"Dr. Who" Cares

Now here's a season finale: I've found most that I've seen in the past couple of months a little on the underwhelming side, but "Dr. Who" (9 p.m. Friday on the Sci Fi Channel) again threatens to blow up the entire universe, and you sort of have to get behind that.

Longtime Who foes the Daleks (which sort of look like ornate Victorian park wastebins transformed into pokey little robots) again rear their ugly little -- well, not heads, exactly. For bonus fiendishness, there's the God of the Daleks, who is determined to subjegate the human race. His army of Daleks were once human, which inspires The Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) to go on a little tirade:

"Driven mad by your own flesh -- the stink of humanity -- you hate your own existence, and that makes them more dangerous than ever." That took me out of the show a bit, because I thought for a second he was addressing me personally.

All The Doctor has on his side is a hastily thrown-together gadget that will produce a "Delta Wave," which, granted, will "kill every living thing in its path," but on the upside, no more "According to Jim."

"Better to die a human than to live a Dalek," is the thinking here, but can The Doctor do it? Can he destroy the known universe (and parts of the unknown one, as well)?

Before he makes his decision, he sends Rose (Billie Piper), his traveling companion for the past season, back to the relative safety of present-day London. This, naturally, doesn't set well with her.

Not to give anything away (that you couldn't've found online anyway), but Eccleston -- who was a quite entertaining Doctor -- gives way her to his replacement for the next season (which is currently airing in England), David Tennant ("Viva Blackpool," "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire").

A whole bunch of people are killed in this episode (most offscreen), and fortunately, they kill off the robot Anne Robinson ("You are the weakest link -- good-bye") they introduced in an earlier episode.