Well, in my defense, I watched Christmas special, so who knows how deep the damage to my brain goes?
End of Time Part 1 was really pretty awful, especially considering how fantastic Waters of Mars was. Hopefully part 2 will be better.
I’m expecting lots of crying and hugging.
Indeed, I’m expecting that as well.
After watching most of Part 1 I was left saying WTF? many times, and not in a good way. This felt mostly very clumsily put together and there’s a lot of silly, dumb stuff. Even the mouth-of-doom voiceovers seem at times out of context and mis-placed (though hey, Timothy Dalton!) The Master… oh crap they’re bringing him back, and oh wait, his wife just blew him up? Oh he’s back still! And he eats… people? WTF??? I mean it’s just comically stupid.
— Alan
My biggest WTF moment was when everyone I was with and I thought the Doctor had been shot when they captured the Master…but in the next scene he was all fine and howdoyado…
You can tell how weak it was plot-wise in that the Time Lords reveal has absolutely no bearing on the main narrative. There’s no “Aha! Now that the Time Lords are back, that means this” moment. It’s also odd that there’s nothing in the story that would lead to a Gallifreyan resurrection. They’re just back.
You could argue that they might do something about Multiple Master, but there’s no reason to think that other than “Oh hey, Time Lords.”
Also, the CGI rubber stamp mega-chamber was terrible a decade ago when Star Wars used it. It’s no better now.
Yeah I didn’t understand why if they were shooting at the Doctor they just left him ‘knocked out’ on the ground. Why don’t you knock him out and then shoot him in the head? I guess if you only had one guy after the Master and he was your objective, you’d just want anyone else out of the way as quickly as possible but there were umpteen million guys! That is just sloppy badguy work.
And what was up with the fatherly incest thing?
It’s too bad we lost Obama’s magic cure for the recession due to the Master’s malevolence. But at least we now know that the human race celebrates Christmas to banish the cold of winter, and had an old guy disdainful of churches – that’s pretty much the exact same message as Charlie Brown’s Christmas, so I’m sure this Christmas special will become mandatory annual viewing.
Timothy Dalton would be inspired casting asthe head of the Timelords, if not for the fact that they had him spitting every second word while he addressed Chancellor Palpatine’s assembly. Dude must be evil - he spits when he talks.
If Davies had ended on Waters of Mars it would have at least been leaving on a high note. Now all I can think is thank Odin we only have one more episode before Moffatt. Davies has just gotten more and more creepy and indulgent.
People liked Waters of Mars?
I’m ready for Moffat’s run, but don’t expect him to be perfect. Remember, he’s the one who convinced them to not let the doctor’s daughter stay dead. At least they didn’t make a spin-off of her.
Wow. That was…not good. They took a villain who is The Doctor’s equal in intellect and ingenuity, and they turned him into a superhuman man-eating monster? Why in the hell would they do that? They probably thought it would make him seem more threatening, but in my mind it’s powering him down, turning him from an evil mastermind to a drooling thug. And so far, The Master being insane has added absolutely nothing to this plot - it just feels like a lazy excuse to not come up with a clever scheme for him.
Also, I really, really hope that the remote-locking and phase cloaking of the Tardis doesn’t become standard. To be fair, it is a bit ridiculous that the super-advanced Time Lord doesn’t have the same remote locking tech that we have in our 2005 Honda Civics, but still. I can just see that one in the writers’ room: “Hey, I have a great idea: let’s remove one of The Doctor’s few weaknesses (the Tardis being visible and vulnerable to being carted off) for the sake of a cheap gag!”
I like how Timothy Dalton was spitting all over the place in his little rant at the end, though. That was classy. Are we supposed to take from that that the resurrected Time Lords are mad as well?
Among the items John Simm chewed in this episode: chicken, people, scenery. He was way too over the top here, but I suppose he did the best he could with the ridiculous dialogue and scenarios.
And after years of speculation, it turns out that the woman who took the Master’s ring was…just some lady? Disappointing.
Agreed, what the hell was that? I thought it was his wife, but somehow his wife, while in jail, still managed to put a formula together that didn’t REALLY kill the Master, but made him shoot lightning out of his hands…WTF?
Whoa, that looks a little better…hope Dalton don’t spit everywhere…
It looks better than part 1, yes…but on the other hand it appears as though they’re going to make the Time Lords the villains. They’re drawing overt parallels between Dalton’s character and The Master’s mad pursuit of immortality (“Never die, never die!”) which means that the people The Doctor has been mourning since the restart of the series are actually closer in character to The Doctor’s nemesis than they are to him.
The Time Lords have never been particularly close in character to the Doctor, though.
I have to agree with everyone else, Moffat can’t come soon enough!
Typical RTD nonsense really, though without the homosexual themes. Still, Captain Jack is in Part 2, so there is plenty of time yet. It goes without saying that there will be some form of deus ex machina to save the final five minutes of part 2. The Obama was utterly, and undeniably filled with cheese.
Getting the Time Lords back would be quite interesting, except they would no doubt just be a race of evil, mad people.
I concur with the hope that Moffat will bring back some quality to Doctor Who - these last few specials have reminded me why I stopped watching the series!
Enjoy disturbing thoughts:
