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.