Frankly, I thought the bulk of this was just poor storytelling. I have no patience for creators who put their personal emotional desires over the needs of the story, and fully 30% of this two-parter was Rusty indulging himself. We didn't need to see all the Companions again (and since when does Jack need help pulling someone?), the story got positively repetitive in spots (how many times did Ten switch the gun around? Six? Eight?), and it did ferocious damage to the characters. Martha marrying Mickey is a straight-out retcon as far as I'm concerned (I liked Tom!).

I was tired of the "oh noes I'm going to die!" bullshit in the first ten minutes of Part 1, and I lost all sympathy for the Doctor when he started ranting at poor Wilf for having done the right thing and getting stuck in the box.

The Doctor Does Not Whinge. That's why he's the Doctor, damnit.

So, yeah. Bring on Moffatt, I say. Maybe we'll see Sally Sparrow again.

Man, that whiny ass rant at Wilf was awful. I mean, sure, it wasn't actually AT Wilf, but it was NEAR him, a guy who had done nothing but respect, support, and love the Doctor. Thus ensuring that when the Doctor DID finally get around to saving Wilf, then he would be wracked with guilt about killing the Doctor.

I mean, REALLY.

Watching the Confidential today made me roll my eyes so hard. Tom pointed out that the tantrum WAS actually, totally Ten. Which is sadly true.

>Rusty indulging himself

And sadly, not off screen, where it ought to be.

Well, yes, exactly.

I have a profound distaste for emoporn, always have. I like my heroes contained, their angst implied rather than explicit. This hit many of my buttons, in all the wrong ways.

EOT2 (I'm going to go on and on here): Well. Unlike Shir, I did not hate that. I hated part 1, so 'not-hate' was all I was looking for at this point, really. But I really rather enjoyed it.

I liked: GALLIFREY RISES! The Time Lord stuff was very cool. No, not perfect. Yes, they needed significantly more time to deal with that storyline (so give me less of the Master eating last week, already). But it was cool. My one irritation here was that the President was *not* Rassillion, as the Doctor called him, because Rassillion is dead. So unless it's a title and this fact passed me by, that was an annoying bit of discontinuity. I was also very keen on everything that Wilf and the Doctor did. He was the perfect final companion. Genius idea on someone's part, that was.

But most of all, I loved how, though it began with ridiculously superfluous supernatural Master-stuff, it all ended with one single moment of decision that was all about the Doctor. I nearly cried when it became clear just how *simple* the prophecy "He will knock four times" was. Because he realised that Character is Destiny. That he had to die not because of a prophecy, not even through a situation beyond his control, but because of who he is. The Doctor's death is not some timey-wimey-spacey thing - it's the saving of one apparently inconsequential human being. I. Fucking. Loved. That. (It seems I had the completely opposite response to Nora on this one. For me, his rant wasn't a rant at Wilf, not really. It was a rant at human beings and how he didn't want to HAVE to die for them, and a rant at himself for HAVING to anyway because that's who he is and he wouldn't have it any other way.)

I didn't love the goodbye montage quite so much as the rest of the death/regeneration stuff, because it was more RTD than Ten. But it wasn't totally out of character, either. The Doctor had been facing a death that, until just before, he had thought would be his ultimate end. He has clearly loved being Ten (cf. "I don't want to go"). He got slightly longer to regenerate than in the past, and he decided to take advantage of that. I'm not against this. Just as long as no future Doctors repeat the stunt, kthx?

New Doctor? I like him so far ("Still not ginger!" was fantastic). Yeah, it was a lot like Tennant's regeneration, but he also put his own spin on it. Beyond that, we'll see how he does. I still trust Doctor Who on casting (and Moffat on writing, as Shir points out).

I disliked the catcus people. Apparently I'm alone in this - but they were not funny, they were not clever, and I didn't see the point. Blah. And I hate that they had Martha marry Mickey. I have to go back and watch her Torchwood episodes to see if it's retcon, but I *think* she never said who she was married to. However, putting them together because they're both black is irritating as hell. I seriously hope that Torchwood makes some use of them and/or of their relationship, to make up for that one.

Regarding the mysterious woman: they played Rose's theme when she uncovered her eyes. To me this means someone very important to him, if not Rose herself. I agree with Shir that she was one of the Time Lords who opposed the decision to return to Earth after the Master and the Doctor. (Also, they did say that these two would become the Weeping Angels of Blink, right? 'Cause that was COOL!) But I think there's more to her than just another Time Lord, since they voiced the question of who she is. "I was lost" is interesting. My guess is maybe Susan (his granddaughter, who was left on Gallifrey) or another family member.

Wilf, though. What's up with the constant misdirects? "Who are you?" from the Doctor can't mean *nothing*. Unless it was just to reinforce the thing where all human beings are important and worth dying for yada yada, although that wasn't completely clear. I'd love it if (continued...)

( continues...) he came back and they closed that loophole. Not sure they'll bring Donna back now, though, so probably not.

And Shir, I have to respond to your "I'm almost furious that Tennant's exit was the scared little boy who didn't want to be alone." Because that loneliness was the second best moment of this, for me, after his moment of decision. Not only did he choose his own destiny, it was one he didn't want to meet - certainly not alone. It wasn't so much going to see all the old companions, as the scared end in the TARDIS that made that for me. Tennant's Doctor was a person in death as well as in life. I really like that. I agree that the montage was a let-down, but the moments afterwards felt much more real.

Goodbye, Ten. You rocked. You entertained angels, got a knighthood, got shot by a Dalek, met the devil, defeated the Sycorax with a satsuma, jumped out of a fireplace on horseback, managed not to crash the Titanic, became human, had a daughter, lost people, found people, had a metacrisis with an Essex girl, kissed Kylie, carried the Olympic torch, narrowly escaped the eruption of Vesuvius, and kept your voice down in the library (not necessarily in that order). What more can we ask from an incarnation of the Doctor?

Seska:

I agree that the rant wasn't at Wilf, but I hated that he had it *near* him BECAUSE WILF IS MY WOOBIE!!!

Rewatching EoT part 1: and wondering how the mystery timelord lady who appeared to Wilf got through the timelock to do so?

I have to say that I really liked Seska's point about how in the end it was a choice determined by the Doctor's character and nothing else. He could have walked away from a little person. The Time Lord Victorious would have. But he came back to his truer nature. In the end he wasn't the guy who married the Queen or made her nickname no longer apply.

The whole thing is growing on me. I'll have to watch the whole thing together this week.