This is really their episode, as they set out to become the titular ‘Vanquishers’ with a rather dastardly plot to wipe out the species that pose them the biggest threat. Let’s start with the revenge of the Sontarans, a surprising return for villains that appeared to have had their time in the spotlight this year. Probably best, then, to examine each of the many threads that have been jostling to be the main plot and look at how deftly they’re concluded. With the Doctor flitting so rapidly between various time periods in this episode it would be downright exhausting to try and follow the narrative along and examine it as it plays out – some individual ‘scenes’ near the start are just a few words long before the Doctor’s off to another location. Once her ‘trisected’ selves board the TARDIS, however, we start to get plenty of nods towards the events of ‘The Three Doctors ’ – as in that story, the main threat comes from antimatter, there’s a use of “Contact!”, and one of the Doctors is trapped in a bubble outside the universe. There’s a touch of Star Trek: The Next Generationfinale ‘All Good Things’ at first, as Thirteen finds her consciousness dragged between different times and places. But while ‘Journey’s End ’ was criticised by some for wrapping everything up too neatly (and, lest we forget, there was a serious amount of eye-rolling at the Tenth Doctor TARDIS-towing the Earth through the time vortex), the issue with ‘The Vanquishers ’ is how much has been left unexplained or, in the case of the apocalypse the story is built around, outright ignored. Fortunately, due to some last-minute technobabble, we effectively had three Doctors working in tandem to stop it, with the added advantage that one was also the magnificent Donna Noble.Īs time and circumstance place Chris Chibnall in a similar situation, it’s no surprise that he might look to the past for some inspiration. The extra-long finale saw a huge ensemble cast from the show’s history facing the ‘Reality Bomb’, a wave of energy that would wipe out absolutely everything.
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Davies’ last regular episode of Doctor Who before a handful of seasonal specials ended his tenure as showrunner.
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Several regenerations and over a decade ago, more than ten million people sat down to watch ‘ Journey’s End ’, which at the time was intended to be Russell T. Warning: this Doctor Who review contains spoilers.