Doctor Who - 'The End of Time' Part One

Story teaser: The Doctor has been summoned by the Ood who warn him of many things, including the oncoming darkness that seems to be the End of Time. They also show him a face, a face that all humankind has been dreaming, the face of a man that is dead: the Master. The disciples of Harold Saxon attempt to put Humpty Dumpty back together again but all does not go well and the Master is incomplete. While the Doctor attempts to trace down and assist his former friend/enemy, he remains unaware of the full scope of the situation...

Thoughts:

This did not need to be an hour long for one. There's a lot of running around and yelling and jumping in the early sections of the episode that would look silly in a X-Men movie. Very disappointing. I started reflecting on the episode of 'Planet of the Spiders' that is one long chase scene.

Then the Doctor bumps into Wilf and it all begins to settle down. There's all this weird information that's being flung at us, goofy almost random events, then we start to see Wilf and Donna and the story starts to take shape. Russell is writing people talking and communicating normally and he's comfortable again. Unfortunately it takes about twenty minutes to get to this point, especially as the story only starts to gel at this point. This means the first half or so of the episode is Not Good.

While Russell has done some interesting things to explain and fill out the character of the Master, I wasn't all that fond of John Sims' Master when he first appeared. It's not completely fair to judge him here as he's not really playing the Master, he's playing this vampire-like Master, feeding to stay together. As such, more on the edge, he is a bit sympathetic. At some point in the future, I'd like to see a 'normal' Master again. The character was good, fun even, and this version has just been mental.

There are a couple bits to the cliffhanger, neither of which I will mention here. The first bit goes on a bit too long, kind of beats the 'joke' into submission to a point where it begins to get tedious. It's a good 'wow' moment but gets too dragged out.

The other bit of the cliffhanger? That's a big 'HOLY CRAP!' moment. I squeaked and covered my mouth with my hand like an old woman. It's awesome bit looks like a Bad Thing.

Can't wait until next week.