Utopia (Doctor Who)

187a – "Utopia"
Doctor Who episode
File:Master Regenerates.jpg The Doctor's greatest enemy regenerates.
Cast
Doctor David Tennant (Tenth Doctor)
Companion Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones)
Others Derek Jacobi – Professor Yana Chipo Chung – Chantho René Zagger – Padra Neil Reidman – Lieutenant Atillo Paul Marc Davis – Chieftain Robert Forknall – Guard John Bell – Creet Deborah Maclaren – Kistane Abigail Canton – Wiry Woman John Simm – The Master
Production
Directed by	Graeme Harper
Written by	Russell T Davies
Script editor	Simon Winstone
Produced by	Phil Collinson
Executive producer(s)	Russell T Davies Julie Gardner
Production code	3.11
Series	Series 3
Running time	1st of 3-part story, 45 minutes
First broadcast	16 June 2007
Chronology
← Preceded by "Blink" Followed by → "The Sound of Drums"

"Utopia" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One on 16 June 2007 and is the eleventh episode of series three of the revived Doctor Who series. It is the first of three episodes that form a linked narrative, followed by "The Sound of Drums" and "Last of the Time Lords".

This episode is set upon the planet of Malcassairo in the year 100 trillion, where a professor is working to send the last remnants of the human race to a place called "Utopia". It sees the return of Captain Jack Harkness and the Master.

Synopsis

As Harkness stows his way back into the Doctor's life, the TARDIS lands at the end of the universe where an ailing Professor works to save his people. But as the last of the human race sets out to their dream homeland, the vicious Futurekind threaten to scuttle the rocket, but a greater threat hides in the shadows: the Doctor's greatest nemesis is about to rise again.

Plot

The TARDIS lands in Cardiff to refuel from the Rift. The Doctor states that this will only take twenty seconds (in contrast to his previous visit), noting that the Rift has been active recently. Captain Jack races towards the TARDIS, grabbing onto it as it dematerialises, and knocks the TARDIS out of control, sending it to the end of the Universe.

After landing in the year 100 trillion on the planet Malcassairo, Jack confronts the Doctor about abandoning him on Satellite 5, and asks about Rose Tyler. Jack reveals that he returned to Earth using a vortex manipulator, but was stranded in the 19th century; therefore, he went to wait at the Cardiff Rift, knowing the Doctor would eventually come back. Exploring, they find a dead city and encounter the Futurekind, cannibalistic humanoids who are hunting a human. The human is attempting to reach a transport to "Utopia", the last hope of the human race.

At the transport site, the TARDIS crew meet the elderly Professor Yana and his insectoid assistant Chantho, who are desperate for help. The spacecraft to Utopia can't launch due to problems with its experimental engine system. Despite the unfamiliar technology, the Doctor solves the scientific problems, and Jack makes final preparations in a heavily irradiated room. As Jack does this, he and the Doctor discuss Jack's inability to die, saying that his resurrection is why the Doctor abandoned him on Satellite 5. The rocket finally takes off for Utopia, leaving the Doctor, Yana, Chantho, Martha, and Jack behind.

A separate plot shows that Yana has been hearing a constant drumbeat inside his head — a condition he reports having had all his life, with the drums getting louder of late. Words such as "regeneration" and "TARDIS" — elements of Time Lord lore — exacerbate the problem. When Martha expresses concern over the Professor's uneasiness, he reveals a long-standing concern with time, and shows Martha a broken fob watch he's had since obtaining it as a child, identical in design to John Smith's watch in "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood". Concerned about the implications, Martha rushes to inform the Doctor.

When the Doctor hears about Yana's timepiece, a flashback sequence inter-cut with the letters of the Professor's name makes clear that "Yana" is an acronym of "You are not alone", the Face of Boe's last words to the Doctor. At the same time, Yana opens the watch, releasing his Time Lord essence. Frantic and horrified, the Doctor races towards Yana's laboratory but is hindered as the Professor closes the doors and allows the Futurekind to enter the base. Yana reveals his true identity to Chantho: he is the Master. He electrocutes her, but Chantho manages to shoot him before dying.

The Doctor arrives in Yana's laboratory just as the Master enters the Doctor's TARDIS, taking the severed hand (which Jack recovered after the events of "The Christmas Invasion" and had carried ever since) with him. He then deadlock seals the TARDIS doors, preventing the Doctor from opening it. Dying from Chantho's shot, the Master regenerates, in a spasm of volcanic, multi-coloured energy, into a younger body, whose voice Martha recognises. After taunting and berating the Doctor, he leaves in the TARDIS, stranding the three time travellers in the distant future, with the Futurekind about to break through the door.

Cast notes

• This is Derek Jacobi's third involvement in Doctor Who. The first was in the September 2003 audio drama Deadline, where he played a screenwriter who believes himself to be the Doctor. The second was several months later, in the webcast Scream of the Shalka, where he played an android version of the Master.
• John Bell was a nine-year-old who won a Blue Peter competition to appear in this episode.
• Paul Marc Davies who played the Futurekind chieftain went on to play the role of The Trickster in The Sarah Jane Adventures stories Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane, The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith and The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith.
• Chipo Chung, who played Chantho, would later go on to play the Fortuneteller in "Turn Left".

Continuity

Jack Harkness and Torchwood

• Harkness was last seen at the end of the Torchwood episode "End of Days", looking off-screen while the familiar sound of the TARDIS is heard in the background. The Torchwood team find him gone, and the place in a mess. While refuelling, the Doctor notes that the Rift has been active recently; this was due to Abaddon escaping through the Rift in the same episode.
• Harkness says that he used a Vortex Manipulator to travel back from the year 200,100. Stolen Vortex Manipulator technology was also used by the Family of Blood in "Human Nature" to track the Doctor through time.
• One of the items in Harkness's backpack is the severed hand of the Doctor. This was first seen in "The Christmas Invasion", when the hand was cut off by the Sycorax leader, and was a recurring background item on the Torchwood Three Hub set. This episode confirms that the hand is indeed the Doctor's.

The Master

• Derek Jacobi plays the fifth version of the Master whom the Doctor has encountered on screen, and John Simm is the sixth. At least one television pundit speculated whether "Mister Saxon" was an intentional anagram of "Master No. Six" or was perhaps "a big red herring". However, when asked, Russell T Davies stated that it was not deliberate.
• The episode marks the first time the Master has been shown undergoing regeneration; in previous episodes ("The Keeper of Traken", the TV movie) the Master has been shown appropriating someone else's body, which is not the same as regeneration. This is the second episode to show a Time Lord other than the Doctor regenerating on screen, the first being the regeneration of K'anpo in "Planet of the Spiders" (the regeneration of Romana occurred off-camera).

References to other stories

• The Doctor, in comparing his and Jack's respective time-traveling devices, comments about Jack having a "space hopper," (the Vortex Manipulator), while he has a "sports car," (the TARDIS). Donna Noble, in the later episode "Planet of the Ood", makes a similar comment early on about a shuttle passing over head; the Doctor has a little, blue box while the shuttle is a Ferrari.
• Martha inquires about the earthquake in Cardiff a couple of years ago, and the Doctor claims he had a bit of trouble with the Slitheen. This refers to the events of the 2005 episode "Boom Town". He also states that he was a different man back then; the episode took place during the Ninth Doctor's tenure.
• The Doctor informs Jack he knew Rose had brought him back to life ever since he left Satellite 5. The Doctor was shown to be aware of this in the untitled Children in Need special.
• The Doctor speaks about Rose's actions in "The Parting of the Ways" as "the last act of the Time War".
• This episode contains clips from "The Parting of the Ways", "The Christmas Invasion", "Human Nature" and "Gridlock". It also features sounds of previous Masters when the Professor's watch is beckoning him to open it, including Anthony Ainley's laugh and a line Roger Delgado spoke in The Dæmons.
• Yana recalls that he was found as a child "on the coast of the Silver Devastation", a place from where the Face of Boe was said to have come in the 2005 episode "The End of the World".
• The truth behind the existence of 'Utopia' and the fate of the humans seen in this episode is revealed in "Last of the Time Lords".
• While walking through the Silo, The Doctor comments on how the human race has survived to the end of the universe, describing them as 'indomitable'. The Fourth Doctor gave a similar speech about the human race in The Ark in Space, the speech ends with the words, 'They're indomitable...indomitable.'

Production and pre-broadcast publicity

• This is the first episode in the revived series to credit three principal cast members within the title sequence, with the addition of John Barrowman, who plays Captain Jack Harkness.
• Music originally composed for Torchwood can be heard in the background of this episode: a variation of the Torchwood theme plays when Jack runs towards the TARDIS and a motif plays when Jack lies dead, having ridden on the TARDIS through the Vortex.
• This episode was announced as the first of a three-part story in Totally Doctor Who, broadcast the day before. Prior to this, only the following two instalments had been linked. Later reference material, including Doctor Who Magazine's season poll, treated the three episodes as a single three-part story. Russell T Davies has said that he regards "Utopia" as a separate story, but notes that the determination is arbitrary.
• The drumming motif is suggestive of the fifth and subsequent bars of the Doctor Who theme tune as composed by Ron Grainer and realised by Delia Derbyshire.

External links

• Utopia (TV story) on Tardis Wiki, the Doctor Who Wiki
• "Utopia" at the BBC Doctor Who homepage
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• "Humans are coming" - episode trailer

Reviews

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