Dr Who - The End Of Time

Unfair to judge an episode of Dr Who when it's only halfway through, and maybe every question I've got will be answered in part 2, but having watched The End Of Time part 1 I must confess to being a bit disappointed.

The first half took a long time to get anywhere, then the second half seemed to be on fast forward. So Lucy Saxon's saliva, months or years after she last met the Master, can be used to resurrect him? And a bottle of liquid can be used to destroy him in a scene that looked like an outtake from Harry Potter. So he's destroyed? But just as quickly he isn't? So why should we care?

Then he turns up again, with a flickering metal skeleton inside? What's that? And because he appears to be part robot, he's a very hungry cannibal? What sense does that make? And why is there a burger van in the middle of a deserted industrial site, its only two customers being two homeless blokes? Huh??

So Wilf goes looking for the Doctor, then he finds him, and holds him up while he's about to catch the Master, then the Dr plays along with some silly old sods taking photos of him, then gives up chasing the Master? So the Dr has a chat with Wilf, has a bit of a cry (despite having run away for years between episode, getting married? Huh????) then nothing happens.

Then they kidnap the Master and suddenly there's green aliens and suddenly there's a big machine, and suddenly it's explained that it repairs everyone on the whole planet (a bit like the nanogenes in The Empty Child but neither so original nor so well introduced) - and didn't you immediately, the second you heard that the machine heals the whole planet, know exactly what was going to happen? And isn't that room exactly the same place where they filmed Silence In The Library*? (*I wrote that then discovered, from DWC, that in fact it's a set. A set that ended up looking like a previous location. Still, I was wrong.) And also I've seen a bit much of Tredegar House now.

Yes I knew he was going to say "Master race" before he said Master race. Yes I knew they were about to do Being John Malkovich before they did Being John Malkovich. And...

If I'm so clever I should prove it by writing something good, not just criticising other people's efforts. I happen to have found The End Of Time disappointing (from its very RTD title - is it actually literally the End Of Time? What, like it was literally The Next Doctor? and World War 3? and...) although actually the image of everyone turning into the Master wasn't bad. So, New Year's Resolution, write something good or shut up about everyone else's writing.