...Captain Jack is BACK, and this time its PERSONAL!!!...
...i may have made that bit up, again!!!...
...he's certainly missed it!!!...
...whatever 'IT' is, ho ho...
... so why has this thread partially repeated itself???...
ARrrGHHGH !! best episode ever !
john simms, david tennant AND captain jack ?!?
excuse me my brain just exploded.
Wow...that was most unexpectedly good.
Great - but the baddie cried AGAIN!
M@
Wasn't the baddy when he cried...sort of...
While clearly not 'best episode ever' it may well be RTD's best episode (did he write it?).
Yet again we have more bloody Rose references, give it a rest mate.
Episode let down by crappy 'futureblokes' and the obvious quarry setting but saved by good performances, Simm stole the show and I look forward to seeing more of him in the future.
One question, didn't the master use up all his lives, I hope this gets explained and isn't just forgotten about.
I'd imagine it'd be forgotten about, after all they didn't explain the Daleks past history when they brought them back. At the best I'd say you'd get a single line explaination.
I don't see the problem tbh, it is after all a time travel show and you can't expect a family TV show to explain events in a show that happened 11 years ago.
They didn't explain how he survived in 1996, so I wouldn't expect an explanation now.
Can someone give me some Master background/history?
I know nothing
There was some truly awful future-bollocks in the first half, which is what stopping it being an amazing episode instead of a merely great one. The culprits I'm talking about are things like guns that look suspiciously like AK47s/Dragunovs and fire bullets. Am I supposed to believe that one hundred trillion years into the future no-one bothered to invent a super-laser that's also easily buildable?
Oooh, I'm all ranty. I actually enjoyed it.
Really enjoyed that- top stuff!
That was bloody brilliant! Can't wait for next weeks now.
The Master started off in the John Pertwee years, the actor Roger Delgado died in a car crash but the character was eventually regenerated and was in it on and off until the end. In The Five Doctors the Timelords offer The Master a full set of 13 new regenerations if he'll help them, so they're pretty flexible about the whole issue : ) They're Timelords they can regenerate all they bloody want!
not a bad episode for an RTD one - the fanboy in me liked the Master stuff, not sure what a general audience would make if it though - cackling villainy, fanwankery, flashbackery and all.
I alway thought that Tmielords had 12 'natural'
regenerations, but had long since mastered the technology to reboot the cycle - so renegades like the Doctor and the Master would be limited, but Troughtons(?) claim that the Timelords can live forever barring accidents also holds true.
Expections were low after last week's brilliance and Radio Times reviewed saying this was a clunker but it's actually pretty damned good. There's even an explanation for humans in the year trillion gazzilion still looking no more evolved than at present, it may not be a brilliant explanation but at least the issue was recognised. Despite all the elements for once RTD holds it together and even whips up a big desert of a satisfying climax and cliffhanger.
Less so with the contemporary truck and other gubbins. If I was going to be picky I'd complain about the ultra-high distintigrating radiation room with no airlock or decontam facility from which Jack emerges without troubling the others. But that would be picky. Perhaps he's radiation teflon as well.
Great choice in Jacobi as the old Master as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_%28Doctor_Who%29
Just activate that link for James...
Link: The Master on WP ...
"it may not be a brilliant explanation but at least the issue was recognised"
This is referred to as 'hanging a lantern', and is basically where a writer realises he can't explain away a glaringly obvious continuity error or disguise a rip-off from a film and so inserts a reference to aforesaid error or movie so as to diffuse criticism - without actually going so far as to include a line of dialogue where a character says something like "That sounds like a load of fucking bollocks, and it amazes me you think no-one but apologists and the easily-pleased will notice."
Was it just me, or have I seen that cliffhanger loads of times? It was the cliffhanger to season 2 of Star Trek: Voyager for a start, so at least the writer was ripping off something obscure.
I miss Si Spurrier on these Dr Who threads as the lone voice of sanity trying to point out what a load of shite this show is - shouting at a world of pod-people while running headlong into heavy traffic.
...such as making a joke about the lameness of 'reversing the polarities'...while doing just that! (The Lazarus Experiment).
I would state what a load of bollocks the episode is myself but I haven't seen it - I trust the judgement here yet despite this I just can't bring myself to watch a RTD episode with Captain Jack, the unsurprising return of an old adversary, more Rose references, set in the far future of Earth and with a storyline far to ambitious far beyone the writer's capabilities (the enslavement of the whole planet).
I never really followed Dr Who as a kid but really like it now. Could anyone explain the hsitory behind the Master, where he's from, is he a timelord etc. and why is he called the Master?
Cheers
It's going to be damning with faint praise here, but OK, but not great for me. (The last three have been great though, especially Blink)
Best bits were Derek Jacobi and CJ for me, and I'm getting a little weary of the Doctor being such a cock towards some people.
I know it's down to budget, but it annoys me that whatever year they go to, the sets and props tend to look exactly the same.
Not sure about John Simm as the master yet, it was a bit hyper, and I don't think we really need a battle of the Timmy Mallets.
- Steve
"Not sure about John Simm as the master yet, it was a bit hyper, and I don't think we really need a battle of the Timmy Mallets"
I caught a bit of the Confidential, and they said that was something to do with the regeneration process.
It's not a stable process, so he goes a bit manic for a while.
I think he'll settle down. He looks pretty calm (and, indeed, menacing) in the clips from next week's show.
Yet again RTD takes the whole 'it's a sci-fi show so lets make it really sci-fi and set it in the far far future 'cos that'll make it the most sci-fi show ever!!' to the extreme.
I mean, contemporary army trucks and weapons in the year 50 gazillion (or whatever it was supposed to be). I don't think so.
Why not set it within some reasonable time frame, and at least try to make the weapons/vehicles fit in to that.
That was like watching somebody wank off a donkey into a pile of pig shit but the pigshit had a couple of gems in it.
I'm wondering if the truck will play a role in the second part, otherwise for the shots that it was in it wouldn't have cost much to do something more in keeping in CG.
- Steve
"That was like watching somebody wank off a donkey into a pile of pig shit but the pigshit had a couple of gems in it."
!
I've just wee'd myself :-)
Good fun.
Good episode, that brought together lots of different elements of the season into one nice package.
Btw, who wants to bet that with all the (heavy handed) emphasis on the non-linear nature of time throughout this season that what we saw in yesterday's episode is actually what happens to the Master after the next two episodes?
No, I think the point of the non-linear stuff is that the Master, having regenerated, returns to present day earth (where we've already been - notice Martha's comment that "I know that voice"?). From our perspective, his plan has already been set in motion.
First time I watched this I thought it was an average episode redeemed by an excellent climax. Second time around I'm more impressed with the misdirection coupled with clues to what's really going on. It seems this has been planned from the outset 3 years ago. I'm betting the Master will escape in the final episode because the Doctor can't bring himself to kill his own race off twice. I'm also impressed at how such a continuity nightmare has been reintroduced so straightforwardly - you don't need to know anything about the Master's past history other than what's made obvious - he's a Time Lord, he's a baddy, and he's nicked the Doctor's TARDIS.
Year One Squillion trucks, Darth Maul, silly radiation room and Ak-47s aside, I thought that was terrific, and as I had spoliered myself into expecting Simm as the Master, I had no idea who Jacobi would turn out to be (although I was going for Wells' Time Traveller at one point, which might have been interesting..).
Captain Jack works much better as a foil for the Doctor than he does as a lead, and it was nice to see his past tied together (I gave up on Torchwood hald way through, so I don't know if this is a retread..). Martha continues to entertain by virtue of being gorgeously lively. Good fun, I thought.
for anyone who miss out last few mins of Doctor Who last saturday!
Link: Tough!
Yes, the Master had used up all his regenerations and descended into a rotting, skeletal state. However, he used the power of the Keeper of Traken to kickstart the whole process again, taking the form of Tremas (as played by Anthony Ainley). Not sure where Eric Roberts' version fits into the continuity, but then most of what happened in the TV movie can be happily ignored.