Episode #204 : The Stolen Earth / Journey's End

"The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun. But this is the truth, Doctor. You take ordinary people and you fashion them into weapons. Behold your Children of Time transformed into murderers. I made the Daleks, Doctor. You made this."

Episode #204:     The Stolen Earth / Journey's End.
Companions:       10th Doctor, Donna Noble, Rose Tyler, Martha Jones, Sarah Jane Smith, Luke Smith, Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones and Gwen Cooper.
Air Date:             28th June to 5th July 2008.

When Earth and twenty-six other planets are stolen and taken to the Medusa Cascade and the Doctor is nowhere in sight, it's up to the combined forces of UNIT, Torchwood, Sarah Jane and Rose to fight off the thieves, who only have one thing to say to the resistance: "EX-TER-MIN-ATE!" Davros and the New Dalek Empire prepare to detonate a bomb that will wipe out all of existence. The Tenth Doctor is helpless, and the TARDIS faces destruction. The only hope lies with the Doctor's companions — the "Children of Time" — but Dalek Caan predicts that one will die.

This story is a fan's dream. It brings together not just the Doctor and the Daleks, but brings back old companions from the new show as well as bringing in Torchwood and Sarah Jane Smith. How cool is that? Having everyone together and sharing screen time reminds me of The Five Doctors. They come together to fight to defeat the Daleks.

The story ties together a lot of the elements that have appeared in the show since it was brought back on the air as well as wrapping up some elements of the Time War. The strong point for me is less so much that as the revelations presented by Davros about the Doctor and his companions. Davros points out something that perhaps we never considered. The Doctor may not condone violence but in truth his companions become soldiers to do that things that he couldn't usually bring himself to do. It is quite the revelation that has a huge emotional impact when Davros delivers it and shows the Doctor the truth that he might not otherwise accept.

It is great to see Davros again after so long. We learn that he did survive the events of Remembrance of the Daleks and even fought in the Time War itself. Davros created a new Dalek race from his own cells which seems to be a recurring factor in the Daleks these days.

There is one small bugbear for me with this episode. A lot of media attention was directed to the Doctor regenerating in this episode. In fact he does get exterminated by a Dalek and starts to regenerate. He heals using the regeneration energy and siphons the rest into his old hand that the Sycorax cut off. Now that is all fine but, and it is a big but as well as a spoiler, in the future episode The Time of the Doctor we learn that this counted towards the Doctor's regeneration limit. It's now established canon but it doesn't feel right to me as the regeneration doesn't complete so how does it count? But I can live with it. It just rubs me the wrong way a little bit.

At the end of the story all the companions go their own way again. Rose returns with the new Doctor to the Pete's World universe never to be seen again. Unfortunately this is the end of things for Donna. It all goes a bit wrong with the metacrisis and the Doctor is forced to remove any knowledge of him and their time again. It is a sad end for Donna that she spent all this time travelling with the Doctor and then it is all swept away from her.