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Doctor Who - Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords
Okay… it’s been a long time coming, but with the release of the final three episodes of season three on DVD I thought it was finally time to commit my thoughts on the last two episodes of Series Three to the web.
And it’s got to be said, very mixed thoughts they are too.
Now, although it started with a terribly convenient resolution to the “Utopia” cliff-hanger, “The Sound of Drums” screamed “instant classic” from the off. It was, to put it simply, a bouncing-on-the-edge-of-the-seat-athon of dazzling proportions, and the cliff-hanger - with the Doctor aged to the point of frail infirmity, and the Master fully in control - was such a strong one that I wondered at the time how the hell they could top it.
Now… Last of the Time Lords isn’t irredeemably awful – although various people I know refuse to watch it ever again – and with the inevitable repeated viewings (and once taken in context of the series) everything is cleverly layered, pointered and it is on the whole a logical progression from its predecessor.
The first time I started to feel a little cheated was the Doctor being aged into a - rather less successful than you’d have hoped - CGI critter. Execution aside (for which I will only say “meh”) it is just a re-use of the same plot device used earlier, something which is a surprising lapse from a writer of Davies’ indisputable experience.
The moment I really started to cringe, though, was the rejuvenation of the Doctor. Now, I’m not going to whinge about overt religious iconography in Who - although this was about as unsubtle as you can get - but whilst the Master putting it about as if he is Lord and… well, you know… having the production team make the same comparison makes me feel very uncomfortable. For me the more mythical and Godlike the Doctor seems to become the more his intelligence and his (for want of a better word) humanity are eclipsed. Give him more and more amazing alien superpowers and you diminish his heroism to a certain extent, so the fact he suddenly surrounded himself in a glowing mist and was reborn was, for me, the absolute nadir of the series.
Then, following these two blows, the subsequent blatant steals from Flash Gordon and Return of the Jedi just annoyed me further. And as for the Face of Boe revelation, that just seemed to be another “how funny would this be” thing that would have better been left alone. (Telling I think that even RTD says it’s just a theory and he doesn’t believe it.)
But of course, these are precisely what the production team dismiss out of hand: the opinions of someone who has loved the series for years. But I would point out my 12-year-old stepbrother (who has only really come in from Series One) independently didn’t like the episode for much the same reasons, so I feel a little vindicated on this score.
Still, there were some marvelous moments too: CGI Doctor aside, the first thirty minutes were just stunning, particularly for Martha. And I hate that once again I have to praise the performances - since the series as a whole does pull stunning ones out of the hat from every cast member it ever has - but Last of the Time Lords was no exception. Martha’s exit, too, was a real shock, but so incredibly truthful that, whilst I so wanted her to stay, I could understand why she didn’t.
In fact if anything, the plus points of the episode are what Davies always excels at: characterisation, motivation, emotion and a real sense of sparkle and fun. It’s just sometimes he does push things a bit too far (either for a guffaw-type joke or for his view of what counts as “epic”) and in this one it pushed a lot of wrong notes for me.
Still, even with the (for me) chronic let-down of its last episode, Series Three has generally felt like an improvement over Series Two which somehow now feels a bit flat by comparison. And even at its worst, it’s still one of the best things on telly. (Second best, in my opinion, but a good second.)
Posted on September 2, 2007 | Filed Under Film and Television
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