10th Doctor Special 4/5: 1 x 60min episode, 25th December 2009, Writer: Russell T. Davies, Director: Euros Lyn, Producer: Tracie Simpson, Executive Producers: Russell T. Davies & Julie Gardner
Chris@KosmicKris It gets a lot of stick, but I really love this story! Yes, it’s utterly ridiculous but it’s also gorgeous, fun and sad.
I think it's flawed, but underrated. The vinvocci let it down, as do the neverending companion farewells.
Mark@Th3DarkMark I seem I remember mostly enjoying it - thankfully it was before I used Twitter, lol!
Yes, now we have Twitter to tell us we're wrong when we thought we enjoyed something!
Chris@KosmicKris In the same catagory for me as The Five Doctors and Day of the Doctor. I know it has flaws: I just don’t care.
Yeah, I'd go with that :-)
The Tenth Doctor's swansong begins with a bit of a variation on the now traditional zoom-in on Earth...
As James Bond narrates to us, telling us that everyone's having nightmares at Christmas...
50dw50@50dw50 nice and doom ladenMark@Th3DarkMark that's Christmas for you!Yay, Cribbins!
Wilf is suddenly troubled by a vision of maniacal laughter.
He shakes it off and makes it to the church on time for a carol service.
Inside, he notices a stained-glass panel with the image of the TARDIS.
John Mark Frankland@JMFrankland The TARDIS in the stained glass made me feel something really epic was in store, and the end would link back to it somehow.
A mysterious woman tells him the church was a monastery in the 13th century.
"It's said a demon fell from the sky, then a man appeared. A man in a blue box. They called him the sainted physician. He smote the demon and then disappeared."
Wilf hopes the Doctor is coming back. In fact it'd make his Christmas.
When he turns, the woman in white has vanished.
If he is returning, he'd better get his skates on - the visions of the Master are getting worse...
And we're off!
Great for the Master of the day to get a full credit...
...but how much cooler for Bernard Cribbins to be THE companion for this story. Wonderful.
In the 43rd century, the Tenth Doctor arrives on the Ood Sphere.
Seems he took the long way round since The Waters of Mars.
John Mark Frankland@JMFrankland Doctor Who in his 10th incarnation major flaw is his ego and hubris.Which, judging by his comments about Elizabeth I, includes the Day of the Doctor.
Simon Pittman@LibraryPlayer He helped save Gallifrey and almost immediately afterwards he's going to help destroy it! #TimeyWimeyOod Sigma doesn't even blink at his TARDIS car lock gag...
...but the Doctor's impressed by the nearby Ood city.
He soon progresses from impressed to perturbed, though, when it turns out that the city is the handiwork of only a few centuries.
Something's up: the Ood have advanced and evolved far faster than they should have.
Finlay HS@finlay2016 Was this ever addressed again in the ep? I don't seem to remember it getting any pay-off.
Not properly, I think, but I guess the implication is that they were psychically sensitive to Gallifrey's return?
Sigma takes the Doctor to visit the the Ood Elder.
There he is told that he has come "far too late" and that "it is returning".
Joining the circle, the Doctor experiences the same vision of the Master laughing that has been troubling Wilf.
"You should not have delayed, for the lines of convergence are being drawn across the Earth. Even now, the king is in his Counting house."
The Doctor doesn't understand what the Ood are getting at. After all, the Master's dead. Isn't he?
The Doctor saw the Master shot by his wife Lucy...
...and he ceremonially burned the corpse himself.
But the Ood Elder shows him what happened next...
...with a severe looking woman recovering the Master's ring...
The Elder forecasts a greater danger, returning from the darkness, and worse: "The End of Time itself".
The Doctor rushes to the TARDIS, and heads to Earth...
...whilst in Broadfell Prison, Lucy Saxon is hauled from her cell.
She's brought before the Governor, Miss Trefusis, the woman who had the Master's ring retrieved.
She's the leader of a cult of fanatical Saxon worshippers, and they're prepared at last, on Christmas Eve, to bring about his resurrection.
Elsewhere, still plagued by the Master's demonic laughter, Wilf watches the gathering storm...
...but someone's watching him too.
The cult have the ring, "potions of life"...
...and now the final piece of the puzzle: a biometric imprint of Harold Saxon himself, which they gain by wiping Lucy's lipstick off. Nope, me neither.
Must admit the Master's resurrection seems more Harry Potter than Time Lord.
In a swirl of supernatural energy...
...the reborn Master is, er, reborn.
The Doctor pushes the TARDIS to the limit to get to Broadfell.
The Master seems even more deranged then before, or at least the drums are just as loud as ever. "Did the widow's kiss bring me back to life?"
Seem to recall John Simm's actually wearing a syrup over his already bleached hair here.
Simon Pittman@LibraryPlayer Didn't explain his bleached hair... was it a result of the ressurection going wrong? :-)He mentions in a bit doing it because people recognised him as Saxon.
Lucy knew he'd be back...
...and her well to do family have prepared an "antidote" to the potion that brought him back to life.
She hurls the phial at him...
...and he seems to explode, killing everyone in the vicinity and destroying Broadfell Prison.
By the time the Doctor arrives, it's the next day, and, as the Elder Ood predicted, too late.
In his mansion, Joshua Naismith reviews footage of the prison's destruction and thinks he spies an escapee...
That'll make just another Christmas present for his daughter, to go along with the mysterious alien "gate" that he's got her.
"Christmas is cancelled..."
Wilf's off out...
...and gets his wiggle on...
...to lead his "Silver Cloak" gang of elderly reprobates (including no less than June Whitfield and Barry Howard!) out on another Doctor-spotting expedition.
Chris@KosmicKris Wilf was so brilliant in this story! One of RTDs many excellent casting decisions. And with the cloud of regeneration hanging over this story, the silver cloak were a lovely light touch.
The Master is hiding amongst the homeless, and he's hungry...
...very hungry.
Chris@KosmicKris a disgusting and savage touch that was so effective at showing how far this once mighty Time Lord has fallen.
Yes, something really scary about the powerful Time Lord stripped to the bone and gone completely feral.
"You look like that bloke. Harold Saxon? The one that went mad..."
"Now isn't that funny... The master of disguise, stuck looking like the old Prime Minister."
Chris@KosmicKris it’s almost the Anti-Delgado - Simm is superb in this!
Richard Grant@richyg360 John simm makes a good master.
Yet I can't really see him opposite Smith or Capaldi; Simm's Master was so tailored to Tennant's Doctor. Whereas Ainley's Master was more of an archetype that could play against several Doctors. Would Delgado work with anyone other than Pertwee?
Richard Grant@richyg360 i think Delgado would have been great playing opposite any of the doctors just a great actor.
He's my favourite Master, but somehow and surprisingly hard to imagine him with other Doctors IMO.
Tim@parks8472 Same, seeing him with any Doctor bar Pertwee would have been bizarre.
#FornaroliTheGoat@Darth_Celtic John Simm as The Master reminds me of Jim Carrey as The Riddler, good actors totally miscast in an iconic villain's role.
I think he works as a twisted mirror version of Tennant's Doctor. Whether that's really the Master, though...
M.R.Michael@The_Cybermatt Delgado would work against most of them as he'd modify his performance. Imagine he and Troughton would be fun Ainley works best against Davison: behaves as though 5's decency and youth are a personal insult.
Always seems so odd that Ainley's Master tells 5 in The King's Demons it's time he regenerated - but I think you're right: he's desperate to see the back of this incarnation in particular.
Seems the Master's not all there.
In fact he's splitting his sides.
It's no laughing matter to Tommo and Ginger, though, and like the tramps of the Pertwee era, their cards are marked. "Dinner time!"
The Doctor has tracked his foe to the quarry.
The Master calls him out by beating an oil drum. How many knocks was that?
The Doctor gives chase...
...but the Master leaps to freedom.
The Doctor is pinched by the Silver Cloak as the Master escapes.
Quite literally, when it comes to Minnie the minx.
Wilf picks out a particular cafe to take the Doctor for a cuppa. "What's so special about this place? We passed 15 cafes on the way..."
There the Doctor puzzles over the enormous coincidence of Wilf finding him so easily, "like something's still connecting us..."
Chris@KosmicKris my favourite scene in the whole of New Who! Two actors playing it with absolute integrity. 
"I'm going to die."
"Well so am I one day."
"Don't you dare."
When the Doctor relates the prophecy that he will die after "Four Knocks", Wilf asks if he can't just regenerate.
The Doctor replies that he can always potentially die before regenerating but that even when he regenerates, the next Doctor is always a completely different person, and he will be gone.
Interesting that he describes regeneration as like a death, like the next Doctor isn't really *him*.
Chris@KosmicKris cf. this with Hell Bent where the Doctor is apparently happy to inflict this fate on the General?Simon Pittman@LibraryPlayer Was thinking that too (not comfortable with that scene in HB).It soon becomes obvious why Wilf wanted the Doctor sat exactly where he is - outside is where Donna parks her car. There she is, arguing with a traffic warden.
Wilf pleads with the Doctor to come back into Donna's life. She's engaged again, but just "making do".
The Doctor reminds him that if Donna's memories of their time together are triggered she'll die. He's travelling alone now, but without a proper companion, he's made some very bad choices.
The Doctor breaks down, and Wilf is devastated.
The Doctor knows he must face his fear, though, and sets off to find the Master.
The mysterious narrator takes on a sinister tone. "And so it came to pass that the players took their final places, making ready the events that were to come."
"The madman sat in his empire of dust and ashes, little knowing of the glory he would achieve..."
"...While his saviour looked upon the wilderness, in the hope of changing his inevitable fate."
"Far away, the idiots and fools dreamt of a shining new future. A future now doomed to never happen."
"As Earth rolled onwards into night, the people of that world did sleep, and shiver, somehow knowing that dawn would bring only one thing. The final day."
The narrator is revealed, a man in opulent red and gold robes...
Simon Pittman@LibraryPlayer Shame we won't see Dalton again in DW. Perhaps Big Finish could get him for 8th and War Doctor adventures. :-)The Master and the Doctor face one another like gunslingers.
The Master has started to harness the energy being released by his botched resurrection...
...so naturally he chooses to channel it to give the Doctor a tickle with force lightning.
The Doctor collapses, but when the savage Master has him at his mercy, he begins at first to reminisce about their Gallifreyan childhood...
...and then to obssess with the waste and over indulgence of Christmas. "All that roasting meat, cakes and red wine. Hot, fat, blood, food. Pots, plates of meat, and flesh, and grease, and juice, and baking, burnt, sticky hot skin."
The Doctor pleads with him; "There's more at work tonight than you and me. I've been told something is returning."
But the Master is too distracted to take in what he's saying.
All he can hear is the sound of drums.
And then the impossible: the Doctor hears the drums too.
Inside the Master's head, the drums. They're real.
The Master weeps tears of joy, finally vindicated that the drums are not a product of insanity...
...but before they can work out what they really mean...
...a bright light appears above them. Paging Mulder & Scully...
The Master holds his arms aloft... and is abducted.
But this is no otherworldly visit. The Doctor is shot at by SAS types who haul the unconscious Master away.
Chris@KosmicKris I loved that this wasn’t a real helicopter - you can’t tell :)
It's Christmas morning at the Nobles', where it's never too early for Margaritas!
Wilf's received a copy of Joshua Naismith's book: "Fighting the Future."
Joshua Naismith has got his daughter a Time Lord for Christmas...
Chris@KosmicKris loved the contrast of themes: from excess at Xmas to mundane gifts! From ancient foes to small domestic rituals.
When Wilf settles down for the Queen's speech, instead he sees the Woman in White.
Only Wilf can see her apparently.
The woman tells him that he stands at "the heart of coincidence" and that although he never killed a man, he's been to war, and must again take arms.
The Doctor's life can be saved, she says, but only if he's told nothing.
Wilf takes his old service revolver from under his bed...
...when his attention is caught by the Doctor throwing a stone at his window.
Leaving the house to teams up with the Doctor, Wilf shows him Naismith's book.
When the Doctor recognises Naismith from the Ood prophecy, he speculates that Donna bought it because the convergence is affecting her Time Lord subconscious.
The pair are busted by Sylvia, who, in between wishing the Doctor Merry Christmas, tells him to get lost.
Despite her protests, Wilf leaves with the Doctor.
Luckily, the TARDIS has gone before Donna arrives to find her shouting at thin air.
Wilf aboard the TARDIS, hurrah!
Chris@KosmicKris more than any other companion, in any story, I felt Wilf was my surrogate here!
His first thought? "I thought it'd be cleaner."
En route to the Naismith estate, the Doctor has to explain that he can't go back in his own timeline to catch the Master.
At the mansion, Naismith and his daughter, Abigail, prepare to fire up the "Immortality Gate".
Some of his techies are acting suspiciously, and saunter off to the basement to conspire...
Naismith explains to the Master that he acquired the Gate after the fall of Torchwood...
...and that he hopes the Gate - designed to heal injuries - can be adapted to bestow everlasting life.
In the basement, techies Rossiter and Adams are concerned about the new arrival. They're working on the Gate for their own reasons.
Mainly because they're its' original owners - Vinvocci who've disguised themselves to get close to the Gate.
Upstairs, Naismith bribes the Master with all the Christmas turkeys he can gobble down.
The gate came with two nuclear-powered control booths, which are set-up in a way that for a worker to leave they must be replaced in the other booth ensuring that someone is working the controls at all times.
Let the Master see the Gate...
Chris@KosmicKris suspending any notions of disbelief in 5,4,3…
Why doesn't the Master just use the "Immortality Gate" to heal himself instead of staying in this state?
Simon Pittman@LibraryPlayer Isn't that what he kind of does at the end when he turns everyone into the Master? :-)Chris@KosmicKris perhaps his condition means he can’t see the extent of his malady or he wants to keep the extended powers he has?He does seem to actually enjoy being laser Skeletor, he's just ravenous all the time but I guess he's happy with the trade off. But he must know it can't last.
Chris@KosmicKris Agreed - and you’re right, it could have been explored a bit more :)The TARDIS arrives in the Naismith estate's stables...
... and hide the TARDIS a second out of sync with time, so the Master can't get to it.
The pair sneak from the stables to the mansion's basement.
"You should stay here."
"Not bloody likely."
"And don't swear."
The Master gets to work. I'm sure he'll do exactly as Naismith wants and not try to double cross him in any way.
Arriving in the basement, the Doctor exposes the cactus-like Vinvocci and their "shimmers". No relation to Meglos.
The "Immortality Gate" is a healing device, capable of transmitting a healing template across the entire planet. And it's in the hands of the Master. Oh dear...
Pleased with his pet's work, Naismith gives the team the rest of the day off. "We can resume work on Boxing Day, Mister Saxon."
"My name... is the Master."
The whole world awaits President Obama's financial rescue plan.
The Doctor realises what the Master is planning to do and rushes upstairs...
...but is too late to stop the Master from escaping his captors...
...and jumping into the Gate.
"Homeless, was I? Destitute and dying? Well, look at me now."
Every single human on Earth begins to experience the visions of the Master that have been plaguing Wilf...
Rescuing a technician from the nuclear booth, the Doctor seals Wilf in the shielding, clearing his mind.
He may be shielded, but Wilf's phone can still get reception. It's Donna, freaking out because something's wrong with her mum and Shaun.
The Doctor thinks the Master is up to his old hypnotic tricks...
...but it's worse than that. "They're not going to think like me, they're going to become me!"
The transmits his template across the whole planet...
His template is enough to make your head spin...
Sure enough, the Master has used his own DNA as a template to overwrite all humanity, and every human being on Earth (bar Donna and Wilf) are now perfect copies of the Doctor's old enemy.
Worse, Donna starts to remember...
Wilf demands to know what the Master has done.
"Oh, I'm sorry, are you talking to me?"
"Or me?"
"Or us?"
The Master who used to be Trinity Wells clearly makes his point for him: "Breaking news: I'm everyone!"
The Master deletes Obama's solution to the global financial crisis. Just because he can.
Now there is no human race, only the Master race...
Chris@KosmicKris Howls of laughter from the family and “is it always like this?” - cut to Xmas pud :)
Now there is no human race, only the Master race...
Chris@KosmicKris Howls of laughter from the family and “is it always like this?” - cut to Xmas pud :)
A crowd of Master duplicates claps and cheers their triumph.
Chris@KosmicKris when I saw the DWC on this and how much effort John Simm put in to making this, my respect for him was unbounded.
The scale of the Master's victory is not lost on the Doctor.
The sinister Narrator picks up the events with relish: "And so it came to pass, on Christmas Day, that the human race did cease to exist..."
"But even then, the Master had no concept of his greater role in events."
"For this was far more than humanity's end."
"This day was the day upon which the whole of creation would change forever."
"This was the day the Time Lords returned." At last we see that the narrator is none other than the Lord President of the High Council of Time Lords.
Chris@KosmicKris Tim Dalton was at his spitty best for this! Loved his Rassilon (again, inspired casting to get an actual James Bond)
Well, everyone knows James Bond is a Time Lord... :-D
Chris@KosmicKris I’m disappointed they didn’t get George Lazenby to play Runcible!
Rog as Omega, Brosnan as the Meddling Monk, Bob Holness as the War Bond?
Addressing the Panopticon, packed out with Time Lords, he roars "For Gallifrey! For victory! For the end of time itself!"
TTFN! K.
Coming Soon... The End of Time (Part Two)
Chris@KosmicKris when I saw the DWC on this and how much effort John Simm put in to making this, my respect for him was unbounded.
The scale of the Master's victory is not lost on the Doctor.
The sinister Narrator picks up the events with relish: "And so it came to pass, on Christmas Day, that the human race did cease to exist..."
"But even then, the Master had no concept of his greater role in events."
"For this was far more than humanity's end."
"This day was the day upon which the whole of creation would change forever."
"This was the day the Time Lords returned." At last we see that the narrator is none other than the Lord President of the High Council of Time Lords.
Chris@KosmicKris Tim Dalton was at his spitty best for this! Loved his Rassilon (again, inspired casting to get an actual James Bond)
Well, everyone knows James Bond is a Time Lord... :-D
Chris@KosmicKris I’m disappointed they didn’t get George Lazenby to play Runcible!Rog as Omega, Brosnan as the Meddling Monk, Bob Holness as the War Bond?
Addressing the Panopticon, packed out with Time Lords, he roars "For Gallifrey! For victory! For the end of time itself!"
TTFN! K.
Coming Soon... The End of Time (Part Two)
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