What all fans have been talking about was David Tennant handing the reins over to Matt Smith; to the point where that’s all they talked about- on the internet, during dinner, in the middle of sex, to long suffering spouses and pretty much any poor soul they could find. In some respect you couldn’t blame them, in their eyes Tennant had become almost like a member of the family.  With his 5th season playing The Doctor essentially becoming a five episode farewell tour, everything has built up to this epic but foolishly aired finale.

With all the intense media fellatio regarding the departure of the 10th Doctor, many overlook the fact that this is farewell to Russell T. Davies, the creative force who took the franchise from rusting in drydock to ratings smash. Davies doesn’t pass up a chance to tie up all the loose ends of the past five years into one dense, a grandly dramatic au revoir. The plot of “The End of Time” could easily fit into another five or six episodes, but all Davies has is two so everything gets shoehorned into one script, for good or ill. Could be worse, since the original series was abruptly cancelled after an episode unfortunatly titled “Survival”. Anything’s better than a last hurrah like that.

Suffice to say, The Master is rather improbably resurrected and The Doctor races to stop him from whatever the hell he’s up to now. His final companion is Wilfred Noble, grandfather to Donna Noble, who finally gets his wish to see the Earth from orbit and travel in space. They encounter a meglomanical billionare and a piece of alien tech called ”The Immortality Gate”, a wacky duo of alien salvagers, The  Master literally erasing the human race from the universe, and the return of the Time Lords and Gallifrey. The 10th Doctor regenerates in an unusually drawn out spectacular fashion, and his makeover reveals a boyishly enthusiastic persona that’s instantly likeable in the closing minutes.  Series veteran Nicholas Briggs and Brian Cox (X2, Red Eye, Manhunter) provide nice invisible cameos as voices for a Judoon and the Ood Elder.

Director Euros Lyn does an amazing job keeping it all flowing in a coherent fashion; there’s a ton of exposition that could easily bog everything down, but he manages to make a landmark episode worthy of being called landmark. Davies resolves pretty much all the dangling plot threads neatly enough, although the resolution to Donna Noble’s character seems hastily conceived. Nice bits include the brief allusion to the stone angels from “Blink”, closure to The Doctor’s love from “Family Blood”, the truth of The Master’s pounding drums, and the revelation of who will be responsible for the death of the last Time Lord. The return of The Doctor’s homeworld is also staged well, as is turning the show’s mythology on its’ ear by reinventing the Time Lords as genocidal dictators, whose final solution to the Time War was the destruction of the Time Vortex and reality itself.

What truly hampers “The End of Time” was the decision to show it in two parts as opposed to simply one two hour plus  special. There’s just so much going on it’s a bit hard to keep track of it over the course of a week, a lot is lost in viewer’s minds by the time part two airs. Actions that make little sense in part one are clarified in part two, but the seven day gap causes the dramatic impact to fall flat.  Watching the entire episode in one sitting allows you fully appreciate the end of a “Doctor Who” era, and give a sneak peek at a new one full of promise.

There’s really no point in saying Matt Smith has his work cut out for him, that’s like saying the sky is blue and water is wet. Any idiot with access to BBC America can see that. We’ve been left with a cliffhanger, as the TARDIS sustained critical damaged during the regeneration process, and is hurtling on a crash course towards Earth. The 11th Doctor is trying to regain his bearing while trying to regain control of his ship as all manner of things spark and flame around him. Best of all, he seems like he’s having a blast the entire time.