The Tour has a position about the Series 3 episode Utopia. It’s not only the lead-off to a largely very good three part finale which wraps the best Series of Nu-Who but it’s also the best episode of Nu-Who full stop.
It produced the best ‘punch the sky’ moment when the Master was revealed towards the end of the story. Utopia also has time for plenty of character interaction between the Doctor and Jack, exploring the nature of Jack’s very existence and the Doctor’s general distaste for it, and Martha feeling like a third wheel all too often. Utopia builds on earlier events from Human Nature and The Family of Blood. The casting of Derek Jacobi as Yana puts Utopia over the top, from his welcoming bewilderment through to his dead eyes when unleashed as the Master, he’s simply a joy.
This moves on to The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords, where the stakes are huge and John Simm is even ‘huge-r’ and, for the most part, delightfully bonkers. The criticisms that Last of the Time Lords being overlong, messianic, and all-too-dobby are valid of course, but when viewed as a trilogy, the batting average is still quite high. It rated as #3 in our 50 for 50 Project back in 2013.
With all of Series 3 in the books, this seems like a good place for Modern Re-Capitulation to rest until after the conclusion of Series 10 in the summer. New caps for Utopia, The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords are now online.