Yes. Okay. I finely folded in under the non-existent pressure and purchased the Doctor Who Gamemaster’s Screen from Leisure Games. I had intended to fashion my own (probably from twigs and lint), but after a couple of weeks without progress I admitted defeat. I would like to kick off running the game this weekend and without a screen I would feel quite naked.

Once I have the game running and under way, I fully expect to post a fuller review of the game, the screen, and my own campaign. Oddly, and like so many other players, I seem to be thinking along the lines of a thirteen episode Season; but, we’ll see whether I have the energy to carry it for that length of time.

Currently, I have:

1. (prologue and) Arrowdown
2. Countdown (updated version of FASA adventure)
3. Taking the Tunnel (Victorian Under Siege 2)
4. And… Um…

Well, I have a notion of where it’s going and what the finale will involve… But, for the moment, I’ll allow my creative urges to take me where they will – which quite possibly might go off-course from Episode 1!

I have finished reading the Doctor Who RPG, but now I have to get the time to play it. I have plans for the game, but…

One way or another, the list of things to do always seems to run a whole lot longer than the hours in the day, so I suppose I will have to do something about that.

I have used the time available to me while doing other work to get in some research, watching ‘The Time Warrior‘ and ‘The Keeper of Traken‘ in the last couple of days.

I enjoyed the Pertwee outing, though the plot seemed stretched a little thin and the Sontaran’s plans seemed very sketchy. Why did he need those hypnotised scientists when he seemed to be doing most of the work? All they seemed capable of was carrying pieces of paper around the castle basement. Also, when the scientists managed to shrug off the hypnotic control, courtesy of the Doctor’s pen torch and a polka beat (or similar), how did the Sontaran fail to hear them discussing their plans to fake their hypnotised state? He was temporarily stunned and bound – not unconscious and deaf. Otherwise, the story had me entertained and introduced Sarah-Jane Smith as a ballsy feminist without any time for male chauvinism of any kind.

The dying days of the Tom Baker period didn’t necessarily show the energy and enthusiasm of his earlier time as the Doctor, and ‘Traken’ feels at once thick and thin on plot. Exposition aplenty blocks up the first episode, but then the plot seems to just revolve around a lot of running through the limited set and some dubious relationships between the good guys and the evil. Traken seems to consist of a throne room, the Source room, a cell and the garden – all of which seem to have connections into one another, both obvious and secret. Despite the peaceful and serene aura that protects Traken, the foul Melkor arrives as a statue and acquires little more than moss over the time that follows – and yet the Trakens’ fail to suspect any foul play. Adric and the Doctor prove capable of jiggery-pokery to make the A-Team weep (“Ooooo! Ooooo! Oh, ‘eck! Look, Dan!” – “I know… they’ve modified the van!“), circumventing the whole functionality of the ancient technologies that protect Traken. The final scene of The Master claiming a new body seem utterly tacked on, like an after thought more than anything else… and the fact The Master survives so easily at all without minimal repercussions seems to undermine the whole story and the effort The Doctor put into defeating him.

Perhaps, on repeated viewing, I’ll learn to appreciate the conclusion of The End of Time. Perhaps, with time, I will see the deeper layers and enjoy the writing. Right now, I feel let down. I appreciated elements – The Master developed as a character and his bargaining at the end with both sides made for some great acting. I fair wept when the Time Lords made their return, all those high golden colours, all that pomp and ceremony. The threat of the Time War breaking out across the cosmos.

Alas, it was not to be. The Time Lords could not return. The Master could not just live to see another day, perhaps a little wiser to his role in the life of The Doctor. The Doctor, battered and bruised, would not be returning to the life of a renegade, chased by the Time Lords for his role in their ‘defeat’. No, instead we had to erase and rewind – sending the Time Lords back into their Time Locked prison, apparently taking The Master with them (as he represented a loose end, a practical means to their escape in the future). Despite seeing a massive planet looming over them, the people of Earth will probably shrug off events and continue to live as normal. And The Doctor survived a protracted regenerative cycle long enough to scoot around half of time before collapsing in the TARDIS and turning into Matt Smith – conveniently releasing energy to wreck the interior (and windows) of the time machine and warrant a makeover come Spring 2010.

I didn’t engage with the final sacrifice – which failed utterly to match up to that made by Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor. I shed a couple of tears – when The Master sacrificed himself and Sarah Jane saw the 10th Doctor for that last time – but, when the 9th Doctor regenerated I was sobbing. I had tissues at the ready this time and didn’t use a single one of them. I welled up emotionally more on the return of the Time Lords than I did when the 10th Doctor cried out that he didn’t want to go. I felt that the ‘prize’ of seeing his companions for the last time succeeded only in stemming the emotional tide, turning the regeneration into a moment of relief rather than sadness. Someone commented on Twitter that they’d been left tapping their foot, almost begging for The Doctor to just die and get it over with.

I would have preferred a less carefully orchestrated handover of a blank slate between Russell T Davies and Steve Moffat. A few loose ends more wouldn’t have gone adrift. I realise that Steve wouldn’t want the baggage of keeping characters that Russell had created, but I doubt it would have hurt to the ongoing story too much to have… well, some ongoing story!

As I said, I may mellow in time and repeated viewing. Then again, I might not. I shall report back if any revelations strike me and I undergo a regeneration in my jaded opinions of this festive effort…