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| Stuart Manning's poster for "Death in Heaven" (from Exclusive Doctor Who Death in Heaven poster revealed) |
If "Dark Water" was the tense, brooding first half, then "Death in Heaven" is the action-packed second, with lots of thrilling moments -- Cybermen rising from graves! Flying around the planet! Tearing apart an airplane! -- packed into an hour-long episode. But for all that, it's still the smaller character scenes that ultimately provide the best moments here. And to the credit of writer Steven Moffat and director Rachel Talalay, it's clear that that's the point; the Cyberman army, for all its new tricks, takes a backseat to the machinations of the new Master.
Michelle Gomez continues to have an absolute riot of a time as the new Master, providing us with a character who is absolutely insane and knows it and doesn't care. She delights in telling people that they're going to die (her interactions with Osgood being a prime example of her insanity) and she seems completely self-assured, as she knows that her Cyber-pollen plan has already taken effect and there's nothing anyone can do about it. ("Throw away your weapons, Man Scout, it's all over," the Doctor tells Colonel Ahmed. "How can you win a war against an enemy that can weaponise the dead?") There's something incredibly appealing about Gomez's homicidal quirkiness, but it's made very clear that she's a killer, and what's more, that she's killing people for fun. This combination means she's a very dangerous opponent.
And yet the twist is that she's gone to all this trouble of harvesting dying minds and creating a new race of Cybermen from the bodies of the dead (although one wonders how they get enough material to cover themselves in metal/plastic -- surely the Cyber-pollen can't be that good?) in order to give it to the Doctor as a gift. ("Happy birthday," she tells him. "Oh! You didn't know, did you? It's lucky one of us remembers these things.") She wants to show the Doctor that they're really not that different, the Doctor and the Master, that they're still at heart the same people who were childhood friends, and so by giving him an army she'll make him like her. It's a marvelously insidious scheme that demonstrates that despite the outward changes, this is still the Master. (Thus cementing Neil Gaiman's throwaway line in "The Doctor's Wife" suggesting that Time Lords can change sex -- although, predictably, there was an element of fandom who objected strongly to the change, though for no obviously compelling reason.)
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| Clara hugs the Cybernised Danny. ("Death in Heaven") ©BBC |
It's not exactly a triumphant ending, and the closing moments of the Doctor and Clara lying to each other (the Doctor about finding Gallifrey, Clara about having Danny back -- Danny chose to send back the child he'd killed as a soldier instead of himself) are quite downbeat. But what "Death in Heaven" makes clear is that the Doctor is not the Master. It tells us that love is an incredibly powerful force, and that it's the relationships we create that define us, for good or ill. Despite the superficial trappings, "Dark Water" / "Death in Heaven" is a thoughtful examination of these themes, and if the finished product lacks some of the impact of previous series finales, the difference is made up in those character moments.
Still, no wonder Santa shows up (in the middle of the end credits! Another cheeky move!) to tell the Doctor he and Clara can't leave things like that.
Series 8 has marked less a change of direction so much as a change of emphasis; in principle there's nothing really radically different about this year's run of stories from the previous year's, but what's changed is the focus on the characters. Series 7 was about big ideas, about the mystery of the Impossible Girl and the upcoming 50th anniversary story, while series 8 wants to examine our heroes. Who is this new Doctor? Who is Clara Oswald, now that she's not the girl who was "born to save the Doctor"? What is it like for these people to travel and see the things they've seen, and make the decisions they make? These are opportunities that both Jenna Coleman and Peter Capaldi seize eagerly. Coleman in particular flourishes, as Clara gains some nuances and becomes a more three-dimensional character, and you can tell that Coleman appreciates the chance to flesh out Clara's character. Peter Capaldi does just as well (even if the material he's given occasionally doesn't work -- and here I'm thinking of the odd insults he has to deliver to Clara in the early parts of this series), as he strives to give us a Doctor that's markedly different from the last two Doctors and succeeds in doing so without alienating viewers. This is an actor who loves the show, and that affection bleeds through every move, every line of dialogue, so that even when he's being brusque and unlikeable it's still clear that this Doctor is the same man as ever.
It's something of new ground for the show, to make the focus land so squarely on the Doctor and his companion, but it works; not only do we get more of an insight into these characters, but it also results in perhaps the most generally accessible run of episodes since series 4. You don't need to have been watching all the previous episodes to understand what's happening. And while series 8 has been a bit more uneven in quality than series 7 was, it rarely descends to levels of unwatchability, and there's always something entertaining or compelling going on. It does sometimes feel like you have to work a bit harder at this series, but there are plenty of rewards for those willing to do so. Even after 51 years, Doctor Who can find new things to say and do, and that's perhaps no clearer than in the whole of series 8.