"Doctor Who, episode 3x13: Utopia" Starring: David Tennant, Freema Agyeman, John Barrowman, Derek Jacobi, Chiopo Chung Previously on “Doctor Who”, someone in charge of programming at the BBC needed a half hour or so of filler in the network lineup and decided 'what the hell, let's try this sci-fi fluff about a time-traveling alien'. Except he was totally human looking (all differences between humans and Time Lords are internal apparently) and all the other alien creatures were laughably ridiculous looking because it was the 60s and their operating budget was probably less than is spent on the average "reality" show these days. But it was around the same time that "Star Trek" was gaining a cult following on the other side of the Atlantic, so, you know, it became woven into British culture for the next half a century. Or at least until the 80s came along and ruined everything. Chrissy: This isn't going to be like your "X-Files" recap where you drone on for three pages about the entire history of the series and it proves totally irrelevant, is it? Diandra: No, I'll try to keep it relevant this time. Chrissy: [sigh] I'm going to go get a bottle of wine. So this alien whose name is known by absolutely nobody and goes only by "The Doctor" stole a machine that can travel through all of time and space (called a TARDIS), having "adventures" with the various human "companions" who serve as audience surrogates. Except these "adventures" pretty much always turn into conflicts that threaten the future of whatever planet/species/known historic event is featured in the episode. Because it was the 60s and the special effects budget was practically nonexistant, the "chameleon circuit" of the TARDIS broke pretty much right away so they could just use one of the blue police boxes the prop department had lying around and keep it that way. And since blue police boxes stopped being used basically around the same time, writers have been forced to explain this ever since. At this point nobody even knows what a police box is anymore so if you show them a giant blue phone box they will say "oh, it's a TARDIS" (unless you're talking to an American. Then you can show them a regular red phone booth and get the same effect because Americans are stupid). Oh, and did I mention that this alien belongs to a race that can "regenerate" into a whole new person every few years? Supposedly this means he can regenerate into a woman, but in 50 years all he's managed to do is get progressively younger (come on, Steven Moffat, GET ON THAT). Chrissy: Is any of this going to be on the test? Diandra: Oh, keep your panties on, I'm getting to the important part. Chrissy: What, just now? Are you writing a recap or a Master's thesis? ANYWAY. In 2005 Russell T. Davis rebooted the fifteen-year- dormant series (why not? Everybody else was rebooting franchises at the time) with Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor and a much better special effects budget. The "Time And Relative Dimension In Space" machine still looks like a blue police box though because at this point nobody would recognize it if it didn't. The Doctor was traveling with a lower-middle- class twenty-something named Rose Tyler when they ended up in the 40s and met Jack Harkness, a 51st century con artist "time agent" who traveled with them for a few episodes before getting a spin off. When he was last seen on this show, he died fighting a race of genocidal lunatics called "Daleks" that look like a cross between a pepper shaker and a bumper car and have been the bane of the Doctor's existence since episode two (of the original series). Then Rose absorbed the "vortex"/consciousness/light/whatever that powers the TARDIS and used it as some sort of magic wand to kill all the Daleks on the Satellite (did I mention this was all happening on a Satellite in, like, the year 500,000?) and bring Jack back to life. The Doctor had to absorb this energy into himself so it wouldn't kill Rose (forcing him to regenerate into David Tennant) and the two of them took off, totally ditching Jack on a satellite in the distant future. This was all that was known when “Torchwood” premiered, like, six months later and Jack was running the UK answer to the X-Files division in the 21st century and has apparently been doing his own form of regenerating (without having to change his face) for years. Oh, and somehow he ended up with the hand The Doctor lost in a fight on top of a spaceship hovering over London just after he regenerated (and since he was still regenerating he just grew a new one because did I mention it's a kid-friendly show?). No clue how Jack got it, but it's been a regular prop on “Torchwood” all season. Oh, and several episodes after ditching Jack for no apparent reason, The Doctor lost Rose when she got sucked into a parallel universe. So the current companion is a ridiculously young doctor (actual medical doctor in training) named Martha Jones. Diandra: You okay over there? Your eyes are looking a little glazed. Chrissy: That depends. Are you finished? Diandra: I think that's the basics, yeah. Chrissy: The basi...[groan] [slugs wine] Diandra: I mentioned before that Torchwood was founded by Queen Victoria after some bullshit involving The Doctor and a werewolf, right? Chrissy: I thought you were kidding about the werewolf. Diandra: Nope. Is the wine kicking in yet? Chrissy: A bit. Diandra: Good. You'll probably need it. Cardiff. The TARDIS appears right in front of Millenium Stadium. When Martha asks why the hell they are in Cardiff in the 21st century when they could be literally anywhere else in the whole of time and space, the Exposition Fairy shows up and jabs the Doctor, who explains to the audience that hasn't been watching "Torchwood" all about the rift. While he's at it, he adds the part the "Doctor Who" audience got back when he was played by another actor: the TARDIS uses the rift energy as fuel. Which begs the question: is the Torchwood hub sitting on the rift to control and/or neutralize whatever falls out of it or because whoever built it knew the Doctor would be using it as a refueling station? He says this should only take about twenty seconds, then frowns and notes that the rift has been active recently. Yeah, you have no idea. And here is where the crossover starts to lose some consistency. As far as I can tell, the TARDIS is parked, like, twenty feet from the invisible lift. But Jack comes running into view from way on the other side of the square, most likely coming from the tourism office/main entrance of the hub which, if you recall from the previous recap, Tosh, Owen and Ianto just went through and claimed not to have seen him. So either there is a third entrance to the hub, or somebody on the production team got their wires crossed. Martha suddenly recalls an earthquake that hit Cardiff a couple years ago and asks if that was the Doctor. He mumbles something about Slitheen and how he was "a different man back then" and goes back to pushing buttons and pulling levers on the increasingly complicated control panel. He notices the screen showing the outside of the TARDIS suddenly features Jack, running toward them and shrieking "DOCTOR" like a crazy person and very deliberately pulls the lever for takeoff. The center column lights up and the scraping-piano-wire sound effect plays again and then everything wobbles as Jack takes a running leap and slams into the TARDIS. "What was that," Martha yelps as they scrape themselves from the floor. The Doctor bats at the sparks and smoke coming from... somewhere... and tries to regain control of the TARDIS, which for David Tennant's version of the Doctor somehow always involved crawling on top of the center console like a distressed monkey. He reads the frantically blinking Galifreyan symbols on the monitor and splutters that the TARDIS is taking them impossibly far into the future for some reason: "we're going to the end of the universe". I hear there's a pretty good restaurant there. The suicidal talking cows are a bit annoying though. Chrissy: Say 'hi' to the Hobbit. Diandra: Nononono...didn't you get the memo? We don't acknowledge that a movie version of "Hitchhiker" exists. By the way, Jack is still clinging to the outside of the TARDIS, shrieking "DOCTOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRR!" Chrissy: How is he even breathing anymore if it's traveling at warp speed through time and space? Diandra: Because there's a protective bubble around the TARDIS that maintains the same pressure and oxygen levels as the interior so the door can be opened without anyone being sucked into the void. I think. Chrissy: So...magic. Diandra: Good enough for me. End of the Universe. A group of extras leftover from Thunderdome are chasing a normal looking human around a barren wasteland, hissing and spitting and generally looking like crazed savages. Inside somewhere, Derek Jacobi looks at a blipping light on a sonar scanner and announces to his assistant that it's registering another human out there, "god help him". His assistant - who looks like somebody tried to merge species from James Cameron movies and came up with a smaller, blue version of the thing that was chasing Sigourney Weaver around - says "Chan should I alert the guards tho?" Funny how the aliens always seem to speak English (with an English accent) with just a couple weird words thrown in here and there... Derek says no, they don't have any to spare, so they'll just have to write him off as "one more lost soul dreaming of Utopia". The Dwarf Na'vi says chan he shouldn't talk like he's giving up hope tho (yes, she will be this annoying throughout the entire episode). He says no, of course not, raises his mug of "coffee" and drinks to "Utopia". He asks if she would like some. She smiles prettily and says "chan I am happy drinking my own internal milk tho." Derek, ever the proper English gentleman, quirks an eyebrow and says "that's quite enough information, thank you" in the same tone of voice you would expect a newscaster to say "yes, thank you, and now for the weather report". Chrissy: We're barely five minutes in and this is already the weirdest show I've ever seen. Diandra: Yep. Welcome to “Doctor Who”. A man's voice comes over a speaker system somewhere like the voice of God, asking "Professor Yana" how they're doing down there. He splutters some obviously weak bullshit about how everything's just fine and coming along nicely and looks to the Na'vi, who starts babbling science about reversing...something (probably the polarity) and they should have a result soon. Yana wanders away and looks effectively like someone who might be having a heart attack as all noises other than a rhythmic drumming fade from the soundtrack. Well, it starts out as a random cacophony, actually, but it becomes rhythmic eventually. He startles back to attention as his assistant, who has apparently finished her bullshitting and is trying to get his attention, announces that there's another signal on the sonar thingy. Yana frowns at the tiny, box-shaped dot and says he doesn't recognize THAT signal. Whatever it is, it's something they haven't seen before. The Doctor and Martha straighten as the box-shaped dot thingy finally stabilizes. "Well," gulps Captain Obvious. "We've landed." Martha asks what's outside. What, did the monitor conveniently break? The Doctor says he doesn't know. Martha laughs a little and asks him to say that again because she hardly ever hears him say those words. Oh, honey. Just because he doesn't say them doesn't mean he knows what's going on at all times. But in this case he says that's because no Time Lord has ever dared come out this far. If they were smart, they would just turn around and leave right now. So of course he actually grins like a doofus, grabs his coat and runs out the door. Because while he may have heard the expression about the effect curiosity sometimes has on metaphorical felines, he still has at least a couple more lives to blow. They find Jack lying outside in the rocks, dead. Okay, so...I guess that magic bubble around the TARDIS only works when it's convenient. Martha runs to check his pulse, then runs back inside for a med kit. The Doctor just stands over him and mutters "hello again. I'm sorry." Martha returns and shoves him out of the way, then asks why the hell a guy with a WWII overcoat is in the year 300-trillion or whatever this is. The Doctor says that's because he came with them, clinging to the outside of the TARDIS like an overgrown barnacle. Martha asks if he knows this guy. The Doctor says he's an old friend he used to travel with. Martha stops trying to find Jack's heartbeat with the stethoscope from the med kit and says well, she's really sorry, but it looks like he's dead. This is, naturally, Jack's cue to gasp awake in the loudest, most dramatic fashion possible, causing Martha to shriek at a near- dog-whistle decibel. She recovers and instructs him to just take deep breaths. "I've got you!" Jack, still gasping a little, focuses on her and his eyes light up and he says "Captain Jack Harkness. And who are YOU?" Yes, Martha, meet Jack: the ultimate example of a man with a one track mind. She flusters a little and introduces herself. He grins and says it's VERY nice to meet her. "Oh, don't start," the Doctor butts in, already exasperated. Chrissy: Huh, he really does know him. Diandra: Yeah, pretty much every other conversation they have can be summarized as "Jack flirts with somebody and the Doctor yells at him to knock it off." I love it. Martha helps Jack up and he and the Doctor look at each other stonefaced for a long beat. “What, no kiss this time,” Jack does not ask. Chrissy: You don’t waste any time, do you? Diandra: What? Jack really did kiss him before they parted. Of course, he kissed Rose too... Chrissy: Yeah, somehow, none of that is surprising. Actually, Jack says it’s good to see him again. The Doctor notes that Jack looks just like he remembers “although...have you had some work done?” Jack thinks that’s funny coming from a guy who had blue eyes, a whole lot less hair and bigger ears the last time he saw him. The Doctor, who seems to have suddenly forgotten that he regenerated since they last spoke, asks how Jack knew it was still him behind this face. Because Jack does have some brains in that pretty head of his? Really, you have the TARDIS and you remember him. Who the hell else would you be? Also, Jack says he’s been stalking him for a “long time”. “You abandoned me,” he growls. The Doctor mumbles some bullshit about being really busy. Jack shrugs off this TOTALLY LAME explanation that really doesn’t make ANY SENSE WHATSOEVER and says he saw Rose’s name on the list of casualties in the Battle of Canary Wharf, which I identified at the beginning of the season of “Torchwood” as a “clusterfuck involving at least three species of alien” because apparently I can’t count (or, more likely, I was basing that off a description on Wikipedia). The Doctor says no, she’s still alive and safe and so is her mother and her boyfriend. They’re also all trapped in a parallel universe, but, you know, whatever. They’re alive. Mission accomplished. Jack grins and they hug and Martha sort of fake smiles and grumbles “good old Rose.” Because she’s basically the rebound companion and she’s GODDAMN TIRED of hearing about how awesome and wonderful Rose was. We check in briefly with that human being chased across Thunderdome by the Morlocks. They’re all still running. Chrissy: You do know that Thunderdome is a giant arena and not, like, a city or something, right? Diandra: How sad is it that you know that? No, I didn’t get beyond the first movie. Chrissy: Good for you. “So there I was, stranded in the year 200,100 ankle-deep in Dalek dust and HE goes off without me,” Jack is explaining to Martha when we return. The Doctor is basically ignoring him, walking several steps ahead, so Jack, at the prodding of the Exposition Fairy, continues that he used to be a Time Agent so he had a “Vortex Manipulator” that let him jump through time without the TARDIS (this being the wrist strap he has permanently attached to his arm). Similarly to the TARDIS, however, the manipulator broke after one jump and hasn’t worked since (in case we were wondering how the writers ignored that he had a goddamn time machine with him at all times any time that might have been useful). And he overshot that one jump and landed in the middle of the 19th century instead of the beginning of the 21st. “I had to live through the entire 20th century waiting for a version of you that would coincide with me,” he concludes. The Doctor is still unimpressed. The Exposition Fairy swats Martha, who stupidly notes that this would make him over a hundred years old. Yes, honey, you can do simple math. Now can you add that to the fact that you just saw him come back from death and figure out how that’s possible? He says he stationed himself on top of the rift because he knew the Doctor would eventually show up to refuel and he finally got “a signal on this [gestures vaguely at backpack]” indicating the Doctor was close and we all know the rest. Martha finally asks WHY the Doctor left Jack behind. “I was busy,” says the worst friend ever. Yeah. Look, I know you were already in the process of regenerating, but seriously? I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he didn’t know Jack was still alive when they took off. Then I saw the filler scene where Rose – still trying to process the fact that the Doctor had changed into a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PERSON – asked if they should go find Jack and he said “no, he’s busy.” Martha asks if this is what happens to all of his companions. He just gets bored of them one day and run off without them. APPARENTLY. “Not if you’re blonde,” Jack grumbles. “Oh, she was BLONDE,” Martha yelps. “Oh, what a surprise!” The Doctor whirls around and yells at them that they are currently at the END OF ALL THINGS and the two of them are worried about this nonsense. Oh, whatever. You’re just upset that they’re calling you out on your bullshit. Luckily for the Doctor, this conversation is cut short when they come across what looks like a city carved into a canyon. Except the Doctor notes that nobody lives in it anymore since it looks pretty derelict. Martha asks what killed the civilization that lived there. The Doctor says “time” because they are at the end of all time and space and everything is basically dying off. He points at the sky and says everything isn’t dark because it’s nighttime. It’s because all the other stars have actually burned out. Um...wouldn’t this planet be totally uninhabitable if there wasn’t a star somewhere nearby giving off heat to keep it at a moderate temperature? Chrissy: Your Earth logic literally does not apply here. Diandra: I’m just saying. The writers took great pains to explain how a planet orbiting a black hole was totally impossible, but a planet out in the middle of empty space somehow generating enough heat to shield the life forms on it from instant flash-freeze death isn’t? Chrissy: Suspension of disbelief? “They must have an atmospheric shell,” Jack theorizes. “We should be frozen to death.” Chrissy: Okay, note for future reference, sweetie. Wait until the writers explain before going off on a rant that will totally be addressed in the next sentence. Diandra: Yeah, I’m not sure that actually explains it so much as acknowledges it and moves on quickly before you notice the whole thing hinges on the same logic that allows the TARDIS to fly through space with the front door open. Chrissy: Magic? Diandra: Yeah, let’s keep going with that. The Doctor corrects that he and Martha would be frozen to death, but Jack...would be stuck in an eternal hell of freezing to death and being resurrected over and over? Or would he actually die if all of time and space ceased to exist? Jack and the Doctor stare at each other until Martha interrupts to ask what happens to the people. “Does no one survive?” The Doctor spins some bullshit about keeping hope that life will always find a way. Jack notes that that guy down in the valley being chased by Scott Westerfeld’s Specials gone rogue seems to be doing okay. The Doctor frowns at them, asks if anyone else thinks that looks like some sort of hunt and runs off to save the guy. “I missed this,” Jack laughs delightedly as they all run down a hill. Yeah. You’re effectively immortal. You have the luxury of being able to run headlong into danger without worrying about whether you might, you know, die. They catch up to the guy running and Jack shoves him at the Doctor, standing between them and the oncoming horde with his gun raised. “Jack, don’t you dare,” the Doctor yells. Oh, right. Kid friendly. Only the bad guys can shoot people. Jack makes a face like ‘oh, fuck, why didn’t I just stay in the spinoff where I can shoot the people who want to kill me and shag my new boyfriend every night?’ and fires into the air. The...I’ve run out of names for these people. Chrissy: I think you ran out a long time ago. That last one was really reaching. Diandra: Thanks for the input. Always helpful. The Morlocks freeze, dazzled by the tiny noisemaker that spews fire and Martha asks what the hell those things are. The human – let’s call him Steve - isn’t interested in catching her up on local culture and just babbles that there are more of them coming and they need to hide. The Doctor suggests they run for his ship, which is right over that hill there. The hill that a second horde of Morlocks is coming over at the moment, naturally. Steve offers an alternative plan: make for the “silo”. And we’re running again. One thing about David Tennant’s Doctor? He did a shit ton of running. They reach a gate and the guards – after making them all show their teeth to prove they’re not Morlocks – let them in and spray the ground with gunfire to spook the horde. Chrissy: Okay, so the good guys can have guns, they just have to fire them everywhere BUT at the people trying to kill them. Diandra: Kid friendly! The Morlock leader growls caveman speak at them that mostly involves the words “humans” and “hungry”. Jack notes that the Doctor hasn’t ordered that soldier to lower HIS weapon. The Doctor says that guy isn’t his responsibility. Jack snots oh, so I AM all of the sudden? Chrissy: Yes, The Doctor is the keeper of Jack’s weapon. Diandra: You know you’ve come a long way since we first started recapping together. Look at you now, making terrible dick jokes all by yourself. I’m so proud of you! The Morlocks back off and the guard escorts them in. Steve introduces himself, but since there are no subtitles, nothing listed in IMDb and it sounds like he’s just vomiting up random syllables I’m just going to keep calling him Steve. He asks if the guy can take him to Utopia. The guy smiles and says he sure can. Yana’s lair inside the mountain. The Voice of God announces that four new humans just arrived and one of them says he’s a doctor of some sort. “Of medicine,” Yana asks. “He says of everything.” So no. Yana concludes that he’s a scientist of some sort and shoves whatever piece of equipment he was futzing with into the Dwarf Na’vi’s hands before running off. Elsewhere, Steve is asking after his family, who were headed to the silo the last time he saw them and The Doctor is asking after his “big blue box” because, you know, priorities. The guard says they’ll keep an eye out for the box the next time they go out for water and hands Steve off to a kid who looks no older than eight to check the records. Martha asks how old he is. He just says he’s old enough to work and leads them down one of the hallways where people are living in a sort of refugee ghetto. The Doctor marvels at how humans spent millions of years evolving into downloads (read: Cylons) and “clouds of gas”, but somehow they always revert back to this fundamental shape and have survived all the way to the end of the universe. “Indomitable, that’s the word,” he concludes. You know what other species is that resilient? Cockroaches. Just saying. They round a corner and Steve’s wife hears the kid calling her name. Martha grins as they are reunited and notes that sometimes clouds really do have silver lining. Meanwhile, Jack has become distracted by some good looking guy on the other side of the room because, as we know, he has the attention span of a cocker spaniel. “Captain Jack Harkness. And WHO are YOU?” “Stop it,” the Doctor says reflexively, waving his sonic screwdriver at something on the wall further down the hallway. “Give us a hand with this.” Chrissy: His sonic what? Diandra: Did I forget to mention that? Right. The sonic screwdriver is basically the “Doctor Who” equivalent of a magic wand. I don’t think anyone really knows exactly what it does because the writers basically use it as the ultimate Swiss Army knife that can do any task the writers need it to do. Except, possibly, tighten screws. Or open doors that are made out of wood for some reason. Chrissy: I honestly can’t tell when you’re being serious anymore. Diandra: Well, at this point I honestly don’t know how much of the trivia I’ve stored related to this show is cannon, fan fiction or just theoretical bullshit fanboys came up with in the interim years, so I can’t be certain of anything either. Apparently he’s trying to override the code on some door panel on the premise that this will somehow help them figure out where they are. The door pops open and Jack has to grab him before he falls because apparently the answer is several floors up the silo without any walkways or railings in sight. Martha marvels at the enormous rocket inside the silo and Jack utterly fails to take that low dangling fruit. Chrissy: Speaking of low dangling... Diandra: Too late. The Doctor concludes that these people aren’t refugees, but passengers. Martha remembers that somebody said something about going to Utopia. The Doctor marvels again that in 100 trillion years humans still have the same dream of a “perfect place”. They back out of the missile compartment and the Doctor wonders “but if the universe is falling apart, what does Utopia mean?” Yana stumbles into them and asks which one is the Doctor. Jack points and Yana grabs the Doctors hand and yanks him down the hallway, babbling an excited stream of “good good good!”. Nobody notices the woman in one corner who hisses to show that she has pointy Morlock teeth. Nice security you have there, guys. “Chan welcome tho,” the Dwarf Na’vi greets as they all come crashing into Yana’s lab. Yana starts pointing out all the major pieces of equipment to The Doctor while Martha introduces herself to “Chan Chantho tho”. Jack holds out his hand and says “Captain Jack Harkness...” The Doctor stops mid-conversation with Yana on the other side of the room to call out “stop it!” “Can’t I say hello to ANYONE?” Jack complains. Chantho giggles that she’s not protesting. Oh, don’t mind him. He’s just jealous. Jack goes ahead and proves The Doctor isn’t just being overly cautious by winking at her and saying “maybe later.” Yeah. I think I saw a line from The Doctor in a fanfic somewhere that went something like “people have gotten pregnant from you just saying ‘hello’.” It was perfect. The Doctor and Yana are talking about the rocket in the silo and escape velocities and unifying impact patterns. Basically science science bullshit science. “What do you think, Doctor,” Yana asks eagerly. “Any ideas?” The Doctor turns in a circle, looking at all the equipment around him and says “well, um...basically...sort of...not a clue.” Chrissy: You listening, Martha? He said it again. Diandra: Martha hasn’t been around all that long so it’s possible she just hasn’t noticed that he tends to bullshit when he has no idea what’s happening to protect his ego or something. Chrissy: Oh, well, Time Lord males really aren’t all that different from human males then, are they? Diandra: Nope. Yana looks crestfallen. Really? Nothing at all? The Doctor uses the excuse that he’s not from anywhere around these parts so this is all totally foreign to him. He apologizes. Yana says no, it’s his fault, he just thought that since he can find so little help these days... Their conversation is interrupted by Martha hauling the disembodied hand in a tank from Jack’s backpack and spluttering that Jack is carrying a HAND in a JAR around with him. The Doctor runs over and notes that it’s actually HIS hand. “I said I had a Doctor Detector,” Jack says. Oh, I thought you meant...something...else. Chrissy: Eh, that’s more like a divining rod. It just points in the direction of The Doctor. Diandra: Oh, is that what it’s supposed to do? Well, it must be broken because it seems to point in the direction of anything with a pulse. Chantho asks if this is some sort of tradition among their people. Martha yelps that no, it most certainly isn’t, and wait a minute what do you mean it’s YOUR HAND? The Doctor says it’s a long story: he lost it in a swordfight on Christmas day. We get a brief flash of the alien sending it and his sword flying over the edge of a spaceship. Martha sarcastically says oh, what then, you just grew another hand? “Uh, yeah. I did, yeah,” he says. She gives him a look that she probably shouldn’t still be giving him after all the bullshit she’s seen in the past, what...ten episodes? He just waves at her with the re-grown hand. Yana asks the most appropriate question for this line of inquiry: what species is the Doctor, exactly? The Doctor says he’s the last of the Time Lords and is disappointed when Yana and Chantho look like they’ve never heard of such a thing. “Not even a myth? Blimey, the end of the universe is a bit homely.” There’s that ego again... Chantho says she’s supposedly the last of her species too. Yana elaborates that she – his assistant and good friend - is a survivor of the Malmooth and this planet (Malcassairo) used to be theirs until they all died and the current population of savage humans took over. Chrissy: I see you’ve given up on deciphering what they’re saying on your own and have resorted to using a disc with subtitles. Diandra: Yeah, you try understanding some of this gibberish. Padra Fet Shafe Cane? Steve is so much easier. Martha is still stuck on the fact that The Doctor got his hand cut off and grew a new one. Oh, honey. How did you ever survive this long? The Doctor holds out the hand for her to shake and reassures her that it’s okay now. Jack asks Yana what those “Beastie Boys” outside are. I like that nickname. Thank you, Jack. Yana says they call them the “Futurekind”. There’s a myth/fear that they are what humanity will become unless they successfully reach Utopia. The Doctor asks what Utopia is, exactly. Yana scoffs that EVERYBODY knows what Utopia is. Where the hell has he been? The Doctor tries to claim he’s a hermit and this news never managed to penetrate the rock he was living under. Yana wonders how a hermit has friends traveling with him. “Hermits United. We meet up every ten years, swap stories about caves. It’s good fun,” the Doctor says totally deadpan. Yana just shrugs this ridiculous nonsense off and escorts them over to the gravitational field navigation system, where a red light is blinking in the corner of what looks like a blue tinted elevation map of the surface of the moon. Yana says they got a message originating from that point “far beyond the Condensate Wilderness” and past the “Dark Matter Reefs” over and over again. It just said “come to Utopia”. They’re not quite sure what’s out there, but it could be some sort of colony or city or maybe just an unmarked van with a sign that says ‘free candy’ or something. Whatever. WE’RE GETTING DESPERATE OUT HERE. Yana says the Science Foundation created Project Utopia thousands of years ago to try to find a way to preserve the last of mankind, so, you know, maybe they finally found something. He thinks it’s worth checking it out anyway. The Doctor agrees and starts babbling about the signal modulating and navigation matrixes but Yana is making pained faces and the drumming sound in his head starts drowning out all other noise on the soundtrack. After The Doctor tries a few times to get his attention he finally shakes himself out of it and mutters something about having a lot of work to do and if they could just leave him to it that’d be great thanks. The Doctor asks if he’s okay. He snaps that he’s fine, just busy. The Doctor notes that the only problem with his plan is that the whatchamathingy that powers the rocket isn’t working so they’re stuck on this planet. Yana insists that they’ll find a way, damnit. “You haven’t told them, have you,” the Doctor asks rhetorically. Yana slumps into a chair and says it’s better to let them have some hope. The Doctor agrees and then there’s this moment where he’s coming around the counter toward Yana and he starts to take his coat off and Jack grabs it almost before it’s even all the way off and throws it over his arm and looks at him like “what?” I can’t tell if The Doctor is surprised that Jack is acting like his minder after everything that’s happened or if David Tennant didn’t know John Barrowman was going to do that and is trying to process why the coat just suddenly disappeared. If it’s the second one then kudos to both of them for totally making it look intentional. The Doctor says this “new science” might be beyond him, but a “boost reversal circuit” has always been and will always be “a circuit which reverses the boost” so, you know, let’s try this. He waves the sonic over something, pushes a button and the system comes online suddenly with a bleating alarm and blinking lights. Chrissy: Is reversing the boost circuit like reversing the polarity? Diandra: Quasi science writers use whenever they need some magical fix-all to make something work? Yeah, probably. Chrissy: Did that originate with “Doctor Who”? Diandra: No, it was being used at least two decades prior to the original series, but “Doctor Who” fans like to claim ownership of it anyway. Chantho gasps that it’s working in case we haven’t figured that out ourselves. Yana asks how the hell he did that. The Doctor says “oh, I forgot to tell you. I’m brilliant.” And I’m not even paraphrasing that. This is why I loved his next companion Donna. She didn’t fawn over him and stroke his ego at ALL. He needed to have that balloon deflated a little. Everyone starts running around futzing with machinery while the refugees outside pack up everything, responding to the automated voice telling them to get ready to board. The guards outside secure the gate and all disappear inside while the Futurekind/Morlocks watch, snarling. Martha finds the little kid – whose name is apparently Creet - in the crowd piling onto the rocket and asks if he has family around. Nope. None. Screw that name, I’m calling him Oliver Twist. The Futurekind woman from earlier makes a reappearance and snarls at the camera. You know, just in case we forgot she existed. The Doctor sniffs at some sort of cord coming out of a techie- looking glass panel and Yana confirms that it’s made of gluten extract. “It binds the neutralino map together”. The Doctor is impressed that Yana has built this whole system out of food and whatever random crap he had lying around. He calls him a genius, which he points out is not a title he throws around randomly because, you know, most humans are like talking monkeys to him. Okay, so he doesn’t say that, exactly, but it’s implied. Yana says he’s basically a fake because even his title, Professor, is nonsense. There hasn’t been any sort of university for a thousand years or so, education not exactly being a priority when the entire species is dwindling into extinction, bouncing from one safe haven to another like the survivors in Battlestar Galactica. The Doctor says well, if he had been born in a different era he would have been revered through all the galaxies. Then he notes that the whatchamathingy can’t be activated on board the rocket. It has to be triggered from here in the lab. So obviously Yana is planning to stay behind and sacrifice himself for the rest of humanity. Yana says yeah, well, technically he won’t be alone because no matter how many times he tries to get Chantho to go she absolutely won’t leave him. Aww. A guard comes on the loudspeaker to announce that they found “the Doctor’s blue box”. Jack gestures at one of the video screens that shows the TARDIS sitting in a storage room or something. The Doctor says he might just have a way for Yana to get out after all. Yana stares at the screen, the drum beats in his head whanging away. Sometime later...I guess they moved the TARDIS into the lab because the Doctor yanks some sort of cord from the floor under the control column and runs it out the door and over to a circuit or something, plugging it in. He says it should give them some extra power. Martha and Chantho come back in the room carrying some sort of equipment and Chantho asks Yana if he’s okay because he is still slumped in a corner looking like he’s having a minor heart attack. Yana barks that he’s fine and tells her to “get on with it.” Jack spits some scientific bullshit instructions at Martha and tells her to do it “quicker” this time. “Yes, sir,” she mutters as she goes to do it. Don’t mind him, Martha. Being the boss for the past hundred years or so has gone to his head. The Doctor crouches next to Yana and tells him he doesn’t have to keep working because they can handle it. Yana insists that he’s FINE. He just has a headache thanks to this really annoying NOISE in his head. The Doctor asks what sort of noise. “The sound of drums.” Yana says he’s heard it all his life, but they seem to be getting louder and closer now. Then he shrugs and gets up to go back to work. Chrissy: Most people just hear voices. Diandra: And there are pills to make them stop. Elsewhere, Martha asks Chantho how long she’s been with Yana. Chantho says seventeen years and she “adores” him but she doesn’t think he even notices. “Tell me about it,” Martha mutters. Oh, I’m sure The Doctor notices, Martha. He’s just terrible at relationships. “Chan I am happy to serve tho.” Martha finally asks what has probably crossed everybody’s mind by now: does she REALLY have to talk like that? What would happen if she decided to drop the “chans” and “thos” around her sentences. “Chan that would be rude tho!” Chantho looks over her shoulder nervously. Martha concludes that it’s her species’ idea of cursing and tries to push her to do it. Just this once. She won’t tell anybody. Because she was totally THAT GIRL in school. You know, the one who handed out cigarettes or pot or chewing tobacco behind the bleachers. Chrissy: Chewing tobacco? Seriously? What the hell school did you go to? Diandra: Okay, so I never met any dealers, but yes, I did have a kid in one class who chewed tobacco. And a Goth chem lab partner who smelled like an ashtray. Chrissy: Is that why you hung around the gay kids? Diandra: Theater kids. Some of them were straight. And yes. Chantho – who is obviously entirely incapable of standing up to peer pressure - caves and says “no”, then giggles like a schoolgirl. The head guard...I think...contacts Yana via the ancient- looking monitor system that keeps breaking up and Yana tells him they’re ready, they just need him to “connect the couplings” so they can launch. The monitor starts breaking up again and Yana snarls about this stupid thing needing constant rebooting. Well, that’s what you get for switching to Macs. Chrissy: Nah, rebooting doesn’t help. You have to buy a whole new one if it starts acting up. Diandra: Or just quits. Or won’t run anything because it’s supposedly completely outdated despite being only a year and a half old. Martha offers to switch places with him and Yana tells the guy to “send your man inside. We’ll keep the levels down from here.” The feed on the screen switches to the inside of what looks like a nuclear reactor as a guy in full hazmat gear steps inside. Everything is red in case you couldn’t tell from the suit that it’s probably dangerous. Yana instructs Jack to keep the dials below red. The Doctor squints at the screen and asks where that room is. Yana says it’s right under the rocket and the whole thing is flooded with “stet radiation”, which is safe enough for that guy to work in there as long as they keep the dials below red. The poor doomed schmuck goes to...connect the couplings I guess, reaching into the first of a series of tubes. Something moves and an alarm goes off. Yana barks at Jack to keep the level STEADY. Red shirt goes to work on the second tube. And then the Futurekind woman nobody seems to notice despite the fact that she’s constantly hissing and skulking around rips open a control panel and starts flipping switches. Lots of beeping and blinking lights. Chantho yelps that they’re losing power and everyone starts running around to try to override the system and keep the radiation from flooding the red room. Or whatever. Head of security yells at red shirt to get the hell out of there, but of course he doesn’t listen. Security corners Futurekind woman, but the camera cuts away before they can shoot her because kid friendly. Jack grabs a couple live wires, yelping something about jumping the override system and jabs them together, electrocuting himself. Yes, kids, don’t try this at home. Red shirt finishes the third coupling and just vaporizes, his empty suit crumpling to the ground while the head of security screams. Chantho shoves one of the live wires away from Jack as Martha begins CPR. Because she learned nothing from last time, apparently. The Doctor just stands back and watches. “The chamber is flooded with radiation, yes,” he asks Yana. Yana, who is clearly shaken at having witnessed two deaths in the past minute, moans that the engines won’t start without the couplings...coupled so it looks like they did this all for nothing. The Doctor tells Martha to leave Jack alone. She yelps that she has to TRY and goes back to giving him mouth to mouth. The Doctor – probably knowing what’s likely to happen if Jack resurrects while she’s doing that – drags her away and turns to Yana. “Strikes me, Professor, you’ve got a room which no man can enter without dying. Is that correct?” This is, of course, Jack’s cue to gasp back to life. Martha looks at him like she’s still not quite piecing all of this together. The Doctor just calmly says “I think I’ve got just the man.” Well, no, technically you don’t HAVE him since you let that ship sail a good two years ago. “Was someone kissing me,” Jack asks. And we cut to Jack and the Doctor running down a couple corridors because it’s been a few minutes since we made David Tennant do wind sprints. They reach the control room or wherever the head of security is and The Doctor tells him to go get on the rocket, they’ll take it from here. He starts fiddling with switches and buttons on the control panel when he notices that Jack is stripping down to his undershirt. “What are you taking your clothes off for?” Because that’s his natural response to being alone in a room with you would be my guess. Chrissy: Can’t really blame him. Diandra: Can’t really complain either. Chrissy: Hmm...no... Jack says he’s “going in”. The Doctor says he really needs to work on his foreplay. Oh, wait, no he doesn’t. He just points out that judging by what happened to the last guy, the radiation doesn’t affect clothes, just flesh. Jack shrugs and says yeah, well, “I look good though.” Yeah. Whatever. The Doctor just goes back to poking at the control panel. “How long have you known,” Jack asks. “Ever since I ran away from you,” The Doctor answers. Oh, so we’re admitting that now? Chrissy: Known that he couldn’t die or known that he wanted to tear your clothes off put that mouth of his to better use? Diandra: Wow. You’ve just got a whole porn movie going in your head right now, don’t you? Chrissy: Oh, like your thoughts didn’t get away from you just then too? Diandra: I’m a slash writer. I basically always have pretty men going at it in my head. Anyway. Jack goes into the radiation room and The Doctor stands by the door to watch him through the little viewing window. Okay, so how do these rules of Jack’s immortality work again? Because it’s not like the other guy fell over and had a heart attack or anything. He VAPORIZED. Like, within a minute. So Jack has a delayed reaction to deadly things on top of the ability to resurrect after he dies? Chrissy: It’s so cute that you think there are actually rules to this. Martha jabs keys on the broken down Apple and mutters that the video went down for good with that last surge. She asks if the Doctor can hear her. The Doctor responds with this unintentionally hilarious line: “receiving, yeah. He’s inside.” Chrissy: Well, that was quick. Hope he was well lubricated or that would have been painful. Diandra: I’m just going to go hide under my desk until this is all over. Chrissy: No, you started this! You can damn well finish it! Yana marvels that Jack is still alive and asks what sort of man can withstand that kind of skin melting radiation. Martha shrugs and says she’s only just met him. Apropos of nothing she adds that The Doctor picks up all sorts of people when he’s traveling through time and space. Yana stares into space and mutters “he travels in time?” He wanders away as Martha babbles about the TARDIS and don’t ask her how it works but The Doctor calls it the sports car of space/time ships. He stares at the TARDIS in the corner while voices in his head whisper to him. Meanwhile. Jack has his arm in tube number three and The Doctor has decided now is a good time to continue that conversation. “When did you realize?” Jack says he’s always known he wanted to do filthy things to...no, wait. That was Chrissy’s comment. Chrissy: HAHA! Jack says he got in a fight on Ellis Island in 1892 that ended in him getting shot through the heart. He thought it was pretty strange that he woke up after that but it took a few more deaths for him to get the idea. “Fell off a cliff, trampled by horses, World War I, World War II, poison, starvation, a stray javelin.” The Doctor finally winces on that last one. “And all that time you knew.” The Doctor says that’s why he left him behind. Because he’s “wrong”. “You’re a fixed point in time and space. You’re a fact. That’s never meant to happen.” Apparently he has a hard time being around Jack without everything in his skinny Time Lord body screaming at him to throw him on the nearest flat surface and GODDAMN IT I NEED TO STOP DOING THIS. Chrissy: Resistance is futile. Diandra: I’m starting to wish I never asked you to stop slapping me when my inner slasher starts running away with the recap. Chrissy: Inner? Oh, honey, she’s been out of that closet for years. There’s no putting her back in now. The Doctor says that’s why they are where they are. Even the TARDIS was instinctively trying to shake him off. “Flew all the way to the end of the universe just to get rid of you.” Jack concludes – as he finally finishes with tube three – that he’s prejudiced. The Doctor’s all ‘huh, I never thought of it like that.’ “Shame on you,” Jack says. Hmm, yes he probably deserves to be punished for that, sir. Will your hand be enough or will you need oh Jesus Christ there she goes again. Chrissy: Thanks for that mental image. Diandra: [puts her head between her knees and moans] Chrissy: Oh, stop fighting it. It’s a lot more fun if you just go with it. What’s the safe word, by the way? Diandra: Padra Fet Shafe Caine? Jack says his last memory from his time as a mortal is of facing down three Daleks and then suddenly waking up surrounded by piles of dust. As opposed to his usual waking up all sticky, hungover and surrounded by people he doesn’t know. Chrissy: See? Isn’t it fun? Diandra: See what? This is Jack we’re talking about here. I’m assuming that’s actually happened to him at least twice. The Doctor explains that Rose “opened the heart of the TARDIS and absorbed the time vortex itself”. Jack has no idea what that means. Yeah, join the club. Meanwhile, Derek Jacobi is sitting in the corner crying and quietly upstaging everyone. The Doctor says no one is meant to have that kind of power – “if a Time Lord did that, he’d become a god. A vengeful god.” But, you know, she was human, so... We get a brief flash of her with glowing vortex eyes intoning that she is the bringer of life and Jack gasping awake for what would prove to be the first in a very long string of resurrections. “She brought you back to life, but she couldn’t control it. She brought you back forever.” Chrissy: So basically everything you said in the first recap of “Torchwood”. Diandra: And yet it still only barely makes sense. The Doctor thinks it’s appropriate that that was basically the final act of the Time War. Chrissy: I’m going to be sorry I asked, but...Time War? Diandra: Nobody really fully understands that one because it happened in the fifteen years or so the show wasn’t on the air and the writers are just making it up as they go along. Basically, it sounds like the Daleks and the Time Lords spent nobody-knows-how-long bouncing back and forth through time fighting and refighting battles and screwing around with history. The Doctor claims he ended it by destroying his home planet and killing everyone. Chrissy: And what planet is that? Diandra: Gallifrey. Chrissy: I see. Hence why he knows he’s the last of his kind? Diandra: Yep. He murdered the rest for the greater good. Chrissy: Kid friendly, huh? Diandra: English kids are smarter and mature faster than American kids. Yana has started muttering to himself. Or the voices in his head. Not really sure which. Jack asks if Rose can change him back. The Doctor explains the whole “sucked it back out of her like snake venom and regenerated” hoo-ha to him. And, you know, she’s trapped on a parallel world so it’s not like they could get to her even if she had miraculously survived this long with god-like powers. Jack admits that he went to her family’s estate a couple times in the nineties just to see her. Of course he couldn’t say hi to her or anything because that would mess up the timeline. Right. Because everyone in Whoverse is such a stickler for not messing with timelines. Sure. How many of you are in 1941 again? The Doctor looks at Jack with his arm in the last tube and asks if he wants to die. “This one’s a little stuck,” Jack says. Chrissy: Like I said: lubricant. Diandra: Stop it. The Doctor gives him a pointed look and he says he thought he did once, but now he’s not sure. And hey, now that he knows that humans are still surviving way out here at the end of all things... The Doctor points out that he might be out there somewhere. “I could go meet myself,” Jack laughs. “Well, it’s the only man you’re ever going to be happy with,” the Doctor actually says. Jack just grins and says this new regeneration is kind of an ass. Except he pronounces it “cheeky” for some reason. Yana is still staring into space, words like “Dalek” and “TARDIS” and “regeneration” swirling around in his head, when Martha FINALLY notices he’s been awfully quiet for a long time. She and Chantho flit over to him to ask if he’s okay. “Time travel,” he mutters, still crying. “They say there was time travel back in the old days. I never believed...but what would I know? Stupid old man. Never could keep time.” Then he pulls out a pocket watch and bemoans that even this thing never worked right. Oh, crap. Here comes another detail I didn’t explain earlier. Right. So, a few episodes back The Doctor went through some sort of gene therapy bullshit to make himself human and he stored his Time Lord personality/memories/whatever in a pocket watch that he gave to Martha to keep an eye on until the aliens chasing him gave up or died or he was better equipped to fight them or...something. It was actually one of the best episodes of the show up to that point. Possibly because David Tennant was so awesome in it. Anyway, we get a flashback of him giving Martha the watch and explaining, while we get a good look at the loopy Gallifreyan script on the front of it, that “this watch is me”. Yana is still muttering about time and totally oblivious to the way she is staring at this identical watch all wide-eyed. She asks if she can have a look at it. He shakes himself back to reality and says yeah, sure, but it’s just an old relic. She asks where he got it. He visibly tries to remember and says he was found with it as a child “on the coast of the Silver Devastation.” She asks if he ever opened it. He doesn’t know why he would bother since it’s broken. She points out that he can’t know for sure that it’s broken if he’s never opened it. He claims it’s stuck. Then he notices how distressed she’s getting looking at the symbols on the front of it and asks if it matters. She yelps no, it’s fine. Really. Probably nothing. Hey, does anybody know where the Doctor is? I thought I heard him calling me just now. She scampers off and Yana frowns. Yeah, that wasn’t suspicious at all. Jack finishes the last tube and comes back out to the control room while the Doctor uses a phone that is ancient even by today’s standards to verify that everyone is on board the rocket. “Two minutes to ignition!” He and Jack start running back and forth flipping random switches while the Voice of God starts counting down from 100. Martha runs in and The Doctor excitedly explains to her that the whatchamathingy is a “gravity pulse” that will launch the rocket into space. It’s a bit primitive, but... Martha’s all ‘yeah, that’s nice. I think Yana might be a Time Lord.’ They run through the abbreviated explanation of the watch and what it does for Jack’s...and possibly some members of the audiences’ benefit. The Doctor says that’s impossible because all the Time Lords are dead and keeps running around flipping switches and pushing buttons. Jack points out that it’s possible another one survived and nobody would know because they thought he was human. The Doctor loses his shit and demands – in a half-crazed shriek – that Martha tell him exactly what Yana said. She says not much but he was looking at the watch like he could barely see it. “Like that perception filter thing.” Oh, I forgot to mention that the Time Lord watch uses the same technology as Torchwood’s invisible lift to prevent the human version of the Time Lord from opening it too soon. The Doctor asks if Yana can see the watch now. Elsewhere, Yana is staring at the watch, tracing the symbols on the front with his finger. So I’m going to go with yes. The voices babble about Time Lords and vortexes and drums and suddenly one voice says very clearly “open me, you human fool! Open me and summon the light and receive my majesty!” Chrissy: Funny, that’s very similar to something Jack probably said earlier... Diandra: STOP IT. Meanwhile, Jack is postulating that this would be the perfect place for a Time Lord to hide if he escaped the Time War. “Think what the Face of Boe said,” Martha adds. “His dying words. He said...” She is interrupted by an explosion as the countdown reaches zero and the rocket takes off. Yana opens the watch and golden tendrils of magic light spill out. I really can’t think of any other way to describe that. The Doctor has a flashback of The Face of Boe saying “you are not alone”, except each word is interrupted by the first letter of the word flashing on the screen so anyone older than, say, three REALLY GETS that this spells YANA. And then we get a shot of the name typed out on the ancient Apple screen just to really sledgehammer it home. Chrissy: Are we going to talk about the fact that this piece of exposition is coming from a giant, evil- looking face? Diandra: He’s not evil. And there was never really any explanation for him beyond ‘he’s a giant face in a tank’. He died earlier in the season after helping The Doctor and Martha save everyone on a planet inhabited by cat people in the year 5 billion and something. Or maybe that was Earth. Chrissy: ... Diandra: Yeah, the writers of this show might be on drugs. Chrissy: Might be? Chantho creeps toward The Artist Formerly Known As Yana and asks if he’s okay. He stares at her as his eyes go from Blank Stare to Holy Shit He’s Evil Run! The Doctor picks up the phone to verify that the rocket launched successfully. “Affirmative,” the guy on the other end says. “We’ll see you in Utopia!” Yeah, not. Chrissy: Is this like “The Island” where Utopia turns out to be some nonexistent place invented to placate people into embracing their deaths? Diandra: No, it’s more like the Holy Grail: a legend that may or may not exist but people keep looking for it anyway. Chrissy: I thought the Holy Grail was Mary Magdalene. Diandra: Probably, but let’s not get into that discussion here or we’ll never finish this recap. He hangs up and goes to run out of the control room, arriving at the door one second after TAFKAY pushes a button to slam the door shut. Chantho splutters that he just locked them in. TAFKAY says don’t worry. When one door closes, another one opens. And he flips the switch to deactivate the fence keeping the Futurekind out. Chantho – ever the helpful substitute to the Exposition Fairy – yelps that he’s letting the Futurekind get in, fluttering uselessly around him while he continues flipping switches and fiddling dials. Jack and The Doctor manage to get the door to the control room open. Martha just kind of stands around looking pretty but useless. Speaking of useless...Chantho attempts to point a weapon at TAFKAY (can we say his name so I can stop calling him that?!) and whimpers that she’s sorry, but she has to stop him now. Yeah, right. That’ll work. He looks at the strange gun with the enormous barrel and says ‘oh, good. Now I can claim it was self defense.’ He picks up one of the live wires Jack was electrocuting himself with earlier. The Futurekind have gotten in and are chasing the Three Musketeers around. Chrissy: Musketeers? Really? Diandra: How many famous groups of three do you know that might possibly apply to them? It was either that or the Stooges. TAFKAY is marveling that in ALL THE YEARS Chantho worked beside him she NEVER ONCE thought to say a word about that stupid watch. Hey, it’s not her fault you didn’t leave instructions like the Doctor did with Martha before rewriting your DNA and flying to the end of the universe. And as long as he’s getting things off his chest, he growls that her stupid “chans” and “thos” have been DRIVING HIM CRAZY. Chrissy: In her defense, he was probably halfway there already. Diandra: Only halfway? She says she’s really really REALLY sorry and calls him Professor, to which he barks that that’s NOT HIS NAME. He takes his sweet time menacing her some more while he explains that Professor Yana was a disguise that worked so well that even HE forgot who he was. The whole point of the chameleon watch is that you’re SUPPOSED to forget who you are, genius. But whatever. Chantho takes the cue and asks who he really is then. Tho. TAFKAY channels his inner Bond villain and hisses “I...am...the Master” before jabbing the wire at her. Chrissy: Are we supposed to know who that is? Diandra: Only if you saw the episodes of “Doctor Who” from the 70s and possibly the 80s. I didn’t. According to Wikipedia, he’s a renegade Time Lord who is the Doctor’s archenemy. Chrissy: So Lex Luthor. Diandra: That works for me. The Musketeers are still running. The Futurekind are still chasing them. The Master is looking at the Doctor’s hand in the tank and smirking evilly. The Musketeers arrive outside the door and The Doctor starts waving the sonic over it, frantically shrieking for somebody to let them in while Jack tries to hack the keypad lock. “Whatever you do, don’t open that watch,” he yelps. The Master pops some sort of motherboard from a computer and has a good chuckle over this whole Project Utopia nonsense. He heads for the TARDIS and just yanks the power cord the Doctor connected earlier before Chantho – who he apparently neglected to make sure was really dead – gets one last burst of energy and shoots him with what is apparently some sort of laser gun. Mission accomplished, she falls over dead and the Musketeers burst into the room just in time to see the Master stumble into the TARDIS and lock the door. The Doctor tries to unlock it again, but the Master has apparently done something to the lock (or plot convenience states that the key and the sonic must not work on the door to the TARDIS for the next five minutes). The Doctor gives up and starts shouting at the Master to PLEASE let him in. “Everything’s changed! It’s only the two of us! We’re the only ones left!” Oh, yeah, that’ll work. Martha finishes using her doctor skills to determine that Chantho is, in fact, dead and goes back to help Jack hold the door shut since now it won’t lock again and the Futurekind are attempting to break it down. The Master is grumbling about the fact that he’s been killed by an alien girl. Because of course the Doctor’s number one enemy is a sexist, racist egomaniac. He decides hey, if the Doctor can keep making himself younger and prettier then so can he. He throws his head back and the yellow light of regeneration bursts from his face and arms as Derek Jacobi’s face melts into John Simm’s (or, you know, Brother Cadfael turns into Sam Tyler. Whatever). Chrissy: I highly doubt the number of people who watched both of those shows is greater than, say, you and three other people. Diandra: I never said I watched “Life on Mars”. I just remember his character was played by Jason O’Mara in the US remake. Chrissy: Ah, yes. Jason O’Mara. AKA, the reason you watched that horrible Katherine Heigel movie and that boring show with Dennis Quaid. Diandra: You could have just said “the hot Irish guy” you know. The regeneration apparently causes the newly de-aged Master to pass out briefly. He wakes up next to the Doctor’s severed hand and runs around the console laughing like a lunatic. Chrissy: Like? He punches some sort of intercom button, gets momentarily distracted by the sound of his new voice, and says “why don’t we stop and have a nice little chat while I tell you all my plans and you can work out a way to stop me?” Diandra: So in answer to your question earlier: yes, possibly like Lex Luthor. But more importantly he’s like every Bond villain ever. Chrissy: Only if he had put the Doctor in a faulty death machine first. Martha somehow hears him over the sound of the Futurekind clawing and snarling and yelps “hold on, I know that voice...” Thanks, you can put down the Exposition Fairy’s wand and go back to doing what you were doing now, dear. We’ll come back to that later. The Doctor starts groveling. Please open the door? Pretty please? Think about what you’re doing? “Use my name,” Moriarty taunts. “Master,” the Doctor whimpers. Chrissy: Excuse me? I didn’t hear you. Now bend over and put your hands behind your back... Diandra: You might wanna take it slow there. This is the first of a three-parter. We’ll have plenty more time for S&M jokes. Chrissy: I’m sorry, did you say something? I was busy picturing David Tennant in leather cuffs and a ball gag. Diandra: This is why I never ask questions about your sex life. Chrissy: No, the correct response there was “so is Jack.” Diandra: Well, that goes without saying. “I’m sorry,” the Doctor adds and I feel it bears repeating here: he is WHISPERING. Either Time Lord hearing is MUCH better than human hearing or the Master is an exception here because he snaps “tough!” and starts pushing buttons and twisting knobs to rev up the TARDIS. The Doctor – completely ignoring Jack’s pleas for assistance with the whole “Futurekind trying to kill us” sideplot over by the door - points the sonic at the front door and sparks leap out of the center console inside. The Master says “oh, no you don’t”, flips the main switch and tells the Doctor to have fun with the end of the universe. The Doctor makes pained faces as the TARDIS makes the piano wire whining noises and disappears. To be continued. And I promise we will try to behave ourselves next time. Chrissy: Speak for yourself. After that episode I make no promises.