Two Endings

Two television shows I watch recently both came to their respective climactic endings. Avatar, a wonderful show which constantly surprises me with the respect it treats its viewers, came to the end of its three year run with a handful of simultaneous good-versus-evil battles. On the other side of the pond, Doctor Who polished off its fourth season in the typical teeth-grindingly farcical style of out-going head writer Russel T Davis.

Avatar's was the better of the two and was a worthy ending to a great series, but it nonetheless didn't manage to take anything to a new level. The end battles were just more of the same sorts of battles Avatar has always had. Yes, the stakes were higher and, yes, the moves were more impressive, but I feel a good climax should be more than the sum of its lead in.

Just like Doctor Who, in fact. Doctor Who set up its own climax brilliantly, taking everything to a new and more dangerous level, really pushing the characters beyond what they were used to. Unlike most Doctor episodes, which deal with undercover alien invasions, mysteries, small groups of people and a matching of wits, Doctor Who's climax dumped the heroes (and the planet Earth) into a war they were already losing against an enemy numbering the thousands with technology capable of doing pretty much anything they like, up to and including reducing the universe to a vague fog.

Where Doctor Who falls down is getting out of this desperate situation. Writer Russel T Davis has an annoying habit of piling up the odds so high that he can see no possible way out apart from making stuff up - the dreaded deus ex machina. This latest effort managed to line up about six truly daft deus ex machina in a row.

Still, the set up was brilliant and pushed the narrative to a new level of danger, whereas Avatar did the reverse, doing a business as usual ending which was less dramatically satisfying but solid and believeable.