Interestingly, the big “end of the world” reveal didn’t really happen until the start of this episode. In other two-part finales we’ve seen, everything would have been stacked against the main heroes all at once.

Here, we had them in personal peril, which was solved by the Doctor just walking straight out to the Daleks and facing them down. Thank goodness for forcefields, that’s what I say.

It wasn’t until a few minutes later that it was revealed that the Doctor was essentially creating a bomb that would kill everyone and everything in it’s path. Getting rid of the Daleks is one thing, but is it worth getting rid of the entire planet and everyone in it?

It’s fascinating to see the Doctor continue on with his plan, even though he would be guilty of genocide. He tries to convince himself that there are pockets of humans that would live on, but later Doctor incarnations would never dream of wiping out an innocent species simply to rid the world of the others.

Although… there is Volcano Day.

What a choice!

To ease his guilt a little, he sends Rose back home with a tricksy way of getting her into the TARDIS and a Doctor-shaped hologram. I reckon that she was almost convinced until the hologram turned it’s head and looked straight at her.

I wonder if he makes those holograms for each and every one of his companions? It’s personalised, because it says Rose, but he must have done this before. Unless it’s the TARDIS being all psychic again.

Whilst Rose is sent back to safety, against her wishes, Lynda with a y won’t leave. She’s another brave one. Again, it would have been interesting to see her as a companion. She doesn’t seem as bright as some of those we’ve seen, quite child-like, but brave and keen. Still, we’ll never know!

Captain Jack bravely leads the remaining people into battle, living up to his Captain name, and he sacrifices himself, albeit briefly. I like the skeleton CGI that occurs when someone is zapped by a Dalek, it’s very striking (pardon the pun).

So, it’s left to Rose to essentially inhale all of time and space and save the world. It all gets a bit dramatic for my tastes, and it’s not exactly a fair fight - the Daleks against what appears to be an all powerful being.

However, there is a cost, and the Doctor has to extract the power from Rose, at the cost of another regeneration. The kiss they did to do this was weird. I remember it being built up at the time, but it wasn’t exactly a romantic thing. And if it had been Mickey, would he still have had to kiss him or could he have found another way?

All that is left is to explain to Rose, really quite badly, what is going to happen, and then the change begins.

“It’s a bit dodgy, this process. You never know what you’re going to end up with.”

Eh-hem. DAVID TENNANT!

Although this Doctor was always touted as a darker, more brooding character, one that had to come to terms with all that had gone before to allow the adventures to continue, his final words were so much happier than DT’s.

“You were absolutely fantastic. And you know what? So was I?”