The Big Bang - Version 2.0
Thoughts on the Season 5 Finale...
Spoilers (for seasons 1-5) after the cut.
So…here I am, hours after watching the DW season 5 finale, trying to figure out why exactly I don’t feel quite satisfied.
First, let me say that I really enjoyed this episode - there were a great number of things that I truly loved about it.
But I feel a bit like I had my desert, and skipped my dinner.
At first I thought, "I am just one heck of a greedy fan." Greedy and ungrateful - because really, there were so many lovely things in this episode. And love them all, I did. But…I still felt like something was missing.
And then, I realized exactly what it was that bothered me.
This is “Everybody Lives” to the (um, I don’t know, 11th?) power.
It’s not enough that no one dies. We actually witness the resurrection of characters that hadn’t even existed prior to this episode, accept in the vague sense that we’d imagine Amy to have had parents.
And maybe I’m twisted, but that bothers me.
See, with the previous season finales, the earth/universe always ended up being saved, but it always came at a cost. And it was a cost that the Doctor usually ended up paying. It may have been dues ex machina at turns, but it was never free.
Season 1 - Parting of the Ways: Sure, the Doctor lives on in his tenth incarnation, but the ninth Doctor dies in a very real sense. You can feel his desperation - that of a dying man - as he tries to say “goodbye” to Rose and simultaneously let her know what’s happening. And you feel Rose’s loss as well - the Doctor himself isn’t gone, but her first Doctor is.
Season 2 - Doomsday: The Doctor and Rose save the day, and they both pay a very high price. They are, literally, worlds apart with no hope of a reunion. The scene on the beach only reinforces the pain we see them experience in the ghost-shift room - each on opposite sides of the void, their hands pressed to the wall.
Season 3 - The Last of the Time Lords: I cried when the Master died…because once again, the Doctor was alone. His desperation when he holds the Master in his arms and begs him to regenerate is so raw…it’s almost uncomfortable to watch.
Season 4 - Journey’s End: The Doctor loses so much here. He regains Rose, only to lose her…to himself. Regardless of how you feel about the way that worked out, I think most would agree that Ten feels that loss pretty deeply. He leaves the woman he loves, because he loves her. He loses the two people who would be able to understand him more thoroughly than anyone else since the Time War: first, by leaving himself in the parallel world; second, by having to remove all memory of himself from Donna. And he does it all for the good of everyone else (though, I’m not certain what alternative there was).
And he’s not the only one who experiences loss. Donna loses a part of herself. And as happy as I think Rose and Ten II will be, it’s a bittersweet kind of joy. Because Rose doesn’t want the Doctor to be alone, she loves him, wants him to have a hand to hold. Ten II is the Doctor, and therefore knows for himself how much Rose’s absence will hurt and, I imagine, also realizes what Ten is going to have to do to Donna.
Not to mention that in the above episodes, the “regular” people (not counting Jack here) who died along the way generally stayed dead.
In this episode, however, there appears to be no cost. At all. For anyone. There were moments where it looked like there might be going to be…but then, it all turned out just…fine. It’s like a free pass. No one really lost anything.
Much as I love many things in this finale, I can’t help but feel like it’s inconsistent, and maybe that shouldn’t bother me, but it does.