Passionate and inconsolable, she was the perfect foil to DT's quietly broken Doctor. The whole separation scene was bravely shot too, giving the viewers a good four or five minutes of nothing but reaction to the separation.

Bloody right. Absolutely bloody right. And her prefixing remark to that well expressed review - that if David T (bless him) was allowed to be a little calmer, a little less boggle-eyed manic (even if he does it with great panache and enthusiasm) he would truly be the Doctor he is capable of being - well I agree with that too.

The thing is, it HAS been a rocky season, perhaps because our hopes were (too/so) high. After waiting SO many years for the return to the TV screens, getting it back at all was glorious; that the new series in 2005 was as good as it was made it even more thrilling, for both new and old fans alike. So perhaps some of the novelty did wear off. And hindsight, distance, doesn't half lend enchantment to the view of the previous incarnations of the Doctor let alone some of the truly dire stories we had back then.

Still, the true point, perhaps the only point after yesterday is this.

I cried.

I cried not just because Rose is leaving - I warmed to her more than I thought possible when I had first heard of her casting (yes, yes, but really, had there been THAT much in her CV to suggest this level of acting ability? She has been a real gem for the series without doubt, even when she has had too little to do).

I cried because there was more acting going on from the cast in relation to the separation than we could have dared hope for (even though we knew they were all capable of it). I would have paid my licence fee several times over just for the shot of the two of them touching the wall, horribly aware of how far they were separated. I would have paid it a thousand times over again for the shot of the Doctor's tears, alone in the TARDIS.

I would pay it up just for how gutted I was that Rose 'died'. Because I could appreciate that for her, no matter how much it meant to have her family back together, for her to lose the Doctor was death, a death that ripped her heart into pieces.

And I thought of Sarah Jane and how no one could live up to that one figure in her life.

It was apt to end things on a shoreline, on an endless greying sea. Because I suspect that was exactly how Rose felt: washed out on a tide of tears.

Gee, that videotape of mine from this episode is gonna be worn out darn soon.