Well this post is almost a week late but meh, I've been busy =P Those of you who don't watch Doctor Who can probably ignore this post as irrelevant. Those of you who do watch it and haven't seen the episode from the 23rd yet can probably ignore it as a spoiler.
As I suspected long ago, the Saxon references through the last seasons of Doctor Who and Torchwood were meaningful and the source of this season finale, I don't know who could have mis... fine, I didn't see anything =P But still, they were there if you were looking out for them, or indeed if you go back and look for them.
Now there's a lot of speculation around the Doctor and the Master, but I'd like to take a minute to mention the Master's new companion. She's human as far as I can make out from the episode, and there's no solid evidence otherwise, but she does seem rather... odd. Obviously she gets off on power, you'd have to be that sort of person to hang around with the Master for any length of time, even without marrying him. It seems to go to the extreme in her though, she looked to be on the verge of orgasm when the rift opened up and 6 billion Toclafane came through to slaughter Humanity. Plus the dancing to the music was a nice touch, she seemed barely in control of herself. In fact, through the whole end of that scene, particularly just before the Paradox Machine activates she seems rather too excited for her own good. Oh, and before anyone runs with that "barely in control of herself" statement, I don't think she's being controlled, she doesn't show any of the usual signs of that nor does she show unusual signs of it, this seems to be exactly who she is.
Anywho, on to the Master. Some people seem to have a problem with the explanation of why he's how he is. Originally he was calculating, in control, and pretty much an evil genius; now he's just mentally unstable due to have looked into eternity. This makes him a victim and thus basically a more understandable and fluffy character, which I agree kinda sucks. It does however underline that the Timelord society, while "perfect" in the legends, was at its core cruel and aloof from reality. Personally I think that both views of the Master are right, he is unstable yes, but he couldn't have gotten this far without making big plans and thinking ahead. I think that the description of him as having gone mad is mostly the Doctor imposing his own view on events. On the other hand, his plans have apparently had a definite decline over the course of the show (that's all 29 seasons, not just this episode), which would imply him sinking slowly into some form of madness or desperation, which is understandable when all his plans are constantly thwarted, not to mention the constant drumming at the back of his mind (which I think the Toclafane planted there when he first looked into the Untempered Schism in order to slowly manipulate him here, unless certain other theories are true, in which case they wouldn't have existed properly or at all back then). Dying multiple times, having his race wiped out, running away, and ending up completely along for who knows how many hundreds or thousands of years can't have done him much good either. So now he finally has another chance and he has grabbed it with both hands and managed to get further than he has before. Also it seems that he has noticed that the Doctor's plans always seem to work out (if we ignore the people left behind) and has started to, possibly subconsciously, adopt some of his habits like the random expressions, jellybabies, etc.
As for the Toclafane... Legend come reality through the weirdness of the void? A last resort to save the remaining Timelord children near the end of the war? The Gelth? Or something else entirely? I guess we find out in two days :-)
In other news I'd definitely vote Saxon, evil genius or not. Despite not being Human he acts more like one than any politician we have. At least he's fun...
