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So let me start by saying I'm not as rage-filled as I thought I'd be. Nor as depressed. So I guess that's a good thing. I was afraid this post was going to be all expletives and no sarcastic snark. Luckily, apart from THAT scene (which, yes, it pissed me off), I was still able to find the lulz. Because there were kind of a lot, for it being a death episode and all.
Anyways, it picks up right where the other one left off. A council of Time Lords, led by King Lord Czar President Fuhrer Timothy Dalton, is in the midst of Very Serious Discussions about The Doctor and The Master and some prophecies made by a crazy lady who went a little too wild with the Henna. By reading her random doodles, the Time Lords figure out that they're all going to burninate except for two people. Guess who. Timothy Dalton is not amused by Time Lord Lady Three for some reason, and smites her with his Sonic Rizzen Mitten in the middle of the Very Serious Discussion.
Cut back to The Master, who has The Doctor in the kinky bondage while he continues to be bat-shit insane. Wilf, yet again, is awesome. Donna, who is the only person ever not to become The Master for some reason that is not really explained, is being chased by Master Clones and remembers some stock footage from other episodes, which creates a sparkly boom that stops the Clones but essentially writes her out of any further action. But hey, she's not dead!
Back at the Mansion of the Maniacal Master there's a whole lot of "Give me the TARDIS"/"Um...no" discussion until the cactus aliens come in and rescue everyone of importance. But oh no! Instead of going to the TARDIS, they teleport to their own ship, and then The Doctor disables it so no one can find them, because although we have the technology to find and track satellites, finding a GIANT SPACE SHIP is impossible if it's not turned on. That lady who appears to tell Wilf about important plot points comes back but otherwise there's a lot of sitting around until The Master finds a diamond. Somehow, that means Gallifrey is coming back. Makes perfect sense to me.
Anyways, The Doctor fixes the ship and takes it back to Earth, where they all have to evade a ridiculous number of missiles. Crisis averted, The Doctor comes flying through the skylight just in time for the entrance of the rest of five Time Lords. Luckily, falling from the stratosphere is not only survivable but causes no lasting damage to the body. And um...now we know why The Doctor doesn't use guns. He's really not very good with them (did anyone else notice how far back the trigger was ALREADY pulled?), and just kind of points it back and forth between Lord King Timothy Dalton and The Master (who thank god hasn't eaten anything in this episode). Oh right and that business with everyone becoming The Master is resolved in three seconds with very little fuss.
There's some convoluted exposition about the Time War but the long and short of it is Gallifrey is about to crash into Earth (yeah it just appeared) and The Doctor has to stop it. So he shoots the diamond, The Master uses his Force Lightning to send the Time Lords back to their bubble, and he disappears. There's a bit of "Yay I'm not dead yet!" on The Doctor's part, until he realizes that Wilf is stuck in a box that will fill with radiation...eventually. So Ten trades places with him, triggering the radiation flood. Which microwaves him a bit, but doesn't kill him immediately. Nevermind the fact that he should be GLOWING and setting off every Geiger counter in greater London by this point, he takes Wilf home and then spends the last 20 minutes of the show in Cameo Land.
Martha and Beard!Mickey are married now. Tom Milligan who? I guess they needed a way to fit in as many cameos as possible, and figured "Why not? They're both black, they have so much in common!". Ten saves them from a random Sontaran and then disappears, leaving the audience saying "WTF".
Then he saves Luke Smith from being struck by a vehicle, and waves at Sarah Jane.
Then he surprises Jack in the Star Wars Cantina with a new boy toy. What better way to get over KILLING THEIR GRANDSON and losing a lover in the course of a week than a new piece of ass? The fact that it's Alonso of "Voyage of the Damned" fame, and essentially a Ianto look-a-like just stresses the fact that one pretty face can be replaced with another, and everyone's supposed to be happy about that. So much for "You'll never be just a blip in time, Ianto Jones". Less than six months and Jack's already back to being a manwhore. Way to go, ass.
There's a kind of weird cameo with that actress that played that one lady in "Family of Blood"...that really didn't make any sense to me. At all.
Donna gets married and The Doctor gives her a lottery ticket. That totally makes up for everything that happened to her because of him.
And then there's Rose. Remember that whole bit about Time Lords not being able to cross their own timelines? Not so much. Ten had no trouble going back to before Nine even met Rose and talking to her. Which should have meant that she'd recognize his voice when he regenerated into Ten, but yet again, RTD says "screw the rules".
The Doctor goes back into the TARDIS and flies off to regenerate on his own. And Ten was SO AWESOME that he can also harness the power of The Quickening. Yeah. His regeneration BLEW UP THE TARDIS. And just as it went crashing back towards Earth, we got to meet Eleven. No, that's not his age. Close though. THE END.
Anyways. I think I can get behind Matt Smith. And I can DEFINITELY get behind Steven Moffat. The former is going to be more of an adjustment than the latter, I think.
As for RTD, good riddance. Yet again, he screwed Jack's character by not even addressing what he'd been through (Of all the things The Doctor could give him as a gift, he chooses a replacement for the dead boyfriend? Really? Not even a tiny bit of comfort? No?) and found a way to give another big "fuck you" to Ianto fans. Apparently he didn't mean all that much to Jack after all.
Now there was a little bit of talk that not all of the cameo events were happening simultaneously. Obviously Rose's wasn't, since she hadn't yet met Nine. And Martha/Mickey's seemed to be at some point in the future. So people are putting forward the theory that the Jack/Alonso thing was happening in the future too, or possibly the past, just after the Titanic incident (which was Christmas 2007). The past idea doesn't make much sense since Jack was stuck on Earth at that point. And as much as I like the idea of it being the FAR future, after Ianto had been brought back and died naturally, that doesn't make much sens either. One, I don't think RTD gave it that much thought. He has a notorious hard-on for Russell Tovey (who plays Alonso) and probably thought sticking Jack with someone else would be great fun because hey, the new guy is hot, what's not to like (he then went on in Doctor Who Confidential to say that Jack/Alonso was the OMG PERFECT COUPLE). Two, unless Alonso has some kind of anti-aging secret, he would have to be much older for it to be the far future. So really the only explanation is that Jack thinks with his dick and is perfectly fine moving on after so little time. Well. I'm not. If Ianto v.2 shows up in Torchwood, I'm done. That show will be Dead To Me. Even more tragically, so will Captain Jack.