History Recap / DoctorWhoS29E13LastOfTheTimeLords

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-->'''The Master''': Now it ends, Doctor! [[SuddenlyShouting NOW IT ENDS!]]
-->'''The Doctor''': We've got control of the ''Valiant''; you can't launch!
-->'''The Master''': Oh, but I've got ''this''! ''[holds up a device]'' Black Hole converter inside ''every'' ship. [[NoMacGuffinNoWinner If I can't have this world]], Doctor, than neither can ''YOU''! We shall stand upon this earth together as it BURNS!

However, Lucy isn't quite so forgiving, and puts one right in the Master's left heart. Since one in both hearts would be permanent death, the Doctor urges the Master to regenerate, but it's here where we find out regeneration is optional, and as a final up yours, he [[DiedInYourArmsTonight dies in the arms]] of a wildly sobbing Doctor, leaving him once again all alone in the universe.

Meanwhile, at the Master's funeral pyre, a mysterious woman reaches into the Master's ashes and holds up his ring — a ring, we now clearly see, with Gallifreyan writing all over it. An evil laugh echoes into the distance, leading everyone not to wonder if, but [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime when]], ''because evil geniuses like the Master are harder to squash than cockroaches''...

->''♫ I can't decide whether you should live or die ♫''

The one where the Doctor laughs menacingly... ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS8E2TheMindOfEvil again]]!''

[[DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu Then Martha laughs at him]]. Come on, she says, {{Plot Coupon}}s? [[DidYouActuallyBelieve Seriously?]] And the Doctor asking someone to ''kill?'' No, what she was ''really'' doing was telling everyone about the Doctor. Thanks to Martha's stories, and using the Master's global countdown as a timing guide, the whole Earth manages to ''think'' the Doctor back to health and youth [[HoistByHisOwnPetard with a feedback effect through the Master's own mind-controlling cellphone satellite network, keeping people under his influence]]. Briefly given full-on psychic powers by the event, the Doctor disarms the Master, corners him and utters the words he's been waiting all year to say... "I forgive you."

As the Doctor sets off for his next adventure, he[[note]][[Recap/DoctorWho2007CiNSTimeCrash first experiences a brief complication with his fifth self]], ''and then''[[/note]] gets a rather rude surprise. A ship. [[BigWhat Crashing straight through the side of the TARDIS.]] The name on the ship's life preserver? ''[[FlatWhat Titanic]]''...

* MirroringFactions: Humanity's final form, the Toclafane, are very similar to the Daleks. Withered living creatures encased in a nigh-indestructable metal shell and seeking to kill everything else. In their case, it's not because they find other life forms offensive (as with the Daleks), but because [[ForTheEvulz it's just so fun!]] [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters It's debatable whether or not this makes them even worse than the Daleks.]] Furthering the parallels, rumour has it that the Toclafane were originally conceived as [[{{Expy}} replacements]] for the Daleks in the revival series' pre-production phase in case Creator/TerryNation's estate said no.

'''Master''': [[NotSoInvincibleAfterAll No.]]

* ApocalypseHow: After the AlienInvasion exterminated 10% of the entire population in the previous episode's cliffhanger, a mild ApocalypseHow/Class2 has occurred. Worse yet, the advice to intergalactic travellers states the Earth is facing "terminal extinction". What precisely this means on the Apocalypse How scale is uncertain, but given all the mentions under AfterTheEnd of what the Master did to the planet's landscape, it sounds like Earth's biosphere is at least suffering a slow ApocalypseHow/Class4 or ApocalypseHow/Class5. Thankfully, the whole ApocalypseHow suffers a ResetButton by the episode's end.

* InelegantBlubbering: Creator/DavidTennant is not a pretty crier in this episode, which makes it bloody ''[[TearJerker heartbreaking]]''.

* DoubleMeaningTitle: The title refers to the Master's plan to rule Earth as the last Time Lord (with the Doctor out of commission), but also to his decision to let himself die so that the Doctor will have to live out the rest of his life as the LastOfHisKind.

Meanwhile, at the Master's funeral pyre, a mysterious woman reaches into the Master's ashes and holds up his ring — a ring, we now clearly see, with Gallifreyan writing all over it. An evil laugh echoes into the distance, leading everyone not to wonder if, but ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime when]], ''because evil geniuses like the Master are harder to squash than cockroaches''...

Meanwhile, at the Master's funeral pyre, a mysterious woman reaches into the Master's ashes and holds up his ring — a ring, we now clearly see, with Gallifreyan writing all over it. An evil laugh echoes into the distance, leading everyone not to wonder if, but ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime when]]''...

* ContrivedCoincidence: The Toclafane that Martha disables and investigates just happens to be the one descended from that child she met in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E11Utopia Utopia]]. What are the chances?

* ContrivedCoincidence: The Toclafane that Martha disables and investigates just happens to be the one descended from that child she met in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E11Utopia Utopia]]. What are the chances?

'''Master''': [[TomatoSurprise No.]]

...Only the Doctor doesn't budge. After all the centuries the Master's clung to life, everything he's done to himself and others to cheat death (from being a rage-fuel walking corpse, to stealing a Traken body, to becoming a Deathworm Morphant), is he really going to kill himself for good ''now''? His bluff called, the Master hands over the detonator and — after a brief struggle — is teleported back to the Valiant.

Jack manages to sneak by the Toclafane and destroy the Master's paradox machine, which reverses time to exactly one year ago, with everyone's memories neatly wiped and all the mutated humans having disappeared from the present day. But everyone in the "eye of the storm" — including Martha's family — keeps the memories of everything they've seen.

Meanwhile, at the Master's funeral pyre, a mysterious woman reaches into the Master's ashes and holds up his ring — a ring, we now clearly see, with Gallifreyan writing all over it. An evil laugh echoes into the distance, leading everyone not to wonder if, but ''when''...

* AfterTheEnd: A year into the future after the previous episode's cliffhanger, the Master is now the unquestioned Lord and Master of the entire Earth and the remaining humans are effectively his and the Toclafane's slave labor. TV no longer works and technological regress has occurred, the Master has carved monuments to himself all around the world, and the Toclafane have converted the entire south coast of England into a spaceship-constructing shipyard. Later, we hear about the ruins of New York, the fusion mills of China, the radiation pits of Europe, and the entirety of the ''islands of Japan'' being burned with everyone on them. ''The Story of Martha'' book goes into further detail, revealing the Master also froze the River Nile and poisoned the Caspian Sea.

* ForcedToWatch: The Master made Martha's family watch as he razed Japan to the ground. Small wonder Francine still wants him dead after the Paradox Machine is destroyed.

* DiedInYourArmsTonight: The Master in the Doctor's. We weren't kidding about the [[FoeYay/DoctorWho Foe Yay]].

* IncomingHam: You don't have it hammier than rocking your way into your flying SupervillainLair while singing to the Scissor Sisters about your FoeYay with your ArchEnemy. And broadcasting the music to the entire planet, apparently.

** The Master inflicts this on the Doctor, revealing what he'd look like if he just kept aging without ever regenerating.

* BrokenBird: Lucy has clearly fallen off the deep end in the last year; she is noticeably skinnier and hardly talks. Considering the fact that she has seen the end of the universe firsthand in addition to the most-likely-disturbing creation of the Toclafane, plus a year of her husband slowly grinding Earth under his heel while simultaneously slaughtering its population, can you really blame her? She's also bruised and it's implied the Master has grown bored and started assaulting her.
* CannotSpitItOut: Subverted; Martha comes as close as she'll ever get to telling the Doctor she loves him, and even though she doesn't say the words it's clear the normally ObliviousToLove Doctor knows exactly what she's on about.

* ForcedToWatch: The Master made Martha's family watch as he burned down Japan. Small wonder Francine still wants him dead after the Paradox Machine is destroyed.

** Martha's line about how "a gun in four parts scattered around the world" is ludicrous reminds Classic Who fans of the "Key to Time" arc.