Somewhere (presumably Finland,) Ludvig Borga was smiling when Kimi Raikkonen somehow, almost impossibly, came back from a million points behind to become the F-1 champion. At least it wasn’t Fernando Alonso.
Note: I wrote that weeks ago. My laptop has died and come back since the last Whobeak.
Ok, so, we open with a little “previously on” montage. The Master became Prime Minister of England, only to introduce an army of “Toclafane,” little killer probe droid things that came out of a Hellish vortex and killed ass of people. He also used an evil fake Sonic Screwdriver to turn the Doctor into a fake old man. Martha teleported away and acted determined. There was also heavy breathing.
David Tennant, Freema Agyeman, and John Barrowman in (hey, we get a title this week) “Last of the Time Lords” by Russell T. Davies.
We get a “ONE YEAR LATER” caption. *Says “seven years later” in Mike Nelson voice.* Martha is dressed in all black, sneaking off of a boat to meet a sneaky guy waving a signaling lamp. Dude, she’s totally on a mission to rescue Otacon’s sister or something. He’s part of “the resistance.” She’s been away from England for a year, wandering the world or something. The guy she’s now walking around with tells her she’s a legend. She’s supposedly the only one who can kill the Master, and “the only person to get out of Japan alive.” Oh no, our virtual pets are turning on us! I refuse to believe that the Toclafane were able to kill Survival Tobita. Maybe pin him for 3, but not kill him.
OH BOO! The American TV edit cuts out the best scene ever, the Master dancing around with Doctor Old in his wheelchair and singing along with “I Can’t Decide” by the Scissors Sisters. Check it out here if you have a mind to. They use the refrain, coda, and refrain (skipping the verses which have naughty words.) The song is fucking beautiful because while certain lyrics could be to any awful emo song (my heart feels dead inside) there’s also zaniness and happiness and the music itself is really upbeat. It even ends with a sort of weird circusy…thing. This is my last chance to post lyrics/poetry in italics, so here goes:
I can’t decide whether you should live or die,
oh you’ll prob’ly go to Heaven, please don’t hang your head and cry.
No wonder why my heart feels dead inside,
it’s cold and hard and petrified,
lock the doors and close the blinds we’re going for a ride.
Oh I could throw you in a lake,
or feed you poison birthday cake,
I won’t deny, I’m gonna miss you when you’re gone.
Oh I could bury you alive but you might crawl out with a knife and kill me
when I’m sleeping, that’s why…
I can’t decide whether you should live or die,
oh you’ll prob’ly go to Heaven, please don’t hang your head and cry.
No wonder why my heart feels dead inside,
it’s cold and hard and petrified,
lock the doors and close the blinds we’re going for a ride.
I think it’s neat that the three pieces of verse I transcribled this season were a religious piece by George Bennard, a eulogy for fallen soldiers by Laurence Binyon, and a pop song by The Scissors Sisters.
So yeah, we skip that (including the Master making out with his wife, who appears to be practically catatonic, as well as the Master spitting out the coffee Martha’s Moms made for him rudely and finally the Doctor being forced to live in a little tent with a dog bowl for water) and cut straight to the Master and the Doctor peering out of one of the Valliant’s windows. The Master taunts the Doctor a bit, but can’t get a rise out of him. He’s heard rumors that Martha has returned to the UK after a year of wandering, and suspects the Doctor gave her some secret instruction to save the day. Doctor: “I have one thing to say to you. You know what it is.” Master: “Oh no you don’t!” He wanders off to yell about “launch day in 24 hours.” The Master gives Martha’s Moms some secret hand signal. Moms gives the same signal to Dads, who walks into some boiler room and gives the signal to Tish, who is bringing food to Captain Jack. Jack is shackled to some pipes and shit and has to be spoon-fed. Tish gives him the secret hand signal, but since his hands are restrained all he can do is wink sexfully.
Oh look, a huge statue of the Master. Martha and Some Dude are wandering around a quarry. Martha tells Dude that the Master has been carved into Mount Rushmore. Heh. I guess even in crazy near-future Doctor Who world that Crazy Horse monument never gets finished. Now we see why they’re walking around a quarry…it overlooks a huge field of missile silos. Apparently, billions of trillions of gazillions of missiles are being built all over the world. Martha reveals to Dude that she’s been in space and it’s full of civilizations and the Master plans to invade and conquer them all. Dude: “You’ve been in space?” Martha: “Problem with that?” Dude: “No. No, just uh…wow. Anything else I should know?” Martha: “I’ve met Shakespeare.”
Meanwhile, all the hand signaling was because Jack has worked his way out of his shackles and was waiting for the right moment to bust out. He does so, and he and Martha’s Dad start sabotaging equipment on the ship to set off alarms and summon guards. This distracts the Master enough for Martha’s Moms to grab his coat, and toss it to Tish, who tosses it to the Doctor, who produces the Laser Screwdriver from it and aims it at the Master. The Master mock surrenders, then laughs. We get a cutesy little scene of Captain Jack being confronted by guards, and saying “here we go again” as they gun him down. Then back to the bridge, where the Master fucking punches the Doctor right in the face and retrieving the Laser Screwdriver. Master: “Isomorphic controls. Which means, they only work for me. Like this.” He shoots at Martha’s Mom, who barely manages to duck. Master: “Say sorry!” Moms: “Sorry, sorry!” He has Martha’s family removed so he can taunt the Doctor (even his wife, it should be noted, looks disappointed that the coup d'état didn’t work.) Master (while kicking the Doctor’s classy office chair to spin him around:) “There ya go Gramps. Do you know, I remember the days when the Doctor, oh that famous Doctor, was waging the Time War. Battling Sea Devils and Axons. He sealed the rift at the Medusa Cascade single-handed. Whew. Look at him now. Stealing screwdrivers. How did he ever come to this? Oh yeah, me!” And…the scene sort of peters out.
Commercials. I love these ads for “Battlestar Galactica: Razor” previews during Flash Gordon. They may as well just say “Please God PLEASE watch Flash Gordon!”
Dude takes Martha to meet “Professor Docherty,” which was I guess his mission that I forgot to mention. She makes jokes about British TV shows I don’t recognize (hey hey, that last scene didn’t peter out, it Blue Petered out! ZING!) before telling them she’s expecting a TV transmission from “the man himself.” Aye, yer man there, the Master, he’s a gobshite sure enough. The Master appears on TV to taunt the entire world. Master: “I know there’s all sorts of whispers down there, stories of a child walking the world. Giving you hope. But I ask you, how much hope has this man got? (He shows us the elderly Doctor.) Say hello, Gandalf.” I can’t help but wonder how the Master would have reacted if, instead of sitting there stoically, the Doctor had said “Hello Gandalf” in a silly voice. Anyway, he calls humans “stunted little apes” before explaining to us that the Doctor is an alien with a long lifespan who can be aged enormously. He uses the Laser Screwdriver to super-age the Doctor again (he also “suspended his capacity to regenerate” somehow) which causes the Doctor to jerk around with more goofy camera tricks. The Doctor…disappears inside his suit. Everyone scared. Even the Master seems worried (he wants to torment the Doctor, he can’t really bring himself to kill him.) But then a little…imitation Gollum. Master, to camera: “Received and understood, Miss Jones?” But Martha puts a positive spin on it, so all is well.
More fun with the resistance. The Professor tells us that the Archangel Network is creating a psychic field or broadcasting a subliminal message or something that keeps people in fear and prevents most resistance. Martha tells Dude and the Professor that she has a plan to find out what the Toclafane are. Apparently one of them was hit by a lightening strike in South Africa, and Martha has a disk with the readings. Er…ok. The Professor stops handing Chico fish and blackjacks when the man asks for a flashlight and instantly builds a sort of doorframe rigged to produce an electrical charge of exactly the right voltage. Then we cut immediately to Dude shooting a gun to get a Toclafane to appear and chase him, and he runs through this door, and as the Toclafane passes through it, the Professor turns on the voltage and zaps the Toclafane. Ta-dah. This is a dense episode…another show could have stretched that out to a half an hour, easy. The Professor goes to open the shell and see what’s at the gooey center, but we cut to…
The Master tells the Doctor (who is now Gollum only slightly smaller and is kept in a fucking birdcage) that the missiles are almost ready to launch and will devastate the surrounding alien civilizations. His wife is in the background, in a red party dress lounging around sexfully. The Master suddenly gets serious. Master: “The drumming. The never-ending drumbeat. Ever since I was a child, I looked into the vortex, that’s when it chose me. The drumming, the call to war. Can’t you hear it? Listen, it’s there now, right now! Tell me you can hear it, Doctor. Tell me.” Doctor: “It’s only you.” Master: “Good.” I didn’t want you to hear the drumbeat anyway, nyah-nyah.
Our trio of resistance folk open a Toclafane and…there’s a wizened face inside. It speaks. It calls Martha “sweet, kind Martha Jones” and says “the skies are made of diamonds.” Martha flashes back to the little urchin in Utopia who said that. Martha: “No, you can’t be him!” OMG THE KILLER ROBOTS ARE ACTUALLY KILLER FUTURE URCHINS. The Toclafane tells us “we share each others memories” so it’s not LITERALLY that kid. Martha: “They’re us! They’re the human race from the future!”
Commercials. I still don’t get why the Master hates humans so much. He’s obviously into Lord of the Rings, Scissors Sisters, and Teletubbies.
We get one of those scenes that cuts back and forth between two scenes for expository purposes. The Master tells the Doctor that he took Lucy, “A Time Lord and his human companion,” to the end of the Universe. Master: “Tell him what you saw.” Lucy: “Dying. Everything dying. The whole of creation was falling apart and I though, there’s no point. No point to anything, not ever.” Master: “And it’s all your fault.” Well sure, I can see how…what? Martha explains to her friends about the Utopia project and the last of humanity trying to survive as the Universe burned out. The Master tells the Doctor that the last of humanity turned their ingenuity inwards, “cannibalizing themselves.” Little girl voiced Toclafane, which is apparently here: “We made ourselves so pretty.” Master: “Regressing into children, but it didn’t work.” The, uh, “regressing into children” part is never explained. Sorry. The Professor asks how the human race of the future can come back to kill their own ancestors and not wipe themselves out. Martha and the Master tag-team narrate that the Paradox Machine (aka the evil twisted Metalocalypse version of the TARDIS) makes this possible. The final question, why do the Toclafane like killing humans so much, is answered by the captive Toclafane: “Because it’s fun!” It laughs some. Dude shoots it in the face. Oh, like that’s gonna bring Japan back. Master: “Human race. Greatest monsters of them all.” Somebody’s forgetting the Krotons.
Martha tells her friends that U.N.I.T. and Torchwood built a magic Time Lord killing (with no regenerations) gun back in the days of Pertwee and Delgado. Just in case the Master won, or Pertwee turned heel and started yelling “Hai-ya!” at the Brigadier. It uses four chemicals, scattered across the world, and in her traveling across the world she obtained three. The last one is hidden in an old U.N.I.T. base in London. She and Dude set off, leaving the Professor behind. Professor: “Could you do it? Could you actually kill him?” Martha: “Got no choice.” Professor: “You might be many things, but you don’t look like a killer to me.” NOBODY FOLLOWS THE KILLER. IT GETS THE WORST RATINGS EVER.
Martha and Dude sneak past some Bashams and enter an old tenement building full of grubby-faced British people. It’s “slave quarters,” and we learn that instead of building barracks, the Master just has people crowded into old buildings and shipped off to labor camps in the morning. Such a jerk…would it really kill him to lose one or two missiles and give people nice condos? At any rate, the grubby-faced British people crowd around Martha “The Legend” Jones excitedly and I’m expecting the Artful Dodger any second now. They want to know if she can really kill the Master. Martha: “They want me to talk, and I will.” And she says…uh, we cut to commercial.
Commercials. I knew diabetes could kill me, but I never thought it would fuck with my ding-dong! (Levitra ad.)
The Professor (and Mary-Anne) contacts the Archangel Network (OMG) to ask if her son is still alive. It won’t give her any information, so she sells out Martha Jones.
Martha (w/dramatic music) tells everyone about the Doctor and how he’s saved all their lives like a billion times. Dude, if it wasn’t for him, we’d all be speaking Ice Warriorese right now. “He never stops, he never stays, he never asks to be thanked.” It’s just wham, bam, thank you planet. She says she loves him, aw. But oh shit, somebody starts yelling that the Master is here! The Master! The Master is here! Whoooooooo!
Outside, the Master is back to being a full-on badass again, walking around in his awesome “I’m off to the opera” cape while an elite squad of Bashams and Toclafane form a mobile perimeter around him. And he just walks along the street going, “Martha! Martha Joooooones!” The slaves try to hide Martha (who is near tears with fear. Queer.) The Master threatens to start having people randomly killed until she comes out. He uses his third-grader/the Rock talking to Jonathan Coachman voice and says: “Ask yourself, ‘what would the Doctor do?’” She decides to emerge. The Master mock applauds and says “good girl.” He has her throw the bag with the magic Time Lord killing gun at the ground, then blasts it with the Laser Screwdriver. He goes to kill her, but Dude rushes out screaming “NOOOOOOOO!” The Master kills him instead, then GIGGLES. Then he spontaneously decides that he should kill Martha in front of the Doctor.
Back on the Valiant, and Bashams lead Martha onto the bridge. We get dramatic shots of the Master, Martha’s family and Jack (under guard,) and the Doctor (in his cage.) The Master makes Martha toss him the teleport thing she got from Jack. He announces that it will take three minutes to “align the black hole converters” which apparently also launches the missiles and triggers interstellar war and really just isn’t a good deal for humanity. A clock countdown begins. Master: “I never could resist a ticking clock.” We see tons of Toclafane in orbit, ready to “fly and blaze and slice.” The Master asks Martha if she has any last words, but she’s silent. Master: “Such a disappointment, this one. In days of old, Doctor, you had companions who could absorb the space-time vortex! This one’s useless!” Rose is the companion to pick if you want to hurt Martha’s feelings, but how the fuck does the Master know about her? He should have made fun of Peri’s dress sense instead. He orders Martha to lower her head and prepares to shoot her, but she starts laughing, and whatever wacky plan the goodies have is about to be unleashed. The Master asks her what’s so funny. She should say “that bit where you called the Doctor Gandalf, that was great,” but instead she says “A gun, in four parts, scattered across the world? I mean, come on! Did you really believe that?” Master: “Whaddya mean?” Doctor: “As if I would ask her to kill.” The Master is still all smug, so Martha reveals that the resistance knew about Professor Docherty and knew she would sell Martha out. Martha used her to get herself here at the right time. Master: “But you’re still gonna die!” Martha: “Don’t you want to know what I was doing, traveling the world?” The Master looks bored. “Tell me.” Turns out she was telling people all around the world about the Doctor, and telling them to spread the word. Master: “Faith and hope, is that all?” Martha: “No, because I gave them an instruction, just as the Doctor said. I told them that if everyone thinks of one word, at one specific time…” Master: “Nothing will happen! *the countdown is down to like 15 seconds now* Is that your weapon? Prayer?” Martha: “Right across the world, one word, just one thought at one moment, but with fifteen satellites!” The Master finally realizes he’s fucked. Master: “What?” Jack: “The Archangel Network.” Martha: “A telepathic field, binding the whole human race together with all of them, every single person on Earth thinking the same thing at the same time and that word, is ‘Doctor!’” The Master turns to the little Gollum Doctor, who starts blowing with blue swirly energy and shit. If it was pink, I’d swear that the faith and love of humanity was transforming him into Sailor Moon. If it was yellow, I’d swear he was gathering a Fighting Spirit Bomb to defeat Vegeta. Master: “Stop it! No no no no no no you don’t!” Martha and Jack and Martha’s family all start murmuring “Doctor.” We see shots of people around the world yelling “Doctor.” Master: “Stop this right now!” Now his wife is closing her eyes and saying “Doctor.” Easily led, that one. The Doctor, who is back in Bischoff mode instead of Gollum mode, delivers some claptrap about how he’s spent the last year integrating with the Archangel Network’s matrices. The Master looks panicked.
Even Indian people love the Doctor.
Back to fully-glompable Davey Boy Tennant mode, but also glowing with power, the Doctor is back. Doctor: “One thing you can’t do is stop them thinking.” He starts floating and shit. Doctor: “Tell me the human race is degenerate now, when they can do this!” Master: “NO!” He shoots the Doctor with the Laser Screwdriver a few times, but glowing with powar Doctor can no-sell. Doctor: “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Master: “Then I’ll kill them!” He points the Laser Screwdriver at the Joneseses, but the Doctor goes full-on Jedi by telekinetically knocking the weapon from the Master’s hands. Master: “You can’t do this! You can’t do this! IT’S NOT FAIR!” He’s backing away as the Doctor floats forward. Doctor: “You know what happens now.” The Master keeps screaming “no” and backing up. Doctor: “You wouldn’t listen, because you know what I’m gonna say.” The Master is now crawling away on his knees. He backs into a wall and curls up into the fetal position whimpering “no.” The Doctor settles onto the floor (those stupid sneakers totally killing the “glowing with Jedi powar” bit) and kneels down next the Master and (no longer glowing) HUGS HIM. Doctor: “I forgive you.” The Master pulls his shit together and says “My children!”
Cut to the Toclafane, still orbiting the planet ready to attack. As one, all eleventy billion of them rush to retake the Valiant and protect the Paradox Machine.
The music is about ready to blow again, as the Doctor releases his embrace on the Master to use DRAMATIC ACTING to order Jack to destroy the Paradox Machine. Jack is accompanied by Bashams, who are…good guys now. I’m sure it has something to do with the psychic satellite bullshit. But now the Master activates the teleport thingie he took from Martha, though the Doctor notices just in time to grab him and get teleported too. They appear…on a rocky plateau (ironic, as the music is about to orgasm.) We see the missiles, still ready to launch with lots of alarms and shit going off. The Master yells
“Now Doctor, now it ends!” And thunder peals as he says it because shit, why not go whole hog?
Commercials. An Aleve ad with firemen. Aleve is the true hero of 9-11.
Martha and her family fret about Toclafane as Handsome Jack and the Bashams run around with drama and music and guns.
Doctor: “We have control of the Valiant, you can’t launch!” The Master produces a remote control. Master: “Oh but I’ve got this! Black hole converter inside every ship! If I can’t have this world, Doctor, then neither can you! We will stand upon this Earth, together, as it burns!”
Some Toclafane are in the room with the TARDIS/Paradox Machine. Jack and the Bashams shoot at them. The Bashams think they’ll get slaughtered if they go in. Jack can’t die, so he goes in. Though, uh, how is it going to help matters if they just keep killing you repeatedly and you can’t destroy the machine?
Doctor: “Weapon after weapon after weapon. All you do is talk and talk and talk. But over all these years, and all these disasters I’ve always had the greatest secret of them all. I know you. Explode those ships you kill yourself. That’s the one thing you could never do. Give that to me.” And…the Master hands over the remote.
Somehow, completely glossed over with quick cutting and loud music, Jack gets into the TARDIS and opens fire on the Paradoxified console.
The Master and the Doctor wrestle over the teleport thing, and end up back on the Valiant. Big hug for Martha. By the Doctor, not the Master.
Quick montage of “time reversing” as the paradox is broken. The Toclafane disappear. That statue of the Master and all those missiles disappear. Panicky slaves in the street are replaced by normal people walking around normally. Japan is back, so we can still make Akiko and Sakofa jokes.
On the Valiant, someone calls asking what happened to the President. The Doctor explains to everyone that they’ve reverted in time to the moment after the President was shot but right before the Toclafane invaded en masse. They can remember it because they’re in the “eye of the storm” but for the rest of the world, it never happened. Then he breaks off right in the middle of explanation and goes “Oh hallo, you must be Mister Jones, we never actually met!” to Mister Jones, which was pretty funny. The Master bolts towards to door, but Jack catches him and says “Whoa big fella, you don’t wanna miss the party!” They cuff the Master, then Jack asks what they’re going to do with him. Martha’s entire family (save Martha herself) say they kill him. The Doctor says no. A rather thematically important scene gets cut here, as Martha’s Mom got a gun in all the commotion and trains it on the Master. The Doctor literally stands between her and the Master, and talks her down by telling her she’s better than that. But SciFi cuts straight to the Doctor’s brief speech on how as a Time Lord it’s his responsibility to look after the Master from now on. Jack tells him he can’t trust the Master, and the Doctor already knows. Master: “You mean you’re just gonna…keep me?” Doctor: “Hmm. If that’s what I have to do. It’s time to change. Maybe, I’ve been wandering for too long. Now I’ve got someone to care for…” And…a shot rings out. Everybody run, Lucy’s got a gun. She shot her husband in the gut when it became apparent nobody else was going to. Jack rushes to disarm her as the Doctor catches the Master as he falls. Doctor: “I’ve got you!” The Master (cradled in the Doctor’s arms:) “Always the women.” Hahaha. Doctor: “I didn’t see her.” Master: “Dying in your arms. Happy now?” Doctor: “You’re not dying, don’t be stupid, it’s only a bullet, just regenerate.” Master: “No.” Doctor: “One little bullet, come on!” Master: “I guess you don’t know me so well. I refuse.” Doctor: “Regenerate. Just regenerate! Please, PLEASE! Just regenerate, come on!” Master: “And spend the rest of my life, imprisoned with you?” Doctor: “But you’ve got to, come on! It can’t end like this. You and me, all the things we’ve done. Axons, remember the Axons? And the Daleks! We’re the only two left! There’s no one else! REGENERATE!” The Doctor is crying, worse than he did when Rose left. Master: “How about that?” He smiles evilly. “I win.” He stops smiling. “Will it stop, Doctor? The drumming? Will it stop?” And…he’s dead. The Doctor hugs him tight and rocks him back and forth and screams “NOOOO!” and it’s very sad. It really is, but I still can’t help but think of the ancient Extreme Internet Wrestling piece where Darien died in Serena’s arms and Rey held the suddenly comatose Serena in her arms and wept with her and then Edge and Christian burst in and started posing.
If we weren’t channeling Star Wars before, here’s the dead Master at the top of a great big funeral prye. At night. The Doctor solomnly lights it with a torch. I’m half expecting to see blue ghost versions of all the old Masters chumming around with Yoda and Obi-Wan.
Commercials. This might be my last commercial break rebeak ever. I probably should have tried to make it funny, but no.
We’re back, and the Doctor, Martha and Jack are chilling around in…Cardiff. The Doctor invites Jack to be a real, proper companion again, but Jack says he has to rejoin his spin-off series. The Doctor respects that, but takes away his time-teleport-wristwatch…thing. Jack gives a salute to the Doctor and Rose, starts to stride off dramatically, then stops. Jack: “But I keep wondering…what about aging? Cause I can’t die but I keep getting older. The odd little grey hair, you know? What happens if I live a billion years?” Doctor: “I really don’t know.” He spontaneously tells them that he used to be a poster boy on the Boeshang Peninsula. Jack: “‘The Face of Boe’ they called me. Hmm. I’ll see you.” And he leaves then dumbstruck. Gobsmacked. Etc. The Doctor and Martha laugh and laugh and it probably has more impact if you’re a big Face of Boe mark. Apparently they have those over there.
Meanwhile, the Doctor stands around outside the TARDIS, which is parked outside the Jones Family Residence. Guess it can travel between places other than Martha’s apartment and Yana’s laboratory again. That’s convenient, because there’s only so maybe good stories season four could make of those two locals. Anyway, Martha is in deliberations with her family, so the Doctor returns to the TARDIS to wait for her. She comes in. He starts gushing about oh the places they’ll go and the things that they’ll see. Doctor: “What about…Agatha Christie! I’d love to meet Agatha Christie, bet she’s brilliant!” She looks at him sadly. Doctor: “Ok.” Martha: “I just can’t.” Doctor: “Yeah.” She explains that as someone training to be a doctor, she can’t leave her emotionally wrecked family uncared for. They did, after all, see half the planet slaughtered and no one else remembers. He understands. Doctor: “Thank you.” They hug. It’s very sweet. Doctor: “Martha Jones, you saved the world!” Martha: “Yes I did. I spent a lot of time with you thinking I was second best but you know what? I am good.” Big smiles all around. She asks him if he’s going to be all right (she did pick rather a bad time to leave him alone) and he blows off the question. She nods sadly and gives him a little peck on the cheek. And leaves.
She stands outside the TARDIS. She steels herself. And…she heads back in. She starts talking all fast without pauses, Doctor style, about this girl she used to know who loved this bloke (named Sean OMG) she lived with in student housing. Doctor: “Is this…going anywhere?” Martha: “Yes!” He nods. Martha: “Ccause he never looked at her twice. I mean, he liked her, but that was it.” The Doctor slumps his head, looking at his horrible, stupid shoes. Martha’s friend wasted years pining after this nice guy who just wasn’t into her. Martha: “And I told her, I always said to her time and time again, I said: ‘Get out.’ So this is me, getting out.” Wow, that’s actually about as satisfying a conclusion as these two could have had. She undermines it just a tinge by giving him her intergalactic cellphone so she can still call him. And now she’s off for real.
A really dramatic version of the Martha Theme plays as the Doctor takes off in the TARDIS.
And…we’re at the burned-out funeral pyre, where a Gallifreyan ring is lying in the ashes. A female hand picks it up, and we hear sinister voice-over laughing. Oh man, don’t “Search For Spock” the Master’s death, please!
The Doctor sadly adjusts some TARDIS controls, and then…we hear a really loud fog horn. And…the bow of a ship has burst through the TARDIS’ exterior? Doctor: “What? What” He looks at a life-saver, and it’s from the Titanic. Doctor, a little darkly: “What?”
Final Thoughts: Sorry about the goofy Titanic ending. So far, every season of the new series has ended on a down-note (Doctor dying or companion leaving) and has a last second wacky shocker to lift our spirits and make us scratch our heads while waiting for the next Christmas Special. But anyway, I love the Master. How many villains will choose to die just to make the hero miserable? The idea of some woman finding a magic ring and bringing him back (he’s possessed human bodies before) fills me with dread. The Master coming back might work, but if he becomes she and the Mistress goes around trying to conquer Earth while hitting on the Doctor, that may be a bit too much for me. And a fond farewell to Martha, who was an attractive female but was not stupid and who got to leave with her dignity rather than blubbering (Rose) or dying (Adric) or sort of being forgotten about (Peri.) Adric was technically not female, but…a mere technicality. Anyway, I enjoyed this at least, hope someone else did. See you around.
