I'm worried. I used to practically throw things at the TV when a Doctor Who episode said 'written by Russell T. Davies' in the opening credits. But this series, I've found myself actually enjoying several of his episodes (apart from Gridlock - 20 years in a traffic jam! seriously?!). So, in a nutshell, Captain Jack's back (hmmm, where have I heard that before...) , hitches a ride on the TARDIS and they arrive at the end of time where even Time Lords have never been (really? If I was a Time Lord first two places I'd visit would be the beginning and end of time. Maybe that's why I failed the entrance exams.) There the cast of CATS are glad to have gotten some work now the musical’s closed, and to celebrate decide to chew on some human flesh. Cue much running. The Doctor, Jack and Martha leap in to save the human by running very fast. They make it to 'the silo' just in time, where they meet The Professor a.k.a. Derek Jacobi, who proceeds to act them all off the screen.
There follows much pulling of levers and flicking of switches, Captain Jack hitting on anything with a pulse (I swear they cut a scene where he proposes shagging the engines into life) and Derek gets some very strange headaches that have Doctor Who fanboys stroking their beards. Martha makes an alien girl swear, because she needed a character moment, and the Doctor and Jack have a heart to heart about Jack becoming immortal and kinda messing up time, or something.
They fix the engines of a very big spaceship so that the remaining humans can fly to Utopia. Meanwhile, Derek’s found a pocket watch that looks very similar to the one the Doctor had a couple of episodes back. Hmmm, where can this be going...
Well, anyone who's been getting the classic series DVDs (all 27 of us judging by the apparent need to create new, redesigned reissues) will have known what's coming for a while. I mean, when every single DVD has The Master in it, you kind of get the hint. Though at this point in the show, I was really hoping the production team had put out false spoilers and that Derek was actually going to be a future generation of the Doctor.
Anyway, Derek opens the watch, turns evil and kills his assistant. He opens the gates so that the cast of CATS have somewhere to sleep for the night, which is really very nice of him, with the small side effect that they now want to eat the Doc. The assistant uses the last of her strength to shoot Derek, who takes a surprisingly long time to die. The Doctor, Jack and Martha run along a lot of corridors as Murry Gold's score does it's usual thing. They get back to the lab and use a combination of the sonic screwdriver and Jack smashing stuff to get in. There the Doc and Derek look at each other very intensely, before Derek ducks into the TARDIS and locks the door. Now, as much as I hate the 'deadlock seal' cop out that was brought into overcome the whole 'sonic screwdriver can do anything' cop out, I did love Derek actually using the TARDIS door deadlock and giving a reason to the name.
Then came the bit we'd all be waiting for (by we, I mean the 3 of us watching at home). Derek regenerated into John Simm. Amazing actor, looks fantastic in the part, and everything he touches turns to gold. And then he spoke. I'm hoping it was first day nerves, but he seems to have gone a little bit panto villain with the part. We'll see what he's like next week when he gets to play an evil and manipulative politician who looks set to doom the world. Cue obvious joke.
Here was the big surprise, the episode ended on a cliff hanger, with the Doctor, Jack and Martha stuck at the end of time while The Master hops off with the TARDIS. And the trailer for next week even had the good grace to not show any footage of the three leads, so we don't know how they get back.
Overall impression: good, but the scenes in the quarry felt a little unnecessary. Know they wanted a threat to keep up the drama, but it felt a little underdeveloped. Derek was, unsurprisingly, awesome, and it's a shame they felt the need to cast a young actor as the Master to go up against David Tennant (who has been absolutely cracking this season). Still, looking forward to seeing what John does with the part. 'Till next week...
