Thursday 31 December 2009

Friday 25 December 2009

The End of Time Part 1

The episode begins with a Narrator revealing that on Christmas Eve, the planet Earth is one day away from its destruction, and that everyone on Earth is suffering nightmares that precede the end.
The Doctor arrives on the Ood Sphere in the future, 100 years after the events of Planet of the Ood, after being summoned by Ood Sigma at the end of Water of Mars. He sees that the Ood have progressed further technologically than they should have. Ood Sigma takes the Doctor to the Ood Elders who show him visions of the Master returning. He sees an old woman taking the Master's ring and he realises that the essence of the Master survived his non-regeneration on the Valiant. The Ood Elder also tells the Doctor that they have been granted clairvoyance, because "Time is bleeding", and the end of Time itself is imminent. That actions in the past are changing this future. The Doctor rushes to the TARDIS, traveling to Earth on Christmas Eve 2010 to try and stop his arch-enemy, however the events to come have already been set in motion.
Lucy Saxon has been imprisoned for her husband's murder. On Christmas Eve night, the prison governor brings Lucy to a chamber, where she reveals that most of the staff are followers of the Master who have been working ever since his apparent death to bring about his resurrection. With the help of the Master's recovered signet ring and a biometric imprint taken from Lucy, the ritual is completed, and the woman and her minions sacrifice their life forces in order to revive the Master. Lucy, who has secretly been aware of the plan, throws in a potion designed to disrupt the ritual and prevent him from being reborn. The Doctor later arrives to find that the prison has been obliterated by the resulting explosion.
The Master survives the blast, but his life force is left in a state of constant depletion (as evidenced by the fact his skeleton becomes visible periodically), forcing him to drain the vitality of a number of homeless people on a desolate construction site. However, he now has the ability to move with extraordinary agility, leap over great distances and fire bolts of lightning from his hands. The Doctor finds the master, but his old enemy manages to elude him. Meanwhile, like the Ood and many others on Earth, Wilfred Mott has experienced faded visions of the Master, and has been scouring London with other pensioners, under the group name "the Silver Cloak", to track down the Doctor. Wilf and the Doctor re-unite and the Doctor reveals that a prophecy has been made predicting his death. Later, he encounters the Master, who reminisces about their childhood, and muses on the constant drumming in his head. The Doctor then discovers that the drumming in his head is not a symptom of insanity, but perfectly real: this news delights the Master, but horrifies the Doctor as to what the drumming means. A squad of troops suddenly appear, sedating and kidnapping the Master and taking him to the mansion of billionaire Joshua Naismith.
His face appearing on-screen, the Narrator comments that Christmas Day, the final day of planet Earth, has arrived.
In the morning of the final day, Wilf and his family are exchanging the Christmas presents, Donna has offered the book of Naismith "Fighting the future" to Wilf, but she can't say why. Wilf is contacted by a mysterious woman in white — who only he could see — through the kitchen TV set, a woman he has already met at church, she tells him that he will have soon to take arms. However, he should say nothing to the Doctor, to preserve the odds to keep the Time Lord alive. The TARDIS lands near the Noble's house and Wilf decides to follow the Doctor on board.
Naismith and his daughter, Abigail, are in possession of the "Immortality Gate", an alien artefact which has restorative powers enabling the healing of injuries and, Naismith believes, the resurrection of the dead. Wanting to secure immortality for Abigail, Naismith enlists the assistance of the Master to mend the malfunctioning Gate. Infiltrating the Naismith estate, the Doctor and Wilf discover that two of Naismith's staff are undercover Vinvocci, members of the race which originally built the Gate, and that its healing abilities can extend to the whole population of any given species across a whole planet.
The Doctor realises what the Master is planning and runs upstairs to the Gate room. However, he is too late: the Gate repaired, the Master slips away from his guard and manages to enter the device. It is revealed that the Master has reconfigured the Gate to alter the biological makeup of all humans to match that of whoever stands in the Gate. As a result, every human being on Earth is converted into an exact copy of the Master, with the exception of Wilf, who is placed in an isolation chamber by the Doctor, and Donna, who, due to her half-human, half-Time Lord brain, is immune to the Gate's effects. However, as a result of seeing her mother and her fiancé transform into the Master, Donna begins to recover the memories that were erased by the Doctor. As the Doctor looks on in absolute horror at the unfolding events, the Master steps out of the gateway and announces that the human race has become "the Master-race". He then begins laughing insanely, joined by all his doppelgängers, who wave to each other and laugh tauntingly at the helpless Doctor.
As the picture fades to black, the Narrator reappears and asserts that the Master's removal of humanity is merely the prelude to an approaching conflict. The camera pulls back, revealing him to be a Time Lord addressing what appears to be the Panopticon full of fellow Time Lords. He proclaims that this is "the day the Time Lords returned, for Gallifrey, for Victory, for the End of Time itself!"

The End of Time Trailer

Tuesday 22 December 2009

Monday 21 December 2009

Saturday 19 December 2009

Wednesday 16 December 2009

Monday 14 December 2009

Saturday 12 December 2009

Saturday 5 December 2009

Monday 30 November 2009

Saturday 21 November 2009

Friday 20 November 2009

Monday 16 November 2009

Sunday 15 November 2009

The Waters of Mars

The Doctor arrives on Mars, apparently just to relax and enjoy the landscape. At the same time we see an officer (who turns out to be Captain Adelaide Brooke) talking to her family on Earth via a comlink, from a station which transpires to be on Mars. Happening upon the base, the Doctor is arrested by a remote-controlled robot and brought before the Captain. Brooke is initially suspicious of the Doctor, but after a sharp conversation, decides to trust him. The Doctor learns that the date is 21st November 2059, and that this is in fact Bowie Base One, the very first human outpost on Mars. He recalls that, according to history, on this date the base was destroyed in a mysterious explosion in which Brooke and her crew were all killed. Unwilling to break the laws of time and interfere with fixed points in history, he decides to leave, but at the very same time a crisis is developing: one by one, the crew of the base are being infected by a mysterious life form which takes over their bodies, causing them to gush copious amounts of water. Adelaide confiscates the Doctor's spacesuit, reasoning that he could be responsible for the infection in some way, and orders him to come with her and her subordinate, Tarak Ital, to investigate two affected crewmembers, Andy Stone and Maggie Cain, who are not responding to radio calls from the control centre.The infection rate soon begins to increase rapidly, with Andy spreading the condition to Tarak. The two men are contained in the bio-sphere (a "greenhouse" section of the base) while Maggie is secured in the medical wing. Meanwhile, the Doctor is more desperate than ever to leave history to follow its course. The crew plan to evacuate, and the Doctor breaks the news to Adelaide that she must die today, on Mars, if events are to unfold as they should. He cannot shape her destiny, but tells her that her death will inspire her descendants to travel beyond Mars and establish peaceful relations with numerous extraterrestrial species. After he explains this to Adelaide, she lets him go — but, overcome by defiance against time itself, and reasoning that since he is the last of the Time Lords he has the right to control time, he returns to the base, declaring, "The laws of time are mine, and they will obey me!"Using Gadget, the remote-controlled robot, the Doctor brings the TARDIS into the base, rescuing the final three survivors from the conflagration of the base's nuclear destruction. During this time Adelaide realises that he is doing wrong, and should be doing so, as he knows about the pre-determined events.After landing on Earth, Mia and Yuri, shocked at the previous events and the Doctor himself, leave. In a conversation with Adelaide, the Doctor reflects on his changed attitude, which includes calling Mia and Yuri 'little people'. He claims to have realised that the rules of time were valid only when the Time Lords still existed, and that now he is the only Time Lord, he makes the rules, dubbing himself the 'Time Lord Victorious'. Brooke chides him for his newfound arrogance and dominance and to preserve the integrity of the time stream, returns to her house and commits suicide. Suddenly, and horribly stricken by both her and his own actions, realising he has broken the rules and that there must be a price, the Doctor sees Ood Sigma appear in the street, and asks him whether he has finally gone too far — whether this is his death.Unresponsive, the Ood vanishes, and the Doctor staggers back into the TARDIS, to the ominous sound of the Cloister Bell, which only chimes when disaster looms. He suddenly declares "No", and begins to work the TARDIS controls.

Friday 30 October 2009

The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith

Part 1
The episode starts with Sarah Jane sneaking out of her home for "a traffic report meeting" but with help from Mr Smith and K-9, Luke, Rani and Clyde find her in a restaurant with a man. As they are leaving, Clyde is puzzled by the sound of the TARDIS engines. Sarah Jane returns home and finds out that she was spied upon, but seems happy and announces that she is seeing a man, Peter Dalton, and that she has invited him to Bannerman Road.
Sarah Jane tells Luke that she is worried about what Peter might think about her adventures. Luke tells her not to worry and that she looks happy. After Sarah Jane leaves the room, Luke also hears the sound of the TARDIS. When Peter arrives at the Smiths' house, Sarah Jane tries to hide all evidence of her extra-terrestrial adventures, but a parcel arrives containing an alien creature. Rani and Clyde, who were trying to see what Peter was like, take the parcel back to Rani's house. Peter arrives as Clyde and Rani leave, but Rani's mother runs across to also look at him. In the Chandras' house, Rani and Clyde see a multi-eyed slug-like creature burst out of the parcel; detecting the alien, K-9 leaves Sarah Jane's house to warn about the creature. Luke manages to explain K-9 away as a prototype toy. K-9 then joins Rani and Clyde in trying to catch the creature as Sarah Jane, Peter and Luke go for a meal. During the meal, Rani, Clyde and K-9 manage to bring the alien slug to the attic where Mr. Smith teleports it to its home planet, Polongus.
Two days later, Peter proposes to Sarah Jane, who accepts. He gives her an engagement ring, which glows red. Meanwhile, Rani and Clyde investigate Peter's home, which they find to be unoccupied. Back at the attic, Sarah Jane reveals to Luke, Rani and Clyde that she has agreed to marry Peter. Rani and Clyde tell Sarah Jane and Luke that they checked Peter's house and found it empty. The engagement ring glows again and rather than getting angry, Sarah Jane seems happy and explains that Peter has another flat in London, which she has visited many times. Mr. Smith detects an anomaly when the ring glows, but Sarah Jane orders Mr. Smith to deactivate.
When the wedding day arrives, Clyde still has his doubts, but Luke tells him to keep calm and not ruin the wedding, and asks him to help hide K-9. During the ceremony, when the registrar asks if there is any reason why the couple should not be wed, the Doctor bursts through the doors, demanding the wedding be stopped. As he warns Sarah Jane to step away, the Trickster appears and kidnaps Sarah Jane. The Doctor tries to save her but she, Peter and the Trickster disappear.

Part 2
As Luke, Clyde and Rani regain consciousness, the Doctor introduces himself, swiftly revealing that they and K-9 are the only people in the hotel, which now exists in a white void trapped at 15:23:23; the Trickster has literally trapped them in a second, cutting them off from the rest of the world... and, more importantly, cutting them off from the TARDIS, which cannot materialise properly. Using K-9's sensors and the sonic screwdriver, the Doctor is able to determine that Sarah Jane is trapped in another second, deducing that the Trickster has separated the two groups to prevent them helping Sarah Jane.
As Sarah Jane realises what has happened, she removes her engagement ring, realising that it has been influencing her actions. Peter protests that the 'angel' (The Trickster) told him that the ring would only ensure everything worked out at the wedding, and points out that Sarah Jane accepted his proposal on her own. As Peter explains that the Trickster came to him when he had an accident at home, offering him his life and the love he never had, the Trickster states that Sarah Jane and her allies were only be returned to the real universe when she says "I do".
While attempting to find a way out of the hotel, the Doctor confronts the Trickster, revealing that he is the personification of the Pantheon of Discord, the Trickster reciprocating with his own knowledge of the Doctor and explaining that, with Sarah Jane's marriage marking the beginning of her new life, she will forget her old life of defending Earth, creating more chaos for the Trickster to feed on. As the TARDIS appears, attempting to 'lock on' to its pilot, the Doctor explains that they can use the artron energy that powers the TARDIS to fight the Trickster, but his attempt to help Luke, Rani and Clyde into the TARDIS fail, with the TARDIS and the Doctor being cut off from the hotel as it dematerialises with the Doctor still inside. However, Clyde's attempts to enter the TARDIS result in him becoming temporarily charged with artron energy, allowing him to attack the Trickster.
The Trickster's power momentarily disrupted by Clyde's attack, the Doctor is able to materialise the TARDIS in Sarah's second, telling her that there is only one way to end the Trickster's deal. As the Trickster and Clyde appear, both momentarily weakened by Clyde's attack, Sarah Jane tearfully informs Peter that the only way to stop the Trickster is for Peter to take back the deal, even though this will mean his death; Peter genuinely died in the accident, and is currently only living a half-life that will become real once he marries Sarah Jane. Although the Trickster claims that Peter is too weak to make that decision, Peter states that his love for Sarah has strengthened him, ending the deal and returning the hotel to the moment before the Doctor's arrival, with Peter having vanished and nobody else but the heroes remembering anything about the presence of the Trickster or the Doctor.
As Sarah later cries in the attic, she is joined by Luke, Rani and Clyde, who console her on her loss before the TARDIS materialises in the attic. After the Doctor allows the three children to look around the TARDIS, he departs once more, assuring Sarah that she still has an incredible life ahead of her.

Saturday 10 October 2009

Saturday 3 October 2009

Saturday 12 September 2009

Saturday 5 September 2009

Saturday 15 August 2009

Saturday 8 August 2009

Saturday 18 July 2009

Saturday 11 July 2009

Saturday 20 June 2009

Saturday 13 June 2009

Saturday 30 May 2009

Saturday 23 May 2009

Saturday 16 May 2009

Saturday 9 May 2009

Saturday 2 May 2009

Saturday 25 April 2009

Saturday 18 April 2009

Monday 13 April 2009

Saturday 11 April 2009

Planet of the Dead

The episode begins with a young thrill-seeking burglar, Lady Christina de Souza stealing a gold chalice once belonging to King Athelstan from a museum. She then narrowly evades the police by riding on a London bus on which the Doctor is also travelling, shortly before the bus suddenly passes through a wormhole and arrives on the desert planet of San Helios. The Doctor and the other passengers find that while the wormhole is still present, returning on foot is not possible, after the bus driver is killed trying to cross back, evaporating to a skeleton instantly; the passengers deduce that the bus had protected them like a Faraday cage. Seeing the driver's skeleton coming out on the other side of the portal, the police call in UNIT, commanded by Captain Erisa Magambo and aided by scientific adviser Malcolm Taylor, to close the wormhole.
Trapped on the heavily damaged bus, the other passengers introduce themselves: Angela is a middle-aged mother travelling home to her family; Lou and Carmen are an elderly couple who win £10 each time they play the National Lottery due to Carmen's low-level psychic abilities; also Barclay, who was travelling to a friend's house to ask her on a date; and Nathan, who was travelling home to watch television. The Doctor and Christina decide to scout the planet, spotting an approaching storm, while Nathan and Barclay try to fix the bus. As they travel, the Doctor learns of Christina's troubled history, and appreciates her callousness and aptitude in their alien situation. The Doctor and Christina encounter the Tritovores, an anthropomorphic fly species, who take them to their wrecked spaceship.
After clearing up a misunderstanding, the Tritovores explain that they were making a routine goods collection with San Helios before they crashed, revealing the planet to had housed a hundred billion inhabitants and a thriving ecosystem. The Tritovores send out a probe to investigate the cause, and discover a large swarm of metallic stingray-like aliens who routinely create wormholes and destroy ecospheres as their biological imperative. To rescue the Tritovores and the bus passengers, Christina uses her burglary skills to retrieve a crystal which powers the spaceship (together with the pedestal it is located on), unintentionally awakening the stingrays that were inactive within the ship, one of which devours the two Tritovores. The Doctor attaches parts of the pedestal to the bus and uses the chalice of Athelstan as an interface to the technology (much to Christina's fury). This allows the bus to fly through the wormhole, with the stingrays in hot pursuit. Taylor quickly closes the wormhole but not before three of the stingrays pass through it. After UNIT shoots down the stingrays and the passengers have been debriefed, Christina offers to the Doctor to let her travel with him, but he coldly rejects her because he has no wish to lose another companion.
The characters part ways again. The Doctor recommends that UNIT hire Barclay and Nathan, Christina is arrested by the police for the theft and Carmen has a premonition that visibly unnerves the Doctor:
You be careful, because your song is ending, sir. It is returning, it is returning through the dark. And then Doctor... oh, but then...he will knock four times.As a final act of kindness, the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to release Christina from her handcuffs, allowing her to escape. The pair part on good terms as she flies away in the bus and the Doctor enters his TARDIS and dematerialises.

Saturday 14 March 2009

Saturday 7 March 2009

Saturday 28 February 2009

Monday 23 February 2009