What Is Classic Who's "Grand Finale"?

I was thinking a lot about this today, but Sylvestor's era always did feel like a "clearing out the locker" era even before anyone knew the program was being rested

The Doctor had more or less cleared things up with the Time Lords in his sixth incarnation (a battle with the Rani in his Seventh aside), he was well on his way growing into a prime manipulator on par with the best and worst of his people, he had found a companion/apprentice with which to pass on his great wisdom and to mould and shape her into a brand-new renegade...and he had seen off his grandest foes in similar and planet/fleet-busting fashion using two dangerous living gallifreyan superweapons under his control.

Even if the show had continued, would it have felt right? The Doctor had really accomplished everything he'd set out to accomplish. He was once described as an "idealist" in early planning, but I think he had found his ideal by this point.

So what would have been the perfect "grand final" to end on? Survival is a decent ending with one of the more iconic Doctor vs Master fights and Ace playing with her pussy.

But then, there's also Curse of Fenric, where Ace comes of age and The Doctor settles an old game with the only foe that could prove his era's equal.

And then there's Remembrance of the Daleks, where we come full circle with a return to Totter's Lane and the most definitive setback in the history of the Daleks.

I need another option:
"All of the above"

For the reasons you state. Each one provides closure to some aspect of the Doctor's life, but you take out or put forth any single episode and you miss out on the closure that happens in one of the other episodes.

Either way, Seven's final words in "Survival" were perfect:
"There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream. People made of smoke, and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace, we've got work to do!"

As much as I love Remembrance, Curse of Fenric is later and, therefore, more 'finale', though not quite as 'grand'. Survival is too lightweight. Remembrance feels a lot like what has gone before and Fenric brings something very new. I think S27 would have been closer to Fenric or Survival than Remembrance.

I still say Survival, as that really did feel like the end. Fenric is the superior story IMO but it felt like a peak of late-era Who and like more classic stories could have followed. Remembrance could have been a fine send-off for the Daleks, I was disappointed Davros escaped as after two very strong Dalek stories it seemed a bit predictable he'd scarper.

In an alternate universe season 27 got made and we got to enjoy Sylv hidden in the safe (and nu who, even if it got made, could have turned out very differently).

I voted for Fenric because it ties up all the loose ends. Survival is a good story but it didn't feel like it had as many high stakes as Fenric. I wish they had swapped the running order.

The neatest grand finale would've been The Invasion of Time.

Bladeswitch wrote:The neatest grand finale would've been The Invasion of Time.

Interesting. It certaingly has the scope and urgency of a climatic chapter, replace the Sontarans with the Daleks and you're sorted

Uhuh (certainly if they could negotiate Terry Nation's agreement)

Also, it'd be leaving off on an easy note for a revival to pick up from. A revival might've even happened far sooner then.

I think along with "An Adventure In Time and Space" they should make another Doctor Who biopic about fandom.

They could call it "JNT pissed in my cornflakes"

Rob Filth wrote:I think along with "An Adventure In Time and Space" they should make another Doctor Who biopic about fandom.

They could call it "JNT pissed in my cornflakes"

Yeah because you totally have never been a moaning fan, have you?

Fuck off!