Who Reviews Last of the Time Lords by Tom Clarke

The thing I love about this episode, in my opinion, is the time gap between this episode, and the previous part of the “Utopia Trilogy”, The Sound of Drums. (I like this episode, but I wouldn’t put it in my top 10 for a few reasons, but we’ll get to them later. For those of you that haven’t seen the episode, don’t worry, there won’t be major plot spoilers and I won’t discuss the end of the episode in great detail.)

It takes place an entire year after that episode. It gives the characters like Martha to travel around the world without wasting much episode time. Even then, this episode is slightly longer than the others. Only by about 5 minutes, and there is a shorter 45 minute version of the episode, but I prefer the 50 minute version. See, the 45 minute version doesn’t miss any major plot points, it doesn’t miss out large chunks of story or any great, action packed moments. It does, however, miss out a scene where the Master dances with Lucy, and I like that scene, because it sort of gives Simm’s Master some more character. He doesn’t care about what is going on and that he is destroying the world. Speaking of Simm, he stole the show, he is by far my favourite Master, next to the classic Delgado Master.

Martha has travelled the world in the year that the Master was taking control, sailed the Atlantic, walked across America. This is, however, where my problems with the episode come in. The story of the episode was fine, but it was mainly the other characters that I didn’t like, mainly because they didn’t do much or I just don’t like them. I can’t say much about Martha, because I just find her boring as a companion. She’s the main focus of the episode as well, like “How is she going to stop the Master?” and such. Captain Jack does absolutely nothing in this episode except *spoiler* destroy the Paradox  Machine. The Doctor didn’t need to be aged. I guess it adds a certain suspense, and we would be missing a great scene from about 20 minutes from the end, but in the end, it added nothing to the story. Also, speaking of “the older Doctor” something that happened at the end of the episode I didn’t like, and I’m not really spoiling much here, and the word is “Faith.” When it’s used correctly, it’s great, but the way it was used at the end of the episode, sort of ruined it. Didn’t ruin the scene, I just found that part a bit disappointing. Those are the main problems I have with this episode, and another thing I did like is the “cliff-hanger” if you could call it that, that relates to The End of Time (Part 1).  I liked the Toclafane, and the nice little story as to what they really are, and finding out Captain Jack’s ultimate destiny was great, but it left me wanting to know more, and we (as of August 2014) still don’t know.

But anyway, I disagree with (most) of the reviews online calling it “a waste, terrible, boring, anti-climactic, etc”. I found it to be enjoyable for the most part, with only a few little gripes and nitpicks here and there. In my opinion, it is the worst of the Utopia trilogy, but it’s still not terrible, it’s not un-watchable.