It was... okay. I voted Above Average, but only because there isn't something between Average and Above Average. I liked the bits with Donna and her granddad. I liked the parts where you could see what the Doctor was feeling.
But quite frankly, Rose and her lot were utterly pointless. What, precisely, was the reason for her return? Oh yeah, she had to warn the Doctor of the coming darkness. That took three episodes? And when she shows up, what's her big plan for stopping this horrible threat? "I need to find the Doctor and hope he can come up with a plan to save everything." Personally, I would have, I don't know, brought more than three guns between myself, Mickey and Jackie, if I was expecting to kick some ass. I would have tried to gather the most advanced weapon, bomb, or tech I could find to use against aliens that I could carry with me... in case, for whatever reason, I don't happen to run across the Doctor and need to try and stop them myself.
She had no real information to give him--it's kind of hard to fight "the coming darkness" and the 'stars going out', and what she did tell him about the future when the Doctor asked was that it was the Daleks. Um, yeah--all the Daleks around them wasn't a clue that maybe they were behind it all?
Rose and Mickey and Jackie (and the only thing the latter two did was save Sarah Jane, which could have been rewritten so that after she saw the TARDIS captured, simply gave herself up to give herself the opportunity of being in the right place at the right time to help the Doctor without either of them rescuing her) did nothing to help avert the crisis. They mostly just stood around. At least the other companions brought something with them to fight (okay, Jack just brought his gun, too, but then he can't die permenantly as far as he knows, so he could try and use pretty much anything in hopes of stopping the Daleks).
Martha had the Austerhagen key, which would have destroyed Earth, had she simply used it instead of giving the Daleks a chance to back off--which is something the Doctor also would have done if he was in Martha or Jack's place, he would have offered the Daleks the opportunity to back off. That's something that Davros does not understand about the Doctor's "Children of Time", I think--he just thinks that the Doctor made them into his warriors--but the Doctor also taught them that fighting should only be used as a last resort. Sarah Jane's little warp star on a necklace that she gave to Captain Jack would have taken out the station they were on and all the Daleks there, but again, he gave them a chance to back off before using it. They were willing to sacrifice themselves in order to stop the Daleks if necessary.
Granted, neither the Austerhagen key nor the warp star were used either--but those were real threats to the Daleks, to their plan, to some degree. Especially if Martha and the UNIT operatives had set off the nukes and Jack had set off the warp star at the same moment--no guarantee that they would wipe out all of the Daleks, but they quite probably could have taken out a significant portion of them.
Rose and company had nothing to lose in this universe (well, Rose had the Doctor--or thought she did--I suppose, but she didn't really fight for him, either) in this battle, and for me, that made them superfluous. I mean, Davros ranted about his plan wiping out all life across all the universes, and that rant provided the same information that Rose did about what was going on.
And yes, I admit I don't like Rose. There are a few episodes where I thought she was okay, but I'm sorry, I honestly, truly did not see a need for her in this.
I also would have liked to have a bit more with the Shadow Proclamation and the Judoon. It did seem rather pointless to just have that one scene in TSE and nothing else. Yeah, sure, they pointed out to the Doctor that there were other places besides Earth missing, but that's all they did... it still took the Doctor and Donna to put it all together what was going on.
I am saddened by Donna's fate, which in many ways is far, far worse than Adric's. At least Adric died. She doesn't even remember just how special she actually was. That's sad. Yes, I understand that she can't miss what she doesn't remember--but being one of those who cringed when informed that CT was reprising her role this season, I have to say that I was most pleasantly surprised by her performance (for the most part, there were still a few times when I cringed this season), and I actually felt something when she was left behind at the end, bereft of those memories and back to her RB self.
I do hope that the Doctor runs into Wilf again, he was one of the highlights of this season. Even if it's nothing more than a quick scene where Wilf tells the Doctor how Donna is getting along.
Even if Donna can't remember the Doctor, maybe the Doctor can give Donna a little help like he did with Martha. Not working for UNIT of course (if there's anything left of it, that is), but maybe, just maybe, someplace where how much she actually cares about others can shine through, and maybe then she can achieve for herself on Earth what her travels with the Doctor did for her... and she can grow back into the person most of us had grown to like by the end of this season.