Last week the Doctor was dragged aboard the TARDIS by his companions Jack, Donna, and Rose, having been shot by a Dalek. He then began to regenerate!

The episode begins and the Doctor is pouring out energy, about to regenerate. He then aims his hands at his old severed hand (as many fans have been speculating would come into play one day). He’s still the same! When asked what happened, he explains that as soon as he was healed from his injuries, he was able to avoid regenerating by transferring the remaining energy into a matching bio-genetic match.

Just then the TARDIS itself is captured by the Daleks and brought aboard their flagship, the Crucible. The Doctor, Jack, and Rose leave the TARDIS, having no other options, but the doors slam shut and lock Donna within. The Daleks drop the TARDIS into some sort of energy destruction field they have (it looks like lava) to deny the Doctor access to his greatest weapon. In the final moments before the TARDIS’ shields are completely destroyed, Donna accidentally touches the severed hand (she’s being thrown about the main cabin). The stored energy flows into her and then back into the hand, which grows into a brand new Doctor (still played by David Tennant but with slightly darker hair). Jack rushes Davros and is shot dead (but as we know, Jack can’t be killed and will revive).

At Torchwood, Gwen and Ianto were about to be attacked by a Dalek but find that their base, The Hub, has been time locked to prevent invaders, but it also won’t allow them out. Ianto comments that it’s something Toshiko was building before she was killed. Essentially it freezes in time the area between the Hub and the outside world, trapping the Dalek. Sarah Jane had been pulled over by Daleks that were about to exterminate her, but Mickie Smith and Jackie Tyler teleport in with big guns and blow them up. Then the three of them willingly surrender to other Daleks to get aboard the Crucible. They are rounded up with other prisoners taken from their London homes. Finally, Martha Jones used her teleport jacket to transport to a castle outside of Nuremburg with something called the Osterhagen Key, trying to get to a nearby UNIT base. Daleks float through the woods shouting out extermination threats in German.

Back aboard the Crucible, Davros, the creator of the Daleks, has Rose and the Doctor taken before him. He gloats in his victory, monologuing that the twenty-seven planets he has stolen (including Earth) and placed within the Medusa Cascade (hidden from everyone outside) form a compression field. It creates energy which cancels the electrical charge of atoms, making them fall apart. He calls it his “reality bomb” and reveals his grand, mad plan – to destroy all reality so that he is like a god.

The Daleks perform a test on their latest group of prisoners, which includes Jackie, Mickie, and Sarah. Sarah and Mickie slip away unnoticed, but Jackie is unable to. At the last moment before the device is activated, Jackie’s teleport unit is recharged and she sadly apologizes to the woman next to her and escapes, joining Mickie and Sarah unnoticed. They meet up with Jack.

Davros now has his “reality bomb” and plans to use it when he receives two transmissions. One is from Sarah, Mickie, Jackie, and Jack. Sarah always wears a necklace that is in fact a star contained in a field. Jack threatens to break it and destroy the Crucible. In a cool bit of fan service, Davros recognizes Sarah as she was around (with the Fourth Doctor) when he and his Daleks were originally “born.” Martha is the second call. She threatens to use the Osterhagen Key. It will detonate nuclear bombs buried throughout Earth and destroy the whole planet. It is a last ditch weapon to only be used when humanity has no reasonable hope of surviving. If Earth is destroyed, the “reality bomb” couldn’t work.

The Doctor is completely demolished. Davros cackles with glee, noting:

“The man who abhors violence [...] but this is the truth: you take ordinary people and fashion them into weapons. [...] How many have died in your name? The Doctor, the man who keeps on running, never looking back because he dare not, out of shame. This is my final victory, Doctor. I have shown you yourself.”

Davros prepares the reality bomb and sets off the countdown for its detonation. Then the TARDIS materializes in the room! The Other Doctor and Donna rush Davros but he blasts them away with a defensive electric blast from his chair. All hope seems lost but just before the bomb can detonate, Donna stands up and spouts of some very Doctor-like technobabble and reveals that she just rerouted their controls. She’s stopped the detonation and goes on to interfere with the Daleks themselves, and they begin rolling around haywire.

When Donna touched the hand, it took a bio-reading of her and imbued her with Time Lord energy and knowledge. The Other Doctor has a bit of Donna in him (evident in his speech and mannerisms) and Donna now has a bit of the Doctor in her (evident in her wealth of knowledge). There are essentially three Doctors now.

Davros rages at Dalek Caan, asking why he did not forsee this, but Caan giggles and reveals that he saw the horror that Daleks were capable of and conspired to destroy his own race.

The Other Doctor and Donna return the other planets to their proper place and time but before they can return Earth, the Supreme Dalek destroys the control panel. Jack blows him up. The Doctor prepares the TARDIS, but the Other Doctor fulfills Caan’s prophesy by triggering the Crucible’s destruction and killing the Dalek race. The Doctor offers to save Davros but he refuses angrily, calling him “the Destroyer of Worlds.”

The companions jump in the TARDIS and it rockets out of the Crucible as it blows up. The Doctor has a plan to get Earth home. He calls Torchwood and has them open up the Rift from the Hub, using the energy as a type of tow-cable. He then contacts Luke and Mr. Smith and asks them for some coordinates so he can latch on. Mr. Smith says it will take a while to calculate certain TARDIS numbers. Sarah has a solution. She calls K-9 who teleports to her house and gives Mr. Smith the info they need. Now locked onto the Earth, the Doctor has Jack, Mickie, Sarah, Rose, and Martha help him pilot the TARDIS, noting that it always rocks around because it’s designed to be flown by a team. He tells Jackie, “No. Not you Jackie. You just… stand over there.” It’s a pretty good bit, aided by a choral version of the Ood song from earlier this season. Suitably epic.

The group fly Earth safely home and the Doctor drops off each of his companions, bidding farewells to Donna and then Martha and Jack. Mickie decides to join them, too. Finally, The Doctor and Donna drop off Rose and Jackie in their parallel Earth. It’s where Rose’s dad is and Jackie says she had another kid. She tells the Doctor that she named him Doctor and the Doctor is all gullible and believes it when she tells him “No, you twit. I named him Tony!” Donna explains that this really is goodbye and that the walls between realities are going to close up again.

The Doctor has one final surprise. He’s leaving the Other Doctor with them. The Other Doctor, he says, is too dangerous. He killed all the Daleks and is in a similar place to where he was after the Time War, when he first met Rose. He asks her to make him a better person. He also reveals that when the Other Doctor was created, while he has the same knowledge and memories, he also took part of himself from Donna. This Doctor doesn’t have two hearts and won’t regenerate. He has one life and can grow old with Rose. Rose is upset because she fell in love with the original Doctor. She asks them both what two words he had meant to say to her when they last said their goodbyes. The Doctor says it’s in the past, but the Other Doctor says that he loves Rose.

Back in the TARDIS, Donna suddenly collapses. The Doctor seemed to have expected this and he uses his telepathy to erase Donna’s mind completely of all the time she’s spent with him. He returns her to her mother and grandfather and explains that her human mind can’t contain all that Time Lord knowledge and power. He’s locked it off from her, but if she’s ever reminded, she will die. He makes them promise that they will never mention him or their adventures together, but to know that she saved the Universe and there are planets that will forever remember her. Wilf is especially upset because “she was better with him.” The Doctor acts as though he’s just a friend and says goodbye to Donna, but she can hardly be bothered as she’s gossiping with friends on the phone.

The Doctor leaves and Wilf says that he won’t ever tell her, but that he’ll look to the sky each night and think of him and what they did. He asks what the Doctor will do now, but the Doctor reveals that he doesn’t have anyone. He will do what he must always do – travel alone.

All in all, a satisfying conclusion to the Russell T. Davies era. There was more technobabble than you normally get in a Doctor Who episode and some of it doesn’t make much sense, but it really isn’t that important. It isn’t a plausible show to begin with, with time travel and aliens. What’s important are the character’s emotions and how they deal with fantastic situations. This one had some of that. Some moments like the Other Doctor for Rose are absolutely contrived, but it’s not like the creators don’t know that. They’re giving us bombastic action and a happy ending.

The saddest part for me was Donna’s tragic end. She’s alive, but she isn’t the amazing character she grew to become. She has that potential within her but right now it’s locked away. However, I personally think this was a good story move. Why? Because there should be a price paid by heroes when they go into battle. But to kill any of them is simply too violent. Instead, this is absolutely tragic, but it makes you think.

For this episode, I have to admit that they took a few too many liberties for my tastes with their leaps in logic. Also, they did NOT need all the supporting characters. Seeing Mickie or Jackie is a little fun, but they take away time that could give us more of an emotional impact with, say, Jack or Donna. Ultimately, this is personal bias and your mileage may vary.

I give this one 4 out of 5 sonic screwdrivers for pure fun and adventure.