10.28: The Sound of Drums

In which the Master kills one tenth of humanity, and some people still don’t think the reset button should be pressed.

Broadcast: June 2007.

Watched: September 2021.

Kind of cool the way the fates have conspired for this post to follow The Enemy of the World, the most James Bond-y stories to date in both old and new shows aligning. Anyway:

“It’s a trap!” “I don’t care.”

It’s cool the way instead of making it a story about the Master becoming Prime Minister, it’s a story in which the Master is PM before the credits roll, and then the regulars are screwed. It remains hilarious the way Harold Saxon is basically just Emmanuel Macron with really bad tinnitus.

The whole thing is dripping with RTD’s complete lack of understanding of politics: “president elect”, “Great Britain”, Tish being basically an intern who’s able to just chat with the PM, a journalist being able to just march into Downing Street, the idea the UN can remove a UK PM, “Saxon broadcast, all channels”.

But it doesn’t really matter, it’s not about that, it’s just a silly action movie one. The parade of celebrities who voted for an evil PM, including a weirdly flirtatious Anne Widdecombe, is great. I love Clive telling Martha to run, although RTD is as ever more indulgent towards shitty men than he probably should be. The Valiant is extremely cool. Love that the UN has a first contact policy now.

And just as it starts further on than you’d have thought, it ends further on, too, with the Master having conquered the Earth, and a 10th of the population being murdered to a soundtrack by Rogue Traders. Jack telling Martha to run is great, and a nice contrast to the way her mother still gives her daggers at the idea she’d do any such thing *even now*.

On paper, it’s amazing. So why isn’t it a classic? I think partly the drums retcon is just pointless. But mostly the tone is all over the place. Playing the journalist’s screams for laughs, with the Master opening and closing the door and pulling faces. (Lucy is a sadist, which gets forgotten when we find out she’s a battered wife, too.) Even if you’ve convinced everyone to vote for you, you’re probably not going to get away with murdering the entire cabinet inside Downing Street. Then there’s a weird sexual tension in the phone call between the Doctor and the Master. It’s all over the shop.

Fun. Bit of a come down after the past few episodes though.

Buy me a coffee

Other things, which are also all over the shop:

• Chibnall really rips this off in season 12 –  the Master’s motivation being anger about Gallifrey, his using the media to make the regulars feel hunted, etc.

• Tish gets two new jobs in four days. Sure, cool.

• Time Lords recognise each other whatever they look like.

• The arrogant US president is very Blair era/Love Actually.

• The paradox machine a) gives the ending away, and b) is utter bullshit, but the good kind.

• What is the point of Leo? He never gets anything to do. [Apparently he was meant to do a lot more, but Reggie Yates was extremely busy, so he didn’t.]

• By the same token, Jack is weirdly underused? He’s fun, but there’s no real reason to bring him back –  compare Nardole’s role as the Doctor’s conscience.

• The annoying journalist who tries to speak to Lucy (”not especially bright”, way to make friends there) is called Vivien Rook... like the fascist dictator from Years & Years.

• “The fall of Harriet Jones” –  the way this is kind of the Doctor’s fault is really not spelled out.

• Some references... The Teletubbies bit is the Clangers bit from Sea Devils. “Long time since we saw each other, Martha Jones” is the Master quoting Gridlock. Later he quotes bits of Logopolis and the book of Genesis for some reason? Also, the cloister bell goes off.

• Jack’s “You too, huh?” undermines the “Martha’s unrequited love” plot/feels like maybe it’s admitting it’s a bit of a misfire.

• As nice as it is to see Gallifrey –  honestly, they make it look beautiful – it’s only there to create an utterly nonsensical backstory. Also, it overrules Lungbarrow, and so this is NOT CANON.

• And finally, one of my most strongly held but least useful opinions is that this is not the second episode of a three-parter, but the seond in a trilogy. The three parts are linked, but Utopia/Sound lead straight into each other but have separate directors, while Sound/Last have the same director but a massive great gap. Probably the truth is that the old school idea of list of Doctor Who stories has entirely broken down by this point, but, my read is that it’s three stories. Anyway.