Last of the Time Lords (DW S3 spoilers, obv.)
You know, this could have been so damn epic, but RTD just didn't pull it together right.
For starters, that drumming wasn't properly explained. For something that has become - at least within my group of friends - such a motif of the show (I keep finding people drumming out that tune), it has no real substance behind it. Ugh. Such a wonderfully simple, brilliant idea...but enough was not made of it, and RTD certainly didn't do it justice.
And then you have all this wonderful stuff that Martha's been doing, but it turns out that she's actually done very little except for a lot of talking and "I love him" admissions (WHY does she always do that just as I start to like her and think, woo, Martha is cool?). And all the stupid plotholes surrounding that, like the perception-filter-key sometimes working and sometimes not, dependent on whether or not RTD needed it for the plot, and how it was possible for the Doctor to convey this whole plan in two seconds that weren't even in the previous episode, the fact that a year of unnecessary suffering was endured on all parts (don't tell me they couldn't've got people chanting Doctor some other, quicker way) and the way that she was apparently keeping low but somehow the whole world knows her name.
You know? Finally they give her something great...and it turns out to be not much at all. About the hardest thing she did is wander around for a year. And I'm not denying that that was brave and difficult, but I was hoping for something a little more active, a little more, Martha-defending-the-Earth, you know? She was right at the end - she was good. But she never did anything fantastic.
And, of course, there are all those awful moments that are so ridiculous that they pull you right out of the story and force you to goggle at the screen. How can we be expected to continue to suspend disbelief when the Doctor looks like DOBBY THE HOUSE ELF with pinstripe mini-rags?!!!
Were we meant to take those scenes seriously? Because mostly I just wondered when the show I had loved went so very to the dogs, and wondered whether this mini!old!Ten looked more like Dobby or the sand fairy from Five Children and It.
I just...the Doctor, sitting still for a whole year. No. I'm sorry. It goes against everything they've ever made us believe about him (and let's not go into the way he was living in a grass-filled tent). I don't believe for a second that, just because he's old, he's now completely useless. He could've done anything. What kind of a weakness is that? "Oh, age my body a few years and I become ABSOLUTELY POINTLESS". Seriously!
It feels like RTD just threw that in because he couldn't think of any other way to let Martha save the world and, after such a crap series for her, he wanted her to go out on a high.
Did poor Jack have any purpose in this episode (aside from fulfilling the bondage quota for the series)? Come on! Jack is a fighter, a - as Ten put it - defender of the Earth! He broke out of those chains easy as pie. What was even the point of putting him back in them?
There was no danger, no real threat. I had no emotional link to any of the main characters (I'm bored of Ten, let's be honest, and I'm not even remotely interested in old!Ten, because I'm shallow like that and he's as lame as hell when he has wrinkles. Obviously, wrinkles SAP YOUR BRAIN. Jack can't die, and I've never liked Martha, so what do I have to worry about?). If I'm completely honest, I was more worried about Lucy dying or an excessive amount of Ten/Martha ship than I was anything bad actually happening.
Oh, and was I supposed to give a damn about Martha's family? Because I don't. Martha's mother is a bitch and OMG what is WITH RTD's inability to write anything that isn't a middle-class nuclear family?!!! I can't believe they made Mr and Mrs Jones get back together. That's awful. Just no. I'm so fed up of RTD doing these things as though he's suggesting that that's the only way things should be. I want to grab him by the shoulders and say, YOU'RE GAY, FOR GOD'S SAKE! Stop subscribing to this stereotypical rubbish!
Working class companion who stays that way next time, plzkthnx.
I wasn't on the edge of my seat, and I won't be crying about this in a year's time.
Oh! And that damn paradox machine. One week they can't touch it and the next Jack can just fire at it randomly, WHAT?
And can I mention how much I HATE stupid, lame, awful, pseudo-deus ex machina, quick, turn-back-time-and-pretend-it-never-happened fixes?!! Argh!
This episode moved out of sci-fi and into the ridiculous. It's such a shame because it could have been so damn amazing but it just missed the mark in practically every way! One or two of these issues would be fine, but when you put all of them together...no. I can't ignore it. They make the episode SUCK, and the brilliant moments struggle to make up for it.
Can't forget: the Titanic came through the wall of the TARDIS, a ship that wasn't destroyed by a freaking BLACK HOLE!
Still, I can ignore that, because it was funny and dramatic and has the potential to turn into something good. More plot holes of the ignorable variety, please, RTD!
*breathes*
OK. Onto the good. Because there was some, believe it or not, and this episode does improve on rewatching (though, to be honest, I could've happily gone without ever rewatching it if I didn't want to see Martha hop off again).
Haha, I effing love John Simm. That is all.
I know a lot of people are saying the Master is horrible and did terrible things etc etc etc...but I can't care. He's awesome. He's evil and he LOVES it.
Well, he did, until we got stupid half-explained psychological reasons for his madness. But whatever. Let's pretend that didn't happen.
Just...the way he honestly enjoyed messing with people. I don't know, maybe I'm a sadist, but I loved that he could love that. It's a refreshing break from a character who is so tied up in fake morality. And wheeling the Doctor off into a wall like that was brilliant. *grins* Love the singing, love the Master, love Lucy (though RTD didn't do her justice this ep. What was her motivation to shoot him? I can guess, and it worked wonderfully, but we don't KNOW, and that's odd in a show that adores fleshing out its minor characters. She just sort of hovered and looked a little kooky. Can't believe she shot him. Gah. RTD kills all my ships). More Lucy next series, please!!
The first five and last ten minutes of the episode were definitely the strongest (I hated most of the first part, actually, but I can ignore it because the Master is so damn cool and sings while the world is ending). I could've done without the rest, to be honest. They were the only parts that stirred me into any kind of emotion, really - laughing delightedly at the Master, hoping Lucy won't die, sadness for the Doctor, intrigue over the ring and Lucy picking it up, and praying for Martha to leave.
Does that make me a bad person? Probably. But I was bouncing around with absolute joy when she went. Let me be honest about this - I went into the show with heaps of prejudice against Billie, and she won me over in five minutes. I went into TRB having never found Catherine Tate funny, fully expecting to hate her simply because she wasn't Rose, and already resenting her for that reason. But I loved her almost instantly, and Donna has to be one of my favourite companions of all time. I still say the Doctor should go back for her.
Anyway, I digress. My point is - probably largely due to Freema's acting and all this awful unrequited stuff (I really think they should have gone for friendship this time, in both directions, though I have to admit that the jealousy has been funny), I never connected with her. I never loved her or cared whether or not she left. I've become indifferent to her with a tiny measure of reluctant fondness, but I'm certainly not sad to see her go and am incredibly excited about who we'll get next year (and actually dreading her in DW or Torchwood. We cannot get rid of the woman!).
It took up until Human Nature for me to stop rolling my eyes at Freema's acting, and that many episodes of rubbish behind her can't just be erased. She made a very lasting, very bad impression on me, one that I daresay I could easily have got over had Martha been acted by another character.
The only reasons, until now, we've ever been given to like her are sympathy votes, and I've always been determined to find something in her to like her for, rather than thinking, oh, poor Martha, I don't want you to leave because your mother's an ass and the Doctor isn't shagging you. You know? And even when she was getting a little kick ass this last episode, she was so DAMN hung up over the Doctor that I was still despairing over her. I have never liked Martha more than when she came back into the TARDIS and opened her eyes. Thank GOD we got an ending like that for her. It gave me the tiniest shred of respect for the character, and it was a brilliant, fitting ending for her, not to mention the perfect time for her to leave - all biases aside. Yes, I actively liked Martha in those final scenes, and it worries me slightly that this is only the second time I have EVER been able to say that.
And it still wasn't liking her in an I-want-you-to-stay way. I liked her because she became sensible, stopped letting her stupid crushes blind her, and because she had the courage to leave.
Perhaps Martha staying to be with her family and acknowledging how dangerous all this is makes her a better person than Rose (you knew the comparison had to come sometime, didn't you?); I don't know. But I think, either way, it shows something massive about the love of which Rose is capable. I always did think that Rose was slightly more fairytale and Martha much more indicative of real people today, relationship wise, and I think this confirmed it. You know? You get the sense of Martha having had relationships before and that she will have relationships after, and yet, even with Mickey and mentions of Jimmy Stones, Rose's love for the Doctor was somehow much more epic, much more once-upon-a-time and untouchable.
Great contrast between Doomsday goodbyes and Martha's exit, too. Martha's exit was very old-school. I'm happy with that. Let's just pretend she''s not gonna ring up in three or so episodes' time, though, shall we? (I can see it now. "DOCTOR! The Earth is invaded and Dr Tom doesn't love me! I need you!" / "David! My acting career is floundering! I need you!")
As for the Master's ending...
Blimey, I'm writing an essay here. Well, you all know I love the Master by now. Brilliant last scenes; gorgeous, perfect acting all around. *pats the Doctor* Alone again, hm? Dearie me. I think RTD wants to break him. And I'm really glad that the Doctor didn't just keep the Master locked up in the attic like some unfortunate pet with only the Carrionites to play with, because how lame would that have been? The Master needed a big ending. He needed to win. I wanted him to win, and I loved how that line was an echo of Nine's own at the end of Dalek, having found himself alone again.
I'm not even going to go into Jack being the Face of Boe. I daresay you all feel the same about it, and I swear RTD was drunk when he put that in. It doesn't merit discussion, really, this; it doesn't even fit with canon. And I'm not happy or impressed that Ten and Martha were laughing when they'd watched the Face die only a few episodes before. Not impressed at all.
So yes. Basically, what had the potential to be an amazing, epic episode was ruined by RTD's inability to write subtley and to think of any actual decent ideas to shove his plot along with. The Doctor was old because it was the only way he could think of to incapacitate him, the Master was mad because giving your villains motivation is "good writing", Jack was in chains because we all have a thing for bondage. And that's it, really.
I'm pretty excited about next year, but if it's anything as bad as this, I'm not sure it's worth watching. I was more disappointed than I was happy or excited or heartbroken.