Tuesday, December 22, 2009

What do we know about The End of Time?

Over the past few months the BBC have been leaking snippets of the Christmas special, set photographs have been circling on the internet and chatrooms have been abuzz with speculation as to how the Doctor will meet his fate. Let's look at what we know now and what we can muse upon.

The Master is back
Well parts of him anyway. As you can see in this preview clip his mind and, what looks like, burnt remains are being contained inside a metal exoskeleton shrouded in a hologram of how the Master used to look. Or rather, how the Master sees himself now. If the hoodie and the dyed blonde hair are anything to go by the Master thinks he's in My Chemical Romance. But how did he survive? Last time we saw him he died in the Doctor's arms, his body was even burned on a funeral pyre. My odds are on the ring that was plucked from the pyre by his wife Lucy Saxon. Oh, and she's back too.

The Time Lords may not be as dead as everyone thinks
As we saw in the clip above the monitors visible behind the Master bore a circular symbol. This is the Seal of Rassilon, the mark of the high council of the Time Lords. It is also to be seen in this picture, guest star Timothy Dalton is wearing robes that bear the symbol. This could of course be a Time Lord in flashback, but you never know. The Daleks survived the war, so why not the Time Lords?

Donna Noble is back
That right everyone, the loudest lady in Chiswick and possibly one of the most stupendously fantastic friends the Doctor has ever had is back. This is amazing and worrying in one fell swoop. When we last saw Donna she was the DoctorDonna – her mind so full of Time Lordly things that it was killing her. The Doctor was forced to remove all of this from her mind along with all her memories of travelling with him. She was returned safely home in the aftermath of the Dalek invasion with one instruction: she must never be reminded of the time she spent with the Doctor or she will die. So how involved can she be in the plot? If she gets too close to anything Doctorish then she's had it. Her mum Sylvia is back and her grandfather Wilf is going to be the Doctor's companion for the two specials but will they be able to keep her safe? Russell T has recently mentioned in an interview Donna's "final words" to the Doctor. This gives me cause for great concern. Will she die once and for all? Please don't do this to us Russell. Donna was bloody amazing.

What is the Gate?
As we can also see from the teaser clip the Gate would appear to be a physical artefact that has been constructed on Earth and that is about to be opened. Could it be a portal to another world (risky) or another dimension (downright irresponsible)? We shall have to wait and find out and hope nothing nasty leaps out. It probably will though.

Who will knock four times?
It would be rather disappointing if it was emo-Master - as henceforth he shall be known - having a bit of an old tap on the doors of the Tardis. As it is I'm hoping for something a bit bigger, more important and scarier. As for theories as to who 'he' might be, I leave that to you good people to debate.

1 comment:

Gareth said...

If you think about it, the master hears the sound of drums in his head. But the beat of the drums he hears is just a drum beating 4 times. So the knocking 4 times must be the Master.