“The Sound of Drums” is part 2 of a three part cycle involving the return of the Master. John Simm, well-known for his turn in the BBC series Life On Mars (which I believe has been shown on BBCAmerica), chews up the scenary in a highly amusing, psychotic take on the Master character. The episode begins with the Doctor, Martha, and Jack materializing in a London alleyway, having used Jack’s “Vortex Manipulator” to travel 100 trillion years back from the future. This is, of course, completely ridiculous and a huge cop out on the part of writer Russell Davies, but I will look past it for the sake of his getting the story moving along. The Master has assumed the identity of John Saxon, newly elected Prime Minister of Great Britain. If you go back and re-watch the previous 11 episodes of this season and the X-mas special from last year, you will see repeated references to “Mr. Saxon” and see posters everywhere stating “Vote Saxon.” One of the great gimmicks of the new run of Doctor Who episodes is the placement of these “Easter eggs” throughout each season for swooning fan boys (like me).

But, back to the story. The Master proceeds to murder his cabinet with poisonous gas, and slices up a overly-inquisitive reporter. Alexandra Moen does a fantastic job of playing the Prime Minister’s wife, Lucy Saxon. She is a highly mysterious character, and if you think she will be explained in the final two episodes, you will be greatly disappointed. One of things I most look forward to next season is to see how she plays into the series.

The PM announces to the world that he has made contact with aliens, whom he calls the Toclafane. The Doctor is incredulous, as the word “Toclafane” is the Time Lord equivalent of “Bogey Man”–it is a made up term that has no real world meaning. [SarahK: The bogey man is real!] The Doctor and the Master eventually have a telephone conversation, adding depth to their co-dependent love/hate relationship and underscoring the insanity raging in the Master’s mind. Later, the Doctor adds detail to the Master’s background by noting that he went crazy as a boy when he looked into the time vortex on Gallifrey during an initiation rite. As the Doctor noted, some were inspired, some ran away, and some were driven mad. The Doctor claims that he ran away and never stopped (this may be taking a little liberty with the canon, but so be it).

The Doctor eventually discovers that the Master is transmitting a mysterious four-beat rhythm that subliminally controls people’s minds over the Archangel network (a mobile phone network that provides worldwide coverage–rather ingenious actually). It would be as if Bill Gates distributed subliminal software with every copy of Windows–of course, the way things are going, I might think it more likely that of Steve Jobs than Gates. The Doctor adds a perception filter to the groups’ TARDIS keys, allowing the trio to move about virtually unnoticed. Cut to the U.S. President, who, thankfully, is not a one-dimensional caricature of President Bush, drumming down Saxon for contacting aliens unilaterally. The Doctor and the group stand off to the side unnoticed, and the Doctor exhibits great naivete by asserting that he intends to “save” the Master. Knowing the danger the Master poses to the Universe, this is a particularly self-indulgent and selfish goal. It is also a departure from character, more or less affirming a deep-seated belief in the Doctor that the Time Lords are some type of “master race.”

The group teleports to a flying air craft carrier, where Saxon and the President await the Toclafane. Hilariously, the Master and his wife sit to the side eating Jelly Babies! The Doctor finds the stolen TARDIS on board, and is aghast that it has been converted to a Paradox machine–basically, this allows the Master to screw with the timeline without the Universe exploding. The Toclafane show up, and don’t like the President. They only respond to the Master, and follow his orders when he tells them to kill the President. The Master seizes the Doctor, Martha, and Jack, and tortures them in various ways with his LASER Screwdriver–one-upping the Doctor’s long-beloved SONIC Screwdriver.

The Master artificially ages the Doctor by 100 years before Martha uses Jack’s Vortex Manipulator to escape. The aged Doctor demands that the Master reveal who the Toclafane really are, but the Master refuses saying that the revelation would break the Doctor’s hearts. The Master creates a rift in time and unleashes 6 billion Toclafane on the Earth. The Master orders them to kill one tenth of the Earth’s population, while the aged Doctor looks on defeated. Martha threatens revenge as the Earth burns. How will the Doctor get out of this one?