'Utopia' (Story Code 3.11) by Russell T Davies

"The call came from across the stars. Over and over again. 'Come to Utopia'." – Professor Yana

The Doctor and Martha make a pit stop in Cardiff to refuel the TARDIS with energy from the time/space Rift that runs through the city. Their arrival is heard by Captain Jack Harkness, who is in the nearby secret headquarters of Torchwood, situated below the Millennium Centre, and he immediately grabs a backpack and races outside. The Doctor sees Jack’s approach on the TARDIS scanner, just as he presses the dematerialisation switch; as the ship fades out of existence, Jack leaps forward and clings desperately to its exterior as it enters the space/time vortex. Inside, the console explodes as the TARDIS accelerates out of control, hurtling towards the year One-Hundred-Trillion … On the planet Malcazero, at the end of the Universe, in an underground complex, the elderly Professor Yana and his blue-skinned insectoid assistant, Chantho, are busily working in their laboratory; their systems detect a hunting party chasing someone on the surface, and also report the arrival of something new on the surface; Yana is intrigued by the news, and hears a strange drumming in his head… The Doctor and Martha step outside the newly-arrived TARDIS to find Jack’s lifeless body lying close by; Martha immediately tries to help, but the Doctor stops her, and they both watch as Jack comes back to life and promptly begins flirting with Martha. Explaining that he once travelled with Jack, the Doctor seems oddly uncomfortable to be around his old friend; Jack isn’t too surprised that the Doctor has changed his face, and is elated to learn that despite official reports Rose, Mickey and Jackie survived the Battle of Canary Wharf. Jack tells Martha that after the Doctor abandoned him in the future, he used his vortex manipulator to travel back in time to the Twenty-First Century to await the Doctor’s eventual arrival at the Rift; unfortunately, the device transported him to 1869, and he has been waiting ever since. The trio soon come across a huge, abandoned underground hive, woven into the rock of the planet; when the Doctor points out that the stars above have all burnt out and died, Jack postulates that the planet must be protected by an atmospheric shield; they are interrupted by a cry for help – a man is being chased by a gang of savage humanoids with sharp teeth and tattooed faces. The Doctor and his friends immediately set off to help to rescue the man, Padra, but after Jack tries to keep the savages at bay with his revolver, a second gang appears behind them. Padra leads them to the safety of a fenced off entrance to ‘The Silo’, whose armed sentries allow the access just as the hunters close in. The arrival of the party is reported to the Professor, who becomes excited at the prospect of meeting a doctor. Padra is desperate to find his family, who went on ahead of him, and with the help of a young boy named Creek, he is soon reunited with his mother and brother. On seeing the number of humans living in the squalid conditions of the base, the Doctor has to admire their indomitability; he, Jack and Martha then find the bases’ most important resource: a huge spaceship. The trio then meet Professor Yana, who excitedly explains that he is attempting to work on the rocket’s footprint mechanism to enable it to reach escape velocity and take its passengers – the last of humanity – on their journey to the mythical world of Utopia. Martha is revolted to find that Jack’s backpack contains a severed hand in a jar: Jack’s ‘Doctor Detector’ is in fact the Doctor’s hand, which was cut off during his battle with the Sycorax leader several years ago; when the Doctor explains that his Time Lord physiognomy enabled him to grow a new hand, he is surprised to hear that neither Yana nor Chantho have ever heard of his people. The Professor explains that the savages – the Futurekind – are what humanity will eventually become, unless they can reach ‘Utopia’; thousands of years ago, mankind received a message calling them to this far off world; seeing a way to preserve the last of humanity, the authorities created the Science Foundation in the hope that they could find a way to take the last remnants of humanity to its destiny far out in deep space. As Yana once more hears the sound of drums in his mind, the Doctor makes the observation that the rocket will never fly given current technology; the Professor admits that he is merely giving his people hope as they prepare for extinction. With a grin, the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to boost the control systems – the rocket is now ready to leave! Preparations are made to leave: as the survivors begin boarding the ship, the Doctor, Yana and Chantho begin work on the control room’s systems. Martha and Jack meet Creek again, unaware that a female Futurekind has sneaked inside the base. When the Doctor admires Yana’s genius at creating the control systems out of odds and ends, the Professor confesses that he and Chantho will stay behind to activate the rocket’s launch. The Doctor is pleased to learn that the TARDIS has been located and brought inside the base; the ship is brought to the Professor’s laboratory, so that the Doctor can tap its power for the rocket’s controls; however, the sight of the ship affects the Professor, and he begins to hear the drums that he has heard all his life louder than ever before. Meanwhile, Martha and Chantho discover that they have something in common: unrequited love for the man in their lives. Yana’s colleague, Lieutenant Atillo, sends an engineer, Jed, into the room under the rocket’s engines to fix the ship’s couplings; the room is filled with Sted radiation, so Jed must wear a protective suit while he works; elsewhere, the Futurekind saboteur destroys a control box, atomising Jed with a lethal dose of radiation before being she is shot down by guards. Jack jumpstarts the override systems by connecting two live power cables, but dies in the attempt; Martha is distraught, but the Doctor knows that Jack is indestructible, and looks on as the Time Agent is quickly resurrected. Jack is the only person who can work on the couplings in the radiation-filled room, so he and the Doctor set off to complete the work needed to launch the rocket. Martha tells Yana about her travels in space and time with the Doctor, and the Professor’s memories begins to awaken… While Jack connects the rest of the power couplings, the Doctor talks to him from the other side of the safety door; the Doctor explains that the TARDIS was afraid of Jack, and travelled into the far future in an attempt to shake him off; he then tells the Time Agent how he became to be indestructible: Rose took on the power of the space/time vortex to end the Time War and destroy the Daleks, and then brought Jack back to life forever. Overhearing their conversation, Yana finds more of his buried memories are becoming unlocked... Jack tells the Doctor that he missed Rose, and made occasional visits to her estate to watch her grow up; the Doctor admits that he was afraid of what Jack had become, but has now come to realise how much he missed him. In the control room, Yana pulls out his pocket watch – to Martha’s astonishment, she realises that it is exactly the same as the one the Doctor used to become human; the Professor explains that he was found as an orphan after a storm, washed up on the shores of the Silver Devastation; the only thing he had with him was the watch, but he never opened it as it was stuck. Knowing that a perception filter protects the device, Martha downplays its importance and then rushes off to tell the Doctor; she joins him just as he and Jack finish their repairs and initiate the rocket’s launch sequence. Hearing Martha’s information, the Doctor and Jack realise that the Professor must have once been a Time Lord, who escaped the Time War by making himself human; the Doctor recalls the Face of Boe’s final words: “You Are Not Alone” – Y.A.N.A. As the rocket launches into space and heads off on its journey to Utopia, Yana opens his watch; Chantho looks on as the Professor’s face is bathed in a bright light, and he becomes a different, harsher person… Sealing the Doctor and his friends inside their room, Yana opens the gates to the base, allowing the Futurekind to storm the complex; Chantho tries to stop him by pulling a gun, but the Professor is unfazed – he now knows who he really is: the renegade Time Lord known as the Master! After callously electrocuting Chantho with a power conduit, the Master grabs the Doctor’s severed hand and begins uncoupling the power leads from the TARDIS. The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to open the door, and together with Martha and Jack, he heads for the Professor’s laboratory, only to find it has been sealed shut. As the Futurekind break into the base, the Doctor tries to open the lab door with his sonic screwdriver. Fatally wounded, Chantho shoots the Master with her dying breath; as the evil Time Lord staggers from the lethal blast, the Jack breaks the lock on the door; the trio rush in, but they are too late, as the Master manages to stagger inside the TARDIS and lock its doors. Inside the safety of the space/time vessel, the Master regenerates into a younger, more energetic figure; he then uses the ship’s intercom to taunt the Doctor, ordering him to call him by his real name. The Doctor tries to appeal to the man he thought long dead, the Master, but to no avail. As Jack and Martha desperately try to hold the laboratory door under the assault of the attacking Futurekind, the Doctor watches helplessly as the TARDIS dematerialises under the Master’s control…

David Tennant (The Doctor), Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones), John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Derek Jacobi (Professor Yana [The Master]), Chipo Chung (Chantho), Rene Zagger (Padra), Neil Reidman (Lieutenant Atillo), Paul Marc Davis (Chieftain), John Bell (Creet), Deborah Maclaren (Kistane), Wiry Woman (Abigail Canton), John Simm (The Master)

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

TX:
16th June 2007 @ 7.15 pm

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

*Part 1 of a 3 part story

*The events of this episode continue on from the 'Torchwood' episode, 'End of Days'

*John Bell, who plays the young boy Creet, was the winner of a 'Blue Peter' competition to appear on 'Doctor Who'

*For the first time, John Barrowman is credited during the main titles