Doomsday (Doctor Who)
Daleks and Cybermen wage war as universes divide.
The final episode of Doctor Who’s second series, "Doomsday," aired on 8 July 2006 as the second part of a story that pits the Daleks against the Cybermen for the first time. It features Billie Piper’s last regular appearance as companion Rose Tyler.
Quick Facts
- Serial name
- Doomsday
- Doctor
- David Tennant – Tenth Doctor
- Companion
- Billie Piper – Rose Tyler
- Director
- Graeme Harper
- Writer
- Russell T Davies
- Producer
- Phil Collinson
- Executive producers
- Russell T Davies; Julie Gardner
- Composer
- Murray Gold
Facts from the source article.
Plot
In the sphere chamber of the Torchwood Institute, located within One Canada Square, the Cult of Skaro—a group of four Daleks—arrives from a Void ship. They bring with them the Genesis Ark, a prison vessel created by the Time Lords to contain Daleks. Cybermen, who have seized control of Torchwood, approach Dalek Thay and propose an alliance. Thay refuses and destroys two Cybermen, leading the Cyber Leader to declare war. A strike team brings the Tenth Doctor to a parallel Earth to see Pete Tyler. The Doctor suggests that the large-scale movement of Cybermen from the parallel Earth to his own universe is causing both planets to fall into the Void. He mentions that in his universe, Pete is deceased, but Pete’s wife Jackie is still alive. Back in the sphere chamber, the Doctor lets the Cybermen enter and attack the Daleks. During an escape with the Doctor, Pete, and Rose, Mickey accidentally triggers the Ark. Dalek Sec then takes the Ark outside. Pete rescues Jackie from the Cybermen, and they hug. The Doctor guides everyone to the control room. Outside, the Ark opens, releasing countless Daleks that begin slaughtering humans and Cybermen. The Doctor explains that if he opens the breach and reverses it, anyone who has crossed between the two worlds—including Rose, Mickey, and Pete—will be pulled in. He sends them, along with Jackie, to the parallel Earth. Rose, however, leaps back to assist the Doctor. Together, they open the breach and hold onto magnetic clamps as the Cybermen and Daleks are sucked into the Void. Dalek Sec escapes using a temporal shift. Rose loses her grip and starts falling toward the Void, but at the last moment, Pete teleports her back to the parallel Earth as the breach closes. Some time later, Rose dreams of hearing the Doctor’s voice. She, her parents, and Mickey follow the sound to a remote bay in Norway. There, the Doctor sends a holographic message through a final small breach. Rose, crying, tells the Doctor she loves him. Before he can finish his response, the breach seals completely, and his image disappears. Inside the TARDIS, a woman in a wedding dress suddenly appears before the Doctor.
Production
The idea of the Daleks and Cybermen appearing together on screen dates to December 1967, when the BBC approached Terry Nation about featuring both races in a serial; Nation vetoed the proposal. "Doomsday" is the first Doctor Who episode to show the Daleks and Cybermen on screen together; earlier episodes such as "The Five Doctors" and "Army of Ghosts" had featured both species but in separate scenes. The two-part finale was originally set in Cardiff on the time rift, but after Torchwood was commissioned in 2005, Davies moved the story to Canary Wharf in London to base the spin-off in Cardiff. The production team debated who should rescue Rose: Davies and Julie Gardner wanted Pete, while Noel Clarke and Phil Collinson favoured Mickey. Pete was chosen to emphasise that he had accepted Rose as a surrogate daughter. The Doctor's intended reply to Rose was left unspecified; Davies stated on the commentary track that he did not know, while Gardner believed the Doctor would reciprocate. Some story elements were inspired by Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy; Pullman was flattered by the references and compared Davies' actions to his own practice of referencing other works.
Broadcast, reception, and legacy
The BBC went to great lengths to keep the ending of "Army of Ghosts" under wraps, withholding that final scene from all reviewers who received pre-screeners. Even the Fear Forecasters, the panel on the BBC website that rates episodes, were denied access to "Doomsday" before it aired, and copies were heavily restricted; as a result, no Fear Forecast exists for this episode. The production team had a brush with one of the episode's props earlier that year: the previously unused Dalek Sec prop appeared on stage at the 2006 BAFTA Television Awards while they collected an award. A similar lockdown was later applied to the next series' finale, "Last of the Time Lords". Viewing figures averaged 8.22 million, making it, aside from World Cup matches, the second most-watched programme of the week—beaten only by an episode of Coronation Street—and the eighth most-watched overall. The companion show Doctor Who Confidential drew just over a million viewers, ranking as the second most-watched programme on a non-terrestrial channel that week. The episode even outperformed the following World Cup match between Germany and Portugal by a million viewers. "Doomsday" is widely regarded as one of the most popular episodes of the revived series. It earned an Audience Appreciation Index of 89, the highest in nearly two years until "The Stolen Earth" later scored 91. It was also the first Doctor Who episode to receive a perfect 10 from IGN, which praised Russell T Davies for balancing action with emotion. Television Without Pity gave it an A+. The Stage noted that the Dalek–Cybermen clash was the only thing worth watching that weekend, outshining even the World Cup Final, and called the farewell scene beautifully written and movingly played. Dek Hogan of Digital Spy described the episode as beautifully balanced, with high excitement and touching poignancy, and appreciated the single oil tear from the Cyberman version of Hartman, though he felt Catherine Tate's appearance was unnecessary and broke the mood. Stephen Brook of The Guardian called it a high point of the modern series—highly emotional, scary, and genuinely exciting—and compared its monster war favourably to Alien vs. Predator.
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