The episode serves to re-introduce the Master (John Simm), a Time Lord villain of the show's original run who last appeared in the 1996 television movie Doctor Who.
Set close to the end of the universe 100 trillion years in the future, the episode involves Professor Yana (Derek Jacobi) attempting to send the last of humanity in a rocket to a place called "Utopia".
The Doctor, Jack, and Martha help Padra reach a missile silo where a rocket intends to transport the last of the human race to "Utopia".
Martha unintentionally draws attention to the Professor's fob watch, similar to the one which changed the Doctor from a Time Lord into a human.
Derek Jacobi plays the fifth version of the Master whom the Doctor has encountered on screen, and John Simm is the sixth.
Later reference material, including Doctor Who Magazine's season poll, treated the three episodes as a single three-part story.
[6] This is the first episode in the revived series to credit three principal cast members within the title sequence, with the addition of John Barrowman, who plays Captain Jack Harkness.
Other actors returning to the franchise in this episode are Neil Reidman had previously played Tom Braudy in the Eighth Doctor audio drama Memory Lane[9] and Robert Forknall, who plays Lord Byron in the Eighth Doctor audio drama The Company of Friends.
He also had a small role in Torchwood story Exit Wounds and played the lead villain Corakinus in Class.
The drumming motif is suggestive of the fifth and subsequent bars of the Doctor Who theme tune as composed by Ron Grainer and realised by Delia Derbyshire.
However, he was critical of the beginning of the episode, writing that Jack's entrance was "a bit silly" and "the remnants of civilization look like Mad Max rejects being chased by space vampires".
[13] Richard Edwards of SFX gave "Utopia" four out of five stars, feeling that it was "minimally plotted" as it was part of a larger story but praising Jack's backstory and the return of the Master.
[14] The Stage reviewer Mark Wright was mixed towards "Utopia", disliking the first 20 minutes on the planet but enjoying the introduction of Jacobi as Yana, particularly the reveal of his true nature.