First broadcast on Christmas Day 2009, The End of Time: Part One marked the beginning of the end for the Tenth Doctor—a slow, sorrowful, and occasionally surreal farewell to one of the most beloved incarnations of the Time Lord. Written by Russell T Davies and directed by Euros Lyn, the episode is a grand, sprawling tapestry of fear, legacy, madness, and mortality. Rewatching in 2025, it still resonates as a piece that dares to be messy and operatic in its ambition, because it is about the collapse of something extraordinary.
We open with the universe feeling wrong. The narration by Timothy Dalton’s Rassilon introduces us to a story that is as much mythic as it is emotional. The Doctor, still running from the prophecy of his death, wanders the stars looking for distractions, as if he can outpace fate. Meanwhile, the Master is being resurrected in a ritual that borders on Satanic pageantry. It is deliberately over-the-top, gothic, even absurd at points, but so too is the concept of death for a being like the Doctor. If The Waters of Mars was a tale of hubris, The End of Time is a story of reckoning.
John Simm returns as the Master, now less a cackling villain and more a fractured, feral force of chaos. His resurrection is botched, leaving him physically and psychologically unstable, constantly hungry and burning with destructive energy. There’s something tragic in this portrayal—a man at war with himself and the world, driven mad by drums only he can hear. Simm leans into the unhinged aspects of the role with gusto, but moments of clarity still break through, especially in his scenes opposite Wilf.
Ah, Wilf. Bernard Cribbins is the heart of this episode. As Donna Noble’s grandfather, he had already won over audiences in Series 4, but here he becomes the companion the Tenth Doctor needs for his final days. Wilf is everything the Doctor is not—old, mortal, kind to his bones, and free from ego. Their quiet scenes together, whether chatting in a cafe or peering out at the stars, are what ground this otherwise grandiose episode. Cribbins' performance is full of warmth and heartbreak. He knows something is coming, and it terrifies him.
Donna herself makes a brief appearance, her memory of the Doctor still locked away to protect her life. Catherine Tate is mostly used for comic relief here, and while her scenes are fun, they can feel slightly disconnected from the heavy emotional weight the episode is building. Still, seeing her again reinforces what the Doctor has lost.
Visually, The End of Time: Part One is bold. The Time Lords on Gallifrey, Rassilon looming like a prophet of doom, the recurring motif of the white-point star, and the apocalyptic dream sequences all contribute to a sense of unease and grandeur. This isn’t just another adventure. It’s the storm before the storm.
The cliffhanger—where the Master uses alien technology to duplicate himself across every human on Earth, creating a world of Masters—is one of the most bonkers and brilliant moments of Davies-era storytelling. It is ludicrous and terrifying at once, because it speaks to the sheer scale of the Master’s delusion and power. The Doctor is powerless, arriving too late, screaming into the sky.
Rewatching in 2025, what stands out is how much this episode is about mortality. The Doctor knows he is going to die. The Master is obsessed with the drumming in his head. Wilf sees himself as an old soldier waiting for one last battle. Even Rassilon, ruler of Gallifrey, feels like a ghost clinging to survival. Everyone in this story is either haunted by their past or desperate to outrun it.
There are moments of quiet beauty too: the Doctor tearing up as he watches Donna from afar, Wilf praying in a church as the TARDIS hums nearby, the two old men laughing on a hilltop. These scenes matter. They give weight to the madness.
If Part One has a weakness, it’s in its pacing. The plotting is dense and sometimes chaotic. The tone shifts rapidly between cosmic horror, slapstick comedy, and philosophical musing. But that dissonance feels deliberate. This is the beginning of the end. The Doctor’s world is fracturing. Reality is warping. The laws of time are breaking. And he is afraid.
More than anything, The End of Time: Part One is a story about fear—not of monsters or aliens, but of endings. The Doctor is afraid to die. And that fear shapes everything.
The true reckoning, of course, comes next. But as the stage is set, the players gathered, and the drums grow louder, there is no doubt: this is the beginning of something final.
No comments:
Post a Comment