Doctor Who – THE DOCTOR FALLS (S10E12) Review

“I’m not ‘a’ Doctor. I am ‘The’ Doctor. The original, you might say.”

The Doctor Falls finds itself in an unusual position. Tucked away at the end of a series where ‘the newcomer’ was given extra priority – the idea being that anyone could join in at The Pilot and hang on – The Doctor Falls and its predecessor represent not just an almighty shattering fangasm, but also an attempt to tie up all the loose ends, thematic or otherwise, from Capaldi’s entire era on the show. I have no idea how a newcomer found the finale, but I think I’m going to have to discard that kind of take for another time. As a fan of the show since its 2005 reboot, The Doctor Falls is a bruising, colossal triumph – one that invigorates the entire series of episodes that precedes it. There is a lot to talk about, so I’m going to do it the best way I can think how – in sections!

OH SO MANY SPOILERS. GOOD LORD RIVER WOULD BE UPSET.

A Doctor Who Western

The Doctor Falls makes a pretty convincing case for being the closest any finale has yet gotten to synthesizing the style of the RTD finale with the style of the Moffat finale. RTD finales were sort of akin to watching a headless chicken running a slalom course. Even if the chicken didn’t knock any cones over, it was still a headless chicken and RTD’s finales brim with that manic, insane energy. This is not necessarily a judgement, as RTD’s emphasis on the ‘soap’ and ‘opera’ was completely in-keeping with the rest of his approach to the show, with the characters getting lots of big, showy moments even if the rest of the episode was just sort of screaming around them (I’m looking at you, The Last of the Timelords).

In contrast, a Moffat finale looks at the slalom course, scoffs and then proceeds to leg it in completely the opposite direction. They were unexpected and often had less of an emphasis on the ‘epic-ness’ of the situation as they were a bit more reflective and poetic. That’s not to say they couldn’t be insane (The Wedding of River Song, anyone?) but a Moffat finale is often psychedelic, whilst RTD’s were operatic. Moffat seems to receive a lot of vitriol for his approach to finales (primarily to do with the way he doesn’t go in the direction you expect), but for those that stuck with them, they could be pretty spectacular.*

The Doctor Falls occupies this weird space of being absolutely a Moffat finale, whilst simultaneously veering into broadly unknown territory for this kind of episode. There’s a handful of borrowed elements from the RTD finale – Moffat goes for a big, showy character moments to a degree I don’t believe he’s quite gone for before in a finale – all filtered through Moffat’s more contemplative, psychedelic approach that results in, arguably, the first true Doctor Who western. The Doctor Who equivalent of The Magnificent Seven.

The show has dabbled in the genre before. The Gunslingers saw the very first Doctor touchdown in the Wild West, before Series 7’s A Town Called Mercy really went for the crown. The latter came pretty close, but it’s really an example of Doctor Who being placed in the Western genre, rather than the genre and Doctor Who actually integrating. Series 9’s Hell Bent** kind of nailed it for about a quarter of the episode, with the Doctor silently wandering about the Gallifreyan landscape and staring down a warbird (complete with whistling soundtrack!), before the episode ran off to deal with other things. That gave us the first real glimpse of Capaldi’s Doctor as a sort of Clint Eastwood figure – a vision that has come to its complete fruition in The Doctor Falls.

The Doctor defends a small farm village against a horde of incoming Cybermen. The place even has a creaky old windmill. The atmosphere of the episode even grinds the Master(s)’ plan to a screeching halt, forcing them onto the same playing field as the Doctor. This probably vigorously annoyed many of the people who were hoping for the ultimate Master vs. The Doctor story and not ‘The Doctor tries to save a farm’ but it proved completely in the episode’s favour, paving the way for some incredibly satisfying moments. It’s a odd-feeling finale – the kind we’re unlikely to see again in Doctor Who for quite some time and it seems that Director Rachel Talalay has cottoned on to this notion as well, gifting the episode an unconventional visual feel that is hard to adequately describe in words.

“Where there’s tears, there’s hope”

I guess we should talk about Bill – her being arguably the most contentious element of the episode. There was a lot of chatter before the episode aired about how people hoped that Bill’s fate would remain sealed from the end of World Enough and Time and how they were worried that The Doctor Falls would end up undoing her conversion. I honestly have trouble comprehending how these people can watch Doctor Who, be a fan of Doctor Who and yet still arrive at this conclusion. Do I have to break out the Craig Ferguson song again and explain how Doctor Who isn’t a grim and gritty show where optimism is repeatedly crushed and shat upon? Actually, I have trouble comprehending how anyone can be a fan of stories and yet want Bill’s story to be over at the end of WEAT. Really, you want Bill to just be a Cyberman? Has the impact of ‘Game of Thrones’ really led people to prioritise the ‘surprise character death’ over actually interesting storytelling. I assume most of these people are the ones who wish Clara had died in Face the Raven and not come back in Hell Bent.

Anyways, after spending the entire episode as a Cyberman (with a neat story trick allowing Pearl Mackie to still actually act, rather than get stuck behind a cloth mask for the whole thing), Bill is rescued by Heather (from The Pilot, remember?) and transformed into a sort of transdimensional spaceship-fuel thingy that can fly throughout the cosmos forevermore – sort of like a cross between Astrid Peth and Clara Oswald. Logistically I’m a bit fuzzy on this, but like a lot of Moffat’s narrative twists, it’s the poetry that matters more than anything and I feel that there’s enough of a foundation here to allow the moment to make sense. This is basically where I get to have my ‘I told you so’ moment and refer back to my review of The Pilot, where I wonder about when Heather might pop up again***. I’ve been anticipating her return for a while, which is probably why I didn’t find this moment jarring.

Honestly, it does feel a bit odd to discuss Bill in this finale. Her actual narrative impact on the episode is pretty light – a sort of byproduct of this being the Doctor’s episode, rather than hers – but it does her justice as a person. Her request not to carry on if she can’t be her and her decision to stay with the Doctor and fight are a testament to her character and whilst this might not have been the glorious ending that other companions have been afforded, Bill still manages to exit the Series standing proud amongst the other stellar companions the show has gifted us since 2005.

“Doctors are not required”

As for the Cybermen, whilst WEAT elevated them to a position of glory beyond anything we’ve seen of them since the 2005 reboot at the very least, The Doctor Falls sees them decidedly less emphasised. Not that this is a complaint exactly – this still goes down as easily the best Cybermen story of the revival – it’s just that the story has other things on its mind. What we do get of the Cybermen, though, is pretty awesome. Talalay has noted her desire to have directed more Cybermen action in previous two-parter ‘Dark Water/Death in Heaven’ and she finally gets her wish fulfilled. The action isn’t constant, but it is thrilling and Talalay really manages to gift the Cybermen’s advances with an appropriate cataclysmic sense. Just check out the Cybermen advancing at the beginning of the episode (see above), or the unsettling prelude of the Cybermen launching through the ground, straight up into the sky before the final assault begins. The pacing is just all around fantastic.

Alongside last week’s nightmarish return of the Mondasian Cybermen, we also get the newer upgraded versions joining in the fun. Whilst it’s almost a shame to see the much scarier and interesting Mondasian Cybermen partly booted out of the spotlight, the reasoning – that the Cybermen have spent thousands of years upgrading at the bottom end of the ship – is satisfying and the newer models don’t hog the spotlight so much as to shunt the Mondasian versions out of the episode completely. And whilst we’re dancing around the subject – the 400 mile long ship has to be one of Moffat’s best creations. So simple, yet completely intriguing, you could set a whole series of television there and still find things to do. It’s Interstellar on steroids and I wouldn’t be surprised if Hollywood were to end up giving the idea a whirl.

Really, the main contribution to the episode re: the Cybermen is the notion of the Cybermen as an ideology, rather than one particular monster. WEAT cannot be called ‘Genesis of the Cybermen’, not just because it would give the game away early, but because such a Genesis cannot actually exist. The Cybermen are an idea, possibly without definite origin – one that will continue to pop up throughout the Whoniverse. As the Doctor says; there’s no master plan – they are just an idea made steel (or cloth). Seems about as good an approach to the Cybermen as you can get.

“I’m in two minds, fortunately the other one’s unconscious”

Remember when John Simm’s return as the Master was announced and everyone began anticipating just how dastardly a plan two Masters could cook up. Well it turns out that two Masters in the room just compacts how quickly it takes for the Doctor to fool their plan. What was it? About five minutes? Yes, in classic Hell Bent fashion, Moffat couldn’t give two tosses about your anticipated Master showdown and wraps up that entire section of the episode in record time so he can move onto more important things, thank you very much. What that means is that we get a look at the Masters as we’ve never really seen them before: kind of useless. With the master plan off the table, The Doctor Falls does this weird thing where the Master and Missy feel like they’re having their own little episode off to the sidelines, as they flirt and bicker and eventually kill each other. Of course, this is the final battle for Missy’s soul and Michelle Gomez nails it, as though you were expecting anything else. It’s interesting how the show uses John Simm’s Master as a contrast here. In the David Tennant era, his Master was like an exposed nerve – railing and screaming against reality. In The Doctor Falls, opposite Missy, he looks like a bully. Truly, his is the Master that won’t listen to a word the Doctor says. It’s fitting and tragic that Missy, at the point of her redemption, should have to face her past like this and the results are both surprising and yet inevitable. The Masters shoot each other in the back and Missy dies, cackling at the insanity of it all. Does the Doctor know he won the battle for Missy’s soul? On the face of it, no, but then she is the final face to awaken the Doctor into regeneration at the episode’s end, whilst some have even suggested that the Doctor can feel the blade when he grabs her arm, alerting him to her intentions. I’m less convinced by the latter argument, but whatever the case, the end of Missy’s storyline gives the episode a great of its heft. This is a storyline three series in the making, coming to a close. Missy has been one of Moffat’s best introductions to the world of Doctor Who and The Doctor Falls sends her out in spectacular fashion.

“I’ll try anything once”

Okay, so I have to quickly mention Hazran. Apparently, there was a rumour going around before the episode aired that her character was, in fact, going to be revealed as Susan – the Doctor’s long left-behind granddaughter. I almost wish she was, given Hazran’s actual character. This is a stuffed episode and I totally get bumping Hazran off to the side, but my main takeaway from her character ends up not being ‘protector of children against Cybermen’, but rather weirdly horny and doesn’t understand what Nardole is saying. This doesn’t really wobble my view of the episode a great deal, but I’ve watched it twice now and she’s a bit awkward both times.

“Pity…no stars…I’d hoped there’d be stars”

But who cares about that, because, as always, Peter Capaldi reins supreme. This is really his episode and with it, we have a contender to Heaven Sent for sheer force of performance.

Oh and I'll throw this in whilst I'm at it (sorry for crappy audio).

The recent announcement of Jodie Whittaker as the 13th Doctor is completely, undeniably exciting, but man, does Capaldi only have one episode left? His Doctor has been a gift to this show and it’s a testament to him that I’m not what you’d call ‘looking forward’ to his regeneration. Of course, it’s a testament to the casting of Jodie that I’m now looking more forward to it, so swings and roundabouts I guess.

“Without hope, without witness, without reward.”

The Doctor Falls is spectacular television. Messy and enormous where WEAT was focused, but delivers the biggest emotional high of the series. I thought about it for days afterwards. And I haven’t even touched on that cliffhanger...

Verdict:

★★★★★

NEXT TIME:

I cannot undersell how magic this ending is. The First Doctor, returning and honoured by the excellent David Bradley. Hope emerging through the frost of what must surely be the setting of the First Doctor’s final adventure: The Tenth Planet. As the AV Club pointed out: this means Moffat will have written for a grand total of eight(!) different Doctors which is surely unparalleled in the history of the show. Also, listen to the First Doctor’s grumbling echoes Capaldi:

“I will not change – I will not! No, no, no, no the whole thing is ridiculous…”

My guess is that we’ve got a Christmas Special coming up in which two Doctors have to come to terms with regeneration. If this doesn’t manage to get in at least the top two Christmas Specials, I will be stunned.

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*The Big Bang still stands as probably the best finale in Nu-Who

** My second favourite finale (maybe tied with The Doctor Falls) now. Might not have done what you wanted it to, but it was a pretty stunning execution of what the series arc had been the whole time. It also managed to make a full-fat Time Lord storyline interesting, which isn't the easiest thing to do (there's a reason RTD avoided them for most of his run: they're - whisper it - kind of boring).

***I also was on the right lines with the whole 'photos of Bill's mum' plot thread. Just saying.

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