From A to 7Q - Review: Utopia / The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords

Holistic Review: As a prelude, Utopia is mostly a few character revelations leading up to a massive reveal, while the latter two episodes kind of squander their potential by giving us an almost-unrecognizable Master and a plot that pretty much only engages on an action level.

Let me tell you, I really had to wrestle with how to review these episodes. All the marketing leading up to its airing made Utopia sound like a standalone episode, so the To Be Continued... at the end came as a bit of a shock (which is good). Unfortunately, Utopia was neither fully standalone, nor was it fully integrated into the following episodes (The Sound of Drums, after all, starts with the usual teaser rather than a recap). The Sound of Drums makes, I think, a grave error in judgment by beginning with the TARDIS crew's escape, and then giving us a flashback to how they escaped... way to totally drain the tension out of that (actually pretty awesome) cliffhanger, guys. And thereafter, aside from the Master's presence, it seemed like that one brief flashback was going to be the story's only real link to Utopia. Fortunately we do get the rather depressing revelation later on that the last survivors of the human race have turned themselves into the childlike murderous Toclafane, which isn't a super-strong link to Utopia, but it was enough to convince me that I kind of had to review all three as one continuous narrative - besides, that's clearly what the production team intended, even though the plotlines and cast lists between the Malcassairo and Earth segments are utterly distinct. I'm trying to talk myself into this by reminding myself that The Seeds of Doom was much the same, but at least there we had Scorby, Keeler and the second Krynoid pod to link the two distinct segments. But enough of my personal debate, it's time for me to rip into this tale of world domination.

The thing everyone is talking about, of course, is the return of the Master. Unlike Sarah and K-9 last season, this was not ever on my wish-list, yet I found myself strangely excited by the idea anyway. (I won't lie, it's at least partly because if the Master found a way to survive, then maybe the Rani did too.) The spoilerphobe in me is very sad to admit that his appearance was not a surprise at all; his inclusion in this season was revealed on the Outpost Gallifrey news page way back on February 10th, over a month before the season actually began - with a massively spoilery headline for the first few hours, until one of the editors caught it and changed it to "Major Spoiler revealed in Independent on Sunday" instead. I would, however, have remained blissfully unaware of his involvement in Utopia, had I not been browsing an unrelated section on the Outpost Gallifrey forum several days beforehand, and caught a post from someone with inside knowledge, giving a preview of the last few episodes, who mentioned a connection between Professor Yana and the Master. Sigh.

But, man, Derek Jacobi is good. As Yana, he's very likeable, full of enthusiasm and nobility and humble genius. I love his palpable excitement over the Doctor's presence. And the difference between Yana and the Master is chilling... the moment that old Time Lord personality reasserts itself, Jacobi's eyes alone are enough to send chills down your spine. He spits out lines dripping with venom and menace, and even though he may not look like the Master of old, they're clearly the same person. (I was a bit underwhelmed with the big-dramatic-reveal pronouncement "I... am... the Master!" - not to mention the eye-rolling "The Master... reborn!" - but that's probably at least partly because I already knew exactly what was coming. I admit, I did get a big grin on my face and a bit of a chill down my spine, but that was mostly because I was interested to see how this would all play out. Andrew, on the other hand, had expressed to me, out of the blue one day while we were folding clothes at the laundromat and discussing the recently-aired Gridlock, that he really hoped the Master would come back someday (my response was a neutral "Oh, really?"). When Yana revealed his true identity, Andrew cried "Yes!" and punched the air with a big grin on his face. Much like me when the Macra came back. So what do I know?) Anyway, Jacobi does a great job in his few scenes as the Master. He definitely possesses the gravitas needed to embody the role of the Master, effortlessly radiating evil and contempt, a fierce intelligence, and a malevolent glee at being revived to cause havoc in the universe again.

I only wish I could say the same about John Simm. Oh, Simm is a fine actor - I've liked him a lot in the little I've seen of Life on Mars and he's very entertaining to watch in this story - but as the Master? I'm sorry, but utterly miscast. I was reminded of nothing so much as Eric Roberts. Both look completely unlike the Delgado/Ainley versions (although at least Roberts had dark hair) and both have wisecracking, unsubtle senses of humor that undermine how frightening the Master can be. Both classic Masters had enjoyable senses of humor too, but Delgado's was charming in a manipulative sort of way, and Ainley's was often just cruel. Simm's comes across as just plain silly, and sometimes inappropriately over-the-top. We've got:

(forced grin)

(pantomime frown)

(forced grin)

(pantomime frown)

Rereading my criticism of Roberts' Master, I find more or less identical problems with Simm's performance: he'd be a great villain for the 21st century, but he doesn't usually feel like the Master, and he too has a casual and smarmy air. In his interview with DWM, he revealed, "I can barely remember the other actors who've done it. I saw the Eric Roberts one. Didn't really fill me with fear. I do remember the other guy, a kind of hypnotist - Roger Delgado, was it? But the way this one's written, it's just not going to be like that, so I didn't concern myself with not measuring up. I just wanted to know how Eric Roberts died, that's all, so I had to sit through that movie to find out. The whole movie." He then insists that he wasn't planning to "ham it up" like Roberts did, but I have to wonder - if the TV movie was the only example of the Master that Simm had to refer to, might he not have assumed that the character had always been like that? It would explain a lot.

Compared directly with Roberts, though, I definitely prefer Simm's performance. Every once in a while, he gets a line that sounds very Master-like, and his final confrontation with the Doctor is pretty much pitch-perfect (it even reminds me more than a little of Survival). But if you're not going to give me dark hair and a satanic goatee, or an evil-looking suit, or a cruel/calculating/charming personality, then how do you expect me to buy that this is the same Master? I had really assumed that Simm would be here for the long haul, playing the Master on a recurring basis, but I'm just as glad that this incarnation has been burned to dust. And just to be clear, I'm not laying the blame firmly at his feet - I think he was largely going on the way the Master was written, as a villain who tosses around threats amid constant grins and flippant comments. I kept asking myself during this story, could I hear Delgado or Ainley delivering these lines? And in the majority of cases, the answer was "no". So what character did RTD think he was writing for? I suppose there's the argument that the Doctor's personality changes completely with a regeneration, so there's no reason why the Master's wouldn't too... but when he stayed fundamentally the same for 18 years, it's jarring to be presented with such a radical departure.

Alas, it isn't just the Master that disappoints. I also must admit that I don't find the plot to be all that engaging. Utopia is partly a chance for us to catch up with Jack and find out more about his past, and get a glimpse into the Doctor's psyche, but mostly the entire plot is an excuse to get us to like Professor Yana just in time for him to reveal that he's the Master. Granted, that reveal is very well-done... I wasn't expecting to see him with a chameleon-arch watch at all (when we watched it as a group, that moment gave me a stereophonic "Ohh!" from Gray on my left, and a gasp of shock and surprise from Andrew on my right), and it's a very very nice link to Human Nature. Between the dual themes of "what does it mean to be human?" and "how does the Doctor cope with being alone in the universe?", this season has had a very nice through-line that makes it feel a bit more cohesive than previous years, even if I haven't been as thrilled with the individual stories. But if you take away this dramatic reveal and unmasking, you're left with... the Doctor launching a rocketship. Even the Futurekind, which are built up to be a massive threat (yet an undefined one; we're led to believe that they eat humans if they can catch them, but this is never even said outright, much less turned into a tangible and terrifying issue), are given nothing more to do than lurk around menacingly, try to chase the Doctor and friends, and commit one act of sabotage. And then there's all that hoohah over the couplings; after three times viewing this episode, I still don't really understand why lowering them fixes the footprint and enables the rocket to work. It feels totally like a set piece that's included to inject a bit of suspense, but it fails at that pretty much completely (given that we don't know why it really needs to be done, and Jack's hardly in any danger), so therefore it must be pure padding, or a flimsy excuse to get Jack and the Doctor talking.

Where Utopia is lightweight (if entertaining) fluff, the following two episodes feel kind of like over-egged pudding. (And The Sound of Drums seemed to be cultivating an Aliens of London feel, between all the scenes of people watching news unfold on TV that RTD likes so much, that American newscaster again, more intrigue in Downing Street, a musical reprise of the score as the President arrives in England, and - reminiscent of the similarly-pitched Christmas Invasion - the Archangel project, which, like Guinivere, is British-developed but globally-aimed.) The Parting of the Ways had a dramatic showdown between the Doctor and the Daleks, and Rose's ascension to godhood as she destroyed the entire Dalek fleet, and Doomsday had the even more emotional thread of Rose's ultimate fate, but Last of the Time Lords has nothing. Well, it has the Doctor's complex relationship with the Master, but while that's interesting, it just doesn't compare to the last two season finales. We do have a terrifying threat to the entire world, but we had that the last two years too, and this one is even undone (to my great relief, I nevertheless admit). So I kind of felt like lots of actiony things were happening, and it was all very exciting, but I wasn't terribly invested in it. What's worse, the things that should have been getting me emotionally involved instead just came across as really horribly cheesy.

Which brings me to the saddest part of my review... the Things I Hated. I don't remember the last time I had a reaction like this to anything in a Doctor Who episode. One thing that I don't really like is okay, but here they just kept piling on top of one another and making me cringe repeatedly. So here is my list of shame:

Yana. I mean, really. YANA? What, are we meant to assume that the Master somehow found out about the Face of Boe's final words (when even the Doctor didn't know them), and then crafted the acronym into a pseudonym for his human self, as a very very subtle hint to the Doctor? Given that he was assuming someone would draw his attention to the watch and enable his Time Lord self to be restored, and therefore was not expecting to run into the Doctor while still human, I find this unlikely. (And if he was worried enough about the Daleks to hide as a human at the end of the universe, why did he want to be restored sooner rather than later?) Which means that this whole wink-wink name thing was just RTD thinking he was being very very clever, which is also made abundantly clear when it turns out that the entire point of Atillo's conversation with Yana over the monitors was so that we would have a shot of him slowly typing out Y-A-N-A, to be used later over a flashback to the Face of Boe's final words. How melodramatic, and ridiculous.
Computers doing things that computers never actually do. Saxon's website suddenly launches a popup alerting the Doctor and company that he's about to broadcast a televised speech on all channels; since when do web pages do double-duty as personal calendars? An online listing of "upcoming appearances" would have made a lot more sense. More teeth-grindingly irritating, Vivian sends Torchwood a video clip of herself urgently detailing Saxon's background. Oddly, the URL at the top of the screen indicates that she has plastered it right on the main page of the Daily Examiner website. And just as she mentions having attached a file with information on Saxon, suddenly there appears a bold-graphic button proclaiming "File Attached", with a little accompanying bleep. One can only assume that after compiling this vital message, Vivian sat down to design the button in Photoshop, linked it to her attached files, and then synchronized it to her video so that it would appear at just the right moment. Which probably took hours of valuable time. When instead she could have assumed that they would see the "Attached files" listing in the header. It's such a trivial thing to get irritated about, but it's also so stupid.
The superfluous plot element, which was probably an ill-judged attempt to tie this story more closely to The Lazarus Experiment and justify the Master funding Lazarus' research, of the Master aging the Doctor by 100 years. While this does illustrate how much the Master wants to humiliate the Doctor, it really serves no purpose other than to incapacitate the Doctor and prevent him from doing much of anything. (Which is odd, because I doubt that 100 years of aging would make him anywhere near as decrepit as this. Certainly the books didn't think so, when they let the eighth Doctor live out 100 years on Earth.) Maybe they just liked the old-age makeup from The Family of Blood so much, they wanted an excuse to re-use it. And I probably could have lived with this plotline if not for the horrific moment in which the Master decides to suspend the Doctor's capacity to regenerate (...how can he do that?!), which for some reason results in the Doctor turning into a little shrivelled CGI creature with gigantic eyes, reminiscent of Gollum. I mean, I know Tennant's large eyes are one of his defining features, but this is taking things more than a little bit too far! And the effect looks terrible. And there's no discernible reason why the Doctor turns out that way, either, since "suspending your ability to regenerate" is not the same thing as "making you look 900 years old".
The Doctor's scheme, which is supposed to make me leap up and down in emotional joy, but instead just makes me roll my eyes and groan. I really like the idea of the Doctor turning the Master's mental-manipulation Archangel network against him, but I just don't understand how he does it. Archangel links all the communications systems in the world, and is using them to project a subliminal message of control into everyone's brains. So, yes, the world's population is all linked, but it seems to be a one-way system. And it's certainly not manifesting anything, it's just persuading people to believe in the Master, or at least it used to be. So everyone thinking about the Doctor should, at most, overload the system and cause it to crash, surely. What is it about Archangel that can take these thoughts, convert them into some kind of healing energy (or artificial-aging-reversal energy) and pinpoint the person that everyone's thinking about so that it knows who to deliver this magical energy to? This isn't science, or even science-fiction. It's "If you believe in fairies, clap your hands and Tinkerbell will get well again!" As a result, it probably appeals just fine to people under ten, but otherwise it seems way too contrived. And it only gets worse when not only does the Doctor revert to normal, he starts to FLOAT (in a fake-looking way) like some kind of omnipotent vengeful angel, and on top of that temporarily develops telekinetic powers and a magical protective shield. Why float??? I'm sure RTD thinks it makes the Doctor look majestic and grand, but I just wanted to hide my eyes.
This "revelation" that Jack will one day be the Face of Boe, which is meant to be funny, but which I just find horrific. Leaving aside the fact that normal-sized Jack is apparently going to grow to enormous proportions over the next five billion years, I can't stand the idea that he's going to have to suffer through such a transformation. It's a horrible, sad notion and I don't like it one bit. I can only hope that he's pulling their legs, because he was present when Martha was reminding the Doctor of the Face of Boe's last words, so he's at least heard of him, and perhaps the Face of Boe was somewhat well-known in Jack's own time. Besides, his segue into that story is very awkward. And even if it is a joke - which, deep down, I don't think it was - I am not amused.

Just on the "majorly annoying" side of Hated are:

The fact that we never get a satisfying explanation for "the sound of drums". Apparently the Master started hearing it after viewing the Untempered Schism, but... why drums? At one point the Master mentions them getting louder, as if there's some root cause of the drumming noise that's building to a head or preparing to reveal itself, but if that's the case, then it apparently isn't ready yet, because that comment comes to nothing. The buried signal in Archangel is apparently meant to be a clever (and probably meaningful) connection between the drums in the Master's head and the drums in everybody else's head, but I can't see any reason why the Master would have deliberately chosen to encode his signal with that same pattern. As a result, it feels kind of like an unlikely coincidence that doesn't really succeed in tying the plot strands together. Davies' inclusion of the song "Voodoo Child" (which I think I like a lot) forces me to assume that the entire reason why the Master is apparently hearing drums is because Davies likes that song a lot, and decided that he could then use it within the story itself as a clever little wink. Couldn't he have done something a little more thematic that could have actually contributed something to the plot? Maybe I speak too soon, and we'll get an answer to this down the road, but right now I just find it annoying, because I was waiting eagerly for a fascinating answer to that question, and we got zilch. (I do really like that it's the same beat as the Doctor Who theme tune, but that's small comfort.)
The fact that RTD's determination to have a Master for the modern age not only necessitated the removal of the goatee... and, um, apparently his personality... but also the TCE. Words cannot express how disappointed I was by the "laser screwdriver". How much cooler would it have been if he had shrunk Jack down to a little tiny doll?
The tendency to rewrite history by revealing information after a cliffhanger that we didn't have before it; in this case, the shot of the Doctor whispering something to Martha shortly before she teleports away. Without that snippet of information, it looks like Martha's turning tail and running out of pure fear. We have no reason to believe that her declaration to return is anything other than bluster or desperate hope, because she certainly doesn't look like she has a plan. In fact, it looks like her plan is "leave the relative safety of the Valiant and go to Earth to get slaughtered."
The Master's Cassandra-esque about-face from "I will not destroy this planet if it also destroys me in the process" to "I'd rather die than be locked up in your TARDIS!". Granted, the idea of eternal imprisonment is a pretty powerful motivator, but come on - he's escaped the Doctor's clutches bunches of times before; why not live in hope? Surely he would've escaped the TARDIS sooner or later. I mean, for heavens' sake, just cause another critical timing malfunction! So, his decision to suppress his regeneration (who even knew Time Lords had control over that sort of thing? though I suppose Azmael did...) just doesn't ring true. Unless, of course, he was planning on funneling his essence into his ring, or whatever it is he did... then this point would make a lot more sense.

What a disappointing end to a highly variable season. It started on a pretty strong note, then dipped down into the doldrums of cliché before soaring to heights practically unseen since the 2005 revival... and here it comes crashing right back down. I'm not going to say it's quite as dire as that mid-season slump, because although there were things I hated, there were also things I really enjoyed... but it's definitely sad to see such a promising season falter like this at the end.

I'm coming down so hard on this story. I didn't realize I disliked it quite this much. So let me also mention a few Things I Loved (...okay, there are two):

All the links to the past, which helped convince me that Simm's Master was the Master, even when his performance didn't sell it. These include the dialogue snippets of Ainley's malevolent laugh and Delgado ordering Azal to "Destroy him! Then you will give your power to me!", as well as references to the Axons and the Sea Devils, the Master chuckling over children's television (this time, the Teletubbies), and his line "Peoples of the Earth, please attend carefully."
Getting to see Gallifrey again (or, for the first time since the revival). The panning shot across the landscape of the Wastelands and the Capitol dome filled me with joy, and that Time Lord in billowing robes made me feel nostalgic in a way I wasn't at all expecting. We even get our first black Time Lord, the Master as a child wearing the same kind of clothing we saw in The War Games, and oh, oh, the Seal of Rassilon, on the floor in front of the Untempered Schism. I didn't notice it until my third viewing, prior to which I'd been a little sad that it had been replaced on the collars of the Time Lords' robes by the new Gallifreyan symbol(s).

So, all praise to David Tennant for being here and making everything watchable. Sometimes I think I don't articulate enough just what a delight he is, but his portrayal is just so enjoyable. When the Doctor solemnly declares that of course they must leave the far-far future, anybody could have predicted that he would immediately lead the way out of the TARDIS, but Tennant's excited grin makes it all quite fun. (and it's just a good thing he didn't decide to leave immediately, or else poor Jack would've been stranded!) The Doctor's reaction to Martha's revelation about the watch is great - almost as if he's frantically distracting himself with something else so that he doesn't have to think about it, because he's worried and even terrified by what the reality of the situation might be. His panicked "What about now? Can he see it now?" speaks volumes, as does his snapping at Martha. I really really like the fact that the Doctor was threatening the Master with his forgiveness - which the Master could not abide but the Doctor insisted upon giving. (It may be clichéd, but it worked for me.) And his reaction to the Master's death is just brilliant. His anguished scream is so believable... he's really been given lots more emotional scenes to work with this year, and he shines in all of them.

Freema Agyeman is given some good material to work with too. Martha plays a pretty important role in Utopia, even if part of that is accidentally unleashing the Master by making Yana conscious of the watch. It's nice to see her get so furious over Saxon's involvement with her family, I love the way Freema portrays the subtle effect of Archangel with the glazed look on her face as she taps rhythmically while discussing how little she knows about Saxon, and the shot of Martha quaking with fear as the Master advances on her hiding place is surprisingly effective. Her best moment may be Martha's quiet satisfaction, a slight smile playing about her lips and a chuckle escaping, as the Master prepares to kill her - knowing that no matter what happens to her, the Doctor has won. Martha's medical training gets another look-in, as she runs to get the TARDIS medical kit to help Jack. In the finale, she gets to portray a nice new side of Martha, as she returns to England with a new world-weariness and a bit of hardness after having witnessed so many atrocities, yet she's still got hope and determination to make things better. I think the finale is as successful as it is mainly because it focuses on Martha's character, and keeps us intrigued about what's happened to her in the past year. I like her boosted self-confidence and self-assuredness, as Martha realizes that she's more than capable on her own (I'd love to know how she managed to be the only person to escape Japan alive) and that as much as she loves the Doctor, she needs to let it go and move on with her life. I'm still a little irked that her plot arc turned out to be her coping with her unrequited feelings toward the Doctor, but I do like how it turned out, and yet again I hope that now it's finally over. I found myself regretful to see Martha leaving the TARDIS, because I really do like her a lot, but at the same time I was slightly relieved, because it's now an entire season later and Martha is still hardly anything more than Rose in a lab coat. This hit me hard when I was giggling over Martha trying to goad Chantho into "swearing", and then suddenly realized that RTD could have scratched out MARTHA: and written ROSE: and he wouldn't have had to change a word of dialogue. As funny as that scene is, Martha doesn't strike me as the sort of person who finds alien cultures amusing in that way, whereas Rose is the one who probes Raffalo's true feelings about her job, tries to persuade Gwyneth to talk about boys, and mocks Queen Victoria to her face. The really grating thing is that I know I love Freema Agyeman to bits, and I think she was given a seriously raw deal this season, because I just haven't warmed to Martha anywhere near as much as I thought I would. I can only hope that her stint on Torchwood will bring out a new side of Martha, and that when she rejoins the TARDIS crew later next season, we'll see Martha for Martha, and not "the girl who acts exactly like Rose but has an even worse crush on the Doctor".

John Barrowman feels like a breath of fresh air in this story. What a delight it is to have him back, particularly after getting to know Jack better on Torchwood. He strikes up a great rapport with Martha, ganging up on the Doctor to ask him some uncomfortable questions in the nicest way possible, while openly flirting with one another in a rather sweet way. Where Rose was a little doe-eyed around Jack, Martha feels more like his partner in crime, and I enjoyed that a lot. It was also fun to watch Jack flirting with everyone in sight, from Martha to Chantho to some random guy in the silo, with all of them responding favorably! Meanwhile, he's honest and forthcoming with the Doctor about his awkward immortality situation, and as a result the Doctor's able to overcome his - well, "fear" would seem to be an accurate word - and ultimately invite Jack to rejoin him aboard the TARDIS. I'm kind of sad that it wasn't meant to be, because I'd enjoy seeing Jack get to travel with the Doctor for more than a few episodes at a time. It is nice that he wants to stick with Torchwood, though, and hopefully we'll get to see him again as a special guest in future episodes. The other very sad thing is that Jack doesn't actually get very much to do in this story. He and Martha both play fetch-and-carry assistant in Utopia, and then he tags along behind Martha and the Doctor's crusades in The Sound of Drums, before getting captured and chained up for practically all of Last of the Time Lords, as a result of which his presence is barely felt at all in the finale. I'm really happy enough just having him back, but I wish we could have seen a bit more of him! (errr... by which I mean, his lighthearted wit, which was much needed. Not anything involving hidden blasters or rising viewing figures.) And it's awfully nice to finally see him in the credits! Barrowman gives a great delivery to the line "And lookin' good, don'tcha think?", as well as his exhilirated "Oh, I missed this!", and I really like his little wink to Tish as they're trying to organize their escape.

If the major revelation about the Master is Utopia's A-plot, the Doctor's relationship with Jack is most definitely the B-plot. Ever since the Doctor up and left the Game Station, it's been an unresolved issue if he believed Jack to be dead (as his departure would seem to have indicated) or if he knew Jack was alive (as his comments to Rose in the Children in Need special hinted). Here we finally get an answer, from the very first moments, as he clearly sees Jack racing toward the TARDIS but coldly dematerializes without even acknowledging Jack's existence. Yet the Doctor doesn't treat Jack harshly - we just get the very distinct sense that he's trying to avoid Jack and doesn't want to see him, but that he still considers Jack to be a good friend (if perhaps one who's made an unwise choice that the Doctor isn't going to let him forget anytime soon, whether it was his fault or not). And then we finally get a nice heart-to-heart between the two of them, where we find out that the Doctor knew full well (how?!) what Rose did to him, and that he's a little bit prejudiced when it comes to people who can never die. Jack, being Jack, seems to cope with all this rather well, and certainly his immortality provides more than one convenient solution - which I guess is why they weren't willing to write him back into the show full-time. Either way, it's nice to finally find out what happened to him after the Doctor abandoned him, particularly how he wound up back on Earth. (Although I must say, it was pretty weird that he spent a whole season refusing to divulge even the slightest crumb of information to his Torchwood associates, but here he opens up and spills his guts to Martha within minutes of meeting her.) It's nice, though, that at least for now, he's not succumbing to that classic old immortality cliché of desperately wishing to die. After all, at this stage in his life, immortality is still a total bonus, since he can do anything but can't be hurt - it's not until later, when all of his friends start to die, that he'll really start regretting it. (And gosh, that's depressing of me to point out.) For now, I like that he's considered it, but isn't ready to throw in the towel yet. Otherwise I was expecting that somebody would find a way in this story to kill him off for good - although clearly I was forgetting the fact that he's going to be in Torchwood season 2!

I really do always enjoy seeing Martha's family again, although - as usual - Clive and Leo don't get a whole lot to do, while Francine and Tish get the lion's share of the action. At least Trevor Laird gets one great scene in which Martha's trust in her father turns out to be well-placed, and he actually warns her that they're headed into a trap - now I think I really like him. Adjoa Andoh turns in a great performance as a tormented Francine, who gets betrayed by "Saxon" and soon finds herself consumed with hatred for the man. I do find it strange, though, that all it takes is one line from the Doctor and she decides to stop holding a gun on the Master. Way to hustle the plot along, RTD! Maybe the Doctor's been taking hypnotism lessons from the Master, hmmm? (If so, he used them on the Master himself. It likewise takes only one line for the Master to give up his weapon! I mean, it's perceptive of him to point out that the Master would never destroy himself - except for when he does so a few minutes later - but still, that was fast.) As for Tish, I just find myself thoroughly loving Gugu Mbatha-Raw. I don't even know why, I just find her very appealing and relatable, and more and more I wish that they'd gotten Martha and Tish on board the TARDIS. Tish certainly seems like she'd be suited to life as a companion, and how much fun would it be to watch two sisters sharing the universe together? C'mon Martha, persuade her to join you when you come back for another jaunt around the galaxies.

In Utopia, it's Chipo Chung's performance that I'm really going to remember. As the blue insectoid Chantho, her performance is just delightful and really fun to watch. She seems to have a really great sense of humor and a sweet personality, plus her alien qualities are effectively emphasized. I must admit to being disappointed that her usage of particles, which at first I assumed would be a complex system akin to Japanese, or at least different particles for different grammatical functions, turned out to be nothing more than chan at the beginning of an utterance and tho at the end, akin to "over!". But that's not Chung's fault. And, yay to Chantho for holding a gun on the Master, and even going so far as to shoot him! I'm impressed. I was also really impressed with John Bell as Creet, who seemed like an utter natural to me. He's got a great accent, too. I certainly never guessed that he'd won the part in a contest. Might this be the same "videotape yourself reading one of these three speeches" contest that Blue Peter was running a while back?

We've also got the Futurekind here, who come out variably, but are overall really interesting. The first Futurekind woman that we meet - Abigail Canton, I suppose - is pretty freaky, and actually reminds me a whole lot of Mags from The Greatest Show in the Galaxy. And their chieftain, played by Paul Marc Davies, is awesome - he puts in a great performance and really gives 110% to making it seem genuine. Great inflection, great rhythm, great body language, just really impressive. I wish he'd gotten more to do. And then we have the other Futurekind woman, who has somehow managed to smuggle herself into the compound despite having clearly pointed teeth, and who seems to be doing nothing but hanging about in corridors hissing at nothing. The worst is when she advances on the machinery, with sabotage on the brain, and hisses aloud manically as though she's practicing for a bit part in a C-movie vampire flick. I half expected the guards to hold up crucifixes and strands of garlic, or destroy her with beams of sunlight.

I warmed almost immediately to Nichola McAuliffe as Vivien Rook, at least once she revealed the true purpose behind her visit to Lucy. She actually seemed really familiar to me, although I've apparently never seen her in anything, so I'm chalking it up to her Harriet Jones vibe. (I miss Harriet.) Her determination to uncover the truth and desperation to warn the public make her very likeable indeed, and I'm beside myself that she was betrayed and murdered. And then there's Alexandra Moen as Lucy Saxon, who didn't make any particular impression on me in The Sound of Drums, but turns in an awesome powerhouse performance in Last of the Time Lords. In the latter episode, Lucy wanders around like she's shell-shocked and traumatized, with a vacant look in her eyes and a detached delivery. The slight bruise beneath her right eye indicates that the Master may have unleashed some of his brutality on her, and we just don't have any idea how much she's been through in the past year. With her gorgeous red dress, and her slightly unhinged behavior, Lucy has more than a little bit of a Drusilla vibe about her. All of which makes me desperately hope that the feminine hand with red nail polish that picks up the Master's ring at the end belongs to Lucy (although I don't have any idea why she'd want it). The Master trapped in Drusilla's body would be really cool to watch, and I have no doubt that Moen would give us a really really interesting portrayal. Plus it would be a great way to satisfy those people who have always wanted to see a Time Lord gender-swap, without having to resort to a divisive genderbending regeneration. And I might even not miss the Rani so much.

Tom Ellis is likeable as Milligan, although I have to admit that I'm glad the rumours of his impending companionhood seem to be nothing more than that. I liked him, but I didn't find myself blown away, and when they're skipping past characters like Tallulah and Sally, I'd rather not see them just snatch up the next convenient actor. Having said that, I definitely wouldn't be opposed to having him back in a slightly meatier role. Ellie Haddington is great as Docherty, and seemed very familiar to boot, although I think it's because she has a bit of a Zoe Wanamaker air about her. (What is it about the casting of this story, that every other actor reminds me of somebody else?) I was, however, a little amused / perplexed that her reaction to some stranger giving her flowers and explaining "Just to say, I don't blame you"... is to smile with pleasure and sniff them delightedly! Doesn't she wonder what she isn't being blamed for? Tom Golding, as the lad on the stairs, also turns in an earnest and likeable performance; another one I'd like to have seen more of.

I kind of feel the need to take a moment to discuss the plot. Even after all this time, I still don't think I've quite pinpointed why exactly I don't usually fall in love with Russell T Davies stories, but for some reason I never find myself totally hooked. Maybe it's down to that old saying that you should pick one thing and do it well. I know I can rely on Gareth Roberts for great comedy, Paul Cornell delivers heartbreaking emotion, Steven Moffat crafts intricate plots (and, I now know, can creep me out with but a flick of his pen). Davies - maybe as a result of his need to write the opener and closer of each season, which have to satisfy all of the people all of the time - seems to run in every direction at once, and never quite nails any of it solidly. Plus he sometimes falls for that old "it's being made for children, so it must be childish" thing that blighted Rose and Aliens of London. He certainly has his moments - New Earth for comedy, Doomsday for emotion, Gridlock for plotting, and Tooth and Claw for horror - but many of his others have sort of an "all spectacle, no heart" feeling about them. I get that feeling here - some of the humor just falls flat, the plot feels a bit off (with Utopia being all about the twist at the end, and Last of the Time Lords being a "reset button" episide, which I really should have seen coming - not that I was sorry about it, mind!), there aren't really any "scary" moments (some cool paranoia, but no real frights), and the emotion is lacking - we have the Doctor's agony over the Master's sacrifice, but nothing that even remotely compares to Doomsday. Now, I'll watch this trilogy over Aliens of London any day (although, mmmm... Harriet Jones) but I feel it could have been a lot better.

I noticed that the elements which did really appeal to me were the continuity elements - which, now that I think about it, is something that Davies consistently does very well. Definitely one of the major advantages of having a fan in the "big chair". One of the highlights of the story, for me, was the Doctor's cell-phone conversation with the Master, as they fall back into their guarded friendship of old. Very well scripted and portrayed; I really like that even though they're mortal enemies, the Doctor and the Master still share a common background, and each seems to want to reach out to the other even though they find each other's respective moral philosophies to be repugnant. So we have the two of them talking like old friends one minute, and shouting at each other the next. It's a great relationship, and we get a few more tidbits about Gallifrey in the process, as well as the revelation that the Master was resurrected (presumably after falling into the TARDIS' Eye of Harmony) to fight in the Time War. I was hanging on every word. The Master's history as Saxon is also nicely fleshed out - we find out that he was on the Ministry of Defense, which explains why he was authorizing attacks on the Racnoss, and that his success in that campaign is what thrust him into the public eye. We've finally got some revelations about Jack's recent past, plus we find out that he rebuilt the gutted Torchwood to be more Doctor-friendly, which explains why they haven't been coming after the Doctor lately. And the cloister bell is ringing.

I really liked the effects shot of the Malmooth conglomeration, which looks pleasingly alien, although I'm sad that all we get to see of Malcassairo is one dark quarry and the inside of the humans' base. The jets of gas in the cabinet room also fire in a very cool way, with powerful staccato bursts. The "bursting into burnt fragments" effect, on the other hand, looks very fake (more like someone bursting into a bunch of little computer-generated squares), and is annoyingly used for both the effect of the stet radiation and the Toclafane's energy beam (maybe it uses the same radiation? but if so, that's never mentioned). The regeneration effect used for the Master is a bit strange too; Simm looks frighteningly creepy mid-transformation, and not just because he's screaming. Overall the Valiant looks good, but the zoom-out reveal looks strangely unrealistic.

I like the music as Martha calls home to check on her mother and Tish, and again when Martha's family are being taken away. The guitar music at the start of Last of the Time Lords is quite nice too, and there's another nice bit of music as the Master's body burns. And as long as this paragraph is very short, I'll add another short-but-unrelated bit of info: costume design. I love that they gave the Master a red-lined cape, which waves about most dramatically in the breeze, and Martha's purple top looks really pretty on her.

Graeme Harper makes another welcome return, although given the cramped sets of Utopia and the general lack of significant plot developments, he doesn't really get a chance to exercise his creativity. And there's one misjudged edit, where in one shot we have Yana racing out of his office to find the Doctor, and in the next shot we see a man rushing down some steps just as the Doctor is speaking with some officials - we're led to believe that it's Yana, but in fact Yana is apparently nowhere nearby. I do have to say, though, it's pretty cool to see Jack clinging to the outside of the TARDIS as it flies through the Vortex - although whether that's down to Harper's direction or the effects folks, I'm not really sure. Colin Teague gets the last two episodes, and he does some really creative things with different angles and lenses. Among his very nice shots: Albert keeling over dead on the table, the way he portrays the perception filter by veering the Doctor out of the center of the frame when it's activated, the impressively-lit shot of the keys glinting around the TARDIS crew's necks as they stride off into the darkened streets, the breathtaking shot of the Toclafane descending upon the Earth (although it looks like they're targetting people - then again, maybe they were, for death?), the shot over Martha's shoulder as Tom faces the Toclafane, Martha being marched onto the bridge of the Valiant, the Toclafane swarm descending upon theValiant, and Jack grimacing as he fires at the paradox machine. Except there is one really odd shot of Jack trussed up and lit with a pink light, in which he doesn't look a thing like John Barrowman.

Minor points:

I've been hard on this story, but it does have a lot of quotable lines:
Chantho: "chan I am happy drinking my own internal milk tho."

I'd love to know how Utopia fits in with Frontios. The latter story was also set in a time period past the Doctor's boundary of "legal" travel, but it was also settled by humans fleeing the Earth's destruction. Whether we assume that The Ark and The End of the World take place at separate times or at different times, Frontios must be contemporaneous with one of them. (In Timelink, Jon Preddle assumes a date of 10 million for The Ark and several decades later for Frontios; I'll have to hunt down my copy of Lance Parkin's A History of the Universe to see what he says on the matter.) Either way, both Frontios and Utopia are presented as "beyond the limits of the Doctor's knowledge", "in an era he should not be visiting", and "the last refuge of mankind". If they're set trillions of years apart, that seems more than a bit strange. (And I seem to recall, although I'll have to double-check, that there are stars in Frontios, which means they definitely can't be set in the same time period.) Then again, the Doctor does say that humankind spends a period of time in a gaseous form (bizarre), so maybe Frontios was the last pre-vapor colony? But that would only explain away the "last refuge of humankind" thing, not why the Doctor wasn't supposed to be travelling that far into the future. (If Frontios is only around the year 10 million, then that should mean the Year Five Billion stories ought to be out of bounds, too.)

Love Freema's delivery, as the Doctor admonishes Jack for flirting with Martha:
Doctor: "Oh, don't start!"
Jack: "I was only saying hello!"
Martha: "I don't mind."

Nice exchange (although what does the Doctor mean? Is he joking?):
Doctor: "Although, have you had work done?"
Jack: "You can talk!"

Woohoo! Martha and Jack gang up on the Doctor!
Martha: "But the thing is, how comes you left him behind, Doctor?"
Doctor: "I was busy."
Martha: "Is that what happens, though, seriously? Do you just get bored with us one day and disappear?"
Jack: "Not if you're blonde."
Martha: "Oh, she was blonde! Oh, what a surprise!"

But I guess the good dialogue couldn't last forever:
Doctor: "And you're busy... blogging!"

Well, a happy ending of sorts! I wasn't expecting that poor guy to be reunited with his whole family, alive and well. What a lovely surprise.

Nice little running joke, and kudos to RTD for not running it into the ground:
Doctor: "Stop it."
Jack: "Can't I say hello to anyone?"
Chantho: "chan I do not protest tho!"

If it were me, I'm not exactly sure how eager I'd be to get to Utopia. The whole "beacon luring the humans in" sounds very much like a spider/fly situation. Then again, I guess if the alternative is slowly slipping out of existence like a dying ember on Malcassairo, or being consumed by the Futurekind, I'd probably be willing to take the risk too.

I love the idea that the Utopia Project was working on a way for mankind to survive beyond the collapse of reality itself. But how depressing is it that once there, nobody survives? The Utopia Project utterly fails and they all cannibalize themselves into the horrible Toclafane, trapped at the end of the universe until it burns out completely. Blah. I'm used to more optimism from my Davies. Then again, I guess "the end of the universe" is one of those things we really shouldn't expect to be able to escape! (After all, we are not Great Old Ones.) But I wonder, why did they then decide to build themselves lovely metal spheres containing deadly weapons? Were they meant to be used as tools? And why are they only big enough to fit a shrunken human head? And do they reproduce at all any more?! I sure hope not! Eww!

Not the response I was expecting Yana to get, but I totally agree!
Yana: "Well, it's better to let them live in hope."
Doctor: "Quite right, too!"

I like Yana's wry sense of humor, particularly when his response to the Doctor's assertion that his mental acuity would have made him famous throughout the galaxies is "Oh, those damn galaxies! They had to go and collapse."

Martha's dialogue may be lifted right out of Rose's mouth, but still Chung's performance is enough to endear me to this scene:
Martha: "Do you mind if I ask, do you have to start every sentence with 'chan'?"
Chantho: (slipping? or don't discourse markers count?) "Well, chan yes tho!"
Martha: "And end every sentence with -"
Chantho: "chan 'tho' tho."
Martha: "What would happen if you didn't?"
Chantho: "chan that would be rude tho!"
Martha: "What, like swearing?"
Chantho: "chan indeed tho!"
Martha: "Go on, just once."
Chantho: "chan I can't tho!"
Martha: "Oh, do it for me!"
Chantho: "...No!" (giggles)

Great Jack line!
Jack: "Was someone kissing me?"

And a pretty funny exchange:
Doctor: "What are you taking your clothes off for?!"
Jack: "I'm going in."
Doctor: "Well, by the looks of it, I'd say the stet radiation doesn't affect clothing, only flesh."
Jack: "Well, I look good, though."

An interesting new take on companionhood from Martha:
Martha: "The Doctor sort of travels through time and space and picks people up. God, I make us sound like stray dogs. Maybe we are."

Aw, we get a nice little flashback to Rose. (Martha would be so jealous.) It is lovely to see her again though. And I find it very cool that Jack stopped back by the Powell Estate a few times to watch Rose growing up.

Something that has only just occurred to me - if Jack was hanging around on Earth waiting for a version of the Doctor that already knew him, (a) how did he know which ones were post-Eccleston and which ones weren't?, (b) why didn't he try to snag Tennant during one of his visits to Earth, or even pop by to see Jackie or Mickey, and (c) how did he have any idea that the TARDIS he frantically leapt at contained the proper Doctor? (Maybe the hand was programmed only to recognize the tenth Doctor? But then how could Jack be sure that the hand came from a post-Eccleston incarnation?)

Jack sure does liven up this episode:
Doctor: "You might be out there somewhere."
Jack: "I could go meet myself."
Doctor: "Well... the only man you're ever gonna be happy with."
Jack: "This new regeneration... it's kinda cheeky!"

As Yana stares at the TARDIS, with tears running down his face, I thought it would be so obvious to all watching that the TARDIS was stirring up some long-buried Time Lord memories, but in fact his tears are very nicely explained away in the dialogue by his wistful attitude toward time travel.

When Martha reveals Yana's true identity to the Doctor, isn't the comm link still active? Can't Yana overhear every word they're saying?

Creepy! (Not that it would have stopped him anyway.) As Chantho points a gun at the Master:
Master: "Ohh... now I can say I was provoked!"

Oh, it's an iconic moment, I have to quote it:
Master: "That is not my name! The Professor was an invention. So perfect a disguise that I forgot who I am."
Chantho: "chan then who are you tho?"
Master: "I am... the Master!"

Yowza! The Doctor can be locked out of his own TARDIS?! You'd think he would have developed a safeguard to prevent against that! Whatcha wanna bet he'll be installing one now?

It's interesting that the Doctor immediately knows who he's facing, even though he can't actually see the Master, only hear his voice.

Great delivery. We were surprised too, Doctor. (Although it makes sense, given that the Master's always been more of a suave romantic charmer than other Time Lords!)
Doctor: "The Master and his wife?"

Uhhh... what does this line mean? Is the Master trying to pretend to be the Doctor in his own little mind? Or is he trying to goad the Doctor?
Master: "In fact, I'd go so far as to say that what this country really needs right now is a doctor."

Gosh, the Master flirts with Tish right in front of his wife, and she honestly doesn't seem to mind? On first viewing I thought I saw a bit of a forced smile, but on subsequent rewatchings I don't see it at all. Maybe he had her totally mesmerized too. (It would explain why she seems unable to betray him.) By Last of the Time Lords he's even flaunting his affairs in front of her, and suggesting threesomes. (No wonder she was traumatized.)

I suppose it is considerably more pretentious than "Doctor":
Martha: "I mean, who'd call himself 'the Master'?"

A great comedy moment: just as Martha is about to learn that Tish has gotten a job working for the Master, she cuts off the phone message irritatedly with an "Oh, like it matters!"

Nice delivery:
Vivian: "It's only a profile piece - you know, hair and clothes and nonsense."

Whoa! Surprise cameo from Sharon Osbourne. I really should get used to them doing this in the finale. Can't say I've ever listened to McFly's music (although I will now) nor am I familiar with Ann Widdecombe (although she looked awfully familiar to me! ...what was I saying about every other actor?), but I do like this little tradition.

I wonder how the Master managed to invent Saxon's having written a book? You'd think that sort of thing would stand out like a sore thumb if it weren't true... then again, maybe everyone would assume that someone else had read it. I was figuring that he would've had to get it published somewhere so that people would at least see it in stores, but maybe his powers of mesmerism are strong enough that he was able to get around that little detail. After all, as Vivian says, "It's as if he's mesmerized the entire world!" I'm really glad they put such emphasis on that part of his personality.

How is it that the Master is able to appear so suddenly in the room behind Lucy, without Vivian hearing him enter?

I'm surprised how funny I found the gag of Vivian screaming every time the Master cracked the door, given how much I liked her, but by the third time I was definitely chuckling.

On first viewing, I thought the Doctor meant that the Master could use his TARDIS to travel to any point in time between its last two stops (which really doesn't sound all that restrictive), but now I get that he meant that it could only go to those two time zones. But right before the TARDIS goes to Malcassairo, it's refuelling in present-day Cardiff, so I'm not exactly clear on how the Master manages to get back at least as early as the Christmas previous, unless that's the 18-month leeway that the Doctor mentions.

The Doctor claims that he has "permanently" fused the co-ordinates... so how does he ever un-fuse them? Is it like magic, only the person who casts the spell can undo it? And, less perplexingly, how does he rebuild the console after the damage the Master does to it? (For that matter, where in the universe is the Master's own TARDIS? Trapped somewhere in the year one hundred trillion?)

During The Sound of Drums, I kept thinking, "The Toclafane sound just like the Gelth." And, whaddya know, there was Zoe Thorne in the credits.

How neat, Martha's television is made by Magpie Electricals! I love it. I'm not sure I would have noticed that reference if it hadn't been pointed out on Wikipedia.

But, ack! Martha's entire flat has been destroyed! That is not nice. Bad Master! Although I guess after a year of living under the Master's regime, one burnt-out flat isn't going to seem like such a big deal to her.

I don't quite get the Master's new catchphrase "It's good, isn't it?". What is he, some kind of evil Martha Stewart? (or is that redundant?)

Do you suppose we'll ever meet the real Toclafane, assuming they exist? I'd be very interested to meet just about anything that only exists in Gallifreyan mythology. I mean, the Fendahl and the Vampires were huge hits with me, so hey!

Probably the greatest line the Master gets in this story, because it feels totally true to who he is and what he would prioritize:
Master: "What did it feel like, though? Two almighty civilizations, burning. Ooh, tell me, how did that feel?"
Doctor: "Stop it."
Master: "You must have been like God."

Oddly, the rhythm of "the sound of drums" keeps changing, particularly when the Master is tapping it out as he talks to the Doctor. You'd think having a metronome in your head would help you keep pretty consistent rhythm, but I guess not!

I'm a little surprised that the Doctor could end up on TV as public enemy number one... after all, just a couple of years ago, the Prime Minister was begging for his help in a national address!

Is there some kind of news program prototype that I'm not aware of, according to which all news broadcasts must include tickers at the bottom of the screen to display scrolling headlines? I know that CNN and Fox News do it here, but I don't think the basic network news programs do that, and I know our local news doesn't. It smacks of a lack of creativity.

One wonders where the Toclafane go when they disappear. The implication is that the Master brought them back to Earth in the Doctor's TARDIS, so they clearly aren't returning to Utopia. (However, they are able to relay messages from the others, so either they are going back somehow, or they're able to keep communication lines open, possibly via the TARDIS?) Does he keep them stashed away inside the TARDIS somewhere? Or does he have a little play area for them in the back garden?

Martha! Where did you get those chips? Did you steal them??? I find it difficult to believe that a woman whose face has been broadcast on all the news channels would be able to stroll in and buy some. I suppose she could have just left some money behind for them. (And if you did steal them, why didn't you steal something nice and healthy to go along with them? A nice green salad? Or at least some fried fish, for protein!) Also, I want chips now. And malt vinegar. And a chip fork. Mmmmmmmm. (Well, "mmmmmmm" to all but the chip fork.)

Love this exchange!!! Finally we're putting this thing to rest!
Martha: "And what is he to you, like a colleague or..."
Doctor: "Friends, at first."
Martha: "I thought you were gonna say he was your secret brother or something."
Doctor: "You've been watching too much TV."

So they're still having children on Gallifrey these days? Or, well, they were? Or were the Doctor and the Master some of the last eight-year-olds to be inducted? Otherwise it sounds like they've written the novels out of canonicity (again)... no more Pythian curse of barren childbirth! Then again, I suppose they could still have been Loomed children, right?

Eww, Doctor. Mouth closed when you're chomping away on chips, please!

Okay, please tell me how the first of these quotes relates to the second. As far as I'm concerned, one is not at all like the other.
Martha: "It's like I know you're there, but I don't wanna know."
...
Doctor: "It's like when you fancy someone and they don't even know you exist."

After a season of groaning as Martha pined after the Doctor, I can't believe what a good laugh I got out of Jack's "You too, huh?" Maybe it's because if he has been longing for the Doctor all this time, he hasn't been obviously mooning over him. (Or even mooning him.) That makes it a lot more bearable! Crush all you want, just don't keep harping on about it to us. It's easier to deny that way, for one thing.

Cackle! The three Southerners in the room loved this line so much, we didn't even hear the very last part. (The fourth member, from Hong Kong, having missed the next line as well, also asked "What is grits?" - which, I might add, is more grammatical, Master.)
Master: "Anything I can do? I could make the tea. Or isn't that American enough? I don't know, I could make grits. What are grits, anyway?"

The Master makes a big deal out of his having designed every detail of the Valiant while he was on the Ministry of Defense, but... nothing at all is ever made of this plot point. Or at least I can't think of a single moment when his intimate knowledge of the vessel enabled him to do anything significant, nor did he build in any booby traps.

It's hard to tell, is the TARDIS console still behind all that shielding in the paradox machine? Maybe it is, but it's just turned red.

It's surprising how much the little things mean. When the Master offers his wife a jelly baby, Gray and I both reacted strongly, with a very deep feeling that this was just plain wrong.

As a matter of interest, if anyone happens to be curious, those café patrons have a choice of dining on homemade scones, buttered tea cakes, homemade apple pie with custard or cream, biscuits (I think), custard slices, homemade jam roly poly and custard, and hot chocolate fudge cake and ice cream. So clearly they aren't in Wisconsin. (I want those custard slices, myself!)

The Doctor seems to think that slipping the perception filter around the Master's neck will bring his plans to a screeching halt, because if people see him for who he really is, they won't believe in him any more. But it's not as if the Master is some hideous tentacled alien underneath a humanoid holographic disguise... he'll still look the same. And surely putting the perception filter around his neck won't block whatever signal in the Archangel network is making everyone believe in him. So I'm not exactly sure what that was meant to accomplish.

I like President Winters' line "I will accept mastery over you, if that is God's will." Very Southern-American sounding, indeed.

Nice touch! For a moment I went "wait a minute..." until I realized he was being absolutely literal about it. (I won't say "accurate", because the meaning of this word is definitely changing, but I'm fine with pedantry in this case too!)
Master: "Shall we decimate them? That sounds good, nice word. Decimate." (to the Toclafane) "Remove one-tenth of the population!"

I must say, that "One Year Later" caption threw me for a loop - I was definitely not expecting it at all!

Davies really does pick great songs to go in his episodes. As much of a beef as I had with "Voodoo Child", I really liked it, and I especially loved "I Can't Decide" - those were some wickedly dark yet funny lyrics, and they fit the scene perfectly.

I got a good laugh out of the dog dish outside the Doctor's tent - how humiliating! and a nice look at the way he's been treated by the Master over the past year. I also loved the moment in which the Master decides to get rid of the Doctor by shoving him away and letting his wheelchair slam into the wall.

Heh!
Tom: "Anything else I should know?"
Martha: "I've met Shakespeare."

Tom's question is a good one, actually - why can he see Martha? Just wanting to see her doesn't sound like a very good reason. I'm sure the Toclafane want to see her too! Maybe she meant that he was expecting to see her? And on the same subject, Martha's still wearing the filter when she and Tom go into the shelter in Bexley, yet everybody there can see her too. Does being introduced count as drawing attention to yourself?

Interesting, we have yet another episode in which the Doctor's plan fails (and this time, it utterly fails - twice, actually, if you also count his scheme to bell the cat). I actually do like that, it makes the episode more unpredictable.

If Martha claims that television doesn't work any more - which makes sense, because they probably went out of business the moment the Toclafane descended, so who would even have one any more? - then why does the Master choose to set up a world broadcast speech? Besides, it's sheer luck that Martha happened to be in front of a television at just the right moment. And given that this broadcast was clearly intended solely for her benefit, even if anyone else had been watching on their own, would they have cared one iota?

I like that the Master clearly intended to break Martha's spirit by broadcasting his torture of the Doctor, but instead her response is to smile in gratitude that he's still alive.

At the time, I did think Martha's "Know your enemy" line came across as a bit odd - but of course it makes perfect sense with hindsight!

Part of me thinks that it's quite cool that Martha's been all around the world now. But I doubt she was really in a position to enjoy it at all, given that the tourist sites probably weren't open, much of the landscape had probably been ruined, and people everywhere seem to be starving so local specialties probably weren't on the menu. Plus there's all that "fleeing for her life" thing.

When Tom is trying to lure a Toclafane into their trap, it's a good thing that one comes at him from the right direction. If it (or a second one) had come up behind him, he'd have been sunk. And why does he start out so far away from where they need the Toclafane? Why not attract its attention while he's right in front of the electrical gizmo? Do they think that would make the Toclafane suspicious or something?

The Master's clue "After all, you love them so very very much" had me quite intrigued to find out what the Toclafane actually were. In the end I think it was a bit of a letdown - not that I was expecting another classic enemy or anything, maybe it was just because I didn't want to hear that the Utopia-bound humans met such a sticky end!

Ahh, the Hanging Plastic Strips make one last appearance this season, in Docherty's office. Although these are huge wide ones.

Professor Docherty's traitorhood took me by surprise, too. I wonder how the Master is using her son in order to win her cooperation? Or is he? I suppose if she doesn't even know whether or not her son is alive, then the Master can't be that involved with him or he'd be able to tell her. (Unless he's holding her son hostage as coercion?)

Okay, this seems like a bit of a stretch. So Martha only gets to talk to one small group in England after she arrives there. As far as we can tell, she never even gets a chance to ask them to pass the story on. Yet within hours, all of the UK apparently knows who the Doctor is? Word really travels fast 'round these parts!

Hmmm. When the Master ordered Martha to surrender her bag, I figured (hoped?) she must have emptied it and hidden the gun somewhere else, but I guess that's not the case - since, as it turns out, the gun was irrelevant anyway.

Why does the Master say that killing Martha is going to be his "first blood"? He's killed lots of people here, especially if you lay the Toclafane deaths at his feet, which I think would be perfectly justified. Does he just mean his first blood in his new empire?

And as for comparing Martha unfavorably to Rose... that was just a low blow, mister.

So, a question on how this time-reversal thing works. Let's say, just hypothetically, that the Doctor hadn't been rejuvenated but the attack on the paradox machine had still been successful. (Speaking of which - shooting a gun at it? That doesn't seem like the wisest approach for dealing with such a delicate piece of equipment. Who's to say that breaking it is going to reverse things? Although maybe it does just make the paradox untenable with the machine broken, so I suppose that makes sense anyway.) Anyway, if that had happened, would the Doctor have reverted to his usual age? Or, even as things actually did turn out, does everyone else get rejuvenated so that they're technically the same age they were when the paradox began? Or does being at the eye of the storm shield them from biological rejuvenation just like it does mental rejuvenation? Jack's injuries don't seem to have healed, so the implication is that they're now all, unfairly, a year older than they ought to be. What a gyp! So if Martha had gotten maimed on her travels (I mean, the callouses alone!), tough cookies, gonna have to live with that.

I like how everyone just decides that the Master is defeated once the Doctor hugs him. Even the guards immediately stop obeying him!

How on earth does Jack avoid getting julienned by the Toclafane? I mean, I know he's immortal, but he can still be hurt (at least temporarily)!

You know, it's a good thing that the Doctor teleports back to the Valiant in time. I wonder what would have happened if he (and the Master?!) had been stranded outside the ship when the paradox collapsed?

Why is it that the people on the streets stagger about in the high winds for quite some time before they finally disappear? If time was reversing, shouldn't they have vanished pretty much immediately? And why is it that the people disappear, but the trash stays right where it is? Please tell me that the world's landscapes went back in time too, or the residents of various countries will be in for a huge shock!

When the Time Lords revived the Master, did they endow him with an entirely new cycle of regenerations? Otherwise I wonder how it is that he was (almost) able to regenerate twice in as many stories, when the last time we saw him, he was most definitely on his last legs. (or underbelly, at any rate.)

Nice touch, the Master's funeral pyre is reminiscent of the one Karra was supposed to have in Survival. I'm sure it wasn't deliberate, but I like it anyway. And what does the Doctor do with the lighted torch? It looks as though he tosses it to one side. Way to catch the dry grass on fire, Doctor! Why not just rest it on top of the pyre with all the other flaming logs?

I'm a little confused about what exactly the Doctor did with Jack's teleportation wristband. It sounds like the Doctor claims that Jack can still use it, but only to any place twice? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

I like Jack's parting salutes to the Doctor and Martha. I wish they'd left it there, instead of going on about the Face of Boe, blecch. But that is a really good point about his aging - I'm glad they brought it up. But yuck, how awful to think that you're just going to get more and more decrepit? Who can enjoy life like that?

Aww, sad. The Doctor's incessant babbling is an immediate clue that (he knows) Martha isn't going to be coming with him. I dunno, I think Agatha Christie would have swayed me. They should totally build a celebrity historical around her someday!

However, I really can't blame Martha for wanting to stay on Earth, after everything she's seen, and now having actually succeeded in restoring her homeworld to its former glory. I think I'd want to stay and enjoy normal life too. I do hope that she hasn't forgotten all her medical training by now, though - can you imagine having to show up to medical school a year plus change later, only to discover that everyone else thought only three or four days had passed? And they're all ready for next week's exam and you aren't! Maybe she got a chance to use her training on her travels? (Most likely, actually. Watch her be even better prepared for her exams now!)

Nice line! (Although, why is it that Utopia was so much more quotable than these two episodes? They were all written by the same person!)
Martha: "I spent a lot of time with you thinking I was second best, but you know what? I am good."

And, yay! Martha gives her cell phone to the Doctor and tells him to come running whenever she calls! I like that - no shadow of a doubt that they'll be meeting again. Maybe Martha's going to be like the Brigadier for the new millennium.

And, drat. The night that Last of the Time Lords aired in the UK, I was browsing Wikipedia for some reason and saw that they had added the name of the Christmas special. So I got all excited, and clicked on it, not thinking that the reason they knew the title was because they'd seen it at the end of the season finale. And what do I see? "The story continues from the final scene of 'Last of the Time Lords', in which a ship called the Titanic makes an unprecedented appearance through the TARDIS wall." I immediately went 'eek!' and hit the back button, but alas, I couldn't forget it. Gray too got spoiled on this little detail, apparently from Outpost Gallifrey (how did I miss it there?), so when something came crashing into the TARDIS, I couldn't help but grumble, "Wonder what that is?" (Katherine, amazingly, immediately asked, "Is it the Titanic?" She is quick on the draw, that one.) Now, what I would really love to find out is that Voyage of the Damned is going to be a pure historical... pretty please? Although the presence of Jimmy Vee leads me to believe that at least one costumed alien will be involved... unless maybe he could appear as his human self just this once? Well, we shall see...

So, it's got some good points, but a lot of bad points too, and unfortunately, for me, the bad points outweigh the good. As a season finale, it just doesn't feel like it delivers in the same way as the last two season finales did, even though it had the potential for (and to a degree, delivered upon) lots of fantastic emotional scenes between the Doctor and the Master. Even one slight change - if the Master had been written more like his old self - would have really made a world of difference.

Back to Utopia / The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords.

Back to the episode guide.