Really, I’m the first? Alright then.
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I’m so glad this episode has finally aired in the US so I can stop dancing around the subject with other friends who have recently become interested in the show. It’s been an interesting line to walk - knowing that they’re not going to have the slightest idea who the Master is and wanting to explain it to them, but also knowing I should just keep my fool mouth shut and let them discover him for themselves the way I did.
That being said: THE MASTER!!! Derek Jacobi and John Simm! Captain Jack! Chan-Tho! Rose…in a flashback!
I was so pissed off at the Doctor the first time I saw this for his treatment of Jack, but upon rewatching it I think maybe I misunderstood his reaction. Look at how dark his eyes are when he acknowledges that maybe he and Martha should be frozen to death but he’s not so sure about Jack: he looks accusatory, angry, scared. I think that, for whatever reason, he really is terrified of what Jack has become, and yet he still throws his arms around him for a big hug when they are first reunited and immediately adopts him as his “responsibility” again, even though all of his instincts are probably bleating DANGER, GET AWAY at that point.
The conversation in the radiation chamber is awesome - it was mentioned in the Confidential that the only way they knew they could get these two men to come together and talk things out was to put a wall and a chamber full of deadly stet radiation between them. So many answers, and how heartbreaking was it when Jack admitted to watching Rose growing up? And, check out the look on Martha’s face when she hears that Rose is “not just living on a parrallel world, she’s trapped there”. In an instant she goes from snarky to sympathetic - dammit Doctor, if you’d just explained what happened to Rose and actually had a conversation with your companion about it, she might have understood your lingering depression about it and gotten over her own schmoopy behaviour!
Professor Yana is a great character, and once you start to sense what is coming you’re screaming at the television, begging him not to open the watch because he’s such a sweet old man and he deserves his long awaited rest after saving humanity. But, it’s ripped away from him and he becomes the evil anti-Doctor, destroying all the Professor’s work, killing his faithful assistant and revealing that Utopia has been a big hoax all along. So sad, that. But almost worth it for the surprisingly hot “Use my name” “Master” exchange! Rowr.
So, my fellow Americans - what did you think?