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I love these episodes. They're complex, spiky,
and uncomfortable in all the best ways. Season Eight is probably my favourite run
of Doctor Who, with excellent character development, thematic depth, no real
failures, a high volume of all time great episodes, and powerful things to say
about the world. “Dark Water/ Death in Heaven” then brings things to a highly
satisfying climax.
·
Everything up until the volcano scene makes for
one of the best openings to a Doctor Who story. It is an opening that comprised
of a series of two hander scenes with great dialogue that let the character
interactions and performances of the leads say everything. First, there's Jenna
Coleman's mute shock at Danny's death, and her casual batting away of all of
her gran’s words of support: "It was boring", she says, in one of the
most chilling demonstrations of Clara's development since “The Bells of St
John”.
·
Then there's the volcano scene, a remarkably
efficient piece of non linear storytelling (par for the course from Moffat at
this point), that ebbs and flows beautifully: the scene is an excellent
exercise in starting with incredibly high level of tension, and increasing
tension more and more as the scene goes on, with almost every line shifting the
apparent balance of power between the Doctor and Clara, the exchange where the
Doctor tries to order Clara to throw the key away or stop threatening her, only
for her to choose her own course of action and throw away all remaining keys
save the one the Doctor demanded she throw away being a particularly notable
example.
·
And then we get the beautiful follow up in the
TARDIS. Coleman returns to playing Clara’s lines monotone, with a hint of ager
this time (perhaps at the fact the Doctor was playing her the whole time when
she thought she was in control?) but also accepting her fate, conveying the
sense that Clara knew the stakes she was playing by selling the Doctor out to
save Danny, or at least, she thought she did. The emotion that was bubbling
beneath the surface comes to the fore when her voice breaks as she asks the
Doctor why he’s agreeing to "go to hell" for her after what she’s
done, and he puts his feelings for her into words beautifully as he says
"Do you really think I care for you so little that betraying me would make
a difference?"
·
Then the episodes luxuriates in its pacing,
becoming a lovely mood piece that explores the bureaucracy of the Nethersphere:
the afterlife as banal middle management - what a wonderful idea! Chris Addison
is in particularly fine form, with “we’ve got a burner in twelve!” being my
favourite moment of his in these episodes, and the return to two parters feels
genuinely welcome and overdue, in spite of the sense they were being misused
when they were rested after “The Rebel Flesh/ The Almost People”: here, it
feels nice to have a script that gives itself time to breathe, to let the
premise of the story unfold, and the character scenes have that bit of extra
time for nuance, subtlety, and a sense of ebb and flow.
·
The time spent in the Nethersphere allows for
the chilling reveal of the source of Danny’s trauma: he accidentally killed a
child in the middle of a conflict. This isn’t a shock: it was telegraphed
heavily in Danny’s first episode, and the death of innocent children in
conflict is something regularly explored in Moffat’s era of Doctor Who. If
anything, this builds on the parallels that have been drawn between the Doctor
and Danny: Danny getting a chance to redeem himself by saving a child he killed
in a warzone is much the same as the Doctor saving the children he originally
had to kill to end the Time War by finding another way to save the day. And
it’s genuinely brave of Doctor Who to acknowledge that Britain’s wars in the
middle East have led to the deaths of innocent civilians, and the trauma of
soldiers like Danny. And it’s important that Danny’s not just a bad soldier
gone rogue, which would have been the easy way to portray the issue of civilian
casualty in war, but a sympathetic individual who we’ve gotten to know over the
course of the season: the problem is not the individual soldiers, but our
systemic approach to military intervention.
·
Also chilling is the nature of the "Three
Words" scam, a real “how did they sneak that plot into a family show”
moment that is very reminiscent of the Hinchcliffe era controversies. It is,
ultimately, made clear that this is a scam: the Doctor instantly declares it to
be fakery, and explains how the scam works in “Death in Heaven”, but the
concept is allowed to sit in the viewer’s mind for as long as the episodes can
get away with before reassuring the viewer, so I can understand why some people
were upset by the decision to make cremation scary: it has a lot of time to
make an impression on younger viewers. But Missy being the kind of villain who
will exploit a human fear of death in such a brutal way is one of the many
excellent touches this story gives to her character. This all leads to a
beautifully chaotic, three pointed cliffhanger, the series making the most of
the two part format after its extended three year rest from the show.
·
The second part is perhaps a little looser, but
only a little, and I think that's the point, really. Missy is properly
unleashed on the narrative and tears apart any order UNIT threaten to bring to
the "cyberman Earth Invasion" story: things quickly stop being fun,
and that's very much the effect Missy has on the story, brutally dispatching of
Osgood (who nonetheless has better things to come), taking the narrative to incredibly
depressing and dark places, in what quickly becomes the bleakest finale of the
Moffat Era.
·
Which brings us to Cyber-Danny and the graveyard
scene. It's the best use of the Cybermen in the New Series, pulling off the
crucial trick of making the horror of cyber conversion personal. The handling
of the army of Cybermen is mixed: making them zombies is a brilliant, and gives
Talalay a chance to show off her skills as a horror movie director in the early
parts of the Graveyard scenes, as she establishes the scale of the setting with
a lovely slow pan out. But the decision to make the Cybermen fly was perhaps
less well chosen. Overall, though, I think "The Tenth Planet" is the
only Cybermen story to serve them better.
·
We get a tastefully handled approach to
euthanasia. Danny asks Clara to end his suffering, and Clara doesn't question
him or his right to die, but respects his wishes and and does what she can to
help. Between this, the echoes of terrorist attacks from the cybermen hijacking
the plane, and the commentary on civilian casualties, the story is really
connected to real world issues, something that has been, and wil continue to
be, a real strength of the Capaldi era.
·
Other significant moments include the chilling
note of Clara briefly sneaking away from Danny to steal Missy’s vapouriser,
further evidence of just how ruthless she can be when angered, and an important
beat for future interactions between the two characters: the animosity between
Clara and Missy will define their relationship in “The Magician’s Apprentice/
The Witch’s Familiar”.
·
Missy’s desperate “I want my friend back” is
another highlight of the graveyard sequence: in an episode where she lies,
manipulates, and power plays everybody, it’s her one moment of sincerity, a
reveal that everything Missy does in this story, her whole convoluted plan, is
just a desperate attempt to mess with the Doctor, and prove that the Doctor is
like her. It’s excellent twist on the “The Doctor and the Master are perfect
Mirrors of each other” interpretation of their relationship, something that has
never fully been true. They Doctor and Missy are simultaneously friends and
enemies, one of whom wants to bring the other to the side of good, while Missy
wants the Doctor to succumb to evil. But neither one is exactly like the other:
they both want to prove they aren’t so different, but never quite succeed,
because they are, in fact, too different.
·
The graveyard sequence culminates beautifully in
the Doctor's good man/ bad man scene, which is why I don't fully buy the
"The Doctor has nothing to do in this story" complaints: he finally
casts off the mythic hero status that has surrounded him since the Time War.
He's not an unstoppable hero or a terrible villain, he's an idiot with a box,
passing through and helping out where he can, a crucial moment that separates
the heroic ideal of the Doctor from the Time Lord this series is about.
·
And then we get the final scene in the cafe, a
beautiful sequence that sums up just how similar the Doctor and Clara have
become, as they both lie to one another because they believe it's for the
other's own good. It frames the story very nicely, too: the first scene is all
about Clara finally opening up to Danny, and being cut short by tragedy just as
she starts to do so. The final scene is all about the Doctor and Clara failing
to tell one another how they're really feeling. "Don't Cremate me" is
a chilling, and controversial, phrase, but those aren't the three words that
this story is really about.
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