Previous episode reviews:
Episode 11: Dark Water
Episode 10: In the Forest of the Night
Episode 9: Flatline
Episode 8: Mummy on the Orient Express
Episode 7: Kill the Moon
Episode 6: The Caretaker
Episode 5: Time Heist
Episode 4: Listen
Episode 3: Robot of Sherwood
Episode 2: Into the Dalek
Episode 1: Deep Breath
Summary:
The Cybermen have been begun their attack, and not just in the UK, but all over the world, as the dead are coming back to life as these menacing metallic monsters. As Missy, The Doctor's greatest foe, watches in glee, The Doctor, Clara, and the organization known as UNIT try and put a stop to this. For Clara and Danny, the end is nigh...
---------------------------------------------
And thus we have reached the end of New Series 8/Season 34 of Doctor Who. Do I think the finale is an epic conclusion to my first season of the show, or do I think it's an atrocious waste that ends the season on a horrible note? Let's find out.
So the last review left off with the question of who is "The Master". Well, to put it simply, The Master is The Doctor's archenemy. If Sherlock Holmes has Professor Moriarty, Batman has The Joker, Optimus Prime has Megatron, and Amuro Ray has Char Aznable, The Doctor in Doctor Who has The Master.
The first on-screen appearance of The Master in 1971
The Master first appeared in Season 8 of Classic Doctor Who, during the Third Doctor story "Terror of the Autons". As said in "Dark Water" The Master is the from the same race as The Doctor, a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. He was first introduced to be an old rival of The Doctor before he came to Earth, with the aim of conquering the universe and killing The Doctor.
Like The Doctor, The Master has been seen throughout the show in a number of incarnations through regeneration:
The eight on-screen incarnations of The Master. From L-R:
Roger Delgado, Peter Pratt, Geoffrey Beevers
Anthony Ainley, Eric Roberts
Derek Jacobi, John Simm, Michelle Gomez
Unlike The Doctor though, The Master remained practically the same throughout the various incarnations: Power-hungry, menacing, a tad insane, and harboring an obsession with triumphing over The Doctor. The Classic Show would have the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th Doctors facing off against The Master, while the New Show has the 10th Doctor, and most recently the 12th, facing his archenemy. The New Show would explore further details about The Master, such as how he became friends with The Doctor, why he became insane, etc.
The first New Series appearance of The Master in 2007
In the show's 50 year history, The Master had 26 stories dedicated to his machinations, counting the Series 8 two-part finale. Needless to say, the revelation of the enigmatic Missy being The Master was a HUGE shock to the worldwide Doctor Who fandom.
The Doctor Who fandom explodes, and I pretty much had the same reaction
And it's not just because of the return of The Master that had people freaking out. If you haven't already surmised in that picture of all the versions of The Master, The classic Sesame Street song will give you a hint:
Yep, The Master is, in fact a woman. Missy is short for Mistress, and because of the gender change, a name change was in order too. Oh boy, this is a bit complicated...
For the longest time, every time The Doctor and The Master regenerated, it was always male. But the fictional history in the show has established that Time Lords can change their gender through regeneration as well. It's just that, for one reason for another, they could never implement it...until now.
The revelation that Missy, the mysterious umbrella lady who appeared at the end of "Deep Breath" was The Master the whole time suddenly puts the entire season in a different perspective, and can make us look back at just how long Missy was planning this. But it also...kinda puts Missy's line about The Doctor being her "boyfriend", and THIS shot in "Dark Water"...
Remember, the lady on the left used to be a guy!
...in a different light. But anyway, I've rambled long enough about The Master, and there's still a lot to talk about, so let's continue. For the sake of simplicity, we'll refer to The Master as Missy from now on, and he as a she.
As the Cybermen fly out of St. Paul's Cathedral, the organization known as UNIT shows up. UNIT is short for United Intelligence Task Force, and is a long-time ally of The Doctor that first appeared during the 2nd Doctor story "The Invasion". Their head, Kate Lethridge-Stewart, renders The Doctor and Missy unconscious. As the two are taken away, the Cybermen unleash rainclouds all over the world, specifically in graveyards, mausoleums, funeral homes, and morgues. In the Nethersphere, Danny is in the middle of deciding whether or not to delete his emotions before he and all the souls taken there are released back to their bodies, while in St. Paul's Cathedral, Clara is surrounded by Cybermen before one of its own destroys them and knocks Clara unconscious.
Aboard a secure aircraft, Missy tells The Doctor and UNIT her plan. The rainclouds reanimate the dead bodies as Cybermen, and the souls trapped in the Nethersphere become Cybermen as well. Before The Doctor can take any action, Missy escapes her bonds and kills UNIT personnel while flying Cybermen attack and destroy the plane. The Doctor manages to summon the TARDIS and land safely, while Kate seemingly falls to her death. This is one of my disappointments of the episode, in that UNIT barely did much when they were known to be a very strong organization in the past episodes and seasons of Doctor Who. But we do get a nice payoff by the end of the episode.
Clara wakes up in a graveyard to find the Cyberman that saved her, while dozens upon dozens more rise from the graves, using the corpses. The Cyberman is, in fact, Danny. He didn't delete his emotions, and as a result managed to keep his sanity in check and save Clara from death. As Clara weeps for Cyber-Danny, The Doctor arrives. Clara demands that the Sonic Screwdriver be handed over so as to delete Cyber-Danny's emotions and save him from the pain, even if the removal of Cyber-Danny's emotions means that he could kill Clara. She however doesn't care. It's a sad scene, as the relationships between Clara and Danny throughout the season ends on a really sad note. It'll be much more sad by the end.
Since deleting Cyber-Danny's emotions will link him up to the Cybermen's hive mind and reveal the full extent of Missy's plan anyway, The Doctor allows Clara to do so. And here's where the finale starts to lose it a bit for me. Cyber-Danny is fully cyber now, and says that there will be a second unleashing of rain clouds that will convert humans into Cybermen. Missy lands a la Mary Poppins...and gives The Doctor the control bracelet for the Cybermen. As the Cybermen salute The Doctor, Missy reveals that all of what she has done was specifically for him. Missy argues that, with a Cybermen army, he can now right the universe's wrongs just like he always strived for.
The Doctor refuses, saying that no one should have a right to that kind of power, and it's not a good thing. Missy further states that The Doctor clearly doesn't trust himself, and we a get a good scene where we flashback to all the times this season where The Doctor didn't trust himself or questioned his morality, and where his hatred shone through. As he ponders this, The Doctor has an epiphany; he's not a good man, or a bad man. He's an idiot, an idiot with a box just passing through time and space, out of love for doing good things in the universe. With the final realization in place, he tosses the control bracelet to Cyber-Danny, who retained his emotions because of his love for Clara. To pile on the cheesiness of the scene, Cyber-Danny rallies the Cybermen to fly into the second raincloud and self-destruct. He then leads the Cybermen into the sky, destroying themselves and the cloud.
So basically, the power of love won the day. And don't get me wrong, stories like that are fine and all, but for something like Doctor Who? It's soooooo cheesy and schmaltzy, and very corny. Blegh.
Missy is unperturbed by all of this, even when Clara takes Missy's device and threatens to kill her. The Doctor attempts to stop her, and all Clara can do is chastise him for not doing so in the first place, no matter how he and Missy may be old friends. Even Missy's promise that their home planet Gallifrey is back doesn't stop Clara, so The Doctor has no choice and takes up the device. Finally confronted with all that has happened, and how Missy finally got under his skin, The Doctor declares this victory to Missy...before Missy is suddenly vaporized by a lone Cyberman. Upon closer inspection of the Cyberman, they discover an unconscious Kate on the ground. The Doctor stares at the Cyberman and realizes that this Cyberman is Kate's deceased father, Brigadier Lethridge-Stewart. The old friend of The Doctor and the founder of UNIT, in a very touching (If polarizing) scene receives a salute from The Doctor as it flies to parts unknown. The Doctor surmises that, just like Danny saved Clara, The Brigadier saved his daughter out of love.
Two weeks later, things have not looked up for both Clara and The Doctor. For Clara, the spirit of Danny appears to her and reveals that he can come back to life, but decides to send back a child he accidentally killed in a war instead. Danny says a final farewell to Clara, and Clara sobs at her lost love. Meanwhile, The Doctor uses the coordinates that Missy gave him and heads to space...to find that Gallifrey was not there. Missy lied and had the last laugh, and The Doctor pounds the TARDIS console in anger and weeps at his lost planet. To make things worse, The Doctor and Clara decide to part terms with each other, and lie that their lives are looking up. Clara says that she and Danny are back together and will live out their lives, while The Doctor says he has found Gallifrey. And with a final hug, The Doctor departs in the TARDIS. This final bit of the episode ends with a major high note for me, because of its bittersweet nature after everything that has happened in this series to its characters.
Final thoughts:
I liked Death in Heaven, though it was VERY mixed for me. It started out strong, went down in the middle, and kind of stayed rocky throughout the rest of the episode. I certainly enjoyed it, but it wasn't the epic, strong finale I was really hoping for, especially since this is my first season. There were a ton of moments that made me scratch my head, and the finale at times was extremely cheesy for my taste.
Still though for what we got, Death in Heaven was a nice episode, and it had a lot of good moments that made Series 8 end on a good note. Not a great note, but a good note nonetheless. All in all, this finale could have been better, but I certainly enjoyed it.
My score: 3.5/5.
Oh, and yeah. There's this too, shown as a mid-credits scene.
Doctor Who will be back in its annual Christmas episode!
No comments:
Post a Comment