June 26, 2011

Last of the Timelords

Well it’s the finale and like previous series finale’s it ends with a companions departure, except its less final shall we say. At the end of the previous episode we had the Doctor turned into Gollum’s good looking brother and Martha has legged it. This story takes place a year after Sound of Drums but Martha hasn’t been sitting idly by. She has been busy travelling around the world whilst the Doctor has been treated like a little pet with a little dog bowl. The Master’s grip is unusually tight but yet again instead of killing the Doctor, he just immobilises him. No doubt he will be regretting this later on. The story sees Martha once again leading the narrative as she is hunting parts for a gun that is believed will kill the Master however in quite a clever twist it turns out that the gun is useless and Martha has spent the whole year spreading a single word at a specific time and that word is ‘DOCTOR’. It’s quite a good way to mess up the Masters plans. But what I like is how the Doctor has been trying to get into mainframe and has succeded. What we then get is a almost Christ like moment where the Doctor is hovering in the air. For an atheist for a Executive Producer, there is a lot of religious imagery in the new era.

I have to admit that the whole thing could have been made shorter because the story only really gets going when Martha is caught by the Master. All the stuff with that Doctor who becomes her husband and that woman who use to be in Coronation Street was a bit dull and I could have done without. That aside, the actual story is rather good. Just when the Doctor has yet again foiled the Master’s plan then the Master is shot by wife. I liked the moment when the Master refused to regenerate to try and stick one to the Doctor. The Doctor’s emotion was quite unexpected and I wonder whether Jon Pertwee’s Doctor would have done that. Just when we thought that we were not going to get any more Master then we see someone picking up his ring thus leaving room for a future story.

Yet again there is a bit of emotional junk that we have to put up with at the very end of the story but its no where near as irritating as what we got in Doomsday. Martha deciding to stay on Earth is quite a disappointing idea because I think that she was a match for the Doctor (perhaps the reason she was written out). Freema Agyeman as Martha has proven of several occasions how good an actress she is and how Crossroads was a mere blip in her career. John Barrowman’s appearance was not particularly memorable and the only contribution he served is when he implies that he might be The Face of Boe. Now this doesn’t quite make sense because the Face of Boe died in Gridlock and yet were told that Captain Jack is immortal. So that was a bit odd. The problem with the RTD era is that he seems incapable of deciding where the story should finish. He feels the urge to just add stuff at the end, why he couldn’t get rid of Martha and Captain Jack at the same time escapes me. I thought that John Simm was very good and his Master is everything that I hoped it would be. Ok so its nowhere near as good as Roger Delgado or even Anthony Ainley but I think that for a 21st Century audience its still a good performance.

Like previous series, the final story end with a cliffhanger that will be resolved at Christmas. This time it’s the Titanic crashing into the TARDIS with his trademark WHAT!. Now considering that for but two years in Doctor Who’s history we have been told that the TARDIS is indestructible it seems odd that the TARDIS can be destroyed like this but we would find out at the Children in Need special. Last of the Timelords is a very enjoyable story. Far better than Doomsday and over the course of the three episodes it was a good way to end the story. The story isnt perfect thought because the stuff with Captain Jack was pointless and also the stuff with Martha’s family was just dull and I couldn’t care less about them. The bit where her mother shoots the Master I was really irritated because it spoils the moment when the Master is bought down by the Doctor’s companion’s mother. Apart from that this was a good end to the best series since the show returned. It certainly benefited from a lack of Rose. Good Stuff.

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