So hot on the heels of last episode the season finale
charges in trying to herd the flock of cats that this season have been. This is
also the second of a two part episode so the story ties very closely to the previous on with Missy the Master and the Doctor standing outside of St Paul´s
with a lot of Cybermen. So let us get on with the story.
Things look kind of bleak when things take a turn
for the better, in a way. U.N.I.T show up on the scene and take Missy in to
custody. But he plan is still in action and the Cybermen head out to raise all
the dead on the planet by the way of black clouds that rain nano particles. U.N.I.T
also kidnap the Doctor. It turns out that he has been elected the president and
commander in chief of earth. So with Missy downloading the dead in to the newly
hatched cybermen Danny Pink finds himself back in the land of the living… Sort
of… Remember how he never pushed the emotion kill-switch, turns out he now is
in control of the Cyberman body he inhabits and he use it to save Clara from a
group of Cybermen . Then the bio-waste hit the rotary air dispersion unit.
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| Soon to be dust |
The
Missy gets free and kill the adorable Dr Who fan / U.N.I.T scientist, the U.N.I.T
flying HQ get swarmed by Cybermen, Clara has found out that Danny is a Cyberman
and he is asking her to kill him and several people including the Doctor get
sucked out in to the air as the plane get broken down. Missy is rather brilliant
in these scene, a sort of crazy that reminds me on Ledgers Joker. So fortunately
for the Doctor he get his TARDIS key out and by using his coat as makeshift glider wings he steer himself in to
the TARDIS.
He lands next to Clara and
Danny and our love triangle comes to an end as Danny again accuse the Doctor
for being a military officer above all, taunting the Doctor to kill him, Danny
need to fully turn in to a Cyberman in order to get access to the hive-mind that
all Cybermen share. Clara use the Doctors screwdriver to flip the switch in
Danny´s chest as they both ensure their love for each other one last time. Then
Missy, who teleported out of the plane before shows up with an armband that works
like a remote for the Cybermen. After making the Cybermen do a little dance for
her she hands it over to the Doctor and tell him that she has given him what he
always needed, an army to fight his crusade. The Doctor rejects the gift but
thanks Missy for finally solving the puzzle that have plagued the Doctor this
entire season. Having finally figured out that he is neither a good nor a bad man...
But just rather a man. He toss the control to Danny who is still in control
over his new body. He holds a rousing speech… to a bunch of emotionless zombies…
Then he go Iron Man and fly off with his new silver centurions and blow the
living shit out of the black cloud. This just leaves the Doctor and Clara with
Missy. Clara is set upon killing Missy to prevent her from harming others ever
again. This of course is the classic problem that heroes in the comics face.
Kill the villain and break your own moral code, lower yourself to their level
so to speak. Or refrain and carry the knowledge that you are indirectly
responsible for all evil they will do again. The Doctor takes the weapon from
Clara and as Missy ask him
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| I am.. War Machine..? |
to say something nice to her before she dies he only
says “you win” to which she replies “I know”.
Then she get shot by another independent
Cyberman that turns out to be the brigadier, the former head of U.N.I.T and aid
to the doctor. The Doctor honor his old friend with a salute. Now not one to
end on a high note this season closes on the Doctor and Clara meet in a café.
Both lying to not let the other down as they think that the other is living
happy. Especially the Doctor who knew that Danny’s control bracelet would let
him pass back in to the world of the living. But he failed to take Danny´s
sense of duty in to account as Danny chose to let the boy he killed as a
solider to live instead… .. . Yeah. The Doctor on the other hand found that his
home was in fact not where the Master said it would be, thwarted again his
heart breaks and we see him taking out his rage at the TARDIS. Having each gone
their separate ways the season closes on the Doctor sitting in the TARDIS as
old Saint Nick… Literally… shows up telling him that he is a fool and that he
has done something wrong.
The season final was a fairly messy thing,
doing its best to tie together not only the overarching storyline, a fairly
coherent and well-crafted story but with a in my mind boring setup. But it also
try to tie in the other stories and characters. It also give us a nice hi and
bye to some old –ish faces with unit. The problem is that the season have had
way too many episodes that was just filler and that had in reality no impact on
the bigger story. But the episodes themselves
did have some really nice moments like with Danny in afterlife and pretty much
any scene with Missy. Now I had pretty much written off Missy as some kind of
pre-school Moriarty, and I was not wrong per se but once they gave her actress
the freedom to really play the character out she had the right touch of
unhinged crzy that I really appreciate.
I did mention this in another blog post about
what makes a good bad guy. In my mind they need to be smart and more than a
little crazy. You need that element of chaos and unpredictability to make them
a proper threat. There is nothing as boring as a predictable villain. In fact
without that aspect to the character the entire last episode would have fallen
flat. Capaldi is a good actor but he need someone to bounce off. Here get that
one then some. It was also nice to see that the real reason that the Master had
set Clara and the Doctor up was not because she was the chosen one or that he was
fated to meet her… Nope… It was much simpler than that, the Master figured out
that there would be a strong bond between them due to their personalities. This
bond could then be used by the Master to really hurt the Doctor, as we saw here
when the Master simply put him in the impossible place of having his best
friend commit murder and losing her “soul” or to lose his own as he takes her
sins as his own. Now the problem here is of course that the Master does hit in
order to prove that the Doctor is cut from the same block as the Master. But the fact that it is a choice at all for
the Doctor proves that they are not. Any way… Unless the Christmas special
wibbely-wobbely a few things away the next season will be very interesting as
we will have a utterly depressed Doctor and hopefully a new companion.
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| St Nick Frost |
Also speaking of the Christmas special… To have
Nick Frost as Santa Claus aka Saint Nick… Wonderful pun.
Now if one should talk about themes this one is
by all accounts self-discovery. Both our protagonists finds things in them self
they did not perhaps knew where there, Clara found a bit of steel in her heart
and the Doctor finally found that answer he was looking for.
So… Season eight…
I am split on this season. I think they took
the Doctor to far in to the “angry and confused” direction.
He lost any
redeeming qualities and became more of an antagonist then a protagonist. Now
this would have been ok if Clara would have been able to carry the show. But
the character does not have enough substance in her to do that. She feels more
like a plot device they did not know how to write out. This was made worse by
the fact that she was made the alpha and the omega for several episodes. She
was also a grade A arsehole to Danny and did repeatedly cheat on him with the Doctor.
To be honest this season have been very slim on genuinely nice people. Now in
some way that is refreshing but at the same tie it has made it hard to relate
to the cast. But on a positive note the season had a great range of supporting
characters and took some rather fresh twists such as the heist episode or the
god dammed mummy on the god dammed train… There was also a short glimpse here
and there of a Doctor that could be really likeable. But as I said unless the Christmas
episode “ret-con” the situation the Doctor is in I think next season will be a
very dark and angry one as the Doctor is not in a good place right now. But
seeing how someone posing as St Nick my hope is that we see Danny being brought
back from the dead and we get to see him and Clara move on towards a life
without the Doctor. He need a new companion, someone he has not hurt as bad yet…
Heck I would vote for one of the kids from this season. He is after all not
bound by time. Not sure what my final verdict would be, this is very much one
of those seasons I would not recommend as some ones first but it is not the
worst season I have seen either. Very much middle of the road.
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| Also about to become dust. |
12:th Doctor
Now I have ragged a lot on the new Doctor but
it its core I like the character. Different enough to be something new but
still very much the Doctor. But his lack of understanding and refusal to take
others in to consideration became a bit grating as it made him very difficult
in my mind to like. Now I appreciate the side of this behavior that let him
make some very hard choices and compare to 10 and 11 he had a iron core they
did not. You definitely see traces of the War Doctor I him and I guess that is
sort of the point but in my opinion that would have been better served by some
tempering by either tying in more to previous season or reincarnations. My
personal headcanon will be for now that this reincarnation was rougher than any
before and he has simply not recovered fully. But for the next season the
Doctor need to become a more balanced character or I will have a hard time
keeping my interest for him at any proper level. That is not saying that I want
them to make him more like 10 or 11 but rather that I want a bit of balance in his
personality. Give him some of the curiosity back, some of the desire to
rediscover the universe. But I think there will be some very dark episodes in
the next season and I think we might end up with a doctor closer to the edge of
sanity then we have before and for a longer time too.
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