I think you can make the case that Peter Capaldi is the best actor that has ever played the Doctor, which is slightly painful to say as much of a Patrick Troughton fan as I am. He certainly got a lot of hype when he came in to play the Doctor and his references and understanding of the character gave him a depth that was not apparent with most of the other actors who played the Doctor.
He also had a period of strong writing as well as strong supporting companions. I never really warmed to Clara but that's my personal opinion. Most fans seem to like Clara a great deal and you can't argue that she wasn't a strong character. I liked Bill a bit better though as her personality just played better in my opinion.
Despite all that, much like the Sixth Doctor, there often is something a bit lacking in the Twelfth Doctor and I think that it is a sense of fun. Series Eight obviously had the angry, brooding Doctor who found himself by the end. But even though the Doctor lightened up, the nature of the stories, good as many of them were, just did not lend themselves to the sense of zaniness or wonder that we saw readily with the Eleventh Doctor and even with the Tenth Doctor. It's not bad, just different. Sometimes you want a light-hearted adventure and sometimes you want the dour, heavy hand. It's just that this Doctor seemed to always be a heavy hand.
But it was a well done heavy hand. The most zany story they tried (In the Forrest of the Night) is easily my least favorite of the Twelfth Doctor era (and possibly of the entire new series). My favorite was of a brooding, angry Doctor who stood in the face of the establishment and spit in their face, saying that he would do things his way. So trying to apply a blanket feel of one Doctor to another is a useless exercise. Still, I wish there had been a few more stories with the scary yet glib feel of Mummy on the Orient Express or Flatline more often. Those were the stories that stood out in my mind as the ones that felt like good and proper Doctor Who.
On balance, this was a very good era. The Doctor was good, the companions good, if not always to my taste. The writing held up for the most part as well. I might not opt for this one with a slightly younger audience the way you could with most of the classical era or even the Eleventh Doctor era, but it also dove richly into the horror echoes of the Hinchcliff era and that is certainly worth returning to now and again.
Highest Rated Story: Heaven Sent - 5.0
Lowest Rated Story: In the Forest of the Night - 0.5
Average overall rating: 3.59
Deep Breath
Into the Dalek
Robot of Sherwood
Listen
Time Heist
The Caretaker
Kill the Moon
Mummy on the Orient Express
Flatline
In the Forest of the Night
Dark Water/Death in Heaven
Last Christmas
The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar
Under the Lake/Before the Flood
The Girl Who Died
The Woman Who Lived
The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion
Sleep No More
Face the Raven
Heaven Sent
Hell Bent
The Husbands of River Song
The Return of Doctor Mysterio
The Pilot
Smile
Thin Ice
Knock Knock
Oxygen
Extremis
The Pyramid at the End of the World
The Lie of the Land
Empress of Mars
The Eaters of Light
World Enough and Time
The Doctor Falls
Twice Upon A Time
Friday, May 4, 2018
Dark Water/Death In Heaven
Did you really think that I care for you so little that your betrayal would mean anything?
Dark Water and Death in Heaven set up for me along the typical Moffat finale lines where the penultimate episode was really creepy and good and then I was let down by the finale. I do recall really enjoying Missy and going back and after watching her again after seeing her whole arc play out, I'm hoping it will give me an additional perspective that I might have missed the first time around. I would also be interested to see what the reaction would be of someone coming to this later. When debuting, everyone knew about the Cybermen's return because filming in front of St. Paul's was impossible to hide. But imagine how intense the reveal would be if that part wasn't known? I'll have to spring that one on my kids sometime.
Plot Summary
Clara calls Danny Pink to confess to him about her continued travels with the Doctor. She catches him on his cell phone as he's about to cross the street. The phone goes quiet when Clara tells him about her travels and an older woman picks up, telling her that Danny has been hit by a car. She runs to the street and a voice over reveals that Danny was killed.
After a few days, Clara calls the Doctor. Relatives try to console her but she remains deadened. She manages to get a hold of the Doctor at the end of one of his solo adventures and asks for him to pick her up. Upon doing so, she wanders about the TARDIS, asking to go see a volcano while pulling TARDIS keys out of various hiding places. She also grabs a sleep patch and slaps it on the Doctor's neck.
He wakes on a cliff side with the TARDIS locked and Clara with all the keys over a pit of magma. She throws a key in, melting it. She then tells the Doctor that Danny Pink is dead and he is going to save him, rewriting time. The Doctor refuses and Clara tosses away more keys. He continues to refuse but she hesitates throwing the last key in until he tries to grab her. That triggers her to toss the last key in and she drops it. She cries but says she would do it again.
The Doctor smirks at her and tells her to look at her hand. He shows her that the "sleep patch" didn't work on him and that he put it back on her hand. It induced a hypnotic state that allowed her to see what she wanted, all while being inside the TARDIS. He picks the keys off the floor and tells her that he wanted to be sure she would go through with it. She initially believes that he is throwing her out of the TARDIS but he corrects her and says that they will be heading to "the afterlife" to see if they can retrieve Danny. The Doctor places Clara's hands in the psychic circuits and turns off the navigation, allowing her to direct the TARDIS to Danny.
Danny meanwhile wakes to find himself in an office of a bureaucrat named Sev. Sev tries to gently break it to Danny that he is dead but Danny doesn't believe it until he opens the curtains to reveal an enormous city wrapped in a sphere. Sev also sends a note down the hall to prevent Danny's body from being cremated.
The TARDIS lands in a mausoleum where the skeletons of humans are displayed sitting on chairs while encased in tanks of a water-like fluid. The Doctor finds a holographic display informing them that this is 3W, a company specializing in the welfare of the dead. They are then approached by a woman named Missy who gives the Doctor an intense welcoming kiss. She attempts to do the same to Clara but Clara declines. Missy states that she is an android and is maintained by one Dr. Chang, whom she summons.
Chang takes them to an office where he tells them that the bodies in the water are held together in a suit but that the water will only show organic matter. He then tells them that the 3W institute was set up when their founder isolated messages he believed were from beyond the grave and indicated that the dead maintained a level of consciousness with their bodies. He plays a disturbing message where a voice pleads not to be cremated.
Back in the Nethersphere, Sev informs Danny that he has a visitor. It is the young boy that Danny killed accidentally while securing a house in a war zone. He tries to reconcile with the boy but he runs away in fear. Danny is disturbed by this when he is told by Sev that he has a phone call. Chang was able to connect to Danny by having the computer telepathically scan Clara and determine who she was looking for.
The Doctor is skeptical and before leaving with Chang to examine the tanks further, he warns Clara to be skeptical and ask Danny questions that only he would know. She talks to Danny and tries to do as the Doctor says but Danny is confused by the line of questioning. He quickly realizes that if she is unable to pull him out, she is considering joining him. Unwilling to let her do that, he antagonizes her by continuing to say that he loves her until she terminates the call. Upset, Danny starts to cry until Sev comes over and offers Danny the opportunity to disconnect himself from his emotions if he wants it.
In the corridor, Dr. Chang notices that the bodies have stood up and activated the drains to their tanks. Missy emerges and kills him after being corrected by Dr. Chang that she is his boss and not an android. She tells the Doctor that she has used a Gallifrean matrix slice to create a housing for the minds of the dead. Their minds are then reuploaded to their bodies once the bodies have been cyber-converted, giving a nearly unlimited supply of Cybermen. She also confirms what the Doctor had begun to be aware of in that she is a Time Lord.
The Doctor rushes out to warn Clara but emerges outside St. Paul's. He attempts to warn the people but they mostly ignore him. Missy then tells the Doctor that she is the Master as the Cybermen walk down from St. Paul's and into the plaza. The Doctor and Missy are approached by Osgood who gives a signal. UNIT approaches and arrests Missy. They attempt to ensnare the Cybermen but the Cybermen launch themselves into the air where they explode over the major metropolitan areas of the country.
The explosions create clouds which concentrate over the cemeteries of the cities and rain begins to fall. As the rain falls, the dead bodies within in them begin to convert into Cybermen. Similar things happen in mortuaries, which begin to flood with the directed rain, including the one where Danny Pink's body is being housed.
Back in St. Paul's Clara turns around and finds a Cyberman emerging from the tank. He scans her and prepares to kill her as a non-entity but she pretends that she is the Doctor. Unsure if Clara is telling the truth or not, the Cyberman herds her into the hallway where he is joined by two additional Cybermen. Clara continues to back slowly from the Cybermen, challenging their logic and keeping them just off balance to where they are unsure of whether to kill her or not. A fourth Cyberman approaches from the real, citing Clara's personal details and noting her a liar. He knocks her unconscious with an electrical pulse and then destroys the three other Cybermen with his gun.
The Doctor, the TARDIS, Missy and UNIT personnel are shuttled on board a plane which takes off. Once airborne, Kate Stewart informs the Doctor that he is now President of Earth with the ability to command the various governments as necessary. On board they observe the rain falling and within the rain, the information to turn any residual organic matter into a Cyberman which then downloads the personality information from the Matrix data slice.
Clara wakes in a graveyard in London observing Cybermen slowly climbing out of the graves. Most are completely disoriented and not fully connected to the central mainframe. Amidst the new Cybermen, she sees one standing erect and watching her. She confronts it as the Cyberman who brought her here. She tells him that while she may not be the Doctor, she will never betray him and is loyal to the end. The Cyberman sags and removes his faceplate to reveal Danny Pink. Danny has not yet had his emotions removed which allows him independent thought. He then begs Clara to activate the inhibitor and remove his emotions as the pain of her betrayal of him is too much.
In the hold of the Doctor's plan, Missy summons Osgood over to her and whispers to her that she is going to kill her. Osgood withdraws but Missy tells her to look in her pocket. Osgood looks and finds Missy's handcuffs there. She then vaporizes the two guards and seizes Osgood. Osgood points out that she is more valuable alive and Missy agrees but kills her anyway. She then summons a squadron of Cybermen who start destroying the plane.
With the Cybermen attacking, the Doctor rushes into the hold to find Missy waiting for him. She admits to setting up the Doctor and Clara as the shop woman who gave the Clara the TARDIS number. Clara calls the TARDIS asking the Doctor how to activate the inhibitor in Danny's chest but he tells her not to and then hangs up. Kate Stewart also comes down and Missy blows a hole in the payload door, sucking Kate out. Missy teleports away just as the plane breaks up, sending the Doctor and the TARDIS falling through the sky.
Missy materializes inside the Nethersphere with Sev. They watch the Doctor fall but manage to direct his fall to the TARDIS and climb inside. Sev is impressed by this but his reaction annoys Missy who vaporizes him. The Doctor then directs the TARDIS to the graveyard where Clara is fumbling with the buttons in Danny's chest plate.
The Doctor again warns Clara not to but Danny insists that he needs this and that he will not harm her. The Doctor appeals to Danny to use his pain but Danny points out that if he is fully integrated with the Cybernetwork, he will be able to read all the plans. Faced with this possibility of information, the Doctor gives Clara his sonic to activate the inhibitor. Clara and Danny tearfully say their goodbyes and Clara activates the inhibitor. Danny's expression goes blank.
The Doctor presses Danny on the plans and he informs him that the dead will be converted by the rain and the remaining population will be converted either before or after death to populate the new Cyber-army. At that moment, Missy teleports in and uses a control bracelet on her arm to manipulate the Cybermen. She then offers the Doctor the bracelet, giving him an army to do all the things that he insists on doing throughout the universe. When asked why, Missy tells him that she needs him to see that they are not that different and that she needs that so that she can have her friend back.
The Doctor points out that he is neither a good man or a bad man but only an idiot passing through. He points out that in her controlling of the Cybermen, Danny never moved. He gives the bracelet to Danny who then takes command of the Cyber-army. They launch themselves into the sky and explode, incinerating the clouds and destroying the Cyber-conversions.
Clara picks up Missy's weapon and prepares to kill her with it. The Doctor convinces her that he will do it instead. But before he can fire, Missy is vaporized by a shot from a single Cyberman. The Cyberman indicates to a different part of the cemetery where they find Kate Stewart. She had been caught in the air and brought to the ground unconscious. Realizing that the Cyberman is the converted Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, the Doctor salutes him. The Cyberman then takes off into the sky.
Several weeks afterward, Clara hears Danny's voice. He had been able to retain the bracelet in the Nethersphere and figured out that it had the power to send one person back as a living being. Out of a portal of light, Danny sends the boy he killed on the battlefield, asking Clara to send him back to his parents. The light fades and Danny is gone.
A few days later, Clara meets the Doctor in a café. He notices the bracelet and assumes that Danny found a way back, meaning that Clara's adventures with the Doctor are over. Clara starts to correct this when the Doctor interrupts her by telling her that he found Gallifrey with the coordinates that Missy had given him just before she had been vaporized. Unable to dampen this, Clara continues with the misbelief that Danny came back. What she is unaware of is that the Doctor is also lying. He travelled to the coordinates but found only empty space.
The two share a hug and then the Doctor takes off in the TARDIS while Clara walks away. The Doctor slips into a thoughtful state, almost asleep when he hears a knock on the TARDIS door. He looks up to see Santa Claus enter the TARDIS, informing him that things can't end that way and asking what he wants for Christmas.
Analysis
There is an unfortunate trend in the Twelfth Doctor era that the two-part finale starts on such a high note and then comes down with a more disappointing conclusion. This starts that trend but I don't think the fall off from Dark Water to Death in Heaven is as great as it is in the following series. I did like both but I found little problems, especially in Death in Heaven that just annoyed me.
As much as I like the Doctor, the two major standouts in this two-parter are Missy and Rachel Talalay's direction. Missy has such a whimsical insanity about her. She is compelling to a point that you just want to see what thing she is going to do next. She is also quite funny with a lot of dry, dark humor infused in her dialogue and mannerisms. I enjoyed nearly every moment where she is on screen, even her plan weakens in the end. One can only imagine what would have happened if the Roger Delgado or Anthony Ainley Master's had had an army of Cybermen to use as they desired.
Rachel Talalay's direction is outstanding and you can feel her horror bones really come through. There is a creepiness that permeates both stories but especially Dark Water. Even in scenes that are not horror influenced, such as the volcano scene, there is a masterful intensity that comes through both the actor's performances and the framing of the shots. Nearly any fault that I have with either story is through performance (rarely) or the writing. I have nothing but good things to say in how the story is framed and shot.
Both the Doctor and Clara were pretty good in this. The Doctor had his dark and cynical ways going and the tinge of hostility makes Clara's misinterpretation of the "Go to Hell" line that much better. I also liked that he fully turned the corner into the more aloof and happier version of the Twelfth Doctor that was prevalent in Series Nine and Ten with his "Idiot in a Box" speech. Interesting as a dark and angry Doctor can be, it can be a lot to take especially as the history of the Doctor is generally one who cultivates a happier appearance. He can be angry and act angry on occasion, but that should not be his constant state and the move away from that was nice to see.
Clara was pretty good. Her irrationality was easy to understand and unlike other stories, it was easy to see how she jumped from point to point. I think the only thing she did that was more for plot convenience was her interrogation of Danny at the end of Dark Water. She had been so gung-ho about everything to that point that watching her suddenly be guarded and suspicious just because the Doctor told her to didn't quite ring true. Some of that was also fueled by Danny's obtuseness.
Danny wasn't bad in this story but I don't feel that he was written particularly well. His dialogue constantly put him in a position where he just looked dumb. He couldn't respond to Clara with anything definitive except at the end where he guessed that Clara might kill herself to join him. After taking off the Cyberman faceplate, he just acts as the sad-sack and you just want to shake him and tell him to get over himself. His antagonism with the Doctor was enjoyable though I think it would have worked better if it had been a bit more understated; a cold cynicism rather than the angrier smugness that came from showing up the Doctor. Even his speech to the rest of the Cybermen felt out of place. Cybermen didn't need a sergeant talk. They just would have obeyed. A simple word to Clara and the Doctor would have been enough. I get that they were trying to give Danny this moment of nobility but it just felt wasted as Danny would have known better than that.
It is somewhat ironic that Danny's best moments were when you can't see him. His Cyberman moments with the faceplate still attached felt stronger. His dialogue was snappier, his actions more direct. There was no whining and it made his sad reactions more powerful. When Clara calls herself a masterful liar and Danny hangs his head for a moment before agreeing, you feel his pain much more than at any time he is talking with Clara in graveyard. Similarly, you feel the real rage when he almost shoots Clara just before taking off the faceplate. Those were the moments where the tragedy of Danny Pink stood out. The moments where the actor's emotions could be utilized tipped over into either trying to hard or just taking out all the core strength of the character.
Now we must discuss the largest controversy of the whole story: Cyber-Brig. From a pragmatic standpoint, of course the Brigadier's body would undergo Cyber-conversion just as everyone else's did. Arguably, companions of the past, such as Jamie, would also have been converted. It is just something that has to be faced with this plan. That would be easier to ignore except that for some reason, the Brigadier has the same level of resistance to Cyber-control that Danny does. Perhaps it's association with the Doctor as I can't imagine that all the other dead did not have the capacity for love to push past the Cyber-control. But it still is annoyingly convenient.
The second issue is how heavy-handed his use is. He appears and motions to Kate. At that point, nothing else should be said other than that Kate is alive. Once that was done, a single shot should have been made of the Doctor looking up and then giving the Brig a salute. To have Clara note that Kate is talking about her dad and then the Doctor recalling Earth's greatest warrior in it's darkest hour assumes the audience can't remember something from twenty minutes ago and put two and two together. Use of the Brig when both the character and the actor have passed away is delicate enough but to call such blatant attention to it robs the moment of any quiet dignity that it might have. That was a moment where less is more and would have mitigated some of the controversy. People who loved the call back to the Brig would have still loved it. People who thought it disrespectful to either the Brig or Nicholas Courtney might still have found it thus, but there would have been a layer of ambiguity for them to insulate themselves or to even create alternate head cannon if they so desire. I just think it was lazy writing and poorly executed.
So is it disappointing that the Doctor doesn't really do anything to stop Missy? A bit I think. Unquestionably, she had beaten the Doctor. She could have stayed afar and controlled the Cybermen as she saw fit. Certainly enough to cause some destruction and mayhem, perhaps even to have converted more people before the Doctor found a way to stop her. But instead she gives him control, just as a temptation. She worked to give him something to make him like her and he said no. He didn't even seem to agonize over it. He showed more anguish over having to give in to Danny's desire to cut off his emotions. The destruction of the Cyber-army and the Doctor's easy refuting of Missy just felt like a weak resolution, especially considering some of the outright battles that had to be fought against the Cybermen in the past. After an episode and a half of mystery and dramatic reveal of a billion plus army of Cybermen, to have it disappear without any major plan or effort on the Doctor's part, other than keeping himself alive, just felt empty.
But despite that, I think Death in Heaven has a number of merits. Like other stories in the past, a weak ending can influence the overall opinion of the whole, even if the rest of the story was quite good. Death in Heaven does have the advantage of a nice additional sacrifice on Danny's part and the liars goodbye between the Doctor and Clara. Seeing the Doctor's anger at not finding Gallifrey coupled with their compounded lying and holding each other's pain in was a proper amount of tragedy which did redeem things a bit. Chasing the thing with the non-sequitor of Santa Claus showing up also gave it that little WTF? moment adding a bit of last second humor to the mix.
Overall, a very good set up with a bit of a let down in the resolution. But still framed and acted well and with just enough of an uplift at the end so as to not leave an awful taste in the mouth at the end.
Overall personal score: Dark Water - 4.5 out of 5; Death in Heaven - 3.0 out of 5
Dark Water and Death in Heaven set up for me along the typical Moffat finale lines where the penultimate episode was really creepy and good and then I was let down by the finale. I do recall really enjoying Missy and going back and after watching her again after seeing her whole arc play out, I'm hoping it will give me an additional perspective that I might have missed the first time around. I would also be interested to see what the reaction would be of someone coming to this later. When debuting, everyone knew about the Cybermen's return because filming in front of St. Paul's was impossible to hide. But imagine how intense the reveal would be if that part wasn't known? I'll have to spring that one on my kids sometime.
Plot Summary
Clara calls Danny Pink to confess to him about her continued travels with the Doctor. She catches him on his cell phone as he's about to cross the street. The phone goes quiet when Clara tells him about her travels and an older woman picks up, telling her that Danny has been hit by a car. She runs to the street and a voice over reveals that Danny was killed.
After a few days, Clara calls the Doctor. Relatives try to console her but she remains deadened. She manages to get a hold of the Doctor at the end of one of his solo adventures and asks for him to pick her up. Upon doing so, she wanders about the TARDIS, asking to go see a volcano while pulling TARDIS keys out of various hiding places. She also grabs a sleep patch and slaps it on the Doctor's neck.
He wakes on a cliff side with the TARDIS locked and Clara with all the keys over a pit of magma. She throws a key in, melting it. She then tells the Doctor that Danny Pink is dead and he is going to save him, rewriting time. The Doctor refuses and Clara tosses away more keys. He continues to refuse but she hesitates throwing the last key in until he tries to grab her. That triggers her to toss the last key in and she drops it. She cries but says she would do it again.
The Doctor smirks at her and tells her to look at her hand. He shows her that the "sleep patch" didn't work on him and that he put it back on her hand. It induced a hypnotic state that allowed her to see what she wanted, all while being inside the TARDIS. He picks the keys off the floor and tells her that he wanted to be sure she would go through with it. She initially believes that he is throwing her out of the TARDIS but he corrects her and says that they will be heading to "the afterlife" to see if they can retrieve Danny. The Doctor places Clara's hands in the psychic circuits and turns off the navigation, allowing her to direct the TARDIS to Danny.
Danny meanwhile wakes to find himself in an office of a bureaucrat named Sev. Sev tries to gently break it to Danny that he is dead but Danny doesn't believe it until he opens the curtains to reveal an enormous city wrapped in a sphere. Sev also sends a note down the hall to prevent Danny's body from being cremated.
The TARDIS lands in a mausoleum where the skeletons of humans are displayed sitting on chairs while encased in tanks of a water-like fluid. The Doctor finds a holographic display informing them that this is 3W, a company specializing in the welfare of the dead. They are then approached by a woman named Missy who gives the Doctor an intense welcoming kiss. She attempts to do the same to Clara but Clara declines. Missy states that she is an android and is maintained by one Dr. Chang, whom she summons.
Chang takes them to an office where he tells them that the bodies in the water are held together in a suit but that the water will only show organic matter. He then tells them that the 3W institute was set up when their founder isolated messages he believed were from beyond the grave and indicated that the dead maintained a level of consciousness with their bodies. He plays a disturbing message where a voice pleads not to be cremated.
Back in the Nethersphere, Sev informs Danny that he has a visitor. It is the young boy that Danny killed accidentally while securing a house in a war zone. He tries to reconcile with the boy but he runs away in fear. Danny is disturbed by this when he is told by Sev that he has a phone call. Chang was able to connect to Danny by having the computer telepathically scan Clara and determine who she was looking for.
The Doctor is skeptical and before leaving with Chang to examine the tanks further, he warns Clara to be skeptical and ask Danny questions that only he would know. She talks to Danny and tries to do as the Doctor says but Danny is confused by the line of questioning. He quickly realizes that if she is unable to pull him out, she is considering joining him. Unwilling to let her do that, he antagonizes her by continuing to say that he loves her until she terminates the call. Upset, Danny starts to cry until Sev comes over and offers Danny the opportunity to disconnect himself from his emotions if he wants it.
In the corridor, Dr. Chang notices that the bodies have stood up and activated the drains to their tanks. Missy emerges and kills him after being corrected by Dr. Chang that she is his boss and not an android. She tells the Doctor that she has used a Gallifrean matrix slice to create a housing for the minds of the dead. Their minds are then reuploaded to their bodies once the bodies have been cyber-converted, giving a nearly unlimited supply of Cybermen. She also confirms what the Doctor had begun to be aware of in that she is a Time Lord.
The Doctor rushes out to warn Clara but emerges outside St. Paul's. He attempts to warn the people but they mostly ignore him. Missy then tells the Doctor that she is the Master as the Cybermen walk down from St. Paul's and into the plaza. The Doctor and Missy are approached by Osgood who gives a signal. UNIT approaches and arrests Missy. They attempt to ensnare the Cybermen but the Cybermen launch themselves into the air where they explode over the major metropolitan areas of the country.
The explosions create clouds which concentrate over the cemeteries of the cities and rain begins to fall. As the rain falls, the dead bodies within in them begin to convert into Cybermen. Similar things happen in mortuaries, which begin to flood with the directed rain, including the one where Danny Pink's body is being housed.
Back in St. Paul's Clara turns around and finds a Cyberman emerging from the tank. He scans her and prepares to kill her as a non-entity but she pretends that she is the Doctor. Unsure if Clara is telling the truth or not, the Cyberman herds her into the hallway where he is joined by two additional Cybermen. Clara continues to back slowly from the Cybermen, challenging their logic and keeping them just off balance to where they are unsure of whether to kill her or not. A fourth Cyberman approaches from the real, citing Clara's personal details and noting her a liar. He knocks her unconscious with an electrical pulse and then destroys the three other Cybermen with his gun.
The Doctor, the TARDIS, Missy and UNIT personnel are shuttled on board a plane which takes off. Once airborne, Kate Stewart informs the Doctor that he is now President of Earth with the ability to command the various governments as necessary. On board they observe the rain falling and within the rain, the information to turn any residual organic matter into a Cyberman which then downloads the personality information from the Matrix data slice.
Clara wakes in a graveyard in London observing Cybermen slowly climbing out of the graves. Most are completely disoriented and not fully connected to the central mainframe. Amidst the new Cybermen, she sees one standing erect and watching her. She confronts it as the Cyberman who brought her here. She tells him that while she may not be the Doctor, she will never betray him and is loyal to the end. The Cyberman sags and removes his faceplate to reveal Danny Pink. Danny has not yet had his emotions removed which allows him independent thought. He then begs Clara to activate the inhibitor and remove his emotions as the pain of her betrayal of him is too much.
In the hold of the Doctor's plan, Missy summons Osgood over to her and whispers to her that she is going to kill her. Osgood withdraws but Missy tells her to look in her pocket. Osgood looks and finds Missy's handcuffs there. She then vaporizes the two guards and seizes Osgood. Osgood points out that she is more valuable alive and Missy agrees but kills her anyway. She then summons a squadron of Cybermen who start destroying the plane.
With the Cybermen attacking, the Doctor rushes into the hold to find Missy waiting for him. She admits to setting up the Doctor and Clara as the shop woman who gave the Clara the TARDIS number. Clara calls the TARDIS asking the Doctor how to activate the inhibitor in Danny's chest but he tells her not to and then hangs up. Kate Stewart also comes down and Missy blows a hole in the payload door, sucking Kate out. Missy teleports away just as the plane breaks up, sending the Doctor and the TARDIS falling through the sky.
Missy materializes inside the Nethersphere with Sev. They watch the Doctor fall but manage to direct his fall to the TARDIS and climb inside. Sev is impressed by this but his reaction annoys Missy who vaporizes him. The Doctor then directs the TARDIS to the graveyard where Clara is fumbling with the buttons in Danny's chest plate.
The Doctor again warns Clara not to but Danny insists that he needs this and that he will not harm her. The Doctor appeals to Danny to use his pain but Danny points out that if he is fully integrated with the Cybernetwork, he will be able to read all the plans. Faced with this possibility of information, the Doctor gives Clara his sonic to activate the inhibitor. Clara and Danny tearfully say their goodbyes and Clara activates the inhibitor. Danny's expression goes blank.
The Doctor presses Danny on the plans and he informs him that the dead will be converted by the rain and the remaining population will be converted either before or after death to populate the new Cyber-army. At that moment, Missy teleports in and uses a control bracelet on her arm to manipulate the Cybermen. She then offers the Doctor the bracelet, giving him an army to do all the things that he insists on doing throughout the universe. When asked why, Missy tells him that she needs him to see that they are not that different and that she needs that so that she can have her friend back.
The Doctor points out that he is neither a good man or a bad man but only an idiot passing through. He points out that in her controlling of the Cybermen, Danny never moved. He gives the bracelet to Danny who then takes command of the Cyber-army. They launch themselves into the sky and explode, incinerating the clouds and destroying the Cyber-conversions.
Clara picks up Missy's weapon and prepares to kill her with it. The Doctor convinces her that he will do it instead. But before he can fire, Missy is vaporized by a shot from a single Cyberman. The Cyberman indicates to a different part of the cemetery where they find Kate Stewart. She had been caught in the air and brought to the ground unconscious. Realizing that the Cyberman is the converted Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, the Doctor salutes him. The Cyberman then takes off into the sky.
Several weeks afterward, Clara hears Danny's voice. He had been able to retain the bracelet in the Nethersphere and figured out that it had the power to send one person back as a living being. Out of a portal of light, Danny sends the boy he killed on the battlefield, asking Clara to send him back to his parents. The light fades and Danny is gone.
A few days later, Clara meets the Doctor in a café. He notices the bracelet and assumes that Danny found a way back, meaning that Clara's adventures with the Doctor are over. Clara starts to correct this when the Doctor interrupts her by telling her that he found Gallifrey with the coordinates that Missy had given him just before she had been vaporized. Unable to dampen this, Clara continues with the misbelief that Danny came back. What she is unaware of is that the Doctor is also lying. He travelled to the coordinates but found only empty space.
The two share a hug and then the Doctor takes off in the TARDIS while Clara walks away. The Doctor slips into a thoughtful state, almost asleep when he hears a knock on the TARDIS door. He looks up to see Santa Claus enter the TARDIS, informing him that things can't end that way and asking what he wants for Christmas.
Analysis
There is an unfortunate trend in the Twelfth Doctor era that the two-part finale starts on such a high note and then comes down with a more disappointing conclusion. This starts that trend but I don't think the fall off from Dark Water to Death in Heaven is as great as it is in the following series. I did like both but I found little problems, especially in Death in Heaven that just annoyed me.
As much as I like the Doctor, the two major standouts in this two-parter are Missy and Rachel Talalay's direction. Missy has such a whimsical insanity about her. She is compelling to a point that you just want to see what thing she is going to do next. She is also quite funny with a lot of dry, dark humor infused in her dialogue and mannerisms. I enjoyed nearly every moment where she is on screen, even her plan weakens in the end. One can only imagine what would have happened if the Roger Delgado or Anthony Ainley Master's had had an army of Cybermen to use as they desired.
Rachel Talalay's direction is outstanding and you can feel her horror bones really come through. There is a creepiness that permeates both stories but especially Dark Water. Even in scenes that are not horror influenced, such as the volcano scene, there is a masterful intensity that comes through both the actor's performances and the framing of the shots. Nearly any fault that I have with either story is through performance (rarely) or the writing. I have nothing but good things to say in how the story is framed and shot.
Both the Doctor and Clara were pretty good in this. The Doctor had his dark and cynical ways going and the tinge of hostility makes Clara's misinterpretation of the "Go to Hell" line that much better. I also liked that he fully turned the corner into the more aloof and happier version of the Twelfth Doctor that was prevalent in Series Nine and Ten with his "Idiot in a Box" speech. Interesting as a dark and angry Doctor can be, it can be a lot to take especially as the history of the Doctor is generally one who cultivates a happier appearance. He can be angry and act angry on occasion, but that should not be his constant state and the move away from that was nice to see.
Clara was pretty good. Her irrationality was easy to understand and unlike other stories, it was easy to see how she jumped from point to point. I think the only thing she did that was more for plot convenience was her interrogation of Danny at the end of Dark Water. She had been so gung-ho about everything to that point that watching her suddenly be guarded and suspicious just because the Doctor told her to didn't quite ring true. Some of that was also fueled by Danny's obtuseness.
Danny wasn't bad in this story but I don't feel that he was written particularly well. His dialogue constantly put him in a position where he just looked dumb. He couldn't respond to Clara with anything definitive except at the end where he guessed that Clara might kill herself to join him. After taking off the Cyberman faceplate, he just acts as the sad-sack and you just want to shake him and tell him to get over himself. His antagonism with the Doctor was enjoyable though I think it would have worked better if it had been a bit more understated; a cold cynicism rather than the angrier smugness that came from showing up the Doctor. Even his speech to the rest of the Cybermen felt out of place. Cybermen didn't need a sergeant talk. They just would have obeyed. A simple word to Clara and the Doctor would have been enough. I get that they were trying to give Danny this moment of nobility but it just felt wasted as Danny would have known better than that.
It is somewhat ironic that Danny's best moments were when you can't see him. His Cyberman moments with the faceplate still attached felt stronger. His dialogue was snappier, his actions more direct. There was no whining and it made his sad reactions more powerful. When Clara calls herself a masterful liar and Danny hangs his head for a moment before agreeing, you feel his pain much more than at any time he is talking with Clara in graveyard. Similarly, you feel the real rage when he almost shoots Clara just before taking off the faceplate. Those were the moments where the tragedy of Danny Pink stood out. The moments where the actor's emotions could be utilized tipped over into either trying to hard or just taking out all the core strength of the character.
Now we must discuss the largest controversy of the whole story: Cyber-Brig. From a pragmatic standpoint, of course the Brigadier's body would undergo Cyber-conversion just as everyone else's did. Arguably, companions of the past, such as Jamie, would also have been converted. It is just something that has to be faced with this plan. That would be easier to ignore except that for some reason, the Brigadier has the same level of resistance to Cyber-control that Danny does. Perhaps it's association with the Doctor as I can't imagine that all the other dead did not have the capacity for love to push past the Cyber-control. But it still is annoyingly convenient.
The second issue is how heavy-handed his use is. He appears and motions to Kate. At that point, nothing else should be said other than that Kate is alive. Once that was done, a single shot should have been made of the Doctor looking up and then giving the Brig a salute. To have Clara note that Kate is talking about her dad and then the Doctor recalling Earth's greatest warrior in it's darkest hour assumes the audience can't remember something from twenty minutes ago and put two and two together. Use of the Brig when both the character and the actor have passed away is delicate enough but to call such blatant attention to it robs the moment of any quiet dignity that it might have. That was a moment where less is more and would have mitigated some of the controversy. People who loved the call back to the Brig would have still loved it. People who thought it disrespectful to either the Brig or Nicholas Courtney might still have found it thus, but there would have been a layer of ambiguity for them to insulate themselves or to even create alternate head cannon if they so desire. I just think it was lazy writing and poorly executed.
So is it disappointing that the Doctor doesn't really do anything to stop Missy? A bit I think. Unquestionably, she had beaten the Doctor. She could have stayed afar and controlled the Cybermen as she saw fit. Certainly enough to cause some destruction and mayhem, perhaps even to have converted more people before the Doctor found a way to stop her. But instead she gives him control, just as a temptation. She worked to give him something to make him like her and he said no. He didn't even seem to agonize over it. He showed more anguish over having to give in to Danny's desire to cut off his emotions. The destruction of the Cyber-army and the Doctor's easy refuting of Missy just felt like a weak resolution, especially considering some of the outright battles that had to be fought against the Cybermen in the past. After an episode and a half of mystery and dramatic reveal of a billion plus army of Cybermen, to have it disappear without any major plan or effort on the Doctor's part, other than keeping himself alive, just felt empty.
But despite that, I think Death in Heaven has a number of merits. Like other stories in the past, a weak ending can influence the overall opinion of the whole, even if the rest of the story was quite good. Death in Heaven does have the advantage of a nice additional sacrifice on Danny's part and the liars goodbye between the Doctor and Clara. Seeing the Doctor's anger at not finding Gallifrey coupled with their compounded lying and holding each other's pain in was a proper amount of tragedy which did redeem things a bit. Chasing the thing with the non-sequitor of Santa Claus showing up also gave it that little WTF? moment adding a bit of last second humor to the mix.
Overall, a very good set up with a bit of a let down in the resolution. But still framed and acted well and with just enough of an uplift at the end so as to not leave an awful taste in the mouth at the end.
Overall personal score: Dark Water - 4.5 out of 5; Death in Heaven - 3.0 out of 5
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