Details of the last episode of this year's series. The Christmas special, featuring Kylie Minogue and set onboard the Titanic, continues on from this episode...
Last of the Time Lords" is an episode of the Britishscience fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One on 30 June2007,[1] and is the thirteenth and final episode of Series 3 of the revived Doctor Who series.
The Doctor rises in an almost-angelic form in front of the Master
One year after the events of "
The Sound of Drums", the Master has conquered Earth and enslaved its population. He holds the aged Doctor prisoner, and prepares warships for a new Time Lord Empire.
Now it is up to Martha Jones to carry out the Doctor's plan to save the world.
A year after the events of "The Sound of Drums", Earth has been closed to all species and labelled as in "terminal extinction". Martha returns to
Britain, having travelled the world since teleporting away from the
Valiant at the moment of the Master's triumph. Her TARDIS key, still generating a
perception filter, has kept her hidden all this time. She meets Thomas Milligan, a doctor-turned-freedom-fighter, who can lead her to one Professor Docherty. Martha herself has become a figure of hope against the Master, rumoured to be the only one capable of killing him.
Meanwhile, on the
Valiant,
the Master is keeping the aged Doctor in a 'dog-kennel' tent as his humiliated prisoner, Martha's family as his servants, and
Jack Harkness in chains.
Lucy Saxon is still his companion, but shows evidence of physical and emotional abuse. The Master shows the Doctor the world he has created: the new Time Lord Empire. Across the planet, warships are being built to wage war on the rest of the universe. The Doctor has "only one thing to say", but the Master doesn't want to hear it. After a failed attempt by the Jones family, Jack, and the Doctor to gain control by stealing the Master's
laser screwdriver, the Master sends out a transmission intended for Martha. Watching in Docherty's lab, she sees the Master suspend the Doctor's capacity to
regenerate and age him by a further nine hundred years, shrinking him into a tiny, frail creature. Instead of being dismayed, Martha draws hope from the Doctor's continued survival.
Though the
Toclafane have proven to be virtually invincible, Martha reveals that she stumbled upon one that was struck by lightning, and with the data gathered from the incident Docherty is able to replicate the required conditions. Upon examining the sphere thus captured, they make a horrifying discovery: the Toclafane contain the conscious remains of
the humans from the year 100 trillion. The Toclafane claims there was no Utopia, only more darkness, and with everything dying around them the humans cannibalised and regressed themselves, becoming the child-like Toclafane. The Master brought them back in time using the TARDIS, which could only travel between Utopia and present-day Earth. The contradiction of the Toclafane
killing their own ancestors is made possible by the
paradox machine built by the Master. Martha is horrified when the Toclafane quotes young Creet that she met on
Malcassairo, telling her that the Toclafane have
shared memories of the last of humanity. When questioned as to why it wishes to kill its own ancestors, the Toclafane responds, "Because it's fun" and laughs maniacally. Tom, sickened and horrified, shoots it dead.
When Docherty asks if the rumours about Martha are true, Martha reveals a gun, developed by
Torchwood and
UNIT, purportedly able to kill a Time Lord and prevent the ensuing
regeneration.
Martha has retrieved three of the four chemicals needed for the gun from their hiding places around the world, and has returned to
London to find the fourth. After Martha and Thomas depart for a shelter in
Bexley to hide, Docherty (who is desperate for information regarding her missing son) reveals their whereabouts to the Master.
The Master thus comes to Earth's surface to capture Martha, killing Tom, destroying the special gun and taking her back to the
Valiant. He intends to execute her before the Doctor and her family, at the moment his fleet is launched. As the clock counts down, Martha reveals the real reason she travelled the globe. It wasn't for a fictional anti-regeneration gun, or to fight back, but merely to talk. She told everyone about the Doctor; specifically, she told everyone to think of the Doctor at the same time the Master plans to launch his fleet. Docherty's betrayal was expected, engineered by Martha so that she would be brought on board the
Valiant to rejoin the Doctor. Combined with the Master's
Archangel satellite network, which the Doctor has had an entire year to get in tune with, this has the effect of charging the Doctor with the combined psychic energy of the people of Earth. This enables the Doctor to restore his
youthful physiognomy and end the Master's control. As the Master cowers, the Doctor says the words the Master was afraid to hear: "
I forgive you".
With the Master out of the picture, Jack rounds up some soldiers to destroy the paradox machine, but is delayed by the Toclafane. The Master, using Jack's
vortex manipulator, teleports himself and the Doctor to Earth, threatening to detonate his fleet and take the Earth with it. The Doctor knows that the Master would never kill himself, and manages to teleport both himself and the Master back to the
Valiant just as Jack destroys the paradox machine, rewinding time to just after the US President is killed and just before the Toclafane arrive. All those on the
Valiant remember the events due to being at "the eye of the storm", but nobody else will know of the Master's reign of terror in "the year that never happened".
The Master, now defenceless, is handcuffed and stands before the Doctor. The Doctor announces that, since the Master is a Time Lord, he is the Doctor's responsibility and will be imprisoned on board the TARDIS. Francine Jones is talked out of shooting the Master, but Lucy Saxon, with a glazed expression, seizes a gun herself and shoots him. Rather than be a prisoner for the rest of his lives, the Master lets himself die, refusing to regenerate despite the Doctor's desperate pleas. Just before dying in his opponent's arms, the Master muses on the constant drumming in his head, wondering if it will finally stop, and with a smile says, "I win", leaving the Doctor to weep uncontrollably for his lost adversary and fellow Time Lord. The Doctor
cremates the Master's body on a
pyre. However, after he leaves, a female hand wearing red nail polish is seen taking the Master's ring from the burnt-out pyre, with malevolent laughter echoing in the background.
In Cardiff, Jack decides to remain behind to look after his
team, "defending the Earth". The Doctor disables Jack's vortex manipulator to keep him from jumping through time unsupervised. The Doctor then tells Jack there's nothing that can be done about his immortality: it seems likely he'll never be able to die — though he isn't sure about aging. Thinking about what he might look like millions of years from now, Jack confesses his vanity and recalls how, as the first person from the Boeshane Peninsula to join the Time Agency, his good looks earned him the nickname "the
Face of Boe".
With the TARDIS repaired, the Doctor is ready to move on. Martha, however, has decided to stay so she can look after her family and finally qualify as a medical doctor. She gives the Doctor her phone so they can keep in touch and says she will see him again, but when someone is in love and it's unrequited, they have to get out: "this is me getting out". Leaving in the TARDIS (along with his severed hand), the Doctor begins to relax in the console room chair — until the room is suddenly shaken with great force, and the bow of a ship smashes through the console room wall. Picking up a
lifebelt, he finds "
Titanic" written on it, to which he can only respond flatly, "What?!"
************************************
WHAT IS THE VALIANT?
The
Valiant (
58°12′N 10°12′E / 58.2, 10.2) is a
UNIT controlled
airborne aircraft carrier featured in "
The Sound of Drums"/"
Last of the Time Lords". It was designed in part by
the Master in the guise of Harold Saxon (in his previous occupation as
Minister of Defence). As the craft operates in international airspace under the control of the
United Nations, it is
neutral territory. As the United Nations requires that the
British Government move
first contact operations from British soil to neutral territory, the US Government forces Mr. Saxon to make contact with the
Toclafane on board. Elements of the design make reference to Time Lord architecture, such as
roundels and an insignia based on a Gallifreyan design.
wikipedia.org
