Finale!!
Before I go off and read everyone else's opinions on the finale, I wanna get my own thoughts straight.
Regeneration-wise: We all saw that coming. No complaining allowed!! If they had gone through with it, I would have applauded the BBC for being able to keep that quiet. Still, the reasoning behind everything, while rather quickly mentioned, was kind of there. I'm wondering if they were as cool as Joss Whedon is and actually knew they would do that eventually and planted those seeds purposefully. I'm thinking they probably didn't but the attempts to tie it all together are quite cute and sort of kind of maybe work. I'm too lazy to actually check.
I think they handled the various companions pretty well screen-time-wise and gave most of them stuff to do. Rose's commentary as each companion came up with ways to save the day was amusing. I especially liked the Martha/Rose exchange where they pretty much decided the other was awesome. That "yay you found her!" really showed Martha growing as a character because in the beginning she would have been jealous and unfun. Wanted more companion talk (and Jack to say "P.S. Rose, you totally made me immortal when you went Bad Wolf, which, by the way, you should have TOTALLY brought up in front of Davros to piss him off" or something along those lines). The Sarah Jane/Davros thing was a nice touch. I'm very glad they put that in there. On a tangent, yay for Tosh saving the day at the Hub again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She is so freakin' kickass! Plus, that meant we didn't need to pay as much attention to Ianto and Gwen (yay for the Gwenyth/Unquiet Dead shout out!!!). Back to companions. Wanted a bit more interactions, as said, but I think that they spread out the screen time pretty well and did give each of them something to do (except Jackie but that's to be expected) or at least the illusion that they were doing something. Didn't mind that Rose was kind of useless. If they'd made her do stuff, it would probably have had to go Bad Wolf version 2.0 and then the other companions would have been useless and fans would complain about Rose going Mary Sue/Deus Ex Machina, so it's probably best that they took that out of the equation. Would not have minded her telling off Daleks, though. That was a wasted opportunity writers! More Buffy-esque pun-age! What? I liked when Buffy used wit and attitude against the vamps in addition to a stake!
On Doctor-Splittage, I'm glad it went that way and not Donna is fobwatched!Romana/Rani/RandomAssTimeLord. I'm not exactly sure I love it but it's a hell of a lot better than TinkerbellJesus!Doctor. Plus, Donna got to spout off timey-whimey-techno-babble. I was hoping that maybe Hand!Doctor explained technology in SuperTemp terms and then Donna (as a human) repeated the babble while being fantastic. Alas, I can deal with DoctorDonna (I'm thinking this is a shout out to fans going Descriptor!Character when...well, describing things) and Hand!Doctor.
I'm liking that he was all "Killing an entire race? IT WAS FORETOLD SO IT MUST BE DONE! Who am I to argue with prophecy?" when Doctor!Doctor would never have done that because it shows that they are fundamentally different. This also means that a whole new type of AU fanfic is born (Hand!Doctor/Rose. She teaches him that going genocidal is not always the best route. Then he reminds her that she totally did it, too, when she went Bad Wolf and was therefore a hypocrit. That night, he slept on the couch...). Alternate Universe was also a pretty handy way of getting rid of Hand!Doctor (who could potentially come back when Eleven shows up, which could make an interesting future plot line). Sidenote: Tennant looked like he was ready to go clubbing as Hand!Doctor.
OMG THE ENDING IS SAD!!! I heard that this might happen but it still makes me sad. I loved what Donna became when she was with the Doctor. She never thought she would be anything but she is everything. Even her mother knows (that line about her being the most important woman in the world made me really like Sylvia, who I had been kinda eh about). And she can never know or she'll die. On that note, wouldn't seeing the Doctor trigger those memories??? Just because she was oblivious before the Doctor doesn't mean that she wouldn't notice a man who looked oddly familiar sitting about her house. I'm also wondering about WHEN he brought her home on her timeline. How long has she been gone in Earth time? These events were somewhat close together so it can't have been an entire year, can it? I'm guessing that the writers are just going to drop this storyline now that it's "resolved" but there are too many things that can lead to Donna figuring out about the Doctor for it to be so neatly tied up. Oh my god I'm nitpicking. Kill me now.
Was the Suprme Dalek important in the end? Except for being red, he died just as easily as the others. That line about arrogance and whatnot, I think that was Davros being all "I MADE YOU AND I CAN BREAK YOU JUST AS EASILY BITCH!" rather than foreshadowing that S.D. was actually Harriet Jones or the Master or Lynda with a Y whatever your crack!theory was.
My conclusions/random notes that I felt belonged in list order...
-Needs more Simm!Master.
-LOVED the montage where we see all the people who have sacrificed themselves for the Doctor. I know it brings out Emo!Doctor to acknowledge the dead he leaves in his wake but I think it needed to be shown. The execution (OMG an unintentional pun!) of the montage looked like a freshman film major playing with FinalCut Pro did it, but oh well. You can't be perfect at everything.
-I never really notice the music but it tended to get on my nerves a bit this episode. A bit too epic for what was actually happening. It's like the conductor was saying "Pay attention now, guys! This bit is so freakin' amazing your brain will explode with awesome!!!" and then my brain did not explode so I was a bit put out.
-Rose snark/commentary makes me happy. The companions should MST3K this episode...in character.
-LOVED Jack's line that went something like "Three doctors, I can't tell you what I'm thinking" because it's SO TRUE. When Rose was standing in between the two doctors my head went "I read a fanfic like that once".
-Companion hugging is so cute!
-K9!! It took me a pathetically long amount of time to realize K9=Canine. Yeah, I'm sad.
-Will someone PLEASE tell me why villains insist on destroying the entire universe when they live in said universe and kind of need it to survive??? Why can't they just be suicidal on a smaller scale and maybe just listen to emo music and write crappy poetry? What's with the grand-scale destruction, guys? Did your mother not hug you when you were little? If that's all you want, I'll fucking hug you! Especially if you are played by John Simm! Also, I don't do slimey monster-y things, or spikey things.
-Wilf rocks so hardcore. I want him and Mr. Copper to hangout and form a "I met the Doctor a few times but never made me a companion because I'm old" club. Or, they can play bingo. Or something.
-AU fics will have SOOO much more fodder now. That kiss...I don't really know what to say. Ten/Rose shippers are going to have a field day. I'm hoping haters are going to be quiet because technically he isn't really the Doctor (well, the proper Doctor) so they're precious REAL timelord is unsullied. Now half-human Hand!Doctor is, as we've already seen, not like the proper Doctor so we can say that they are now two separate unrelated entities who can do as they please and who they please (or not). Think Steve Urkel and Stefan from "Family Matters". Steve became Stefan, who wore the right clothes and was super hot, thus winning Laura. But at one point Steve clones himself and makes one of him Stefan, for Laura, and the other is still Steve, for his girlfriend at the time. Two of the same person who are completely different in the ways that count. Hence the Bad Wolf Bay scene. Proper Doctor would never actually tell Rose he loves her but Hand!Doctor doesn't give a crap about Proper Doctor's hangups and whispers it in her ear (good way of getting around saying it out loud RTD!!). Or maybe he just says that he totally wants to sex her up. Whatever he said, he got a great reaction out of it so I'm thinking that fanfic writers are going to have a BLAST with all of the lovely canon tidbits. Anyway, I've digressed. What I'm saying is Hand!Doctor is not the same as the proper Doctor and we should leave it at that because if we don't I'm pretty sure Fandom_Wank will explode.
-The TARDIS was a tow truck for Earth. Haha! I'm glad that Earth had it's AAA card (or CAA, if you're from Canada) on 'em or we would have had to pay a fortune for that tow-job!
-The end...I think the Doctor should have gone to chill with Sarah Jane and met Luke. Isn't Luke super smart about techy/alien stuff? They could have built a sonic transducer or taken apart a toaster together! It would have been way more fun than brooding. I'm sure Sarah would have provided snacks, too. Or he could go get some dinner with Gwen, Ianto and Jack. Or visited Martha and her family. Sarah Jane was right, he doesn't NEED to be alone. He obviously chooses it because he secretly revels in listening to Fall Out Boy and Simple Plan and crying while reapplying eyeliner copiously (Rose showed him how to do this one afternoon when they were watching "A Little Princess" and they got a bit choked up when Sara was yelling for her father who at the time did not remember her...what? That part always gets me!). If the Moff doesn't bring in some happy!Doctor I'm going to smack a bitch. Or complain on LJ. Because I'm a nerd.
-Random thought: What happened to Tom?? Martha is engaged, right? Perhaps she should have called her fiance? Or perhaps he could have showed up and been sexy?
-Daleks should not have all of their super important controls in one area. I understand consolidation but would it honestly kill you have each control in a separate room? It killed 'em to have it in one place! That part was a bit too silly for an episode that was supposedly SRSBUSINESS.
I'll probably add more stuff as I think about it but at the moment I'm all tapped out of random and hopefully witty observation and well-meaning snark.
-I think that the Doctor didn't so much leave Rose behind as leave Hand!Doctor behind with her to babysit (he'd better pay VERY well and by the hour). Some seem a bit annoyed that he didn't give her a choice and that he didn't consider letting her stay in her original universe. I can see where this was coming from and it is a bit unfair but could she have really stayed when she had so many ties to Pete's world? Also, the line about Torchwood developing a way for Rose to get home...I took it as sort of a project in addition to kicking ass and taking names. At least that's the way I want to take it. I like my "reality" just fine thank you.
-Hand!Doctor TUCKS in his tee-shirt! That's just wrong on SO many levels. How dare you RTD. HOW DARE YOU.
-Since when do Daleks adapt how they say "exterminate" to their surroundings? If I were a supreme alien being thing I wouldn't bother using the local dialect since I'm the one with the big fuckoff gun (or egg beater laser) and therefore have the power.
-Since Donna went a bit mad, is Hand!Doctor going to go crazy, too? Or was he more Time Lord than Human and therefore okay? I'm just saying, that's kind of a shit deal for Rose and Jackie if he goes wonky.
-I still love crazy Dalek Caan. I wonder why Daleks keep on brining in prophecies and religion if they're supposed to be above that stuff. It's like the Cylons believing in a higher power, except when they do it it's sexy and intriguing. Daleks...not so much.
-Osterhagen Key= Let's go to Germany, have a few extras of different ethnicities show up and then forget all about it because we'd never do it anyway. Super depressing. Kind of a cool concept that we would ever consider it in the first place but still made me go "eh" instead of the reaction I'm sure it was supposed to get.
-I can't wait to see Noel Clarke on Torchwood (which I'm guessing is his next stop).
-Heehehee, naked!Doctor. I never claimed to be mature!
-Regenerated hand (pre-Donna touch) is in desperate need of a manicure.
Not Who related: My computer is making weird noises and seems to be overheating more than normal. I'm worried and it's very much bothering me. I think I may cough up a shitton of money to fix the part of my laptop where the casing has come apart because I think that's why it's noisy. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm currently melting another charger.