Having reviewed The Stolen Earth/Journey's End and noting the various connections to this story, I am going back to the Series Two finale The Army of Ghosts/Doomsday. Firstly I really like the Torchwood set up and wish that RTD had taken this Torchwood further in Series Two and just have them popping up physically every once in a while, instead of a couple of references (like having a Torchwood agent standing in the background of School Reunion or Love and Monsters, reporting in on The Doctor's activities). I loved Tooth and Claw which I am planning to review along with a classic series story coming up soon and this is a good payoff to the ideas established in the climactic moments of Tooth and Claw. All the characters come off well in this story, leading up to a very dramatic conclusions in the final minutes with the revelation of the two monsters in the story. Overall Army of Ghosts is a strong opening episode to this epic series finale.
9/10
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It had to be this. RTD wanted every finale to be bigger than the last and after having a massive Dalek empire in the Series One finale, the only way to top it would be to have the Daleks and Cybermen in the second series finale. It is however the ultimate piece of fanfiction. But due to some brilliant direction, great acting and some incredibly moving scenes, this story is so much more than that. With two scenes designed to pull the heartstrings Jackie meets Pete, and Rose's goodbye (the latter to be later ruined by Journey's End). The main problem with this story is that if you bring the two most powerful enemies of The Doctor together in a showdown in this way, you either worsen both (by both unable to destroy the other and going to a stalemate, or both being destroyed by each other) or you totally discredit one (by making them seem totally inferior). RTD chooses the latter and despite the fact the Daleks come off very good in this story, it does start a chain of stories where the Cybermen come across as a bit pathetic (Thank You Neil Gaiman for breaking the curse in Nightmare in Silver). I do like the Cyberman, Earth alliance but there was not enough of this war which had been made prophecy by The Beast and foreshadowed at the start of the story. The ending may seem a bit Deus Ex Machina but it makes a lot of sense and therefore I can forgive that they can just pull all the Daleks into hell (but the TARDIS traveled through the void, so why did it not get affected or even mentioned by anyone). Overall a good finale but with a few flaws (generally due to the Daleks being totally superior to the Cybermen [there was a rumour that a similar story was planned for the season five finale of the classic series but Terry Nation's American Dream of the Daleks prevented such, personally I am glad and anyway I suspect ti would be the other way around with the Cybermen obliterating the Daleks as it was the other way round during the Second Doctor's tenure).
7/10
Overall this climatic series finale scores:
8/10