Doctor Who: Dark Water & Death In Heaven

EDIT: I'm a little bit late on this one. To sum up why: video games. LOT'S of video games. Like so many video games!  

And so concludes Series 8 of Doctor Who. It's been a fun twelve weeks: we've had everything from swashbuckling with Robin Hood to raiding an intergalactic bank, and seeing Clara and the Doctor's relationship evolve over the weeks has been fascinating. I'm happy that they decided to end the series with a two-parter, while individually the episodes this season have been pretty good the somewhat swift 'get it done in 45 minutes and go' pacing has left me salivating for a more epic and intricate tale of old that you just can't express in under an hour, and that's without taking into consideration the myriad of themes and foreshadowing that this season has built up: what's up with Danny's past? Is the Doctor a good man? Will Clara be gone for good? Is this really heaven? I'm happy to report that as a whole, the finale works. I don't think it should have been a two-parter though...  

For the first part of a finale ‘Dark Water’ left me cold, it was basically set-up for ’Death In Heaven’ that didn't need to take up 45 minutes. Funnily enough, the only two parter this season didn't actually need to be a two-parter, this story would have been served much better as an extended hour long episode. A lot of 'Dark Water' feels inconsequential when viewed back to back with 'Death In Heaven', we didn't need an entire episode devoted to explaining the 3W's modus operandi and Missy's secret identity. 

Like Clara I think we all felt a bit shell shocked as Danny bit the bullet in a very real way before the credits even rolled. We knew he wasn't really dead of course, but damn that's how you open a story all about death! Unfortunately what followed was infuriating as Clara basically went crazy and chose the most aggressive and frustrating way to make the Doctor help her, which was totally unnecessary. Sure Clara, threatening to destroy the TARDIS keys near a volcano isn't AT ALL overkill, you go ahead. Why didn't she just ask the Doctor for his help first? He would have said yes, surely, because even AFTER she went all kamikaze on him he still wanted to help her! What's worse is that her 'betrayal' was never brought up again and didn't visibly impact their relationship for the rest of the finale, so what purpose did it serve in the overall plot? None, it's one of those ....BECAUSE DRAMA! moments. I'd be lying if the scene wasn't well played out by Coleman and Capaldi though, I just wish it held more weight than simple shock value. 

You really didn't think this through did you Clara?

Once we finally got away from the whole 'ultimate betrayal' thing the Doctor and Clara decide to visit the three words organisation. There were a lot of things about 3W and it's operations that left me scratching my head. How big is this compamy and why is it's base of operations inside St Pauls Cathedral? Also, how publicly known is it? There seems to be very little in terms of staff: not counting Seb we only saw Dr Chang briefly before he was vaporised. Shouldn't there be more people wandering about if the rich are willingly giving the bodies of the dead over to Missy? And how come they like to display dead skeletons inside giant water tanks, what was the purpose of that aside from the cool visual with the Cyber-reveal? What was the whole deal with Dr Skarosa, the supposed founder of the organisation? Was he an actual person or an invention of Missy? Why is the giant floating Nethersphere ball hiding in plain sight? Was it really that necessary to create a shell organisation just to fool the Doctor for about 10 mins, Missy? My head hurts. Either way a lot of this was simply build-up to the Cybermen showing up and didn't impact the story of the finale in any way, so why devote 'Dark Water' to explaining something that makes NO sense? 

While I liked Danny's scenes with Seb in the Neverworld I still think they could have compressed a lot of things down: the revelation of Danny's 'bad day' in 'Dark Water' wasn't anything mind blowing, and the Neversphere stuff was again just a place holder for the Cyberarmy reveal. This could be pretty much summed up with Seb being vaporised, he was inconsequential when you get down to it. Chris Addison was great comic relief though, so it wasn't all bad. And the kid Danny killed returned in a pivotal way for 'Death In Heaven', it gave the finale an extra gut punch that made Danny's sacrifice even more moving. If Danny's death holds, and I think it will considering his final scene (although there's still that Orson business to think about) this might be one of the few cases in Who where a main 'companion' dies permanently, another twist of audiences expectations.

Then we have Missy, or the Master reborn in female form. A lot of her screen time in ‘Dark Water’ was devoted to explaining the convoluted mechanics of the Nethersphere and basically acting weird. It’s difficult to gauge a characters personality when they're playing a cipher (Clara had this issue in Series 7), so we only really got to know her until after she was unveiled as the Master. While I didn’t have a problem with the reveal itself so much about the climax of ‘Dark Water’ felt underwhelming, her identity included. I mean, who DIDN’T figure that out? Ultimately the reveal fell that, if Missy was a returning character there were very few options: she was either the Master or the Rani, basically. And with a name like Missy, short for Mistress…I didn’t care much for that cliffhanger. ‘Oh look, the Cybermen are invading London…again. And the Master’s back trying to take over the world…again. And Danny’s grappling with the fact that he might want to delete his emotions…*SHRUGS*' It's made worse by the fact that show runner Steven Moffat categorically denied the Master’s return earlier this year. Yeah, don’t believe anything that comes out of that man's mouth. 

'If only I can recall where I've seen that bat-sh*t crazy grin before...'

So I didn't care all that much for 'Dark Water', but ‘Death In Heaven’ though? Now this is more like it!

First of all let's address the single best thing about this finale: Michelle Gomez as the Master. Now unleashed from her reveal she was killing it in pretty every scene, fully embracing the ‘bananas’ quality to the Master and threatening to consume the entire episode with her bravado and sheer madness. Considering that we only really got to see her incarnation in action during ‘Death In Heaven’ she was extremely effective in every glimpse we got of her, particularly when she dispatched Osgood. John Simm’s Master was equal parts terrifying and funny depending on the scene, and not afraid to kill someone for some random reason. I was happy to see that Missy is no less bloodthirsty she basically murdered the nicest, most adorable character in the episode (a returning character at that!) in the most brutal way possible. While certain aspects of that scene made NO sense: why didn’t the guards behind her intervene at any point (?) the shot of Missy stepping on Osgoods glasses hurt in a way that I haven't felt on Doctor Who in a while. I mean wow, that was grade A-nasty! 

All things considered both parts of the finale were very morbid and uncompromising when it came to tackling really dark material, almost unsettling. In particular the 'Don't Cremate Me!' scene had very disturbing implications which was surprisingly never brought up again. So was that just something that happens to everyone trapped in the Neversphere or is it canon now in the Who universe that our minds remain attached to our bodies after death and can feel everything that's happening to our body? Because if that's the case, jesus that's dark! And that's before we get into the whole 'dead being brought back as cyberzombies' and the horrific make-up on Danny's cyberface...*SHUDDERS* All of this death was perfect for the Master though: a properly threatening villain that wasn't afraid at any point to kill people, something the Moffat era has been sorely lacking up until this point. This makes 'Death In Heaven' a most successful revive of the Master and a worthy successor to John Simm's portrayal. It's a shame we didn't get an explanation as to how the Master regenerated into a woman and escaped Gallifrey, but Missy has practically been confirmed to make a reappearance in the future by both the actor and the show runner (to quote Steven Moffat 'She escaped!') so maybe next time?

WARNING: THIS EPISODE WILL BE DISTRESSING TO MOST VIEWERS.

HEY DOCTOR WHO FANS! REJOICE! We finally have a Cyberman story that focuses on their grisly origins and not dumb them down into faceless robots that can be defeated by the power of love! Well okay, they still did some of that, but the important thing is that they got to the heart of what makes them an effective villain: they're hideous transformations of us. With Dalek's it's always 'WE WILL KILL EVERYONE!' whereas the Cybermen are very much 'you will become like us'. They're not robots, they're us, hideous transformations of us that have forgone all emotion by giving themselves up to technology. It's a chilling thought encapsulated perfectly in this two parter with the skeletons in the tanks, the Cybermen rising up night of the living dead style from the graves and Danny's horribly disfigured face. When you get down to it yes they were just a fighting force for the Master but I'm glad that Moffat kept what makes them so terrifying at the forefront, like when Clara had to switch Danny 'off'. I still think there's a great Cyberman story out there, I just wish someone would write it and slap it on the show. 

As for the denouement of the two-parter, I liked the twist on Missy's plan. This entire season the Doctor has been debating whether this incarnation of himself is a 'good man' because he's been unafraid to let someone die for the greater good and make morally grey decisions in a heartbeat (see: 'Into The Dalek', 'Time Heist', 'Mummy On The Orient Express', 'Kill The Moon'). The Master's idea is to basically take this to the extreme by giving him a Cyber army to conquer the galaxy and right wrongs, again toying with the notion that the Doctor is merely a general who makes people sacrifice themselves for the greater goo. And if he doesn't? Then the evil clouds will convert the entire human race into Cybermen...or something? Yeah, not clear on that. The Doctor doesn't go through with it of course, proclaiming he's an 'idiot' for not realising how awesome Danny is at demonstrating his love for Clara, to the point where he overrides his programming (Cybermen have REEEALLY got to sort their software out, that's a pretty big flaw!) and saves the world by sacrificing himself and the Cyberarmy to take out the clouds. According to Danny, this is the promise of a soldier: to keep people sleeping safely at night, which nicely resolves the Doctor's beef with soldiers. What a lovely way to encapsulate what this season has been about. This wasn't a finale with a lot of bombast or explosions but it definitely delivered when it came it putting a 'Fin' on all of the major plot threads. Considering a lot of Moffats finale's have had unresolved business or dangling arcs, this was a refreshing break.  

I have mixed feeling about the Brigadiers second post-death cameo, I certainly get the sentiment but seeing a Doctor Who icon being brought back from the dead and turned into a faceless Cyberman just feels...I dunno, wrong? It's a bit too cheap, the Doctor didn't have Missy's death on his hands because someone else, *COUGH* almost in a Deus Ex Machina kind of way *COUGH* did it for him. I'll allow it, the Doctor saluting the Brigadier was simply too good a moment to write that part off. My heart melted, job done.

We need a hug too after that scene!

Another great moment of the finale was that Cafe scene. Why are cafe scenes in Doctor Who so emotional? Watching Clara and the Doctor lie to each other thinking the other one knows better? Heartbreaking. The Doctor smashing up the TARDIS console was incredibly powerful and again really, really dark. And considering everything she's been through Clara hasn't had the best of endings has she? She lost her boyfriend and the Doctor to has distanced himself away from her, all because he didn't want to infringe on her supposed personal life with Danny. And that hug? That was made of strong stuff too. While we know that isn't the last we've seen of Clara (we'll at least see her in this years Xmas special) that was a severely depressing note to end the series on, and far from a happy ending. Or until Nick Frost of all people shows up, kitted out in full Santa gear of course. Way to ruin a moment there Moffat! To put it bluntly, I have my doubts about this year's Xmas outing, I just hope they're not jumping the shark by literally having Santa be a character, because without actually seeing the episode that sounds really dumb.  

While there are still missing holes in the story (what was up with St Pauls again? Where was Danny talking to Clara from at the end? Is the Masters TARDIS still out there?) ultimately 'Death In Heaven' was a satisfying resolution to the major themes from Series 8, a solid tale in a very solid season. It did lack that certain 'epic' quality that past finales have delivered in spades, but I kind of like that. Series 8 in particular has been all about going against the grain when it comes to what we expect, with numerous episodes like 'Flatline', 'In The Forest Of The Night', 'Listen' and 'Kill The Moon' tinkering with the established format in new ways. Bucking the trend 'Death In Heaven' had surprisingly little scope, concentrating on only a few key characters of this supposedly global event. Plane sequence aside it was also lacking action, and the universe was in no danger whatsoever, thank god. Sure I have a few hang-ups with 'Dark Water' but nothing in that was inherently bad, it just felt a bit pointless in the end. To sum up this story and Series 8 as a whole: I liked it quite a bit!  

Positives:

+ Michelle Gomez was fantastic
+ Themes and arcs of the season were satisfyingly wrapped up
+ Uncompromising view on death
+ A very morbid affair
+ The Cybermen were well handled
+ Missy was suitably villainous
+ Osgood and Kate Stewart are back!
+ That depressing scene in the Cafe
+ Seb was fun
+ Brigadier cameo

Negatives:

- Lackluster first part
- Missy's plan seemed needlessly convoluted and confusing
- Clara's 'betrayal' made no sense
- The finale wasn't all that epic compared to previous season enders
- A lot of 'Dark Water' was inconsequential in the finale
- Not enough Michelle Gomez as the Master!

Overall Score: 8/10