Doctor Who: Utopia, Sound of Drums and Last of the Timelords

[ninjadeadbeard]

Please elaborate! I'm not saying I will agree with you but I am curious as to why you feel this way.

I just legit feel this was New-Who's Golden Era. Nothing else to it. Last of the Time Lords was fantastic, and all his criticisms feel less like criticism and more like "Not-Muh Who". Which, to be clear, I don't think Chuck's doing. He's always a fair and balanced reviewer and that's partly why I come back every week hungry to hear what he thinks.

It's just on this topic I think he's stone-cold dead wrong.

[Linkara]

Unpopular opinion- I thought the Master was WASTED at the end of Moffat / Capaldis' run.

You could take Missy and the Master out of that story (at least the second part) and change nothing. He was set up to be the main villain, and he ended up a supporting character falling around with himself (literally).

Good performance, pointless role.

I feel it was more about Missy's character, having her see how she used to be and her development. While I was never really on board with a reformed Master (not helped by the massive disappointment that was Death in Heaven), I get what they were trying to do with it.

[Ghilz]

UGH I forgot about him friggin' FLYING during the finale. Terrible, just terrible. My mother and I watched Last of the Time Lords back when they first came out and we both absolutely despised that ending. It was ridiculous and silly and frankly Chuck's idea of it all being in the Master's head was a good one and I would have accepted it better if that had been the case, but the friggin' Tinkerbelle "Everyone clap and say the Doctor's name and he'll magic away his cage and go back to being a normal boy with superpowers" is just so dumb and ludicrous.

Frankly, Simm's Master was SO much better away from RTD at the end of 12's run. He had a better suit, a better demeanor... basically reminded me of Anthony Ainley - still a bit of a cackling villain, still had some of his humor, but darker, full of disguises, and arrogantly always assuming he was on top.

I think I can still feel a part of my love for the show die when I re-watch that scene. Like, the first 2 parts are overall good? There's tension, Jacobi is awesome, then the Master wins, they are on the run, and you spend the episode wondering what's the plan and first you get the gun bit, which like Chuck said isn't really silly coz it sounds like something Doctor Who would do, but it's not really great and then Martha reveals it's in fact all been a fucking Thinkerbell bit and the Doctor turns into Doctor Strange or something and just... no.

I don't think the gun in four parts is a bad idea either, frankly. I didn't find that idea ridiculous at all that they'd have a weapon like that to kill the Doctor or Master permanently if they needed to. And of course that couldn't have been what the Doctor whispered. Why would he whisper "Just FYI - there's a gun in four parts that will kill a Time Lord. Go get it."? What was ridiculous was him whispering "Use the Countdown." Like... how did he know there'd be a countdown? And why would Martha know what the hell to do with that information, anyway?

I don't think it's ridiculous considering some of the other stuff the show pulls (Remember when the doctor hacked cruise missiles from some rando's laptop? Or stuff we'll see in Moffat's era). Though I do thing the gun having been real would've been disapointing. Like, "Well I went a got a gun and we're gonna Cap the master's ass" doesn't feel very Doctor Who? But I legit can't tell if it'd be more of an anti climax than Doctor gets turned into Dobby and then by clapping our hands he gets restored as the god doctor?

Also, am I the only one bothered by the Trochlafane? Like, Doctor Who always has this hopeful message about humanity. Sometimes we fuck up, but ultimately Humans have greatness in them and we'll improve and get better and learn from our mistakes eventually. And it's why the doctor sticks with us.

.... Or not I fucking guest coz in the end the final humans at the end of time, the veritable last bastion of humanity is a hivemind of psychotic globe monsters whos response to the end of things isn't to boldly reach of a last hope, to go down nobly into the dark. Nope. Humanity's last action will be to turn themselves into literal monsters lashing out at everything else around them.

Like sure we have other episodes where humans are the monster, but there's generally this understood thing of "Sure, Humans are Asshole, but the Doctor assures us we'll outgrow it" But with the Troclafane that's not there. This is literally how humans end. The Master's entire thing is "I'll hurt you Doctor by showing you that the race you care and protect will never meet your expectations. That they end up a vile, monstrous thing in the end." and the show... never really lets the Doctor counter that.

[Rodan56]

I'll say this about the episodes, they led to me being introduced to a pretty funny scene out of context and a song that I can use for funny evil sequences in my writing. At least as inspiration.

Also, watching the review kinda reminded me of the plot to Timesplitters Future Perfect. Like how it requires screwing with the timeline to the Nth degree so people are travelling back and forth through the timestream to accomplish an insanely ridiculous plan.

Huh, that's a review to maybe suggest down the line. Timesplitters, man that was a fun game.

The episodes themselves seem okay to me. A bit outlandish, even for Doctor Who. Nothing that I think would make me angry, but I feel like I give a really big pass to this series a lot of times in terms of what it gets away with.

I still haven't gotten around to watching Happiness Patrol, even though I want to. Something else always gets in the way.

[clearspira]

I'll say this about the episodes, they led to me being introduced to a pretty funny scene out of context and a song that I can use for funny evil sequences in my writing. At least as inspiration.

Also, watching the review kinda reminded me of the plot to Timesplitters Future Perfect. Like how it requires screwing with the timeline to the Nth degree so people are travelling back and forth through the timestream to accomplish an insanely ridiculous plan.

Huh, that's a review to maybe suggest down the line. Timesplitters, man that was a fun game.

The episodes themselves seem okay to me. A bit outlandish, even for Doctor Who. Nothing that I think would make me angry, but I feel like I give a really big pass to this series a lot of times in terms of what it gets away with.

I still haven't gotten around to watching Happiness Patrol, even though I want to. Something else always gets in the way.

Timesplitters was awesome. Part of me is glad it ended though; can you imagine how a game with such deep content would be carved up today? ''Jo-Beth Casey's bear backpack: only one dollar.''

[Darmani]

I pretty much came in on sound of the drums and last of the time Lords so this is always kind of been knew who for me. I never realized that this was like such a dividing point from old fans coming to the new series until it's been laid out like this. The Masters always been psychic it's been established repeatedly he has psychic abilities. The thing that offended me was apparently all they needed to do was shoot up the Paradox machine instead of having the doctor get down to it in order to do some tech tech thingamajiggy. Really that Jess was another aspect of what I felt was Sci-Fi series feeling that they had to be cool and fashionable as opposed to geeky and technically convincing

Then again my problem with Captain Jack is that I don't like him he just comes off as swarmy and insincere. I barely even noticed the fact that he's hitting on people
basically the doctor was able to reverse what the master was doing instead of projecting out wards he received in wards

I think I forgave the takla Fein for the same reason Martha forgave the people who did wrong in the alternate timeline. Circumstances were hellish Billy did something wrong. Ultimately I mean 10 trillion years? Yeah it's going to suck that we're going to die in that time. But what we all got to go sometime. If anything the reason why the talk of Fame was the way they were is like the master if they didn't want to accept the awfulness of what they've become or what they dead or what they'll face. The Masters basically acting like a cartoon all this time because he's overcompensating. He knows he's a coward he knows he's alone and he can't get anything else done so he's basically acting like a child

for all of his Brilliance he's basically being petty and kind of stupid

And spiteful

[Darmani]

I pretty much came in on sound of the drums and last of the time Lords so this is always kind of been knew who for me. I never realized that this was like such a dividing point from old fans coming to the new series until it's been laid out like this. The Masters always been psychic it's been established repeatedly he has psychic abilities. The thing that offended me was apparently all they needed to do was shoot up the Paradox machine instead of having the doctor get down to it in order to do some tech tech thingamajiggy. Really that Jess was another aspect of what I felt was Sci-Fi series feeling that they had to be cool and fashionable as opposed to geeky and technically convincing

Then again my problem with Captain Jack is that I don't like him he just comes off as swarmy and insincere. I barely even noticed the fact that he's hitting on people
basically the doctor was able to reverse what the master was doing instead of projecting out wards he received in wards

I think I forgave the takla Fein for the same reason Martha forgave the people who did wrong in the alternate timeline. Circumstances were hellish Billy did something wrong. Ultimately I mean 10 trillion years? Yeah it's going to suck that we're going to die in that time. But what we all got to go sometime. If anything the reason why the talk of Fame was the way they were is like the master if they didn't want to accept the awfulness of what they've become or what they dead or what they'll face. The Masters basically acting like a cartoon all this time because he's overcompensating. He knows he's a coward he knows he's alone and he can't get anything else done so he's basically acting like a child

for all of his Brilliance he's basically being petty and kind of stupid

And spiteful

[Jonathan101]

I loved Timesplitters, but Future Perfect disappointed me.

Unpopular opinion- I thought the Master was WASTED at the end of Moffat / Capaldis' run.

You could take Missy and the Master out of that story (at least the second part) and change nothing. He was set up to be the main villain, and he ended up a supporting character falling around with himself (literally).

Good performance, pointless role.

I feel it was more about Missy's character, having her see how she used to be and her development. While I was never really on board with a reformed Master (not helped by the massive disappointment that was Death in Heaven), I get what they were trying to do with it.

I think that would have worked better if she and the Master were the main villains then; instead we got some utter BS about the Doctor reprogramming the Cybermen by falling on a keyboard on the exact right way (never mind that the Cybermen aren't even robots), which meant that the Missy / Master became the B-Plot and John Simm became a supporting character to another supporting character. The first episode had a terrific twist in introducing him and setting him up as the final villain of the season, but they dropped him for renegade Cybermen and he spends the rest of the episode just standing around bragging about not caring about what is going on.

Most annoyingly, they didn't even stick with the classic Cybermen; they just had to use the newer ones with some nonsense about evolution. Really both the two Masters AND the Cybermen were just sidetracked so that Bill and the Doctor (and Moffat) could say their melodramatic goodbyes imo.

[phantom000]

I am willing to cut the ending some slack because it is basically the Doctor using the villain's dues ex machina against him, which i always love in any story.

I also like John Simm's take on The Master. Every time The Doctor regenerates they bring in a new actor who does their own take on the character, so naturally they do the same thing with The Master. The Master was originally conceived as a recurring character, a Professor Moriarty to The Doctor's Sherlock Holmes. Delgado and Ainley played the master as a classic villain, they wanted to rule the universe. Simm's Master is more like Joker, when he sent the Toclafane out into the universe you feel like it was not to conquer so much as to destroy.

To be honest i do like him in The End of Time better because his performance is a bit more focused. He's not as over the top as he was but that psychotic side is still very much there.

[Rodan56]

Timesplitters was awesome. Part of me is glad it ended though; can you imagine how a game with such deep content would be carved up today? ''Jo-Beth Casey's bear backpack: only one dollar.''

Hmm, you might have a point. And if I'm being really fair, I don't think any rebooted video game franchise from my younger days has held up nearly as well as I hoped it would. Remasters, yes, full on reboots... always disappointing. I'm not a fan of what happened to Wolfenstein for one. Would hate to see them do the same to Timesplitters.