Utopia by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: Graeme Harper

 

“Utopia” stars David Tennant as the Doctor, Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones, and John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness with Derek Jacobi as Professor Yana and Chipo Chung as Chantho.  It was written by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: Graeme Harper with Simon Winstone as Script Editor, Phil Collinson as Producer, and Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner as Executive Producers.  It was originally broadcast on Saturday 16 June 2007 on BBC One.

 

With the first two finales of the revival of Doctor Who bringing back the Daleks and the Cybermen as each series’ big bad so to speak, Russell T. Davies decided that the third series finale really needed to challenge the notion of the Doctor as the last of the Time Lords, and as such settled on bringing back the Master for what was intended to be a rare appearance for the revival of the show.  Davies’ ambition for the finale would be to setup the final two episodes in the third episode from the end, building up to the twist that the Master was alive and meant to be the big bad.  This means that the third series of Doctor Who has one of very few instances of a three-episode story arc in the revival, the only others thus far coming in the ninth and tenth series, though other finales would have less direct lead in episodes that would stand largely on their own.  “Utopia” was quickly titled and the premise quickly undertaken by Davies and as it is the first of the three episode finale, it is important for readers to note that this episode’s score will be factored into the final score of the story which will occur in the next review.  Davies was keen for the finale to also reconnect the audience with Captain Jack Harkness, played by John Barrowman, connecting Doctor Who with its spin-off Torchwood, the finale of which would lead into this finale.  Derek Jacobi was also cast as Professor Yana and a such “Utopia” was placed in the seventh production block under Graeme Harper to accommodate Jacobi’s schedule, placing it alongside “42” in the schedule, but this also led to the other two episodes having their own distinct production team and director.

 

“Utopia” has a fantastic and simple premise to setup the big twist.  The TARDIS is flung to the end of the universe, trillions of years in the future, due to Captain Jack Harkness jumping onto the police box’s exterior while landed in Cardiff.  This desolate setting is harrowing, it’s a barren planet whose own people are down to their last member in Chantho, played by Chipo Chung, an added parallel to the Doctor’s own Time Lords, and the emptiness is felt.  One of the episode’s few weaknesses are the addition of a patented Doctor Who monster in the Futurekind, who are just humans who growl, scream, and have filed their teeth down by evolution.  This is an attempt to add the fear of what humanity may become, but sadly they are only there to be a basic threat and not really get any significant exploration.  The danger they pose to the human refugees is superfluous and could easily have been replaced with technological failings that already inhabit the episode.  The threat they pose to the Doctor, Martha, and Jack could easily have been replaced with the life support of the human colony failing as suitable.  The Futurekind not getting focus is all to serve Graeme Harper’s brilliant direction of shooting the refugees of humanity in this incredibly tragic light, with these lingering point of view shots representing Martha’s uneasiness and sadness as to what humanity has generally become, remnants waiting to die.  Freema Agyeman’s performance in the scene and the episode in general is fairly understated, but not overshadowed by Tennant, Barrowman, and Jacobi who are the main powerhouse performances of the episode, Agyeman getting to add the real human element to the episode.  Martha is also paired with Chantho which allows some exploration of her species and their general culture, both women being unrequited lovers of brilliant, older men, something that is going to come to a head in the finale with some interesting results.

 

The relationship explored between the Doctor and Jack is also explored with interesting results in “Utopia”, Jack being effectively immortal and trying to cope with that reality.  This immortality is the unnatural effect of Rose’s actions in “The Parting of the Ways”, with Jack being forced to live through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Doctor theorizing he is an unnatural fixed point in time.  This idea is that as a Time Lord the Doctor is now genetically averse to Jack, this weird form of bigotry being genetically coded, an idea that won’t really come up further outside of the context of these scenes.  David Tennant and Derek Jacobi also play incredibly well off one another, Professor Yana being such a fun and engaging character allowing Jacobi to avoid his usual villainous performance that he is often typecast as.  Yana is an inventor who has been tearing his hair out due to the inability to save the human race and get his rocket off the ground, while the Doctor immediately addresses the problem and fixes it.  Tennant doesn’t play the Doctor as boastful, reassuring Yana that his brilliance shines through by designing the rocket controls out of repurposed foodstuffs and whatever material was available on this barren rock.  “Utopia” is an episode all about reaching an impossible dream so this is incredibly fitting.  Derek Jacobi’s performance is also masterfully developed through the episode, guiding the viewer from the kindly old professor subtly to the reveal that he is the Master.  There are these quick moments of annoyance early on and this musical motif of drums in his head, something we will explore in the next two episodes to their detriment, but here it’s just this sinister theme that plays.  Yana’s distraction at points builds to the initial reveal of a fob watch Chameleon Arch like the one seen in “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood”, Jacobi subtly altering the performance to temptation.  As soon as the watch is opened, Jacobi flips the villain switch on and makes the Master terrifying.  The Master kills Chantho, is shot in retaliation, and steals the Doctor’s TARDIS which leaves the episode on a brilliant note.  As the Master, Jacobi is only on-screen for minutes but it is the best Master performance in the entirety of the revival and becomes the cherry on top of an already great episode.  9/10.