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The penultimate Doctor Who episode starring David Tennant was gripping and emotional, building further on the “long farewell” to the tenth Doctor I discussed in an earlier post.

The Waters of Mars has the Doctor appearing on Mars at a pivotal moment in human history: it is 2059, and the first colony of off-world humans are setting down roots, literally and figuratively. The Doctor is at first delighted to meet these famous pioneers, until he realizes that this is one of the rare dates that is “time locked”… it must happen the same way always, as it is so important to universal evolution.

But the Time Lord rebels against history’s bloody sausage-making, imposing his will on events with messianic hubris — with the best of intentions, of course; the kind of motivation that made us cheer him on in The Doctor Dances (“just this once, everybody lives!”).

But time can make a fool even of a Time Lord, which is made evident in the episode’s powerful closer. I won’t spoil it for you, but it’s some of Russell T. Davies’s best writing.

The post-episode preview of the upcoming End of Time is tantalizing, showing us Donna Noble, her grandfather, and the return of The Master! What a Christmas gift that promises to be….