Well. So much for that.
When I anticipated that Doctor Who might ruin my Christmas, this wasn't exactly what I had in mind. Firstly: I have never felt this level of antipathy towards any episode of Doctor Who. This includes The Doctor's Daughter, which I've merrily ripped into ever since it ended. In retrospect, it had many redeeming qualities - a coherent plot for one, a few great scenes, and four fine performances. The end was obviously trying hard to tug at the heartstrings, but there was basically nothing wrong with it apart from the obvious ending. It also includes Planet of the Spiders, and at least 50% of Torchwood. But this one I would happily kick to shreds without remorse. I'm about to, so hold on tight for a First Time Malcassairo Exclusive: an unforgivingly savage review.
Sweet Rassilon, where to begin? Perhaps with how earthshatteringly wrong it all is. As instinctive as recoiling from Lytton's bloody mutilation, or the Doctor's asking his companion to kill, as something that should not have happened on Doctor Who. Except this isn't a moral objection, this is an artistic one.
To my mind, it was horribly misjudged on every level. Too loud, too fast, too much - like gorging on burgers, a mix tape of everything RTD haters have ever hated. Which particularly grates on me as an RTD fan - I feel personally betrayed for every time I've defended his individual choices. It's like hearing Chopin played by AC/DC, or Lordi cover Madame Butterfly.
Where to start?
What about the faux-epic, mystical mumbo jumbo? Having a voiceover telling us that what we are seeing is Epic, Groundbreaking and Really Very Exciting Indeed is not the same is actually creating an exciting episode. In fact, it serves to highlight how poorly the episode's cracks have been papered over. The Doctor is wound up like a clockwork mouse in scene one, then released upon the plot. The Master is scarcely given anything more substantial - some throwaway characters, some improbable books we've never heard of. "It is Written in the Books of Saxon that, by contractual obligation, the Master should show up roundabout now. I don't care how, just get him there." Everything else is thrown into place with the dignity of a child deciding he wants to play with all the toys at once.
The story begins out of nowhere, and lurches around in a confusing manner which made me feel like I'd missed something important somewhere. Sorry, who were the father and daughter? What exactly is their agenda, beyond self-insert fanfiction for the Lazarus Experiment? Why should we care about the green things? Are they really father and daughter, because everyone I know caught some nasty incest vibes off them? And where does Obama come into this? The oh-so-relevant recession subplot was, frankly, just tasteless.
The problem is, none of this is inherently bad. All the right pieces are there. The Master, the return of the Timelords - Wilf, resolution of the Donna arc. It keeps almost working, and that's what makes it all the more frustrating. It seems unfinished, rough, with temp music slapped on tip - as if it needed another two weeks in editing to turn it into a great episode it so almost is. I can't help but think the parallel Inferno-universe edition of The End of Time is a right cracker.
In it, two fallen gods pursue each other across a desolate landscape (recalling the climactic clifftop moment from Last of the Timelords), the grey wasteland reflecting both the state of the universe and the state of their souls. They challenge, threaten and yet compliment one another, instead of rehashing dialogue we've seen before and better. The Doctor is putting off the inevitable, getting smaller and smaller inside his mighty shell - I love the irresponsible way he jets off for a century of holidays and capers to avoid the Ood's important summons, and the cafe scene makes beautifully explicit everything we've always known about regeneration. For an instant, confessing to Waters of Mars and maybe worse, we see his mask break in a way we perhaps never have before. A Doctor terrified of death is an interesting, but not unwelcome new addition to the character. Perhaps in the past he's just not had time to be scared. Two old men together. We know soon, the Doctor will have to face his decision in the Time War and his choices regarding Donna, catalysed by the consequences of the Bowie Base disaster. Like the final movement of a symphony, it touches on themes and motifs we have heard throughout the piece, but combines them to create something unthinkably beautiful, a crecendo raging against the dying of the light.
Back to reality a moment, because that's really not the episode we saw. After Planet of the Dead, I kindly noted that it was this year's token trivial episode. It was certainly of a recognisable "type". Sadly, it looks like Waters of Mars wasn't part one of a stunning three part finale. Instead, it was this year's token good episode, in the grand old tradition of Midnight and Turn Left, just as Planet of the Dead is the child of Gridlock and Unicorn and the Wasp. Making The End of Time, then, the token "epic" episode. Just as Planet of the Dead typified a sort of cheery inconsequentialness, and Waters of Mars went all out with the dark-and-challenging, so End of Time combines everything that is obnoxious about The Next Doctor, Journey's End and the rest.
Friend 4 had anticipated the cliffhanger for some time, noting that the publicity about Tate, Simm and the rest was mostly a smokescreen for what Dalton was up to. I'd like to think the crappiness of this episode is also a smokescreen, part of a larger gameplan to whet our anticipation for a stunning finale. Maybe the loopy lopsidedness of this episode will make sense in the context of next week's thought-provoking part II.
But I don't have much hope.
I feel certain that the Timelords will get removed from continuity within the next 70 minutes - unless it is done very well (I've played some good scenarios in my head), this is going to be a real shame. A peep at next week's preview uncomfortably recalls Lawrence Miles' witty quip on The Ancestor Cell:
The most tragic thing of all is, though touching the Time War at all is a crass misjudgement of the highest order, I'll forgive them at once if Paul McGann gets a cameo. Sometimes, I sicken me.
"What we've basically got is THE INFINITY DOCTORS with all the good bits missing, a desperate attempt to do something big and important which can't tell the difference between "epic" and "just happens to be set on Gallifrey"
Perhaps the only consistantly great thing about this episode was the Master, whom I actually preferred here on Deadly Assassin mode. I loved the chuckling and complete abandonment of sanity, yet still smart, still menacing, and a nice mirroring of Last of the Timelords with the dog collar. I love the emerging fact that the drums are very important and have been for some time, and the moment the Doctor finally heard them was almost very exciting. It wouldn't suprise me if the Timelords have done something nasty to his brain. My Master-expert friend was irritated by the new superpowers - the point of the Master and Doctor, she says, is that they are equals. Though she's right, I don't actually object to this - perhaps because the powers were pointless and only there to use up the CGI budget. If they had given him an actual advantage, instead of just creating burny-metaphors* behind the Doctor's head, then I would have been cross. The description of him as a "king of patches in a kingdom of dust", or whatever it was, was elegaic, and hearing him say "you will obey me" made my year. I'm also amused by all my non-vegitarian friends getting horrified by his chicken-devouring antics. The Master's plan is barmy, but a good sort of Four to Doomsday barmy, and it was a pretty epic cliffhanger.
*spot this week's Planet of Fire reference.
I didn't like how they handled Lucy so much - I had decided that her shooting him had been premeditated by him, as a failsafe, via hypnotism. I do think something really nasty happened to her offscreen though, beyond merely frying to death. Donna was a highlight of an episode she was barely in. I loved the way she was directed - always out of frame or out of focus, separated from the audience by windows or open doors. She seemed like a background character, an extra - in other words, she was shot as insignificant. This really worked.
It took me two days of denial to warm up to admitting all this. We always new it would be loud. And it is, Logopolisesque just as imagined. But somehow I'd convicned myself it'd be good as well. Any longtime readers of my blog will be familiar with my inability to be critical about anything, even Timelash, even The Power of Kroll, even The Kings Demons and Trial of a Timelord and Warriors of the Deep. When the TARDIS lands and the Doc strides out the door, it's already the best thing ever. Perhaps I've sddenly got less delusional - I hope not - but I can't believe I am able to compare Torchwood favourably to Doctor Who this year. I feel positively mutinous.
In short, this is an episode about insanity. And I'm not just referring to the Master.
What was that?!
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