Doctor Who: S03 Ep12 – The Sound Of Drums

What happened?

Using Jack’s vortex method of time travelling, The Doctor, Martha and Jack land in London just in time to see Harold Saxon – The Master – having won his election (via subtly shifting the public perception in his favour by a low level drumming pulse embedded in mobile phone signals!) and become Prime Minister. His plan, 18 months in the formation, is to grab the world’s attention before unleashing billions of killer beings upon the planet.

The Doctor, Martha and Jack infiltrate his floating ship where he is staging the grand reveal to thwart him, but The Master is wise to their plans. He utilises aging technology on The Doctor, making him elderly, tortures Jack by killing him so he can rise again, and only Martha is able to escape whilst leaving her kidnapped family behind. She vows to return, as the aliens rain down on the planet and decimate a tenth of the population. . .

Thoughts

This mid-section of the three-part finale to the end of the series felt problematic to me. It just didn’t seem to flow right, or feel right – especially when set against the previous episode and the kind of edge and unease it generated. I suppose one key question that keeps cropping up with every episode that is set on Earth is: Why Earth? What is it about conquering that planet and attempting to wipe out the human race that is so compelling for all manner of aliens across the galaxies!?

It was explained, of course, that The Master had only been able to travel to Earth at the point when the TARDIS was last there but that was about all that made logical sense about The Master’s behaviour during this episode. He had got himself elected Prime Minister and immediately wiped out his cabinet, kidnapped Martha’s family, and announced to the world a new alien race was going to make its appearance the next day.

His grand plan, so far it seems, is purely to have got to the position he was in so he would have a televised audience watching him unveil his spherical alien race and see him kill the USA President and launch the attack decimating the planet. I have to assume this is so he can show the world who he is, what he’s done, so they will literally know he is The Master!

It felt rather convoluted. The mobile phone pulse to capture minds to vote in his favour just to destroy these same people just seems silly. But there is still a part 3 in the balance here, and presumably more revelations to come, that might answer some of my questions so far. Though I’m not holding my breath that there’ll be an answer to why he strapped a bomb to the back of Martha’s television. (If he could predict she’d be there why not just have his men capture her like the rest of her family? Again, seemed silly.)

The Master himself continued to provide good entertainment value, mind. His playful, cocksure psychosis makes for a very enjoyable villain, though it does come with the cost of sacrificing the sinister menace he possessed during those brief moments at the end of the previous episode in his awakened, older incarnation.

The Doctor, Martha and Jack weren’t really up to much during this episode. Their plan to thwart The Master wasn’t particularly clear (was the plan to put one of those things around his neck to stop his pulse signal to, what, snap the brainwashed masses out of the hold he had over them? So what? That time had passed!) but at least the idiocy of it was duly met with him turning the tables on them all.

Only Martha managed to escape, with a determined remark about how she’ll return, which I fully expect she will. Meanwhile The Doctor got hit with an aging process (courtesy of technology from Dr Lazarus, which was a half-decent attempt at tying previous episode’s events into proceedings here) that was uncomfortable to watch (something about the rudimentary effects employed made it seem horrible – I’ll give whoever was responsibly credit and consider it deliberate rather than a side-effect of low budget!).

The alien spheres that were unleashed were intriguing. The Master made a remark to The Doctor about how he knew what they really were. For some reason I wondered if they weren’t Daleks; it was just the idea that The Master would have allied himself to the very race that wiped out the Timelords could have been one that would so appal. Couple that idea with the strange ‘paradox machine’ that had been used on the TARDIS, which has perhaps been a part of explaining how the Daleks could be brought back, and that’s basically where my logic runs out. Beyond that I have no evidence for such a spurious pondering.

This mid-section episode really was about putting our characters in dire circumstances, defeated, before the final instalment will see them eventually triumph. It very much felt like a second act – robbed of the intriguing set up (even the climax to the previous episode was casually dodged by Jack warping all of them through time with barely a flinch) and lacking a climactic finish, it was an uninspiring halfway house that left me hoping they’d saved the good stuff for the last instalment.

What was the best part?

Probably the brief overview of life on Gallifrey, showing some of the trials the young Timelords went through. The mention of how they appear to have been self-entitled, so The Doctor called himself as much because he wants to help and save people – could have done with more elaboration, as that felt like a major revelation. The Doctor is always adamant that people just call him The Doctor, to be drip-fed information that suggested it was a name he provided for himself as part of his own moral ethos deserved more examination.

What do I think will happen next?

The Master will surely get thwarted, and I can’t help but feel like the exact nature of the alien spheres have greater significance. I’m still banking on Daleks! Otherwise I expect Martha will somehow return to the action and stage a rescue and perhaps The Doctor will snub her in some way, or something will happen to her family, and make her decide there is no way she can continue with him.