After just viewing this episode, I was not really looking forward to my review of it, because I knew that based on what I had just saw did not stack up at all to the standards set by the original series. This episode seemed to struggle throughout the entire length in sustaining a great plotline. This may have to some degree been contributed to the fact that Russell T Davies chose to set this finale -- and conclusion to the "Utopia" trilogy, one year after the events of the previous episode, "The Sound of Drums."
The bulk of this episode was centered around Martha, and with most of Davies' stories, it was often up to The Doctor's companion to the save the day rather than vice versa, as it was in the original series. This was always one aspect of the revived series that bothered me - the show was titled, branded, and sold as "Doctor Who," yet many of the episodes played out as though it should have been titled "The Adventures of Rose Tyler," or "Martha Jones & Company," etc.
There were only one or two scenes in this episode that were closer to the original series. The ones that stood out to me the most were the scene of Martha and Thomas Milligan are in a rocky area that is reminiscent of the
quarries that original Who often visited for location shooting. The other was the scene atop the hill where The Doctor and The Master face each other one on one, away from innocent civilians.
Davies continued to stick to his typical formula for the final two episodes of a season: the first was generally nominally paced, and build up to a defeated Doctor in a hopeless situation, at which point the episode would end. The second episode drags the takeover of Earth out over relatively 40 minutes, and then the entire crisis is resolved in the last ten. In the case of this finale, unlike traditional Master encounters, The Master's plan is allowed to play out completely, first giving him the satisfaction of victory over The Doctor, and then rather than have The Doctor work out a way to STOP The Master before things get out of hand, Davies has The Doctor work out a way to REVERSE the damage done. So in manner of speaking, usually by Davies' final episodes in a season, it's too late to save the world.
However, Davies always has a David Copperfield or two up his sleeve for fixing out of control plots. In the case of this finale, the solution somewhat makes sense, but some of it looked like something pulled out of Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. The Master had set up a system of fifteen satellites around the globe to monitor The Doctor's activity and to telepathically keep the population under his influence. The Doctor turns this against him by having the entire population think of the Doctor at one specific time. The Archangel network would boost the thoughts, and then for some bizarre reason, this alone restores the Doctor to his original self, and engulfs him in a white light. He then hovers over the floor like an angel. Strange indeed.
We then deal with a sinister Master suddenly turned wimp, as he cowers in a corner in tears because of his defeat. What is it with Davies and his villains crying? Remember the Cyberman shedding a black tear in "Doomsday?"
The other part of the solution makes a little more sense, but still doesn't fully abide by the laws of the original series. Harkness escapes and enters The Doctor's TARDIS, which The Master had been keeping onboard the Valiant. We learned in the previous episode that The Master had cannibalized the TARDIS, and turned the console into a paradox machine. I wasn't sure why paradoxes suddenly needed a machine until this episode. The theory behind the Toclafane's origins and purpose was correct enough - they were humans from Utopia, who travelled back through time 100 trillion years to kill their ancestors and begin a new empire. Naturally, the laws of time would render this impossible, since by killing their ancestors they would essentially be killing themselves in the future. However, The Master builds the paradox machine in order to allow the Toclafane to exist in the past without killing themselves in their future. Harkness, armed with a automatic rifle, steps inside and shoots at the paradox machine, destroying it and thus breaking the paradox. This bit also was something that completely ignored a minor detail in the original series. The Fourth Doctor stated in "The Hand of Fear" that while they were inside the TARDIS, they were in a state of temporal flux, and thus weapons were rendered useless. Yet somehow Harkness' gun seems to work here.
Harkness' destruction of the paradox machine reverses time to the instant before the Toclafane arrived, erasing all the events of the last 45 minutes we just watched. The Master's wife ultimately turns on him, and becomes responsible for his temporary demise (until The End of Time) by shooting him. The Master refuses to regenerate, and we are struck once again with a pull-on-the-heart strings scene where The Doctor loudly mourns the death of The Master. While this is understandable considering their history, you would think that after the events of The Movie with the Eighth Doctor that he should know by now The Master isn't beaten so easily.
Yet another tremendous minus for this episode was the overuse of music. From the instant the opening title sequence is over, every scene - both silent and containing dialogue - was accompanied by a pronounced orchestra. Minutes after the episode starts, The Master plays yet another modern day song - this time we have to listen to nearly the whole thing. Also, when The Master used his laser screwdriver to age The Doctor even older (which did not result in his death this time) the superfast scenes of The Doctor are accompanied by a sort of techno rave piece that just didn't fit the Doctor Who mold.
Although Davies did well in choosing the title for this episode, I feel like by this time he was starting to run thin on how to keep the central plot as interesting as it had been the previous two episodes. The title of the episode is however standard format for a classic title. By this time, I had just about decided that anytime he wrote an episode, this was what we were to expect at some point - particularly on stories spanning more than one episode. The fact was that he was better at writing works such as Queer As Folk than he was science fiction.
This episode ended Series 3 of the revived Doctor Who, and also saw the departure of companion Martha Jones. The episode ends in a decent cliffhanger, but again the events circumvent the laws established by the original series - it has always been understood that the interior of the TARDIS exist in a different dimension than that of the exterior, thus the reason for it being "bigger on the inside." That being the case, the exterior of a TARDIS was no more than a disguised doorway to the dimension containing the control room and other rooms. If the Titanic crashes into the EXTERIOR, how does it wreck the INTERIOR? Additionally there was a conflict of dimensions in the final scene - compared to the EXTERIOR, the Titanic would be hundreds of times larger, but yet as it crashes into the interior, it is still its normal size in relation to the interior.
Davies had a knack for stealing scenes from other forms of great science fiction. This time, we get the bon fire scene yanked right out of Return of the Jedi, except its The Doctor burning The Master's body instead of Skywalker burning Vader's.
Not much else I can say about this episode other than it was what I was pretty much expecting from Davies considering the last season's finale. The trilogy started off well, but sank fast five minutes into this episode. One final thing I can add in his favor though, is that he did allow for a future appearance by The Master.
The bulk of this episode was centered around Martha, and with most of Davies' stories, it was often up to The Doctor's companion to the save the day rather than vice versa, as it was in the original series. This was always one aspect of the revived series that bothered me - the show was titled, branded, and sold as "Doctor Who," yet many of the episodes played out as though it should have been titled "The Adventures of Rose Tyler," or "Martha Jones & Company," etc.
There were only one or two scenes in this episode that were closer to the original series. The ones that stood out to me the most were the scene of Martha and Thomas Milligan are in a rocky area that is reminiscent of the
quarries that original Who often visited for location shooting. The other was the scene atop the hill where The Doctor and The Master face each other one on one, away from innocent civilians.Davies continued to stick to his typical formula for the final two episodes of a season: the first was generally nominally paced, and build up to a defeated Doctor in a hopeless situation, at which point the episode would end. The second episode drags the takeover of Earth out over relatively 40 minutes, and then the entire crisis is resolved in the last ten. In the case of this finale, unlike traditional Master encounters, The Master's plan is allowed to play out completely, first giving him the satisfaction of victory over The Doctor, and then rather than have The Doctor work out a way to STOP The Master before things get out of hand, Davies has The Doctor work out a way to REVERSE the damage done. So in manner of speaking, usually by Davies' final episodes in a season, it's too late to save the world.
However, Davies always has a David Copperfield or two up his sleeve for fixing out of control plots. In the case of this finale, the solution somewhat makes sense, but some of it looked like something pulled out of Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. The Master had set up a system of fifteen satellites around the globe to monitor The Doctor's activity and to telepathically keep the population under his influence. The Doctor turns this against him by having the entire population think of the Doctor at one specific time. The Archangel network would boost the thoughts, and then for some bizarre reason, this alone restores the Doctor to his original self, and engulfs him in a white light. He then hovers over the floor like an angel. Strange indeed.
We then deal with a sinister Master suddenly turned wimp, as he cowers in a corner in tears because of his defeat. What is it with Davies and his villains crying? Remember the Cyberman shedding a black tear in "Doomsday?"
The other part of the solution makes a little more sense, but still doesn't fully abide by the laws of the original series. Harkness escapes and enters The Doctor's TARDIS, which The Master had been keeping onboard the Valiant. We learned in the previous episode that The Master had cannibalized the TARDIS, and turned the console into a paradox machine. I wasn't sure why paradoxes suddenly needed a machine until this episode. The theory behind the Toclafane's origins and purpose was correct enough - they were humans from Utopia, who travelled back through time 100 trillion years to kill their ancestors and begin a new empire. Naturally, the laws of time would render this impossible, since by killing their ancestors they would essentially be killing themselves in the future. However, The Master builds the paradox machine in order to allow the Toclafane to exist in the past without killing themselves in their future. Harkness, armed with a automatic rifle, steps inside and shoots at the paradox machine, destroying it and thus breaking the paradox. This bit also was something that completely ignored a minor detail in the original series. The Fourth Doctor stated in "The Hand of Fear" that while they were inside the TARDIS, they were in a state of temporal flux, and thus weapons were rendered useless. Yet somehow Harkness' gun seems to work here.
Harkness' destruction of the paradox machine reverses time to the instant before the Toclafane arrived, erasing all the events of the last 45 minutes we just watched. The Master's wife ultimately turns on him, and becomes responsible for his temporary demise (until The End of Time) by shooting him. The Master refuses to regenerate, and we are struck once again with a pull-on-the-heart strings scene where The Doctor loudly mourns the death of The Master. While this is understandable considering their history, you would think that after the events of The Movie with the Eighth Doctor that he should know by now The Master isn't beaten so easily.
Yet another tremendous minus for this episode was the overuse of music. From the instant the opening title sequence is over, every scene - both silent and containing dialogue - was accompanied by a pronounced orchestra. Minutes after the episode starts, The Master plays yet another modern day song - this time we have to listen to nearly the whole thing. Also, when The Master used his laser screwdriver to age The Doctor even older (which did not result in his death this time) the superfast scenes of The Doctor are accompanied by a sort of techno rave piece that just didn't fit the Doctor Who mold.
Although Davies did well in choosing the title for this episode, I feel like by this time he was starting to run thin on how to keep the central plot as interesting as it had been the previous two episodes. The title of the episode is however standard format for a classic title. By this time, I had just about decided that anytime he wrote an episode, this was what we were to expect at some point - particularly on stories spanning more than one episode. The fact was that he was better at writing works such as Queer As Folk than he was science fiction.
This episode ended Series 3 of the revived Doctor Who, and also saw the departure of companion Martha Jones. The episode ends in a decent cliffhanger, but again the events circumvent the laws established by the original series - it has always been understood that the interior of the TARDIS exist in a different dimension than that of the exterior, thus the reason for it being "bigger on the inside." That being the case, the exterior of a TARDIS was no more than a disguised doorway to the dimension containing the control room and other rooms. If the Titanic crashes into the EXTERIOR, how does it wreck the INTERIOR? Additionally there was a conflict of dimensions in the final scene - compared to the EXTERIOR, the Titanic would be hundreds of times larger, but yet as it crashes into the interior, it is still its normal size in relation to the interior.
Davies had a knack for stealing scenes from other forms of great science fiction. This time, we get the bon fire scene yanked right out of Return of the Jedi, except its The Doctor burning The Master's body instead of Skywalker burning Vader's.
Not much else I can say about this episode other than it was what I was pretty much expecting from Davies considering the last season's finale. The trilogy started off well, but sank fast five minutes into this episode. One final thing I can add in his favor though, is that he did allow for a future appearance by The Master.
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