Simm’s to be The End

To borrow from Jerry Maguire: you know when you’re not completely miserable yet, but you glimpse next week’s misery? That’s me right now.

We moved. How can you cover so many events and so much time and energy expended with just two words? ‘We moved’. Makes it sound so easy. Anyway, we’re all in our new flat and yay, it is fab. To celebrate the fact that we had accomplished all this within twelve hours of opening the new front door, we sat down quite late last night and watched ‘Doctor bloody Who’ episode twelve: ‘The Sound Of Drums’.

First thoughts? Bearing in mind this is probably the only time I’ve actually slept on an episode before writing one of these? Well, where do we start – John Simm is fab. He’s fabber than fab. He’s out-Doctor’d the Doctor – almost. It’s like they’ve swapped roles: the Doctor’s got his serious face on, and the Master’s just out to crack as many jokes and gags as possible, lampooning everyone and everything with red-Smartie’d enthusiasm. After all, if you’re going to destroy the world, you may as well have fun doing it, eh?

Best lines? [Upon seeing Jack and Martha:] ‘Oh look, it’s the girlie and the freak. Although I’m not sure which one’s which…’
The Doctor to Martha, shamelessly dancing on the divide between cruel tactlessness and teasing rudeness: ‘Oh, I know what it’s like! It’s like when you fancy someone and they don’t even know you exist. That’s what it’s like.’ (And then Jack’s look at Martha and the consequent: ‘You too, huh?’ Aww! Poor wee Jack! And Martha – how amazingly rude was that of the Doctor? Ok, Ten, you can stop pretending you don’t notice any more. She told you, remember? Back when you both agreed to pretend it was just a ploy to wake you up?
Prime Minister Saxon: ‘Thank you one and all, you ugly fat-faced bunch of wet snivvling traitors.’ Nice! I half expected him to call em all ‘nonces’ too – although I did nearly have heart failure when the ‘W’ of ‘wet’ came out – for some reason I thought he were going to say a completely different W word. But that’s not ‘Doctor bloody Who’.

The ‘opening of the door to check she’s still screaming’ had me in stitches, as did his ‘happy’s like THIS, and ‘not funny’s like THIS’ routine. Pure Morecambe and Wise gold. And then his ‘Britain, Britain, Britain’ when addressing the nation – oh how we laffed, wondering if Tom Baker were chuckling away at this at home. And jelly babies – Mr Saxon eating jelly babies! He’s offering the bag to ‘his wife’ (the one he found downt side of the sofa?), and I’ve just looked at me flatmate and went ‘those better not be -’
‘Jelly baby?’ he asks.
We squeeeeeeeeeee’d.

And so to Things That Make You Go ‘Hmm?’:

Those perception devices, then. Made / grown fromt same material as the TARDIS, are they? Which has a knackered chameleon circuit and as such is physically unable to blend in any more. Hmm. Anyway, skip all that – why is it when you hold the device in yer hand, it dunt work, but when you put the (I’m guessing quite normal) chain around yer neck, suddenly it switches on? Ah, I see – it’s Time Lord Skience. And we Do. Not. Mess.

Did you clock that Martha’s telly were supplied by ‘Magpie Electricals’? So someone took it over after Mr Magpie was deadified by Maureen Lipman as The Wire in series two’s ‘The Idiot’s Lantern’ then? The son of the family, maybe? He was jolly handy wi those replacement valves…

But didn’t the Master take a bit of a risk, blasting Ten wi his laser screwdriver (‘Who uses sonic, anyway?’)? After all, he said he used Professor Lazarus’ work to do that. Is he sure he’s not about to produce some mutating, DNA-throwback Time Lord by accident? Really?

Did it seem that Ten took to the Master’s return really quite easily? ‘Oh, hi Doctor, I’m back from the dead, I’ve been resurrected to Make War but I ran fer it instead. How’ve you been then?’ And purr wee Ten just goes ‘Not so bad, yourself? Do us a favour, mate, stop all this warring nonsense and join my gang. We’re good people, and after all, we are the only two Gallifreyans left…’ For some reason I thought he’d be a little more gobsmacked. But then, when you’ve seen everything Doctors One – Ten’s seen, I suppose there int much left to surprise you. And, truth be told, if any Time Lord besides the Doctor were to survive, you can bet it’d be that one. Git.

And then Martha – ooh, she’s a rum’un. I’d watch her if I were you, Doctor… Young girlies wi studyin’ and common sense get angry and vengeful when you arrest, intimidate or otherwise upset her family. She’s already gone against so many pieces of advice and orders given by the tall Gallifreyan, and dunt even seem to see Captain Jack as the shiny shiny beacon of all that is gung-ho arse-kickery (which she should). I think the Master has a lot to fear there. You mark my words, she’s going to make sure he gets what’s coming to him – and we’re not talking about sneaking up behind him whistling ‘Bring Me Sunshine’.

And now to why I’ve been miserable for the last thirty-six hours since watching it: it’s looking like The End of Ten. This Doctor’s had a damn fine run – a damn fine run, but it looks like the next forty-five minutes of episode will be his swansong. Why do I think this? Martha’s been introduced to the concept of regeneration, courtesy of Jack’s quick exposition at the beginning of this episode. And just like the entire premise behind ‘Moonlighting’, now that the cat’s out of the bag and just about everyone in the universe knows that Martha’s got a thing for him it’s all about to get shaken up again. Like the plot of the best Cardassian plays, we already know who and when, we just need to confirm why and exactly how it’s done.

So there we are. I’m already in mourning for the End of Ten, and am not looking forward to next week for two reasons: we’ll have to say goodbye to the world’s favourite incarnation of the Doctor (or second favourite, after Tom Baker’s Four), and it’ll be the end of series three. Double bummer, as me American mate would say.

I know it’s entirely possible I’m wrong. I know this is all in me head. Possibly. But then there’s ‘possible’ and then there’s ‘likely’, as a wise man once said. Bruce Campbell, I think.

And damn this comms black-out! I’m using me Mac that’s sitting int empty bedroom of me old flat, wi no furniture of any kind and no electric save the air-con (thank Sean; it’s been 30 degrees C recently). The broadband man’s coming Thursday. Then I can safely relocate and catch up on all Tinternet shite I’ve been missing.

That’ll do then. I’ve got to go – I’ve got some miserying and being sad to do.

Oh, and Wallpapers Of The Week are here.

P.s. ~ PLEASE DO NOT TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS NEXT WEEK! I AM AVOIDING ALL SPOILERAGE AND WILL HAPPILY GUT THE FIRST PERSON AS 'INADVERTANTLY' DROPS ANY HINTS OR CLUES! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Tags:
Doctor Who ~ David Tennant ~ Martha Jones ~ Freema Agyeman ~ BBC ~ John Barrowman ~ Tom Baker ~ John Simm ~ Little Britain ~ Morecambe & Wise ~ The Master ~ Cardassian