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!"
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