'The End of Time' Part Two (Story Code 4.18) by Russell T Davies

“This is the Doctor. And now the End of Time is nigh. The Master’s in control. The Time Lords are returning. And it’s time to face the final battle…” – The Tenth Doctor

On the last day of the Time War, amidst the shattered ruins of the planet Gallifrey, the Time Lord President convenes with his advisors on a matter of great urgency; their Visionary advises that an ancient prophecy is about to be fulfilled: although the Doctor has disappeared from the battle, he intends to destroy the Daleks and Time Lords alike – Gallifrey is about to fall. But the President refuses to allow himself and his people to die; the prophecy also talks of two surviving ‘Children of Gallifrey’ locked in final battle on Earth, and the President sees this as a means of their salvation… In the present, the Master has succeeded in transforming the entire population of the Earth into copies of himself – and now that the evil Time Lord controls the planet’s entire population, its government, its military might and its defences, he plans to turn the Earth into a massive warship. However, his gloating triumph to his captives, the Doctor and Wilf, is rudely interrupted by a phone call, as the Doctor’s former companion, Donna, calls her grandfather on his mobile. Incredulous that someone is still unaffected by his influence, the Master gives the order to find and kill Donna; but as his copies close in on her, Donna’s re-emerging memories activate a defence-mechanism implemented by the Doctor – her body emits an energy pulse that incapacitates the Masters around her, and then sends her to sleep... Back in the control room of the Immortality Gate, the Doctor attempts to reason with the Master, offering him the chance to join in his travels through space and time; but the evil Time Lord is reluctant to lose the sound of drums in his head, which he believes are a prophecy calling to him from the End of Time: with the noise now in the heads of the six billion people inhabiting Earth, the Master is convinced that the amplified signal will enable him to locate its point of origin. The Master tries to force the Doctor to help him, but the guard pointing a gun at Wilf turns out to be the alien Rossiter in disguise, and the evil Time Lord is swiftly incapacitated; the Vinvocci and his colleague, Addams, then rush the Doctor and Wilf to safety, teleporting them to their spaceship in orbit around the Earth. But as Addams and Rossiter prepare their ship for escape the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to disable the engines, setting vessel to silent running to prevent its detection by the Master. As night falls, the Master and his copies join minds and listen to the sound of drums in their heads… and back on Gallifrey, the Time Lord President and his advisors send a signal – the four-beat sound of a Time Lord’s heartbeat – back in time as a message to the Master’s eight-year old self, as the boy gazes into the Untempered Schism, a rift in the time vortex. Requiring a physical object to ensure their plan’s success, the president removes a diamond from his staff and uses his gauntlet to cast the crystal through time and space to Earth – and in the present, the Doctor and the Master see the crystal’s arrival as it falls as a falling star. When his troops retrieve the crystal from its impact crater, the Master realises that it is an ‘impossible diamond’: a White Point Star… Back on the Vinvocci ship, Wilf receives another visit from the mysterious woman, who warns that the Doctor’s final battle is approaching; Wilf joins the Doctor as he makes repairs to the ship, and implores his friend to take his old service revolver so that he can defend himself in his coming fight; but the Doctor doggedly refuses: he is saddened by all the deaths that he has caused in his fight against evil, and even though the Master’s destruction will restore everyone on Earth, the Doctor is still unable to wilfully take a life. Just then the Vinvocci vessel receives an open broadcast from the Master: the villain is about to use the White Point Star to boost the signal and will fulfil his insane plan. Knowing that such a diamond can only be found on his home planet Gallifrey, the Doctor immediately realises that the Time Lords are returning – he grabs Wilf’s gun and races to the spaceship’s control room. On Earth, the Masters connect the diamond to the Immortality Gate and creates a pathway through time to Gallifrey; as contact is made, the President acts on the vote of the High Council: the Time Lords will rise once more…After explaining to Wilf that the Master has used the signal in his head to breach the time lock around the Time War, the Doctor reactivates the Vinvocci ship’s controls and sets course for Earth. As Wilf and Rossiter man the ship’s laser pods and take out the missiles that the Master has begun to hurl at them, the Doctor grimly prepares to crash the ship into the Naismiths’ mansion, in a desperate bid to destroy the Master; however, at the last minute the Doctor is unable to bring himself to sacrifice the lives of his friends; pulling the ship out of its fatal nosedive, he throws himself out of the ship, crashing through the skylight and falling in a bloody heap on the floor of the Immortality Gate control room – just as the President and his entourage emerge from the white void inside the Immortality Gate’s mouth. Addams makes to flee to safety in her ship, but Wilf insists that she land it so that he can help the Doctor. As the Master welcomes his fellow Time Lords, a badly wounded Doctor struggles to warn the President of his nemesis’ real plan to transplant his personality into every single Time Lord; but the President is unperturbed, and with a wave of his gauntlet frees everyone on Earth of the Master’s influence; the President then orders everyone to kneel before him, and watches as his home world shimmers into existence in the skies above Earth – Gallifrey has returned! As the Earth’s population erupts into terrified chaos, Wilf arrives in the control room, swapping places in the Gate’s control chamber to allow a frightened scientist to join the Naismiths as they run outside in terror. The Doctor is appalled at the implications of the Master’s actions: the breaking of the time lock will not only trigger the return of the Time Lords, but also that of the Daleks, their home planet Skaro, and the Nightmare Child – Hell is descending. But the President refuses to care: he plans to use the rupture in the time-space vortex to transform the Time Lords into creatures of pure consciousness, free of creation itself – an abhorrence that the Doctor sought to prevent. When the Master demands that the Time Lords let him join them, the President raises his gauntlet to blast down the rogue – only to be stopped by the Doctor, his face set in determination as he levels Wilf’s gun at them. The Doctor now faces a terrible decision: killing the President will stop the Time Lords, and killing the Master will break the link with Gallifrey, causing it to revert back into the time lock – but should he take a life? When the face of one of the President’s advisors is revealed as that of the mysterious woman who spoke to Wilf, the Doctor’s decision is made: he turns and shoots the Immortality Gate’s controls. As the President – the legendary Time Lord, Rassilon – makes to stop the Doctor, the Master rushes forward and fires his life force, in a fury of revenge for the manipulation of his entire life for this moment. The Master and the Time Lords are enveloped in a blaze of white energy, and Gallifrey flickers out of existence… The Doctor comes to on the floor of the control room, amazed that he is still alive. However, his joy is short-lived – as he hears Wilf knocking four times on the door of the gate’s control room; the plucky pensioner is still trapped inside the chamber, which is about to be flooded with radiation as the Gate’s system goes critical. Knowing that Carmen’s fateful prophecy has finally come true, the Doctor becomes bitter at such unfairness, convinced that that his tenth incarnation is capable of so much more; but the Doctor is also better than that – he ignores Wilf’s protests and swaps places with his friend, and then absorbs the deadly radiation that floods into the chamber… The threat ended, the Immortality Gate’s systems shut down; the Doctor emerges from the control chamber, his body healing as his next regeneration begins… Meanwhile, back on Earth, Sylvia and Shaun watch Donna as she emerges from her coma, apparently none the worse for her ordeal. The TARDIS materialises In the street outside, as the Doctor drops Wilf off with his family; although the Time Lord knows his end is near he promises to visit Wilf one last time, after he has claimed his ‘reward’… Stepping back inside the TARDIS the Doctor carries out some unfinished business: he saves Martha and her new husband, Mickey Smith, from an attack by a rogue Sontaran warrior, and then bids them goodbye; he stops Luke Smith from being hit by a car as the boy genius returns home to his mother, Sarah Jane; in a space bar, the Doctor introduces Captain Jack Harkness to Midshipman Allonso Frame; and he then pays a visit to Verity Newman, the great-grand-daughter of Joan Redfern, at the signing of her new book, ‘A Journal of Impossible Things’. The Doctor then returns to Chiswick for Donna’s wedding to Shaun; bidding a final farewell to Wilf and Sylvia, the Doctor gives them a gift: a lottery ticket for Donna, bought with money borrowed from her late father, Jeffrey. The Doctor then makes his final trip, to New year’s Day 2005, to see Rose and Jackie Tyler. His mission fulfilled, the Doctor attempts to return to the TARDIS, but stumbles and collapses in pain as his body is wracked in radiation-inflicted agony. As he is about to give up, the Doctor receives another message from Ood Sigma, who tells the Time Lord that the universe will sing him to sleep. Given a new burst of energy, the Doctor makes it inside the TARDIS and, facing his end with dignity, he sets the ship flying out into space as his regeneration takes full effect. As the Doctor’s body begins to change, the ship’s control room is set aflame with energy. The Doctor transforms into his Eleventh incarnation, but his relief at finding his new body in full working order is short-lived – the TARDIS is about to crash into the Earth…

“This song is ending, but the story never ends.” - Ood Sigma

David Tennant (The Doctor), Matt Smith (The Doctor), John Simm (The Master), Bernard Cribbins (Wilfred Mott), Timothy Dalton (Lord President [Rassilon]), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), Jacqueline King (Sylvia Noble), Billie Piper (Rose Tyler), Camille Coduri (Jackie Tyler), John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Freema Agyeman (Martha Smith-Jones), Noel Clarke (Mickey Smith), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Jessica hynes (Verity Newman), June Whitfield (Minnie Hooper), Claire Bloom (The Woman), Thomas Knight (Luke Smith), Russell Tovey (Midshipman Frame), David Harewood (Joshua Naismith), Tracy Ifeachor (Abigail Naismith), Lawry Lewin (Rossiter), Sinead Keenan (Addams), Joe Dixon (The Chancellor [The Second]), Julie Legrand (The Partisan), Brid Brennan (The Visionary), Karl Collins (Shaun Temple), Krystal Archer (Nerys), Lachele Carl (Trinity Wells), Paul Kasey (Ood Sigma), Ruari Mears (Elder Ood), Silas Carson (Voice of Ood Sigma), Nicholas Briggs (Voice of Judoon), Dan Starkey (Sontaran)

Directed by Euros Lyn
Produced by Tracie Simpson
Executive Producers Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner
A BBC Wales production

TX (BBC 1 & BBC HD):
1st January 2010 @ 6.40 pm

Notes:
*Featuring the Tenth Doctor, Wilfred and Donna, and introducing the Eleventh Doctor

*This special was also simulcast on the BBC's HD channel

*This special is approximately seventy-three minutes long, the longest single episode of 'Doctor Who' since the 1996 Television movie

*The final scene, in which the Eleventh Doctor is introduced, was written by incoming executive producer / lead writer Steven Moffat