Doctor Who - 'The End of Time' Part Two

Trying to be spoiler-less story notes:

He will knock four times and then the Doctor will die. SomeTHING, not someONE is returning today. Desperate times call for desperate measures. A song will end but the story will continue on. Geronimo!

Thoughts:

Whereas I had issues with the pacing of the first part, I have no such problems with this part. With the basic concepts put in place by Part One, the story flows on by here with 45 minutes disappearing before I knew it. The other half-hour or so is gone in another snap of the fingers. Big things are occurring here and the pieces fit together nicely.

With all that, there's still lots of time for the little moments. While there is this big science-fiction plot to tell, Russell T. Davies has never shown a great grasp of them. He does interactions of people, even alien people, much more effectively than, say, the machinations of the Daleks or whatever. The more important story thread is the Doctor's knowledge of his impeding doom and how that affects him. He is somber throughout much of the story, especially as certain events come and go. It's the story of a man, alien or not, who has been told his time is coming and what he might consider to stave it off. Will he remain true to himself or will he betray his core beliefs in the attempt to survive? Tennant's Doctor is here a man with a heavy weight on his mind and it shows.

When we get to the circumstances surrounding the regeneration, the reasons are again more important than the actual cause of the regeneration. The somber 'victory lap' that Tennant takes is more effective than the 'wrap-up' sequence at the end of Series Four, not feels so 'let me get these characters in place'. The moments surrounding the regeneration are very sad indeed for a number of reasons I don't want to spoil. There's also a weird moment that I'm not sure I grasp at this point. Whatever.

There are quiet moments. There are 'whoa, really?' moments. There are even a couple crazy action moments. It's a crackling good story that moves along at a good clip. It's good, it may be great, but it's still no 'The Caves of Androzani', which remains awesome.

It's a suitable end for a fantastic Doctor. Thank you David Tennant and I expect we'll see you in the coat again at some point.

It may be brief, but Matt Smith's few moments as the Doctor provide a lot of reason for hope. His surprise and concern about his longish hair ('I'm a girl?') is amusing and his post-regenerative euphoria is a bright dash of colour after the somber story we've been watching.

The man has work to do. Geronimo!

Thumbs up.