7. Journey's End
This episode was just a tonal mess, and I'm afraid I've got to put all of that on RTD's doorstep. Now, I'm not a man who gets involved in the RTD-versus-Moffat debates. For my money, they're both good the former is a steadier pair of hands, but Moffat writes the best standalone episodes/two-parters, even if some of his efforts fall flat. But if there's a big fault with New Who's first showrunner, it's that he tries to tie everything up a little too neatly. Case in point, Journey's End. It's just absolutely chock-a-block with plot conveniences, and none were as obvious as a second Doctor being born of out a sodding hand. The metacrisis evokes much eye-rolling among the Whovian faithful, and for good reason it was basically RTD's admission that he couldn't think of anything to get Ten out of his potential early regeneration, so made something so plot-bustingly illogical happen that it was frankly insane. I remember the time between the penultimate episode and the finale the papers were ablaze with rumours suggesting a new Doctor (believed to have been Hugh Grant) had already been secretly cast. Others weren't sure, but thought the show would think of a clever way of getting out of offing Tennant early. As it was, we got this, and it was a further smack in the face when we realised this gave us the two-in-one deal of giving Rose a cheap way for her and the 'Doctor' to be together. Rather than turning out to be the ingenious episode we hoped for, Journey's End instead gave us a different revelation that writers will go to all sorts of lengths to get themselves out of holes, and will occasionally let us down.