This time around, it's 100 TRILLION!! Utopia looks like it's been plucked from an unused Blake's 7 Season Four script, with a tribe of grunting scruffs called the Futurekind, a giant female talking centipede head thing, and a doddery old professor who's supposed to be some great benefactor. As many commentators have pointed out, there's something a bit Blake-y about Utopia – the difference being that Terry Nation never thought of going all Dr Evil when deciding the year. Despite this, Jack's not giving up, since we see him holding onto the TARDIS for dear life as it hurtles through the time vortex, only to land in.Ī quarry! Doctor Who has been severely lacking in quarries lately, so Utopia needs to make up for last time with a dingy locale that looks like a slightly more upmarket Blake's 7 setting. It's a bit odd that the Doctor doesn't want Jack around. It's a brief stay though, since the Doctor quickly spies Captain Jack doing a slow-mo high jump to get to the TARDIS. Initially, Utopia starts off in low-key fashion as the Doctor and Martha make another pit stop in Cardiff to get some more fuel for the TARDIS. There had been no prior warning that Utopia would link in with the last two episodes of the season, so it's nice to see that the secret was kept under wraps – especially when the Master makes his reappearance earlier than scheduled.Ĭompare the last frantic minutes with the beginning.
The difference however, is that the viewers and fans only twig that it's a six-parter by the time the To Be Continued sign hovers at the end credits of Utopia. The Seeds Of Doom, The Talons Of Weng-Chiang and The Invasion Of Time all tried this tack to considerable success, and so Utopia Drums Time Lords follows the same pattern. Utopia Drums Time Lords basically takes the form of the mid-'70s six-parters in that there are technically two stories in one. So where do I start? Well, let's try at the beginning, you great fool. The normally optimistic Davies takes a bit of a cynical path when it comes to musing over the ultimate fate of the human race – and I'm not talking about the ridiculous global T-Mobile ad either. There are also some refreshingly grim aspects to this story too, which take Doctor Who into some very dark areas indeed. I've come to appreciate it a lot more than when I did back on its original transmission, and in the light of current world events, it's a story that proves to be startlingly topical. Which is a shame, since for its faults, Utopia Drums Time Lords is a breathtaking bit of telly. Like some of the overburdened '80s stories, it sometimes feels like there are too many boxes to tick and not enough plot to deliver. Rearrange Mister Saxon, and you get Master No Six! Clever, huh? The DVD box set of New Beginnings should have hinted at things to come when it was released in January 2007. Actually, the return of the Master was possibly one of the worst kept secrets in Doctor Who.
In this case, not only do we get the return of the Master, we also get Captain Jack back in the fold, say goodbye-ish to Martha, and wrap up all of the loose ends in this season. Looking at this monster three-parter, it's a bit reminiscent of the '80s stories in which John Nathan Turner would provide quaking writers with great big shopping lists of requirements. Utopia Drums Time Lords (which sounds like a lost album from the Todd Rundgren-led '70s/'80s prog band) is another of Russell T Davies' ambitious season finales in which he's gradually throwing in more and more wacky concepts and ideas – some of which work, some of which don't. It's a big finale that brings back the Doctor's wretched nemesis, the Master, who's now wreaking havoc in two forms: an apparently genial old fossil on a futuristic planet and then in a hyperactive, manically vicious younger version. The last story of the 2007 season is the equivalent of an old school six-parter.
For many reasons, it's a story that still rings unnervingly true in 2018. Having just uploaded the review for Buffy The Vampire Slayer's Gingerbread (which tackles mob mentality, fact aversion etc), here comes the big Season 3 finale for NuWho. Talk about coincidence with these blog entries.
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