Tom Baker has said that he’d be interested in playing The Master. Surely someone will have the good sense to write a special episode or two for him.
My guess would be that The Master will be the returning baddie for season 3, afterall the other two big names, The Daleks and The Cybermen, have already been back.
I think Patrick Stewart would make a great Master, Clive Owen would also be good, but I don’t think he’d agree to do it.
Agreed, except that they’ve painted themselves into such a corner with the Master that it would be difficult for him to return without it being implausible even by Doctor Who standards. The Master has: 1. used up all his regenerations. 2. survived in a hideously decayed form in his last life. 3. transferred his conciousness to a non-Time Lord body 4. Got that body disintegrated, survived as an ectoplasmic essence that 5. took over a human body while attempting to steal the Doctor’s body, and 6. got “eaten” by the TARDIS.
I did think of an idea however. OK, the Time Lords are dead. What if for some reason it was indispensable that the Doctor needed at least one other Time Lord to help him with some urgent task, and the ONLY Time Lord who could possibly be resurrected was the Master? So the Doctor had to actually be responsible for the Master’s return? That would be a sweet irony.
The only thing you’re leaving out of that equation is that if his appearance is handled well enough, meaning that the story is good enough as opposed to the mechanism of his reappearance being good enough, no one except the most deeply en-nerded of the fanboys is going to care, and even if they don’t like it they’re still going to watch.
Besides, what’s eaten by the TARDIS can be disgorged by the TARDIS, so since the TARDIS’s sul or whatever was opened up twice in the first season the Master could have slipped out. Ooh, maybe he’s inside the Slitheen’s egg! That’d be interesting, maybe he’d start off this time as The Mistress.
With his loyal mechanical dog?
Mistress! Mistress!
'Twas but a flesh wound 
And as for loyal mechanical dogs
This gets to something I have been wondering about, is ‘Bad Wolf’ a reference to the Master? The Master was definately a Bad Wolf sort of person, could this be melded into a story where The Master is trying to get out of the tardis?
But please no Slitheen Master, those fart jokes were too stupid.
“Bad Wolf” comes from the name of the corporation operating the station. Rose, hopped up on TARDIS juice, disperses the words throughout space and time as a message to herself. Not a reference to the Master.
So, Mickey is settled; how long to we have to put up with Captain Jack? 
Captain Jack is off to his own Spin-off, see above.
Has anybody heard anything about how well the series did on the SCi-Fi channel?
Are they planning to show the 2nd season?
Jim
Yes, but since it isn’t filming yet, I was afraid Jack might be around in Season two.
Well, they’re filming now – shooting for Torchwood began in early May, in and around Cardiff.
I just came across this.
So it looks as though SciFi are quite happy with the way the show’s performed.
No official word yet on them showing the 2nd series, but it seems that solicitations for the range of books suggest that they’ll be showing it in October, so it could well be that SciFi have already exercised their option to buy that in.
Am I the only one still not happy with the new style? I don’t like the look of the TARDIS, the doctor’s dress, or the soundtrack. In this episode the editing and soundtrack at the start made it seem a bit like a recap. I don’t like those cheesy synth beats. Also, I don’t like this semi-affectionate relationship with Rose, and the homo thing. I don’t like some of the weird touchy-feely stuff like the “soul” of the TARDIS.
I do like some of the stories though.
One year is way too short for a Doctor. I hope the new one lasts longer if he’s good.
I’d like to have seen more of a continuation of the old series rather just a new, different “Doctor Who” show.
It sounds like you are probably a big fan of the old shows. I only enjoyed the Tom Baker years so I probably started watching this series with an open mind and not expecting much. I love the new show. I actually could live without Daleks and Cybermen. The Dalek episode was the worst one of this season.
I understand where you are coming from though, I was a fanatic Trekkie and never felt any of the new shows came close to measuring up to the original or movies 2-4 & 6.
WotNot: Thank you for the two updates. Sounds like good news.
Jim
Reviving this thread because I finally watched the finale on DVD.
I like the new Tardis, except for the big columns that obstruct the view.
I like how the Doctor dresses. I’m fine with the soundtrack.
I very much like the Doctor’s affectionate relationship with Rose. The Victorian chastity of the original series was starting to look ridiculous even before it was cancelled; it would be silly for the Doctor not to see and react to what an attractive person (in personality as well as looks) Rose is.
The “soul of the Tardis” felt a little cheesy and tacked-on when it showed up in “Boom Town.” I think in the finale, they pulled it off; I thought Billie Piper did a terrific job of looking and acting like a person with the knowledge of the entire universe of time and space in their head.
This thread kind of wandered, as Doctor Who threads around here seem to do, into asides about the history of the show or what’s been shown in the UK versus what we’ve got here in the US. So let me on-topically point out things about the finale that were really good:
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The revelation of the Dalek Emperor and his delusions of godhood. When the Dalek first mentioned blasphemy, my girlfried said, “Since when do they believe in blasphemy?” It was very cool how the Daleks are now in the grip of religious mania; it adds a much-needed new dimension to them, and as the Doctor said, it really makes them even more dangerous.
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The scenes of the humans fighting off the Daleks – or simply standing there and being killed by them – had a powerful sense of tragedy and futility about them. The young Big Brother contestant’s death (what was her name?) was particularly well done, with the Dalek silently rising into place outside the window.
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The debate between the Doctor and the Emperor Dalek, where the ED tries to taunt the Doctor into throwing the switch that will wipe out all life on earth. Longtime fans saw the parallels between an earlier scene between Peter Davison’s Doctor and Davros, but this one was much more satisfying, with the Doctor declaring he’d much rather be a coward than a killer.
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The scene with Rose, Mickey and Jackie in the cafe was the best in the episode. Rose grappling with the prospect of living an “ordinary” life after her adventures with the Doctor was beautifully done.
Rose: “Wake up, catch the bus, go to work, come 'ome, eat chips—is that it?! Is that what I’m supposed to do?”
Mickey: “That’s what the rest of us do.”
Though I wouldn’t want to know him IRL, I like Mickey and I think he’s an important part of the show. Sometimes you need a character who acts as a contrast to everyone else, and while Mickey is essentially a decent guy, his selfishness and small-mindedness serve to underscore Rose’s contrasting generosity and her aspirations for a better life. I wouldn’t want him in every episode, but I’d hate to see him go away permanently. (Well, I suppose he will now that Billie is leaving.)
All in all, a great episode, up there with The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances. Can’t wait to see David Tennant at work, but I will really miss Eccleston; he’s up there with the best of Tom Baker and Peter Davison.
I quite enjoyed the episode. I’ll really miss Eccleston- I think he’s my favorite Doctor so far. I also had no idea that Billie Piper was/is a popstar… frankly, I thought she was an unknown. She’s also a lot hotter than she looks in the show (although she’s really damned cute).
One thing keeps bugging me, however… “Bad Wolf”? I can understand that seeing it all around her in the park was what made her realize that it meant that she could go back (and needed to)… but why “Bad Wolf”?
When she made the letters scatter, I thought she was going to rearrange them into a fitting message, but she just made 'em go away.
Wouldn’t something like “Rose, break open the Tardis and have a telepathic conversation with it” have worked better? Granted, it wouldn’t have seemed so ominous throughout the earlier shows in the season.
Yeah the odd choice of the words “Bad Wolf” kinda confused me, too.
Rose chose “Bad Wolf” for her message because Rose had chosen “Bad Wolf” and Rose will therefore always choose “Bad Wolf”.
Bear in mind that despite having nigh-infinite power and knowledge dumped into her (or because of that), she wasn’t thinking particularly clearly at the time. Maybe it was just a fragment of a fairy tale that came to mind. Maybe the kid who painted the words on the TARDIS did it on his own, and she seized on the connection and spread it through time.
For that matter, it’s cryptic enough that you could attach all manner of significance to it in future seasons. All they have to do is say that Rose learned something in the vortex that she didn’t dare reveal directly, and her choice of words is a hint for the Doctor to interpret later. Using “Bad Wolf” leaves those possibilities open, where a more specific message would clearly use up its potential in the season finale. I don’t know if they’re planning that far ahead, but it’s an interesting idea.
“Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” — get it?