Paul Thomas Anderson is a rare director with the ability of continually improving on his work whilst making films that are individually amazing and flawless. Hard Eight his 1996 feature, was an intense character study concerning the supposedly benevolent character Sydney (Phillip Baker Hall) a professional gambler who is unwillingly drawn into the personal lives of both John and Jimmy (John C. Reilly and Samuel L. Jackson respectively) two other professional gamblers. It’s miniscule budget and studio interference lead to a film different that what PTA originally hoped for and so to appreciate it or at least understand its significance next to the amazing Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love and There Will be Blood – you have to look deeper to view the picture Hard Eight was intended to be.

Subsequently PTA demanded total control over his remaining films, as he is acknowledging of Hard Eight’s flaws and considers it to be different than his other work (to be honest, it is tedious and less entertaining). This includes a final cut of his pictures as well as input into its marketing and promotion (both the trailers and posters for Magnolia were cut and designed by PTA). If total control had not been possible, as his films are studio pictures and not complete independents, then he continually specifies to the thought police in control just how different the film will be from a normal classic Hollywood picture. Whilst making Boogie Nights, PTA continually retold his producers that the pictures glorious opening shot was going to be the one long take, without any cuts (in case they didn’t understand).

However, as respect for him grew PTA was largely left to his own devices – it was now trusted that his finished work will be quality – making films that satisfied his own creativity whilst being popular with the mainstream audience (to an extent). Punch-Drunk Love was an offbeat love story cut in with trippy, surrealist moving paintings by ‘outsider’ artist Jeremy Blake, and with a strong, believable performance by Adam Sandler (proving before Reign Over Me that he was a great actor).

There Will Be Blood was a departure. A period drama focused on the one character Daniel Plainview, with a grinding score by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and understated direction that made film less self-referential than previous work (at times you forget your watching a film), his trademark long takes are there, but are less noticeable. Some of PTA’s regular collaborators were also not used: composer Michael Penn, and actors Phillip Seymour Hoffman, John C. Reilly, Julianne Moore, William H. Macy and Phillip Baker Hall. Finally, the picture was his most widely praised, with proper acknowledgement by the Academy. The film was nominated for best picture and PTA for best director, whilst Daniel Day Lewis won best actor for his intense, amazing and strangely heartbreaking performance as Daniel Plainview.

Considering PTA’s reputation for continually improving on his work, questions soon arose as to the nature of his next film. How could he possibly top what is considered by many to be a perfect film, and one of the best not only of 2007, but of the last decade?

In December of last year Newsinfilm published rumours of Anderson’s next film, a thinly disguised biopic on the founder of Scientology – Dianetics – L. Ron Hubbard. Tentatively called ‘The Master’, the film, said to be set in 1952, is about a charismatic master of ceremonies who decides to start his own religion, with the pictures focus being on the relationship between the master and one of his original followers, who begins to doubt the religion as its popularity grows.

The key word there is Doubt, for in 2008, Phillip Seymour Hoffman won praise for his performance as the priest Brendan Flynn in highly acclaimed film of the same title. Possibly due to his performance, or maybe because he’s a regular PTA collaborator (of course with the exception of There Will Be Blood), Seymour Hoffman is rumoured to be cast as the Hubbard-Esq master of ceremonies.

Those involved in the film have quickly denied any similarities between the picture and Scientology, defending it as an attack on all organised religion, as opposed to just the one.

However the film is coincidently set in the same decade as when Dianetics (Scientology’s original book) was first published, and Seymour Hoffman does resemble L. Ron Hubbard. Also, Jeremy Blake and Theresa Duncan, two artists from New York who were both friends with PTA, committed suicide during the making of There Will Be Blood. According to friends and family, both artists were under attack from Scientologists since deciding to leave the church, leading to constant bombardment from other believers and in some cases, attempts to ruin both Blake’s and Duncan’s credibility (it is not proven that their suicides was a direct consequence of the Scientology believers, but it is commonly accepted).

Coincidently, I was taking notes on an article I was wanting to write about Blake and Duncan when I saw the news bulletin about PTA’s next film. Like Boogie Nights, The Master maybe a broad satire whilst still being an indirect biopic on the one person (like with the Dirk Diggler/John Holmes character). Either way, it’ll be interesting see its reaction against the success of There Will Be Blood.

So David Tennant has officially regenerated into Matt Smith.  I feel a bit sad, but at the same time happy.  This was a very amazing special and everybody should recognize how monumental this special was.

To summarize, part one begins with the Doctor finally going to visit the Ood.  They warn him that he shouldn’t have delayed and he replies that he knows this leads to his death and he’s in no hurry for that.  After realizing that the Ood are advancing much faster than they should, the Doctor shares their dreams and realizes the Master will return very soon.  The Doctor rushes to the present to do so, failing as he is revived–despite Lucy Saxon’s attempt to disrupt the process.  The Doctor confronts the Master at an abandoned warehouse, the Master using new energy powers as a result of his revival to attack the Doctor.  They have a brief conversation, where they discuss the constant drumming that the Master hears.  The Master is captured by Naismith, a crazed billionaire who wants the Time Lord to repair an alien device.  The Doctor, knowing something terribly wrong is about to happen, picks up Wilfred Mott–Donna Noble’s grandfather and apparently seeing visions of a female Time Lord–rushes in encountering two alien salvagers along the way.  The Master uses the machines to make the human race an extension of him and his mind.  Throughout there were glimpses of the Time Lords, implying their immediate return.

Part Two, starts off with the Doctor as the Master’s prisoner and Donna being chased by the Master’s duplicates.  The Master begins to work out his plan to learn the origin of the Drums as the two alien salvagers rescue Wilf and the Doctor.  As the Doctor escapes, the Master starts focusing a signal to draw the source of the drumming out.  The Doctor quickly realizes that it means the return of the Time Lords and gets ready to stop them.  Apparently, the Time Lords were preparing to implement a final solution that would have eradicated existence, leaving only their consciousness.  After a scene that seems almost pulled directly from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, the Doctor drops in on the Master as the Time Lords arrive–armed with Wilf’s old service revolver.  The Doctor confronts both, revealing to the Master how things went out of control and the Time Lords were prepared to wipe out existence rather than lose.  As Gallifrey returns near the Earth, the Master realizes that he was a puppet in this scheme and the Doctor identifies the President of the Time Lords as Rassilon–from the Five Doctors special before destroy the device that let the Time Lords return.  The Master attacks Rassilon before he can attack the Doctor, now knowing that they’re to blame for the drumming and his insanity.  They vanish, leaving the Doctor alone with Wilf.  The old man’s become trapped in the radiation box, and the only way out is for the Doctor to go in and press the button to open the door.  He does so, exposing himself to the radiation that will kill him.  Wilf does knock four times, by the way.  As he’s slowly dying, the Doctor goes through and visits his various companions at various points in time.  It’s a fairly sweet and amusing sequence, before Ood Sigma shows up with some final words.  The Doctor enters the TARDIS, beginning to die, as he decides he isn’t ready to die.  He regenerates, and it’s particularly rough on the TARDIS.  He finishes as the ship begins to crash, the New Doctor making various remarks about his new appearance before turning his attention to the TARDIS.

Overall, this was an amazing achievement that makes Waters of Mars almost irrelevant.  This had everything that lacked and told a beautiful story.  Everything that happened was done well from start to finish.  It ends the Tennant/Davies run perfectly.  The writing was excellent, the effects were amazing… it just did everything it had to.  I’d like to focus on a few things now.

Brian Cox–The Bourne Identity, X-Men 2–makes a brief appearance doing some voice work as an Ood.  Not really something most people will pick up on, but worth noting.

Rassilon was the mysterious Time Lord who apparently achieved ultimate power eons ago.  When they had the twentieth anniversary special in 1983, it concentrated on the Game of Rassilon, where the President of the Time Lords dispatched the various incarnations of the Doctor to go into the Tomb of Rassilon and beat the game.  Basically having that much power left Rassilon in a catatonic and immobile state, with any who tried to gain his power suffering the same same fate.  Apparently he came back during the Time War and became President of the Time Lords, formulating the plan that was to culminate in this special.  Portrayed by Timothy Dalton, I would say the one thing lacking with him was a decent amount of time to delve into the character.  I just thought there was too little of him to really get into the character.  And what was up with the glove?

That was probably the best way to resolve the Master, even though he’ll likely be back at some juncture.  It was a remarkably well acted and written character.  Even better than when they brought back in the earlier seasons.

I liked that they ran through the earlier companions and checked up on them.  It was good to see where Mickey and Martha had gone off to, as well as checking up on Sarah Jane and Rose.  Having Jack meet up with Alonzo from the Voyage of the Damned was a nice touch.  I’m glad there was not an extended visit with Rose, as that would have just ruined it for me.  As far as the companions go, she was probably the weakest and least likable of the bunch.  First series she was good–partially because you always had Jack to balance things out–but the second she dropped off considerably.  Martha coming in for the third series was excellent and everything about her was amazing.  Easily my favorite companion.  If the fourth series hadn’t gotten fixated on Rose all over again, I would have enjoyed Donna as a companion a lot more.  I’ve liked how they handled Donna, as she’s still a relevant even though she can’t see the Doctor without her head exploding.

Wilf was visited by visions of a woman, apparently a female Time Lord.  I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be Donna or Romana.  I’m tempted to lean towards it being Romana based on how she seems so keen on helping the Doctor, but that’s basically just speculation.

And then there was Matt Smith.  I have to say, that was a very intense regeneration.  And he’s still not ginger.  In the brief time we got to see Smith on screen, I think we got a good idea of what we can expect.  The preview for season five looks interesting, with what looks like Daleks and the Weeping Angels from Blink.  So yeah, I’m looking forward to this.  I really am.

So we say good-bye to the Tenth Doctor.  David Tennant, over the last few years you’ve given us some of the finest acting anywhere and it’s sad to see you leave the role.  You put together a great run, and I will miss the Tenth Doctor.

Jeez! Don’t know about any of you out there but I very nearly threw a shoe at the TV screen when I watched (bad idea!) the final episode of David Tennant as the 10th Dr. Who in the conclusion to the Dr. Who Special, “The End of Time”! OMG! WTF?! Could the writers, particularly the director, assassinate the character any worse than what they did to him in that sorry episode, with the ultra disastrous script with seriously handicapped dialogue, nevermind the animated performance, and constant shouting, spitting and eye-popping gestures?! What? Were they done intentionally so that viewers who’ve not wanted David Tennant to stop portraying Dr. Who after the actor announced his exit in 2008, or viewers who haven’t exactly embraced the new, much younger Matt Smith as the next doctor, would practically be done with David Tennant as Dr. Who after watching the incredibly bad Special? Because guess what, if the bad was done intentionally, then I’d say, the writers, creator and director have succeeded ‘coz I for one, who always thought that David Tennant was the best Dr. Who, immediately felt the overwhelming desire to repel Tennant as the Doctor after watching that farce that BBC called a holiday Special! Urrghhhh!! It’s incredibly distressing because I know that’s 1 hour and 15 minutes of my life I can never get back!

Let me count the many flaws and redundant scenes that “The End of Time” created:

1. The Script – what script? You KNOW it wasn’t significant because practically every scene was stretched till kingdom come and my gosh, the dialogue! Jeez leweez! It was so few that if you take out all the explosions, the slow-motioned-like gestures, the long silence, there was probably only 10 lines in total!

2. The Performance – OMFG! What happened to David Tennant and John Simm?! These are 2 very good actors in normal circumstances but “The End of Time” was truly their worst yet! I mean, did they really have to spit when they talked, and worse, was saliva-secretion part of the necessary acting “prop”?! It was oh-so gross especially if you watched it on HD, like I had! Urgh! Why were Tennant and Simm so animated with every word they spilled out? Why were they shouting so incessantly in EVERY.SINGLE.SCENE?! Why did they have to use such flamboyant gestures of different parts of their bodies all the time? Simm opening his arms and raising them in the air practically every time he was in the scene; Tennant shaking, trembling, raising his arms, widening his legs; and OMG, the zombie-like walk that took 5 minutes for Tennant to get from one spot the the next toward the end. Lastly, the excruciatingly L-O-N-G silence as the camera just stationed on one face to the other…. There were so many of those exasperating moments that I was literally hyperventilating out of sheer irritation and utter annoyance! It took a lot out of me not to destroy the HD TV that was right in front of me! Oh, and the endless whining and crying from Bernard Cribbins (Wilfred Mott) were enough to make me pull all my hair out in exasperation!

3. The Direction/Production – OMFG! Euros Lyn? What happened? Did something or someone twist your arm so hard that you’d only shoot your actors at close-ups and nothing else?! Whatever made you think that endless shouting and screaming from your actors would create some kind of heart-wrenching, explosive, memorable scenes? And was the script and dialogue so poorly written that you had a hard time stretching it to, not 1 but TWO parters, lasting a total of 135 minutes?! And who sanctioned the 2 parters?! This script, “The End of Time,” is obviously only written to last for 50 minutes only, max 60 minutes! As a result of this poor decision from either the creator/executive producers or BBC to split it into 2 episodes, every scene was stretched into oblivion, hence making it really painful to watch especially when the camera was stagnant for far too long. When the camera was moving, the actors were like they were in slow motion. The whole story was utterly incongruous because of these forced actions.

4. David Tennant – the 2nd part of “The End of Time” was supposedly his last hoorah to “Dr. Who.” But due to how the script and the direction were headed, Tennant ultimately paid the price as every extra, redundant minute they put him on the stretched scene refusing to die or go away, only further exacerbate the inevitable assassination of his character. From not wanting to see Tennant leave as Dr. Who, I felt like he didn’t die fast enough. That’s not good. If you want to give a proper farewell to a character, the last thing you want to do is to overstay his welcome on the screen. And that’s exactly what the peeps behind “Dr. Who” did to Tennant. Instead of preserving the good memories of Tennant as the very popular, very cool 10th Doctor, I instead am left with this recollection of the “Doctor Who Wouldn’t Die!”

5. Catherine Tate – poor “Donna Noble!” Why would the writers bring her into the picture if they didn’t want to use her?! One of the BEST thing about Series 4 was the introduction of the flamboyant character, so superbly played by Tate, which really balanced out the peculiar characteristics of the 10th Doctor played so well by Tennant for the past 3 series. The comedic and dramatic timing of Tate as Tennant’s sidekick was truly classic. Unfortunately, she was so underused in the finale of the 10th Doctor that the writers might as well not have included her in the first place.

All in all, I for one, will only consider the finale of Series 4 to be the finale of David Tennant as the 10th doctor in “Dr. Who.” As for the previous 3 specials in 2009, they were so subservient compared to the strong, exciting and thought-provoking stories written in Series 4, that I don’t even consider them either.

Phew! I feel better now that I’ve vented this whole farce here!

— written by TVFilmBuff, for Chatteringmind

The End of Time, The End of Tennant

January 2nd, 2009

Watching Doctor Who: The End of Time, for me personally, is a bit of a strange exercise for two reason (one exclusive to me, the other general).

First, I don’t watch the show on a regular basis, so while watching a few of the recent specials (Specifically the quite enjoyable “The Next Doctor” and the thrilling “The Waters of Mars”) has given me some sense of what’s going on – the Doctor (David Tennant) without a companion on a self-destructive journey to confront his impending death (I think?) – I’m still left out of the loop in terms of both the show’s larger mythology and the intricacies of Tennant’s run on the series.

However, even considering my ignorance to the broader mythology at play, the two-part event (which airs in its entirety tonight at 8pm on SPACE in Canada, with the second part (Part One aired in Boxing Day) airing on BBC America) is unique in its clear purpose: the death of the Doctor, and the departure of David Tennant from the series to make way for newcomer Matt Smith. And while you could argue that Law & Order or CSI, with their revolving door casting policy, offer something similar (in terms of transitioning from one actor to another), Doctor Who is unique in the fact that Smith will effectively be playing a new character…except that he won’t.

The single greatest accomplishment of The End of Time, which is at times a mixed bag in terms of its effectiveness, is that despite my lack of knowledge of the show’s history, and despite the lack of suspense surrounding an inevitable conclusion that has been known for over a year, I was emotionally affected by Russell T. Davies saying goodbye to the Doctor, and the Doctor saying goodbye to the people he cares about. Built on a foundation of David Tennant’s fantastic performance, the movie overcomes a bit of a muddled first part (which is tied up in a lot of exposition) in order to deliver a conclusion which demonstrates the combination of whimsy and pathos that has made the show, with its low budget special effects and its quirky sense of humour, so enduring.

And it feels like just the right kind of note on which to head into the reign of the new Doctor, which based on what I’ve seen in these specials is something that I might be willing to spend some time with in the years to come.

[Spoilers for both parts of the Miniseries after the break, where we'll discuss the special in more detail]

It’s interesting that Canada’s SPACE network is choosing to air the two parts back-to-back (likely because Boxing Day is considered more of a holiday in Canada, and thus perhaps a more dangerous evening on which to air anything new), because I don’t really know how that will work. On the one hand, the two parts go together well, in that Part One focuses primarily on setup which is then paid of in Part Two. However, part of Davies’ intent with the two-part structure is creating that cliffhanger, forcing the audience to spend six days wondering what impact this new Master Race is going to have, and what it means for Timothy Dalton and the Time Lords to be returning. Davies loves his cliffhangers (which is why he fit in so well with the 24-esque cliffhanger structure of Torchwood: Children of Earth), so for that to be taken away is going to change the DNA of the special.

Or, perhaps its not: while the plot cliffhanger might have been what defined Part One (which was perhaps its greatest problem, feeling too tied up in plot setup rather than character), the special as a whole will always be David Tennant’s Doctor, a character reaching their end in a less than graceful (if plenty entertaining) fashion. The best moments in the special are only tangentially related to the plot, and are simply small moments of the Doctor contemplating his fate – the coffee shop scene with Wilf in Part One is just a wonderfully subtle bit of acting, and by the time his fate is actually decided and he takes a whirlwind trip through some of the more important moments of his past (considering that everyone in question knew who he was, I at least presume that these are people of import – I only recognized Harkness and Billie Piper) you start to see how much the show depends on Tennant to sell the fact that this isn’t a traditional procedural. While most weeks may be standalone episodes in terms of their plots, the Doctor is someone who has memories, connections, and in his final moment Tennant sells a man who knows his time is up (having taken a bullet for the human race, effectively) but who can’t help wanting more time, who sounds almost pathetic (in the most honourable way) hoping that something could change – he is not ready to die.

And despite the fact that I’m not a regular viewer, I didn’t want him to die either: Tennant tore the house down here, and the special was no question at its finest when it allowed Tennant to have those scenes of self-reflection (whether trying to reason with the Master, who after being a bit over the top in the first part became quite grounded in the second with some great moments from John Simm, or discussing his stance on guns with Wilf) that downplayed chaos in favour of something starkly human (which, considering he’s not human, makes sense). Limited to only 2+ hours, the special doesn’t have enough time to sell the threat the Time Lords represent (although Timothy Dalton sells it well), but it does have enough time to demonstrate how far the Doctor has come, and how in his final moments he confronts his past in a way which is both clever (buying a – we presume winning – lottery ticket for Donna) and meaningful (visiting Rose before they first met). And that I bought all of it without clearly understanding the history is a testament to Tennant above all else – the writing might have been fan service, which is to be expected and perhaps even encouraged, but Tennant gave the Doctor’s plight a universality that was really impressive for a non-viewer.

As far as the special overall, I thought that it worked best (outside of Tennant) in Part Two when it turned into a rollercoaster ride of sorts. While the setup was important to sell Part Two, the special was more engaging when it had spaceships and extended Star Wars homages (the laser cannons on the salvage ship), which makes me sound really shallow but so be it. But without Tennant, I don’t know if much of the special would have worked, as the special’s climax hinged on his performance selling flying the salvage ship, and selling standing with the Time Lords and the Master at gunpoint. When the action ties in so well to the character, or is fun enough to not have to worry about that, the slightly less than perfect special effects don’t matter, and the show is really quite effective.

So now we have to wonder what precisely will define the Matt Smith era – the relative youngster (he’s 27) offers a blank slate for the series, and what we see of him at the end of the special indicates that he is capable of capturing the mannerisms that sell the Doctor’s eccentricity. The question becomes, at least for me, whether he’ll be powerful enough at the end to convince someone who’s only seen bits and pieces of the series and who knows very little of the mythology that this was a journey worth taking all over again (at least in bits and pieces, when I find the time, which could be a while).

He certainly has a lot to live up to (which is ridiculous for me to say, and probably represents an internalization of consensus, but consider me a quick study).

Cultural Observations

• So, as far as I could tell, Donna went through some sort of horrible accident that led to the Doctor wiping her memory clean (albeit with some added safety features should she ever remember), and I read that Rose is in some sort of parallel universe? I still don’t really get it, but I guess I can deal with that.
• What’s so convenient about Doctor Who is that they get a chance to be able to reboot like this, and more importantly that even after “introducing” the 11th Doctor here they still have a companion to introduce that will offer the first episode of the next series to feel like an entry point.

Here’s Derek Jacobi, the Master back in 2007’s ‘Utopia’, talking about his career and how he ended up working on ‘Doctor Who’. It’s from a convention appearance he made a few months ago:

You were born just before the war?

Yes, in East London. I think some gene must have got in, the night of my conception, because from that moment of conception I wanted to be an actor. I don’t know where it came from, there was nothing in the family to suggest it. We were a typical lower middle-class family in East London, in Leytonstone… me and David Beckham. (laughs) But I never talked like him. I don’t know why, actually, which is strange. I’ve got various theories as to why I didn’t grow up with a Cockney accent, because both my parents had them. I did the usual things, playing in the street and dressing up in my parents’ clothes, and the wind changed and I stayed like it!

I lived in the world of imagination, and we made up stories, we played doctors and nurses and teachers and pupils on the street. I remember once, I was always ransacking my parents’ wardrobe for clothes to dress up in, and I found my mother’s wedding veil. And I put it on, and I ran down the street to my friends, and it caught on the privet and it was ripped to shreds. My mother being my mother, and I was an only child so I was adored, spoiled, my mother was wonderful about it. But I’ll never forget that, that torn veil. It’s kind of lived with me. People were always asking me if I was going to write my autobiography, and I kept sayin No, I’m not a writer, but I told them this story and they said Well, you’ve got the title – The Boy With the Veil.

How much attention do you pay to critics?

They’re very influential. No matter what any actor says, if you read them, you’re influenced by them. If they’re bad, you want to kill yourself. If they’re dismissive, if they ignore you, you feel dreadful. If they’re good, you feel fine, but sometimes you end up acting out the good bits, you end up not being able to do that. There’s a famous example when Harold Hobson, who was a famous critic for the Sunday Times, was talking about Peggy Ashcroft in a play that she was doing, and there was one line, he said ‘When she said this line, the heavens opened’, it was the most wonderful line, he said, and he went on, Sunday after Sunday, about this line. Even when he was reviewing other things, he’d go back to this line. Eventually she cut it. She couldn’t say it, because he’d given her such a thing about it.

I stopped reading critics when I did my first leading role with the National, in ‘Black Comedy’. It was only half the evening, it was Albert Finney and Maggie Smith doing ‘Miss Julie’ in the first half, and then ‘Black Comedy’ in the second half, and I was the lead in ‘Black Comedy’. At the same time, we were filming Olivier’s ‘Othello’, in which I was playing Cassio, so I was going from Chichester to Shepperton overnight. It was an exciting time, terrifying but very wonderful. But after the first night of ‘Black Comedy’, I went over to Shepperton and the next morning I went onto the set and Sir Laurence (Olivier) was sitting there in his canvas-backed chair and he had all the papers around him and I daren’t go anywhere near him, but he called me over and he sat me down, and he virtually said ‘I don’t care what the critics say, I thought you were wonderful’. It was… my heart sank, I thought I didn’t want to read what they said. That was a lesson that repeated itself from then on. The moment the critics come out the next day, after the press day, and you haven’t read them, within 24 hours you know roughly what they said, without reading it. People ring up and say ‘I don’t think the Times saw the same play that I did’, or ‘Congratulations on your review’. Don’t congratulate me on my review, congratulate me on my performance, but I gather from that whether the reviews were good or not. The way people talk about you, or drop their eyes or whatever, you know whether they’re good or bad. But you don’t have to actually read the word that they use. Nowadays they put stars! How many stars you get!

How did the part of the Master in Doctor Who come up?

Well, my agent called up and said ‘You’ve been offered a part in ‘Doctor Who’, an iconic series, and of course I wanted to do it so I said Yes, without knowing what the part was. They said they’d send the script. And the script came, I read it, and I thought it was great, very well written, a lovely character, but not being an afficianado of ‘Doctor Who’, I mean I grew up with it but not having seen it for years, I didn’t know the significance of what I was being offered. And about two days later, I went out to dinner with Michael Grandage and Christopher Orham (sp?), theatre people I’ve worked with… Christopher’s a designer, and he’s a huge ‘Doctor Who’ fan! I announced at dinner that I was going to do ‘Doctor Who’, he nearly fell off his seat! He said ‘What are you playing?’, and I said ‘It’s a character called Professor Yana, who becomes somebody called the Master’ – (screams) The apogee of my career. Forget knighthoods. And he said I had this iconic role in this fantastic, fantastic series, and then of course I became aware of the importance of it. No pressure! And I started, and I met David, who was wonderful – they’re all wonderful. I had a great time doing it, really lovely, and then as I was enjoying it and looking forward to my life as the Master, I was morphed into somebody younger! I was morphed into John Simm, because he wanted a younger model. So it was brief but glorious for me.

Did you look at any of Roger Delgado’s work as the Master?

No. I asked, actually, about the history of the Master, but they said they didn’t have time!

So what tips did you get from your friend, in terms of playing the Master?

He didn’t go any further, apart from wild enthusiasm and encouragement, and he put me in the picture, he said ‘You must believe that you are playing this seriously important role’. And I had played the Master on audio, but I hadn’t sort of connected them.

Were you amazed by the fandom, by the response of the fans?

Yes, extraordinary. Like being here today, amazing. And suddenly, having been around for many years as an actor, there was a whole new fan base. That’s the marvellous thing about being an actor, next year I’ll have been a professional actor for fifty years, and I’m playing grandfathers now, but you need never retire, you just go on until you drop. New things happen. I did the narration of a little children’s thing called ‘In the Night Garden’, there’s a whole generation of 2 to 4 year olds now whose parents get in touch. It’s a wonderful club to belong to, this acting lark, it’s a wonderful club.

Well there we go. The old cute David Tennant-shaped Doctor has checked out and the new cute Matt Smith-shaped Doctor has arrived. And frankly, both shapes are delightful, so nobody loses here. In a two-parter clearly designed for an audience of regular and devoted viewers, at times it was tough for a drop-in irregular like myself to keep up with who was who and what the flip was going on. I lost the plot many times, but I felt I got the big picture, so that’s ok.

Much like an Agatha Christie Special, this was a star-studded affair, and The End of Time began with a manic and cackling John Simm as The Master. Over-acting is hard to call on Dr Who, given the genre, but I can say he had excessive blonde highlights. I liked the way white whooshy power jets shot out of his hands so he could zoom up in the air, it looked like it might have been fun if he wasn’t in constant torment because of the hammer-on-anvil tinnitus and the urge to keep gnawing on whole turkeys.

Anyway. With the help of two bright green pointy cactus-headed creatures (no idea who they are) the Doctor sorted out the bit of local difficulty with the ever fabulous Bernard Cribbins by his side. It’s funny how we age people as children. I thought Cribbins was old when I saw him in the Railway Children in 1970, but he clearly wasn’t, since he’s still in fine fettle.

So it turns out that the entire Time Lord race weren’t really all dead as we’d thought all these years, they were locked in a something or other, and by means of a diamond star jobby, Timothy Dalton (with some disturbing spitting) brought them down to earth along with a giant planet (Galafrey) which was about to squish Planet Earth until the Doctor made a wise choice about what to do with Bernard’s pistol and zapped the machine which got rid of the Time Lords just in time to stop them ending time. Didn’t quite get the fine detail there, but overall, big Phew.

That left the Doctor with a few odds and ends to tie up, involving helping and/or saluting old chums. He dropped in on John Barrowman propping up a bar very similar to the Mos Eisley Cantina in Star Wars and helped him pick up a date. He saved Sarah Jane’s son from being run over, and dropped by with a winning lottery ticket at Catherine Tate’s wedding. A quick chat with Billie Piper before she knew who he was, then it was time to start regenerating. This gave us a teasing glimpse of the lovely Matt Smith, who arrived clutching his endearingly floppy hair saying ‘I’m a girl!’ No, you’re definitely not a girl Mattie. Too early to say what kind of Doctor he will be, because as the music kicked in, the TARDIS was crashing to earth with him screaming ‘Geronimo!’ Bless.

Posted by Inkface

And so it came to pass, on New Year’s Day, that the Tenth Doctor did cease to exist, and the lives of Whovians everywhere were changed forever…

The long-awaited second part of The End of Time had its premiere screening in the United Kingdom tonight, and, after gruelling months of speculation and theories, the Tenth Doctor faced his final curtain call. And what a final curtain call it was!

If you’re anything like us, you’ll be feeling a mixture of emotions round about now. Sadness, that the Tenth Doctor is well and truly gone, happiness, that the surviving characters are now set free to live their own lives as a new era of the series begins (what d’you mean they’re all actors!?), and excitement, to see what the future will hold for the Doctor now he’s in his eleventh incarnation. And although we understand that it’s hard to sum up just how you’re feeling, we invite you to leave your thoughts about tonight’s finale in our episode discussion.

It’s been a long road, but was it worth the wait? Was it everything you wanted it to be and more? Are you disappointed by his final chapter? Have you run out of tissues? Whatever’s going on in your head right now, try and make sense of all the chaos and let us know in a comment on this post!

We hope you enjoyed the show, and thanks for joining us for what can only be described as one of the biggest Doctor Who events in its 46 year history. The Tenth Doctor has left the building.

Here at Dalek Base we will have a review of the episode very soon!

(credit to Whoviannet for this post)

Well there it was, the final swansong to the latest Doctor, in a 2 hour special that tried to go on an action fest, failed and a unpredictably long build up to an anti climatic ending, barring the last 15 minutes which was a shameless David Tennant goodbye fest.

The first half of the end of time seemed to serve as a big build up to a pay off for the second part, universally slated by those on the net who like to write this stuff like I do.

Just like the Day of the triffids remake shown on BBC its plot was predictable and as soon as you saw the new planet of Gallifrey, surprise surprise, the doctor was going to have to kill once again and the master gets taken along with them.  A sore opportunity missed to explore backgrounds of the time wars to say the least not to mention an endless stream of plot arcs.

Whilst on that note its rare these days for a show to have a plot arc and stick to it.  What I mean by that is that unlike star trek where events that happened the previous week were forgotten a sage nod is given to those to have a bit of intelligence to remember things and dont need the endless stream of repeating.

Take half the showson american tv, mythbusters being the worst.  The presenter will tell the myth, the voice over will then repeat the myth and how its going to be solve and then back to ANOTHER presenter to say the same but only slightly different.  For gods sake.

To make people sit down and watch a TV show takes something and for the most part, Dr. Who managed that. In a world of Iplayer, time shift tv, tivo and sky plus people were sitting down to watch it, even if the BBC had made this the moment of tv to watch above all others.

Back to the who, being severly flawed on so many levels it’s saving grace was the final 15 minutes of a protracted good bye which gave a nod to all the main characters during Tennants tenure, including that dead weight Martha Jones, and along the way passing a nod to the Star Wars Cantiana.   All well really and did give a fitting feeling that it was the end of that Doctor’s reign hopefully pathing a new way for fresh Doctor not caught up in previous time lines

Doctor Who – The End of Time Part One, BBC One, Christmas Day, 6 pm

Okay. This is going to be a bit embarrassing. After all I’ve said about Doctor Who and specifically Russell T Davies (RTD) in this blog to date, defending him to the hilt, it’s a bit difficult to confess that, well, I really didn’t like this episode. There. Said it. After 5 years and about 60 episodes I suppose RTD’s chances of coming up with one I didn’t like were increasing but it came as quite a shock. I usually love RTD’s series finales and especially the end of Series 3, which was the last time John Simm guest starred as The Master, in Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords. A few fans hated that story feeling The Master was too flippant, that the Doctor being fastfowarded into a Gollum-like creature and then magically de-aging and suddenly possessing magic powers was a bit too far-fetched for this gritty, dark, scientific documentary-like show. To which I said: Bandrils!

I could understand exactly why Russell did what he did, and accepting that some parts of the story are always aimed at younger Who fans I was perfectly happy to accept all of those. I got the emotional thrill of everyone in the world saying the Doctor’s name at the same time and his (year-long, remember) manipulation of the Master’s ArchAngel network transforming the psychic energy into a form the Time Lord could use. All of this was based on things we’ve seen in the past but RTD likes to develop and expand the powers of the Doctor. I’m down with that. Others ain’t. C’est la vie.

So, what was it I didn’t like about this episode? I actually found it quite dull. For once I was clock-watching and wanting them to get on with it. It seemed to be 60-minutes of build-up to THAT cliffhanger and episode 2. I didn’t like The Master becoming cannibalistic and tearing into hamburger and chicken. I didn’t like the way the entire human race became The Master. The head-shaking effect looked silly to me as did Simm in a dress. A number of dresses, to be precise. My wife, however, found this to be funny, and a friend who watched it with me thought it was fast paced, so these are not unarguable points. It seems to be a very localised opinion on my part.

The rest of the episode didn’t bother me. The resurrection scene was ambiguous but again builds on years of precedent of unlikely returns for The Master usually with even less explanation than given here. His super powers were a result of the botched resurrection and RTD has already enlarged the mythology of Time Lord regeneration and the energy they contain within them, so I’m okay with that. Yes, the quiet scene with Wilf and the Doctor in the cafe was touching, and as usual Cribbins was excellent throughout but there just seemed to be something missing somehow. A sense of doom, perhaps? RTD seemed to think that there was an atmosphere to this story but I didn’t feel it as much as I did in Logopolis, for example.

And yes, the cliffhanger was good but surely to be expected? And despite RTD’s claims that this was the biggest episode ending ever, I felt the fake regeneration at the end of The Stolen Earth was bigger. For fanboys, perhaps, the return of the Time Lords would be a bigger deal but for the general public, those few million new fans who only really know about the Time Lords because the Doctor keeps banging on about how he’s the last of them? Would it really be that engaging for them?

I certainly enjoyed the episode more on second viewing and interestingly there were a couple of commentators on the Doctor Who Podshock’s review of the episode who had watched it up to 12 times and found it rewarded repeat viewing very much. I often find this with RTD’s episodes, they’re so densely packed that you can get something new each time you watch them but this has been the first episode that I really didn’t feel like watching again. Suggestions that my expectations were too high seem unlikely as I’ll explain in my forthcoming essay about Hype and how to handle it. Suffice to say I’m used to managing my expectations but perhaps on this occasion I did get over-excited due to my previous love of RTD’s writing and the premise of the story.

Thankfully, the wider audience still seem to be in love with it. Overnight figures of 10 million and an AI score of 87 are still very, very good if slightly disappointing. It will be interesting to see how tonight’s episode, the final, final Tennant episode will fare. I’m still optimistic that this story can redeem itself and even though it’s perhaps my least favourite episode since the show came back in 2005, it was still better than anything else on TV over Christmas.

Except perhaps the Outnumbered Christmas special. Hmm. Should perhaps write something about that. Alas, it’s nearly noon on this, the first day of 2010, Happy New Year, by the way, so it’s time for a rum and coke.

What d’ya mean it’s too early?

(If you’re the type who prefers to avoid even conjecture, you’d best skip this. Come back later and tell me how I did…)

I am waiting until I see the whole of “The End of Time” to comment extensively on David Tennant’s swan song as the 10th Doctor on DOCTOR WHO, but I did want to note that I enjoyed Part 1, which contained some of Tennant’s very finest work ever. I was disappointed, however, to see the Master played so completely for camp. Sure, Anthony Ainley was always over-the-top, and maybe it’s just the Old Fan in me who cannot accept that the dark menace of the Roger Delgado incarnation is long gone, but I think John Simm is totally capable of being just as menacing as the Third Doctor’s nemesis. I’m hoping Part 2 finds the Master being Evil while his army of duplicates handles the comedy.

On another note, I’m going to take a risk and go on record as guessing that Timothy Dalton is playing a new incarnation of the renegade Time Lord Omega. His reappearance fits Ood Sigma’s prophecy (and meshes with the Greek letter theme) of a return; he’s a classic Big Bad who once required the combined wits of the first three Doctors to defeat and then dragged the Fifth Doctor to Amsterdam; he existed in the antimatter universe so he knew it was possible to leave this universe and avoid the Time War; Omega can manipulate the interdimensional doorway known as the Arc of Infinity; the Fifth Doctor may have destroyed his physical body in this world, but just ask the Master how much of an impediment that really is; and Omega totally wants the Doctor dead. So there you go: Dalton is Omega.

Another, long-shot possibility? A new version of Borusa. He is, after all, immortal – even if he was trapped in the Tomb of Rassilon. He’s had a long time to lure somebody else into the Death Zone and steal a young, healthy body. And the topper: Who would expect a young Borusa?

Warning: MASSIVE NERDERY ABIDES.

This is a Doctor Who post. Sort of.

I should talk about the part one finale of the Tenth Doctor era, “The End Of Time, Part One,” but instead, especially in the spirit of the approaching New Year, this is about the anticipation of the concluding episode, which airs on New Year’s day in the UK, and the day after here in the colonies.

If I were to talk about part one, I’d tell you that it was a truly silly and ridiculous episode, just incredibly over the top at times. But wonderful. Just perfectly strange and nonsensical at times, but then within that wildnerness of weird, you’d get little scenes, like the one between David Tennant and Bernard Cribbins in the cafe. With just the faintest possibility of a tear in my eye, I could probably watch that scene again and again.

Also, thank you mightily Timothy Dalton for all that Time Lord spittle.

Definitely something that I think the thespians in America need to appropriate from across the Atlantic: The glorious art of just throwing some of your own saliva in another actor’s faces while chewing the scenery. Making someone blink and possibly having to take a handkerchief to their face is really what should decide who gets Oscars and things like that these days.

Play along at home:

from here.

Now, some mad linkage as the year draws to a close…

Ricky Jay and the secrets of the magus.

The man who is scaling Mt. Criterion film by film.

Julie Klausner and the end of the 00s.

15 reasons to live for the next ten years. If a meteorite doesn’t kill you, that is…

The Russians are going to chip in to save the Earth from destruction via meteorite in 2032. I remember reading about 99942 Apophis, the asteroid that will get dangerously close to our planet two decades from now and emailing a few people about it, not freaking out or anything, just saying, “You know, this is kind of interesting.” And I remember people telling me, “If this was a big deal, we would’ve heard something by now.” The time is now.

Notes on A Lover’s Discourse.

My Dinner With Andre is online.

Why do so many terrorists have engineering degrees?

Dear Benjamin, Light: Ap-Ro-Po. You cunt.

Jeff Dunham’s show has thankfully been canceled.

The sudden exoticism of Africa, and how ridiculous such a notion is.

Joeblog, you are missed.

Dylan Moran’s Black Books is on Hulu!

Republicans, Obama, and failed airplane bombs.

This article linked here: 2009. Independent film. Brave. Free thinkers.

Clean your screen.

I have been a big fan of Colm Tóibín’s work for a few years now. I discovered him sometime in 2004 when The Master was published. It was in the booker shortlist that year as usual.

I really enjoy his writing. His novels resonate with me long after I read them. His prose style is not at all fussy or complicated yet he successfully depicts life in an array of backdrops providing the reader with a valid representation of the situations he represents. In essence, he is a great story-teller.

When I heard he was appearing in Easons on O’Connell Street in Dublin on Saturday the 9th of May this year, I decided to make my way in and purchase a signed copy of the novel Brooklyn, the particular book he was promoting at the time.

I arrived 15 minutes early and joined the queue. I felt out-of-place, uneasy even as this was the first time I had done anything like this – queued to get anything signed from an idol of mine.

My time came and I introduced myself, feeling as nervous as ever. I don’t understand why I was so nervous. I introduced myself and shook his hand. He asked me what I did. I replied that I was an accountant. He appeared surprised and queried how I became interested  in his novels. I told him that I discovered him in 2004 when I read The Master and read all his other novels quickly after. He appeared amused by the use if the term ‘discovered’.  He asked who he should sign the note to and I replied “me, of course”. He smiled, signed the book to me with best wishes and I shuffled of happily with my signed copy of Brooklyn in hand.

Before I joined the queue, I had picked up the paperback copy of the book – as they are usually cheaper than the hard back copies. I had thought about getting the hard back copy but given the recessionary times and all that, I was satisfied with the cheaper paper back. Once in the queue,I had noticed that everyone else in line with me had multiple copies of the hard back book in hand. So I quickly replaced my copy with the more expensive one. Peer pressure of a kind…

As it turns out, when I brought my signed hard copy to the teller to pay for it, it was substantially discounted. What a nice surprise, an ironic one at that since I was penny-pinching earlier.

The other day, I scanned the bar code with an iPhone application called red laser that reveals where online the item can be purchased and for how much. The results amazed me. Turns out, I have a first edition rare signed copy!

I have since read the book and really enjoyed it. It is a simple story at first but once you dig deeper it deals with the complex themes of emigration and isolation in the new found homeland. I finished it in three sittings and towards the end I couldn’t put it down. Recommend!

Ever since the iPhone 3.0 beta was released, only the lucky and skilled have managed to enable MMS on their iPhones. It’s not that it’s impossible to do, you just have to know your way around the OS and do some modifications, enter settings, and that sort of stuff. What everyone has been wondering, however, was how the iPhone would handle videos sent over MMS. We’re happy to report that you can receive and play videos over MMS just fine. Check out one more screen shot after the jump!

First off: Make sure you are running the latest version of iPhone software for your phone. Vodacom’s settings are automatically present for MMS and tethering in the latest release, and you only have to change it if you are on a different network. If it the default settings do not work even if you are on Vodacom, try these settings as well.

Make sure to read my pointer on MMS at the bottom of this post as well.

Vodacom:

Here is the settings that worked for me:

Important: First set up tethering, then MMS. The tethering config file rewrites the MMS settings, so only do MMS setup after.

First get Internet Tethering settings from here(from your iPhone): http://wan.to/iphone and download the settings. The phone will tell you it is not official source – ignore that, Vodacom is not helping us.

You will then see that a Internet tethering switch will appear under settings -> General -> Network.

Thereafter, enter the following settings to enable MMS – go to settings – General -> Network -> Cellular Data Network:

Change your Cellular Data settings:

APN: iphone.vodacom.net

MMS settings at the bottom of the screen:
APN: mms.vodacom.net
MMSC: mmsc.vodacom4me.co.za
MMS Proxy: 196.006.128.013:8080

Then got to Settings -> Messages and switch on MMS:

Thereafter, reboot you phone, and go back to cellular data settings to see if the settings “stuck”. Then you can start MMS’ing.

MTN:

Important: First set up tethering, then MMS. The tethering config file rewrites the MMS settings, so only do MMS setup after. Here are the settings step for step:

1) Download the MTN Config file here:http://wan.to/iphone, and install it on your phone.

2) Switch on tethering inside settings -> General -> Network -> Internet Tethering. You will notice a blue bar will appear along the top of screen if you are currently “tethered”.

Step 3: Reboot your phone, and then enter the following settings at Settings -> General -> Network -> Cellular Data network.

APN: myMTN
Username: mtnmms
Password: mtnmms
MMSC: http://mms.mtn.co.za/mms/wapenc
MMS Proxy: 196.11.240.241:8080

After you have entered these settings, go to Settings -> Messages -> and switch on MMS.

Then reboot your phone, and start enjoying MMS.

Just a quick tip on MMS. Currently if you have MMS activated, you will find that combined SMS’s (which are more than 160 characters) are automatically sent as a MMS which is not great. If you are on a SMS bundle I would recommend you switch off MMS if you do not want unnecessary charges. MMS is not currently parts of SMS bundles in SA.

Just a quick tip on Internet Tethering: If your iPhone does not show up as another connection on your computer, remember to switch on internet tethering and then reboot the phone. I also recommend you rather use a USB cable than the Bluetooth tethering option. The connection is better, and your battery wont be sucked dry. Enjoy.

Lets face it – we live in a Beta culture where we are used to things not working, and we have almost become content with it. No matter what advertising tells us, the gadgets we use are designed to have a functional life of only a few years, after which we will inevitably replace it. Sometime however, duds fall into the production line of modern devices, and then we as buyers have to go through the entire process of getting a replacement unit. The fact of the matter is that it should be as much effort as it is.

Recently my iPhone 3GS has started to show some weird symptoms – the phone would suddenly become slow, after which it will become very warm to touch. After becoming unresponsive I had to reboot the phone, only to realise that it only reboots after around ten reboots. Something was clearly wrong. So then I did the recommended full restore of the phone, which made the phone work for another day. However, its music library did not index its files, and again, the phone overheated and froze up.

So Saturday 24 October I took the phone to Vodacare Canal Walk, and they booked the phone in. They checked for marks and damage (there was luckily absolutely none) and gave me my job number. Here is my first problem – I had a Invisible Shield on the phone (which costs around R200 at Vodashops) and obviously I cannot remove the film on the device. They said they will reimburse me for the film – but I have a feeling they wont hold up their end of the deal. Their policy is to return / replace the phone within 7 workdays. They also had no loaner phones.

After a technician looked at the phone, I got an SMS on Monday 26 October to tell me the phone is being sent to Vodacom head office. Since then I have not heard anything. Nothing. I had to phone them to enquire what is going on today, and they had not ETA for when my phone will be back. They could not confirm that the phone is being replaced – in fact they did not know what is going on with my phone, or where it is in their system. If I buy a very expensive phone on which I rely every day, I expect Vodacom to at least communicate to me where the phone is, and know what is happening with the phone.

The reason why I am writing this post is that I believe we deserve better service. In the rest of the world, iPhones get replaced on the spot, no questions asked. No reason to send it away, no possible repair. As someone who spends a lot of money with Vodacom, I believe the way they handle these iPhone repairs are poor. Part of the reason people pay more for Apple products is the improved after sales service. Once again, this is only true outside of South Africa.

Update: I posted this on HelloPeter as well. So far Vodacom has replied with a generic “thanks for your feedback” message. Lets see if they come back to me.

Update 4 Nov: Today I got an SMS from Vodacom telling me the phone has been repaired and is back at Vodacare Canal Walk. I phoned them asking what they repaired – they said they updated the software. Just to clarify – the phone was running the latest software when I sent it in. I also explicitly asked Vodacare to contact me when a technician has the phone – I wanted to explain to him that a firmware restore works, but the phone stops functioning a while later. Needless to say, they did NOT phone me, and simply did a firmware restore (just like I did) and sent it back.

I will now have to pick up the phone again, and if I have the same problem send it again. Then I will have to wait another ten days for another repaired/replacement phone.

Vodacom – you clearly do not have support structures in place for the iPhone. If you have to send a iPhone up to head office, just to do a software update (which I have done already), you might want to look at getting better technicians.

source http://www.mpieters.com/2009/11/iphone-repairreplacement-in-south.html

I didn’t think I was going to have the privilege of seeing this installment of the great Doctor until some time when it was sunny and warm, so when my DVR recorded it I was nothing less than elated.

Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars was AMAZING!

As we all know David Tennant is nearing the end of his run as the great Doctor Who. Leaving us shortly, Tennant will be replaced by Matt Smith – a twenty-something new boyish doctor who will swoop down into the UK and snatch up Hannah Murray as the new companion of the new Doctor.

I’ve been wondering what they were going to do that would cause the Doctor to regenerate into a new one. Would there be an accident? Would he trip out of the TARDIS and land flat on his face on top of Big Ben? TELL ME MAN WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO DO TO THE GREAT DOCTOR WHO?!!!

TELL ME NOW!

In Planet of the Dead the Doctor was warned that then end was coming, he would hear “four knocks.” Well, the end is a slippery slope, which we saw in The Waters of Mars.

Some points are fixed in time. Some point of time can NOT be changed, and when you take it upon yourself to change those fixed points, there will be consequences…

As the Doctor learned when he didn’t just walk away from the Mars Space Station. When he didn’t let the crew die as it was written. Being the last of his kind has finally caused the Doctor to snap. Being alone made it happen much faster…

If you haven’t seen The Waters of Mars – PLEASE do so. It’s brilliant fun! The acting is amazing, the entire cast is just wonderful and the story is great. You think its one you’ve seen before, yes it’s the Doctor in all his glory and his charming anticidotes and boyish fun – but then… but then…

Let me just comment on the makeup and the set too. By far my favorite thus far in the series. (But Blink is still my all time favorite episode…)

NOW I have to wait till Saturday so the second part of The End of Time records, then I can watch the whole special at once! Did you see it? Did you see who’s back? Who came a knockin’?

The Master! (and Donna’s grandad – which is kinda cool. I like the fellow…)

All I can say is – this is going to be good…

Spoilers below:

I saw “End of Time” on BBC America this time.  It looks like they are finally getting a clue in the UK and pushing the American air dates closer to the British rather than trying to put the kibosh on You Tube uploads.

Anyway the main event is the Time Lords are back, for good I hope, although they were going on about the “end of time.”  That doesn’t sound good.  There was one Time Lord hiding his face behind Timothy Dalton.  I wonder what that is all about.

The episode wasted a lot of time with the Master’s resurrection and the Doctor chasing around a newly arrived Master kind of pointlessly.

The plot seems to share elements with a never filmed Star Trek Phase II episode written by Norman Spinrad entitled “To Attain All”  I read about  it in the November 1988 issue Starlog Magazine (pages 60 to 61).  You can  see a detailed synopsis online here:   http://www.ottens.co.uk/forgottentrek/phase2_4.php

 Star Trek Phase II was a proposed TV series sequel to the original Star Trek that was allegedly scrapped when network executives saw the high gloss Space 1999 series from Gerry Anderson.  The Star Trek motion picture was made instead.  Basically, the plot was about a space alien wanting to assume the identity of the human race, much like The Master did in the end of Part 1.

Overall not a great episode but it was quite diverting.  I am glad to see the Time Lords back and I hope they stay.

Posting this because it is epic — But don’t watch it if you haven’t seen part one….lots of spoilers.

Oh Doctor Who, how I love you. But I’m not quite sure how I feel about this year’s Christmas special. Surpsing, yes, oh gods yes. Exciting, parts of it were. But the thing I’m finding with this episode, and that I’m finding with Doctor Who in general with the new series, is that everything is world shattering. How many times has Earth or the human race been destroyed in the new series? How many times has the world been at the cusp of death before the Doctor saved in in thirty seconds flat? And I think that’s the problem. All the major story lines end on a coup de graux. Still, it was amazing, and if not the best part of my Christmas, it was fantastic.

Also, the surprise at the end which I may not speak of leaves me waiting for New Years. Who cares about New Year’s Resolutions when I will have the Doctor?

So, ever since they announced that David Tennant wouldn’t be appearing for the fifth season and would be doing a set of specials to close out his tenure as the Doctor, I’ve been building up the End of Time special that just aired on BBC America.  With the general feel of the previous specials, I really hoped this would pick up the series and make it interesting again.  About the previous specials, I just think that they got progressively more bland and merely a bridge to this Christmas Special.  The Next Doctor was amazing and captivating.  The Planet of the Dead was a clear homage to Flight of the Phoenix, but did so beautifully.  The Waters of Mars…  just lost me and I couldn’t really enjoy it as much as the others.

And now we have the End of Time Part One.  The Doctor arrives on the Ood home world in response to their call.  They warn him about the Master’s return.  Apparently his DNA patterns were imprinted into his ring, so his apparent followers who require Lucy Saxon’s help to bring him back.  They do so, Lucy tries and fails to kill the Master before he escapes.  The Doctor spends most of the episode tracking down the Master, getting help from Donna’s grandfather Wilfred.  He eventually catches up the Master.  In the showdown the Master uses this machine to transform the rest of the world in doppelgangers of himself.  All the while, we get hints of the apparent return of the Time Lords to face the oncoming conflict.

First Timothy Dalton… fuck yeah.  Apparently he’s the leader of the Time Lords… I’m kind of wondering where all the Time Lords suddenly came from…  they were supposed to have all died in the Time War…

Anyway, very intense episode.  I liked it.  It was a very good episode.  Can’t for next week.

Warning: absolutely giant massive spoiler alert!

OK, so: part one of the final David Tennant episode of Doctor Who, The End of Time, has now aired in the UK. The fact that I’ve been predicting the return of the TimeLords ever since Tennant first announced his retirement has left me with a warm, glowy feeling of narrative vindication. (The fact that said glow has undoubtably been heightened by the large glass of eggnog sitting to my left is by the way and nothing to do with it.) As soon as the Ood declared that ‘they are returning’, I knew it was game on, which view was ultimately proven correct when Timothy Dalton appeared mid-episode wearing the unmistakeable red and gold of Rassilon. It makes perfect sense that the Tenth Doctor’s exit would in some way be tied to the return of the denizens of Gallifrey, as his tenancy (hah – pun!) has been entirely characterised by their absence. In terms of mining the original show, the other TimeLords are the single facet yet to be brought back, and as the Daleks have turned up numerous times despite their supposed destruction during the Time War, finding a means of resurrecting their enemies is an act of natural balance. In the trailer for the final act, it has also been revealed that the drumming tune in the Master’s head – the inspiration for the four knocks which are prophecied to preempt the Doctor’s death – is representative of the double beat of a TimeLord’s heart. Armed with this knowledge and a glipse of the final episode, therefore, here are my predictions for the final ever episode of David Tennant’s term in Doctor Who.

Back in The Sound of Drums, it was revealed that what originally sent the Master mad was the TimeLord ritual of staring into the Time Vortex through the Untempered Schism. From this point on, the drums in his head were always calling to him. We know, too, that the Doctor can sense the presence of other TimeLords alive in the galaxy – but there are exceptions to this ability. Consider that creator Russell T. Davies, much like Joss Whedon, has a habit of planning his storylines long in advance, such that he is in a position to drop hints as to their eventual conclusion. One such notable clue is the Medusa Cascade, a place the Doctor was reported to have sealed off during the Time War, but where Davros and the Daleks were later proven to be hiding, along with a number of stolen planets, at the end of Season 4, by being a second out of sync with the rest of the universe. I won’t venture an explanation as to how, but my speculative guess, after the Ood announced that ‘things which have already happened are happening now’, is that those TimeLords who survived the Time War did so by a similar trick of temporal displacement; perhaps even utilising one of the Nine Gallifreys of old. Which is why, when the Master gazed into the Vortex all those years ago, the sound of drums was embedded in his head: he could hear the future/present of the timeless TimeLords, and was irrevocably altered by their (which is to say, Timothy Dalton and his prophetess’s) call to war. The Ood can sense this displacement at a psychic level, and now that the Master has turned everyone on Earth into copies of himself, the fact of this will allow the rest of the TimeLords to return: because of what he is, and of what was originally done to him.

Which leads us to Wilf, who appears to be having visions of a female TimeLord council member, and to Donna Noble, who is no longer quite human, and who has been forced to remember everything she was made to forget. This is somewhat interesting, as the Doctor has explained that Donna can’t remember without dying; but if she can, then what does this say about her deeper nature? Perhaps – one might speculate – her survival has something to do with those Huon particles she imbibed so long ago, given their relationship to TimeLord technology. We were told ealier that there was no coincidence in the Doctor meeting Donna more than once, and now we know that there is no coincidence to Wilf’s continued appearences, either. Why is he the only man to remember his bad, precognitive dreams? Perhaps this is an example of cyclic time: due to the Doctor’s protection, he was never going to turn into a copy of the Master, and was therefore able to remember in the present what his future self would eventually learn. Wilf is a stargazer, a soldier who has never killed a man; alternatively, his significance might lie in the fact that he is human – wholly human, unlike Donna – and therefore represents a viable template from which the human race might be restored. But he also has a choice to make, a life to take: the Doctor’s, the Master’s, or perhaps Timothy Dalton’s.

So, to wrap up all these vague speculations, I’ll end on a more solid, if perhaps more obvious note: Timothy Dalton’s character will die; Gallifrey will return; the Doctor will be offered the mantle of Lord President (again) and refuse; the Master will escape to fight another day, as per his speciality; and Donna’s memories will be restored.

There. How’s that for a prophecy?