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Doctor Who - The End of Time
season 4 special 4 & 5
UK 2009/2010
produced by Tracie Simpson, Russell T. Davies (executive), Julie Gardner (executive) for BBC (BBC Wales)
directed by Euros Lyn
starring David Tennant, John Simm, Bernard Cribbins, David Harewood, Tracy Ifeachor, Claire Bloom, Timothy Dalton, Catherine Tate, Jacqueline King, Billie Piper, Camille Coduri, John Barrowman, Freema Agyeman, Noel Clarke, Elisabeth Sladen, June Whitfield, Jessica Hynes, Tommy Knight, Russell Tovey, Joe Dixon, Julie Legrand, Brid Brennan, Krystal Archer, Sinead Keenan, Lawry Lewin, Alexandra Moen, Karl Collins, Teresa Banham, Barry Howard, Allister Bain, Simon Thomas, Sylvia Seymour, Pete Lee-Wilson, Dwayne Scantlebury, Lacey Bond, Lachele Carl, Paul Kasey, Ruari Mears, Max Benjamin, Brian Cox (voice), Nicholas Briggs (voice), Matt Smith
written by Russell T. Davies, music by Murray Gold, special effects by Any Effects, visual effects by The Mill, prosthetics by Millenium FX
TV-series Doctor Who, Doctor Who (David Tennant), Doctor Who (new series), The Master, The Master (John Simm), Doctor Who (Matt Smith) (cameo), Donna Noble (cameo), Martha Jones (cameo), Rose Tyler (cameo), Captain Jack (cameo), Sarah Jane Smith (cameo)
review by Mike Haberfelner
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The Doctor (David Tennant) is summoned by the Ood, who tell him about
his fast approaching death which will knock four times, and somehow, the
Doctor finds out it all has to do with his arch nemesis (well, one of
them, anyway) the Master (John Simm) but who was thought to be dead, and
the Timelords, who seem not to be utterly destroyed after all. Back on
earth, the Doctor's tracked down by his former companion Donna's
(Catherine Tate) grandfather Wilfred (Bernard Cribbins), and through him
he finds the Master, who has only recently been resurrected but isn't yet
in very stable a condition. The Doctor somehow listens into the mind of
the Master and hears a constant repetition of four knocks, which
apparently drives the Master mad. With four knocks of course being the
signal for the Doctor's impending death, he's ready to battle it out with
the Master to the last ... when the Master is just snatched away ... Meet
multi-billionaire Joshua Naismith (David Harewood) and his daughter
Abigail (Tracy Ifeachor), who have found some alien technology that
apparently is designed to grant eternal life, but it's damaged and the
Master is supposed to fix it - but the Master has another plan ... and
eventually turns everyone on the whole wide world into himself -
exceptions apply though. The Doctor and Wilfred arrive too late to stop
him, but with the help of two friendly cactus-like aliens they manage to
save themselves ... to return to the Naismiths' place which is not the
Master's headquarters - to see the return of the Timelords lead by
Rassilon (Timothy Dalton). But Rassilon's motives are far from benign, as
with their return into this dimension, they would bring with them all of
the universe's most evil races, including the Daleks, the Cybermen and
whoever else the Doctor fights on a regular basis anyway. Somehow, the
Doctor manages to send the Timelords back to where they've come from, the
Master escapes, and in a (successful) attempt to save Wilfred, the Doctor
is exposed to an overload of radiation and is now slowly dying ... but not
before he, in an overlong post-finale, drops in on all his companions (in
this incarnation) again, including Donna, Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman),
Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke), Captain Jack (John Barrowman) and of course
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper). Then he dies - or rather regenerates into Matt
Smith, but in doing so he almost wrecks his TARDIS ... This was
supposed to be David Tennant's triumphant finale as the Doctor, but
frankly, it feels more like a paint-by-numbers take on a typical
blockbuster story (and not in a good way(, including putting spectacle
over story (though the spectacle is pretty well-conceived), failing to
give the characters much development, failing to give the main villain a
proper motive, and not even really trying to make everything wholly
logical or putting some of the weirder plot elements into context - like
who's that woman who's constantly giving Wilfred pointers? And frankly,
the post-finale sequence is really milking it and fails to have any
narrative necessity. That all said, the episode is not a total loss, at
least it moves along swiftly and does actually have its moments - it's
just nothing special at all.
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