How fitting that the conclusion to series eight should fall on the eve of Remembrance Sunday. For tonight the heroes of the hour were neither the madman in his box, nor his faithful travelling companion, but two departed soldiers – Danny Pink and Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart.
Refreshingly straightforward.
The plot of the finale was refreshingly straightforward and untypical for a Steven Moffat script. This simplicity of the central idea of Cybermen taking over the living and the dead, enabled the focus to fall upon the leading characters and their vulnerabilities whilst at the same time boasting some remarkable set pieces as the action unfolded. In place of the usual timey-wimey shenanigans and double bluffs we were confronted with a single twist, one so powerful that any subplot would have undermined its central message. The army of the dead as Missy’s gift to the Doctor was surely the most unexpected revelation in the show’s illustrious history. The unrequited offer to command and control set up a perfect resolution to the ongoing philosophical themes of morality, suffering, friendship and love.
Pleasingly there was no about turn with regards to Missy’s identity as the Master. Michelle Gomez brilliantly conveyed the insanity of the character with her exaggerated movements and expressions. Swinging, rocking, swaying hyperactively and grinning like a Cheshire cat she mesmerises without the need for hypnosis. This master delights in sheer evil, a fact most effectively demonstrated as she teases Osgood with her impending and inevitable death. She revels in killing just for the thrill of it, like popping a balloon. And yet this version of the Master is no mere pantomime villain - an undertone of pathos is established by Missy’s need to have her victims “say something nice” and by her genuine desire to win over the Doctor as a friend again. The revelation that she selected Clara to become the Doctor’s companion and the scene in The Forest Of The Dead where Missy is viewing the unfolding events, suggests an ongoing connection to the impossible girl that might explain why she tells the Doctor that she has travelled across his timeline. Does Missy herself save the Doctor through the impossible girl?
The two Time Lords share a common disdain for mere earthlings like us.
In contrast to Missy, Capaldi’s sardonic Twelfth Doctor resists being humoured or flattered even by his friends. Despite this, the two Time Lords share a common disdain for mere earthlings like us. Missy can say of us “from the moment you slop out you are rotting.” However, the Doctor’s dismissiveness is more towards what we allow ourselves to become than to our inherent nature, and so he gives short thrift to Sanjeev Bhaskar’s “scout man.” Herein lies his saving grace and the reason why Missy’s plan cannot ultimately succeed. She is spectacularly mistaken when she asserts
“I’ve got a gift for you, I’ve been up and down your timeline, meeting all the silly people who died to keep you alive and you know what I worked out, what you really need to know is you are just like me.”
As he explains to the semi converted Cyber-Danny
“I had a friend once, we ran together when I was little and I thought we were the same. When I grew up we weren’t and now she’s trying to tear the world apart and I can’t run fast enough to hold it together. The difference is this – pain is a gift, without the capacity for pain we cannot feel the heart we infect.”
The difference between the Doctor and the Master is not a good versus evil dualism, but the divergent manner in which they deal with their pain.
Dealing with pain, guilt and loss is the major theme here, neatly sidestepping the question of good and evil. It owes something to CS Lewis’s theodicy but is more the philosophical The Problem Of Pain than the personal A Grief Observed. The emotional impact of the choices on offer are somewhat downplayed. You may have cried buckets, but had Russell T. Davies been writing the script you may well have filled an ocean. Danny Pink’s whole raison d’etre, in death as in life, is his quest to redeem himself for killing the civilian boy. His vitriolic attitude towards authority figures, who in his view act to keep their hands clean, is born of a pragmatic cynicism carved from the scars of war “the beautiful speeches just disappear in the face of a tactical advantage.” One way of dealing with our own guilt is to pass the blame and the Doctor reminds Pink of his culpable superiors. Pink calls the Doctor “..the blood soaked general.” He grasps his chance to make amends by gifting his child victim with the ability to come back from the dead in his place. Samuel Anderson after an unpromising start has truly improved with each appearance and here he shines, seizing the opportunity to impress as the semi-converted Cyber-Dan. Script wise his inability to turn on his inhibitor is something of a stretch, especially as he must be aware of the pain he is inflicting on Clara by asking her to do it for him.
UNIT characters Osgood and Kate make a welcome return although neither command a great deal of screen time.
UNIT characters Osgood and Kate make a welcome return although neither command a great deal of screen time. It was truly shocking to see the death of the scientific advisor, who not only wore the bow tie of the Eleventh Doctor, but also sported the red trainers of the Tenth. Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor, even in midst of running, shows his approval for Osgood as a potential future companion after she correctly deduces that Missy is the Master, offering her “all of time and space” as a bucket list. But the idea that UNIT has a protocol that would make the Doctor President of the planet somewhat weakens Kate Stewart’s role. UNIT are no different from the Master who wants the Doctor to be like her and command an army of automatons at her beck and call, UNIT forcibly install The Doctor as commander in chief and CEO of the human race. “I’m sorry, in the event of an alien incursion on this scale, protocols are in place. Your cooperation is to be insured and your unreliability assumed, you have a history” Indeed the abdication of responsibility is one that goes beyond the planet earth, with the Doctor regularly slipping away at the end of his adventures to let others get on with it, and even running from the position of Lord President of Gallifrey.
Russell T. Davies liked to throw in the odd controversial aside and Moffat has recently been following suit. In Death In Heaven, the obligatory red rag to the bull goading of fans of the show is a cheeky one, with the superimposing of Clara’s features over the opening credits. But at a deeper level the series has toyed with the idea of Clara becoming like the Doctor, not in a physical way as with Rose (Bad Wolf), River Song (Time Lord dna) and Donna (metacrisis), but by sharing his characteristic and approach to the universe. But the teasing from Moffat does not stop in the credits. When pretending to be the Doctor, Clara makes use of the knowledge she has gleaned from her heroics as the impossible girl. She tells the Cybermen that the Doctor is married four times over and that he has lost his children and grandchildren, missing presumed dead. Moffat enjoys poking fun at the more hardcore elements of fandom, and it is not coincidence that A.I Interface Seb “squees” just before Missy turns him off for good.
Squee
Bravely Moffat returns to the often used “love wins the day” motif, but unlike say Gatiss’s Night Terrors, or Roberts’ Closing Time, he offers a non sentimental definition of love as promise over feeling. This is why, despite having the emotional inhibitor turned on, the power of love continues to keep Danny Pink’s mind partially independent from the hive. Love as promise means that it can live with imperfection. It is a pleasing message to send out to a generation of fickle transient souls. Whilst touchingly honest, Clara had no need to confess to Danny that her love was not always the best.
Jenna Coleman’s Clara has finally made up her mind when it comes to her allegiance to the Doctor, but it is his forgiveness of her after the volcano scene that has persuaded her to follow suit. Unwittingly addressing Danny she confesses
“you think I would give up the Doctor? Don’t be daft. I would never, ever give up the doctor because he is my best friend, he is the closest person to me in the whole world. He is the man I will always forgive, always trust. The one man I would never, ever lie to.”
Of course by the time of that final hug both Clara and the Doctor are once again lying to each other, but this time to protect the other and not themselves. The close up on Clara and then the Doctor’ faces, both holding back their own tears is an extremely moving moment. It proves the Doctor’ point “never trust a hug, it’s just a way to hide your face.” Coleman continues to exude great maturity in her performance, her understated approach enabling us feel the pain in her decision to take responsibility for switching on Danny’s emotions inhibitor.
In terms of the quality of performances Capaldi, even after one series, is head and shoulders above the rest.
The Independent is currently running a favourite Doctor poll and at the time of writing David Tennant is almost four times above his leading challengers for the title. But in terms of the quality of performances Capaldi, even after one series, is head and shoulders above the rest, taking the character to an emotional depth and challenging the old view that the character is one which you can just play as yourself. Capaldi is acting his socks off in this one, with every line, every look so carefully planned and brilliantly executed. His rage at discovering that the Master’s coordinates for Gallifrey were fake is so intense you could almost imagine he might really have bruised and cut his fists when thumping them against the console prop. It is the variety in the delivery of each line that sets him apart from all his predecessors. There is for example the brilliant change of pace when he hastily admits to Clara in their departure scene that she made him feel really special too. It is reminiscent of Tom Baker’s feigned indifference in his farewell scene with Sarah Jane, but such is Capaldi’s skill that even the briefest of lines can convey as much as a whole scene.
When Capaldi is gifted with beautifully crafted speeches, we are truly in the presence of greatness. Confronting Missy in the graveyard, he tootles towards her almost like Cushing’s movie Doctor and with untamed excitement exclaims:
“Thank you, thank you so much, I really didn’t know, I wasn’t sure. I am not a good man” A pause, just long enough to make us consider the awful possibility that he might be turning bad, and then “I am not a bad man. I am not a hero. I am definitely not a president and no I am not an officer. You know who I am?” with exaggerated emphasis “ I am, I am an idiot, with a box – a screwdriver. Passing through, helping out, learning, I don’t need an army I never have because I have got them, always them. Love – it is not an emotion. Love is a promise and he will never hurt her”.
The prominent role given to the Brigadier will no doubt provide the biggest talking point.
Death In Heaven is peppered with references to the show’s past - obscure ones such as the name Chaplet, visual ones such as the Invasion Cyberhead and the water moving out of the drain (c.f. the anti-matter in The Three Doctors) and flashback scenes including the Eleventh Doctor taking the call from Clara in The Bells Of St John. But it is of course the prominent role given to the Brigadier that will no doubt provide the biggest talking point. Just as he saved the day, in the nick of time, in The Claws Of Axos, the Brigadier is the one to “pull the trigger.” Touchingly he receives his salute from the Doctor.
Once again the direction in Death In Heaven is of the highest possible standards. The stand out scene is Clara waking up to find herself in the graveyard, her disorientation is mirrored by the jerky and low camera angles and with the addition of some creepy choir music, the cemetery takes on a truly eerie quality.
The Cybermen are slightly adapted from their last appearance, with Nicolas Briggs varying the voices somewhat. The voices of the newly emerged “baby” Cybermen are suitably muffled as if they are warming up slowly. The blue glow emitting from their mouthpiece when speaking and from their chest plates are good little additions, but it is their new found ability to fly that is the most radical departure or upgrade. This ability adds to the relentlessness of the chase and the inevitability that they will acquire their target. Visually the image of St Paul’s Cathedral opening like a sunroof is memorable if not essential to the story.
One thing clearly lets down an otherwise perfect episode. At times the dialogue is virtually inaudible. On several occasions I found myself stopping and rewinding to pick out a word or even full line. No one actor is responsible, with Capaldi, Gomez and Oliver all at times hard to hear, and it would therefore appear to be a fault in post production. Murray Gold’ score is not to blame on this occasion. It is wonderfully varied, with a particular favourite being the James Bond notes when Capaldi is falling from the sky. The sound FX are the more likely culprits.
The departed really do keep us alive in life.
Series Eight has signalled a return to form for a show that periodically reinvents itself, at no small risk to its survival. Following The Day Of The Doctor and The Time Of The Doctor, we might have expected the search for Gallifrey to have been a recurrent motif – indeed the ending of The Day Of The Doctor seemed to promise a new direction completely. However, the fate and quest for Gallifrey only features with any prominence in the finale. The arc instead has been a character driven one. A non prescriptive exploration into ethical questions such as truth, morality, trust, power and control, has reinvigorated the show with a new depth and maturity that will appeal to the children as much if not more so than the adults. Tonight after hysterically laughing at the appearance of Father Christmas, my children wanted a hug. I made sure that it was followed by a reassuring smile with eye contact. And as they went to bed, before writing up this review I was moved to step outside into the back garden, look up at the stars and remember that love is a promise and not a feeling, a commitment to stand alongside those whom we care about and care for. That’s precisely what my grandfather did - in war and peace, before he joined the stars. The departed really do keep us alive in life.
