Personally I thought this was nowhere on the level of Series 9's Finale... but it was better than Series 8.
Seeing the Master and Missy's interactions were all fun throughout (at once point I was waiting in hope for the Doctor to go tell the Master to go **** himself) Which would have been entirely possible - and something that was also on their minds at times haha!. But their betrayal - although obvious - was the right way to go with these characters. Moffat at least didn't attempt to change The Master in John Simm - he was visious right until the end to the point where he just doesn't want to become Missy - especially that he wouldn't even let her join The Doctors side as his friend - after all his incarnation was never interested in teaming up with The Doctor (hell, he didn't regenerate in The Last of The Timelords just to spite Doc 10), so at least this held up.
What is interesting (and perhaps heartbreaking) was Missy and how much of Capaldi's Doctor has rubbed off on her. I personally think this spark began in a timey-wimey way with this episode with his speech to them both. I think this obviously lingered enough with The Master on a subconscious level for him/her to begin the events of Series 8 after regeneration in attempting to Win The Doctors friendship in her own way (and with Cybermen to boot in Series 8 - so there's a lovely sense of a loop fulfilment here), but that's before Capaldi took matters into his own hands this Season with her.
What was a shame is that the Cybermen once again became cannon fodder to the story. Wasn't this supposed to be about the Mondasian's genesis? The incorporation and Journey Bill went through in that she is/was a Cyberman was very well handled - but other than this story beat suddenly every other series Cyberman turned up... why? Was a reason given? What did I miss? Or was this their evolution on the floors below? I don't understand. And how come The Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver can now blow them up... when did this get a Cyberman setting? (Although admittedly I did enjoy this sequence with him name checking their appearances.)
But hey.
At least we got to wave off Nardole... so he's just... living on the spaceship now... or Mondas? I don't know. I do wish we got MORE or him this series in general - like a backstory beyond a few sentences. He was just kinda there most of the time - and whilst not a bad thing I just wanted... well, more. Actually. What did happen to this spaceship in the end... was it saved? What happened?
Also Bill's ending. This
did work at least, but it also was the same as Clara's departure - differences just being without a TARDIS and that she can have her body back and live if she wants... just because why not.
I will say though, the ending was superb. I wish I hadn't known beforehand... however the seeds of Doctor 1 turning up at christmas were spoilered months ago by David Bradley on accident - not that this didn't make it any more satisfying.
LostNoob wrote: ↑Sun Jul 02, 2017 11:55 am
The other thing I didn't like is the Doctor's moaning about having to regenerate, the 10th Doctor's "I don't want to go" really rubbed me the wrong way, and it just seems out of character for the 12th Doctor to resist regenerating, it did lead to one of my favourite Doctor Who scenes of all time though, I can't wait for the Christmas episode, let's just hope the 12th Doctor doesn't spend the entire thing moaning about having to regenerate.
It's a shame he never got better scripts either, I felt that his run as the Doctor was the weakest era of the revived series with only a handful of standout episodes, hopefully he will do some of the Big Finish stuff.
See I interpreted this differently. Whilst admittedly I like the way the 10th Doctor's bowed out by not wanting to change (simply because 10 is vein, he likes BEING this Doctor - which is in character for him) - 12 was more or less fed up, he wanted to die there and then and was at peace with this. It wasn't about that he wants to stay in his current persona, but it was more that he isn't interested in having to keep repeating cycles of rediscovering himself. Lets not forget we had Series 8 which invested in him trying to decide if he was a good man or not, he sacrificed lives to prolong his own and others at times and was very much a Darker Doctor until the end of Series 8 when he came to his own conclusions that he simply has to do what he can to the best of his ability.
He would rather just continue as one man now than traverse the universe as many - which again I feel is in his character to say - he's not at peace with this as much as he was when he was 11, but then when 11 regenerated it was with the grace of belief that he was at his end before being granted new life - then delivered arguably one of his greatest speeches ever:
We all change, when you think about it. We are all different people all through our lives and that's okay, that's good you've got to keep moving so long as you remember all the people that you used to be. I will not forget one line of this, not one day, I swear. I will always remember when The Doctor was me...
This is not who 12 is. However, he needs to remember that change is ok - and it is important. Which I think is going to be the ultimate purpose of The upcoming Christmas Special. It's obviously going to be who's version of "It's a Wonderful Life" to some degree.
Lets just hope Capaldi's Doctor can take Bradley's Doctor to meet his granddaughter all grown up at christmas time - we had a seed planted in Episode 1 with her picture on his desk, and Capaldi has forever voiced about trying to get her in the show in a guest role - make it happen Moffat.
GuitarHero wrote: ↑Sat Jul 01, 2017 9:44 pm
I think Peter Capaldi has been my favourite Doctor - just a shame that he didn't have this consistently good stories until this series!
Really? I'd say arguably this has been the Shows weakest and less interesting run of The Capaldi era. Don't get me wrong, It has a strong start with the individual episodes, but it then muddied itself with The 3-part Monk Trilogy which just nowhere near good as hyped past the initial first part - not to mention the reveal of Missy in the vault - which whilst made sense plot-wise wasn't really that enticing a reveal to keep a secret for 6 episodes. Series 10 never picked itself back up again until the finale in my eyes.
Series 8 and 9 has much stronger and most interesting stories. Series 8 was great because we were exploring a Darker Turn for the Doctor, and Series 9 made the wise choice to make almost every episode a 2-parter - something I think was always backwards step here. Moffat has been open about wanting to leave the show back in Series 9 - and I think this comes across quite vividly in this years run. Like Capaldi's Doctor he's had enough now. XD
It will be interesting to now where Chibnall takes this - I know most of his who episodes have been middling-good and he has Torchwood Series 1 & 2 under his belt, but then we also have Broadchurch... I hope he is able to incorporate more Drama into this show like the Golden Era again - will he make episodes more serialised? Will he bring The Master back once more... and if so as a goodie or a baddie? So much to anticipate.