It's frustrating because we nearly get a proper Shakespearean tragedy, with the Doctor himself fashioned into a tragic hero. A.C. Bradley defined such a character as being a man of high estate or good nature who, through his own nature and actions, causes a catastrophe that destroys him. Until the very end, this is exactly what seems to be happening to the Doctor in this adventure, but instead he swans off, the pay-off deferred.
It is his irresponsible wandering that leads him to Mars in the first place. When Adelaide Brooks asks him what he is doing there, he replies, without much flippancy, "fun." Once he realises where and when he is, he knows that should leave but he does not - partly through coercion from Brooks, but primarily because of his curiosity, his original and signature flaw ever since he sabotaged the fluid links on Skaro. Time and again it has been his undoing, most significantly in The Caves of Androzani. Here on Mars it prevents him from extricating himself in good time.
Finally comes the crucial moment: he does try to leave, but cannot bring himself to abandon the astronauts to their deaths. It is a fantastic, thrilling scene that culminates in his return to the base, his full powers revealed to the terrified humans, and it is this decision that changes everything. Why does he do it? Partly through compassion - he is the hero, the doctor who tries to alleviate suffering, and we want him to save Brooks and the others. But he is also a Time Lord. As he agonises over whether or not he should intervene, we must remember that this is a conflict he must also have experienced long ago, before he left Gallifrey for the first time.
At his first trial, in The War Games, he is accused of by the Time Lords of repeatedly breaking "the most important law of non-interference in the affairs of other planets" but he has never accepted their judgement or repented. Here he restages his original act of rebellion: he cannot merely observe, he must become involved. The difference now is that the Time Lords are no more - destroyed perhaps by their failure to remain above the fray - and so the trauma the Doctor has suffered affects his decision and he rages against not just the laws of Gallifrey but the forces of causality itself. As a result he does change history and save three of the crew, but in the process another of his major flaws comes to the fore: his arrogance.
ADELAIDE: You should have left us there.
THE DOCTOR: Adelaide, I've done this sort of thing before. In small ways, saved some little people, but never someone as important as you. Oh, I'm good!
ADELAIDE: Little people? What, like Mia and Yuri? Who decides they're so unimportant? You?
THE DOCTOR: For a long time now I thought I was just a survivor, but I'm not. I'm the winner. That's who I am. The Time Lord Victorious.
ADELAIDE: And there's no one to stop you.
THE DOCTOR: No.
ADELAIDE: This is wrong, Doctor. I don't care who you are. The Time Lord Victorious is wrong.
THE DOCTOR: That's for me to decide. […]
ADELAIDE: Is there nothing you can't do?
THE DOCTOR: Not any more.
It's chilling and fascinating: this wonderful and caring incarnation of the Doctor is going bad before our eyes. Brooks does the only thing she can and reasserts control (and the 'proper' timeline) by killing herself, robbing the Doctor of his achievement. Stunned by what he has done, he flees. At the time it was a deeply unsettling ending but it felt as if it was building to an incredible resolution. Surely the Doctor's final story would concern the consequences of this failure and end in his ultimate redemption? Well, to be fair, that is sort of what happens in The End of Time except that none of the events in that story occur because of what happens on Mars - there is no consequence other than that the Doctor be mildly shaken. Other than that he seems entirely unaffected by this monumental failure and The End of Time is categorically not about the Time Lord Victorious suffering the consequences of his transgression. Instead the Doctor goes on the run from all of this and when he does get his comeuppance, it happens in such a way that he becomes the victim rather than the perpetrator and there is little sense that he has brought this upon himself.
But what a regeneration it would have been if it had come at the end of The Waters of Mars? The Doctor, arrogant and unbound, suddenly sees what he has become and that his death is the only thing that can fix the mess he has created. We would have a proper tragedy with a truly tragic hero, brought to catastrophe by his own mistakes and flaws, brought low by his own greatness. Except that with this hero, death is also a new beginning. It would have been an astounding end for a Doctor.
Well, yes, that would have been good, but then we wouldn't get Wilf in the TARDIS or Timothy Dalton, and there are so many regenerations yet to come! One of them will turn out like this eventually.
There were lots of other things I wanted to mention - the excellent Lindsay Duncan, the rather lovely views across the Martian landscape where "the only straight line is the sunlight", the effective callbacks to Pompeii and The Stolen Earth, and the omens of the future - but I have run out of time. The boys were both gobsmacked (10/10) and a little tremulous by the end and fair enough - regardless of the non-regeneration, it's a fabulous ending that creates much anticipation for The End of Time. Chris summed it up best: "He knows his time is almost up."
NEXT TIME...
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