#but also listening to the emptiness machine with the knowledge that she is a cult victim is like. Very interesting perspective

[curmemini]

I think a lot of LP fans are being a little bit demanding of Armstrong, to be quite honest. Like whether she is or isn't a part of it - we will likely never know nor are we entitled to that information, because it is incredibly dangerous for anyone to leave a cult, but especially one that has such a history like scientology and especially if one was born into it. It isn't as black and white as fuck cults, as in if you say that but you don't offer any support for victims of cult ideology, it's a pretty flimsy statement. Personally, I don't expect anyone to put their lives on the line so people have a clean consciousness about listening. It is what it is.

[esonetwork]

Timestamp #226: Let's Kill Hitler

New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/timestamp-226-lets-kill-hitler/

Timestamp #226: Let's Kill Hitler

Doctor Who: Let’s Kill Hitler (1 episode, s06e08, 2011)

Hello, sweetie.

Prequel

A phone rings as the TARDIS is in flight. The answering machine picks up and Amy leaves a message.

As the camera pans across the console and the dark control room, Amy asks if the Doctor will fulfill his promise to find Melody Pond. Even though she knows that everything turns out okay, she doesn’t want to miss Melody’s childhood.

The Doctor listens intently, but doesn’t pick up the phone. He’s clearly wracked with regret and sadness.

Let’s Kill Hitler

It was once a nice wheat field. Then the Ponds plowed through it, scrawling the word “Doctor” into the crop. They stop in the middle of the O – a giant crop circle – to find the TARDIS and the Doctor in his new pea green double-breasted coat. The Doctor shows them a newspaper article chronicling the event.

It turns out that this was the only way Amy and Rory could figure out to get the Doctor’s attention. He consoles Amy: He will find Melody because River lives. The moment is shattered by police sirens, a speeding red car, and a woman named Mels. The new arrival holds the Doctor at gunpoint and demands to be taken in the TARDIS. It seems that she wants to kill Adolf Hitler.

Flash back to a long time ago in Leadworth as young Amelia, your Rory, and young heretofore-unknown Mels grow up together. Apparently, Mels knows all about Amelia’s “imaginary” friend, the Doctor, and that knowledge gets her in trouble. A lot. Including stealing a bus. She’s also present when Amy finally figures out that Rory loves her.

In the present, Mels, Amy, and Rory take a trip in the TARDIS. Mels actually shoots the TARDIS console while in transit to Nazi Germany. In Berlin, 1938, those same Nazis are being observed by a team with future technology as a machine (posing as a custodian) shapeshifts into a Nazi officer. That team is inside the machine, a highly advanced ship called the Teselecta, which shrinks the Nazi officer and draws him inside. Since the officer is responsible for a series of hate crimes – after all, what Nazi wasn’t? – he is disposed of by a series of “antibodies”.

The Teselecta then goes to Adolf Hitler’s office and activates Justice Mode, but two things interfere in the plan. First, they are too early in Hitler’s time stream. Second, the TARDIS crashes through the wall into the office.

The Doctor evacuates everyone from the TARDIS as it smokes away, then stashes Mels’s handgun in a bowl of fruit. The travelers are beside themselves for actually saving Hitler. The Teselecta tries to attack Hitler again, but he shoots the ship before being stashed in a nearby cupboard by the Doctor and Rory. The Teselecta feigns a fainting spell while the crew analyzes the TARDIS and determines that the most wanted war criminal in history has arrived.

Also, Mels has been shot by Hitler.

Mels, short for Melody, regenerates into a very familiar form. Mission complete. Well… sort of. This new woman has no idea who any of her traveling companions are, she is incredibly self-centered, and has maintained her programming that demands murdering the Doctor. She tries multiple times with every weapon in the room, but the Doctor is several steps ahead of her, but he misses the poison lipstick.

Melody jumps out of window and takes on a squad of Nazis. The soldiers try to shoot her, but she survives due to her regenerative state and uses the discharged energy as a weapon. She picks up their guns and drives away on a motorcycle. Rory and Amy give chase with the sonic screwdriver, followed by the Teselecta disguised as a Nazi soldier.

The Doctor enters the TARDIS and extracts the smoke. He consults with the TARDIS voice interface – the sequence of trying to find a face that doesn’t remind him of his failures is hilarious – and determines that regeneration is impossible due to the poison extracted from the Judas tree. The interface mentions “fish fingers and custard,” inspiring the Doctor to set a course in the TARDIS.

Melody storms a restaurant and demands that the patrons give her their clothes. Outside, the Teselecta takes Amy’s form and miniaturizes Amy and Rory. Just before being killed by the antibodies, the Ponds are given clearance privileges and taken to the control room.

The Teselecta nearly passes judgment on Melody for killing the Doctor, but the Doctor arrives in a tuxedo and top hat. He uses a sonic cane to scan the ship. He also verifies that the Ponds are okay. The Teselecta places Melody in stasis before the crew explains that the mete out justice to war criminals at the ends of their respective timelines. Amy convinces the crew to offer any help they can to the Doctor.

The Silence, a religious cult who believe “silence will fall” when the oldest question in the universe is asked, are behind the plot to kill the Doctor. When the Teselecta crew reveals that they don’t know what the question is, the crew resumes their torture of Melody.

The Doctor asks Amy to save her daughter, so Amy disables the crew’s privileges so that they will all be attacked by the antibodies. The Teselecta releases Melody and the crew is teleported away to a mother ship. As the antibodies descend on Amy and Rory, the Doctor tells Melody to save her parents.

As the Doctor faces his imminent demise, he begs Melody to help him. She talks to the TARDIS and learns to fly the ship, rescuing Amy and Rory before returning everyone to the Doctor’s side. Melody Pond, a child of the TARDIS, wonders who she is. The Doctor asks her to find River Song and pass on a message.

As the Doctor falls unconscious, Melody asks who River Song is. Amy uses the Teselecta to show Melody her own face. Melody decides to pass on her regeneration energy – all her remaining lives – to the Doctor with a kiss, thus becoming River Song.

River wakes up in a hospital with the travelers looking on. The Doctor’s message was that no one could save him, which made her think that she could. This is how she learns Rule #1: The Doctor lies. The travelers leave her with the Sisters of the Infinite Schism to recover, complete with an empty TARDIS-shaped diary. She’ll find her way back to them in time.

As the Doctor ponders the data he downloaded from the Teselecta, River Song enrolls at the Luna University in 5123. Her motivations are simple: She’s looking for a good man.

There are a couple of items working against this fun ride: First, the introduction of the previously unknown Mels. Second, the crux of the assassination of the Doctor relies on him being the smartest man in the room again.

The first can be explained if we’re looking at the events of this season through Amy and Rory’s perspective, therefore seeing a low-impact change in the timeline after Melody’s birth and abduction. The second, while an annoying feature of the Steven Moffat era of Doctor Who, adds a lot of humor and hangs a lampshade on the Doctor’s blind spot for River Song. Especially considering the fact that she is the person who kills the Doctor, an act for which she is imprisoned and is now revealed to be a fixed point. The second also hearkens back to the Ninth Doctor in Boom Town, but it worked there because it wasn’t as much of a storytelling crutch for Russell T. Davies.

That humor, coupled with the character development for River and the Doctor, really makes this story work. The origin story for River Song helps tie off her story and could have provided a convenient story terminus if not for the character’s immense popularity.

The humor also worked because it was self-deprecating. The scene with the TARDIS voice interface poked at the ongoing theme with companion departures and shame, invoking Rose, Martha, and Donna in the process. The scene also point us back to a moment of combined shame and innocence by invoking Amelia Pond, whom the Doctor had not yet screwed up but did leave hanging for her childhood years.

Going back to Rule #1, we find out in this story that temporal grace – the state in which the TARDIS interior exists – houses a “clever lie”. The Fourth Doctor claimed that weapons could not be used inside the TARDIS in order to stop Eldrad in The Hand of Fear. Of course, we already knew that it wasn’t absolute from Arc of Infinity – “Nobody’s perfect,” claimed the Fifth Doctor when challenged by Nyssa about a Cyberman shooting in the console room – as well as The Invasion of Time, Earthshock, Attack of the Cybermen, The Visitation, and The Parting of the Ways.

With all of the discussions about Doctor Who canon/continuity in fandom, it’s a good reminder that Doctor Who canon/continuity has never been consistent.

This story also presents a fascinating parallel to The Caves of Androzani, during which the Doctor was poisoned by could survive by regenerating. The Doctor had several lives to spare at that point, but this encounter comes at the supposed end of the Doctor’s regeneration cycle due to the events of Journey’s End and The Night of the Doctor.

There are also several other franchise callbacks: We’ve seen “justice machines” in the past, though they were in the form of the Megara; We’ve previously seen the TARDIS materialize in a micro environment, courtesy of Carnival of Monsters, and materialize in a micro state, courtesy of Planet of Giants; We’ve seen the TARDIS materialize around people and objects before in Logopolis, Time-Flight, The Parting of the Ways, and The Waters of Mars; We’ve also heard about transferring regeneration energy in previous adventures like Mawdryn Undead, the TV movie, and The Ultimate Foe.

I’m also a sucker for the “Doctor who?” title drop gag, which has been around since the beginning. It makes me snicker every time.

All told, I really enjoy the action, the spirit, and the heart of this story. It takes a tired time-travel trope (“Let’s kill Hitler!”) and turns it on its ear to both develop characters and move a story along. Well done.

Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

UP NEXT – Torchwood: The Gathering

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

[gushingaboutgames]

Yakuza 0

I’m not going to mince words. I fucking love the Yakuza series. With the exception of Yakuza 3, I have played every game in the series that had made its way to the west (yes, even Dead Souls, I like zombie games, shut up). People like to rag on Sega, saying they’re a shit company because their recent Sonic games are a parade of crap, a sentiment that does have some merit. This is the series I hold up as an example that Sega still has it. I was talking about Yakuza with a good friend of mine, and even though she hasn’t played any of the games, even she recognizes that it’s one of the biggest labors of love in gaming.

(note to self: gotta get TL a Yakuza game sometime in the very near future)

It is thus, with a great deal of joy, that I can say Yakuza 0 is perhaps the best game in the series to date, an exemplar of everything that makes the Yakuza series great.

(A bit of warning beforehand: there may be some minor spoilers for the Yakuza series ahead. I’ll avoid the major spoilers, but nonetheless, proceed with caution.)

The game takes place in late 1988, near the end of a period of Japanese history known as the “Bubble Economy”. After World War II, Japan’s economy was in shambles, but with a bit of help from the US, the Japanese economy made the mother of all economic rebounds and went on to become the second largest industry in the world, overtaking others in engineering and consumer products.

With this economic boom came money. Tons of money. Volumes of money. Japanese citizens had cash to burn as the economic bubble grew to epic proportions. Sadly, the good times would not last: the bubble burst in the 1990′s, and Japan has suffered from a recession that it continues to struggle with to this day.

It is in this time of prosperity that Yakuza 0 begins. Being a prequel, this represents an excellent point for new fans to jump in, as no knowledge of the previous games is necessary (though it enhances the experience, natch).

Yakuza 0 is a tale of two cities, and two gangsters. The first, coming out of the Kamurocho district in Tokyo, is series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, a fresh-faced 20-year-old underling in the Dojima Family, one of the most influential (and infamous) factions in the criminal syndicate known as the Tojo Clan. One cold December night, Kiryu finishes shaking down some poor schmuck in debt to a loan shark, then meets up with his best friend and blood brother Akira Nishikiyama for a night out on the town, drinking and singing karaoke before hitting up a cozy little ramen shop.

The fun times come to an abrupt halt when a news bulletin breaks: there’s been a murder in Kamurocho! What makes this different from the other gang-related violence in the city is the fact that the deceased was the same person Kiryu shook down mere hours earlier! Worse still, the body was found on an empty lot in the center of a redevelopment project that the Tojo Clan has been eyeing for quite a while: a dead body and police investigation keeps them from getting their hands on it, and that makes the leadership in the Tojo Clan very cranky.

Not helping matters is a conspiracy among the top brass in the Tojo Clan to usurp the position of the clan’s captain, held by Kiryu’s sponsor and father-figure Shintaro Kazama. If Kiryu was responsible for the murder, it would reflect poorly on Kazama. As a result, the clan’s lieutenants are gunning to have Kiryu take the fall for the murder he did not commit. It’s a race against time as Kiryu tries desperately to clear his name and keep himself and Kazama out of the Tojo Clan’s crosshairs.

Meanwhile, in Sotenbori, Osaka, we have Goro Majima, a 24-year-old gangster from back before he went off the deep end and became a nutjob. He’s living the dream, managing a successful cabaret and raking in dough like a baker in a neon-lit bakery. It is not his dream that he is living, however, for Sotenbori is actually little more than a gilded cage to Majima.

A few years prior, Majima conspired with his sworn brother Taiga Saejima to take down the leaders of one of the Tojo Clan’s rivals. A Tojo Clan higher-up didn’t take this well, and detained Majima while Saejima took the fall and was sentenced to death row. For his trouble, Majima lost his left eye, was exiled from the Tojo and given over to Osaka’s Omi Alliance, where he was tortured for a year before being released on a heavily-supervised work release program, managing the afformentioned cabaret to make enough money to essentially buy his way back into the Tojo.

Eventually, however, a shortcut presents itself: Majima’s handler is willing to put a good word in for him if he is willing to carry out a little bit of wetwork, an assassination. One life in exchange for a ticket back into the Tojo Clan? How hard can it be?

When he realizes his target is actually a defenseless blind woman, though, he hesitates. Does he have it in him to take her life? Is he prepared to face the consequences for not carrying through with the assassination? Can he find some way out of this quandary with his life, and his sanity?

The stories of the Yakuza series have never been anything less than solid. I can’t really talk about it without spoiling it, but it will tug at your heartstrings and keep you on the edge of your seat.

The visuals of Yakuza 0 are a treat, as well: the cities of Kamurocho and Sotenbori look amazing on the PS4, both of them neon-lit playgrounds with a gritty, dingy feel to them. While the graphics may not always be perfect (some textures are a bit blurry and many NPC models look a bit jagged and antiquated), they are never painful to look at. The sound department is no slouch either, with music that is a joy to listen to and voice acting that is always on point.

Of course, a game that looks and sounds good would not be worth a damn if it wasn’t fun to play. Thankfully, Yakuza 0 exemplifies fun.

Kamurocho and Sotenbori are brimming with things to do and sidequests to complete. These substories, distinct from the game’s main plot, are always a treat to engage in, featuring bizarre stories and characters that contrast with the campaign’s hard-hitting crime drama. To name a few examples:

-Kiryu meets a yanki band (a mix of punk rock and ‘50s greaser fashion) who are much too mild-mannered, and must teach them how to be hardcore to impress their fans.

-Kiryu gets swept up pretending to be a TV producer after the real producer was chased off by an overbearing director.

-Kiryu volunteers to help a young boy buy a dirty magazine from a vending machine.

-Majima volunteers to play a pretend boyfriend for a young woman who is tired of her father trying to arrange her marriage.

-Majima must infiltrate a Scientology-inspired cult to rescue a woman’s brainwashed daughter.

-Majima has to help a high school student retrieve his pants from a bully, who turns out to be Yakuza 2′s Ryuji Goda back when he was in grade school.

There are dozens more, but all of them are fun to partake in.

Those sidequests, as well as simply walking the mean streets, may lead to getting into a brawl with some unsavory characters, and combat has thankfully always been one of Yakuza’s strongest points. This remains true in Yakuza 0, which features challenging battles against gangsters and thugs. Each character has three fighting styles they can switch between on the fly: Kiryu has a balanced “Brawler” style, a fast-paced “Rush” boxing style, and a slow but powerful “Beast” style that weaponizes anything not bolted to the ground. Meanwhile, Majima has the deadly “Thug” style, a baseball bat-centric “Slugger” style, and an insane multi-hitting super-stylish “Breaker” style (my personal favorite). Each style has its own strengths and weaknesses, but all of them are practical and fun to use. All of them also have their own unique “Heat” moves that are absolutely brutal, but satisfying to pull of.

In line with the game’s theme of economic prosperity, enemies practically bleed money when you batter them: it’s not unheard of to rake in at least a cool few hundred Gs in per fight. You’re gonna need that cash, too: there is no experience points or levels in Yakuza 0. Instead, you purchase upgrades for your fighting styles, and they get expensive as you make your way through each skill tree, with the highest upgrades costing hundreds of millions of yen, if not billions.

This, of course, means you’ll need to find ways to make money beyond simply beating it out of street punks. One way is by finding and helping citizens being harassed by bad guys. Helping them out gets you high quality items, some of which you can sell at pawn shops for wads of cash. Another is by challenging Mr. Shakedown, a burly buster who wonders the streets shaking down anyone who crosses him. Losing to him means you will lose all of your cash, but if you can beat him, you’ll earn a metric fuckton of money (including any money you lost to him before).

About halfway through the game, you also get a chance to engage in side businesses to further pad your wallet. Kiryu becomes the leader of a real estate agency, and is tasked with purchasing properties and collecting their profits while hiring managers to maximize their profits and security to ensure business goes smoothly. Majima, meanwhile, becomes the manager of a cabaret club, a mainstay of previous Yakuza games, but not as ubiquitous in the 80s as in later in the series chronology. Here, Majima must train hostesses and keep up with customer demands to make a profit. While Majima’s business venture doesn’t have the raw money output as Kiryu’s, it is more engaging and fun. That’s not to say Kiryu’s real estate business is without merit: there is a fair amount of strategy involved in hiring the right people to maximize profits.

All work and no play makes for dull gangsters, though. Thankfully, this is where another large strength of the Yakuza series comes into play: minigames! There is no shortage of ways to burn your money.

There are arcades in Sotenbori and Kamurocho, and they have classic Sega arcade games on display. My inner 12-year-old reveled at the chance to play Space Harrier again since Shenmue, with OutRun also taking more than its fair share of my money. Completing certain sidequests also unlocks Super Hang-On and Fantasy Zone, so there is variety as far as retro gaming goes.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. One new attraction for Kiryu is the telephone club, a unique dating service in Japan. The game plays out similar to an arcade shooter, where Kiryu must hold the girl’s attention by aiming at and hitting the proper phrases to increase her affection and ultimately ask her out. It’s a lot harder than it sounds: the correct phrases are often hard to hit, and until you get some practice, you’ll often end up accidentally asking girls about their baby ferrets rather than their best features.

Another unique outfit in Kamurocho is an underground women’s wrestling ring, where you can bet money on the outcome of fights between buxom battlers. The battles play out like rock-paper-scissors, and are high-risk high-reward.

There are also disco clubs, which feature a rhythm/puzzle game where you have to move an avatar on a dance floor before moving them over spaces with a face button on it. Again, not as easy as it sounds, but still very fun, and the music is a treat to listen to.

Finally, among the new attractions is “Pocket Circuit”, a slot car racing tournament wherein you can customize your own little race car and race for prizes and fame. There are tons of parts to use, some purchased from stores, others found in the world.

Aside from those, there are many other mainstays of the series that return and are still fun to play: karaoke, gambling, underground fighting tournaments, fishing, darts, pool, and so on. You will never be lacking in ways to amuse yourself.

My love of the Yakuza series, and Yakuza 0 in particular, cannot be overstated. I recommend this game to everyone, series veterans and newcomers alike, action game fans, Japanese game fans, and anyone who enjoys good stories, good gameplay, and fun in general.

[esonetwork]

Timestamp #182: Army of Ghosts & Doomsday

New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/timestamp-182-army-of-ghosts-doomsday/

Timestamp #182: Army of Ghosts & Doomsday

Doctor Who: Army of Ghosts Doctor Who: Doomsday (2 episodes, s02e12-13, 2006)

  This is how Rose Tyler’s journey with the Doctor ended. This is how she died.

The TARDIS materializes on a playground near the Powell Estate as Rose makes a brief stop to visit her mother. Jackie has a surprise for Rose in a visit from Prentice, Jackie’s long-dead father. At ten past the hour, a non-descript ethereal form arrives in the kitchen. The Doctor and Rose rush outside to find the same figures everywhere, disappearing as rapidly as they arrived, and according to Jackie, just like clockwork.

In the Torchwood Institute, a group of scientists adjust a large lever and are congratulated by project director Yvonne Hartman. Their actions are felt around the world according to Jackie and the news. Jackie is upset that the Doctor is ruining the magic by investigating, but the Time Lord is unconvinced that the supposedly beneficial footprint is not one from a jackboot.

Deeper in the Torchwood Institute, a group of scientists led by Dr. Rajesh Singh investigate a large metal sphere that should not exist. Meanwhile, two Torchwood workers, Adeola and Gareth, step away for a clandestine romantic rendezvous. They choose an off-limits area that is under renovation, but the interlude is interrupted by a Cyberman.

Rose and the Doctor play Ghostbusters by setting up a containment field to determine the origin point by triangulation. As the scientists of Torchwood start the next shift – Adeola and Gareth have returned, each with a second rapidly blinking Bluetooth earpiece – Jackie talks to Rose about how the young woman has changed in her travels. The shift occurs, and a 3-D bespectacled Doctor traps a ghost for analysis. That effort disrupts Torchwood’s systems, forcing them to locate the TARDIS by CCTV. As the police box disappears with a hearty “Allons-y,” Torchwood prepares for the Doctor’s arrival with rifles and soldiers.

Oh, and Jackie came along. Not willingly, of course.

The Doctor emerges from the TARDIS, eliciting a round of applause from Hartman and the soldiers. Hartman demands to see his companion so the Doctor snags Jackie to pose as Rose, and the group goes on a tour of Torchwood. Hartman shows off the advanced technology that they have secured in order to enforce their borders, reminding him that they were responsible for destroying the Sycorax on Christmas Day. They also take the TARDIS for their archives, and Rose develops a plan of attack.

Adeola lures another co-worker, Matt, to his doom. Elsewhere, Hartman briefs the Doctor on the history of Torchwood and his status as their enemy. She takes him to the sphere, an object that intrigues the Time Lord as he identifies it as a Void Ship, a vessel designed to exist outside time and space in the emptiness between universes. Whatever resides inside is safe from the universe around it. Hartman shows the Doctor where they found the sphere. It is a spatial disturbance, the hole in the fabric of reality where they also can tap into the ghosts. The rift is in the sky above Canary Wharf, so Torchwood built a tower to reach it. The Doctor warns them that the rift has the power to fracture this universe like a cracked pane of glass, but when Hartman refuses to listen, the Doctor settles in to watch the fireworks.

His stubbornness scares Hartman into stopping the shift and asking for more information. Unfortunately, the newly-Cyberized workers covertly restart the countdown.

Rose leaves the TARDIS, snags a labcoat disguise, and finds the sphere room. She tries to use the psychic paper, but Singh has training and can avoid the ruse. She also spots Mickey Smith working in the room as Singh reports her to Hartman. The Doctor reveals the truth, but the countdown pulls them all away as the ghost shift begins.

The rift glows and the sphere activates, but the Doctor stops the assimilated workers by disabling their earpieces. The Doctor tracks the source of the transmission with his sonic screwdriver and uncovers the Cybermen, the advanced guard from Pete’s World. They take the Doctor, Jackie, and Hartman prisoner before turning the shift up to full power. A legion of Cybermen march through the rift into the tower, millions comprising an invasion force around the world.

Meanwhile, in the lab, the sphere opens to reveal a completely different threat. The sphere punched through the rift, the Cybermen followed the sphere, and the sphere brought the Daleks.

After forty-three years, Doctor Who finally gets a battle royale between the Doctor’s two biggest adversaries, and the Earth is the battleground.

Rose calls to the Daleks, momentarily confounding them as she reveals her knowledge of the Time War. She demands that they keep the three of them in the room alive, and the Daleks agree as they initiate something called the Genesis Ark. They demand to know which is least important, and Singh offers himself. He is sacrificed moments later.

The Cybermen address the planet as the Doctor promises Jackie that he will keep Rose safe, but the Earth refuses to surrender. They then investigate the strange technology in the sphere room. The Daleks emerge and the Doctor is beside himself in shock. As the two powerhouses exchange insults, the Doctor calls Rose’s phone and listens in. The Cybermen fire on the Daleks to no avail and the Daleks easily exterminate the drones. They plan to take on the millions of Cybermen with only four Daleks, but they step back when they learn of the Doctor’s presence.

Jackie and Hartman are taken away for upgrading along with the rest of the Torchwood staff. As Hartman is assimilated, a new group comes through the rift and destroys the Cyber Leader. Jackie’s upgrade is halted as a new Cyber Leader is christened, and the Doctor is reintroduced to Jake Simmonds from the Pete’s World resistance force. Jake takes the Doctor through to the alternate Torchwood, which the Resistance destroyed, and finds Pete Tyler. The Cybermen were able to break free of the Resistance and cross the boundary to the Doctor’s universe. Elsewhere, Mickey reveals that they can travel through use of disc-like devices, and Rose tells him about her history with the Daleks.

They also learn that the Genesis Ark is not of Dalek design. They stole it from the Time Lords.

During Pete’s discussion with the Doctor, the Time Lord learns that Pete’s World is collapsing due to the extreme amount of universe jumping. Pete asks for the Doctor’s help in defeating both invasions and saving his world, and the Doctor agrees. They all return to the normal universe, the Doctor sets Pete on a mission to save Jackie, modifies Jake’s rifle to affect polycarbide, and then surrenders to the Cybermen.

The Daleks force Rose to open the Genesis Ark, but she stalls by telling them about the Dalek Emperor’s fate. Moments later, the Doctor arrives. They verbally spar for a moment before the Doctor figures out that these four Daleks are the Cult of Skaro, Daleks with names and individualized purpose. He distracts them long enough to explosively open a door for the Resistance and the Cybermen, but during the fight, Mickey touches the Ark and activates it. Since it needs thirteen square miles of space to operate, the Daleks move it outside.

While on the run, the Doctor, Rose, and Mickey hook up with Pete and save Jackie. The initial meeting – a reunion of sorts for Jackie – is touching and funny, and despite not being from the same universe, they still feel a mutual attraction.

As the Daleks plow through the Cyber forces, the Cyber Leader orders all units to converge on Torchwood Tower. The Daleks open the storage bay’s roof and fly the Ark into the sky. When they open it, an entire legion of Daleks emerge.

The Ark is Time Lord science. It is bigger in the inside. The Earth is screwed.

As the Daleks swarm and begin exterminating everything below, the Cybermen open fire. Pete prepares to take his team (and Jackie) back through the rift, and the Doctor reveals that his 3-D glasses can see the remnants of “void stuff” contaminating everyone who traveled through it. He’ll be able to target those remnants and ship the Daleks and the Cybermen into the void, but Rose and everyone who has crossed the breach has to go through to Pete’s World.

Rose refuses to go without the Doctor, so he tricks her into going. She uses the disk to come back, and Pete strips the rest of them from his side, leaving Jackie upset at losing her daughter. Rose refuses to go back, so she and the Doctor set a pair of gravity clamps and activate the machine. The Daleks and Cybermen are pulled into the void – the lead Dalek executes an emergency temporal shift to escape – but the rushing winds pull one of the levers out of position. Rose lets go of her clamp to fix it, but the void threatens to pull her in. When she lets go, Pete arrives at the last moment and teleports her away just as the breach is sealed behind them.

Rose beats on the wall in Pete’s World, desperate to find the Doctor again. Both travelers rest their heads against their respective walls in a moment of solidarity, and then the Doctor walks away solemnly.

For all intents and purposes, Rose and Jackie Tyler are dead in our universe.

Some time later, Rose hears the Doctor calling her voice across the void. She tells her family of the dream, then follow it to Bergen, Norway, on the coastline of Dårlig Ulv Stranden. Loosely translated: Bad Wolf Bay. There, she finds the image of the Doctor, transmitting from the TARDIS by way of a supernova that the Doctor is using to power the signal. He called her here to say goodbye.

She tells him she’s working to defend the Earth through the newly rebuilt Torchwood, as well as that Jackie is pregnant. She’s sad that she’ll never see the Doctor again, and she tells him that she loves him. The Doctor nearly says the same, but time runs out before he can get the words out.

A tear runs down his face as he is once again alone.

He sets a new course for the TARDIS, but is interrupted by a bride standing in the console room. He’s confused, she demands to know where she is, and the credits roll.

  I have always loved this one for its quick pacing and snappy dialogue. Rose and the Doctor have a lot of fun together, and their chemistry is undeniable. It gets even more fun when Jackie gets involved because of how she plays with the Doctor and deeply cares about her daughter.

That said, it was high time for Rose to leave the TARDIS. I don’t have any issue with the Doctor falling in love, even with a companion, but it seemed that their relationship was being dominated by that connection. Rose never wanted to leave, and in fact, told the Doctor that she planned to stay with him forever. As such, her growth had stagnated and (as Jackie noted) she was being consumed by the journey. The only way she was ever going to leave the TARDIS was by force, and she’s now using her expertise in a different way as a consultant for Torchwood. She’s free to move on with her life.

The events are still emotional – I found myself tearing up as our heroes said their farewells – but I wholeheartedly believe that this was the best thing for the characters and the show, especially one explicitly driven by the concept of change.

    Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

  UP NEXT – Series Two Summary

  The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.