The Sound of Drums

[fairyd123]

As completely wondrous as John Simm was in the episode I must confess that my initial reaction to the episode is one of slight disappointment. I actually found it every bit as weak as Utopia from a story telling perspective but without the amazing character moments. I am a huge fan of RTD but so far both Utopia and The Sound of Drums seem to be some of his weakest episodes (well plot wise anyway - he still has an amazing way with the snappy one-liners).

As a Jack fan it was really quite disappointing. I'm beginning to think that the shock reveal about Jack will be that there is no shock reveal. Given everything that they have to wrap up in the next episode - Commando Martha kicking ass (and about time too- the doe eyed routine was really beginning to grate), the Master and the Toclafane to beat, the Earth to rebuild/set right and the Doctor de-aged a decent explanation of Jack's missing two years seems rather unlikely. At this stage I am guessing that if they delve into at all it will be in Torchwood rather than Who and it won't be linked to any of the Who protagonists - which is a real shame. Without a scene of the substance of the radiation chamber scene last week Barrowman's involvement this week mostly seemed to consist of running and looking incredibly pretty - not that there's anything wrong with that but he didn't "need" to be in this episode. Still we got the Doctor's reaction to Jack working for Torchwood and canon proof (not that we needed it) that Jack is in love with the Doctor. Loved the reference to "Torchwood Three" and the "freak and the girl" line but generally as much as I love the lighter, funnier Jack in Who, Jack does seem to possess about a tenth of the brain cells he displays in Torchwood when he's in Doctor Who - I'd rather have the morose Angel lite leader than the dumb soldier.

I'm pleased that they dispensed with the "they're stuck in the year 100 trillion" cliffhanger with undue haste - the Futurekind were the lamest Who villains to date so even though it was blindingly obvious that they were going to use Jack's vortex manipulator to escape for once I'm happy that they went for the most obvious route. Although by dismissing the cliffhanger as quickly as they did it did actually render Utopia even weaker in retrospect - are we ever going to get a pay off to what or where "Utopia" is?

Good to see Martha finally standing up for herself (and Freema stunt driving in the Confidential was hilarious) but boy have they done a bad job of making her family sympathetic. Jackie irritated the hell out of me at times but I did care whether she lived or died - something which can't be said for Martha's mother. I just find the actress who plays her horribly obnoxious - to the extent that I was hoping for her to get wiped out by the Toclafane.

But the entire enterprise was saved by John Simm. He was just absolutely brilliant. Adored his "happy face, sad face" routine before gassing his entire cabinet - two thumbs way way up! His little boy voice when he said " I love it when you use my name" was adorable. All of his scenes were a winner - the opening and closing the door routine when the Toclafane were massacring the journalist was brilliant dark farce, loved the laser screwdriver and the very cute jelly baby in-joke and "Here Come the Drums" was hilarious and terrifying at the same time.

So a great set up with a brilliantly manic performance from John Simm but lacking in the character moments that made Utopia fly and not much in the way of emotional pay off.