Dr. Who Ep. 2911: Utopia [Spoilers]

[Crazedwraith]

A barbecue got between me and the Doctor. Could someone spoil the hell out of this episode for me, please?

Fail. I missed the very beginning but it goes something like this:

Captain Jack jumps on the TARDIS' outside and the TARDIS trying to shake him off zooms to the very end of time. Sadly sans restaurant. Martha and the Doctor find Jack dead but a few seconds later he comes back to life. There is some banter and then they see a huma nbeing chased and try to help them out. All of them eventually flee from sharp teethed people into a human compound and meet derek jaccobi who is trying to build a space ship to ship all the pure humans to 'utopia.' The Doctor helps him finish the ship and it takes off. Near the end of the episode Martha notices the professor has a watch and runs off to tell the Doctor. The Professor opens the watch and becomes the master. He locks the doctor, Captain Jack and Martha out of his control room and let in the evil sharp teth creatures. But is shot by his assisstant, He legs into the TARDIS and regenerates in to Sam Tyler. Who banters with the Doctor for a but before departing in the TARDIS.

Oh And Captain Jack has the Doctor's severed hand from 'THe Christmas Invasion" which the Master snuggled with for a bit before leaving.

[Bounty]

Oh And Captain Jack has the Doctor's severed hand from 'THe Christmas Invasion" which the Master snuggled with for a bit before leaving.

Thanks for the synopsis. I think I can get a tape of it tomorrow.

[NecronLord]

A barbecue got between me and the Doctor. Could someone spoil the hell out of this episode for me, please?

Captain Jack jumps on the TARDIS as it dematerialises (apparently the Doctor doesn't like him any more, as he's a fixed point in time, being Captain Scarlet, Indestructible) and the TARDIS tries to shake him off, by going to near the end of the universe, the year one hundred trillion (I would complain, but Dr Who's already established that entropy can be circumvented by Block Transfer Computation anyway...) which looks like a quarry, and has snarling cannibals.

They look around a bit, and find an enclave of the last humans (who've reverted, possibly due to budgetary reasons, after at some point being downloads, and clouds of gas) preparing to board a ship built by Professor Yana. Shenanigans ensue.

Whenever the Doctor says anything like Time Lords, or TARDIS, or Yana sees the TARDIS, he gets this sound of drums in his head. Martha points out that he has a watch, and asks to look at it. It has Time Lord Chameleon Arch symbology on it (random flashback, the TVM toolbox had a couple of watches that looked like that in it).

Yana reveals that he's never opened it, and believes it to be broken - perception filter - and when asked, that it was the only thing he was found with as an orphaned child. Martha runs off to tell the Doctor. Yana examines the watch a lot, and we hear quotes from the Master; his evil laugh, him demanding power in The Daemons and so on. He opens it, and Yana is overwritten by the Master's conciousness.

He kills his assistant, traps the Doctor and crew in the bowels of the building (the refugees are away, at this point) and lets the cannibals in. He steals the TARDIS as the Doctor and crew burst in, and, having been shot by his assistant, bemoans his lack of being young and strong. He regenerates from Derek Jacobi into John Simm, and steals the TARDIS, leaving them marooned with lots of cannibals.

Fade out.

[NecronLord]

The only flaw - and it's a mind-numbingly tiddly one - is that the entire Utopia Project was just a McGuffin. Still an excellent episode.

Actually, I got the feeling - I'll have to watch again and be sure - that the Master might have invented the damn thing. He pulls the card out and chuckles 'Utopia.' The literal meaning of Utopia is, after all, No Place...

[Crazedwraith]

Oh and Yana isn't exactly a name. Its an acronym for the Face of Boe's Last Words: You Are Not Alone.

[Hitch Hiker]

Welcome to whatever Incarnation of the Master we now have. Blimey that was the best 15 mins of TV i have seen in awhile. I was on the edge of my seat as soon as the watch appeared. Yana, not the most obvious clue. a lot better then Tremas i must admit and yet again the Master regenerates at the end of an episode. What reference will that floppy disc have? and did anyone else think that was Harriet jones screaming? She was the last PM. Doubt they would use the Master's TARDIS, as he said, he was found alone and has been drifting for a long time, so its not likely on the planet....i mean, did anyone notice a big grandfather clock sitting in a corner?

[andrewgpaul]

The only flaw - and it's a mind-numbingly tiddly one - is that the entire Utopia Project was just a McGuffin. Still an excellent episode.

Actually, I got the feeling - I'll have to watch again and be sure - that the Master might have invented the damn thing. He pulls the card out and chuckles 'Utopia.' The literal meaning of Utopia is, after all, No Place...

True. I remember thinking that when Prof Yana said it meant "the perfect place".

Mind you, it still leaves me with a sense of unfulfilment as to the fate of the refugees. Ah well, I'll just need to live with it.

[NecronLord]

Last we heard, the Master didn't have a TARDIS, and the Doctor's didn't like him. Which might explain why he brought the still-living hand. Of course last we heard (in the canon at least), the Master was stuck in its mini-black hole...

The 'Vengeful God' line, incidentally, reminds me of the last Eigth Doctor strip in DWM, where he was very much a Vengeful God under similar circumstances.

The TARDIS' dislike of Jack will probably explain why Jack is likely to be marooned in the C21st for the next season of Torchwood, too.

[andrewgpaul]

Ooh! The Master has a red Sonic Screwdriver

Oh, and none of the preview footage for next week's episode feature Martha or the Doctor. Is it perhaps "the rise of Mr Saxon", with the Doctor coming in in episode 13 to save the day?

[Admiral Valdemar]

So, The Master has essentially condemned the rest of the sane remnants of humanity to a depressingly lonely end as the universe evaporates. One episode, and he's already buggered a load of people without really realising it.

Jacobi and Simm though, that's a great combo for a comeback.

[NecronLord]

I was wondering that. That'd make it the second Doctor-less episode in the entire run of the Series, since 1963.

[Dartzap]

*chuckles* Outpost Galifrey has practically imploded......

[NecronLord]

Ooh! The Master has a red Sonic Screwdriver

He does? Where?

Of course, so does Sarah Jane Smith, so clearly they're not sinister.

That said, there's a close up shot of the new panel, when Jacobi locks the door, and it actually has writing on it. I wish I could pause, but not on video. Hummm...

[Crazedwraith]

Ooh! The Master has a red Sonic Screwdriver

He does? Where?

Of course, so does Sarah Jane Smith, so clearly they're not sinister.

That was pink, and it was lipstick.

[NecronLord]

That was pink, and it was lipstick.

I know. That's what we call 'a joke'

Though to be fair, given that the Cult of Skaro call it a 'Sonic Probe' it's likely that screwdriver's not the proper designation either.

[andrewgpaul]

Ooh! The Master has a red Sonic Screwdriver

He does? Where?

Preview footage at the end of Doctor Who Confidential. Mind you, the ... implement in question was rather out of focus, so I might be wrong.

[Lord Woodlouse]

You can see the Saxon references as you vote for him.

[andrewgpaul]

Actually, someone suggested on another forum that the doohickey the Master is waving about is actually his Tissue Compression Eliminator.

[Big Orange]

That was a very good episode, but I wonder how the Doctor gets his TARDIS back, where the fuck that fobwatch came from, why the Master WILL NOT DIE, how the Master sets up his little empire in 21st century London and why he was stalking the Doctor before the Doctor met his past Jacobi self in the far, far, far, far, far future (yet people still look like people and are still using AK-47s around the time of the heat death of the fucking Universe).

[Plekhanov]

That was a very good episode, but I wonder how the Doctor gets his TARDIS back, where the fuck that fobwatch came from, why the Master WILL NOT DIE, how the Master sets up his little empire in 21st century London and why he was stalking the Doctor before the Doctor met his past Jacobi self in the far, far, far, far, far future (yet people still look like people and are still using AK-47s around the time of the heat death of the fucking Universe).

What you don't understand why the Master (a guy who's been foiled by the Doctor how many times now?) was on the look out for the Doctor whilst up to no good on the planet and in the general time period that the doctor turns up in more than any other?

Now let me think that's a tough one

[Xon]

the heat death of the fucking Universe).

This was in the year 100 trillion, which is when all the stars stop shining. Not when matter itself breaks down (trillion trillion trillion years) aka Heat Death

[Drooling Iguana]

So how'd the Master get another standard regeneration, anyway? Hasn't he been stealing other people's bodies since the Tom Baker years?

[Flakin]

I have really high hopes for John Simm's iteration of the Master. The few minutes of him we saw at the end of this episode were perfect, old fashioned, lunatic, over-the-top Roger Delgado / Anthony Ainsley Master.

And you've got to love one of his lines "..while I tell you all my plans and you can work out a way to stop me, I don't think!" .

Also, I'm sure Stark will appreciate the foreshadowing of the chameleon arch usage earlier in the series, and in the preview, the return of UNIT. Hopefully what members of UNIT we see won't be oversexed fuckups like their counterparts in Torchwood.

I guess I'm just pleased to see my favorite bad guy in Doctor Who return. High hopes for the rest of the season.

[Stark]

The TARDIS' dislike of Jack will probably explain why Jack is likely to be marooned in the C21st for the next season of Torchwood, too.

God, don't say that. Don't give them IDEAS. Jack gets 'cured', and travels some more in the TARDIS. PLEASE. Leave the TW idiots to rot by themselves in 'you guys are so cancelled'-ville.

And yes, Human Nature is now not ONLY an awesome two-parter, but fantastic foreshadowing. And we ALL know that you CAN'T HAVE THE MASTER WITHOUT UNIT LOL.

However, someone will have to clue me in on the 'become not a Time Lord and thus somehow be immune to whatever killed them'. I know it's just to get around the 'feels like there's noone' thing, but the Master wouldn't have been on Gallifrey anyway.

[Flakin]

And we ALL know that you CAN'T HAVE THE MASTER WITHOUT UNIT LOL.

Somebody give this man ONE FREE INTERNET. I hadn't even thought of that, how very true.

If nothing else, UNIT will give The Master something to laugh manically at while he outwits them, in the suspected absence of The Doctor.