Specials
Episode title: The End of Time (Part 1)Featuring: Tenth Doctor
Companions: Wilfred Mott
First shown: 25th December 2009
Related articles: The Master
Guide: The episode begins with the Doctor landing on the planet with Ood on, to learn that the Master will return and that something is emerging from the darkness that will lead to “the end of Time itself.” The Doctor races to Earth as a cult loyal to the Master perform a resurrection ritual using genetic material from Lucy Saxon’s lips to complete the process before offering their lives to the Master. Lucy adds a fatal component to the ritual, killing herself and everyone in the prison but the Master escapes.
The Doctor arrives on Earth on Christmas Eve and he quickly begins to trace his foe. He meets Wilfred Mott, Donna Noble’s grandfather, and explains that his time is nearing an end. The Doctor tracks the Master to some wastelands outside of London, where he learns that the sounds of drums inside the Master’s head are not a figment of his insanity. Before he can learn more however, the Master is abducted. The next day the Doctor and Wilfred travel to the Naismith’s estate where they discover Joshua Naismith has enlisted the Master’s help to fix the immortality gate which will grant his daughter immortality. The Doctor discovers that two of the technicians working on the project are actually Vinvocci aliens who are working undercover to try and get the device themselves.
The Doctor is unable to stop the Master completing the programming in time and the Master breaks free of his bonds and leaps into the immortality gate. The process turns every human, except for Wilfred who was in an isolation booth for the gate and Donna (due to her half-Time Lord nature) into clones of the Master.
The Doctor can only look on in horror as the human race is supplanted for the “Master race” as the victorious Master and his clones taunt the Doctor. The narrator, revealed to be the Lord President of Time Lords on Gallifrey, remarks that this was only the start of greater events and that this day was for “the end of Time itself!”
This episode was the first part of a two parter. You can find the episode guide to the second part by clicking here.