'The Sound of Drums' (Story Code 3.12) by Russell T Davies

“This country has been sick. This country needs healing. This country needs medicine. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that what this country needs, right now, is a Doctor…” – Prime Minister Harry Saxon

The Master has regenerated and stolen the Doctor’s TARDIS, leaving him and his companions stranded on a far off planet in the year One-Hundred-Trillion. As the savage, cannibalistic Futurekind attempt to break down the door to the Professor’s laboratory, the Doctor frantically modifies Captain Jack’s time manipulator, using the device to transport himself, Jack and Martha to Earth in the Twenty-First Century; the trio arrive just in time to learn that the winner of the recent election for a new Prime Minister is Harry Saxon – none other than the Master… After giving a press conference to his public, the Master and his wife, Lucy Saxon, arrive at Number 10 Downing Street, where Martha’s sister, Tish, has just taken a job working for the newly-appointed P.M. Calling his Cabinet to session, the Master condemns his colleagues as traitorous sycophants, before donning a protective mask and gleefully gassing them all to death. Arriving at Martha’s flat, the Doctor learns that they have arrived just four days after he and Martha last left Earth; using the Internet to look up the biography of ‘Harry Saxon’, they discover that the Master has been on Earth all along… At No. 10, journalist Vivien Rook uses the pretence of an interview to warn Lucy Saxon of her husband’s true identity; Vivien explains that Harry Saxon’s history is a fabrication: he has only been in the country for eighteen months, and has somehow mesmerised the population into following him. But as the country’s First Lady loyally defends her husband, the Master enters the room and introduces Vivien to his ‘new friends’: as the reporter looks on in horror, four mechanical spheres materialise, extrude wicked-looking blades, and then brutally slaughter her; Lucy is then thrown into a panic, but the Master reassures her than all will be resolved in the morning… The Doctor tells his companions that he used his sonic screwdriver to lock the controls of his TARDIS, forcing the Master to travel back to the last location the ship visited; as Martha discusses Saxon, she unconsciously taps out a drum beat on her hands, a beat that the Doctor finds oddly familiar... The Master broadcasts a message to the British public, informing them that after the recent alien invasions they have suffered, he will instigate first contact with a peaceful alien race, the Toclafane, the following morning; by opening diplomatic relations with this extraterrestrial species, he will herald in a new chapter in human history. On hearing one of the Master’s comments directed specifically at Martha, the Doctor discovers a bomb attached to the rear of her television set; the trio only just reach the safety of the street before the device explodes, destroying Martha's flat. Realising that the Master knows her identity, Martha frantically calls her mother, unaware that their conversation is being monitored by the Mysterious Woman; when Francine then passes the call to her estranged husband, Clive, he manages to yell a warning to his daughter before the authorities can stop him; as the Master’s men rapidly bundle Martha’s parents into a van outside, her sister, Tish, is taken captive at 10 Downing Street. Martha jumps into her car, and, together with the Doctor and Jack, speeds to her mother’s house; however, when she arrives she immediately comes under fire from armed governmental forces; throwing the vehicle into reverse, Martha drives her friends to safety, before dumping the car under a bridge and then fleeing on foot. Martha calls her brother, Leo, to warn him and his family to hide, but the Master has been monitoring the call, and comes on line to threaten her; taking the phone the Doctor attempts to reason with his nemesis, explaining the events of the Time War, the destruction of the Time Lords and their home planet of Gallifrey, and the end of the Daleks. The Master is intrigued by the Doctor’s responsibility for the end of the conflict; he reveals that the Time Lords resurrected him to help win the war, but he chose to flee in terror instead, turning himself into a human so that he could hide from the battle. The Doctor attempts to convince the Master to take their fight off Earth, but his enemy stubbornly refuses: he still hears drums in his head, and as he taps his fingers, the population of Britain taps out the same beat... Watching from a closed circuit camera, the Master draws the Doctor’s attention to a television in the window of a nearby cab company, where a transmission announces a nationwide hunt for three terrorists: the Doctor, Martha and Jack. Now branded as fugitives, the Doctor and his friends are forced to go into hiding – not even Jack’s colleagues at Torchwood can help, as the Master has sent them on a wild goose chase to the Himalayas. While the Master enjoys himself watching ‘Teletubbies’, the Toclafane cryptically reiterate their need to escape before ‘The Darkness’ comes… From their hiding place in a disused warehouse, the Doctor, Jack and Martha monitor current events using Jack’s wrist device and Martha’s laptop; the Doctor tells his companions about his homeworld of Gallifrey, and how his childhood friend, the Master, was driven insane after looking into the time/space vortex when he was a child. When Jack receives a message on his wrist device, he has no choice but to reveal that he has been working for Torchwood; the Doctor is furious, until Jack explains that he rebuilt the organisation and changed its purpose in his honour. The message is from Vivien Rook, posthumously informing Torchwood of Saxon’s lies and referring to the ‘Archangel’ mobile phone network; the Doctor realises that the Master has been using this network to send out a subliminal rhythm to make people follow him, and to prevent the Doctor himself from detecting the presence of a fellow Time Lord. Using their TARDIS keys, the Doctor creates three portable perception filters for himself and his friends, rendering them unnoticeable. Elsewhere, the President of the United States arrives at a London airfield, where he informs the Master that U.N.I.T is taking control of the First Contact situation; disgusted by the new P.M.’s flippant attitude, the President leaves for U.N.I.T.’s base of operations, the aircraft carrier Valiant. Unaware that the Doctor and his friends are watching from nearby, the Master is elated by the arrival of his captives, Francine, Clive and Tish. Although Martha is concerned for her family’s safety, she, the Doctor and Jack teleport to the Valiant, a top-secret military base floating high up in the clouds; exploring the vessel, they soon come across the stolen TARDIS. The Master and Lucy also arrive at the base in their private plane, much to the President’s annoyance; it seems that the Master designed the base to his own specific designs… Entering the TARDIS, the Doctor is dismayed to find that the Master has cannibalised the ship’s controls to create a Paradox Machine, a deadly device that is due to activate two minutes after First Contact with the Toclafane has been made. In the control room of the Valiant, President Winters prepares for the live transmission of his encounter with an alien race, while the Master and Lucy watch with smug interest; unseen, the Doctor, Jack and Martha sneak into the back of the room. At the appointed hour, five spherical Toclafane materialise in the air – but they ignore the President’s welcome, and ask for the Master instead; taking control of the situation, the renegade Time Lord instructs one of the spheres to kill the President, and then, having seen through their disguise, orders his guards to seize the Doctor and his friends. Killing Jack with his laser screwdriver, the Master gloatingly tells the Doctor that he has set many traps for his enemy, including the Lazarus Experiment; with his laser screwdriver now equipped with Professor Lazarus’s technology and a sample of his nemesis’ genetic code – taken from the Doctor’s severed hand – the Master ages the Doctor by a hundred years, transforming him into a doddering old man. As Jack comes back to life, the Master brings in his prisoners, Martha’s parents and sister; with her options running out, Martha takes Jack’s wrist device and transports herself to safety, vowing that she will return to fight another day… With the Doctor now a powerless old man, the Master activates his Paradox Machine to the tune of a loud pop music track, opening a massive rift in the space/time continuum that allows six billion of the alien spheres to head towards the planet below. As the Doctor looks on helplessly, the aliens carry out the Master’s orders to decimate one-tenth of the Earth’s population…

David Tennant (The Doctor), Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones), John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), John Simm (The Master / Harry Saxon), Adjoah Andoh (Francine Jones), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Tish Jones), Trevor Laird (Clive Jones), Reggie Yates (Leo Jones), Alexdra Moen (Lucy Saxon), Colin Stinton (President Andrew Coleman Winters), Nichola McAuliffe (Vivien Rook), Nicholas Gecks (Albert Dumfries), Sharon Osbourne (Herself), McFly (Themselves), Ann Widdecombe (Herself), Olivia Hill (BBC Newsreader), Lachelle Carl (US Newsreader),Daniel Ming (Chinese Newsreader), Elize Du Toit (Sinister Woman), Zoe Thorne, Gerard Logan, Johnnie Lyne-Pirkis (Sphere Voices)

Directed by Colin Teague
Produced by Phil Collinson
Executive Producers Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner
A BBC Wales production

TX:
23rd June 2007 @ 7.15 pm

Notes:
*Featuring the Tenth Doctor, Martha and Captain Jack

*Part 2 of a 3-part story

*Mr Saxon was first mentioned in the episode, 'Love & Monsters'

*The Master's choice of music for the invasion of the Toclafane is 'Voodoo Child' by Rogue Traders

*As well as David Tennant and Freema Agyeman, John Barrowman is also credited during the main titles