Death in Heaven

[daibhidc]

Wow.

Okay, lets get the stuff I didn't like out of the way:

1) Yes, I was hoping "There never was a Clara" was a fakeout, but I was also hoping it meant something. Instead, it's a blatant lie in the first five minutes. On the one hand, yay, it's out of the way, we can stop worrying about it. On the other, it's hard to avoid the feeling its only purpose was to create deceptive Next Time teasers.

2) They killed Osgood.

Stuff I did like:

Apart from the fakeout trailer, I did like the idea of Clara pretending to be the Doctor, and the matching special-edition title sequence.

I liked that Moffatt found time to slip in quick explanations as to how 3W actually worked following the surprise reveal last week that it wasn't how it appeared to. Sometimes he forgets stuff like that.

Osgood was brilliant (and then they killed her!) as was Kate. And in general, I liked that this was a UNIT versus the Master story, just like in the olden days. Only not, because you can't write a six-part story about slowly constructing a time-displacement device any more. (Having said that, I'm a little sad that the halfway reveal wasn't "I've lost control of them, Doctor, now we must work together to stop them!" Although this version of the Master, like the Simms incarnation, is a bit too mad for that.)

I liked the Cybermen-as-zombie-apocalypse. It's a thing that hasn't been done with them before, but which fits in with their aesthetic. It was also a good illustration of Moffatt's principle that the best two-part story is one where the cliffhanger is resolved by launching another story entirely, but it still follows on from the "Cyberconversion as afterlife" concept from last week.

I liked Missy's accents, and in particular the tour of Scotland she does to mock the Doctor. In fact, I quite like Missy as an incarnation of the Master in general. Although now she's vaporised, so that's that. (Yeah, right.)

(I was hoping Missy would be vaporised by her own weapon, so that whatever they use to bring her/another incarnation of the Master back could also bring back Osgood, but instead it was Cyber-Brig, so that won't be it.)

I didn't like that Danny (finally) died, but I did appreciate the resolution of the whole "The Doctor doesn't like soldiers/Danny thinks of him as an officer" bit, and how it tied in to Missy's plan to get the Doctor to admit he's like her. And we finally get this Doctor's version of Madman with a Box, which is Idiot with a Box.

And the final resolution of Danny's death with him using the last charge in the bracelet to bring the kid back was a neat resolution to his character arc. And unlike Osgood, he got to do a Heroic Sacrifice. (Although ... what about Grandson From The Future?)

A totally ridiculous Christmas cliffhanger! Moffatt hasn't been doing these, but he made up for it by making it the most ridiculous one yet!

Stuff I wasn't sure about:

The Cyber-brig. I can see what they were trying to do, but maybe a bit tacky? And also, how? (If love overriding Cybercontrol wasn't just a specific effect of what happened to Danny, then how come any of them were obeying Missy?) At the time I was thinking "Oh my god, of course!", but the fridge logic cut in before the credits finished rolling.

Anyway, roll on Christmas! And next week ... Atlantis, I guess.

Comments

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, the deletion of emotions was key to obeying cyber-control. And most of the people (nearly all) had bought into Seb's pitch about how deleting those emotions was for the best. But it was a reflection of Danny's character that he couldn't bring himself to do that. So, by extension, it's a reflection of the Brig's character that he couldn't either.

That "Love is not an emotion, love is a promise" is key -- that both Danny and the Brig had strong enough characters that they remembered their promises, when most people were all too happy to forget, because it's too painful to remember.

[igenlode.livejournal.com]

When Missy was vapourising people with her weapon, I thought it had a red effect -- I assumed that she'd tricked them into using her own weapon on her in order to use its (blue) teleport effect instead, as seen when she vanishes from the doomed aeroplane. Like deliberately bringing an unloaded pistol to defend yourself in the hopes of tricking your opponent into grabbing it when he wants to turn the tables and threaten you (Scarlet Pimpernel moment).

Or was I over-assuming?

[daibhid-c.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. And presumably there were other people who did the same thing but weren't in a position to directly affect the story.

So Missy's idea that this was a more efficient and better form of Cyber-conversion turns out to be rubbish, but then, she's the Master; her plans tend to be.

[daibhid-c.livejournal.com]

The vapouriser effect was definitely red, which is part of why I took the blue effect as evidence of Cyber-Brig using his Cybergun. Your interpretation works just as well, though.

(Apparently it's not going to be explained though; the Moff has said he's a huge fan of the eighties, where Davison says to Ainley "So you survived!" and then they just get on with it.)