S8E12: Death in Heaven (SPOILERS)

Missy's plan is to give the Doctor what he always wanted, an army to right all the wrongs in the universe. Only, as the Doctor says, if you give a good man an army suddenly everything becomes the enemy - All power corrupts. Basically, The Master runs roughshod across the Doctor's Timeline collecting all of those who died in his name to serve as his army. (Compare this to Davros's speech about the Doctor turning his companions into weapons in "Journey's End.") And, what you have to realize about the episode, even though it's not explicitly stated, all of the Doctor's dead companions on Earth are there in some capacity, Cyber-ized. I was kind of hoping when New York was mentioned we'd see the Ponds' graves.

As for why The Master kept Clara and The Doctor together, she picks her because she knows how headstrong Clara is. Presumably the Master had some inkling that Clara was a necessary part in her own survival, too. Again, the Master does say she has been up and down the Doctor's timeline, she probably saw some of Clara's shades as she did so.

Ahh, thank you both. That makes more sense. Both the Doctor and the Master are the same in the way they manipulate people into doing their will, and Missy wants the Doctor to admit that so that they can stop fighting each other and just be friends again. That's actually really cool, I really, really like that.

As for Clara, I suspected that it was because Missy wanted Clara to get the Doctor to fall into her trap but wasn't 100% sure. Makes sense!

Well I think I know what The Moff was going for, but still didn't much care for it.

Danny shooting up into the sky to save the earth wasn't the worst ending ever and the idea that he'd rather save the child he mistakenly killed in battle rather than save himself was quite good.

The Cybermen were a bit scary climbing out of graves, but still just puppets and not the greatest Cyber-Story ever told. We also lost a bit of the horror of the process of Cyber-conversion. Where did all the metal and circuits come from in the tombs/morgue? Spontaneous conversion out of thin air just doesn’t sit well with me. Still waiting for a “good” Cyber-story.

The tribute to the Brig was rather late and a bit creepy. The Cyber-Brig saving the earth isn't quite the way I'd like to picture the Brig living on in the Who Universe. After playing up the Doctor's anti-military mindset, the whole notion of the Brig just wanting a salute was rather bizarre. Just why was this bit included in this episode?

One good thing is that this may be the end of the "Missy" version of the Master. The Master was always quite sexist and looked down on humans. Missy played up an overtly feminine villain and was a bit too engrossed in human pop-culture for a couple cheap laughs (the bit of her singing while on the UNIT plane and pretending to be Mary Poppins). Delgado had a facade of being suave and in control with the occasional outburst of manic fury during times of victory or if the Doctor could goad him into defeat. I've always hated the whole "crazy bananas" thing of the Simm Master and wish they'd stop trying to write the Master like that. RTD had the idea of drums making the Master crazy which could be a temporary excuse. Eric Roberts just didn't do the character justice and played the Master like a generic pantomime villain. The producers got a chance to play around with this version of the Master and I didn’t much like it. They can come back next time with either a crazy explanation of how Missy survived or preferably they come back with a TCE wielding Master as an imposing figure. Someone who is the Doctor’s equal, but with a desire to cause havoc rather than explore.

The loss of Osgood isn’t such a big deal. I guess someone had to die this episode and it was Col. Man-Scout and Osgood. I guess some of fandom really like her, but she’s no Mike Yates in my book. Nice to tease that a fan girl like her could be the next companion with the goal to see “all of time and space” on her bucket list. Then zap her (or the Zygon Osgood).

Don’t mind Santa showing up at the end. It’s a teaser for the Christmas episode which they’re hopefully going to make a comedy this year. Why not try and come up with a feasible explanation of how the Doctor can meet Santa for a big adventure. If it is fun and not overtly fantastical (don’t want to see each week a visit from the tooth fairy or Easter Bunny) then I don’t have a problem.

I’d like to think that the final verdict was “if despite all the flaws you still enjoyed the episode”. Plot holes, weird situations, etc are all okay if I had fun watching. I don’t think I had enough fun watching this one.

I wouldn't say I disliked the season finale or the season in general, but it wasn't spectacular for me either. I just kind of get the feeling that the female Master is a stepping stone to The Doctor being female, and that's quite alright...I like the idea of a female Doctor. But don't phone it in for the lion's share of a season just to test the waters for the idea.

Here we go again with a brilliant actor in the role of The Doctor, and again...said actor plays the role like he was born to do so, but AGAIN he's given shoddy story arcs to work with because rather than come up with something amazing, Moffat is too busy planting little subplots that he'll reveal to us two season from now.

Or maybe I'm just not getting enough sleep or something. Who knows. It just felt like an incredibly underwhelming season.

Yuck.

Don't need to go into why...so many people already have stated what I would have.

A real travesty and disservice to so many characters.


Does nobody know how to use or write for the Cybermen anymore?  ...or The Master?

SeaDevil wrote:

Yuck.

Don't need to go into why...so many people already have stated what I would have.

A real travesty and disservice to so many characters.


Does nobody know how to use or write for the Cybermen anymore?  ...or The Master?

I second that Sea devil... the episode was enjoyable but there were to many little distractions for me.

Female "Master" more like a Crazy Mary Poppins,

The death of Osgood

Rocket Iron Man style Cybermen who are all the earths dead people but "good"

It had some good points but I'm sorry I could not get my head around this one.... too unbelievable for me.

Enjoyed it. 8/10

This season as a whole has kind of underwhelmed me. It's pretty good, but not great. I had such high hopes for Capaldi, who is great, but as great as he is, he is being wasted in stories like 'Forest'.

For this episode, it seems a bit disrespectful to have the Brig back. I know it was meant as a tribute, but I thought the brief scene in season 6 held more emotional weight. I did like Cyber-Danny and his storyline. That one had the feel factor for me. Especially when the Doctor realizes that he has to erase his emotions. 'I have to know'. Powerful stuff.

The Master seems VERY different than his previous versions, but then again, so does the Doctor. Both of them have to evolve. In this case, that means gimmicky sex changes.

Clara gets a good send off. Wish they would leave it at that, but of course she's going to be back for the Christmas special. Moffat did the same thing with the Ponds. They should have stopped traveling with him at the end of the God Complex. But Moff has to bring them back for a bunch more adventures.

But this was a decent finale. Just seems like too little, too late. Gonna take a break from Who now for a while.

Just a thought/gripe......but......doesn't The Doctor click his fingers to open the TARDIS these days?

I feel a finger click while hurtling from the skies would be a whole lot easier than trying to aim a key in to a keyhole!!

Just Scott wrote:

I feel a finger click while hurtling from the skies would be a whole lot easier than trying to aim a key in to a keyhole!!

The key scene was so deeply silly that it was my only moment of enjoyment during an otherwise awful episode, because it's the only moment I laughed out loud at.

Hey, I laughed out loud when the Clara declared herself to be The Doctor and the opening credits rolled with the starring names reversed and Jenna's eyes instead of Capaldi's. I thought there would be more forum-fun outrage from posters who feel the companions have been getting too many lines. But a clever bit to convince you that maybe Clara really is the Doctor (for about 45 seconds). Didn't the Grand Moff hint that maybe the Doctor isn't really the Doctor this series?

This was a mixed bag. It seems like Moffat couldn't reconcile his desire for a dark story with real stakes with his love of fairy tales with happy endings.
The threat faced at the end was less abstract than typical Who finale threats are. It was resolved with less handwaving too.
The season long threads of the Doctor's identity crisis, his disdain of soldiers, Clara becoming more like the Doctor, & the Nethesphere were paid off nicely.
I was confused by Cyber-Brigadier killing Missy. At first I thought the Doctor merely teleported her away with her device because it was a blue effect instead of red. It would've helped if the Cybermen had used their blue lasers during this story before.
I really wish they hadn't killed Missy. It seems like the Master gets killed off at the end of each story for a while now. Of course he's also been inexplicably returning for just as long too. Maybe they can meet at earlier points in time? I'd love to see Michelle Gomez as a recurring antagonist.
The coda was where it fell off the rails. The bracelet can somehow teleport people's souls inside bodies from genuine Heaven? How is Clara supposed to put this kid's life back together when he's been dead for years? He & Cyber-Brigadier can't just be shrugged off. It would've been so much more elegant if Clara had just found out she's pregnant. I'm not looking forward to Santa Claus undo even more of the consequences.

As far as we can tell from the dialogue given in this episode, there might not be a "genuine" heaven in the Who-niverse. (The Doctor very heavily implies the concept of an afterlife may have originated with Missy traveling back to the beginning of time and seeding the idea in early humans.) It seems likely Danny's thoughts are linked to the Matrix Dataslice even after he died again and uses the Matrix technology to create that kid again. (We are never given an explanation of what happens to the sphere, presumably The Doctor took it. Maybe, just maybe, The Brigadier is rocketing around the universe saving the souls of damned!)

Evil Monkey Pope wrote:

At first I thought the Doctor merely teleported her away with her device because it was a blue effect instead of red. It would've helped if the Cybermen had used their blue lasers during this story before.

The scene where Cyber-Danny 'saves' Clara by shooting the 3 other Cybermen shows a blue blaster effect (albeit briefly). Although it just made the Cybermen blow up, not disintegrate.

I forgot that scene.
I thought the epilogue was supposed to show that there was a real Heaven distinct from Missy's scam Heaven. The Nethesphere seemed to just be a Matrix to collect & torture human minds until they were uploaded into Cybermen. It's stilla huge leap to assume that it can just make brand new bodies too.

Missy could have stolen a loom for all we know. ;-)

Watching Doctor Who these days is like watching Star Wars Rebels.

No Jedi (Timelords)

Watered down villains with no character

2nd class characters getting the spotlight.

The 1 or 2 big elements are mostly just there
to get us to watch regardless if they are written
in character or not.


Making Missy The Rani would have helped this story a lot more
as well as making it less companion focused.

I liked Clara but she never should have been seen again
after Deep Breathe,because after that I started to resent her.

I can't decide what exactly Moffat's motives are with a lot of the characters he introduces. I thought Osgood was kind of brilliant and might have been a good companion at some point, but her death didn't really bother me that much because we were never given a chance to get to know her. Same with Danny; He just sort of bounced in and out for the whole season and was never fleshed out enough to make me care about him. His death was sort of a "Meh" moment for me too.

Then there are characters like Clara. I liked Clara in the beginning. I loved Clara in the beginning. She was a breath of fresh air after too many episodes of Amy Pond. Then we kick into season 8 and it's as if Moffat WANTS us to hate Clara. He makes Clara so incredibly unlikable that again, her leaving doesn't exactly set off any "feels" as the kids say.

I just want Moffat to go away. I gripe so much about Doctor Who these days that it's beginning to feel like I hate the show.

"I just want Moffat to go away. I gripe so much about Doctor Who these days that it's beginning to feel like I hate the show."

My thoughts exactly and I'm mad cuz I don't want to hate the show.

Yeah it was bad.

Anybody notice Clara said the Doctor had been married four times? She also referred to Jenny, so was this correct?

That's River, Elizabeth....and?

Marilyn Monroe & whoever his Galifreyan wife was

Wow, this is the biggest divide I've ever seen on here! Look at that poll!

Scary wrote:

Wow, this is the biggest divide I've ever seen on here! Look at that poll!

Well, I loved it! And I also love Star Wars Rebels too. But people's tastes are very different. I have friends who swear to me the "Anchorman" is the funniest movie ever made.....I hate everything about it.

TinDogRory wrote:

Missy could have stolen a loom for all we know. ;-)

No, just, no don't go there!!!! AAHHH!!!

Hahaha.