![]() ![]() The Doctor and Wilf are prisoners of the Master and their main purpose up to this point has been to encourage some expository dialogue. Rassilon uses the drum beat to form a link between the ‘time-locked’ Gallifrey and Earth, sending a “Whitepoint Star” diamond to act as a physical conduit. I’ve always thought of this as being something that was added to the character as part of some manipulation by the Time Lords, but The End of Time appears to rule this out, when the drumbeat is mentioned as being part of the Master’s already established history. Every waking hour.” I’ve always found it difficult to rationalise this with the urbane version of the character as played by Roger Delgado, although the drumbeats would explain some of the insane schemes of later incarnations, especially Anthony Ainley’s. When the Master returned to the series in Utopia, he talked of a noise in his head, “the sound of drums…I’ve had it all my life. The Doctor says to his old enemy, “do you think I’d leave my best friend without a defence mechanism?” This moment has always felt like another Davies cheat, but watching it again it feels right that the Doctor has put something in her mind to protect her. As she feels like her head is about to explode, a wave of golden energy surges from her knocking out the Masters. I accept that the Master isn’t the main focus of this episode, but it still ends up as an interesting idea that’s wasted, as can be seen from The Doctor Falls where the flirting/sparring between the two versions of the renegade Time Lord are among the best things in the story.Īt the end of part one, the sight of her mother and fiancé transforming started to erode the blocks the Doctor had put on Donna’s mind, she runs out of her house but is cornered by suburban versions of the Master. With there being over six billion identical versions of the Master, it’s difficult to believe that they would be content to follow orders or that they would refer to their original as “Sir”. In the comedy series Red Dwarf, there’s an episode where the hologram Arnold Rimmer creates a duplicate of himself to act as his perfect roommate, the humour in the story coming from the fact that they end up absolutely hating each other. This is a potentially fascinating idea, but not a lot is done with it other than giving John Simm the excuse to wear a dress. Rassilon is following a prophecy that indicates that the confrontation between the Doctor and Master will lead to Gallifrey’s salvation, and this draws Rassilon’s attention to the Earth.īack at home, there are now “Six billion, seven hundred and twenty-seven million, nine hundred and forty-nine thousand three hundred and thirty-eight versions of” the Master. There was always an ambivalence about Rassilon as seen in The Five Doctors, but in The End of Time it’s clear that he’s a tyrant, using the power from a gauntlet (of Rassilon?) to atomise a dissenting voice. In stories such as The Deadly Assassin and The Invasion of Time we hear of the central role of Rassilon at the heart of Time Lord society, and it’s fitting that a man was apparently responsible for every Time Lord technological advance would be resurrected in the hour of Gallifrey’s greatest need. That said, the return of Gallifrey makes an epic conclusion to the Davies/Tennant era. I’ve said before that I’m not a fan of Gallifrey, and I think the Doctor is more special as a man apart than he is as just another representative of an all-powerful race. ![]() One of the key decisions of the Davies era was to remove Gallifrey from the narrative, this turned the Doctor from carefree wanderer to scared survivor of a terrible war, adding a layer of darkness to the character. ![]() With this, it’s no wonder that this story is in some ways a celebration of the Davies era as well as the Tenth Doctor, and because of the success of the show we can’t argue that it hasn’t been earned. Russell T Davies was responsible for casting David Tennant and for shaping his entire run, with both leaving at exactly the same time, a couple of minutes before the close of The End of Time Part 2. Has there ever been a Doctor and showrunner as linked as David Tennant and Russell T Davies? Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks guided most of the Third Doctor’s era, but Derek Sherman was responsible for the casting of Jon Pertwee, and Letts’ tenure extended into the start of the Fourth Doctor’s era. It’s the end of an era but the Tenth Doctor doesn’t want to go… ![]()
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