‘Twas ALL made of awesome, from Rassilon stretching out his hand to kill the Master and the Doctor jumping in (Oh the click of that gun...), to turning on the Master (“You never would, you coward!”, he knows him so well...) - and then almost believing that the Doctor would indeed..
Can we say great acting by John Simm here, because, look at the facial expression and eyes, where you can see the moment he believes the Doctor will shoot after all. (And he can't be 100% sure. It takes a lot to push the Doctor to want the Master dead, but Ainley!Master managed it in the end, resulting in the irony of Five, positively the mildest and nicest incarnation, was the one who actually let the Master die, looking at him all the while. (And subsequently died himself in a semi-suicidal way, I might add.) Whereas the more ruthless incarnations of the Doctor still couldn't help themselves of wanting him alive despite all he did.
Back to EoT and great acting: the other great change of eyes and expression is when the Master catches on what the Doctor is actually planning to do after "get out of the way" and starts to smile while doing so. And of course the repeated "get out of the way" later. They work as well together as they fight, those two renegade children of Gallifrey.
(BTW: I was amused that Rassilon immediately deduces that if the Doctor is one of two survivors of the Time War, the Master will be the other. TheirloveissonotsecretonGallifrey.
I'm so glad you were as happy about the Alonso/Jack matchmaking as I was!
I hadn't thought about how this continues the Agatha/Donna mirroring, but you're absolutely right on that count. (And brilliant.)
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Can we say great acting by John Simm here, because, look at the facial expression and eyes, where you can see the moment he believes the Doctor will shoot after all. (And he can't be 100% sure. It takes a lot to push the Doctor to want the Master dead, but Ainley!Master managed it in the end, resulting in the irony of Five, positively the mildest and nicest incarnation, was the one who actually let the Master die, looking at him all the while. (And subsequently died himself in a semi-suicidal way, I might add.) Whereas the more ruthless incarnations of the Doctor still couldn't help themselves of wanting him alive despite all he did.
Back to EoT and great acting: the other great change of eyes and expression is when the Master catches on what the Doctor is actually planning to do after "get out of the way" and starts to smile while doing so. And of course the repeated "get out of the way" later. They work as well together as they fight, those two renegade children of Gallifrey.
(BTW: I was amused that Rassilon immediately deduces that if the Doctor is one of two survivors of the Time War, the Master will be the other. TheirloveissonotsecretonGallifrey.
I'm so glad you were as happy about the Alonso/Jack matchmaking as I was!
I hadn't thought about how this continues the Agatha/Donna mirroring, but you're absolutely right on that count. (And brilliant.)