Planet of the Ood by: Keith Temple and directed by: Graeme Harper

 

“Planet of the Ood” stars David Tennant as the Doctor and Catherine Tate as Donna Noble with Tim McInnerny as Mr. Halpen, Ayesha Dharker as Solana Mercurio, Adrian Rawlins as Dr Ryder, Paul Kasey as Ood Sigma, and Silas Carson as the Voice of the Ood.  It was written by: Keith Temple and directed by: Graeme Harper with Lindsey Alford as Script Editor, Susie Liggat as Producer, and Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner as Executive Producers.  It was originally broadcast on Saturday 19 April 2008 on BBC One.

 

When “The Impossible Planet” and “The Satan Pit” were written, Russell T. Davies immediately saw the potential in exploring the society and the Ood as aliens further.  Originally intending to give Chris Chibnall the Ood as a feature in “42”, those plans fell through when that episode needed a lower budget deferring the appearance to the fourth series of the revival.  Davies came up with “Planet of the Ood” as a morality tale on one form of modern day slavery that upholds modern day culture, the slave underclass of sweat shops responsible for making several of the goods people buy every day.  It’s important to note this when looking at “Planet of the Ood” as while slavery historically has had a component of race, the episode does not develop on this aspect instead specifically being about how capitalism keeps an underclass down represented by the Ood which is a simplification of applicability losing some of the historic dimension of why certain areas still have slavery, even in these slightly less obvious forms.  Once again Russell T. Davies, while having an idea for what “Planet of the Ood” should be about, would be unable to write the episode himself due to other scripting and showrunning duties.  Keith Temple was selected for writing duties based on a 2006 television film script sent to Davies, Temple being a candidate to write for the third series which did not come to pass.  Initially, Temple wished to include another character from “The Impossible Planet” and “The Satan Pit” with Ida Scott and initial drafts were including Penny Carter as companion, with quite a dark script that Davies asked to be lightened in tone.

 

Ida was cut from the script during this process while Penny was replaced with Donna, the episode being moved from the second to third slot in the broadcast order, being assigned to the second production block with another simpler episode under producer Susie Liggat so Phil Collinson could focus on arranging location shoots for “The Fires of Pompeii” which would be the third production block.  It was also around this time where David Tennant made clear that with the fifth full series of Doctor Who being delayed to film in 2010 he would be leaving the role in either 2009 or at the end of the fifth full series, so Temple was asked to include a moment of foreshadowing to the Doctor’s imminent regeneration which would eventually occur at the end of the 2009 specials.

 

“Planet of the Ood” as an episode works so well because Temple is unflinching in showing the horrors of slavery and the dangers of a slave rebellion.  There is a virus like condition infecting the Ood making them aggressive is inherently linked to the idea of slaves rising up against their oppressors, Temple not flinching on showing the violence, though converted to more fantastical violence for the wider audience, is to be admired in a script like this for a show aimed at the entire family.  Graeme Harper’s direction at the climax of the episode is perhaps his weakest effort however, while it attempts to be a frantic action sequence, Harper makes it too unclear as to what’s actually happening in the sequence as it bridges to the actual climax of the episode.  This is also one of the few stories in the entire series where the Doctor does not actually have an effect on the time and place they have landed.  While the Doctor and Donna explore the location, disarm a bomb, and disarm the machine blocking the Ood as a species from their telepathic field, these are all superficial actions that had the Doctor and Donna not been there would have been done by Ood Sigma, the Ood servant to the CEO and central oppressor of the Ood Mr Halpern, played by Tim McInnerny.  This is subtly lampshaded by the Doctor, pointing out that while some Ood were lashing out and despairing, Ood Sigma had patience, slowly converting Halpern into an Ood leaving the episode on this note of body horror leading to freedom for the Ood.  McInnerny as Halpern is great at playing this suitably over the top villain that befits a capitalist character like Halpern, the cruelty being treated as completely normal, almost blasé.

 

While this is certainly something that lessens the episode once you have finished, it does not mean “Planet of the Ood” is without merit.  The performances are what largely supports this, and the fact that the revolution is particularly messy.  McInnerny’s performance above indicates blasé capitalism, but Ayesha Dharker’s turn as head of marketing Solana Mercurio encapsulates the willing collaborator brilliantly.  Solana does not think about the fact that the Ood are slaves because she benefits from the high position, and the episode makes a point to not give her some punishment, she is someone normal who is allowed to escape.  This communicates to the viewer a need to question the system one actually lives in in a very subtle way, Solana is normal, questioning the viewer’s own complicity and benefit in the capitalist system.  It’s subtle, but it’s there, contrasted with Catherine Tate’s unsubtle performance fueling Donna with emotion and care for the Ood, despite initially being taken aback by their appearance.  Tennant and Tate, once again selling the episode on their chemistry, make their redundancy be largely avoided by being actively attempting to make things better and unraveling the mystery of what the Ood are which is a perfectly fine exploration of an alien race for an episode that otherwise wouldn’t need them.  Temple also includes these wonderful little character moments where the Doctor questions his love of humanity despite the horrors and atrocities they commit.

 

Overall, “Planet of the Ood” is not perfect, the action needed a little more editing at the climax, perhaps an issue with editing over directing as the script was considerably toned down from Temple’s original idea.  The messaging is one of the high points of the era and there’s a clear reason the Ood themselves are a memorable species.  The cast is top notch as well that are elevating a plot that has been severely toned down from an original pitch, while still managing to pack quite the punch for an episode of a family show.  8/10.

The Fires of Pompeii by: James Moran

 

The Fires of Pompeii was written by: James Moran from his television story of the same name.  It was the 180^th story to be novelized by BBC Books.

 

There’s something great about experiencing a story from a different perspective.  James Moran’s singular television episode of Doctor Who, although he would write for Big Finish and Torchwood after and before this respectively, “The Fires of Pompeii” is an easy candidate for novelization, being part of the third wave of releases in 2022.  Until very recently, about a month ago in fact, The Fires of Pompeii was the only novelization of an adventure with Donna Noble, adapting her first trip in the TARDIS and bending the plot around that fact.  Moran’s main interest in adapting the story is to add depth to the characterization and some small deleted scenes that if filmed would have assisted in this but clearly made sense for deletion due to the 45 minute time constraint of a television episode.  This is exemplified with this internal exploration of Donna’s internal thoughts about the not so snap decision she made to travel with the Doctor.  Partially, this internal monologue is there to catch potential new readers to Donna’s history and the plot of “The Runaway Bride” and “Partners in Crime” which as of writing haven’t been novelized yet, but it’s also serving a dual purpose of showing Donna’s depth as a person.  Donna has convinced herself this is what she wants and while there had been thought in packing for travel and finding the Doctor, she doesn’t actually know much about him.  There’s this subtle fear that he could just want her there to kill her and nobody would ever know.  With this depth, and some retrospect of how production changed on the fourth series with the passing of Howard Attafield, Moran actually reflects on the loss of a parent, something largely ignored on television because it was never meant to be a lens for Donna’s story.

 

The Fires of Pompeii is a story that couldn’t have been told entirely through Donna’s perspective, integral scenes are from the Doctor’s perspective, but in writing the novelization Moran makes the decision to focus on these scenes from the perspective of other characters.  This and Donna’s perspective on the Doctor helps to alienate the Tenth Doctor more than David Tennant’s television portrayal ever did.  There are scenes from Quintus and Caecilius that make up the majority of this effect, something that adds this sense of real history told through reference points that a modern reader would understand in the way that the characters speak.  In universe this is explained by an extension of the TARDIS translation circuits which Moran does an excellent job at integrating into the narrative.  There is also this beautiful moment when Vesuvius erupts that shows Moran clearly understands how to write a novel, the eruption is described on a single line, the only line of the page and chapter as a whole in stark contrast to Moran’s usual flowing prose.  It's a simple device used to really hit home in the reader the unthinkable destruction that is now coming to pass, and with an extended scene before the Doctor goes back to save Caecilius makes the deus ex machina ending (for the family at least) feel earned.

Overall, while “The Fires of Pompeii” was an excellent episode of television The Fires of Pompeii works better as a novel.  Moran, while letting in other little Doctor Who references, never forgets the scope of the novel that he is writing so it doesn’t become bogged down in additions of fanservice while the prose flows from beginning to end.  Like many of the single episodes of the revival being adapted into novels that have nearly double the page count that the television scripts would have, Moran’s vision is expanded in simple ways to add depth that cannot be done in a 45 minute television story.  9/10.

The Trouble with Tribbles by: David Gerrold and directed by: Joseph Pevney

 

“The Trouble with Tribbles” is written by David Gerrold and is directed by Joseph Pevney.  It was filmed under production code 42, was the 15^th episode of Star Trek Season 2, the 44^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on December 29, 1967.

 

“The Trouble with Tribbles” is an episode about the dangers of excess.  Or perhaps it’s an episode about growing Cold War tensions.  Or perhaps it’s just an episode of rather camp science fiction.  Or maybe it’s really none of those things.  David Gerrold’s only script for Star Trek (he would contribute a story idea for the third season which would be scripted by a different writer) is one of those episodes of Star Trek that has become iconic through its imagery of incredibly fuzzy and adorable tribbles covering the Enterprise and Captain Kirk.  It’s an episode whose popularity only grew with age, starting out as an unremarkable episode before he wider public began to appreciate it.  This is perhaps due to on initial watch one may find David Gerrold’s script rather cluttered, but really it follows the A, B, and C plots incredibly well and Gerrold, despite being 22 when writing the script, has perfectly plotted these intersecting elements.  The plot threads are introduced in reverse order: the episode opens with the Enterprise receiving a distress signal from Deep Space Station K7 where a genetically modified grain needs to be  guarded under the orders of Under-Secretary Baris, played by William Schallert, whose increasing annoyance at Kirk’s annoyance at the misuse of Starfleet protocols becomes the C plot; a group of Klingons arriving on K7 for shore leave and agitating the Enterprise crew as the station is in a disputed portion of space as the B plot; and the A plot of space trader Cyrano Jones, played by the ever camp Stanley Adams, selling Lt. Uhura a tribble which begins to swiftly multiply and hypnotize the crew of the Enterprise.

 

The reason these three plots work so well is Gerrold’s sense of escalation.  The tribbles constantly multiply, the Klingons’ attempts to goad the crew into an interstellar incident start small and eventually insult Kirk and the Enterprise itself, and Baris slowly builds to the point of having Kirk booked for subordination (despite not really being able to do that, but Shallert and Shatner play it so well that that doesn’t really matter).  The scenes for each plot also are often blending into one another instead of doing hard cuts to new scenes so the momentum of the plot is never broken by Joseph Pevney’s superb direction.  Pevney is quickly becoming the strongest of Star Trek’s directors, at least for the original series, and “The Trouble with Tribbles” is honestly one of his simpler efforts.  There are several elaborate model shots, but the in studio filming which makes up the episode doesn’t require creative shots but Pevney never allows them to become boring.  There’s this central bar set on the Space Station that allows Pevney to use moving cameras to create interesting angles and shots, but never going to the complexity that would break the pace down.  The episode also employs a unique musical score from Jerry Fielding, the first of two scores he wrote that would enter the stock library of the show.  Fielding’s score contributes to the whimsical tone of the episode, being quite light and happy though while the lightness of the score never fades, it does turn sour and sad when the tribbles really begin to pile up.

 

There is also this fine line the episode has to straddle, something it does marvelously.  There aren’t any impressions that this is an episode that is completely serious, it’s an episode where the camp is heightened in several performances.  The Klingon Captain Koloth has actor William Campbell attempt to out William Shatner William Shatner as Kirk, in a way that is clearly meant to parallel both leaders, though not nearly as deeply as “Balance of Terror”.  The same goes for when Campbell insults Scotty and Chekov, a scene played straight, not ever fully committing to the implications.  Doohan and Koenig help this by playing the scene as straight as possible while Campbell is clearly having fun with the insults.  The Klingon threat is treated as real and developing, hinting at a further relationship between humanity and the Klingons for the future, a future that is still far off.  This does end with the tribbles being transported to the Klingons which is treated and comes across as a genuinely great ending gag, despite definitely starting an intergalactic incident that wouldn’t be reported because of the Klingon infiltrator of the Space Station being revealed.  Cyrano Jones, played by Stanley Adams, is essentially a discount Harry Mudd, though with far less sexism, but equal charm, essentially getting people under his spell and causing chaos because he’s greedy and wants money.  The tribbles themselves have an adorable look and purring sound throughout, serving an actual purpose for resolving all three plots, not just the A plot.  It’s the final piece of the puzzle that makes “The Trouble with Tribbles” work perfectly.

 

Overall, “The Trouble with Tribbles” doesn’t at all feel as if it is from a first time scriptwriter.  It follows the three plot structure perfectly and has been assigned the perfect director and composer.  It’s a time for the cast to genuinely let loose and have an excellent story with these little character building moments for side characters including Chekov and Uhura in the first few scenes.  The tribbles are adorable and honestly not trouble at all.  10/10.

The Fires of Pompeii by: James Moran and directed by: Colin Teague

 

“The Fires of Pompeii” stars David Tennant as the Doctor and Catherine Tate as Donna Noble with Peter Capaldi as Caecilius, Tracey Childs as Metella, Phil Davis as Lucius, Sasha Behar as Spurrina, Francesca Fowler as Evelina, and Francois Pandolfo as Quintus.  It was written by: James Moran and directed by: Colin Teague with Brian Minchin as Script Editor, Phil Collinson as Producer, and Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner as Executive Producers.  It was originally broadcast on Saturday 12 April 2008 on BBC One.

 

Doctor Who is no stranger to filming overseas.  The first instance of this was 1979’s City of Death getting time allocated to film in Paris, which would lead to three more occasions in the original run to Amsterdam, Lanzarote, and Seville before the general budget cuts to the program would make overseas filming impossible.  The revived series only had its first instance of overseas filming in the third series for some establishing shots of New York in “Daleks in Manhattan”, but the fourth series saw Mark Gatiss “The Suicide Exhibition”, a story set in World War II, fall through leading to Russell T. Davies to investigate the possibility of filming in Italy for an episode to bring Ancient Rome to life.  Davies had an idea for “Pompeii” as early as 2004 in the original pitch document for Doctor Who, in the slot that would eventually become “Boom Town”, but the fourth series would allow the use of sets built in Italy for the series Rome.  This would only be approved four months before production was to being without scripts being written so Davies, unable to take on scripting duties himself, turned to James Moran for the request of “The Fires of Pompeii” to have the Doctor in an escape pod that erupts with Vesuvius and having fire monsters involved with the story.  The initial draft included Penny Carter as companion which proved difficult to Moran, though when the switch was made to Donna Noble this became an easier script to write.  Once the scripts were turned in to Davies for final revisions before filming began, trouble was discovered.  “The Fires of Pompeii” and “Partners in Crime”, originally meant to be a single production block would have to be split into to blocks to accommodate the location work and to allow Davies more time to work on “Partners in Crime”, assigning the former to Colin Teague.  A second issue arose when the backlot in Italy caught fire due to an electrical short on August 9, though by September production began in Italy for one week to complete those scenes before production would finish in Cardiff for the temple of the Sibylline order, Caecillus’ house, and the TARDIS scenes.  Broadcast also altered several points during production, though “The Fires of Pompeii” while initially thought to follow “Planet of the Ood” was swapped to air just before as Donna’s first proper trip in the TARDIS.

 

“The Fires of Pompeii” as an episode is one that forces the Doctor to make a choice, to interfere with a fixed point in time.  Much of the drama is understated by Catherine Tate as Donna, arriving in Pompeii the day before Vesuvius is set to erupt and the Doctor cannot do anything to save people.  He is insistent that because it is a fixed point in time, no aspects of events can be changed, only staying because the TARDIS is bought by marble sculptor Caecillus, played by Peter Capaldi.  The Doctor and Donna’s agency in the episode is kind of odd as for the first third of the episode they are just trying to find the TARDIS, the Doctor getting to get away.  The pre-credits sequence of the episode focuses on the Doctor and Donna arriving, revealing the volcano before the credits and the TARDIS being missing after the credits.  It’s quite the extended sequence but it works well to get the characters together and begin to play with the ideas of prophetic oracles not seeing the volcanic eruption coming.  Peter Capaldi of course would eventually be cast as the Twelfth Doctor, but he treats this as his one chance to be in Doctor Who and the way he plays Caecillus is as a caring, but ambitious father.  He plays wonderfully off Tracey Childs, playing his wife Metetlla, and Phil Davis, as augury Lucius: there’s this almost daftness to the portrayal as he is taken in to giving his daughter to the Sibylline order of oracles and ignoring his son’s concerns.  Childs on the other hand is the brains of the family, going along with the plans for their daughter because of the status it will bring to their family.  The two oracle groups of Pompeii are at each other’s throats, Moran playing around with aliens pitting them against each other while using them both to their own ends.

 

The second act of “The Fires of Pompeii” is very fun, with the Doctor and Donna investigating both orders and revealing the alien Pyroviles, magma aliens who have lost their planet, are seeding Pompeii from under Vesuvius, but it’s the third act where the episode is most remembered.  To defeat the Pyroviles, the Doctor must actively make the choice to cause Vesuvius to erupt, demanding the deaths of 20,000 people and being able to do nothing to stop it.  Tennant and Tate play the sequence first as if they are both about to die which is excellent, but the chaotic running through the streets of Pompeii as the ash falls makes for such an effective ending.  Donna is begging the Doctor to save someone, and for the people of Pompeii to go to the hills and not the beach where they will be trapped by the ash.  Moran’s thesis is that even when the Doctor cannot change history, he can still show compassion and save at least one person.  Caecillus and his family are brought along in the TARDIS to the hills, making the Doctor and Donna household gods when they relocate in Rome.  While usually I am against deifying the Doctor, this is one instance, due to it being the extraordinary effect he had on these normal people who couldn’t rationalize it any other way, where it doesn’t actually bother me and fits.  This is also because Donna is included as a god, despite being a normal human being which adds a different layer to things.

 

Overall, “The Fires of Pompeii” is an excellent first adventure that works so well because it is a simple mystery set within a historical backdrop that leads to some amazing character moments as the Doctor and Donna have to make the right choice ending in the deaths of 20,000 people.  Perhaps too simple to allow it to become a perfect episode, Teague’s direction has some odd cuts here and there, but the Pyrovilles are a cool design and the guest cast is all a delight (outside of a young Karen Gillan who is directed to deliver her lines in this oddly stilted manner0, plus the twists of the oracles becoming stone Pyroville larvae adds a general danger above just Pompeii.  It's a great time.  8/10.

Partners in Crime by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: James Strong

 

“Partners in Crime” stars David Tennant as the Doctor and Catherine Tate as Donna Noble with Sarah Lancashire as Ms. Foster, Bernard Cribbins as Wilfred Mott, Jacqueline King as Sylvia Noble, and Verona Joseph as Penny Carter.  It was written by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: James Strong with Lindsey Alford as Script Editor, Phil Collinson as Producer, and Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner as Executive Producers.  It was originally broadcast on Saturday 5 April 2008 on BBC One.

 

Russell T. Davies initially didn’t wish to have Martha Jones leave the Doctor at the end of the third series of Doctor Who, but as scripts developed he realized that her romance with the Doctor being unrequited would work better if she left at the end of the series and returned in guest spots for the fourth, Freema Agyeman thus being contracted for five episodes in the fourth series, with a small appearance in a sixth.  This meant that Davies would need a new companion and companion introduction story for the premiere of the fourth series and this proved oddly difficult.  Obviously, the episode would be set on Earth in the modern day and involve aliens of some sort as “Rose” and “Smith and Jones” had, and the companion would be a woman from modern day Earth, but Davies found himself struggling with writer’s block.  He cycled through a few ideas from London being covered in a dome and an alien hunting citizens, to a door leading to another world in an old house, or even something with hundreds of aliens at once due to technology becoming available to achieve these sorts of crowd shots.  In terms of companion, Davies’ most developed idea was sarcastic, mid-30s journalist Penny Carter, but Penny didn’t have much in terms of backstory or desires when the Doctor Who production office was actually contacted by Catherine Tate who wished to appear once again on the show.  A deal was quickly reached to bring Tate back for not just a one off appearance, but the full thirteen episode series as Donna Noble and Davies used this opportunity to do something different with the series opener.  Because Donna was a returning character, Davies did not need to open the series with the usual trappings of a new character being introduced to the Doctor’s world.  The idea was to have the Doctor and Donna independently investigating an alien conspiracy and consistently missing one another, the audience simultaneously following both of them as they investigate Adipose Industries.

 

The general plot involving Adipose Industries is Russell T. Davies’ interesting take on the fad diet culture that was, and in many ways still is, popular in the mid 2000s.  The Oprah Winfrey Show was an incredibly popular and influential piece of daytime television in the United States and one of the roots of the current medical grift of magic pills that will just get you healthy and make you lose weight (it’s what populated Dr. Oz into the public consciousness and allowed his grift into daytime television and away from his already lucrative career as a surgeon).  While Davies doesn’t take any direct parallel to this type of talk show for “Partners in Crime”, Adipose Industries pithy slogan of the fat just walks away and putting emphasis on the press scene where the weight loss process is explained as simple binding and flushing away of fat without any actual scientific backing clearly parallels this type of grift.  “Partners in Crime” is also an episode that doesn’t focus on health, just on fat as an epidemic, Adipose Industries playing on people’s insecurities about their weight and showing very briefly people taking the pills of different, though generally larger, body types when they wouldn’t necessarily be considered overweight or obese.  There is however one line from Miss Foster, played with beautiful camp by Sarah Lancashire, about the obesity epidemic that brings the episode in line with that more regressive simplicity of any amount of body fat being considered unhealthy, though not done explicitly but describing the United Kingdom in this way brings up that imagery.  Davies does bolster this with the Adipose themselves, the creatures of living fat, being designed explicitly to be cute and harmless, it’s just the obsession of losing weight that kills people, the Adipose being able to eat through muscle and bone but not needing to.

 

The plot with Adipose Industries is also one of Davies’ best simple plots of an alien invasion so the episode can also devote much of its focus to the Doctor and Donna as characters.  David Tennant as the Doctor doesn’t get as many moments before meeting up with Donna again, but there is this small scene in the TARDIS that is of specific importance as Tennant infuses it with this loneliness and unfulfillment, longing for a friend.  It becomes the center of why the Doctor brings Donna along with him in the TARDIS and something that after two series of the companion largely being defined by some sort of romance with the Doctor, allows this team to be set up as the first real time in the revival where the Doctor and companions are friends, the first real time that dynamic has been had since 1987 and Mel Bush.  Donna’s reintroduction is the pinnacle of the episode, the near misses being played for comedy, but there is this montage shot of the course of one evening where Donna sits at home and listens to her mother Sylvia, played once again by Jacqueline King, complain about her prospects.  It’s a sequence that showcases how much can be said about both characters, all without Donna ever opening her mouth.  It immediately deepens both characters and their relationship since they were largely undeveloped for their status as one off characters in “The Runaway Bride”.  Catherine Tate also sparks immediately off David Tennant, the pair working together as friends and the dynamic is what elevates the episode and the entire series, despite Davies writing a subplot about the universe bringing them together (Davies seems to generally dislike coincidences on a large scale, yet the Doctor’s constant visits to modern day London actually increases the likelihood of meeting people like Donna again).  Davies also overcame one of the largest snags in this episode with the passing of Howard Attfield, the man who played Donna’s father in “The Runaway Bride”.  Several scenes with the character were filmed as the more understanding influence on Donna’s adult life before he passed so to keep the influence there, Davies rewrote and Strong reshot the sequences to bring back Wilfred Mott, played by Bernard Cribbins, the newspaper man from “Voyage of the Damned”.  Cribbins fills the role of Donna’s maternal grandfather wonderfully, giving this kind understanding of the universe.  The final shot of the episode while clearly television budget CGI, is one of the best shots in the series as a whole as it just sums up some of the best elements.

 

Overall, “Partners in Crime” is the perfect title for the episode and the best of Russell T. Davies’ series premieres.  It sets up the character relationships, fully explains off-screen character arcs with James Strong’s wonderful direction and is bolstered by great performances.  It even includes the companion who never was in journalist Penny Carter as a running gag to show how the Doctor and Donna work.  The only bad marks against it are how certain aspects have aged poorly though the rest of the episode certainly hasn’t.  9/10.

Wolf in the Fold by: Robert Bloch and directed by: Joseph Pevney

 

“Wolf in the Fold” is written by Robert Bloch and is directed by Joseph Pevney.  It was filmed under production code 36, was the 14^th episode of Star Trek Season 2, the 43^rd episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on December 22, 1967.

 

I did not know I needed an episode of Star Trek where it was revealed that Jack the Ripper was a Lovecraftian alien entity that feeds off fear and can only be destroyed by the entire crew of the Enterprise being given large doses of drugs to stave off fear, but that’s exactly what “Wolf in the Fold” gives its audience.  It’s an utterly insane episode of Star Trek and one that builds to that insanity by starting as a fairly standard murder mystery where Scotty is the main suspect, and potentially the one physically responsible for two murders.  Robert Bloch provided this script for the series and you can certainly see his influence on it as the plot structure essentially follows a classic slasher film structure, especially an exploitation slasher from the mid-1960s where the victims are exclusively female and the deaths are quite violent.  This does make “Wolf in the Fold” one of those episodes of Star Trek that hasn’t aged well, the violence against women is never examined as to what it does to the other female characters, instead the thrust being if Scotty will be prosecuted for the murders.  The female characters written in the episode are also explicitly there for pleasure and the male gaze, the planet Argelius II being a peaceful, pleasure planet guided by hedonism.  While that could certainly be an interesting idea for a society, but it’s one of those ideas that’s limited by the underlying sexism of the time meaning Bloch was always going to write an episode with this premise where the female characters are portrayed as lesser and objects of male violence, the entity even is explicitly stated to be preying on women because they are weaker.

 

The investigative sequence of the episode is actually quite odd, it builds to the second murder, the murder of a crewmember that has brought a device that can just reproduce the events of the last 24 hours from somebody’s mind which is honestly a weird bit of worldbuilding to include that if I had to guess the rest of Star Trek will ignore.  It does lead to an interesting scene where the wife of the planet’s highest official holds essentially a séance using empathic contact to discover the murderer, and eventually the creature.  John Fiedler, more well known as Jurror #2 in Sidney Lumet’s version of 12 Angry Men and the original voice of Piglet, plays Administrator Hengist here and his performance is delightfulu.  Fiedler has actual range as an actor, despite it being clear that his Piglet voice is just his own voice, something that means when he is revealed to be the entity, it speaks with the voice of Piglet, but evil.  As soon as the episode makes it back to the Enterprise, many of the sexist aspects of the episode are dropped for it to turn into a haunted house story, the entity ends up possessing the ship itself, stoking fear and danger leading to Kirk ordering the entire crew be given a drug induced happiness.  This makes the climax utterly insane on one hand, but the actors, especially DeForest Kelley and George Takei, play it so well that it works.  Shatner and Nimoy provide the straight men, though Kirk as a character is generally over the top, while Spock’s emotionlessness helps sell the danger while the camp is brought up to eleven.  It’s the ridiculousness of the finale that makes the episode work so well.

 

Overall, “Wolf in the Fold” once again hints at the cosmic horror of the Star Trek universe while still understanding the limitations of a television budget.  Robert Bloch as a writer knows how to write an effective horror or thriller story, even if this is an episode tied down by some extremely sexist tropes and just a generally sexist episode in subtler ways for the portrayal of its female characters.  The insanity is something the viewer should let themselves get sucked into because that’s what really makes it work, plus Joseph Pevney proves he is one of Star Trek’s most dynamic directors in the episode.  7/10.

Skyward: Flight by: Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson

 

Brandon Sanderson has this reputation for constantly writing and always meeting his deadlines with a bibliography that is always growing, but there have actually been several times where Sanderson had rescheduled his writing schedule.  The conclusion to the second era of Mistborn is one such example, being pushed back twice first to after Oathbringer and then after Rhythm of War.  When devising the Skyward series this was something Sanderson wanted to avoid, becoming especially aware of his works blooming into points where he would physically not have the time to actually write some of these stories himself.  His assistant, Isaac Stewart, has already been mentioned to be writing a Mistborn installment and close friend Dan Wells had already cowritten Dark One, but when writing Cytonic, Sanderson realized there was more of the story that would need to be told he realized there would be no time for him to write these in between stories alone.  Skyward: Flight materialized as three novellas published in ebook and audiobook format in the second half of 2021, the collection coming in print in 2022, being set generally in between Starsight and Cytonic, though eventually becoming concurrent with the latter novel.  All three novellas were devised to be co-written between Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson, with Sanderson outlining the plot and characters and Patterson doing much of the actual writing of events.  As such, this review will largely be referring to Patterson as the author, as much of the quality of these novellas are down to the way Patterson interprets Sanderson’s outlines for the stories.  This review also will not be too harsh on Patterson for having her own style of writing, while she is cowriting with Brandon Sanderson, all three novellas as an end product are more down to her style and sense of storytelling.

 

The collection opens with Sunreach which is by far the weakest of the collection.  Luckily, it is also the shortest novella included.  Some of the issues present here could be Patterson becoming acclimated to Sanderson’s world and characters, reading Sunreach feels more an imitation of Sanderson’s style than Patterson’s own, but it’s also just a narrative that feels more like a sequence of extended exposition than a story being told in its own right.  This is the novella that expands on the several slugs on Detritus, the different colors indicating different cytonic abilities that manifest and the general work being done to understand what the slugs can do.  There are a couple of things of note with Sunreach that stop it from being just extended exposition, FM is our point of view character and it’s utterly fascinating to see this world through the eyes of someone other than Spensa Nightshade.  Spensa doesn’t actually feature in this or the other two novellas in the collection which makes for a nice change of pace overall.  FM as a character has to deal with several deaths in the early section of the novella and the way Patterson reflects on the deaths is quite interesting.  Despite being a young adult novel, the deaths are presented in this forward manner that feels much closer to an adult novel than what you would expect from a young adult novella.  The exposition itself also is far from being terrible, the slugs’ abilities in general are interesting and follow Sanderson’s general rules for worldbuilding and magic.  Although the Skyward series is a science fiction series it is spinning out of the mind of a primarily fantasy author and that is something you can understand with the way the slugs end up working.  The length of Sunreach is also perhaps a mark against it, being the shortest of the three novellas this becomes the one that feels as if simultaneously there isn’t enough material to fill the novella and that there is too much to contain in the shorter page count.  It makes this first novella an odd read as well as having one of the larger problems, it is a bit of a forgettable one.  While Patterson is certainly at fault for crude attempts to blend her style with Sanderson’s in this novel, the majority fault for this novella actually lies with Sanderson for giving an outline that could have been its own subplot in Cytonic, potentially told through interludes instead of being published as its own thing.  Sunreach is also notable for being the only thing I’ve read from Sanderson that I haven’t liked.  4/10.

 

ReDawn fairs almost immediately better than Sunreach does, shifting perspective to Alanik so the reader can see the survivors of humanity from an alien perspective which is just generally an interesting perspective.  Patterson plays around with cultural differences to explore the budding romance between Jorgen and Spensa, all done without Spensa’s presence and generally in a more touching way than many of Sanderson’s pieces of romance.  There is a real sense that the characters, while young adults are still very much adults and have been living in a society where they don’t really have an adolescence (they have an initial childhood but Skyward already established society forcing them into maturity at an early age).  Alanik’s culture is explored throughout the novel as a way to expand the Superiority’s subjugation of the galaxy and Alanik’s general philosophy towards the greater good.  She is at her heart a tactician from a race of tacticians, when others of her race act oddly it must be for some reason.  This is a novella where the major issue that presents itself is that it really is only the first half of a larger novel with Evershore, ending on a cliffhanger that the final novella of the collection immediately reprises and continues with a perspective shift.  While I personally love when a story ends on a good cliffhanger, this is something that can be difficult to truly pull off and properly execute, ReDawn falling into the trap of making the cliffhanger feel not like an ending with more story to come, but that Patterson just ran out of pages and had to stop the story there.  It does at least leave the novella at a point of tension, being a point where Spensa’s grandmother and Admiral Cobb are potentially dead and the rest of Skyward Flight are on the run, but it’s an ending that doesn’t feel if the primary purpose of ReDawn has been resolved.  There is a twist of the Superiority agents infiltrating the human ranks which Patterson pulls off incredibly well that leads up to the point as well as the general commentary on military goals being full of misunderstandings and vengeance minded instead of tactical which makes for interesting reading.  Patterson has also just greatly improved her style in writing this one, while in line with Sanderson’s prose it isn’t trying to be something that it’s not, Patterson communicating the story in her way with her sense of the characters which will reassure readers after Sunreach that she can take over the Skyward series after Defiant with Skyward: Legacy.  7/10.

 

Evershore is the end of the collection and the novella that feels the closest to being complete, despite being essentially the back half of ReDawn.  Told from Jorgen’s perspective, the novella opens with a repeat of the ending of ReDawn which is written in a way to feel like a cliffhanger resolution to an episode of a television serial and not an opening chapter of a novella.  Like Redawn before it, much of Evershore sees the Skyward Flight crew set apart from the rest of humanity on a search for information and an exploration of the greater universe is in order.  While this was written to be after Cytonic, Evershore in many regards feels as if it may help being read before Cytonic.  There is much exploration of the cytonic powers and their place in the universe along with more of the Superiority.  This is certainly enough to fill a novella and indeed this is the longest of the three novellas, Patterson’s efforts also focus quite largely on exploring Jorgen as a character.  The military’s flaws to this point had generally been seen through the eyes of Spensa, taking the role of exile and outcast to her society in Skyward due to her father, but Evershore allows exploration of Jorgen and his relationship with his mother.  Set up to lead but never see any of the war himself, Spensa’s influence has changed him and his mother proves to be an incredibly important military tactician.  Her schemes being generally motivated by self-interest, Jorgen has become motivated by saving lives and lifting humanity up; through his experiences he has become better, but he has also become mentally ill.  The most memorable moment in Evershore is Jorgen having a panic attack, his mental state being generally represented by his ability to use his cytonic abilities which have become generally unstable.  It’s also represented by Boomslug, one of the slugs that has the ability to explode using mind knives, an ability Jorgen essentially shares.  Jorgen’s internal monologue implies worry about becoming a weapon and being gifted essentially with an ability to kill which is utterly fascinating from a character perspective.  Evershore also has more exploration of the kitsen from Starsight which is excellent and Patterson has clearly come into her own fully with this one.  8/10.

 

Overall, Skyward: Flight is a collection that just gets better with each novella, but sadly this also means that there is a genuinely rough starting point for Janci Patterson’s first foray into working with Brandon Sanderson.  Hearing Patterson’s unique voice is imperative while still playing around with Sanderson’s own ideas and world that shine through from the plot outlines adhered to Sanderson’s sensibilities.  It’s sadly more of a mixed bag due to the first of three installments coming across poorly while the other two are genuinely interesting and fun times.  6.3/10.

Voyage of the Damned by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: James Strong

 

“Voyage of the Damned” stars David Tennant as the Doctor and Kylie Minogue as Astrid Peth with Geoffrey Palmer as Captain Hardaker, Russell Tovey as Midshipman Frame, George Costigan as Max Capricorn, Jimmy Vee as Bannakaffalatta, Bernard Cribbins as Wilfred Mott, Paul Kasey as the Host, and Colin McFarlane and Ewan Bailey as Alien voices.  It was written by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: James Strong with Brian Minchin as Script Editor, Phil Collinson as Producer, and Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner as Executive Producers.  It was originally broadcast on Tuesday 25 December 2007 on BBC One.

 

Russell T. Davies, when informed of a further revival for a fourth series to air in 2008 with a 2007 Christmas special, with the option for a fifth series in 2009 began to go into a bit of a drag.  Already, Davies was unsure of who the new companion would be for the fourth series and the general stress of production was beginning to wear on the producer.  Davies while still loving the work he was doing on the program decided around 2007 that 2009 would be his last, asking for a special commission of a series of specials to air in 2009 instead of a full series to lighten his load.  While the full story of these specials and the eventual successor to Davies would come in time and details hashed out late in the production of the fourth series, Davies was still struggling to devise a companion for the fourth series, deciding once again to have a one-off character for the 2007 Christmas special.  Davies also realized that like “The Runaway Bride” before it the 2007 Christmas special would need a large draw as a one-off companion, and after going through a fair few potential candidates including Dennis Hopper, a chance meeting with director James Strong led to Australian singer and Eighth Doctor Adventures fan Kylie Minogue was contacted and given the spot of one-off companion, a waitress on a spaceship version of the Titanic.  “Starship Titanic” as it was known at this point was written by Davies to be a tribute to disaster films such as The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno as well as James Cameron’s 1997 Best Picture winning Titanic.  Davies developed the character of Astrid Peth for Minogue, modeling her after 2000AD character Halo Jones, created by Alan Moore and Ian Gibson, and renamed the episode “Voyage of the Damned”.  James Strong, responsible for Minogue’s casting, was also asked to direct the episode and the special was given an extra long 72 minute timeslot on BBC One as part of the Christmas festivities, while production also secured a small role for veteran British actor Bernard Cribbins, intended to be a small-one off role that would actually become recurring when the main production blocks of the fourth series went into production.  Also returning to Doctor Who after a role in Revelation of the Daleks was Clive Swift, who would go on to give an infamous interview to Benjamin Cook of Doctor Who Magazine.

 

“Voyage of the Damned” as a story is one that has an incredibly solid premise and structure, but this is an episode that is honestly one with a lot of little mistakes that break it down and make it one of the more underwhelming Christmas specials.  Now perhaps the biggest problem of the episode overall is Russell T. Davies’ attempts to take down capitalism’s tendency to turn people into numbers and profit while exploring an entirely new alien race.  Davies makes the admirable attempt to give every side character their own story arc, but the issues come when these arcs feel almost entirely undeveloped.  There is a pair of characters, the Van Hoffs played by Debbie Chazen and Clive Rowe, who are saddled with some of the comic relief of the episode, all really uncomfortable fat jokes at their expense that honestly feels cruel.  There are brief moments where their love as a married couple shines through, though these are generally there for this random idea that Foon Van Hoff has been lying about winning their spot on the Titanic.  They are also characters who both die, Morvin dying by accident while Foon just jumps to her death which is treated as at least heroic but gratuitous and unnecessary.  The episode somehow doesn’t have enough time to dwell and reflect on most of the deaths in this episode, with only three characters surviving: doddering Earth ‘expert’ Mr. Copper, asshole capitalist Rickston Slade, and Midshipman Frame (played by Russell Tovey).

 

The other major death in the episode is cyborg Bannakaffalatta played by Jimmy Vee, another character who gets an underdeveloped character arc.  Davies’ worldbuilding includes the tidbit that cyborgs are discriminated against and there is some sort of structural bigotry against them, LGBT discrimination being the major inspiration for this character, but Bannakaffalatta is another character who sacrifices himself, for whatever reason his body having an EMP self-destruct feature that powers him off, though this isn’t adequately explained as to why it kills him as it has already been established that he can just be powered back on.  Astrid’s demise, killing the cyborg CEO of the corporation crashing the Titanic Max Capricorn, with a forklift is also a scene that doesn’t quite work, James Strong’s direction includes several quick cuts that make it difficult to watch and it’s presented in a way that the Doctor could intervene and save her.  Both of these sequences are the closest we get to explaining the bigotry.

 

With all of these issues you would think that this was an episode that was immediately sunk, and honestly you’d be wrong.  While it’s not good in my eyes, there are several redeeming elements. The first act in particular is excellent, the period costuming of all these human like aliens hosting a party on a ship in very poor taste is genuinely quite a good premise and commentary on the rich that sets the anti-capitalist theming on a good starting point that would only fail to be developed later in the episode.  The same can be said with the sequence on the Earth just before things begin to fall apart with Davies using his writing talents to genuinely make the mundane nature of a street on Christmas Eve seem as if it is a genuinely special occurrence, something that even shocks the Doctor in the scene.  Bernard Cribbins appears in this scene as Wilfred Mott which is an excellent little cameo, despite the character not being named on screen.  Despite her character’s lackluster death and the fact that Astrid quickly falls in love with the Doctor, Kylie Minogue actually has some nice acting talent and great chemistry with David Tennant as the Doctor.  Their final scene together is one that is genuinely heartbreaking as the Doctor once again gives a poor victim of himself a quasi-immortal fate and dispersion among the stars that she genuinely wanted to travel to see.

 

Overall, “Voyage of the Damned” is an incredibly mixed bag of an episode, though it definitely benefits from an increased budget and longer running time, Russell T. Davies leaves several important ideas and characters underdeveloped.  While the cynicism baked into this Christmas special is a welcome change, Davies has this issue of also making the episode tonally happy because it is Christmas instead of fully committing to cynicism turning into a bittersweet hope in the end that it is kind of going for.  The performances are the strongest part of the episode, all being a joy to watch even if the Doctor gets another patented “I’m awesome” speech that has essentially become a meme in the fandom.  Underdeveloped is honestly the biggest issue with the episode.  4/10.

Time Crash by: Steven Moffat and directed by: Graeme Harper

 

“Time Crash” stars David Tennant and Peter Davison as the Doctor.  It was written by: Steven Moffat and directed by: Graeme Harper with Phil Collinson as Producer, and Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner as Executive Producers.  It was originally broadcast on Friday 16 November 2007 on BBC One.

 

After “Born Again” established a connection between the revival of Doctor Who and the Children in Need telecast that would continue for a number of years beginning in 2005.  2006 did not see the production of a mini-episode, but a charity concert of Murray Gold’s music for the first two series, but Russell T. Davies decided 2007’s involvement would bring back a mini-episode, though not written by Davies.  Davies approached Steven Moffat who had already written for the 1999 Comic Relief appeal in the 20 minute The Curse of Fatal Death.  Moffat believed this would be the perfect opportunity to bring back a gimmick from the classic show, the multi-Doctor story, using this as an opportunity to write for his personal favorite Doctor, Peter Davison’s Fifth Doctor.  Davies agreed, Davison was contacted, and “Time Crash” was born.  The special would be shot during the production of the fourth series where producer Phil Collinson decided to step back for several production blocks, “Time Crash” being part of the fourth production block of the series, the third to be produced by Collinson.  Graeme Harper who would helm the second, seventh, and ninth production blocks would take directorial duties from this block’s previously assigned director James Strong, being made in parallel with the episode “Partners in Crime”.

 

“Time Crash” is essentially just a single scene where the TARDIS goes wrong and the Fifth and Tenth Doctors can interact with one another and David Tennant can act like a kid in a candy store around the Doctor he also grew up with.  Moffat’s attempts at the plot are that the TARDIS needs to be fixed, resulting in a predestination paradox that does not get resolved before the Fifth Doctor is sent back to his TARDIS and the Tenth Doctor crashes into the Titanic leading into the 2007 Christmas Special “Voyage of the Damned”.  Now, Moffat’s script does make it so the Tenth Doctor is portrayed as the superior Doctor, a common trope in this story, before using the character as a mouthpiece for himself to lay heaps of adoration on the Fifth Doctor which serves the short, seven minute clip well.  Peter Davison is also clearly having a blast coming back to the role, even if for a brief moment.  Graeme Harper is also reuniting with Davison in the director’s chair, Harper helmed The Caves of Androzani during the Davison era, and the way Harper shoots the TARDIS for this scene is incredibly dynamic.  Really, this segment just called for a static shot, but Harper always keeps things interesting and fun to watch for the seven minutes.

 

Overall, “Time Crash” is another excellent little short produced for Children in Need, not really advancing characters but providing a nice scene of fanservice all in the name of charity from a fun script, to two very good actors, and one amazing director.  7/10.

The Sound of Drums & Last of the Time Lords by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: Colin Teague

 

“The Sound of Drums” and “Last of the Time Lords” stars David Tennant as the Doctor, Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones, and John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness with John Simm as the Master, Adjoa Andoh as Francine Jones, Trevor Laird as Clive Jones, Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Tish Jones, Reggie Yates as Leo Jones, Alexandra Moen as Lucy Saxon, and Zoe Thorne, Gerard Logan, and Johnnie Lyne-Pirkis as the Toclafane Voices.  They were written by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: Colin Teague with Simon Winstone as Script Editor, Phil Collinson as Producer, and Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner as Executive Producers.  They were originally broadcast on Saturdays from 23 to 30 June 2007 on BBC One.

 

The last review in this marathon of Russell T. Davies’ first tenure as showrunner on Doctor Who began the story that this review is the conclusion.  “Utopia” set up the return of the Master, now played by John Simm, but “The Sound of Drums” and “Last of the Time Lords” were designed specifically to showcase the character and integrate an idea that hadn’t been developed in the first series of the revived Doctor Who.  When “Dalek” entered production there was a period of time where it was unclear if the show would be able to use the Daleks due to negotiation issues with the Terry Nation estate, Russell T. Davies imagined the Toclafane, sentient spheres that contained the last remnants of humanity, characterized as utterly ruthless and insane as a replacement in the script.  Davies also realized that the Master in the classic series would often be accompanied by another alien species and decided quite early on in the development of this finale to revive the Toclafane idea in a twisted idea of what the humans in “Utopia” were going towards.  This invasion by the Master and the Toclafane became the basis for “The Sound of Drums” and “Last of the Time Lords”.  On it’s surface the initial idea is a solid one, especially deciding to have the final episode focus on a world where the Master has won his scheme, the Earth being overtaken and the universe to be conquered, but these final two episodes further the issues that Russell T. Davies’ finales have shown in “Army of Ghosts” and “Doomsday”, and will only become more apparent with the final two finales yet to come, the series four and specials finales taking this to the extreme.

 

“The Sound of Drums” is the episode that genuinely makes you believe that the issues will not be a trend, however, as it acts as further setup for the finale, though not just setup.  Davies continues character development, establishing John Simm as the Master and devoting time to the team of the Doctor, Martha, and Jack as fugitives from the law.  Russell T. Davies proves himself a master of political commentary and satire, the Master arriving 18 months prior to the beginning of the episode, creating a web of lies and web of satellites to convince the human population that he is a politician, winning an election for Prime Minister.  Now this premise is portrayed quite well on screen, Colin Teague being assigned to direct these episodes, but Davies’ portrayal of the political workings of the United Kingdom in this episode doesn’t actually work as well once you give it any thought, mainly because Davies makes him too big.  Davies frames the election as closer to an election for the President of the United States and not an election of Parliament in the United Kingdom (the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister is just the leader of the majority party of the Parliament).  This is something that’s actually quite difficult to look past, being more than a simple nitpick as so much of the setup relies on an understanding of British politics.  A nitpick would be Davies’ script for exactly one line describing the President of the United States as the President Elect when every other line refers to him properly as the President.  The political aspects of the Master, under the guise of Harold Saxon, are fascinating as Davies is clearly lambasting the 2007 politics of Tony Blair and the Labour party, plus hinting at the resulting shift towards conservatism and the decline that would eventually bring to the world.

 

There are two utterly brilliant scenes performed by Simm, the first being the Master killing the members of the Cabinet with gas which shows his ruthless and insane side, but the second is a sequence involving Lucy Saxon, played by Alexandra Moen, being interviewed by Vivien Rook, played by Nichola McAuliffe, revealing the false history of the Master and Rook losing her life.  Moen plays Lucy Saxon in this first episode in a fascinating manner, fully fallen for the Master’s charms and being deeply in love with him.  This is fascinating as Russell T. Davies’ ethos for the relationship of the Doctor and Master is coded to be this unrequited love between the two of them.  The way John Simm plays the Master is already elevating to camp levels which your mileage will vary, but the gay subtext between the Doctor and the Master cannot be denied.  The Master at several points in the episode is pining for the Doctor and demanding that a doctor is what the country absolutely needs.  When the Doctor and the Master speak of one anther the former codes it in language about being friends once, heavily implying more than friends while the latter’s obsession with the Doctor being explicitly framed as gleeful and sexual, Colin Teague at points getting in very close over the course of both episodes.  This particular relationship and reading, while perfectly valid based on unintentional subtext going as far back as the introduction of the Master, is one that does not work for me, mainly because the Master as a villain has always seemed the equal and opposite of the Doctor, but also a relationship built on mutual respect and not love.  “The Sound of Drums” also adds this backstory of the Master to route the insanity and villainy to as a child seeing the raw time vortex on Gallifrey instead of just being evil.  Davies’ decision to plant the idea also doesn’t explain exactly why the drumbeat is heard in the Master’s head, something that a later story will address, but still a hanging thread in an episode that ascribes a meaning to villainy that isn’t necessary.

 

Freema Agyeman is the real star of “The Sound of Drums”, mainly because this is the episode where the family of Martha Jones are captured by the Master after plans to trap Marhta fail.  Davies is clearly using Martha’s family as a commentary on what happens with fascist collaborators, Francine Jones deliberately collaborating with the Master throughout the second half of the series because of fears of the Doctor put into her heads, Tish Jones’ naively working for the Master first in “The Lazarus Experiment” and then in this episode in two forms, and Clive and Leo both being dragged along (though Leo escapes and remains on the run throughout the story).  Yet through all of it Martha Jones’ primary motivation in the episode is saving her family, and stopping the Master by any means necessary.  Martha is made the emotional heart of the episode, as while the danger of the Earth is there, Davies is focusing on Agyeman’s performance as Martha for much of the pathos.  She is the one who gets the big moments to understand the science fiction concepts and escapes at the climax making the episode work.  She’s the reason “The Sound of Drums” is good.  6/10.

 

“Last of the Time Lords” is where the story falls apart completely.  It’s premise isn’t bad, after the Master and the Toclafane take over the world Martha Jones has travelled on a secret mission for a year to defeat the Master, going across the globe using a low level perception filter to be avoided.  This sounds like an excellent premise to the episode until the actual resolution has to come at the climax of the episode.  Now initially it is believed that Martha is finding a McGuffin in the form of a gun with four chemicals that will stop the Master regenerating, something that is obviously a lie that the Doctor would never actually request to do.  The Toclafane have already decimated the population of the Earth and the TARDIS is holding the paradox at bay, so the real goal is to find a way to revert the paradox so this never happened which is a perfectly fine idea, but also incredibly simple.  So Russell T. Davies instead makes “Last of the Time Lords” resolve itself by the telepathic network somehow restores the Doctor who has been forced to old age by the Master through the faith of the human race thinking the word Doctor.  The issue with this comes in the fact that it restores the Doctor to his original appearance and the direction and script make it explicit that this is a clear parallel to the resurrection of Christ, the Doctor being portrayed explicitly as a god figure in this scenario.  It especially doesn’t help with the way that David Tennant plays the part, playing the scenes with the Master as over the top smug and then sad when the Master is shot, killed, and dies cradled in the arms of the Doctor as possible that just drags the viewer out of the episode.  Some of this might also be due to the general amount of wrap up “Last of the Time Lords” has to accomplish, devoting nearly 10 minutes to saying goodbye to both Jack and Martha where both John Barrowman and Freema Agyeman have their best individual scenes (Martha finally getting to stand on her own two feet as a companion and not just be compared to Rose, promising a future return as well and Jack revealing he is the Face of Boe).

 

This easily could have been avoided if the use of the word doctor just broke down the telepathic hold, allowing Martha and Jack to get to the TARDIS and reverse time, but without the Doctor restoring like Jesus the episode couldn’t also have the Doctor and the Master wrestle over hundreds of nuclear rockets ready to blow up the rest of the universe.  Yes, the episode’s stakes are that the entire universe is about to be destroyed, something that Davies neglects to make feel real.  The stakes are too high for a single episode to properly explore, especially since the episode’s sets and locations are actually quite limited, mainly on the Valiant where the bulk of the third act of “The Sound of Drums” was set, in a house with refugees, and a broken down laboratory so Martha can be betrayed by a professor to the Master and the Toclafane’s identities can be discovered.  The latter scene is actually, genuinely horrific and one of the few individual parts of the episode that actually work really well.  The Toclafane voice in the moment is this mockery of humanity and reflects this real sense of danger and nihilism towards the eventual fate of humanity.  The same cannot be said on any of the makeup and computer generated effects used around David Tennant as the Doctor, being aged generally looks cheap and the 900 year old creature feels like an effects shot for the sake of an effects shot.  There is the skeleton of an interesting episode here, but it’s the weakest finale episode thus far and largely drags down much of the good will the last two episodes built up.  One of Davies’ weakest episodes thus far.  2/10.

 

Overall, “Utopia”, “The Sound of Drums”, and “Last of the Time Lords” are a trinity of episodes that begin to lose steam as the story develops and Russell T. Davies begins to run out of ideas, the final episode’s extended run time in particular dragging things down.  This is almost a story that should be recommended to skip the final third act because that’s where everything truly comes apart.  The few saving graces are the reinvention of the Master here as played by John Simm is at least a strong performance, though overshadowed by the few minutes of Derek Jacobi, and Martha Jones as a character being finally given material that isn’t overshadowed by Rose while allowing Freema Agyeman to finally prove in her final moments the depth the character truly has.  5.5/10.