DOCTOR WHO season finale: Tonight it's 'Journey's End'

Donna Noble, Catherine Tate, Doctor Who, BBC
Donna Noble, “the most important woman in the whole wide universe” (Catherine Tate, BBC)

Season four of Doctor Who’s rollicking revival comes to a close tonight (8:30, Sci Fi) and there are many questions. (Spoilers for last week’s episode after the jump.)

It’s been a blast. I can’t wait to add it to my DVD collection. I wish I knew when it was coming out.

But wait! TVShowsOnDVD.com reports that the series four boxed set will come out Stateside on Nov. 18, 2008 — just in time for the holidays! They even have cover art. And the super-cool spinoff The Sarah Jane Adventures will hit shelves even sooner, Oct. 7. (Take that, Brits! They don’t get it until Nov. 10, for some reason….)

But first things first: the season finale. Is the Doctor (David Tennant) really regenerating — again? Last week’s episode ended with the Time Lord finally reuniting with lost companion Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), only to suffer an apparently fatal blast from a Dalek and begin the healing transformation unique to his people.

Is the promise that Tennant would return after next year’s hiatus and mini-specials just a smoke screen to conceal the biggest surprise since the Daleks returned? Or the Cybermen? Or the Master?

A Time Lord has 13 lives. Tennant portrays the Doctor’s 10th incarnation since the show debuted in 1963, and the second since it came back to the airwaves in 2005 after a dozen years off the air. So the old guy is running out of 1-ups! The evil Master has proved an exception, stealing and cheating his way to life after 13. Presumably the Doctor, as the hero of the show, would be afforded a similar loophole.

Maybe “Journey’s End” refers not to the Doctor’s fate at all. There’s always the prophecy from the mad Dalek Caan that promises “everlasting death for the most faithful companion.” This surely isn’t former Prime Minister Harriet Jones (yes, we know who you are), who ate Dalek death ray last week. She had a good heart but put duty first and was far from faithful to the alien who ended her career. It’s more likely to be someone like Rose, Donna or Capt. Jack (for whom, in particular, everlasting death would mean something).

From left: Donna and the Doctor with the Supereme Dalek; Rose Tyler; the whole gang.