Journey's End (TV story)

Journey's End was the thirteenth and final regular episode of Series 4 of Doctor Who. It is the second episode of a two-part story, preceded by "The Stolen Earth". This episode marks the last appearance of Donna Noble as a companion.

Synopsis
Every universe is in danger as the Daleks activate their master plan to destroy reality itself. The Doctor is helpless, and even the TARDIS faces destruction. The only hope lies with the Doctor's secret army of companions – but as they join forces to battle Davros himself, the prophecy declares that one of them will die.

Plot
After being shot by a Dalek, the Doctor is regenerating inside his TARDIS while Donna Noble, Captain Jack Harkness and Rose Tyler watch. However, the Doctor transfers the regeneration energy into the container which houses his severed hand. He has healed himself, but chosen not to change his appearance. The TARDIS is transported by the Daleks to the Crucible and rendered powerless. The Doctor, Jack, and Rose leave it, but Donna is distracted by the sound of a heartbeat and, while she is looking back, the TARDIS door slams closed. Before the Doctor can free her, the Daleks dump the TARDIS into a waste chute where it will be destroyed in the centre-core of the Crucible. The TARDIS plummets down the chute and begins to burn up. As the TARDIS interior explodes around her, Donna collapses near the severed hand, where she hears the heartbeat again and touches the container, at which point energy flows between it and her. The hand bursts out of the container, and forms as a new Doctor, although this Doctor has only one heart and has picked up some of Donna's mannerisms. With his help, the TARDIS escapes destruction and gives the new Doctor and Donna time to come up with a plan. A view of the TARDIS in the core is shown to Jack, Rose, and the Doctor who believe that instead of dematerialising, Donna and the TARDIS have been destroyed.

In Torchwood Three, Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones find themselves safely in a time lock created by Toshiko Sato, preventing the Dalek from entering but also preventing them leaving. Sarah Jane Smith is saved from two Daleks by Mickey Smith and Jackie Tyler, but in order to follow the Doctor, they lay down their guns and allow themselves to be captured and taken to the Crucible. Martha Jones says her goodbyes to her mother and makes for an abandoned castle in Germany where one of five Osterhagen stations is hidden, and waits for contact from the other bases.

Aboard the Crucible, Jack creates a distraction by shooting the Supreme Dalek with his revolver, but is exterminated by the Daleks, as the Doctor and Rose are taken to the Vault where Davros is held. Rose is extremely upset, as she doesn't know she made Jack immortal as the Bad Wolf and that his immortality has allowed him to escape. With the Doctor and Rose contained, Davros explains that the 27 planets form an energy pattern that is then amplified into a "reality bomb", able to break apart the electrical forces holding everything together, a creation Davros calls "the apotheosis of my genius!". Mickey, Jackie, and Sarah Jane have been taken with many other humans to a testing of the bomb but they manage to escape the test chamber just in time (unlike the other humans, who vanish). The effect of the bomb is shown to the Doctor. Both Doctors realize how it works. Jack finds his way to the three, and with a Warp star from Sarah Jane, creates a device that will implode the Crucible. Meanwhile, Martha makes contact with two other bases in China and Liberia. The Chinese counterpart wants to get it over and done with, but Martha, knowing the Doctor, first broadcasts a signal to the Crucible to give them (probably both Earth and the Daleks) a second chance, promising to use the Osterhagen key to detonate 25 nuclear warheads under the Earth's crust to destroy it and disable the reality bomb. The Daleks manage to lock onto their positions, and transport Martha, Jack, Mickey, Jackie, and Sarah Jane, with the Transmat, to the Vault where the Doctor and Rose are also being held captive.

The Daleks prepare to activate the reality bomb that will wipe out all matter in this and every parallel universe through the rifts in the Medusa Cascade, but the new Doctor and Donna arrive in the TARDIS. Both attempt to destroy Davros and the Daleks using a weapon created by the new Doctor, but both are stunned by shots from Davros' robotic hand before they can use it. The reality bomb countdown reaches zero, but nothing happens; Donna has manipulated the controls to disable it. The Doctor recognises that the creation of the new Doctor has had an unintended side effect: Donna is now half Time Lord herself, sharing the Doctor's intellect. She explains that the meta-crisis that created the other Doctor also affected her, but the effect had laid dormant, just needing a little spark to start it. She then loudly and proudly thanks Davros for electrocuting her. Donna and the new Doctor then free the others, and, with the help of the original Doctor, disable the Daleks and start to send the planets back to their proper time and space. The Daleks are left spinning round in circles (literally) thanks to Donna, and the Supreme Dalek descends to the vault, furious to know why Dalek Caan had not seen this. The Doctor correctly suggests that he did see it, and Caan then admits that he had seen the Daleks for what they were and seen all the evil they had caused and secretly assisted the Doctor in their destruction. 26 planets are now returned to their correct coordinates, but before Earth can be sent, the machinery is destroyed by the Supreme Dalek, who is then destroyed by Captain Jack. The original Doctor races into the TARDIS to replace the functionality of the broken machine. Realising that Dalek Caan has seen the end of the Dalek race and has been manipulating time to achieve this, and knowing that, even without the Reality Bomb, the Daleks could still take the universe by force, the new Doctor (probably not kept back by guilt due to the influence of Donna's personality) uses the remaining machinery blast back all of the Dalekanium power cells which destroys all of the Daleks and their fleet. The rest of the companions flee to the TARDIS. While the Doctor offers to save Davros, he refuses, and gesturing at the destruction around them, bellows "Never forget, Doctor, you did this! I name you forever: You are the Destroyer of Worlds!" (a name that the Daleks have associated with the Doctor in the past). Caan ominously predicts once again that one of the Doctor's companions will still die. Unable to save either of them, the Doctor flees into the TARDIS just before the Crucible is destroyed.

The Doctor enlists the help of the other companions, making contact with the Torchwood base, and with Luke Smith, Mr. Smith and K9, to use the TARDIS to return the Earth to its proper place. Sarah Jane says her goodbyes, as well as Jack (who has his vortex manipulator disabled again), Martha, and Mickey, who has decided to remain in this universe. Using a retroactively closing rift, the Doctor returns Rose and Jackie to the parallel world and leaves the new Doctor with her. The original Doctor explains that by destroying the entire Dalek race, the new Doctor has committed genocide. He sees the new Doctor as he was after the Time War, and states that Rose made him better. The new Doctor offers his human life (for he will age as a human and not regenerate) to Rose.

Rose, upset that it's still not the same as having the original, asks both Doctors the words that the Doctor was unable to say to her when they last parted. The new, half-human Doctor, having the same memories and feelings as the proper Doctor, whispers into Rose's ear, and then they passionately kiss.

Returning to their universe, Donna finds she begins to have trouble thinking; the Doctor explains that the human mind cannot take in the Time Lord mental abilities. She begs him not to, but to save her, he wipes her mind of all her encounters with the Doctor, returning her home and explaining to her family, Sylvia Noble and Wilfred Mott, that she must never be reminded of her time with the Doctor or else she will die. As Donna recovers consciousness, she shows no interest in the Doctor, though Wilfred promises he will look out for the Doctor every night while he looks at the sky. The Doctor quickly thanks Wilfred, then returns to the TARDIS alone, exhausted and heartbroken.

Cast

 * The Doctor - David Tennant
 * Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor - David Tennant
 * Donna Noble - Catherine Tate
 * Rose Tyler - Billie Piper
 * Martha Jones - Freema Agyeman
 * Captain Jack Harkness - John Barrowman
 * Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen
 * Davros - Julian Bleach
 * Mickey Smith - Noel Clarke
 * Jackie Tyler - Camille Coduri
 * Wilfred Mott - Bernard Cribbins
 * Sylvia Noble - Jacqueline King
 * Gwen Cooper - Eve Myles
 * Ianto Jones - Gareth David-Lloyd
 * Luke Smith - Thomas Knight
 * Francine Jones - Adjoa Andoh
 * Mr Smith - Alexander Armstrong
 * K9 - John Leeson
 * German Woman - Valda Aviks
 * Anna Zhou - Elizabeth Tan
 * Liberian Man - Michael Price
 * Dalek Voice - Nicholas Briggs
 * Scared Woman - Shobu Kapoor
 * Dalek Operators - Barnaby Edwards, Nicholas Pegg, David Hankinson, Anthony Spargo, Gethin Jones

Individuals

 * Those shown in flashback who died for the Doctor are Harriet Jones, Jabe, The Controller, Lynda Moss, Robert MacLeish, Mrs Moore, Colin Skinner, Bridget Sinclair, Ursula Blake (who did not die but was left permanently disfigured and incapacitated), the Face of Boe, Chantho, Astrid Peth, Luke Rattigan, Jenny (who is in fact not dead, but the Doctor is unaware of this), River Song and the Hostess. Strangely, other individuals who died for the Doctor (ie: Gwyneth from DW: The Unquiet Dead) are not seen, but this could be because there wasn't enough time to fit them in.
 * In spite of all the people that the Doctor remembered, Jenny's "death" appears to affect him the most.
 * Both Rose and the Doctor recognise and reference the familiar resemblance between Gwen Cooper and Gwyneth, whom they encountered in Cardiff in 1869.
 * Rose and Mickey, who previously had an on again, off again relationship, appear to have drifted apart. They do not look at each other, speak to each other, or interact at all, even when they are in the TARDIS together. Mickey does not say goodbye to her (at least not on-screen), though he does say goodbye to Jackie saying he'll miss her "more than anyone", and he tells the Doctor there's nothing for him in the parallel world, "certainly not Rose".
 * Mickey and Jack's initial dislike of each other appears to have been overcome by both men, possibly due to Mickey's growth into a more mature and capable individual.
 * Just before the Doctor is forced to erase her memory, Donna expresses a desire to meet Charlie Chaplin. This is the second finale in a row to have a character state a desire to meet a famous 20th century personality; previously the Doctor told Martha he wanted to meet Agatha Christie (DW: Last of the Time Lords), and Christie subsequently appeared in DW: The Unicorn and the Wasp. It remains to be seen if Donna's reference also serves a foreshadowing. As her mind begins to melt down, Donna also references the American comic strip character Charlie Brown.
 * Like Mickey, Jackie seems to have matured considerably during her stay in the parallel universe. She expertly shoots down a Dalek with a large gun, walks into captivity with little hesitation, and expresses sorrow and compassion for a woman she barely met. Also, she comes to the Doctor's and Rose's aid willingly, something she has never done before. (When she joined the Doctor in DW: Army of Ghosts and DW: Doomsday, she did so accidentally and was not happy about it.)

TARDIS

 * This is the first episode where the TARDIS is fully staffed with six pilots, and the first time it is noted definitively that it was designed for six, after various fanon mentions about it being made for more than a single Time Lord.

Technology

 * The purpose of the Osterhagen key is revealed in this episode. Martha's key is one of several required to set off a network of nuclear weapons buried deep beneath the Earth's surface. If detonated, these weapons would trigger the explosion of the Earth. Each key must be inserted into a control panel at an "Osterhagen station". There are apparently five around the world, but only three need to be manned with a key to initiate the detonation.  Locations seen on screen are Germany, Liberia, China and an unmanned Argentina.  The "Osterhagen Project"  appears to have been in place for decades, according to the woman who supplied food to the guards at the German station.  Given the age of the German woman, and her claim that she knew of the Osterhagen key when she was in London during her youth, the "Osterhagen Project" likely dates to the days when the Brigadier was in charge of the British arm of UNIT.
 * The technology used to emplace the nuclear weapons at the Earth's crust could therefore be linked to the drilling project featured in DW: Inferno''.


 * The Daleks have access to transmat technology.
 * The TARDIS is captured by the Daleks in what they call a temporal prison, but what the Doctor calls a chronon loop.
 * Toshiko Sato installed a time lock around The Hub at Torchwood Three.
 * Sarah Jane uses her sonic lipstick in the same manner as the Doctor's sonic screwdriver. This is the tool's first appearance in the main series.
 * The "three Doctors" send the planets back to their original position through the use of a "magnetron". It is unclear if this is an intentional reference to the magnetrons seen previously in the original series (DW: Day of the Daleks, The Mysterious Planet), or just a general reference to real life magnetrons, used to power microwaves, radar screens and televisions.

Story notes

 * Two major scenes were cut from the episode before broadcast:
 * An extra piece of dialogue on Bad Wolf Bay where the Doctor hands his clone a coral-like piece of the TARDIS, telling him to grow his own. When the clone Doctor protests that it takes thousands of years to grow a TARDIS, DoctorDonna provides him with a faster solution, so that Rose and the cloned Doctor can travel through space "as it should be". This was mentioned in The Doctor's Data section of the Doctor Who Adventures magazine, and in the 398th edition of Doctor Who Magazine, Russell T Davies states that it is perfectly fine to assume that this part of the scene did actually occur. The scene is included on the Series 4 DVD Box Set. (Also if you look closely the clone Doctor is still holding the coral piece in the actual episode.) An interesting note about this scene is that in it The Doctor says 'The Doctor. In the TARDIS. With Rose Tyler. As it should be'. This very closely resembles a line said at the end of Age of Steel by Mickey Smith "Thats the Doctor. In the Tardis. With Rose Tyler". Whether this is intentional or coincidental is unknown.


 * An alternate ending. After saying goodbye to Wilf, the Doctor returns to the TARDIS, which dematerializes; in the kitchen, Donna hears the sound and there is a brief look of recognition on her face which she dismisses; in the TARDIS, a scanner begins receiving a strange signal, prompting the Doctor to launch into his traditional "What? What!? What." response, after which two Cybus Cybermen suddenly rise up behind him - a cliffhanger. Both scenes were included in the Series 4 DVD set released in November 2008; in his commentary, Davies explains that the cliffhanger ending was dropped in response to comments by a writer with Doctor Who Magazine who stated a cliffhanger was inappropriate after such a sad series of scenes. In REF: Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale - The Final Chapter, Benjamin Cook is acknowledged as being the one who convinced Davies to drop the Cybermen cliffhanger. Unlike most deleted scenes from Series 4, it is not possible to retroactively work the "TARDIS piece" and Cyberman cliffhanger sequences into continuity: the Bad Wolf Bay sequence plays out as one long exchange and no room exists to reinstate the discussion about the TARDIS, and the cliffhanger does not coincide with the opening of The Next Doctor, which shows the Doctor not in peril (this due, per The Writer's Tale, to the opening being changed due to the changing of Journey's End's ending). It is possible, however, for the scene of Donna recognizing the TARDIS sound to be fit into continuity.


 * Blue Peter presenter Gethin Jones operates a Dalek in this episode, returning to Doctor Who since his brief appearance as a Cybus Cyberman in The Age of Steel.
 * This was the longest series finale at 65 minutes long, longer even than most of the Christmas specials, except for Voyage of the Damned, which was 71 minutes. This raised some issues with international broadcasts; for example, the broadcast on the CBC in Canada on 12 December 2008 was edited to 44 minutes to fit a regular 60-minute timeslot, with commercials (see below for examples). While the American Sci Fi Channel broadcast aired the episode in its entirety on August 1, it has not since been rerun, instead ending its rotation with The Stolen Earth.
 * Dalek Caan refers to the Doctor as a 'threefold man'. The meaning becomes clear in this episode with both the copy of the Doctor and 'Doctor-Donna'.
 * Once again, as with the previous episode, the opening credits are augmented to include six names, with several overflow acting credits displayed after the opening sequence.
 * This episode marks the first series finale to show a preview of the upcoming Christmas [Special] (2008). After the credits the Cybermen are said to return in the episode. However the episode is unique for being the only series finale in the Russell T Davies era which doesn't end on a cliffhanger (but see above).
 * Graeme Harper's penchant for including a distorted image of a main character is present in this story. Though not included in every single story he's directed for BBC Wales, it's seen often enough to be considered something of a directorial "signature". Similar distortion is achieved through the use of magnifying glasses in Army of Ghosts, The Unicorn and the Wasp, and Utopia, and with mirrors in Turn Left. This time, it's Mickey, Jackie and Sarah Jane that get "the Harper treatment" under a curved window.
 * This story augments the notion that Time Lords have some measure of control over the regenerative process. as seen in Last of the Time Lords. In truth, most regenerations have added at least a little to the general mythos about the process. From the notion that a particular physiognomy could be imposed upon the Second Doctor in The War Games, details have been added about how the process works almost every time one has been depicted. In this case, writer Russell T Davies builds upon his earlier idea that a Time Lord can re-grow whole body parts during "the first 15 hours" following a regeneration (The Christmas Invasion). Here he suggests that a Time Lord can stop the process prior to entering the final stage, provided that he has a matching genetic receptacle into which he can store the energy. However it is not explicitly stated if this method uses up one of the regenerations in the cycle or not due to it not being completed.
 * When the newly created Doctor discovers he's "part Time Lord, part human" he is shocked and reluctant to admit it. This appears to finally settle the debate over whether the Doctor is half-human.
 * The scene where the Daleks are speaking German is possibly a tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact that Terry Nation based the Daleks on the Nazis.
 * The word "Exterminieren", which the German Daleks use, is not in common use. In the German dubs of the episodes, the word used in "Vernichten" (literally, "Reduce to nothing"; colloquially, "Destroy"). The full dialogue for the German Daleks is as follows: "Exterminieren! Exterminieren! Halt! Sonst werden wir Sie exterminieren! Sie sind jetzt ein Gefangener der Daleks! Exterminieren! Exterminieren!" This translates as: "Exterminate! Exterminate! Stop! Or you will be exterminated. You are a prisoner of the Daleks. Exterminate! Exterminate!"
 * This marks the departure of Catherine Tate (Donna Noble) and Billie Piper (Rose Tyler). In an interview with Doctor Who Magazine, Piper was quoted as saying she doesn't see this as a permanent depature. Catherine Tate has no plans to return at the moment, but she has not ruled out a return in the future. Elizabeth Sladen, in an interview published after the episode was broadcast, said she doesn't expect to appear on Doctor Who again, although her own spinoff, The Sarah Jane Adventures would subsequently continue a few months later.
 * This is the third season finale of four to have a character in the TARDIS speaking about possible places to visit before the unexpected departure of a character. In The Parting of the Ways it's the Ninth Doctor speaking of places like the planet Barcelona before regenerating; in Last of the Time Lords, the Doctor suggests visiting Agatha Christie (among others) before Martha announces her departure; in this episode, Donna speaks of visiting Felspoon and meeting Charlie Chaplin before her mind overloads. The only episode to break this pattern so far is Doomsday.
 * Jack has flirted with or shown interest in all of the Doctor's companions appearing in this episode save Donna and Jackie. While he may currently consider Jackie off-limits because of her marriage and her connection to Rose, it is interesting to note that Jack does not pursue the two women who have exhibited the most aggressive attitudes towards the opposite sex, and who would arguably be the most likely to return his advances.
 * The actor credits for Noel Clarke, Camille Coduri, Gareth David-Lloyd and Eve Myles are timed to appear on screen as the respective actors are shown in closeup during the first two scenes.
 * The end of this episode has been voted one of the saddest, in the history of Doctor Who by many fans, surpassing the end of Earthshock and Doomsday. It also had one of the largest body counts, with billions and billions of Daleks, a substantial number of humans, possibly the death of Davros and to an extent, Donna.

Ratings
Journey's End gained an overall, consolidated viewing figure of 10.57 million viewers in its first BBC1 airing. This placed it as the No. 1 program in the UK across all channels of the week, beating all the Wimbledon finals and all 5 episodes of Coronation Street, all 4 of Eastenders and all 5 of Emmerdale. This makes Journey's End the highest rated episode in the 45-year history of Doctor Who, surpassing Voyage of the Damned and The Stolen Earth, both of which ranked second in their respective weeks. However, the episode is not the most-watched episode of the revived series; that distinction belongs to the 13.31 million viewers obtained by Voyage of the Damned (the most-watched episode of all time remains City of Death Part 4 with 16.1 million viewers in 1979, although it only ranked 16th for the week it aired and it should be noted the rival ITV network was 'off the air' at the time in a 3 month long strike due to an industrial dispute, so the only competition BB1 had was BBC2 - rather different to the multi-channel environment of 2008!!). The episode also achieved an Appreciation Index rating of 91, tieing with The Stolen Earth, a number considered unprecedented for a mainstream network drama production.

Despite the initial acclaim from watchers, critics gave it a mixed reception, and the story has been, over time, heavily criticised.

Myths and rumours

 * The week between the cliffhanger ending of The Stolen Earth and the broadcast of Journey's End included some of the most intense fan speculation and media attention in franchise history. The significance of the cliffhanger, which appeared to show the Doctor regenerating, along with previously reported speculation regarding Donna and other characters, led to many speculations being circulated on fan discussion boards and the media. Among some of the most notable:
 * That David Tennant was in fact leaving the series, and that leaked photos and other information regarding him being in the 2008 Christmas special (as well as media reports the preceding week that he was negotiating to return in 2010) were either a "red herring" or that the Christmas special was to include a flashback.
 * The true nature of Donna was the subject of much speculation, with some fans suggesting her to actually be The Rani or Romana living under the influence of a Chameleon Arch, or a manifestation of the Master or Davros.
 * Concerning Donna's ring, at the end of the season 4 finale, when the Doctor says good-bye to her it glimmers briefly into the camera. Some fans theorise that the ring is a possible Chameleon Arch containing Donna's memories of her time with the Doctor. It has also been suggested that the ring resembles a ring worn by The Master in a previous episode. Others theorise that the ring is simply large, black, and very shiny.
 * The prediction that a companion would die led some to believe Donna, Martha or Rose would be the ones destined to die (since it had already been reported that John Barrowman would be returning to Torchwood and Elisabeth Sladen to The Sarah Jane Adventures, ruling out their characters' demise). Ultimately, this was a partial red herring, as it was an aspect of Donna that died, but not the character herself.


 * A number of fans have begun to speculate as to whether or not the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor will eventually become to be known as the enigmatic, malevolent Valeyard. The six-issue comic book mini-series IDW: The Forgotten became the subject of related speculation when the final cliffhanger panel of issue #5 featured the unveiling of a villain resembling the clone; ultimately it was revealed that another villain was responsible (although the Doctor still, puzzlingly, refers initially to the character as the Valeyard).
 * The appearance of K9 was a surprise to many as it had been previously reported that the character would not be appearing in the episode, given the fact the rights to the character are currently held by another party for the planned K9 television series.
 * Some fans believed that Harriet Jones was wanting revenge upon the Doctor for bringing down her reign as Prime Minister, so she decided to help bring the Daleks back, and she was in fact the Supreme Dalek. A supposed "leaked script" showed that Harriet Jones was in fact helping the Daleks. This was proved false.
 * The fact that Jack, Martha, and Mickey depart together has sparked speculation that Martha and Mickey may appear in Torchwood, possibly replacing Tosh and Owen. The subsequent announcement that Freema Agyeman had been signed by ITV, a rival network to the BBC, to take a lead role in the series Law & Order: London, has reduced the chances of her appearing in Torchwood. She did subsequently take part in the BBC Radio adventure Lost Souls, but that story takes place prior to the events of The Stolen Earth. In his book The Writer's Tale Russell T Davies mentions that he had promised Noel Clarke that he would appear in Torchwood Series 3. Ultimately, however, neither Clarke nor Agyeman appear in Children of Earth, and dialogue in "Day 1" indicates that Martha is still with U.N.I.T, and on her honeymoon.

Filming locations

 * At the end the TARDIS lands in Caerphilly.

Production errors

 * When Martha and Jack leave we can clearly see them heading off. However when Mickey is about to leave, they are both out of the picture, and when Mickey heads off for the two, they are seen again.
 * When the Daleks capture the TARDIS in the chronon loop, the TARDIS is the right way up. But when it is being pulled towards the Crucible, it is upside down.
 * When the Doctor and Donna are saying Goodbye on Bad Wolf Bay in the shots of the Doctor and Donna you can clearly see Rose's hair blowing in the wind yet in the shots of Rose her hair isn't blowing and it happens to often to be random gusts of wind.

Continuity

 * In the classic series, the Dalek stories after Genesis of the Daleks revolved in some manner around Davros, exploring the tenacious but ambivalent relationship between the Daleks and their creator. From this and the previous story it would appear that the civil war between the 'Imperial' and 'Renegade' Daleks (Revelation of the Daleks and Remembrance of the Daleks, plus the audio stories) has been resolved with Davros leading a united empire against the Timelords.
 * When the Doctor sees Gwen Cooper for the first time, he asks if she comes from a long line of family from Cardiff. This is because of the similarity between Gwen and Gwyneth (DW: The Unquiet Dead), both of whom are played by Eve Myles. This similarity has been explained by Russell T Davies: "It's not familial as we understand it. There's no blood tie. Spatial genetic multiplicity means an echo and repetition of physical traits across a Time Rift."
 * This is the first occurrence of the Doctor's TARDIS being piloted by six people, that number first being specified in NA: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible. This is the first on-screen confirmation that TARDISes are designed for six pilots; this retroactively serves to explain the Doctor's difficulty in correctly piloting the craft dating back to the very first season in 1963.
 * This episode marks the last appearance of the Tenth Doctor's severed hand which first appeared in DW: The Christmas Invasion and throughout the first season of Torchwood. The Doctor makes reference to losing it in the swordfight against the Sycorax leader, and indeed this is the first time Rose has seen the severed hand, since the Doctor didn't retrieve it from Jack until after her departure.
 * Davros mentions meeting Sarah Jane at the birth of his creations; this happened in DW: Genesis of the Daleks.
 * Mickey Smith and Jackie Tyler last appeared in DW: Doomsday.
 * Donna tells the Doctor how to fix the Chameleon Circuit, which has been broken since DW: An Unearthly Child. The Sixth Doctor had previously attempted this in DW: Attack of the Cybermen, as had the Fourth Doctor in DW: Logopolis. Dialogue in Rose and Boom Town implied he was no longer interested in changing its external appearance and rather liked the police box form, plus in the QuickReads book, Made of Steel, The Doctor talks about fixing the Chameleon circuit, but says he would be worried about forgetting what it looked like.
 * The fact a single TARDIS has enough power to relocate Earth harks back to DW: The Mysterious Planet which established that approximately 2 million years into the future, the Time Lords will once again move Earth to another part of the universe, where it will come to be known as Ravolox.
 * This is the fourth time a Doctor has been depicted in a way to suggest he was unclothed (though, this time, not the actual Doctor). The first time was in Spearhead from Space, in which a newly regenerated Third Doctor took a shower. The second was during the regeneration from the Seventh to the Eighth Doctor, where he was merely covered by a sheet. The Ninth Doctor appeared shirtless during the torture scene in Dalek.
 * Gallifrey is mentioned again.
 * The Doctor tells Wilf that he's "fine" after he drops off Donna. This echoes a similar statement in Forest of the Dead which Donna interprets as meaning the complete opposite.
 * The Verron Soothsayer, who gave Sarah Jane Smith the Warp star, was mentioned previously in SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?
 * The device created by the Meta-Crisis Doctor looks similar to the device used against the Daleks in (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks), and that device was similar to one the Third Doctor built on Spiridon in (DW: Planet of the Daleks)
 * Jack introduces Gwen as Gwen Cooper. This is the first on-screen confirmation that Gwen has not changed her last name to Williams, per the events of TW: Something Borrowed, or maybe she has but Jack and the members of Torchwood and her friends still call her Gwen Cooper.
 * "The Dream of a Normal Death" is heard again as the Doctor remembers the people who have died in his name, and again as he pilots the TARDIS at the end of the episode. This was first heard at the end of The Family of Blood when John Smith and Joan are holding the watch and seeing the future.
 * An interesting and speculative tie-in might be made with Genesis of the Daleks. In Genesis the Fourth Doctor is told by a Time Lord that they, the Time Lords, foresee a time when the Daleks will have destroyed all other life and become the dominant life forms in the universe. Are the Time Lords here foreseeing the success of the Reality Bomb? If so, do the Fourth Doctor's actions to hold back the Dalek's evolution replace that timeline with one in which the Bomb does not succeed?
 * The Doctor again states his aversion to violence, and in particular his horror of genocide. The original Doctor is appalled when his half-human self destroys the Daleks, evil as they are. He recognises however, that the destructive impulse comes from himself. In Genesis of the Daleks the Fourth Doctor likewise has an opportunity to destroy the Daleks, but is faced by a moral quandry.'Do I have the right?' he asks. When Sarah Jane Smith says, 'You can't doubt it! You must complete your mission for the Time Lords', the Doctor replies, 'If I do this, I become like them'(the Daleks). Tellingly, however, he lets the question remain unanswered. The Tenth Doctor would appear to have resolved not to genocide the Daleks, possibly because he appears to have been the cause of the genocide of both the Time Lords and the Daleks in the Time War. In Journey's End Davros points out the apparent hypocrisy of the Doctor's creed of non-violence. 'You take ordinary people and fashion them as weapons', he says. 'How many have died in your name?' In Boom Town Blon Fel Fotch says something similar: 'you keep on running because you daren't look back'. In Resurrection of the Daleks, Tegan, sick of the death that seems to follow the Doctor, leaves the Fifth Doctor acrimoniously. The disturbed Doctor comments, 'it seems I must mend my ways'. In The Runaway Bride Donna, observing the Doctor's terrible power, tells him, 'you can stop now!' Later she says, 'you need someone to stop you'.The Doctor himself is aware of his power and it terrifies him. In Journey's End he is seen to recognise the truth of Davros's reproach.
 * Davros' apparent last words are "Never forget, Doctor, you did this! I name you, forever! You are the Destroyer of Worlds!". "Destroyer of Worlds", as a translation of "Ka Faraq Gatri", was a title which had previously been used by the Daleks to refer to the Doctor. See Aliases of the Doctor.
 * In Genesis of the Daleks, the Doctor tries to convince Davros that the Daleks are dangerous by likening them to a virus that could kill all living forms. He asks Davros, that if he created such a virus, would he unleash it? Davros considers for a moment, before saying that he would do it, that such power would set him up amongst the Gods, confirming his madness. In Journey's End, Davros has created the Reality bomb, a device which will destroy all of reality, and all life forms. Essentialy, Davros has created the very virus the Doctor described.
 * The Meta-Crisis Doctor describes the Human-Time Lord Meta-Crisis as "wizard", in Donna's World, Donna used this same expression when the Royal Hope Hospital returns to Earth.(DW: Turn Left).
 * The events of this story were later erased by a Crack, and whether or not they were restored after the universe was rebooted is unknown, though highly likely.

For the Doctor

 * Journey's End occurs after: DW: The Stolen Earth
 * Journey's End occurs before: IDW: The Forgotten

For Torchwood

 * Journey's End occurs after: TW: Exit Wounds and the radio play Lost Souls
 * Journey's End occurs before: TW: Children of Earth and its prequel radio plays.

For The Sarah Jane Adventures

 * Journey's End occurs after: SJA: The Lost Boy (conjectural)
 * Journey's End occurs before: SJA: The Last Sontaran (conjectural)
 * See The Last Sontaran for discussion as to whether this story takes place before or after these events. 

Home video releases

 * Released in the Series 4 DVD boxset in November 2008 along with the rest of the Series.
 * Released as Series 4 Volume 4 in a vanilla edition alongside Turn Left and The Stolen Earth on 1st September 2008.

Non-UK broadcast editing
Journey's End was broadcast on the CBC in Canada on 12th December 2008 in an extensively edited version, created in order so that the episode, which ran appoximately 65 minutes without commercial interruption on the BBC, could fit into a standard 60-minute time slot with commercials, meaning the episode itself had to be whittled down to approximately 44-45 minutes. The deletion of approximately 20 minutes of scenes renders this version of Journey's End one of the most extensively edited Doctor Who episodes in the entire history of the franchise. The CBC subsequently made an unedited version of the episode available, but only on its website (and the broadcast occurred after Series 4 had been released to DVD in that country).

A partial list of the major edits can be found on the Doctor Who Information Network website here. Among major scenes deleted: the Meta Crisis Doctor's connecting the dots between his/the Doctor's coincidential encounters with Wilf and Donna, the Doctor's farewell to his companions in the park, Rose's final question to the Doctor and her subsequent kissing of the Meta Crisis Doctor, and the final scene of the Doctor in the TARDIS, alone.

It was subsequently announced that the CBC was discontinuing its broadcasts of Doctor Who, with the competing network, Space, taking over broadcasts of the series beginning with The Next Doctor and continuing into 2010.

BBC America also aired an extensively edited version of the episode in February 2009.