Who Review: The Ultimate Foe

What a way to go. All in all he wasn't a bad old codger.
-Glitz

Was that mean of me? Okay, here's a better one.

Unless we are prepared to sacrifice our lives for the good of all, then evil and anarchy will suceed. The rule of law must prevail!
-The Doctor

Let's start by saying it could have been worse. I can't believe I'm saying this, but it could have been worse because they could have used Robert Holmes' ending, in which the Doctor and the Valeyard fell down a time-tunnel or some such, and the season ended on a cliffhanger. Never mind all the grief that idea gets for being a perfect setup for Grade to axe the show - anyone who saw Timelash knows that the production team simply can't make a good time-tunnel.

So the Master turns up to ruin everyone's day and explain that the Valeyard is a distillation of the Doctor's evil - somehow - and the Valeyard runs away into the Matrix - somehow - and then there's some filler that's actually more or less watchable. The Master plots to kill the Valeyard and possibly the Doctor too, the Valeyard plots to kill pretty much everyone, and the Doctor dives back on his own time-stream, saves Peri, and flips Time and its Lords the bird despite him being supposedly British and that therefore being the wrong expression:

No, sadly. Despite the fact that the plot more or less sorta-kinda holds up (and ignoring the Valeyard's backstory or lack thereof, his plan to kill everyone is either brilliant or stupid), the story ends with some jiggery-pokery, some blatant disregard for characterization (Glitz, who swallowed a thesaurus at the beginning of The Mysterious Planet, suddenly has to ask the Master what a word means), and a stupid twist ending.

On its own, The Ultimate Foe gets a 3/10. There are plots within plots, but none of them hold together under any scrutiny, and the ending is terrible. Tune in next time for me taking potshots at the Trial story as a whole.