Today is the first time in the fifteen months of this ridiculous project that I have completely mis-timed my treadmill session length. I always set it for 55 minutes, except for specials that run longer than a normal episode. What I forgot was that today's episode ran a full 65 minutes as the season finale. So as I was watching my treadmill abruptly stopped with its programmed time finished. I was so wrapped up in the ending of the story that I literally stood there for ten minutes transfixed. 

So let's talk about that.

Journey's End

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

Oh, all the feels in this story. It hits me way harder than Rose's departure, mostly because I was long past ready to see Rose go when it happened, but I was nowhere near ready to see Donna Noble off. And oh, the way she left.

So the big regeneration cliffhanger gets resolved right away with the Doctor healing himself and then channeling the rest of the regeneration energy into his Hand-In-A-Jar, his memento from the swordfight at the end of The Christmas Invasion. Later on, because of Reasons, Donna triggers the hand itself into a regeneration which leads to the Meta-Crisis Doctor -- a half Time Lord half human clone of the Tenth Doctor. But the regeneration energy also flows the other direction, turning Donna into the DoctorDonna.

Lots of other stuff happens (including a surprise appearance by K9, yay!, the universe is very nearly destroyed, but in the end the Doctors to some Very Clever Things and (almost) everything is put right. All of the various ex-companions get sent back to wherever they belong, with Mickey staying back on his original Earth with Martha and Captain Jack instead of returning to Pete's World. As for Rose, she and her mom go back to Bad Wolf Bay on Pete's World and the Doctor leaves her with Meta-Crisis Doctor, who is going to age right along with her. So Rose finally gets her Happy Ever After, although it is worth noting that as the TARDIS departs Rose is very explicitly holding the Meta-Crisis Doctor's right hand -- that being the hand that came off of the original Doctor.

And then the DoctorDonna begins to break down, because her human brain cannot contain the Time Lord consciousness. The only way for her to survive is to forget absolutely everything about the Doctor and her travels with him. Did you ever read the book Flowers for Algernon or see it's movie adaptation Charley? It's exactly that. A person who has artificially grown into a vast intellect, and is then confronted with the full knowledge that not only are they going to lose all of that but that once it has happened they won't even remember or care. It's a horrible fate.

And so Donna is left back with her mom and with her grand-dad, and they both know that although she actually saved the entire universe and that entire planets are singing her praises, if they ever so much as mention the Doctor to her then her mind will burn up and she will die. Oh my god, all the feels.

So that's it for Donna. Now I've got the five specials that David Tennant did in 2008/2009 instead of a regular season, each one-off stories with no consistent companion. And then that's it for Ten. Where does the time go?

STATS:

Doctor(s): Tenth, Meta-Crisis Doctor, DoctorDonna
Companion(s): Donna Noble, Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, Sarah Jane Smith, Martha Jones, Gwen Cooper, Ianto Jones, Wilfred Mott, Mickey Smith, K9
Episode(s): Journey's End
Steps Walked: 7,455 today, 2,951,530 total
Distance Walked: 3.90 miles today, 1,540.33 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 100 today, 3,414 total
Sit-ups Completed: 0 today, 929 total
Is the Doctor So, So Sorry?: Has he ever been more sorry than this story, saying goodbye to Donna and knowing she will forget everything?
Weight: 253.10 lbs (five day moving average), net change -54.20 lbs