So... to wrap up (or, who knows, maybe bump start) this disappointingly short discussion, I will offer this run-through of the series:
The Pilot
This was a more promising start than I had expected, and the new companion was introduced far more efficiently than was her predecessor. That said, the Dalek segment felt forced and unnecessary. After several years of the mystery box routine I also struggled to find the Vault interesting in any way.
Smile
This could have very easily been a godawful, meme-baiting gimmick fest, but by and large they managed to pull off a very atmospheric and cerebral piece reminiscent of some of the Classic Series. Our two leads manage to carry the majority of the episode by themselves , just interacting with the environment. If anything the emergence of the other human characters was the weak point of this episode, as the resolution of the actual plot feels rushed and slapdash.
Thin Ice
This one fell a bit flat for me. The story feels like a rehash of both Meat and The Beast Below, while the human villain is such an empty caricature that it's hard to get invested in the Doctor's soapboxing at him. Sutcliffe isn't even a strawman so much as a cardboard cut-out emblazoned with a Wordle of a politics essay. On the upside the scenery was nice, the child actors were alright (by Doctor Who's admittedly patchy standards) and it was nice that for once they didn't chicken out on having kiddie characters get permanently (and gruesomely) killed.
Knock, Knock
Looking at the thread for this one the general consensus appears to be that it was a bit of a turkey. There's little particularly bad about it but the Haunted House idea is less than original and a lot of people found the student characters rather irritating. I also don't know why such a point was made of Suchet being the son rather than the father. At least the estate agent skit at the beginning was mildly amusing.
Oxygen
We seem to have a bit of a body horror theme for the first stretch of this series. Clearly going for the high concept pitch, it has an intriguing start and a lot of memorable imagery with the suit zombies. The Doctor's blindness is also handled nicely. The main problem is that it goes way over the line with its message - satire, social commentary and philosophical discussion can work if they're done tastefully, but the Doctor's unusually-explicit heralding of the death of capitalism brings this almost to the level of a party-political broadcast.
Extremis
Conspiracy theories, the Large Hadron Collider, the Pope, mass suicide, the Oval Office, the end of the world, mysterious documents, a holodeck, gadget glasses for the blind and a fat man going "Eek" - they really lobbed everything they could into this one! Clearly the intention was for this to be something big, something memorable, something that would get the awards rolling in. These kinds of endeavours inevitably aim to be cleverer than they actually are and wind up less than the theoretical sum of their components, but on the whole this one was executed well, even if the explanation makes no sense at all. The character interactions are very good here as well. The only significant downside is the Missy execution bit – it adds nothing to the story and just feels like a distraction.
The Pyramid at the End of the World
So… now we pick up in the real world and swap Pope Francis for Ban Ki Moon. In a twist on the Mad-Scientist-Destroys-The-World cliché, this time they’re just visually impaired and hungover. On the whole the episode pulls through, but some of the situations feel a little contrived and the dialogue is clunky in parts. Let’s just hope that the grand finale will bring this trilogy back on form…
The Lie of the Land
Oh dear. This one doesn’t work on any level. After an opening montage reminiscent of ENT’s Stormfront the first act runs like a fairly straight Doctor-Who-does-1984 romp, but then after yet another painfully-pointless fake regeneration it turns into some milling about with headphones and finally we have the showdown between villain and hero – except it’s really more extras vs stock footage because the Monks don’t get a single line in this script and the divine mother memory doesn’t even have a name. This loose three-parter (I hear they were originally three standalone episodes retroactively collated – which explains a lot.) feels very disjointed with storylines not really following from one episode to the next and a general confusion over what the message is supposed to be. It shares a lot of weaknesses with The Zygon Inversion, but that one was definitely better than this.
Empress of Mars
We ditch the mindscrew in favour of a fairly standard runaround with the Ice Warriors. Yes it’s rather cheesy at times, but it forms a nice breather after the lumpy Monk trilogy.
The Eaters of Light
Back when series followed a regular structure, this would be the time we got the forgettable low-budget episode. That tradition continues here. There are some neat ideas but mostly it feels like filler. The acting is mediocre, the plot is thin and there are some odd moments that feel out of place. It wasn’t exactly bad but it won’t go down as a classic any time soon.
World Enough & Time
If you look back at the next time trailers for the finales of series 8 and 9 you’ll see that they advertise episodes rather different to the ones which were actually broadcast. Here the misdirection continues into the episode itself, as for the first ten minutes we appear to be in for Missy-Does-The-Doctor’s-Role, but then that is completely tossed aside for a body horror story. The time dilation effect is nicely handled (it’s been a while since Doctor Who tried any hard science fiction) and the Cybermen are far more effective here than in Series 8, though the cringeworthy wink-wink conversation at the beginning could be chopped out with no loss to the whole.
The Doctor Falls
In my mind we haven’t had a good finale since The Big Bang. The rest of them have ranged from unsatisfactory to downright awful. This one exceeds expectations by being mostly competent. There are quite a lot of story elements recycled from other recent finales and specials, but at least they’re done correctly this time. The companion’s departure would ordinarily have seemed like deus ex machina, but after the insufferable golden goodbye that Clara received I’m just glad that we didn’t linger on it for more than five minutes. The only real flaw is the regeneration: Tennant’s and Smith’s departures were already far too drawn out, and many were hoping that this would be done more efficiently. Instead it looks as if we’ll devote a whole hour to the transition...
