Frankham’s technical ability improves with each new story. His writing is more assured now than in the past, his line and style becoming that of a true author. He writes about the little things, the details that make a world seem that much more real. He treats us here to one of the best individual scenes of the season. The page-long (unusually for Frankham) scene between Nick and Bradley is bloody scary; chilling in the extreme because of the subjects they talk about. There’s an edge to the whole sequence, like you’re expecting something really bad to happen but Bradley’s too busy toying with Nick to do it. The writing as tight as it’s ever been, with lines like “Inside, his stolen blood slowed its flow as his heart began to stop” ironically bringing the whole scene to life. It’s also a nice little detail that one of Nick’s last thoughts as “Nick” is his assuredness that the Doctor will come. After all that they’ve been through, this had to be the case, and it is fortunate that it hasn’t been overlooked.

The Doctor fares quite well for the most part, too. The emphasis on him eating is a strange one – he is more willing to bite a sandwich than rescue his friend, which seems to be pushed to extremes when compared with previous stories that have seen him eating. Perhaps they’re trying to emphasise his individual character traits for one last time? It’s a bit of shame that he and Alf have nothing to do for most of the Chapter, simply wandering around London looking for Nick; but when they do converge with the story it’s absolutely wonderful. The sequence of the Doctor turning to the assembled congregation and telling them that their leader is a fake is marvellous, so triumphant and Doctorly that I’m going to reprint his finest hour in full:

“‘This has to end now!’ His booming voice echoed throughout the hall. ‘Don’t you understand? This is no coming of God. This man,’ he pointed at Bradley who was smiling in pleasure, ‘is a monster! There is no salvation to be had here!’”

It’s fitting that for what purports to be this Doctor’s last adventure (I think!), this Fourth Doctor wears the Third Doctor’s clothes. It gives just that small, unlaboured hint of the past or of what could have been, entirely subtly, and it’s another of those perfect little details I mentioned that Frankham had down to an art.

The plot’s a bit "The Daleks’ Masterplan" at times – wandering from place to place in a way that could jeopardise the structure of the story. Still "The Daleks’ Masterplan" was great, and I think the author just about pulls it off here. It actually reminded more of a James Bond film, in the way that those films take in as many locations as is possible – from the MI6 headquarters in London to a meeting with some arms dealers in a Russian demilitarised zone to a trip to see a contact in Cuba to a fight against some Koreans on an underwater base on the Moon or whatever. For the second time this season the Doctor happens to stumble on an alien’s hiding place thanks to someone wandering up and handing him a bit of paper with a massive clue on it, proving that authors still sometimes take the easy way out, but I can let that go given the slightly "The Transformers: The Movie"-esque ending of Nick being reborn, bathed in light and himself once more, then throwing his tormentor across the room for fun. The literal Deus ex machina that precedes this is a bit of shame because it isn’t revealed quite why it happens now, but it’s something that’s been foreshadowed in the past so we can just about explain it away.

What else? Well, the liquid time has a bit of an Ice Warrior complex – it refers to itself as “liquid time”, when that was merely a name Alf came up with when talking about it to the Doctor last episode. It’s an even stranger name when you consider that last chapter we were specifically told that it wasn’t even a liquid – that was merely the closest form human minds could perceive it as. Why then would it call itself liquid time?

Whilst it’s a pity the Doctor and Alf have nothing to do for most of the episode, Alf does get to do her Grace Holloway impression – the pantomime of the heroine running around in a formal dress being as wonderful an image as ever. The strange meeting with one character, Ruby, for no apparent reason, seems out of place, but she seems really well defined in her short appearance – the cat that she carries round instantly putting her in the league of one of Dawn French’s more suspicious "Murder Most Horrid" characters – you know the ones that always wear massive glasses and live on their own with a bunch of felines? Amazing.

So there we go. A splendid double cliffhanger and the latest appearance of a Legacy author (who apparently “hated sitting in silence”!!) make this one of the finest individual chapters of the season. At times I’d go so far to sat it is one of the most triumphant pieces of Doctor Who I have ever encountered, filled with many magical moments that will be remembered by all forever: the Doctor proclaiming Bradley to be a false God to his followers, Nick being reborn as he always should have been, Alf running down London streets in a weeding dress and confusing Karl Marx with the Doctor; all are written perfectly and remain in mind. Perhaps they could have been tied up tighter as an overall story – some of them still feel like a bunch of set pieces held together, but that’s not a complaint, that’s an I-can’t-think-of-anything-else-to-complain-about.

Triumphant.

Chapter Three;

End of the Line

Right! In the best traditions of The Legacy (well the best traditions of me, anyway), this review is now some six days late, for all of the boring real-world reasons that I usually palm you off with; I thought it apt since it was my last one. And what a way to go…

The main thing I noticed when reading was the major shock of the chapter. No, I’d guessed Nick was going to die; I’m talking about the fact that it clocks in at nine pages long, instead of the usual five. I had considered making my review the equivalent length by working out a complex ratio system involving weighted averages to treat you to more of my inane babble; but I seem to be good enough at that anyway. Seriously, the extra length afforded this chapter was a surprise, and a very welcome one. I seem to recall mentioning something in my review of Chapter One about that chapter seeming badly structured, and advising that perhaps it should have been rewritten from scratch to break the story into chapters better.

I have no similar complaints with this episode, despite its extended run. There’s a danger when writing these double-length episodes that you end up with two normal ones glued together (see Resurrection of the Daleks or the "Father Ted Christmas Special" for examples!); the pacing ends up being wrong, you get a beginning a middle and end then another beginning middle and end in one chapter, and it generally just feels wrong. You can’t just stick two things together and expect them to make sense as one story. Here Frankham shows us how it should be done. This is, without doubt, one episode. It’s extended, it runs longer, it’s full of incident; but it’s structured to within an inch of its life. And I love it for that.

Once more, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" enters into The Legacy universe. We all know that Frankham is a fan of that programme, but he cements that here by writing what is, in effect, and episode of "Buffy" with Doctor Who characters in. Just try swapping Alf for Buffy (vampire slayer), Nicholaus for Angelus (ex-lover gone bad), Bradley for Spike (impotent leader who gets sidelined) and (fittingly!) the Doctor for Giles (do I even have to explain?) to see what I mean. Bradley and Spike are even played by the same actor! Still, it’s all done wonderful of course, as we have come to expect from Frankham. Presumably Ruby is Dawn?

There’s a wonderful series of moments here, too. The Alf storyline is absolutely addictive, the scenes of here crying in the rain, still in her wedding dress are so poignant as to rip your heart out, and you’ll be convinced you saw them happen, "EastEnders"-style high-angle camera and all. The moment where Nicholas stumbles forward from the shadows, and you know it isn’t him but Alf is not sure was amazing, the lines:

‘Oh Nick! I thought I had lost you.’

‘You have.’

being bloody scary; but most of all the pure simplicity of:

“The scream echoed in her mind, where no one else could hear.”

making Alf’s the story to watch out for.

Nick’s death is surprisingly low-key – I can’t even remember if it happened “on-screen” or not. Still, whilst I feel we should have been given a better goodbye to this character we have known for so long, the way in which he died was done to perfection: being consumed into a different version of himself, that is ultimately destroyed by his former lover.

The Doctor does his passive bit again, although his meeting was Lethbridge-Stewart served to remind us just how far this series has come. That the Doctor’s only constant friend throughout his life should be against him strikes a chord with all of us – the relationship between the Doctor and the Brigadier always being one of complaining and arguing and absolute trust and friendship. That’s non-existent here, and even this Doctor feels that it should be there, despite never having fully experienced it.

Overall

Well, I don’t know what to say – an excellent end to the season, one that takes us full circle. Whilst with an overall story that concludes next season there’s a possibility that this one will seem slightly inconclusive, it stands up marvellously in its own right; and perfectly integrates the needs of this season with the needs of its own plot. There are a couple of looser moments throughout, the introduction of Simon seeming out of place, and only added for the sake of him being there. Take him out and what have you lost? Perhaps if he’d been killed in one of the earlier Kuang-Shi rampages it would have given some added frisson as to their affairs – someone we know has been killed because of them. Still, that could have detracted from Nick’s death, so I would’ve left the taxi-driver out altogether; after all, he does nothing once we meet him.

However, it is a credit to the authors that despite its problems, we are definitely left with a top-notch adventure; one of many parts that hold together well. A bit of extra structuring might have split those parts up better (no way should the wedding have been in Chapter One), but both writers show their (quite different) talents more than respectably.