re: The End of Time (pts 1&2): Final DT episodes
Rather off-topic, but... I recently was given a copy of the DVD set, Doctor Who: The Beginning, which includes "An Unearthly Child"/"TheTribe of Gum", "The Daleks", and the two-episode "The Edge of Destruction", as well as a DVD of "The Aztecs" and a copy of the audio of "Marco Polo", which leaves me only with "The Keys of Marinus" and "The Sensorites" to have the complete first season of Who; so I am revisiting these in the remastered form.... Eventually, I hope to put together the complete set of Doctor Who as broadcast, but that is going to take considerable time. In the meantime, I periodically go back and watch things out of sequence as well as sometimes watching them in sequence to catch little bits of continuity and the like....
It wasn't so much funny lines, of which Baker's Doctor had a fair number all along (as did they all, really, even Hartnell's, who delighted in bad puns) but the fact that, toward the latter part of his run (except for the final season, where JNT apparently reined him in quite a bit), Baker tended to just take it OTT as much as he could possibly get by with, which had the result of tearing any tension in the story to shreds at times. When he was good, he could be fantastic; but when he was being an ass, I could have cheerfully shot Tom Baker.... Terrance Dicks made the comment that when he first joined the program he was "as good as gold", and thoroughly committed to the role, but by the time of the fifth and sixth season, he was a real "pain in the neck" and very difficult to work with. I think he had simply become bored, and was being childish... something Baker himself, in later years, more than hinted at at times. And I think that detracted considerably from the quality of the storytelling in those episodes. The humor which emerged from the character, on the other hand, could be anything from quite broad to very subtle, it could emphasize his alienness or make him more vulnerable by showing his fallibilities, and that aided in the storytelling and the growth of the character; at those times, Baker was often at his very best, and Baker's Doctor at his best is very good indeed....
On topic: Related to the above... I do think both Tennant and the writers sometimes fall prey to the sort of thing I describe above, and it detracts from the program now as it did then. Overall, I very much like his Doctor, and there have been some very good things along the way, but I do think it is time for a change, yes.
As for the final two episodes -- I agree with some of the criticisms here, and disagree with others. While I am quite aware that people have survived (sometimes with relatively minor injuries, in fact), extremely high falls, this is generally when they land on turf or in greenery, which may soften or break up the velocity of their fall in smaller increments. The problem here is that we were not given anything of that sort; he crashes through glass and metal, and lands on an extremely hard surface, without any indication of any kind of psychic energy being exerted to soften his impact whatsoever. While he might survive, and might, through some freak, not even be injured in any obvious way, the internal injuries should have been enough to incapacitate him, at least. He shouldn't have been able to rise, let alone stand.... A definite violation of suspension of disbelief.
John Simms as The Master... I have a rather different take there. On the whole, I have found his characterization interesting, though the final portion of the first part I simply found irritating, annoying, and just badly done. A good concept, but lousy follow-through. The majority of the other faults I chalk up, I'm afraid, to writing more than Simms' performance; and at times I thought he brought some very nice layering to the character, especially in the quieter moments. And what the blazes is up with the force beams and the like? Where did that come from? It makes me think very much of something that was addressed in one of the special features on the DVD of "The Silurians", where the more rigorous idea of scientific plausibility and any sort of logic based in reality has been replaced by a reliance on flashy "magic" or "psychic" activities, for which we really haven't been given any sort of grounding of the sort necessary for acceptance of the particular instances witnessed. There has been too much "flash" and not enough preparation... partly the result of the format, which does tend to rush things (I, too, would prefer a somewhat more leisurely -- and therefore often more careful -- storytelling; but that is out of favor with current audiences, who are used to being carried along with explosions, loud noises, dialogue delivered in a manner that doesn't so much chew the scenery as devour scenery, stage, and orchestra pit all at one go, and such rapid pacing that one (supposedly) has no time to note the gaping holes in the scripts, rather than a more measured, nuanced, and layered, thought-provoking sort of storytelling or acting experience.)
Ultimately, I did enjoy these final episodes, but I think they could have been one heck of a lot stronger... and I think RTD himself could well have done a very good job had he set his mind to it. As it is, there are a lot of things I very much liked, and a lot of things which annoyed the dickens out of me; and I sincerely hope a little more care will be taken in future for such aspects, as one can have both a fast-paced story and one whose logic is also well-knit and consistent with what has gone before (not to mention internally).
