I think there's something suspicious about Donna's ring.

YANA. (Someone needs to design RTD's soul-crusher. :-)

While it would be good to have Catherine Tate back, I totally predict that Donna will in fact regenerate into some kind of ersatz Time Lady, the instant that incredibly fragile memory lock gets broken by someone saying "tiemcock".

Of course, that's only if Steven M. picks up the ball that RTD (I presume) has passed to him. He could choose to ignore it. I've said elsewhere that the ep where Catherine Tate's head explodes prior to regeneration into ersatz Time Lady would be the perfect one to give to Lawrence Miles to write. :)

Darn Soul Crusher.

*has crushed soul*

But no, I also don't think it's quite over yet. There's something Dalek Caan said that I haven't been back to check yet. Something about 'only helping'.

Or maybe I'm hoping for a more dignified end to Donna'a character arc.

Not to mention "Dalek Caan went back to the time war?! WTF?!!" that never really got explored, answered or resolved.

Or that scene with Billie Piper in "Partners in Crime". Where does that fit? What was its purpose?

I feel like there are a lot of loose threads and unexplored but surely important bits hanging around the end of Season 4.

The whole thing could've stood another hour of screen time. But that leaves us with a rich vein of possible sequels, fanfic explorations, etc.

Or they could've not bothered with "The Doctor's Daughter", and made it a four-parter. ; )

THIS SEEMS REASONABLE

Here's one suggestion of what might happen next.

Nice!

And once again, fanfic becomes my happy place. ^^

My theory isn't that good, it's just that Donna didn't actually forget. Her Time Lord brain outwitted his and made him think he had wiped her memory, but he didn't really. She's faking.

That's my secret theory/hope as well.

How q00l is that?!

That right there.
Is seven kinds of awesome. :)

I think bluesuit doctor is just sad because he knows Rose doesn't think he's "real". *pats his fluffy hair* And had I not put an absolute kibosh on writing any more Who/Torchwood fanfic at the moment, I would be expressing this through the medium of fiction. :D

I also don't think we've seen the last of Donna. And that perhaps I am the only person who is not thoroughly upset by Donna's mindwipe.

I sort of expected we wouldn't have a cliffhanger on this one, though, on account of not...y'know...having a SEASON next year. Which annoys me thoroughly.

Of course it was an ending - it was just an ending with lovely cameo bow-offs and possibilities...

I mean for a start a regeneration crisisey metathingamewhatsit is impossible between a human and a timelord -- so therefore -- because it's impossible, it hasn't happened and it didn't happen. Donna is not all human. And it's not just the beautiful glinty ring, it's the hi, I'm Donna Noble I'm a temp. The "temp" repeated ad nauseum is possibly also meant to be a clue the size of red dwarf's Esperanto. And the complete lack of father, well, one can only guess.
Anyway hope defeats despair. And squids up, I mean chin up Donna may be dead, but in fantasy death is little more than an inconvenience. :)

Well- not a complete lack of a father, she had one in "Runaway Bride" but the actor got ill and died before this season was filmed, so in stepped Wilf. (Which I think was a Brilliant piece of work!)

This is a joke, right?

Yeah, but Blue Doctor had also just committed genocide, and was now being deposited sans TARDIS in a parallel universe. He had to have been seriously off-kilter at that point. Happy prison or not, the combination of the two -- plus the parts of humanity that were now inside of him to give him more of a conscience -- had to be raging at him internally. Relief or a smile would've been out of place.

I don't think it's a cliffhanger, but rather a climax that's come after four years, and the specials will serve as epilogue. And a traditional cliffhanger after the horribleness of Donna's fate would've been the worst possible thing to do -- in the same way that jaunty music over the closing credits after the death of Adric would've been equally wrong.

This is an eminently sensible comment up until its collapse in the last simile.

Mentioned this elsewhere, but I can't help thinking its a set up. Every year we get the "will it be a female Doctor?" question when they think the incumbent is leaving, and for the first time Rusty has stated "there should never be a female Doctor because it raises the question of genitalia". And we know how honest Rusty is about the show.

Lets say Tennant agrees to return as the Doctor, either for a one off special in 2011/2012, then why would he need to regenerate into the eleventh Doctor?

Instead he gets lost/separated from the TARDIS, which turns to Donna for help. When she sees it, she remembers, ad works out that she will only burn out if she has the memories of Donna and the Doctor, so subdues her Donna memories to become the Doctor, taking control of the TARDIS.

Unhampered by the Donna persona, Catherine gives us a whole new Doctor, who sets off on a season of adventures searching for her predecessor. She takes a Doctorish male companion whom the Doctor's enemies mistake for him, allowing her to outsmart villains left right and centre.

At the end of her tenure she either hands the TARDIS key back to the 10th Doctor or to his successor. After all, we don't have to *see* regenerations any more.

Given this season's storyline it would be plausible and acceptable to a mainstream audience, and would get the woman Doctor controversy sorted once and for all.

I like the way you think.

: And I'll tell you another thing that was weird and inconclusive - blue suited Doctor's srs, srs reaction to staying with Rose. Not relief or crazy euphoria, not even a smile.

Well, but Blue!Doc knows how much it's ripping up Brown!Doc to leave Rose, and he no doubt knows what's going to happen to Donna, so I can imagine he'd be pretty solemn.

I think he's also less than happy that Rose is standing around calling him 'not real' (not that the rest of what's going on would cheer him up much either).

(If the show, or at least the scene, was a lighter tone, you can imagine the Blue Doctor piping up, 'I'm right here,' while he's being talked about. Or that could just have been our viewing, of course...)

And I'll tell you another thing that was weird and inconclusive - blue suited Doctor's srs, srs reaction to staying with Rose. Not relief or crazy euphoria, not even a smile.

well, if he really has got all the doctor's memories, then he knows how unbelievably fuggin' stir-crazy he went the last time he was exiled to earth as a 'punishment'. and that's more or less what's happened here.

plus, i get the feeling that handjob!doctor probably knows himself a little better than the original doctor does. and he can read the situation well enough to realize that a sulky, restless, trapped-in-one-place doctor might not exactly be the pleasantest person to be stuck with in an alternate universe for the rest of your life. and since he's not the one running away, i also think he can admit to himself how very quickly rose will probably come to resent being made an unwitting babysitter for a 'defective', broody, itchy-footed time lord.

(cripes, the more i think about the two of them, the more i like the doctor-donna hybrid doc much better than rusty's version of ten. can we have a series with him and doctor!donna together instead, pls?)

anyway. possible blue!doc thoughts to go with the face tennant made there:

1) OMG WFT you killed the daleks about a hundred times you hypocrite and you still get a tardis and stuff and OMG that's not FAIR you're not my real father!!!

2) i don't need no babysitter, man. *sulk*

3) ...omg did i leave the oven on?

4) Okay, I am SO about to get laid. Play it cool, play it cool. Glee is in appropriate here. Serious face! Okay, I'm holding Rose's hand. Awesome. I wonder how soon we can ditch Jackie? PLAY IT COOL, DUDE.

heh! :)

5) ...is that what i look like in the brown suit? rassilon's arse, i'm a sexy beast! no wonder the earth women throw themselves at me and the master suggested doing that thing with the garden hose. i wonder if the both of us could...? nah, it'd just gross out rose and jackie would film it and put it up on youtube. still, if old brownie ever comes back...

*stands beside rose and thinks about sliding hands down the hem of those fetching brown pinstripe trousers*

*falls about*

There may be an assumption that Moffat wouldn't pick up any threads from RTD's tenure. Because goodness knows, RTD never used anything from the series before him.

The finale was so overstuffed - there are about a jillion incredible ideas in there that had no chance to be developed. It's a writer's motherlode.

Well, Moffat was presented with an opportunity to use Tate this season, and his reaction was to stick her character in a plot box where she had absolute no effect on the episode, not even to influence her own rescue. This does not inspire much hope that Moffat would be at all interested in re-resolving her story as opposed to playing with his own toys.

That's a fair point. Mind you, Donna still got a heart-wrenching subplot - if teh Moff wants to go that way, Journey's End sure gives him a heck of a setup.

He did the same with Rose in Girl in the Fireplace. Though I don't know that you can make examples from isolated episodes in a single season. He didn't with Rose in Empty Child, and both the Doctor and Martha were mostly isolated in Blink.

And he did use Donna quite a lot in Library. Separating the Doctor from his Companions has always been a staple of Doctor Who. So I think everything remains to be seen.