Review: Death in Heaven

The final episode of Series 8 of Doctor Who aired last Saturday, just before Remembrance Sunday. Whilst the two are not comparable, there was a distinctly valedictory mood to the episode, with farewells, saluting soldiers and sacrifices leaving this the most bittersweet of Moffat's finales.
We were promised dark, and this was pitch black in places. Rather than analysing the episode in its entirety, I'm going to pick out those threads which will have people talking until Christmas.

1) Dan, Dan the Cyberman

(Yes, okay, a poor pun. But this post isn't going to be heavy on fun and giggles, so I've got to squeeze them in where I can.) As soon as we saw the Delete option on the iPad handed to Danny in the Nethersphere last week, we had a suspicion Cyber-conversion was on the cards for Pink. I admit I was worried. Not that he would get turned into a Cyberman, but that they would change him, then cop out.

It's even a meme. A MEME. 

 Death has become a rather blasé concept in Doctor Who; remember the shock when we first saw Captain Jack exterminated in The Parting of the Ways? Messing with Daleks had consequences. Then he was brought back to life, but there was a cost. Immortality was not a get out of jail free card, but a burden. The Doctor died saving Rose, and he regenerated. Fantastic, that's what Timelords do! Rose 'dies' in this universe, but that's because she's relocated to a parallel one. Okay good, I didn't want her to die. The Master dies...but he'll be coming back because that's just his thang. River Song dies, and we're only just getting to know her...what a story there is to be told here. The Master comes back and probably dies again. Amy's parents are probably dead. Oh but they're not now. Rory's dead! Now he never existed! Now he's plastic! Now Amy's dead! Oh no she's not, they put her in a magic box (why aren't the Alliance patenting the Pandorica and selling it around the galaxy as the ultimate immortality device?). Now the Doctor's dead. And he's not. Rory, Rory, Oswin,  Rory, Amy, Rory, Clara...when even your own characters joke about dying again, you know death has stopped being a threat.
When death becomes familiar and it loses its permanence then it becomes rather weak as a device. Moffat has finally realised this, and, being the Evil All Powerful Show Runner Overlord that Tumblr thinks he is, he asks the question HOW FAR CAN WE GO? The answer seems to be, pretty darn far, for a beloved, primetime family show.

Bleak is not the word.

The idea of everyone in their graves being turned in Cybermen (presumably every character we've known and loved...what happened to Jack if he was killed during this period??) is extremely disturbing, but Doctor Who doesn't just show Cybermen rising from graves. Oh no. It goes the whole hog and shows us the horrific, corpse-like face of Danny pulled tight into the Cyber suit. Every time there was a close up I cringed and all but hid my face. Was this too far? Narratively, not at all. However, it's interesting to consider how much this was 'okay' because we didn't know Danny that well. Can you imagine if we'd seen Rory like this? Or Mickey? Or Clara even? It would have been beyond shocking. It would have been bordering on traumatising. Perhaps Danny has been deliberately kept at a distance throughout this series, in order for this to hit just the right note.

Danny's meaningless death in front of a car is, from the point of view of Clara's narrative arc, far more satisfying. Hear me out. Clara has been learning the reality of travelling the Doctor throughout this series. In amidst the moons and monsters are the dark parts of being the Doctor; the lies, the impossible choices, discovering the things you never wanted to know about yourself. Clara's reaction to Danny's cruelly mundane death was perfect, sadly realistic. It encapsulated the sense of emptiness one feels about the death of a loved one, with a companion's sense of disappointment that this death was pointless, and somehow less real because there was no great act involved. This fits perfectly with Clara's story as we see her becoming someone who would struggle to honestly answer the question, 'am I a good person?'. This would be the ultimate marker of her trajectory from someone who judges the Doctor to perhaps someone who sees that 'good' is a lot more subjective from the other side.

 But not for Doctor Who. Although this a show that has always dealt with the dark, it always brings  torch along to brighten the way forward. Here it is important Danny Pink is given the opportunity for noble sacrifice twice after his original 'death'. We finally see the soldier and the school teacher as one man as he uses his suffering to do the 'right' thing, and uses his ticket out of death for redemption instead. For the first time we see the similarities between the Doctor and Danny, and perhaps why Clara loves them both.

 2) This Girl is On Fire

The Master is a fun but difficult character to work with. S/he is both mad and evil, needing to be both funny and scary. The Master is supposedly as intelligent as the Doctor, and yet must be foiled each time. This is a difficult balancing act to perform, and therefore there is a tendency to shy away from including the Master in episodes. John Simm did a excellent job as the Master, even when given some slightly preposterous things to work with (remember CGI Gollum-Doctor in cage?), making us believe this is a man who could hug you or stab you in back, and would probably do both at the same time, whilst singing something by the Scissor Sisters.

With this being the only Master experienced by most of the current audience, and the moustache-twirling of the classic series unlikely to cut the mustard today, there was a lot of pressure on Steven Moffat and Michelle Gomez to make Missy distinctly the same character yet fresh and compelling. Say something nice? Oh go on then. I think they did a rather excellent job. I wouldn't have minded seeing some more of Missy during Death in Heaven, but considering everything they packed into the episode, this would have been a tall order. Everything we saw was exceptionally good stuff however.

Missy was by turns disarmingly charming and then psychopathically callous, she knew how to use a situation to her advantage, could exploit the Doctor's weaknesses and could see just how to rub salt in his wounds. I liked that her 'master plan' was all just a way of making the Doctor feel bad about himself. It's just the sort of monumentally petty thing that a best friend turned nemesis would do. Especially if they were insane. There's always a sense that underlying the Master's stupidly complex plans, s/he is almost just doing it to get the Doctor's attention, like the silly things people to do to make a crush notice them. On that note, I'm glad they steered away from the whole 'the Master is a woman and therefore must fancy the Doctor' danger. The kiss last episode was completely excusable as there has always been a frisson of obsessive competitiveness and desire for ownership in the Master's relationship with the Doctor. This episode played this card well; instead of flirting, there was only the pathetically sincere sounding request for him to see how similar they really are.

No homo-erotic subtext between the Master and the Doctor? HAHAHAHA.

This is a good time to also bring out a defence of Steven Moffat writing (not a complete defence, he has PLENTY of faults, but doesn't everyone). One of the most frequent criticisms of Moffat's tenure is that he has a cardboard cut out 'feisty, flirty' template that he brings out for each female character. This episode is a good example of the opposite; Missy is an excellent character in her own right, rather than hinging on her gender, Clara is a flawed person trying and struggling to do the 'right' thing, and ultimately choosing to lie, Kate Stewart is brisk, brusque and efficient, yet it's evident she has a heart behind her practicality. Osgood, a blatant representation of the fandom, is smart, unashamedly geeky and sweetly naive (She's grown on me. Now she's dead.). These female characters are certainly not interchangeable, and I'm glad that Moffat has decided to show us that he realises that strong women aren't automatically perfect. Osgood's gone (she was the sacrifice for raising the stakes), Kate will no doubt be back, and so will Missy. Of course it was a teleport. If she's not, we riot.


3) Rule 1: The Doctor Lies

'Never trust a hug, it's just a way to hide your face.'

As I have said previously, I love the relationship between Clara and the Doctor. It is challenging, complex and moving. Companions and the Doctor don't need to be in love to love each other very much and do foolish things motivated by their tenderness. Clara lying to the Doctor, and him lying to  her, both believing it is for the greater good, is both very human and very Doctorish. The two have absorbed some of the traits of the other during their travels, and I think this works excellently. Clara is growing into a really compelling character and I don't want her to leave yet. She is confirmed to be in the Christmas special, yet as it's supposed to be about 'dreams and reality' I'm hoping that it's the actual Clara that is in it. I'd better put that on my christmas list. It was an effective, but bravely bittersweet ending to this series that we see both Clara and the Doctor putting on a brave face to protect the other, whilst we simultaneously the sad realities of their circumstances. These two really are lying to themselves if they think they can live without each other.


P.S. Santa Claus! Nick Frost as Santa Claus! Hoorah!
I'm hoping they really explore this further next series. Onward!


P.P.S. little game; you get kudos points if you can name the 4 wives of the Doctor that Clara mentioned.