OK, don’t read this if you have not seen the next-to-last episode of the Third Doctor Who series, The Sound of Drums, cause there be spoilers here.
Seriously.
OK, so the Master is back, he’s hypnotised the world in order to elect him Prime Minister, and an evil race of metal spheres is coming down from a rip in Space/time created by The Master’s paradox machine (cannabilzed from the Tardis). Who are these aliens?
To me, it’s pretty obvious.
They are the Time Lords.
The Time Lords made a bargain with the Master – we will give you your regenerations back IF you save us if the Time War goes wrong. The Master was lying to The Doctor when they were on the phone (“All of them? Gone?”) and tipped his hand when he told The Doctor “I’d tell you, but it would it break your hearts.” The only way to ressurrect the Gallifreyans is to give them a host body, and to survive they had to construct metal machines to house their essence, becoming the enemy they fought. Brilliant.
The producers are going back to that benevolent-slightly-dark approach some seasons of the original series has with the Gallifreyans, and unless they push a great big RESET button at the end of the finale you will have the resurrection of the Time Lords as the “cliffhanger” and an earth in ruins – OR they hit the reset but the Time Lords are still revived, using the bodies of the humans they “take”.
What a great twist – The Doctor was responsible for the destruction of Gallifrey, and The Master revives the race. Now, the only question is how many Doctors will appear alongside Tennant in the Christmas Special… I am almost 100% certain Paul McGann will be there at this point, due to the foreshadowing from earlier this year (the notebook pic from “Human Nature”). Who else? McCoy? Davison? They both still look up to the part…