Once
again, it’s hard to talk about the season finale without spoilers. Maybe next week – there’s plenty of fodder to
last the Sunday Who review quite a while.
Overall impressions: flashes of
greatness, some terrific scenes for Peter Capaldi, nice appearances by
characters I like, maddening illogical leaps, some blatant emotional manipulation,
and serious messiness throughout.
Ultimately, I come out on the side of liking it, but it’s frustrating, because
this show is capable of so much better and PC can be incredible when they let
him.
I’ll
start with what little of the plot I can describe. The major threat presented by Missy and her
invading-alien buddies is major enough for UNIT involvement, so yay! On all sides, the Doctor is offered/forced to
accept power and position he doesn’t want, and the episode delves into what the
Doctor is made of in a reasonably satisfying way. There are some fine horror bits, Missy shows how
genuinely menacing she can be, and the Doctor once again proves a far better
friend to Clara than she is to him. (more
on them another day – I have a lot of Twelve-Clara opinions.)
I’m
glad that we get some decent focus on the Doctor. It’s his show and I want to see him
explored. The episode goes about it in a
bit of a clunky way, starting with his wildly-over-the-top prejudice against
soldiers and a fair amount of contrived plotting, but it makes its way to some
good points and the Doctor coming to better conclusions about himself. It’s something the show has needed for quite
a while, and it’s great to finally make some headway on that front. Other than that, the best parts of the
episode are the interactions between the Doctor and Missy. They’re just about perfect going up against
each other, and the more I think about Missy’s end-game plan, involving layers
upon layers of twisted mind games
designed to mess with the Doctor, the more fitting it seems. I hope we see more of her in the future; she’s
a fine baddie.
The
plot holes, shoddy logic, and lazy “science” are harder to take. As the culminating wrap-up to Twelve’s first
season, it feels sloppy – a lot of flash and not much thought. There are tons
of plot elements that come apart like loose threads if you think about them
even a little bit, and no sci-fi fan likes to see that. Granted, Who’s
general whimsy and big heart give it more leeway in that area, but there’s only
so far you can stretch it, and Moffat comes awfully close to hitting his limit
here. I just like seeing more care paid
to the making of one of my favorite shows.
Clara
is only okay. She has to rely on some
quick thinking to get herself out of a tight spot, but overall, she’s far more
focused on her personal drama than the global alien threat. I knows she’s dealing with some heavy stuff,
but come on! Devastation raining down from the skies and coming up through the
ground, the entire planet in grave
danger – big picture, Clara!
I’ve of
two minds about our sneak peek into the Christmas special. On the one hand, I was rolling my eyes hard.
On the other, a gigantic grin spread across my face when I saw who was
playing him. Okay, Who, you win – color me excited.
I don’t
know how I made it through the whole season without mentioning Chris Addison
(Ollie from The Thick of It) in his
recurring role in the Nethersphere bits.
Love him, but I’m almost glad he and the Doctor never interact; the cognitive
dissonance might have been a little much for me to take.
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