Doctor Who: The End of Time - SPOILERS!

Cafe Society
21

We’re marching to a faster pace…

Yep, lots of stuff going on, it’s going to be a very busy pt II. I think the trouble is that the Master is sort-of the ultimate Dr. Who nemesis, and this is sort-of his ultimate gambit. Follow-up will be tough.

Maybe she’ll become one of the new timelords, and she and her fiancé can get minimum wage jobs on Gallifrey.

James Bond is a Time Lord. Who knew?

All in all, it’s just wonderful to see new Doctor stories. With everything else being so quiet for me right now, this was pretty much the highlight of my Christmas. Great stuff.

22

I thought that the Timelords are (timey-wimey) just before the Doctor destroyed them in the Time War, and they are hoping to change that outcome. It’s all very strange.

The episode as a whole was somewhat bizarre - just too much I think - although I like bonkers glutton Master, and the scene with Wilf and the Doctor in the cafe was very very good. The Obama sequence was awful. I did enjoy it though, but it was a bit “lol wut?” in parts.

Thing is, and this is very spoily:

There’s whole plotlines that have been filmed and didn’t show up in part one - Nurse Redfern’s great-grandaughter (played by Jessica Hynes) who has published “The Journal of Impossible Things”, the Doctor visiting Rose in a time before they first met etc. I wonder how they are going to tie everything up. Rumour is that part two does have a long running time though.

Also, who is the woman on the TV? Romana? Susan? The White Guardian?

23

I have to agree. The way they brought back the Master was too rushed. They needed to establish the conspiracy better. Also, I didn’t care for the way Mrs. Masters attempt to kill him (again) fizzled. All we got was a fuzzy image of him, somehow, walking out of the explosion. :confused:

I understand that they had to cut some things for time. This episode seemed to have a whole year of ideas packed into one hour.

24

Well he does keep regenerating.

My money was on the white guardian if they’re going for series call backs.

Yep, the revival of the Master was ludicrous and I found myself wishing that they had spent less time with it since it didn’t matter for the longer plotting. If you’re throwing everything out the window like that to close off a plotline that no one cared about and bring the Master back wrong then you might as well just say they buried him in a pet cemetery and get on with things.

Once he was back then it was interesting. I liked the Master/Doctor interaction this time out and that cliffhanger leaves everything up in the air. Besides being a planet of Masters Earth is also now a planet of Time Lords. Sure the resolution for that next week is pretty obvious but there’s a lot of interesting ways things can go with this.

I figured that the last big reveal was coming. The time lords had to return at some point and this episode seemed a logical point for it. And they seem to be setting them up in an adversarial role again.

25

The scene in the cafe was heart-wrenching. The ending was BONKERS. (Malkovich Malkovich!)

I loved it. This is what I want in a Doctor Who episode: a bit of drama, a bit of silliness, a bit of horror ( generally safe for teatime - although insane Master gnawing the flesh off what would appear to be a human bone had to raise some concerns with BBC brass), sometimes all in the same scene.

Time Lords cheering for “the end of time itself”? I thought they liked time. I think they

I don’t think Russell T. Davies cared too much about the mechanics of the Master’s resurrection, since that was just the beginning of the real story. Lucy’s failed attempt at re-killing him was an excuse for him to be more desparate and insane than ever.

And I’m really enjoying seeing a big finale without Daleks or Dalek substitutes.

Believe it or not, Donna getting her memory back was the only part that made me go huh? Did seeing people transform into the Master have some special resonance, or would any inexplicable occurrence have had the same effect? If the latter she was doomed all along, considering the frequency with which aliens parade through London.

Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow?

26

That’s so brilliant it might just work!

Naw, it’s just clear that Donna is going to be the bridge that let’s them turn Time Lords back into humans.

27

Spoiler for part 2:[spoiler]Think less James Bond, more Doctor Evil.

28

Damn, the video won’t play on my pc for some reason.

I found a similar link and Timothy Dalton is really chewing the scenery in this one isn’t he?

29

I groaned at the “Master race”, and I thought the Master was a bit too superheroish. I liked it in general though and especially the reveal of the Time Lords returning. The Doctor desperately needs new antagonists that aren’t either Daleks, Cybermen or the Master. Here’s to hoping that they don’t reset everything in the 2nd part, but keep at least some other Time Lords around for future seasons to serve as antagonists.

30

BBC America ran the show tonight. It’s a shame they don’t run the Doctor Who Confidential too. They always have some very good background information. I like seeing how the special effects were done. Sometimes they surprise me. I had assumed the scene with the press room was done with computers. Replicating the Masters head on all the various bodies. But, it turns out the actor spent a whole day switching costumes and filming each person individually. It must of been exhausting.

Russell T. Davies did make a comment that he had to resist the impulse to make Donna the Doctor’s companion again. I’m sure she plays a key role in defeating the Master and or Timelords. But, I’m beginning to think she doesn’t fully regain her memory. <shrug> We’ll see.

Speculation…
I’m curious to see what happens between the Master and the Timelords. How’s he going to react when he discovers they’ve been manipulating him? I wouldn’t be surprised to see The Master and The Doctor joining forces to defeat them. They may both die together. Anyway, that’s pure speculation.

31

Doctor Who Confidential showed clips of the Master going all the way back to the beginning. The Doctor and the Master have always fought, but neither really wants to kill the other. The Doctor begged the Master to regenerate last season. The Master didn’t kill the Doctor in this episode with his energy bolts. They respect each other, but are enemies too.

Question to old time fans… The show seems to give two histories for the Doctor.

  1. The Doctor stole the Blue Box and used it to escape Gallifrey. The Doctor was a fugitive and was hunted by the Timelords.

  2. The Doctor fought the Daleks in the great time war. The Timelords and Daleks destroyed each other, and Gallifrey was destroyed. Somehow, the Doctor helped destroy the Daleks and he escaped as the only survivor.

The first version is the one I remember from the original series in the 70’s. The Timelords put the Doctor on trail and exiled him on earth. It seems like the second version with the Doctor as a shell shocked veteran of the Time Wars was invented for the new series with Christopher Eccleston.

Does anyone remember the Doctor surviving the Time War being mentioned in the old series? Are both histories true?

32

I thought the Time War and the death of the Time Lords (and the Daleks) was implied to have happened pre-Eccleston, with the Eighth Doctor.

But then, I’m no fanboy of the original series, so perhaps it was part of long-established canon.

33

That would explain the two histories. I didn’t watch the series after Tom Baker left. They could have easily added the Time War in the 1980’s.

34

Right.

35

The time war stuff didn’t come up until the new series. The fugitive stuff was resolved a long time ago (I want to say it was the last episode of the second Doctor) and then after that there was still a generally antagonistic relationship between them which would boil over every so often when the Time Lords had to turn to the Doctor for help.

36

I love that they did it that way- not only are some of the outfits clearly too large for The Master after the change (including Obama’s suit), but you can clearly see the body size changing when people are changing into him. As much as a scene like that can be “realistic,” I think it’s more realistic to see the body changing along with the face rather than just the face.

37

IIRC, the fugitive thing was resolved with the Third Doctor’s exile to Earth. After he saved Galifrey in The Three Doctors, he was basically given free reign to travel the universe.

He would occasionally be sent on errands to save the universe by the Time Lords (Brain of Morbius springs to mind), which he seemed to resent.

After he saved Galifrey (again) in The Five Doctors, he was appointed President of Galifrey. I did not watch Doctors Six or Seven (Colin Baker grated on me), so I have no idea what happened then.

38

He hated the whole idea of being President and ran off, re-stealing his Tardis. The time lords weren’t exactly pleased. But he still worked more-or-less for them occasionally.

39

Oh yes - there was definitely a Doctor shaped hole in the wall after they made him President.

But he was obviously still doing the occasional erradn for them, since that is how the TV Movie began.

40

ABOUT THE TIME LORDS

One thing to keep in mind when trying to unravel the Doctor’s knotty relationship with the rest of Gallifrey is that it was all made up as he went along. At first, nothing was known about the Doctor and Susan’s origins other than that they were “exiles” and “wanderers in the fourth dimension.” Eventually they met another member of their race (the Meddling Monk, a less-malevolent forerunner of the Master), but it was five years before the words “Time Lords” were even mentioned. In most of their subsequent appearances, their characterization was intended to serve the needs of the plot, not establish any consistent mythology. They were either the most important stabilizing force in the universe, or a bunch of squabbling, power-mad nutters. Sometimes they had a strict policy of non-intervention, but other times they seemed to be pulling the strings throughout the cosmos.

There was nothing unusual about this. In the 1960s, no one would have seen a need to create much of a back story for a TV character that might not be around for more than a couple of months. The creators certainly had no reason to believe people would be poring over episodes 40-some years later for clues and continuity errors. Series from that era rarely have any kind of consistent, detailed back story anyway. The assumption was that viewers were only interested in what was happening on screen.

The destruction of Gallifrey restored the Doctor’s original “man without a country” status. It also made the new series more newbie-friendly, in a way. Didn’t watch the old series? No matter. With a couple lines of dialogue, decades worth of trivia are rendered completely irrelevant. All you really need to know about is this man and his companion traveling in a little blue box that’s bigger on the inside.

I’m ambivalent about bringing the Time Lords back. It certainly made a more effective cliffhanger than the extinction of the human race, which we know has to be reversed before the end of the next episode. This could really mix things up. Although this episode was Davies’ baby, I’m sure Steven Moffat, the new show-runner, had some say over any long-lasting changes to the show’s dynamic. Maybe he felt the “lonely doctor” bit had been played out.

SPOILERS AND SPECULATION

I wonder if there will be a payoff to the Doctor’s question: “Who are you?” Why are Wilf and the Doctor drawn together? Is it part of the Lord Spittleton’s* scheme? Is the resistance manipulating time as well? Or is something else going on?

Wilfred Mott = Time Lord. WTF?** or Time Lord: FTW!*** Davies’ has promised Wilf is not a Time Lord, I think, but Davies is also a known liar. Having a bit of Time Lord blood in Donna might be a way to get her out of the whole head-exploding thing. On the other hand, wouldn’t it be a hoot if that bit from the TV movie about the Doctor being part human were brought back in and it turned out Wilf was the Doctor’s grandfather and Donna was his cousin? The knowledge that he’s related to Sylvia might be enough to kill him.

The Master has said the Time Lord’s resurrected him to be “the perfect Warrior” in the Time War, but he got scared and ran away. Maybe that was their plan all along. Maybe they created him as a living chameleon arch, and all of Gallifrey is tucked away in his consciousness somewhere yearning to be released. No wonder his head hurts.

That would help explain the colossally convenient discovery of the Immortality Gate. The Time Lords arranged a way for the Master to create billions of additional conduits for their return.

Here are some videos most of you have already seen, but what the heck:

This is the trailer that was at the end of the last episode: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FntRKPEnCJc
This is a stand-alone BBC trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In_NE3jz5CE

The Radio Times cast list for the next episode does not include Billie Piper, Jack Barrowman, or Russell Tovey, all of whom were rumored to be returning. (In Billie Piper’s case, there are photos of her in costume, interacting with Tennant.) Nor do they appear in any of the previews. (Why the hell would Russell Tovey be coming back, anyway?)

At some point Wilfred has to end up at a convent in the 13th century. The church scene was just way too foreshadowy to come to naught.

One of the trailers is edited to imply that the Doctor fires a gun. Not even a sci-fi gun, but an honest-to-goodness gun gun. That isn’t going to happen. In fact, I don’t think the scene is “real” (note the all-white background). It takes place in someone’s head, or the Matrix,**** or something.

Good grief, I think this is my longest post in 10 years, and it’s about Doctor Who. I am such a geek.

  • I did not make this up.
    ** Nor this.
    *** This either. The rest, as far as I know, is mine.
    **** Yes, Doctor Who did it first.