From The Boss Dungeon Vaults: Doctor Who Series 8 First Impressions (Episode 12: Death In Heaven)

(Hello from the past! As always, these are writeups of Series 8 done last year for the website Boss Dungeon. They're being rehosted with added commentary as I do a rewatch in anticipation of Series 9... which is tomorrow as you're reading this! Oh boy! These words are being written on Thursday, though. I'm not here right now. Probably sitting on a boat, at least at the moment this is supposed to go live. Where I am when you're reading it, I'm not sure. But enough of that. Death In Heaven.)

Previously on Doctor Who: Danny Pink, ordinary maths teacher and boyfriend to Clara Oswald, dies a mundane and tragic death in a car accident. The Doctor, in a display of affection for his grieving best friend, takes Clara with him to search for Danny in the "afterlife". They find the 3W Institute, and also find the mysterious Missy and her boss, Doctor Chang. All of this turns out to be a misdirect, as Missy is the one in total control; not just of 3W, but of a growing army of Cybermen. With countless dead human minds, including Danny's, uploaded into a mass virtual storage drive, Missy intends to use the minds to power her Cyberman army. Oh, and she's a Time Lady. Not just any Time Lady, but the newest incarnation of the Doctor's childhood friend turned archnemesis, The Master. With her Cybermen stomping through London and Clara in danger inside 3W, things look grim... but they are about to get worse before they get better.

Welcome to the end of series 8. Welcome to Death In Heaven.

So. Finales in new Doctor Who. They're usually a big event with some universe-ending threat or an army of a million billion of a famous alien monster from series history. When it comes to Steven Moffat-penned finales, you also get the resolution to a dozen or more episodes of teased plot threads. The big reveal, granted, was Missy's identity as a regenerated Master. We had words to say about the validity of that reveal last week, sure, but like it or not we have Michelle Gomez as an incarnation of the Master. Without getting into it in-depth yet, this is a good thing... but Death In Heaven has so much more going on. It's about 60 minutes long, giving Moffat enough time to cram most of what he wants to happen in while still missing a few things that have people riled up. Let's get into the good before the bad.

UNIT is back! Led by Kate Stewart, daughter of longtime ally to the Doctor, the late Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, they fight off aliens who try and invade planet Earth and work with the Doctor on occasion. The Cybermen are no exception, having tried this more than once. UNIT is ready for them, and they cart off the Doctor and Missy to a private jet to try and deal with the Cyberman menace. Visually, Peter Capaldi's Doctor calls back memories of Jon Pertwee's Doctor from the early 70's, and that era of the show had the Doctor working with UNIT while dealing with the machinations of the Master. Having that same dynamic back after 40 years is interesting to see, as a fan of the classic series. Even though UNIT doesn't accomplish much to resolve the conflict of the episode, they have enough impact to move the story along and create some interesting plot beats and setpieces.

Clara gets a cute fakeout at the beginning of the episode. The trailer for the finale had her declare to a Cyberman that "Clara Oswald never existed". This raised all sorts of questions and speculations, but it's a red herring. It's Clara bluffing the Cybermen by pretending to be the Doctor, and even the opening titles of the show play with her bluff by putting her at top billing and showing her eyes during the opening sequence. It's a lovely trick, and one could see it as a reaction to the detractors claiming that this series has been "Clara Who". The titles shift to reflect that, but this isn't Flatline. This is all a bluff to save herself. It works for a time, until a mysterious Cyberman saves her from the laser beams of the others. We'll get to him, don't worry.

The highlight of the episode, by far, was Michelle Gomez as Missy. She really hasn't done much of anything in the series besides be cryptic and look menacing to tease the audience and make them wonder what the mystery is. Now the cat's out of the bag, and Michelle Gomez can turn in an A+ performance. The thing about the Master is that, like the Doctor, there have been many incarnations, each with their own tics and traits. Roger Delgado was a suave unethical plotter. Anthony Ainley was somewhat camp. Eric Roberts was a ham. John Simm was a manic dark mirror of David Tennant. Michelle Gomez adds a playful insanity to it, sort of a cross between Delgado and Simm. She's a maniac who isn't afraid to murder to get what she wants, and that leads into one of the more divisive scenes of the episode; the death of Osgood. Osgood was a supporting character and UNIT member who made her debut last year in the 50th anniversary special. In her second appearance she gets tricked by Missy and vaporized. This has upset a lot of people who liked the character and wanted to see more of her doing things. I liked Osgood and was sad that she died, but I suppose that's the point. This episode is draped in the grimness of death, after all, considering the Cybermen.

Ah yes, let's talk about them for a bit. As one of the longest-running alien antagonists of the show, they've been through a lot of changes. In their 1966 debut they came from another planet, looked and talked ridiculous, and were a sort of body horror; what happens when you replace more and more of yourself with machinery until there's nothing remotely human left. Over the years they shifted from that into evil robots who shouted DESTROY or DELETE, and sometimes turned people into evil robots. Death In Heaven takes it back to the body horror in a big way. Every Cyberman in the episode is a dead body revitalized into a robot body by "Cyber-pollen". It's Cybermen as zombies; hell, there's even a scene where they dig themselves out of their graves and rise up en masse. It may very well be the most horrific use of them since 1966. It also follows the "high stakes" trend of a new Who finale; every dead body on Earth is a Cyberman. Sure, we only see a large squad of them centralized in London, but it's that zombie mentality again; the idea of them rising from the grave everywhere on Earth is terrifying and sticks in the viewer's head if they think about it.

And then there's Danny. Dead and gone in Dark Water, but now back as a zombie Cyberman with a faulty emotion inhibitor. Danny's the toughest part of this episode to critique for me. He's back and it's horrific because being a zombie Cyberman who can still feel is a living hell few of us can quite comprehend. He asks Clara to fix the emotion inhibitor so he can stop feeling the pain, and ends up getting more jabs at the Doctor and his whole soldier thing. Still, the power of love prevails over emotional inhibitors, and it ends up being Danny Pink who saves the day and leads the Cybermen to self-destruct and stop Missy's plan. I'm going to miss him. There's a chance for him to come back, but he gives it up to save a small child he accidentally killed during his soldier days. One last chance to undo his guilt and move on in peace. You were an alright guy, Danny Pink.

Finally, the Doctor himself. Specifically, his relationship with Missy. It's been touched on that the Doctor and the Master were once friends in their youth, but the Master went bad thanks to some time vortex mumbo-jumbo or something of that nature. The point of Missy's grand scheming, a scheme that ended up with her causing Matt Smith's Doctor and Clara to meet each other in the first place... was to bring the Doctor down to her level. To give him an army of Cybermen to right all the wrongs in the universe, as a birthday present, so the good man could become a bad man. So she and him could be friends again. What she missed, what the Doctor missed, what we all missed this series... is that the Doctor isn't a good man or a bad man. He's what he always proclaimed to me; an idiot with a box. He's even ready to finally end Missy once and for all when intervention comes from the other divisive twist of the episode; Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart as a Cyberman zombie shoots at her. Now, there've been a few complaints about this. The first being that Missy died and it was a waste of a character. I doubt that very much and hope against hope that Michelle Gomez is back because she's brilliant. The second is that bringing the Brigadier back, three years after the death of the actor who played him, as a Cyberman zombie, is a bit crass. Perhaps it is, but I can't deny I had a bit of a heartwarmed smile when the Doctor saluted him. Still, I think they did a better tribute to the memory of the Brigadier in the series 6 finale.

All that's left to take care of is the ending. Clara and the Doctor, after two series and two incarnations of adventures, appear to part ways, both lying to the other about what they're really feeling. It's sad to see Clara go, and it's even sadder to see her lying about going. She won't be settling down with Danny Pink. She'll be picking up the pieces of her life, moving on and returning to the ordinary. The Doctor won't be retiring to Gallifrey. He'll be zipping about time and space without his best friend by his side. Clara rose up from her puzzlebox of an existance in series 7 to become one of, if not my favorite, companions in the new series. She was hyper-competent and quick to call out the Doctor on his misdeeds, but also had a lot of trouble with being honest to the people that she loved. Despite those mistakes, I still think she was fantastic. Can it really end like this?

Apparantly not, because the end credits get interrupted by, and I'm not kidding, Nick Frost as Santa Claus. Our Christmas special just got a hell of a lot more interesting. Regardless, that was Series 8 of Doctor Who! We've sat through 12 weeks of adventure in time and space, and now we've earned ourselves a little break. What the future will bring, I don't know. Maybe an overview of Series 8 as a whole before the Christmas special. As for 2015, it'll be a long wait for Series 9, so no promises on what happens there.


We'll see you soon, before you know it. Next time, whenever that is: We find out what the Doctor wants for Christmas.

AND NOW WHAT I THINK... NOW

(Spoiler warning: there are spoilers.)

Haha. Isn't this funny? This is the first time, aside from when I wrote this, that I'm really getting to defend Death In Heaven. Yeah. I had a bit of an anxiety-related episode during the video review thing that I do with friends. Clammed right up. Got all mopey. The thing basically devolved into people shouting about how Steven Moffat was a Bad Writer, and therefore it was a Bad Episode and Fuck Steven Moffat. And y'know, that properly got me down because I loved Death In Heaven. Thought it was a great capstone, and here are my friends, not even really debating it so much as shouting at it. Making me feel like a proper idiot for being suckered into this and actually liking Doctor Who. Well, it's time for me to plant a final flag, and become my very own mirror. One reflected by the Doctor himself.

I'm Frezno, and I am an idiot because I loved Death In Heaven. I still love it, and I don't care if I'm an idiot for doing so. I think it's fantastic. I am easily wowed by the sheer emotional wonders of Moffat-era Doctor Who, and that is just the fool I am. Sorry. Well, not really sorry but y'know what I mean. So! Let's talk about mirrors again because this is the culmination of it all! We have discussed the darkening of Clara, as she becomes a mirror of the Doctor and thus a chronic liar and Not A Good Person. Now we find that the actual dark mirror of the Doctor has been behind everything all along. Yes, Missy, crafted in 1971 as the Moriarity to the Doctor's Holmes, a true intellectual nemesis, every bit as clever but without any morals or ethics or anything. The one true dark mirror of the Doctor... and not just Mistress of the Cybermen, or the 3W Institute. No, she is Mistress of Mirrors, and the world she is creating is a twisted funhouse of dark mirrors. The human race looks inside, and sees mechanical zombies, literally rising from the grave like in a George A. Romero flick to terrorize the living; to make the living Like Them. The Doctor looks inside and sees his old childhood friend, the person he was one step away from becoming. Clara Oswald looks inside and sees Clara Who, master manipulator and fast talker. This mirror's power is such that it even reflects back on the meta-narrative; Jenna Coleman takes top billing and her eyes appear in the opening credits. The transformation is complete. Clara Oswald has become the Doctor, and the show has now become about her (much to the annoyance of those who don't like Clara!). Hell, we spread a wider net now. Missy was the "woman in the shop" who set Matt Smith and Clara up in the first place, a necessity on her part. Without Clara, there can be nobody to stop John Hurt from pushing the Big Red Button. There can be nobody to stop every victory of the Doctor's from being rewritten thanks to some oblique old 60's villain played by Richard E. Grant. There can be nobody to plead to the crack at Trenzalore, to set up the events needed to free Missy from her battle with Rassilon. Missy creates the means of her escape; she is her own mirror.

She wants more, though. The Doctor has rejected being a reflection of Missy, so she concocts the best scheme she can. She creates an army, an army that can be used for any purpose, good or bad... and then hands it to him. Her goal is to darken him, to let him take charge and be the Time Lord Victorious, or Valeyard, or another entity of War. She wants to be his reflection, and she knows that she cannot elevate herself to the "goodness" he exudes, so her plan is to bring him down to her level. She wants her friend back, plain and simple. A far more impassioned scheme than "I disguised myself as a racist cartoon Arabian sorcerer in prehistoria for no reason", to be sure. Still, as Mistress Of Mirrors, she has created a carnival. Watch how she pirouettes, a sadistic Mary Poppins. The whimsical music and movement that comes after she vaporizes that poor Doctor Who fangirl. That upset a lot of people and has been criticized as a bad move, but I think her Zygon double is coming back for Series 9 so let's see how that goes.

Now how about Danny Pink? He's been outside the funhouse of mirrors for most of the series, but now that he's dead, he's been sucked in. Dark Water ended with him and the child he killed reflected off of an Ipad screen. Death In Heaven has him come back to his new Cyberman body and look into a mirror, horrified at what he has become. Missy's Magical Mirrors have shown his reflection, and what he finds is regression. Since killing that innocent child in a war zone, he has rejected the life of a soldier. He quit the army, became a maths teacher, fell in love. Then he got hit by a car and died. (Something I forgot to mention in Kill The Moon; there's an offhand line from the Doctor about how everything's dangerous; eating chips, crossing the road. Mother of god.) Now he wakes up from his afterlife adventure to discover his regression; he is a soldier again, a walking automoton made to follow orders, and it hurts. His rejection of this new life is dark and severe; he begs for emotional death. If he is to be a soldier, he doesn't want to have to feel it. After much bantering, it is Clara who pulls the switch and ends it all, because though she wasn't that good at it, she loved him. Despite the lying, despite her own fall to darkness, that never stopped. She never stopped loving Danny Pink, and she swears she never will. She stops the Doctor from having to pull the switch, and the Doctor in turn stops her from having to pull the switch to kill Missy. Missy taunts this, mentioning the saving of souls, knowing full well that her scheme has already darkened both Clara and the Doctor; and the Doctor acknowledges this. Missy wins. She vanishes in a puff of blue, and did you really expect that to be the end of her? I mean, come on, guys. Really? That leads us into a misstep. Cyber-Brig. I understand how this happened, in a sense. Danny and the Brigadier are the only dead people we see who manage to resist the control of the Cybermen, because they are soldiers protecting the people they love. That's fine enough, but really... it is in poor taste. Sure, it warmed my heart to see the Doctor salute him, but I stand by what I said last year; he had his sendoff at the end of Series 6 when the actor died. That was the last we should have seen of him on screen.

Missy's plan is stopped and Danny has sacrificed his own chance at happiness to redeem himself for shooting an unarmed kid. All's well that ends well. Now the Doctor and Clara meet, and they are perfect mirrors for each other. Each can successfully lie to the other about settling down and not wanting to travel any more, and they'll buy it. Congratulations. Well done. The friends hug, and hide their faces from each other, and this is where the song of Clara Oswald should end. Could end. It's up there, but it could be another Amy and Rory style ending where they could have had a happy end, but instead it was full of tragedy because we kept them on too long. I hope that doesn't happen to Clara, but we'll see. First though, there's only one person who can sort out this infinite mirror lying business. Who's that?

Next time: MOTHER. FUCKING. SANTA!

(I'm sorry Kat. Don't kill me.)