Day 737: The Last of the Time Lords

The problem with The Last of the Time Lords is its flaw. If you ignore the flaw, then you get a reasonably good story. Sure, whilst seeing the Master in control of the Earth isn't quite as fun as you might have hoped, and the fact that Tennant is mainly reduced either to being an old man in a wheelchair or a CGI monstrosity leaves the story without its best element - the Tennant/Simm scenes, but it does have some remarkably good things in it such as the Tennant/Simm scenes that we do get, or the powerful scene where the Doctor stops Francine Jones from shooting the Master. But the problem with all of these scenes, as I said, is that the flaw overpowers them.

The flaw starts off slowly. The revelation that Martha has been travelling around the Earth to tell others about the Doctor, in order to get them to pledge their belief in him as the Master prepares to turn the Earth into an all-out warship is kind of nice, and whilst on prior viewings I may have looked down on it, now I see it as something rather nice; a way for the Doctor to win without using violence. The revelation that the collective thoughts of humanity are being amplified by the Archangel network, the very network which the Master used to take over the world, is actually rather neat and plays well into the themes that I talked about yesterday about the plot of The Sound of Drums being based around the Master taking absolute control, and that other Master plots focus the conclusion on the Doctor re-taking control. Here, he takes control using the same method as the Master, a nice duality to the pair. But, getting back on track, this all comes across as something a little bit fun, but you can't help but feel that something's going to go wrong soon.

And then the Doctor becomes a flying God and the story's flaw reveals itself in all its glory. It is not only a step too far for stretching the credulity of the story but it comes completely out of nowhere, making the whole story feel cheap by comparison. Comparing this to another finale, we have Rose in The Parting of the Ways. There, the heart of the TARDIS was signposted as a plot element a story prior in Boom Town, planting the seed that this could be possible. We also get to see Rose actively try to do something to get back to the Doctor and save him, which allows us to get some perspective of how everything worked out after watching the episode. Here, whilst the Archangel network was shown, it was only shown as a field that allowed for the Master to control people, not to allow the Doctor to fly. And whilst we did see Martha go out into the world and spread the word about the Doctor, it didn't lead to the logical conclusion that them thinking about him would make him into a Jedi.

It's a flaw that overpowers the finale, and kind of prevents it from being rather good in my opinion. The story's still not outright bad, but it doesn't quite work, and you can't help but feel that the story could have used an extra re-write to make the ending work just a bit better. But anyway, tomorrow looks set to be something rather special...