Rate 8x12: Death In Heaven

[Lakenheath 72]

When I think of the relationship of the Doctor and Clara Oswald, I remember a conversation from the movie "Victor/Victoria". Being dishonest in a relationship does not make for a good relationship.

The two characters couldn't be honest with each other at the end. She was given a noble and honorable task of returning a boy killed by her deceased lover to his parents. Why couldn't she be honest about that with the Doctor? The Doctor went looking for his planet, and found that the planet didn't exist in N-Space. I would think he remembered that he placed Gallifrey into a dimension outside N-Space. On the other hand, I can understand him thinking maybe his world did return to N-Space. He couldn't be honest with her about what he had found.

I hope the Christmas special is the last we see of Clara Oswald. I feel that she is worse than Turlough, when it comes to unreliable and untrustworthy companions. Turlough did come clean with the Doctor, and, when Turlough left for his home planet, the two had become friends. The Doctor wanted companions who were honest with him, for he was honest with them, and he expected the same of his companions.

(I was reading the book About Time, Volume 7, and I learned that soap opera writers were recruited for the new series. This might explain the difference in writing style. In Classic Doctor Who, the writers weren't attempting to make the show a soap opera. Sci-fi and soap opera were seen as two distinct and separate genres.)

 

[Professor Zoom]

I have to say: I was a little disappointed.

Again, another episode where the Doctor doesn't really DO anything. He's the President of the Earth but doesn't do much. He's here and there, but doesn't do much. He doesn't even switch on Danny's link--which is a sort of moral cowardice on his part--he wants it done, but can't do it, so he makes someone else do it.

The only real action he takes is to give Danny the bracelet.

Quite a few episodes this season where the Doctor doesn't do much.

I didn't quite buy the whole Mistress needing Clara to get the Doctor into this particular position... If you look at it to hard it doesn't seem like a plan that would work, with so many variables. (I suspect the woman at the shop was going to be someone else and Moffat changed his mind.)

And, I have to say, that moment where the Doctor can't bring himself to switch on Danny, but then expects Clara to... It's interesting, because it certainly didn't make me like the Doctor, or respect him... and maybe that's the point, I'm not sure.

I still like Gomez as the Mistress, I think she was great fun, hope she'll be back.
I liked Danny's hero moment. Though, are all the Cybermen still around? Did they blow up? Very unclear. Is there a Danny Pink led Cyber Army some where?

I did like the ending with Clara and the Doctor lying to each other--that's their old habit. I thought that was a nice bittersweet moment.

But, all in all, meh. One of the weaker season finales... but the whole season has been rather hit or miss for me. When it hit, it hit well, but when it missed... meh.

 

[Relayer1]

Missy being the Master was so blindingly obvious I was actually let down when she confirmed it - I thought there would be a twist. And Michelle Gomez was so bad in the part she would've embarrassed a pantomime...

P.S. What was with the Mary Poppins routine ? What possible rationale was there for her floating to earth hanging from an umbrella/parasol ?

 

[Avon]

i liked over the top missy. being evil mary poppins still isn't as weird as when john simm had a skeletor-faced cough for some reason.

and i liked the way the credits were switched, like moffatt was laughing at the nerd rage it'd cause.

also the usual: clara was annoying, capaldi was awesome to watch.

 

[Klaus]

I'm used to how nuts and unplease-able some of you all are, but thinking that this was an insult to Courtney actually makes me mad.

Well, it's certainly not worth you getting mad over. Get a grip!

I don't think it was an insult to Courtney either. What bugs me is that this type of scene was even necessary just because they didn't get their act together and have him on the show while he was still alive!!

While the scene with "him" in Death in Heaven was touching, think how much more meaningful it would've been if there had a been a scene like that while he was still alive.

Mr Awe

No doubt about that, of course...

I'd be willing to rephrase "mad" to "rather annoyed".

 

[Lakenheath 72]

There may have been tens of billions of people who died on Earth, yet many of their bodies were destroyed by time. So, the number would be far less. And, if the cyber-pollen needed organic material for the process, I would think humans would burn those killed in combat and those killed by natural processes. So, the army would have a large increase at first, then a small increase afterwards.

I have a nagging feeling that this arc wasn't planned, and that the showrunner was making stuff up as the season came to an end. In the beginning, it was robots and people who died assisting the Doctor, then became just humans in general.

 

[Skellington]

A fine episode and really satisfying overall, despite the plot holes / absurdities / lack of plot continuity.

Loved Missy in this episode. Moffat and Gomez both hit the mark with this character. The latter's OldWho/NuWho/Joker homage was masterful (no pun intended), and the Evil Mary Poppins motif was a perfect little touch. I hope she returns sooner rather than later. Canny decision on Moffat's part to give Missy goals that didn't involve conquering the universe or defeating the Doctor. This way, and possibly helped by the killing of Osgood, she can be taken seriously the next time she appears.

The title sequence and mid-credits sequence both made me laugh, so mission accomplished on that front.

Observations/misgivings:

1. No explanation for how Missy escaped the pocket dimension.
2. No reference to the sound of drums or why she's still crazy after all these years.
3. The Doctor doesn't hang around too long in Gallifrey space. He should be looking for evidence of the pocket dimension, surely, given that Missy had explicitly stated that Gallifrey was in one.
4. The Doctor never refers to Missy by name (or sobriquet). Not too surprising, given that, like "Doctor", "Master" may be a loan word from Gallifrey.
5. Missy seems to quite like Earth culture - referencing Toni Basil, Mary Poppins and (an ersatz Mrs Doctor?) Marilyn Monroe. Kudos to Moffat for mining the sex change.
6. It would have been funny if Missy had told the Doctor how old he was. (Though the birthday thing might not refer to his actual age but the local Earth date or the date by Gallifreyan reckoning. Anyway, 23rd November would have been a nice choice.)
7. So Clara was born in 1986. Strax put her age at 27 (or 28?) at the start of the season, so present time for her should be circa 2014, not 2016 as per a recent episode. I wish they'd just stuck with the tradition of having UNIT stories set several years in the future and kept it consistent.
8. According to Clara, the Doctor has been married four times and presumes his kids and grandkids to be dead. While the latter seems likely, four marriages in two thousand years seems a very low figure. Maybe it refers to Gallifreyan marriages only.

 

[Brent]

There were a ton of holes in this episode. Out of all the cybermen to come back to Earth, why was Danny special? Why was his inhibitor not enabled? It was never explained.

Also, does anyone have a dialog in text of the bit where Clara is explaining how she's the doctor to the three Cybermen. A lot of information about the Doctor was in that dialog, I'd like to see it written out.

 

[Marc]

There were a ton of holes in this episode. Out of all the cybermen to come back to Earth, why was Danny special? Why was his inhibitor not enabled? It was never explained.

Maybe it was clicking on the delete emotions option on the tablet he was given enabled the inhibitor following cyberconversion and he didn't take that option.

Will also say I would still like to see a return the Mondasian/Telosian cybermen - conversion of living beings rather than brain transplants and the living dead (so no inhibitor either).

 

[Brent]

Maybe just me, but during the end of the episode, when the Doctor is asking himself the question am I a good man or a bad man, during that realization, what if he said, I know who I am, I'm The Valeyard. This could have been that incarnation. Seeing as how dark this incarnation seems to be lately. I dunno, I was thinking he was going to say that. I do like what he said in the end, but still would have been an a neat turn.

I still want to know what happened to the The Masters TARDIS.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

Timeline:

"Deep Breath" Clara was twenty-seven. She was a teacher at Coal Hill School (CHS).
"Into the Dalek" Danny is a new teacher at CHS.
"Caretaker" The parents of Courtney Wood say that Danny described their child as a very disruptive force last year. Ergo, at least a year has passed since "Into the Dalek".
"In the Forest of the Night"The Doctor refers to the year 2016.

I couldn't find a reference to Clara being 24 in an episode. And, the episodes with her prior to ItFotN were undated. If the year is 2016, and Clara is 30, then she has known the Doctor for three years and Danny for less than three years.

 

[Marc]

turn.

I still want to know what happened to the The Masters TARDIS.

I wonder if we'll ever see inside another Tardis in the nu era and whether they would following the classic era stylings or be more inline with what we've seen in recent times.

 

[Guy Gardener]

When the Master says that she is going to kill you in one minute, the correct response is to order the two armed men behind her to shoot the timelord in the leg, and maybe possibly trigger a regeneration to make her extra manageable.

 

[Australis]

I found it really bizarre that Missy's big invasion is immediately interrupted by UNIT and she gets arrested at the top of the episode. And they kept her next to the Tardis and next to their top scientist.

Eminently stupid writing, but necessary to the plot. Why he didn't think of another way is just laziness.

For those wondering if this was Clara's last episode, she has been confirmed to return for the Christmas special.

Disappointed. Jenna is good, Clara is woeful.

You know, to be honest, Moffat is really pissing me off as a showrunner. First, he completely forgets about Jenny even though he asked RTD to keep her alive, then we had that whole BS with Amy's Crack (it means this, no it means that), the nonsense with the Silent/Silence, leaving things not resolved for years, the end of the 50th where it looks like the Doctor is going in search for Gallifrey only for him to do absolutely nothing to further his search, etc etc.

I'm sure this is just the tip of the iceberg, but the sins of Moffat continue.

And don't get me started on Santa f**king Claus. Groan!

Yep. He seems to think any form of continuity happens to someone else. Who has always been a bit fast & loose in that regard, but to completelyforget stuff is getting harder to forgive.

I want Clara to come back next season. I think Jenna Coleman is positively fantastic and the character they've developed over the last two seasons has been really a pleasure to watch. She certainly isn't your typical Companion who is just there to look pretty and ask the questions so the Doctor can explain the plot. She is quick on her feet, resourceful, and while not as smart as the Doctor, she can contend with him intellectually. She's almost like Donna in a lot of ways. It's really a breath of fresh air.

Personally, I'd like to see her lead a TARDIS crew reminiscent of the old Hartnell era. Have her take Barbara's position, find another person to act as a Science-y type, and then a younger ingenue. I think that would work really well with this more aloof Doctor. Maybe have them gather the rest over the course of the first few episodes. And maybe have one be an alien and one be from any time/place than modern day England.

Um. Nope.

The wonderful nod to the Brigadier and (to a much lesser extent) the lying-through-their-teeth-to-each-other ending aside, the episode was all over the place. Much like the season as a whole.

It would be great to be able to believe we're finally rid of the Master...sorry, Missy...err, whatever...but I doubt very much that Moffat or anyone else would have the backbone to get rid of the character. Pity. The Brigadier-is-a-Cyberman bit was awful, as was the flying Cybermen notion, and I'm completely over the entire the-Doctor-is-an-arsehole concept that's run through so much of new Who.

See I thought all that just sucked.

Aside from Clara becoming likeable and interesting (at last)

Couldn't disagree more. YMMV.

I must be the only person who's glad Osgood's dead, never really cared that much for her, just some annoying geek to me. Plus her death had a nice dramatic impact, It showed what the Master is truly capable of.

Osgood as a companion would have been very interesting. What if a fan traveled in the TARDIS? Very similar to Izzy, but a decade older.

She would be great, knowing all the sciecne stuff but still open and having a sense of wonder.

[...]
I haven't hated this season. It's a very polished production. But I don't like thinking about it, because I stop enjoying it when I do.

THIS.

I still think Capaldi's great, but the stories and especially the plot holes suck bad.

 

[Skellington]

Timeline:

"Deep Breath" Clara was twenty-seven. She was a teacher at Coal Hill School (CHS).
"Into the Dalek" Danny is a new teacher at CHS.
"Caretaker" The parents of Courtney Wood say that Danny described their child as a very disruptive force last year. Ergo, at least a year has passed since "Into the Dalek".
"In the Forest of the Night"The Doctor refers to the year 2016.

I couldn't find a reference to Clara being 24 in an episode. And, the episodes with her prior to ItFotN were undated. If the year is 2016, and Clara is 30, then she has known the Doctor for three years and Danny for less than three years.

Thanks.

I think it was mentioned in another thread that her age was given as 24 in The Bells Of St John and that it was set in 2013. Hmmm.

 

[The Wormhole]

An entertaining episode but one sure can have a field day nitpicking it. To begin:

-Clara is born in 1986 totally contradicts everything previously established about her age. In The Bells of St. John she's stated to be 24, it's the most recent age written in her book, and that episode did take place in 2013, meaning she should have been born in 1989, and indeed her age given by Strax in Deep Breath of 27 does fit with this, since she would have been from 2016, and the year is now 2017, to take into account the fact that there was New Year's for Clara between Deep Breath and Into the Dalek. So she should be 31 now if she were really born in 1986. Damn it, they were doing a pretty good job staying consistent with this few years later thing for the modern day episodes, and now they've slipped up just so they can have Clara born in the same year as Jenna Coleman.

-For that matter, Danny's timeline doesn't really add up. Samuel Anderson is 30, so presumably Danny is to. I'm assuming he stayed in school until he graduated high school, he is a teacher, so that means he wouldn't have enlisted until he was 18. So in twelve years he enlisted in the Army, worked his way up to Sergeant, was discharged, went to university, got an education degree, and employment as a teacher? Or are education degrees easier to get than I've been led to believe, Clara practically got hers overnight after all.

-So we get the touching ending of Danny sending the kid he killed back to the world of the living, since as we know, children don't die in Moffat scripts. Clara promises to find his parents and send him back. Now I'm guessing he died several years back, Danny would need to be discharged from the Army and get his education degree while dealing with PTSD after all, this doesn't happen overnight, or does it? Anyway, won't the kid's parents be more than a little freaked their son has shown up years after his corpse was turned over to them by the British Army, and he hasn't aged at all?

-Why did Cyber Brigadier not join the other Cybermen when they flew into the sky and ignited the clouds? And is he still "alive"?

-The Valiant was destroyed in The Stolen Earth. Did UNIT actually build another helicarrier without the Master's assistance?

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

^ Cyber-Danny managed to avoid being under Cyber-control, Cyber-Brig too.

Do we get a Cyber-Brigadier: Protector Of Earth mini-series now?

 

[Skellington]

I found it really bizarre that Missy's big invasion is immediately interrupted by UNIT and she gets arrested at the top of the episode. And they kept her next to the Tardis and next to their top scientist.

Eminently stupid writing, but necessary to the plot. Why he didn't think of another way is just laziness.

On the plane, someone mentions that UNIT was tipped off by a woman with a Scottish accent.

Osgood as a companion would have been very interesting. What if a fan traveled in the TARDIS? Very similar to Izzy, but a decade older.

She would be great, knowing all the sciecne stuff but still open and having a sense of wonder.

Maybe Zygon Osgood would be a good substitute (especially with a memory download of the original or something along those lines), but that probably won't happen either.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

The year 2013 is not mentioned in "The Bells of St. John". It is mentioned in a plot synopsis.

 

[DarthPipes]

^ Cyber-Danny managed to avoid being under Cyber-control, Cyber-Brig too.

Do we get a Cyber-Brigadier: Protector Of Earth mini-series now?

Only if they give CyberBrig a mustache.