The End of Time, Part One

Dear Gary—

This is what happens when you feel the need to come up with a bigger, more spectacular finale each and every time. Eventually you reach a point of diminishing returns. Eventually you run out of ideas and just throw everything you can think of at it and hope something sticks. The End of Time, Part One (along with its companion piece Part Two but more on that one later) is just such a whirlwind of a story.

It is all meant to feel grand and epic and prophetic. Some of it works and some of it doesn’t. Some of it is explained and some of it isn’t. There is so much crammed in, though, that one loses track.

Just look at the first few minutes. We have a Narrator predicting the end of the Earth (doesn’t happen by the way). Then we have visions of a laughing Master while being reminded of the events from Last of the Time Lords and told that people are dreaming about those forgotten days. Next we see Wilf (the Narrator implies that Wilf is the one person who has not forgotten that lost year, but he can’t remember any better than the rest). Wilf is joined by a mysterious woman in a church which inexplicably contains an image of the TARDIS in one of its stained glass windows. Finally we get the Doctor in sunglasses and lei being uncharacteristically insufferable, flippant, and callous, obviously not taking his lesson from The Waters of Mars to heart. He is joined by an Ood and is struck by the improbability of the advancements made by the Ood civilization. We are treated to visions in the Ood circle, again of the Master and of Wilf and of a new mystery couple (“the King is in his counting house”). And we get vague explanations of “time is bleeding” and “a shadow is falling over creation.” It is all fuzzy and unexplained. None of this clarifies why people are dreaming or how the Ood development is being accelerated. It is a shroud of mystery meant to divert and mislead, and through it all is the refrain: “Returning, returning, returning.”

This all culminates in the Master’s resurrection. Now keep in mind everyone has forgotten that lost year of John Saxon’s rule. Not Saxon himself, just his rule. People are dreaming of this man but don’t recognize him as the man they elected as Prime Minister and who went insane and was murdered by his wife in spectacular fashion. He has been dead for some time, but before his death, before even his forgotten year, he had written the mysterious (again that word) “Secret Books of Saxon” and apparently recruited a cult of female prison guards to gather up his ring and the all important “Potions of Life” (I have visions of my own of Martha Jones laughing derisively at the notion of a gun with deadly Time Lord chemicals). The prison guard cultists drag an innocent looking Lucy Saxon (sorry, but she’s still a despicable collaborator in my mind) into an appropriately looking ancient ritual room where Lucy’s magic lipstick is used as the final ingredient to rebuild the Master. But oh, wait. At the last second Lucy reveals her own potion and everything goes wrong in explosive fashion. I guess her potion didn’t quite work as planned, though, as the Master is witnessed fleeing the burning building by that mystery couple from the Ood vision.

All of this could have filled an hour or two of its own episode, but instead is thrown at us in the first 15 minutes of this two part story. Doctor Who of old always managed to bring the Master back against impossible odds with a line or two of ‘oh, by the way’ explanation. New Who has gone to the opposite extreme in bringing back this indestructible foe of the Doctor’s.

The next 45 minutes of Part One has more in store for us. Much, much more.

Let’s see. I’ll start with the mystery woman in white. She continues to appear to Wilf and to Wilf alone. For some strange reason (never explained) she warns Wilf not to tell the Doctor about her. She also inexplicably chastises Wilf for never having killed a man and tells him to “take arms.” (The thing about all these prophecies sprinkled throughout—quite a few of them are false. They exist for atmosphere and effect but in the end never come to fruition.) The woman herself, however, is wonderfully portrayed by Claire Bloom and lends a dignity and elegance to the proceedings.

Then we have the mystery ‘King in His Counting House’ couple. These are disposable distraction characters. These two evil master minds only serve to bring our cast together and provide the giant gate gizmo. Somehow they have heard about the Master and know of his resurrection by the female prison guard cult and have discerned that he is an alien (for a forgotten man, an awful lot of people seem to know an awful lot about Harold Saxon). They also intuitively know that the alien machine they have salvaged has the capability of providing immortality; they just don’t know how it works or how to fix it. (And I’m sorry Gary, but the only two people who can get away with cancelling Christmas are Alan Rickman and Michael G Scott.)

Next in our line of disposable distractions: the Vinvocci. More aliens right under the noses of the Counting House Couple and helping them to fix their Immortality Gate. The two undercover extraterrestrials are on Earth to salvage this machine, but I’m not sure why they don’t just grab it and leave; it’s beyond me why they feel the need to fix it first. I suppose they exist merely as comic relief and the whole “shimmer” bit is funny. The Doctor likens them to the Zocci Bannakaffalatta from Voyage of the Damned, but I’m more reminded of Meglos; Wilf even describes Miss Addams as a cactus.

Speaking of comic relief: the Silver Cloak. This busload of golden oldies helping Wilf to find the Doctor is a hoot. A total disposable distraction but hilarious.

Fortunately what is not lost in this chaos is the heart of the episode embodied by the trio of the Doctor, the Master, and Wilf.

I’ll start with the Master since he seems to be the eye of the storm of plot threads whizzing about. After he has been resurrected, not regenerated mind you but resurrected, the Master gains comic book villain powers; the Doctor even refers to him as Skeletor at one point. He has also gone completely insane. Without a clear-cut plan and ravenously hungry, the Master starts eating his way through the population of Earth. This is where the King in His Counting House, AKA Joshua Naismith, conveniently comes in to hand over a weapon to the Master and give him a purpose. And this is where our green alien cacti come in to provide exposition concerning the Immortality Gate.

The Immortality Gate; the improbable machine that mends whole planets. In a matter of minutes the Master fixes this miracle worker not to heal his life force burning body but to turn every human being into himself. It is unclear if these duplicates have the same Skeletor powers or the same insanity or the same maddening drum beats. It is also unclear if these billions of new Masters running about the Earth will all seek to dominate one day. It would be interesting to see if they would become power hungry and fight amongst themselves for supremacy. For the moment, though, they just seem to be content to stand around grinning, clapping, and waving.

It is a good concept and a startling good effect, aside from the distraction of trying to pick out duplicate Master templates in the crowd. It suits this everything-but-the-kitchen-sink whirlwind of a story.

Before being snatched up by Naismith, however, the Master has some nice moments reminiscing with the Doctor about his vast estates on Gallifrey. He has his chance to kill the Doctor but stops short. It is an interesting psychological dance these two antagonists have choreographed through the centuries; a love/hate relationship spanning time and space. The drum beats in the Master’s head has added a dimension to this dynamic, and the moment when the Doctor actually hears the ominous pounding is tantalizing.

Topping the Master and the Doctor in the episode, however, is the quiet little scene of the Doctor and Wilf in the café discussing life and death. The Doctor has known for some time that his “song is ending” and he has been hanging on as long as possible. This is the most self-absorbed generation he has ever had (I blame it on Rose).  It’s an elegant little speech though: “Even then, even if I change, it feels like dying. Everything I am dies. Some new man goes sauntering away, and I’m dead.”

And then we have the added bonus of Donna. Donna’s presence is heartbreaking, not for her but for the Doctor and Wilf. Donna still can’t remember, but Wilf can and her loss is devastating to him. The Doctor has his own memories to mourn, and it is evident that he both misses and needs her in his life. Donna herself seems perfectly happy with her new man and the guarded peace she has with her mother. Christmas in the Noble house seems a pleasant affair and at least Donna shows signs of having overcome her dread of the holiday. It’s nice to see Sylvia again as well; she shows genuine concern for her daughter and offers more comic relief to the mix.

In the end, though, it comes down to the Doctor and Wilf teaming up (Wilf in the TARDIS is long overdue); and it comes down to the Master (“there is only the Master race”). Except no. All of these prophecies and clues and dreams and various bits and pieces of story lines converge on the duplicitous Master only to be diverted.

“This day was the day upon which the whole of creation would change forever. This was the day the Time Lords returned.”

The Narrator (Timothy Dalton no less) is revealed in all of his glory. Lord President of the Time Lords.

“For Gallifrey!”

A truly stunning reveal.

“For victory!”

A satisfying twist in this confusion of plot.

“For the end of time itself!”

A cliffhanger, Gary, to top all cliffhangers . . .