Utopia
‘Utopia’ is the sort of episode which makes you sit up and
take notice. It’s gritty, fast-paced, and strongly directed by Graham Harper,
written by Russel T Davies. It leads directly into the two-part season finale
involving the (spoiler alert) Master, espouses high-production values and an
exceptional performance by one of the great British actors, Derek Jacobi and Professor
Yana.
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| Chipo Chung |
In fact the only real problem with this episode is that it
promises so much for the next two, and that promise is not really delivered on
sadly. We see the return of John Barrowman as Captain Jack, and whilst he is a
welcome return to the cast, I’m not sure his character was essential for any of
the three episodes he appears in.
‘Utopia’ is set about as far in the future as anyone could
conceive, on a far off planet where there are no stars and the human race is
struggling to live in a dying universe. Now, I’m not sure how they survived on
a planet with no sun or stars. Seems to me the temperature would be a thousand
below freezing, if that. But hey, we all have to suspend our disbelief on
occasion.
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| Derek Jacobi |
The future-kind are hunting the humans there, most of which
are waiting behind a gate in a hill where Professor Yana and his assistant Cho
Tho (delightfully played by Chipo Chung) are readying a rocket to head to
Utopia, a place that has been calling humans for hundreds of years. In some
ways not a lot happens during this story, other than preparing the rocket to
take off, which it does. The Future-kind get in in the end too. Again, the
Future-kind if I had to be critical, were too clean. What’s with that? A common
issue for creatures in both new and classic series. Sorry, digression!
It’s all about the big reveal, and the build-up to Yana
opening his fob watch and realising he is the Master is handled perfectly. The
way that things are being reincorporated into the series – like a fob watch
(Human Nature), shows wonderful fore-thought and planning by Russel T Davies.
Derek Jacobi is really only the Master for five minutes, and
how brilliant is he? It’s heart breaking for Chan Tho to be killed by him, but
it’s this sort of rawness to an episode that makes you sit up and take notice.
Then a regeneration, the Master’s this time, into John Simm and goodbye! The
Doctor, Martha and Captain Jack, who we have learnt can’t die now, are stuck on
this planet with the Future-kind at the door, and…
‘to be continued’
Oh how very dare you!
9/10
The Sound of Drums/The Last of the Time Lords
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| John Simms as the Master, with his wife in the background. |
When last we saw our heroes, Jack, Martha and the Doctor,
they were trapped on a far off planet with evil creatures about to rip them to
shreds. So Mr Davies, the LAST thing you want to do is resolve that cliffhanger
in some lame-arse way which suggests they never had a problem at all.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what he did.
And sadly, it never quite recovers. BUT I will say that I
was not as disappointed as I thought I would be. My good friend Andrew was
dreading these two episodes, however, even he thought they ‘weren’t as bad as I
remembered’ after this viewing. However, the start is something not quite
recovered from. I thought it was going to be brilliant to see how the Doctor got
out of the sticky situation he was in, but no, Captain Jack had a vortex
manipulator and zap! They were back on Earth on the Master’s tail straight
away.
The Master, who was Mr Harold Saxon, who had just become
Prime Minister of Great Britain. Strange choice in a way, that they would go
back to number 10 Downing street again, which has been rebuilt, apparently
exactly how it was – the interior looks exactly the same as ‘Aliens of London’!
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| The power of everyone on Earth revives the Doctor. |
The first episode is better than the second. To be honest,
the biggest issue is they pushed it all too far. The Master and his Toclofane
friends – actually humans from the far future cannibalised by the Master – have
built a fleet of rockets to wage war on the Universe, a huge percentage of
people on Earth are dead and the world will never be the same. Davies has taken
us to a point in the story that for the programme’s continuation there can only
be one resolution – reset button.
The Master has converted the Doctor’s TARDIS into a paradox
machine to allow the Toclofane to destroy their own past. Destroy the machine
(apparently by shooting it as Captain Jack does) and everything goes back to
the way it was. The only problem was the fact that the Master was holding all
the cards. So Martha gets everyone on Earth to think the word “Doctor” at the
same time, which allows the Doctor (who by the way has been aged to near death
and for a time is a small piece of CGI in a cage) to become normal and then
powerful and stop the Master.
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| Goodbye to Martha Jones. |
It just didn’t do it for me. The cast is a mixed bag for
this one too. My issues are with two cast members really. Freema Ageyman has
been solid throughout the series, but to be honest the writers have not
challenged her or done anything with her character. Having said that, I like
Martha, I just think that more time was needed to be devoted to her characters.
When suddenly she is supposed to be ultra-strong and clever, I’m not convinced.
Besides the plot concept of her travelling the globe and spreading the word
about the Doctor was a poor choice in my view as well. We fly into the realms
of fairytale stuff at times in these two episodes.
John Simms as the Master. Look, he is what Delgado was to
Pertwee in a way, to Tennant. Sharing traits with the lead good-guy but with
that dark edge to it. And that’s ok, but some of the laughing and silly stuff
and the use of pop music to accompany his mania (not his fault in anyway) just
left me wondering what freaking drugs Davies was on when he wrote the thing.
The Master has a wife (Alexandra Moen). Hmmm, Davies didn’t feel
any need to expand on that. Why? For appearances? And she seems to not like
him, or does she? In the end no, she (spoiler alert) shoots him. Tell us more,
we want as an audience to understand characters. If the story doesn’t allow you
to explain sufficiently what are significant characters, then maybe they
shouldn’t be significant characters. Likewise for Martha’s family, throughout
the series they were little more than tools and that continued here. Martha’s
mum didn’t like the Doctor, she was scared of him, but come these episodes
that’s been forgotten because the series’ arc needs it to be.
But nothing is as disappointing as a great build up, which
started in ‘Utopia’, being ruined by the answer being the reset button.
NOTHING. So perhaps this one is disappointing because of what could have been.
At least Martha chooses to leave the TARDIS in the end, and fair enough too. It
makes sense, as far as her character is concerned. She’s realised she ain’t
gonna marry the Doctor, and moves on.
It’s still a bit of fun, and the first episode is a lot
better than the second. Hard to rate.
5/10
Voyage of the Damned
So by now the idea of a Christmas special appears to be very
ingrained into the formula of Doctor Who. This is definitely the biggest of the
three they’d done up to this point, being incredibly extravagant and looking
like the entire BBC budget was spent on what is essential a combination of
movies involving big cruise ships and disasters, transported into space. The
one that this story borrows most of its plotline from is curiously NOT
‘Titanic’, (after all, the ship is called ‘Titanic’), but the 70s film ‘The
Poseidon Adventure’, starring Gene Hackman and by coincidence one of my
favourite movies of all time.
So perhaps it’s natural that I would like ‘Voyage of the
Damned’ too. Disaster in space, a group of passengers led by the Doctor must
make their way through the ruined ship to save their lives, and in this case
the lives of the royal family and London, as that’s where the ship is heading.
Add Kylie Minogue to the mix as Astrid, plus Geoffrey Palmer as the Captain of
the vessel, spend a lot of money on it, a megalomaniac in charge of the
company, and you have a great Christmas special. Oh wait, you need to add
Christmas to it.
We also have the wonderful Clive
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| Banakafalata |
It’s very well done, despite the opening which tied in with
the ending of the previous season when the Titanic crashes into the TARDIS
which in the end meant nothing because the Doctor reversed in all by pushing a
couple of buttons. Also, three characters die in one scene, where it might have
worked better to space the deaths out, but the story was 70 minutes not 90 so I
guess their hands were tied.
I enjoyed this one immensely, even though I understand that
may not be the common experience in fandom. It looks superb. The best Christmas
special by far.
8.5/10
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