“Utopia” is the first of a three-part story by Russell T. Davies that sees the return of Captain Jack Harkness (fresh out of Torchwood purgatory) and Doctor Who iconic villain the Master–the latter portrayed by both Sir Derek Jacobi and John Simm.  I was a bit chagrined when the SciFi channel gave away the unexpected return of the Master in commercials prior to airing the episode in the U.S., but luckily I had gotten it off bittorrent months earlier so the surprise was not ruined for me. 

The episode starts out in Cardiff where the Doctor stops to recharge the Tardis on a rift in time and space.  Jack runs towards the ship and grabs on to it as it dematerializes. He somehow manages to hang on as it plunges through the time vortex (which is a rather preposterous proposition if you stop to think about it). 

Fast forward a 100 trillion years in the future, where the Professor (Jacobi) is desperately trying to piece together some technology to save the last remaining humans from the end of the Universe.  The Doctor and Martha exit the Tardis to find a quarry (not sure if that is a joking nod to 1970s era Doctor Who episodes that seemed to frequently and improbably feature quarries) and a dead Jack.  If riding through the vortex was fatal, it is unclear why Jack didn’t die and fall off on the way.  I can only assume that it takes awhile to travel 100 trillion years into the future.  Jack resuscitates, and exchanges pleasantries with the Doctor for the first time since the Daleks killed him at the end of Season 1. 

The group soon find themselves being chased by a group of cannibalistic humanoids, with costumry so bad I have to wonder if they are Blake 7 rejects.  They run to a “silo”  where they are protected by the remnant of the human race.  Why and how this handful of humans came to reside on this planet is not explained. They find that the silo contains a rocket, then meet with the pleasant, absent-minded Professor Yana and his giant cockroach friend.   Professor Yana explains that he and the remaining humans are trying to get to “Utopia”–some type of beacon on the fringe of the Universe that is supposed to be calling the remaining humans to safety.  The Professor cannot quite get it to work, but the Doctor soon remedies that.  The Doctor and the Professor have a nice chat, interrupted by a drumming in the Professor’s head that foreshadows the trouble coming ahead. 

The rocket can’t power up for some convoluted reason involving radiation rods.  A cannibal in disguise (how she could possibly fit in with the humans with Nosferatu’s teeth in her mouth goes unexplained) starts to sabotage stuff, creating an artificial emergency which requires a “man who cannot die” to remedy–luckily Jack is just such a man.  Martha starts blabbing about the Doctor’s travels in time, setting off memories in the Professor’s head.  You would think she would have learned to be a bit more discrete after traveling through time and space.  Martha continues to prattle on, and discovers that the Professor has a watch just like the Doctor’s in the Family of Blood/Human Nature, which signifies he is really a time lord who has hidden his “Time Lordiness” away so he can blend in while on the run.  Of course, the Professor eventually activates the watch and all his memories stream back and he becomes his former self–the Master.  Jacobi does a superb job of transforming from a kindly professor to evil super genius.  He determines to murder his cockroach companion and steal the Doctor’s Tardis to escape the end of time. He will be free AND doom his arch-nemesis in the process.  

Martha informs the Doctor that the Professor has the same kind of watch as the Doctor, signifying that the Doctor is NOT the last Time Lord in existence.  He races back to the control room, where the Master is sabotaging the silo’s defenses so that the cannibals can get in.  The cockroach stands up to the Master and pays with her life.  Not, however, before she mortally wounds him with a laser blast.  The Doctor desperately tries to talk sense to the Master, but he leaves the Doctor and his companions to die.  As the Tardis dematerializes, the Doctor sabotages it so that it can only go between two points in space and time.  As he stands dying at the helm of the Tardis, the Master decides to regenerate–”the Master reborn.”  (It appears that the new version of Doctor Who has dispensed with the 10 regeneration limit in the original series.)  John Simm’s Master is young and energetic as the Tardis vanishes, stranding the Doctor at the end of the Universe.  Will they escape?