The Sound Of Drums/Last Of The Timelords: Ranking - 209

  The Sound Of Drums/Last Of The Timelords

(Series 3, Dr 10 with Martha, 23-30/6/2007, showrunner: Russell T Davies, writer: Russell T Davies, director: Colin Teague) 

'Here is a party political broadcast on behalf of the Conservative party. Vote Saxon! Yes he's returning, the political comeback of the year! So what if he gassed the cabinet, enslaved us all and fed us to the Toclafane - that was just a misunderstanding last time and a non-story exploited by the biased left-wing media, it will better this time honest. I mean, if nothing else he got Brexit done - if only because he killed all the remain voters. That's democracy at work, that is. Remember, vote Saxon to make your problems disappear when you do!' 

Ranking: 209

 

 (A note before we start: unlike some fans but like Russell T I consider ‘Utopia’ a separate story not part of a 3-parter, so that episode will be along in a month or so’s time). During the time of first transmission of this story about a psychopath driven to commit evil deeds by the constant rhythm in his head, my neighbour was learning to play the drums in the bedroom next to mine and I have never felt more affinity with The Master in my life. All those other stories full of crazy plans that could never work and endless repetitive attempts to take over Earth just to annoy the heck out of the Doctor suddenly made sense: he was suffering from sleep deprivation. The finale of the 3^rd  series of comeback Who relies a lot on just how mad The Master is and Russell T has clearly been doing some thinking on what motivates The Doctor’s arch nemesis, coming up with the sound of drumming in his head that pushes him on (while leaving the full explanation for another couple of years). Roger Delgado’s Master was suave and Anthony Ainley’s was theatrical and the least said about Eric Roberts’ emotionless Master the better, but Simms’ Master version like he core Master with all the social niceties stripped away. After all, there has to be some reason to make him keep coming back to be a thorn in the Doctor’s side when everyone else bar The Daleks have given up. I love how RTD’s Master is scripted to be The Doctor just with rules of social etiquette and empathy stripped away; he’s every bit as driven but in a darker, nastier way and really is the Doctor’s equal in ways that Ainley’s Master was never allowed to be. John Simms takes that idea and totally runs with it, surprising and scaring everyone who’d seen him in other things and even himself a little I think with how far he dove into the role of a psychopathic killer whose borderline insane. Usually The Master’s plans make little to no sense and are just something interchangeable each time for the Doctor to stop, but this one feels plausible and you spend this two-parter ticking off things you’re surprised no other writer came up with him to do: of course he’d end up prime minister. Of course he’d gas the political cabinet which are at least a symbol of democracy (even if the same incompetent self-serving morons always seem to get in every time). Of course he’d go out of his way to humiliate the Doctor and separate him from his friends. This is a Master whose been thinking through why his plans always fail and he nearly gets away with this one, even going to the extra trouble to ‘hide’ his real self so his return catches the Doctor totally off guard (if not the fanbase who, after series finales involving The Daleks and The Cybermen, realised it was either going to him or Davros coming back; even so the twist at the end of ‘Utopia’ is a doozy). Alas it feels as if Russell is having so much fun getting inside The Master’s head that he neglects The Doctor and worse neglects Martha in what should have been her big emotional farewell. Turning The Doctor old and then speeding him up into a CGI Gollum and sticking him in a cage is exactly what The Master would do but it’s also a really bad move dramatically: it robs us of the chance to hear two fine actors going toe-to-toe until the very end and makes The Master’s rants even more ranty as he talks to himself and all David Tennant can do is wheeze like a grampus. Not least because the CGI version of an aged timelord looks ridiculous, nothing like Tennant or a timelord at all (and nothing like what Matt Smith’s Doctor will look like after a similar length of time as The Doctor). These scenes in the second episode are also way too brutal and over-the-top; usually I defend violence in fantasy and scifi shows because to be worried about them you have to be young and impressionable enough to also believe that having two hearts and travelling in time and space in a blue box is real, but this is slightly different because it’s happening to a character we’ve grown to love and the obvious pain The Doctor’s in is clearly taken too far (they could easily have cut five minutes of this to make the ‘usual’ timeslot I think). I can’t help wondering if, after three very hard years that pushed him to his limits, RTD wasn’t venting his anger at how many sleepless nights and headaches working on his favourite show was giving him and getting his own back on the central character (although the ‘real’ punch is how bland and unlikeable the Doctor is compared to The Master in this one, who gets all the best lines). For Martha it’s even worse: she’s had a whole series of arc of learning to be independent and to come to terms with the fact that the Doctor will never love her the way she loves him. By rights this episode should end with her doing a Clara, taking charge and saving him in such a way that the Doctor falls for her, but all too late (while standing up to her awful family while she’s about it). Instead she’s asked to travel the word spreading word about how marvellous and wonderful the man/timelord whose just jilted her is, while relying on other countries to give her shelter and keep her safe while she sits around telling stories and eating their biscuits. It just feels wrong for Martha, whose a doctor herself after all and built for far better than this. Freema Agyeman is as under-rated as ever and acts her socks off with all the extra screen-time (plus a romantic sub-plot with the bloke from Miranda, that sadly never goes anywhere), but really it’s The Doctor’s plan that’s bonkers this time even if it does work; I mean ‘the world’s combined psychic energy rejuvenates the Doctor’? Since when was that a thing? And Earth is just one planet; we’re really not very big or important cosmically speaking. The plan would have been better if Martha had been given a space-shuttle and flown to Peladon or somewhere where lots of planets could rush to help at once and think of the Doctor. Also, does that mean the time war could have been reversed by timelords holding hands and singing Paul McGann’s praises and bringing him back to life? It’s all a bit odd and smacks a bit too much of ‘I’ve been working hard at this project for ten months and I need to sleep and get my life back; yeah Terrance Dicks got away with worse, that’ll do’. Which is a real shame because there’s a lot about this story, particularly in the first episode, to love. The idea of a phone network that’s secretly brainwashing people into who to vote for is the perfect explanation for how we get the politicians we do (not for nothing did RTD turn Boris into an auton during his ‘lockdown’ story). The gleeful sight of The Master in a gas mask giving the thumbs up as he gasses half of  Downing Street is priceless and satisfying. The Master and wife Lucy dancing to Rogue Traders’ ‘Voodoo Child’ while the world burns around him (definitely didn’t have that on my DW bingo list) is an iconic shot, far far better than the too-on-the-nose gag about The Master dancing to ‘Ra Ra Rasputin’ while dressed as him earlier this year. The joke about The Master watching The Teletubbies (a throwback to Delgado’s Master watching The Clangers) is hilarious and proof that this show really is being made by fans just like us. The ‘dummy’ where it looks as if Martha’s been sent after a big gun, only she hasn’t (because the Doctor never uses guns) is a great bluff.  The fact that (spoilers) it’s The master’s wife, used and abused throughout this story, who finally kills him while The Doctor desperately tries to make him regenerate so he won’t carry the burden of being the last timelord, is the perfect end.  Even the Toclafane, originally created as a plan B replacement for the Daleks in series one when it looked as if getting the rights from Terry Nation’s estate were about to fall through, are convincing copycats: tiny spheres that used to be children, like updated quarks but better. There’s a lot more this story gets right than it gets wrong and like the drumming the script gets in your head so you go along with the bits that don’t and adjust. It’s only later, when the drums have been packed away for another day, you realise that a lot of it just didn’t make much sense at all (I still blame next door’s drumming and sleep deprivation for making me miss this first time round) and especially how much better it would have been with David Tennant properly in it.

+ The drumming that pushes The Master on is a great bit of ret-conning that unlike, say, ‘The Timeless Child’ subplot, only adds to what we know rather than takes away from it. Cleverly, it sounds like the opening beats of the Doctor Who theme tune, suggesting that it’s a side effect of the time vortex we see at the start of every episode and hints that The Doctor has these same impulses too but keeps them at bay. It all makes even more sense in ‘End Of Time’ when we learn that Rassilon put the drumming in The Master’s head (and making him seem more of a victim than a villain, even with all the many many lives lost along the way. I mean, let’s not forget The Master’s part in ‘Logopolis’ alone, which has the biggest DW body count of them all even though hardly any are seen on screen).

-          The perception filter is a bit silly. I mean, the Tardis keys hung round your neck and a bit of quick jiggery-pokery means you can turn invisible? Why have we never had that before or since? Just think of the other DW stories that would have circumvented.