Previously: The Master was evil; John Simm was great.
—
Last of the Time Lords
Marines: We head straight into DOO WEE OOOH after the previouslies, and then a title card lets us know that this episode picks up one year after the previous one. A man standing on a beach signals to a row boat that is approaching the shore with a lamp. Martha gets off the boat and runs up to the man. She asks his name (Tom Milligan) and but he doesn’t need to ask for hers: she’s the famous Martha Jones. He asks how long it’s been since she’s been in Britain. 365 days. “It’s been a long year.”
Can I just say that I didn’t notice on my previous watch how much Martha goes through? She spent months with the Doctor living as a maid when he was a human. Months working at a shop to support herself and the Doctor when they were facing the Weeping Angels and now a year after the Master’s rise to power? God bless Martha Jones and I’m sorry I ever thought she was a lesser companion.
Kirsti: Basically, if you hate on Martha Jones and how she’s just a boring, lovesick companion, that paragraph up there is my retaliation.
Mari: Martha tells Tom that she has to see Professor Docherty. Tom asks questions but Martha says the more he knows, the more he’s at risk. Instead, Tom says that a lot of people are depending on Martha because she’s a bit of a legend. They say that she sailed across the Atlantic and walked across America. “Martha Jones, they say, she’s going to save the world. Bit late for that.” Just you watch, Tom Milligan.
Non-SHIELD helicarrier. The Master rolls old!Doctor to a window and tells him the new Time Lord empire is ready to rise. Outside, Toclafane are flying around. The Master says that the Toclafane must’ve broken his heart once he realized what they were. The Master goes straight into the news that Martha Jones has come back home. This gets a reaction from the Doctor. He tells the Master to leave Martha alone. Master knows that the Doctor said something to Martha on the day he took control. We flashback to the Doctor whispering something in Martha’s ear as she cries. The Master wants to know what he said but the Doctor only has one thing to say to the Master. He’s all, “oh no you don’t!” and wheels the Doctor away. He actually pushes the wheelchair and let just crash into a wall. The Master is a petulant child with too much power.
K: Pretty much exactly. And John Simm does it incredibly well.
Mari: We see that Mama Jones is there, cleaning something on the floor. The Doctor gives her a sign: three fingers. She walks out and we see that somewhere below deck, Papa Jones is also cleaning. She gives him the sign. He passes it on to Tish. Tish goes in to bring food to Jack. He’s in manacles, but snarky as ever. Tish gives him the sign and he winks.
Martha and Tom are walking across some kind of quarry. There’s a big statue of the Master because apparently he’s put them up everywhere. Down below, there is a shipyard. Tom explains that they bring in slave labor to take scrap metal and build ships. Martha’s seen this before. She says Russia is shipyard number one, building hundreds of thousands of rockets preparing for war with the rest of the universe. Martha says she’s been in space and Tom’s a little taken aback. He asks if there is anything else he should know and Martha casually mentions that she’s met Shakespeare.
K: I adore how totally nonchalant she is about it. All “Yeah, I met Shakespeare. NBD.”
Mari: She didn’t even mention that he totes wanted to kiss her.
Two Toclafane spot Tom. Martha stays down on the ground as Tom quickly shows his ID. The Toclafane say that soon the rockets will fly and everyone will need medicine. Tom will be so busy. They laugh maniacally and leave. Tom is confused because they didn’t see Martha. She pulls out her TARDIS key, the perception filter. That’s how she traveled the world
We cut to Martha and Tom reaching a truck. Martha is explaining how the Master controlled everyone with satellites and a low-level psychic field. The key is tuned into that same field and makes her unnoticeable. Tom says that he can see Martha and she cheekily says that it’s ’cause he wanted to. They smile at each other and Martha asks if there is a Mrs. Milligan. Tom says no and asks if there is anyone for Martha. She flashes back to kissing the Doctor, her first adventure with him, and then old!Doctor whispering her ear, the last time she saw him. Now all sad and stuff she tells Tom that they have to get going to see Prof. Docherty. Tom says they have to wait until the next work shift. Right now it’s nearly 3 o’clock.
Meanwhile, on the Hell-icarrier, Jack is pulling at his manacles and ripping them out of the wall. Papa Jones pours water on something important and makes it go steamy and sparky. An alarm starts blaring and the Master jumps up to see what’s going on. Tish grabs his jacket and hands it over to the Doctor who fishes out the laser screwdriver. The Doctor repeats that he has one thing to say but the Master isn’t fussed because he’s rigged the laser screwdriver to only work for him. Womp.
Jack is shot to temporary death.
Back on the deck, the Master fires the laser near Mama Jones and tells her to say sorry. She apologizes and Tish runs to her side. The Master asks, “Didn’t you learn anything from blessed saint Martha? Siding with the Doctor is a very dangerous thing to do.” The Master orders the Joneses taken away.
K: Okay, but HOW THE FUCK DID THEY PUT THAT PLAN TOGETHER ANYWAY?? Like, if they’re all being watched to the point where they have to communicate with sneaky hand signals, how the hell did they manage “At 3pm on [insert day here], we will rise up in unison and overpower the Master”???
Mari: ~*rebellion magic*~
The Master helps the Doctor into a chair and villain gloats about what he’s reduced the Doctor to. The Doctor says he just needs to listen, but the Master says no because it’s his turn for revenge “best served hot.” And now he’s got a message for Martha Jones.
Martha and Tom find Professor Docherty. She’s trying to make a TV work because the Master has got a message for everyone. She’s arrived at the “smacking it until it works” stage and that works because it always does because it’s science (K: Truth). The Master starts the transmission by saying that they are on the eve of war, but he knows that there are stories out there of a woman walking the Earth and giving them hope. He wheels the Doctor closer to the camera and uses the laser screwdriver on him again, stunting his capacity for regeneration and thus making him bear all 900 of his years. The result is a wrinkly baby-Gollum like thing. The Master looks directly into the camera and asks, “received and understood Miss Jones?” But Martha is smiling because the Doctor is still alive.
K: The general consensus in the fandom on love-child-of-Gollum-and-Voldemort Doctor is that we do not speak of it and pretend it never happened because it’s really fucking stupid. I’m totally on board with that.
Mari: I mean, I still have to finish this recap. I’ll stop speaking about it soon.
Later, Docherty is explaining that the Archangel Network would seem to be the Master’s greatest weakness. Not that they can do anything about it, what with their lack of weapons and being surrounded by Toclafane. Martha says that Toclafane is a made-up name and she wants to try to figure out what they really are. No one has been able to get close to one of the Toclafane except one time in South Africa, lightning brought one of them down. Martha has got the readings on a CD. Docherty checks the CD out and happily confirms that she can replicate the electrical current.
Cut to Tom firing a gun. He runs and a Toclafane comes chasing after him. Docherty is ready for it, though. She traps the Troclafane in an electrical field and down it goes.
Hell-icarrier. Gollum Doctor is in a cage now and he’s got a tiny suit even though his suit definitely didn’t shrink with him. I find this hilarious.
K: I mean, you can’t have Naked!Gollum Doctor, Mari. THINK OF THE CHILDREN.
Mari: Still hilarious.
The Master comes back into the main deck with Lucy in tow. She’s been acting twitchy in the background this whole time and now she’s weirdly hanging onto his arm as the Master announces that the next day, he’ll be opening a rift in space and launching an attack. The Doctor tells him to stop but the Master won’t until the empire is established and there is a new Gallifrey in the heavens. The Master starts talking about the drums in his head and he asks if the Doctor can’t hear it. The Doctor is like, “no, bro. It’s just you.”
A Toclafane enters and cheerily says that tomorrow will be the war. The Master says that he’s doing it all for them and the Doctor should be happy since he loves them so very much.
This takes us back to Martha. Prof. Docherty is cutting into one of the Toclafane. Inside, there is a creepy, slimy face all connected into wires. It suddenly opens its eyes and recognizes Martha. She asks who this thing is and it replies, “the skies are made of diamonds,” which means something to Martha. After a handy flashback to that little kid in the last episode who said those same words to Martha, it means something to me too. Thanks, flashback!
K: Sometimes it would be great to have those flashbacks in real life, you know? Especially when I forget people’s names. Which I do all the fucking time.
Mari: So, anyway, these are the humans from the future.
Hell-icarrier.
K: I mean, she’s also got a black eye and her husband’s psychotic. Joining the dots ends with totally legit twitchiness.
Mari: Back with Martha says that she kind of worked out the Toclafane thanks to the paradox machine. We flashback to the day they came back to London when the Doctor said that all he was able to do when the Master was stealing the TARDIS was fuse the coordinates. The Master could only travel between the year 100 trillion and present day London. The Master must’ve gone back and found Utopia.
We cut back to the Master as he describes the screaming and dying of the last of humanity.
Martha explains that the Utopia project was the last hope.
The Toclafane jumps in now and says that there was no solution. The Master says that humans regressed into a childlike state and then cannibalized themselves. The Toclafane says that the Master came to bring them back home.
Docherty says that this would create a paradox, though. The future of the human race killing the human race should cancel themselves out. Martha brings it home: and that’s the paradox machine.
The Master calls the paradox machine his masterpiece. He basically rigged the TARDIS so that it would hold the paradox and allow the past and future to collide. The Doctor says he’s changing the history of the entire universe but the Master thinks this is his right as a Time Lord. He’s going to establish a new empire with the Toclafane that will last 100 trillion years.
Tom asks the Toclafane why they are killing other humans if they are humans. “Because it’s fun,” it answers, laughing. Tom shoots it in the face. Mostly because it only has a face, I’m sure.
K: Makes it much easier.
Mari: The Master calls the human race the greatest monsters of them all. His nightly villain gloating done, he says goodnight and leaves with Lucy.
Back at the workshop, Professor Docherty says it’s time they have the truth from Martha. Legend says that she’s been finding a way of killing the master. She pulls out a bunch of stuff and explains that the Doctor and the Master have been coming to Earth for years and not unnoticed. UNIT and Torchwood have been studying them. They created a weapon that can kill the Time Lords and keep them from regenerating. She’s got three of the four chemical she needs and that’s why she was traveling the world. The fourth chemical is in an old UNIT base in north London and she needs Tom to take her there.
K: NGL, I would watch an entire show about Martha Jones walking the earth.
Mari: Martha and Tom thank the professor and say goodbye. She asks if Martha will be able to kill the Master. Martha says she doesn’t have a choice.
Tom and Martha get to the slave’s quarters. One of the men there guesses who Martha is and everyone starts bombarding her with questions. Tom tells them to leave her alone, but Martha is willing to talk to them.
Back at the workshop, Professor Docherty uses a fancy computer to call into something called Priority One. She asks for information on her son but doesn’t get any. It’s so we feel a little bit bad for her before she tells the computer that she has information for the Master concerning Martha Jones.
Slave’s Quarters. Martha is sitting in the middle of everyone and she says that she’s walked the Earth and seen slaves all over. But if her name has become a legend, it shouldn’t have. She’s not important, the Doctor is. I mean, Martha, don’t sell yourself short but sure. The Doctor is super important too and always saves the day. As they are relishing Martha’s story, a woman runs in and says that the Master has arrived. Everyone tries to hide Martha by basically throwing a jacket over her.
K: Basically, this:
Mari: The Master has got soldiers and Toclafane with him. They stand ready to start raining indiscriminate bullets into the quarters unless Martha surrenders. The Master tells her to ask herself what would the Doctor do. Martha takes a deep breath and takes off the perception filter. She gives a last look back at everyone in the house and steps outside.
The Master sarcastically claps for her and says the Doctor trained her well. He orders Martha to throw him her bag and trains the laser screwdriver at her, but Tom comes running out. The Master shoots him dead instead, deciding that the Doctor should watch Martha die. It’s haughty thinking like that that will get villains defeated every single time.
We cut to the Hell-icarrier. Martha’s being marched in as her family, Jack and Gollum!Doctor watch. The Master does a solid 3 more minutes of villain gloating, which culminates in a countdown until the Toclafane attack and Martha’s death. There’s even a low blow in here about how the Doctor’s old companions used to be able to absorb time vortexes. Martha, though, starts to laugh. The Master asks what’s so funny and she asks if he really bought that whole, “gun in four parts” nonsense. As if the Doctor would ask Martha to kill.
K: I love Martha’s “I’m so done with you and your bullshit villain gloating” laugh.
Mari: The Master’s all, “SO?” because Martha is still going to die. Martha knew, though, what Prof. Docherty would do. She used Docherty to get here. All this time, Martha has been going around the world telling the same story about the Doctor, giving them instructions to all think the same word at the same time. The Master’s all, “prayer is your weapon??”
Everyone around the world thinking the same word but heightened by 15 satellites and the Master’s own archangel network. This makes absolutely 0 sense to me. Honestly, like even less sense than the normal no sense of fake science. BUT GO WITH IT BECAUSE THE DOCTOR IS BACK AND WE CAN STOP LOOKING AT GOLLUM!DOCTOR.
K: Yeah, this whole thing makes precisely zero sense. And when the Doctor turns back into David Tennant rather than Gollum, he’s basically a Patronus and it’s kind of hilarious.
Mari: All around the world, people are chanting for the Doctor. Even Lucy joins in.
He says that he’s had a whole year to tune into the psychic network. Does that clear anything up for anyone? No? Okay, moving on. The Doctor is a haze of beautiful psychic human mind thinking power. The Master’s laser screwdriver can’t harm him. The Master freaks out and end up in a ball on the ground. The Doctor floats over to him and then materializes fully. He gives the Master a hug and finally gets to say what he’s been trying to say all along: I forgive you. Just like Jesus! Sorry, but they keep mentioning angels and prayer and saving and stuff. It makes me think of Jesus.
The Master orders the Toclafane to protect the paradox machine. The Doctor sends Jack to go handle that. The Master pulls out the time jumper he took away from Martha, but the Doctor grabs him before he jumps. They both end up outside.
There are alarms blaring everywhere. On the Hell-icarrier, every one is in action, trying to fix things. Outside, the Master says he’s got black hole converters on every ship, so if he can’t have this world, no one can. It’s very abusive boyfriend-y. Let Earth go, Master.
Three Toclafane are protecting the TARDIS but Jack jumps right in because immortal.
K: John Barrowman’s “I’m shooting a gun” face is fucking hilarious.
Mari: The Doctor calls the Master’s bluff on exploding the Earth because that would mean he dies too, and that’s something the Master would never do. The Master hands over the black hole watch thing.
Jack’s made it into the TARDIS and starts shooting at the paradox machine. It goes up in flames and disappears.
The ground shakes, knocking the Master and the Doctor off their feet. The Doctor wrestles the time jumper from the Master and hits the button. On the Helicarrier, the Joneses watch as all of the Toclafance phase out of being. The Hell-icarrier is falling (K: Further proof that helicarriers are a fucking terrible idea) and everyone is struggling to hold on. Martha falls into the Doctor and they beam at each other. He yells at everyone to get down because time is reversing.
We get a time reversing portion here, marked by some chaos and clouds in fast motion.
K: So it’s basically a giant reset button? How very Steven Moffat…
Mari: They stop and have made it to just after the President was assassinated but before the spheres arrived. They are the only ones who will ever remember what happened. The Master tries to make a run for it but runs right into Jack. He asks the Doctor what they’ll do with the Master and the Joneses are on the KILL KILL KILL train, but the Doctor won’t. He says he’ll just keep the Master in the TARDIS, settle down and care for him and I’ll take lines that keep ships sailing for $1,000.
K: A+.
Mari: A gun goes off and the Master falls. Lucy shot him. The Doctor runs to the Master and cradles him. The Doctor begs the Master to regenerate but he refuses to because he doesn’t want to be imprisoned.
K: Okay, but like does this mean Time Lords can CHOOSE to die instead of regenerating? Because that’s new.
Mari: The Doctor cries, rocks the Master’s dead body, and even gives a frustrated yell. He’s alone again. The last of his kind again.
We cut to the Doctor setting a pyre on fire. (K: I keep expecting Sam and Dean to show up to have a man pain discussion, because that’s what they do next to burning corpses.)
We cut again to daytime. The Doctor, Jack and Martha are together, just people watching. Martha says that there was a time that all of these people knew the Doctor’s name. Now, they’ve forgotten him. The Doctor says that’s good.
Jack says it’s time for him to get back to work. The Doctor invites him to join the TARDIS crew again, but Jack had a lot of time to think during that erased year. He kept thinking about his Torchwood team. It’s his responsibility. Before he goes, the Doctor sonics his time jumper so it won’t work. Unfortunately, the Doctor can’t do anything about that whole “not dying” thing. Jack keeps getting older, though. He asks what happens if he lives for a million years. The Doctor has no answers. Jack apologizes for his vanity. He says he used to be a poster boy when he lived in the Boeshane Peninsula.
K: I fucking love that reveal. Best plot twist EVER.
Mari: Jones Residence. The Doctor is outside, standing by his TARDIS, looking in on them all. Mama Jones comes to the window and they exchange sad little smiles before the Doctor heads into his TARDIS. Martha joins him there, not long after. The Doctor jumps up and starts talking about all the places they could go, forward in time, back in time, to meet Henry VIII or Agatha Christie. Martha doesn’t say anything. She gives him a sad little smile too.
He sees it. He gets it. He just says, “okay.” Martha goes on with an explanation, though. She spent so many years training to be a doctor and now she’s got people to look after. Her family saw half the planet murdered and they are devastated. She can’t leave them.
The Doctor thanks her earnestly and they hug. “Martha Jones you saved the world,” the Doctor says. She says she did. She spent a lot of time with him thinking she was second best, but she confidently says that she’s good. She is, though. Martha Jones did a splendid job.
Martha asks if he’s going to be alright and he says yes. She gives him a kiss on the cheek and walks out. She pauses outside of the TARDIS, gathers herself, and walks right back in.
K: I have mixed feelings about this speech. Because YES, everything Mari said. But it’s also “HEY MARTHA’S IN LOVE WITH THE DOCTOR, REMEMBER?????”-y, and ooof.
Mari: I think it would’ve been worse if after beating us over the head with it all season, they didn’t say anything else about it.
Martha tosses him the cell phone and tells him that if that rings– when that rings– he better come running. She tells him she’ll see him again. After a big sigh, the Doctor starts pulling levers and preparing to vwrop vwrop away. Martha heads back into the house with her family.
We cut back to the pyre and see that the Master’s ring falls to the ground. A woman we can’t see picks up the ring.
Back on the TARDIS, just as the Doctor presses a final button, a horn blares and bits of the TARDIS fly everywhere. The Doctor looks over and a ship has crashed into the TARDIS. He gives us a few very confused, “what?”s and then examines a life saver that has ‘Titanic’ written on it.
The Doctor never has time to be all that sad.
Here is one of those episodes that just perfectly exemplifies how ridiculous and beautiful this show is. Nothing about the Doctor whispering “use the countdown” makes any freakin’ sense. HOW COULD HE KNOW? And how the hell did Martha have a clue what that meant? And what did thinking about the Doctor have anything to do with anything? We will never know and to get any enjoyment out of this episode, you have to overlook all of this nonsense.
Martha’s exit has had me thinking a lot because she’s only the second New Who companion we’ve met and her exit is an exact opposite of what we saw with Rose. Martha left on her own terms. She wasn’t abandoned like Rose (and so many other companions). She decided to walk out and can you tell that I love that?
K: Agreed. She’s older and more mature than Rose. It makes perfect sense that she’d go “You know what, fuck this”.
Mari: Martha and Jack were both really interesting in this episode because they both had to get over the Doctor while the Doctor keeps being himself. He never apologizes to Jack for leaving him behind or to Martha for the way he always looked past her. They both just had to find it in themselves to figure out what they wanted to do about it. Good on them for both walking away.
Next time on Doctor Who: It’s Christmas special time again in S04 E00 – The Voyage of the Damned.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.