Disappointing? Yes, but then, considering the amount of hype there had been around it, there was no way The End of Time Part 1 was not going to be a bit of a let-down.
As ever, RTD wants to make his finales big. Friggin' big. With explosions and stuff. Flying Daleks, Cybermen AND Daleks, the Master as Lord of the Earth, Davros and the end of the Universe in a worse-than-Logopolis way... and now what? Now (spoiler ahead) the Master... well, six billion Masters who are even madder and more powerful with Jedi tricks than in Series three. Ahem.
Still, they work because through them, the characters get involved. Rose's shebang at the end of Series one allowed for the Doctor's sacrifice. Then there were the tear-jerking last few minutes of Series two (emphasised quite well by Murray Gold's music), then the epic-ness of a madman and the sorrow of the Doctor (along with the evolution of Martha) and finally at the end of Series four, the saddest ending ever seen for a companion.
So despite the bonkersness of the plot itself (especially its first twenty minutes or so), The End of Time could still be good; especially given the reveal at the end of Part one. Even though it didn't come as a complete surprise (we see part of the costume halfway through the episode) it is still a pretty big one and fanwanky moment. Its heavy reliance on show mythology is quite surprising for a Christmas episode meant to attract more casual viewers.
Similarly, Series three's penultimate episode was quite a let-down because the setting up of the plot seemed both a bit rushed and forced and made The Sound of Drums be little more than the sum of its parts. It would seem as though this is a constant for RTD's Master: a contrived, suspension-of-belief-stretching plot which allows for fantastic scenes. For RTD's Master is quite frankly awesome and well-written - even more in this episode than in the previous ones. A shame his resurrection destroys the emotional height of his downfall back in Series three. Still, now the set-up is over, we should have a lot of awesomeness on New Year's Day!
The plot can ergo be excused. By the second part. Possibly. But the more surprising bit is the sloppy direction that this episode suffers from. Euros Lyn, who very skilfully (nay, masterfully even) delivered Torchwood: Children of Earth seems to have been simply lazy this time. Oh, we can still recognise his touch (slanted camera in a certain type of shots for instance) but there's no feel to this, no consistency. The actors seem to slot into cliched roles. Even John Simm's only a copy of Gollum at the start, albeit a very good one. Production values are down a tiny notch too, which could be worrying considering Tracie Simpson is to deal with Series five too.
Still, it's not all bad. The format of this episode looks like it is made up of two separate parts, with a cut around 30 minutes in, which could herald a return to the old format. This could be good news for Series five. The main cast is awesome, with Cribbins, Simm and Tennant in top form (especially that scene in the cafe) and the music is up to its usual standards. Not too much to rejoice over, but hey.
When the much-hyped Christmas special is such a letdown compared to The Waters of Mars, it shows one of two things: either the November special was so awesome and played on epicness on such a level that anything that followed could not be as good. Or it really is a poor episode, which would be a shame for Tennant's swansong. Hopefully, the second part will make up for the shortcomings of the first one.
Predicted AI (for a 10.0m audience): 86.