So what went down? Rose and The Doctor greet Jackie in her modern day London estate home, only to find out ghosts have been returning … only the footprints aren’t a boot and bam it’s another threat altogether. Plus bonus aggressive Torchwood (which feels oddly prescient on the topic of make Britain great again given Brexit) and non-Martha Freema Agyeman guest appearance episode.

The Pre-title Sequence

Ben: “Planet Earth – this is where I was born, and this is where I died.” What a dramatic way to open the first episode of this two-part finale! Although the number of humans who have died off earth you could probably count on one hand so like, Rose you’re not that special. Still, this recap was nice, and really adds to the inevitability of the tragedy about to unfold.

Maureen: Yep, I too was all, hello angstalicious Rose. But also, I love Billie. What an actress! So all is forgiven. But also, the below quote is stupid:

Rose: For the first nineteen years of my life, nothing happened at all. Nothing.

Enough with telling the viewer companions are nothing without The Doctor, RTD!

The Companions

Ben: Jackie was excellent in this season. I love how she’s developed as a character. She’s gone from flirting with The Doctor to stealing a kiss or two off him! And she’s pulling off double denim like the fashion icon she is. Apart from the few moments of ‘oh god she thinks her dead father is back from the dead is she going senile?’ Rose comments, Jackie is incredibly sharp this episode, calling out both The Doctor and Rose on their shenanigans. Rose gets the biggest smackdown, when Jackie says once she’s dead Rose will have nothing to return to earth for. The whole speech she gives describing this future version of Rose losing her humanity was pretty grim. But I get the feeling Rose would be fine with that outcome as long as she had The Doctor. And! Jackie gets to be the companion for a bit!

Ten: When Torchwood comes to write up my history, don’t mention I travelled with her mother.

Maureen: I love the transformation of Jackie Tyler. She started out as such an annoying whore style stereotype. I feel like the second half of this series has upped the characterisation stakes and made the core gang of The Doctor, Rose and Jackie all a lot more understandable in terms of motivation. I also liked the opening with Jackie where we see Rose wearing a back pack like she’s been travelling to another country rather than through space. Rose gifts Jackie a souvenir that tells the weather and Jackie doesn’t care because she’s too busy loving Rose so hard because she’s been worried. This felt like such a realistic little scene to me.

Ben: As to Rose, the Rose we get this episode is Rose at the peak of her companionship with the Doctor. Having not seen any of her run I imagine this is where Sarah Jane Smith was at when she was abandoned by The Doctor. Rose has learnt how to use the TARDIS’s equipment, investigate on her own, and thinks it’ll last forever. To be honest, in this first episode Jackie contributes more than Rose, but this is still an important part of her journey.

Maureen: I was struck by the great chemistry between Rose and The Doctor again. It’s not a ship that always works, but when it does, damn it’s a lot of fun. Billie and David have a lot of chemistry when the script doesn’t weigh them down with stupid jealousy sub-plots! I loved the Ghostbusters moment especially! I also enjoyed Rose having fun with psychic paper and having the whole thing backfire because Torchwood has training y’all. Also, lol at Rose thinking the ghosts could be Gelth related, The Doctor’s look and Rose’s subdued, cheeky smile as she says no.

Ben: Then this episode also introduces Yvonne of the fabulous hair – the leader of Torchwood and a woman who I imagine got on very well with Harriet Jones. Although her talk of British Empires and imperial tonnes was a bit concerning. Still, it’s nice to see a charismatic woman in power. Plus, it does take some nerve to call The Doctor out when he’s in his element, even if it is to tell him he’s gone left when he should have gone right. The Doctor does make some very valid points that you don’t need to poke every anomaly you find with a stick to see what happens, but this does come off as a bit sanctimonious and hypocritical when that’s exactly what The Doctor does on a regular basis.

Maureen: I loved the Torchwood stuff. Great call back to Queen Vic and of course she would have left instructions about The Doctor that were less than flattering! The scene were Yvonne and Torchwood lackeys cheer on The Doctor were so disconcerting and Ten was off-kilter completely. Yvonne was such a powerhouse CEO type, who genuinely believed she was doing the right thing for her country. I hated her morals, but she remained oddly likeable throughout the episode.

Ben: Finally, Mickey returns! I don’t know how he got through to this reality/got through early enough to get a position at Torchwood and work his way up the ranks to be working at what I would guess is one of their higher-level projects. He also felt more like Ricky than Mickey, and of course in his first sentence to Rose he calls her babe. Eww. Also, he barely even looks at Rose! War against the cybermen has changed him, and not necessarily for the better. He’s become like Rachel from Animorphs (which is a bit of an obscure reference these days, I know), a soldier who loves war. Also, how the hell did Mickey hide such a huge gun in what is supposedly such a secure building?

Maureen: I thought the point of Mickey replacing Rickey in the parallel universe was to give him a chance to become that stronger, more confident version of himself. ‘My name is Mickey. Mickey Smith. Defending the earth.’ I didn’t begrudge him his moment of limelight or think too hard about hows and wherefore’s, though I agree the babe was a bit much.

The Doctor

Ben: Another episode where The Doctor’s nowhere to be seen when something starts to go awry on Earth! Maybe Harriet Jones was onto something …

Maureen: Yes, this is why I really dug the Series Three finale back in the day. The Doctor was given some big consequences for his Harriet Jones holier-than-thou-even-tho-I’m-clearly-wrong actions.

Ben: Still, his “a footprint doesn’t look like a boot’ response to Jackie saying the ghosts look human was memorable.

Maureen: I thought it was rather poignant when Jackie describes the smell of her Dad and The Doctor and Rose reveal they can’t smell a thing. She’s wished her father onto the image of the ghost, which is deeply sad to me.

Ben: Anywho, we get some general Doctoring as Ten investigates the ghosts, paired with the usual technobabble. And then we get the debut of both allons-y and the usage of 3D glasses as he discovers the source of the ghosts! Now for a Bad Wolf reference and we’ll have bingo.

Maureen: I very much enjoyed Ten with his allons-y and 3d glasses and huge ass technology to trap ghosts with this episode. Holy shit, he be growing on me!

Ben: The Doctor’s demonstration at Torchwood Tower of what happened to the fabric of reality when the Void Ship came through was impressive, because even though I knew the glass was going to shatter I was still holding on to every word he said. Ten really does have a commanding charisma.

Maureen: I don’t always agree, but this second half of the series, Tennant has been superb. I thought he was pitch perfect in the scene you describe.

Ben: To nobody’s surprise it all goes to hell and there’s nothing The Doctor can do about it because this is part one of a finale. And we end the episode with The Doctor surrounded by cybermen! Not the best position to turn things around from!

The Alien of the Week

Ben: Ghosts! RTD really got the foreshadowing right this week, with the man on the television talking about the ‘military parade’ of ghosts at Westminster. I did love the little scene of Team TARDIS changing through the tv channels with ghost mania taking hold of the planet. I’m not sure how this psychic link is pulling the ghosts through, if they have that link then why the particle accelerators in Torchwood Tower?

Maureen: Damn it, Ben! I didn’t even think that plot hole through to know it was one. Why must you always pick up on these things?

Ben: Speaking of Torchwood Tower, the IM flirting between Not-Martha and Gareth was pretty cringeworthy. It definitely brought back memories of talking to people on MSN Messenger.

Maureen: It was very Renee Zellweger/Hugh Grant in Bridget Jones Diary!

Ben: But the payoff was worth it as we got the reveal of the real alien of the week – the cybermen are back!

Maureen: How cool was the Freema scream as she faced off a cyberman. That must have been so fun to act, and just so iconic too.

Ben: How no one noticed Not-Martha and Gareth were looking like total douchebags with ear pieces in both ears is beyond me. The dramatic music that played every time they did something cybermen related was a bit heavy handed – I kept having to turn my headphones down whenever it played.

Maureen: Ah yes, the beginning of Murry Gold being played up to eleven every time something dramatic is happening because we idiotic audience members won’t know it’s dramatic UNLESS THE MUSIC IS VERY LOUD DUM DUM DUM.

Ben: It’s a bit of a nit-picky point, but I also found the dramatic scene with the levers rather annoying – the idea of having physical levers to activate something is so that if something goes wrong software wise you still have a way of shutting things off. There shouldn’t be a way for the levers to be moving by themselves! But maybe there’s cybermen shenanigans involved in that somehow. Also, Torchwood doesn’t have any armed guards in this room, the room containing their most important project? Or any meaningful fail safes?

Maureen: I didn’t think about this at the time, but maybe it’s a sign of the Torchwood hubris at play. Yvonne and Co. are so cocksure of themselves and their ability to fend off invasions and things going wrong, they figure they don’t need extra security and fail safes because no one could ever get that far.

Ben: Hmm, another thing I don’t understand is the random cut to the tv channels discussing the increase in ghost activity after the cybermen activate the ghost shift. There was a police chief there! Those kind of press conferences don’t just happen instantaneously. And the time it took for the ghosts to appear/manifest as cybermen wasn’t that long a time.

Maureen: Eh, I’m not sure I follow you here. I thought the reason for the news stations and the chief of police was because there was an unusual increase in ghost activity. The police commissioner was on air to reassure the public everything was fine, but then the cybermen attack and it’s obvious things aren’t fine. I kind of enjoyed these scenes and the scenes of cybermen mayhem. If I’d been a little kid, this would have been hide behind my sofa scary!

Ben: And then we have the mysterious sphere in the basement of Torchwood Tower, that gets in your head and doesn’t seem to exist. Of course, The Doctor knows what it is instantly – it’s a Void Ship. A ship that exists outside of time and space. So, kinda like a TARDIS but not. And surprise, surprise, it’s packed full of Daleks! It doesn’t do much this episode but loom threateningly over everyone, but it was a great B-plot.

Maureen: And now Rose, Mickey and random Torchwood lackey are trapped in a sealed room with hundreds of Daleks! How will they escape??? What an old school, classic cliff hanger. Love it.

Ten: It’s not an invasion. It’s too late for that. It’s a victory.

Final Thoughts

Ben: I absolutely loved this episode. I don’t know what else to say beyond what I’ve already written. I’m giving this episode a 9/10.

Maureen: Aside from Mickey’s ‘babe’ moment and The Doctor sniping at Jackie in a rather ageist way, I enjoyed this immensely. Enough that I didn’t notice half of the plot holes Ben has pointed out in this review! I’m giving this 9 outta 10 inky stars too and am mad keen for next week.

The Alien of the Week

Ben: The Daleks! Turns out the Emperor of the Daleks ship survived the Time War, falling through space and time. Which is a neat turn of phrase, if not a slightly lazy way to have some Daleks survive. The true horror comes when we find out they’ve been using the contestants of the games to make more Daleks; breaking them down into the building blocks of life to create new life, new Daleks. But as the Doctor correctly surmises, they’re not pure Daleks, and Daleks abhor anything that isn’t Dalek; they hate their own flesh, their own existence, and it’s driven them insane.

Maureen: The Daleks on New Who have become a bit of a joke, re-occuring too often with sillier and sillier plans to deliver much in the thrills and the scares department. This finale is an exception to the New Who Dalek rule. The Dalek Emperors speech about “the refugees… the displaced… all come to us” and “This is perfection. I have created heaven on earth,” as well as the way we see Lynda, Jack and all of the trapped humans exterminated is truly chilling.

Ben: I did like how the Dalek God cast himself as the creator of life, opposing the Doctor (the destroyer and the oncoming storm). Although once the Daleks board the Game Station we see the Dalek’s aren’t exactly the nurturing type, as they go and kill the 100 or so unarmed humans in floor zero. And poor Lynda, Lynda with a Y with her crush on the Doctor gets the worst death of all. For that alone these Daleks deserve their ending, being dissolved into atoms by Rose. It made for a pretty great scene, the Dalek God shrieking that he is immortal, that he cannot die, followed by him dying.

The Companion/s

Maureen: This is such a dark episode, especially for the companions and the humans trapped on Satellite Five. I can see how Torchwood got as dark as it did. Kids show? What kids show?

Ben: Now this is definitely my favourite Rose episode of the season. For the first fifteen minutes she doesn’t do much other than blindly believe the Doctor will save the day, that everyone will live and nobody will die (except the Daleks). And then it all goes wrong and The Doctor sends her back home with one final request, to forget him and live her life. Which is really just unrealistic, Doctor. As we see in the scene in the fish and chips shop, Rose has been shown a better life, and she can’t go back to the monotony of her old life.

Maureen: What I found interesting about the fish and chip shop scene was how phenomenal an actress Billie was in it. She totally sold me on playing a nineteen year old, prone to emotional outbursts and temper tantrums. I might not like Rose much, but her behavior in these scenes at least felt believable.

Ben: In that fish and chip shop Rose mourns returning to a life absent from The Doctor, a life where she doesn’t stand up for what’s right when no one else will.

Maureen: This bit bugged me a little. There’s nothing stopping Rose from getting involved in politics (Harriet Jones style) or charity and living a life The Doctor would be proud of. But nineteen years old…

Rose: Catch the bus, go to work, eat chips… is that all there is? The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life.

Oh, use some imagination and initiative Rose. The Doctor literally told you the below and you still don’t get it:

Nine: Let the TARDIS die. Let it gather dust… if you want to remember me do one thing… have a good life… do that for me… have a fabulous life.

Ben: Yes, what she does instead is tell Mickey there’s nothing on earth left for her. Even the scene between her and Jackie was cruel, telling Jackie she was the one who was there as her father died, that he would want her to keep fighting. This Rose I don’t like, the Rose that will do anything, hurt anyone to get back to The Doctor. I get that she loves him, but that’s just harsh. It was nice that Mickey and Jackie came together to help her in the end, but she really didn’t deserve their help.

Maureen: I agree re Rose, but I like what Mickey’s response showed us about him. For the first time, I felt that Mickey cared about Rose, genuinely cared in a way that went beyond surface level. Take this exchange:

Rose: There’s nothing for me here.
Mickey: Nothing?
Rose: Nothing.
Mickey: Right. If that’s what you think…

And you know what he does? He damn well helps her anyway, and not only that, he stops her from giving up! For once Mickey added to, rather than detracted from, an episode!

Ben: I’ve got more to say about Rose. I mean we need to talk about the fact that Rose looks into the heart of the TARDIS and becomes a literal Deus ex Machina! This is peak Doctor Who and I just love it so much. For some reason, “I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself,” is a line that has stuck with me from the first time I watched this episode. BadWolf Rose just has so many iconic lines in this one sequence of genocide. And then we get the cheesiest line of all space and time, as the Doctor says “I think you need a Doctor” before kissing her, pulling the time vortex out of her head and into himself. It’s probably for the best she doesn’t remember any of it, living with committing genocide and also that level of cheesiness can’t be good for you.

Maureen: I agree that this bit was classic Who. It was outrageous. So outrageous it shouldn’t have worked, yet it does and RTD never figures out how to get it right again. Bad Wolf Rose is also my favourite version of Rose (it’s why I could stand her in the 50th anniversary). I agree with Ben that she has some truly astonishing lines.

Bad Wolf Rose: Everything must come to dust. All things. Everything dies. The Time War ends… I can see everything. All that is. All that could be.

Ben: Jack, on the other hand, had less of a fun time. On one hand, he gets a kiss out of both Rose and The Doctor. On the other hand, he sends a bunch of people to their deaths facing off the Daleks, including himself. It was definitely a dick move to lie to the volunteers, telling them the guns will work on the Daleks, that the forcefield will weaken the Daleks attacks, but someone had to slow the Daleks down while the Doctor worked on the Delta wave.

Maureen: I didn’t think that was a dick move on Jack’s part. I thought it was a way to keep panic at bay. What good would Jack telling humanity the truth about the Daleks have done? They had no way out.

Ben: I guess so. On the bright side, Rose brings Jack back! Yay!

Maureen: Yes! Long may Captain Jack reign. Neither Ben or I remember when Jack next turns up and how and both look forward to a reappearance.

The Doctor

Ben: The Doctor has finally learnt how to drive the TARDIS with some finesse! Apparating the TARDIS around Rose was a nice bit of magic.

Maureen: Yeah, to be honest, that was one of the only parts of the episode that made no sense to me.

Ben: Mmmm, I found the shot of the Doctor with his head to the door of the TARDIS as he hears the Dalek’s futile attempts to exterminate to be incredibly powerful. All this season we’ve been getting drip fed bits of information about the Time War, and the PTSD the Doctor suffers from his involvement in it. I can’t even begin to imagine what’s going through the Doctor’s head in that moment.

Maureen: Christopher Eccleston was seriously good this episode, and made me yearn for more Nine. He portrays The Doctor’s sadness, pain and rage, as well as his innate alien nature so well.

Rose: I knew you would come.
Nine: Good. I didn’t.

Nine: Don’t stand around chin-wagging… human beings, always standing around gossiping.

We also see more of why Nine cares for Rose in a romantic sense.

Nine: The TARDIS could leave and let history take its course.
Rose: You couldn’t do that.
Nine: You wouldn’t ask.

I’ve never bought Rose/Nine or even Rose/Ten and always felt that The Doctor would have grown bored of Rose eventually, but I did feel Rose was right for Nine in the situation he was in and where he was placed emotionally.

Ben: And then we get to the good stuff after The Doctor tricks Rose into the TARDIS and sends her back home through the magic of Emergency Program 1. We find out through the Dalek God (formerly known as the Dalek Emperor) that the delta wave can’t be refined, that it will kill Daleks and humans indiscriminately. A complete rehash of the Time War. The Doctor might not be able to bring about an end where everyone lives and nobody dies, but at least he can save Rose. In the end he can’t go through with activating the Delta wave, which is probably for the best. I don’t think the Doctor could live with becoming the Great Exterminator.

Maureen: What I like about Nine though is that there was always a suggestion that it wouldn’t take much to tip him over the edge. RTD also chips away at the perennial who is The Doctor question by having the Dalek Emperor mirror The Doctor. The exchange below reveals a lot about The Doctor:

Dalek Emperor: I want to see you become like me… all hail The Doctor. What are you? Coward or killer?
Nine: Coward any day.

I’ve always hated The Doctor as hero trope, the lonely God figure, so it’s nice to have a grand finale that bucks the trend. And then there’s the first New Who regeneration sequence…

Ben: Yes, the episode ends with this wondrously emotional scene between Rose and The Doctor. I’m not one for quoting the episode in big chunks, but that whole scene is just magic. I will agree with The Doctor when, in his final lines as the Ninth Doctor, he says he was fantastic. He really, really was.

Maureen: God, I still miss Nine. Unlike Ben, I am one for quoting chunks of episode. The Doctor’s regeneration speech is a good one. He says he can’t go to Barcelona and Rose asks why not. This is his wonderful response:

Nine: You can. You will. Maybe I will too. But not like this… Time Lords have a way of cheating death… before I go I just want to tell you you were fantastic. And you know what? So was I.

Ten is one of my least favourite of all The Doctor’s, but his opening lines were also… well… fantastic.

Ten: Where was I? That’s right. Barcelona!

Final Thoughts

Ben: This episode was peak Doctor Who and I loved it from start to end. I don’t really know what else to say. I give it a 10/10 and an “allons-y!”

Maureen: I too, thoroughly enjoyed The Parting of the Ways, literal deux ex machina and all. 10/10 inky stars

This week we start on level 507, a hologram countryside idyll filled with children and their single female adult protector. Mondasian cybermen dot the landscape, bound to stakes in a kind of horrifying version of the modern day scarecrow, trying to upgrade the children. As Simm’s Master helpfully explains, children are easier to upgrade. And there’s less waste.

The Doctor minus his Sonic

This series has had a strong focus on The Doctor sans sonic which has been a welcome change on New Who. I liked the flashback to how The two Masters, cyber Bill, Nardole and The Doctor made it to Level 507. The Master and Missy are equally callous in how they taunt The Doctor, wheelchair bound as he is on a rooftop, as the exodus of the cybermen is set to begin. Of course it’s Missy who violently and cooly slaps him into the computer keyboard (and again because of another nuanced performance from Ms Gomez, I’m still not sure if she did that intentionally or otherwise), but The Doctor is relying on smarts alone when he changes with some careful key strokes just what the cybermen are looking for to upgrade. The Doctor wouldn’t have gotten far without Nardole either, and it was a nice touch to have Nardole turn up with a ship to evacuate everyone from the level.

The Life and Death of Bill Potts

After watching World Enough and Time, my biggest fear was that Moffat would ‘magic’ Bill back from her cyber state straight away. Thankfully, he doesn’t. Instead, Bill spends over two thirds of the episode as a mondasian cybermen, simultaneously tolerated and feared by the children and their keeper. Rachel Talalay has done great directorial work on New Who in the past, and this week is no exception when she carefully cuts between the world from Bill’s point of view (where we see Bill as herself because she sees herself as unchanged) and Bill as the world sees her (first shown through the mirror gifted to Bill by the first child she sees when they come to Level 507). Though this episode is nowhere near as horrifying in a scary hide behind your sofa kind of way, this sequence is pretty damn disturbing.

Simm’s Master doesn’t help matters either. His pantomime villain knows that the best way to hurt The Doctor is to hurt his companion. ‘You missed her by two hours,’ he gloats as he tries to goad Bill into anger knowing that that anger will lead to destruction. But Bill is made of stronger stuff. She hasn’t been around long, but for me, Bill has some of the best qualities of a Doctor Who companion. She’s awfully human, but she’s brave in her own way too. She rises above The Master and his petty games. She wills herself to calmness. She’s better than the bully, and she and The Doctor know it.

Even so, The Doctor doesn’t have much to comfort her or us with later. Will the show reward Bill for her courage and her humanity and her inherent goodness?
For a brief while, it seems the show is going to deny us a happy ending. Capaldi delivers his lines with a melancholy gravity that is very believable.

Bill: You said… I remember, you said you could fix this. That you could get me back. Did you say that?
The Doctor: I did say that, yes.
Bill: Were you lying?
The Doctor: No.
Bill: …Were you right?
The Doctor [sadly]: No.

Still, while there’s tears there’s hope, The Doctor reminds Bill and the audience lest we think things are getting too bleak. It is fitting that Bill stays with The Doctor till the bitter end. That said, I don’t know that Bill’s ending worked for me. This episode would have been a perfect ten score if it had ended with Bill’s battered cyber body lying alongside The Doctor’s ashy flesh as he regenerated.

As it stands, I found the Heather deux ex machina confusing. I’m not sure if Bill is alive or committed suicide and the ending is too similar to Clara’s from a mere series ago. Moffat said he ended Bill’s story the way he did because ultimately Doctor Who is a hopeful story where heroes always win in the end. Though I understand where he is coming from, I agree with an author who was talking last week about what children find in fiction. She said that children can find hope in ambiguity. Even when an ending is bleak or beyond their comprehension, they’ll find a way to make the story fit into their understanding of the world. Then when they’re older, they’ll find the darker layers. I can’t help but think that the story would have been stronger leaving Bill as dead or standing alone with a regenerating Doctor, rather than dramatically changing gear and tone with the reappearance of Heather and the ‘new lease of life’ for Bill. Though I like Bill very much, I hope we don’t see her again.

Farewell to Nardole

Matt Lucas surprised me as Nardole. I’m not one for his comedy and I didn’t like his character on Who at first, but he has grown on me over time in a quiet, understated way. I liked that it was Nardole who helped protect Hazran and her children by figuring out how to set off explosions through his laptop. I liked that he befriended the children. I liked that he took their plight so seriously. And I especially liked the exchange between him and The Doctor when it became apparent that The Doctor was going to remain on Level 507 on a kind of kamikaze mission.

Like River Song who became a hologram inside a computer to protect hologram souls ‘saved’ into the drive, Nardole will see out his duty to look after these children in a hologram world until death or the cybermen come for him and for them. I like the parallel to River there, and like Bill, I hope this is a definite ending for this character as there is a kind of poetry to it.

The Master vs. The Master

After this episode aired, I ended up in a three way twitter conversation about all of the reasons why Missy is the best essentially. Don’t get me wrong, I think John Simm is as talented as the next person, but he never captured the heart and soul of the character of The Master in the same way Gomez did. His callous heartlessness for villainy’s sake is far less interesting, and comes across far less nuanced, then Missy’s conflicted battle between doing what is right and what is hard wired. Whether on the rooftop with The Doctor captured, in the empty barn leaning in far too sensually to her previous self or stabbing herself, Gomez’ Missy is at once chilling, nasty, terrifying, beautiful, tragic and human. Gomez’ performance as she teeters between hero and villain is perfectly ambiguous, allowing for multiple rewatches and multiple different interpretations. Gomez was the perfect Master, the incarnation I never knew I wanted till she twirled her way across the screen in Deep Breath in her messed up version of heaven. I am terrible sad Gomez has left the show, but oh what a way to go…

To His Coy Mistress

Without witness, without hope, without reward, The Doctor begs Missy to redeem herself, to edge back from the precipice, to end the coy game she plays. But time is running out.

But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.

As The Doctor faces off both Missy and The Master, he makes another Moffat speech which cuts to the heart of The Doctor’s essence.

The Doctor: I’m not trying to win. I’m not doing this because I want to beat someone, because I hate someone, or because I want to blame someone. It’s not because it’s fun. God knows it’s not because it’s easy. It’s not even because it works because it hardly ever does. I do what I do because it’s right! Because it’s decent! And above all, it’s kind! It’s just that… Just kind. If I run away today, good people will die. If I stand and fight, some of them might live. Maybe not many, maybe not for long. Hey, you know, maybe there’s no point to any of this at all. But it’s the best I can do. So I’m going to do it. And I’m going to stand here doing it until it kills me. And you’re going to die too! Some day… And how will that be? Have you thought about it? What would you die for? Who I am is where I stand. Where I stand is where I fall.

On a second rewatch, this scene reminded me of Sally Lockhart and the deformed pirate Ah Ling in The Tiger in the Well. In a final showdown, Sally tries to explain to Ah Ling why she tries to make a difference to the pain and poverty and wrongness she sees in the world. And how does Ah Ling repay her for her pretty speech?

‘He just couldn’t understand her. And she saw how right she’d been; he was a coarse, brutal, limited man whose manners and graces and fine connoisseurship were no more than perfume sprinkled over garbage. She’d confessed to him. She’d opened her heart to him in the acknowledgement of the hurt shed done him. She’d offered him that – and he was bored. ‘ pg 374

Simm’s Master is like Ah Ling; one dimensional in his villainy. He is callous and bored by The Doctor. He hasn’t been paying attention to The Doctor’s ‘pretty speech.’ But Missy? Missy is visibly moved, but then she walks away. Coy to the last.

The first time I watched this episode, I was so upset at Gomez leaving, I was too busy shouting at my TV to enjoy the cleverness of The Master double murder. This time around it felt right. There was no other possible way to end this redemption arc. Missy destroys her past self to go stand with The Doctor. Her past self prevents her.

What beautiful lines and delivery as Missy seductively wraps an arm about The Master to stab him.

Missy: I loved being you. Every second of it. Oh, the way you burned like a sun, like a whole screaming world on fire. I remember that feeling. And I always will. And I will always miss it.

It’s like a strange echo of Eleven regenerating into Twelve (I’ll never forget the time when The Doctor was me). And then the horror as The Master shoots Missy in the back. But then fittingly, they both go down, both stabbing each other in the back for blood begets blood and self knows other self too well. The Doctor tragically never finds out that at the last Missy aimed to stand with The Doctor, but we as the viewers know and will remember…

Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

And That Ending…

Three knocks as Twelve leaves his TARDIS behind? A snowy landscape? One and The Doctor? What will happen in the Christmas Special and just who will Twelve regenerate into?

The Doctor Falls: 9/10 inky stars for a near perfect finale marred only by the confusing deux ex machina in the final ten minutes which sees Bill reunited with Heather