Tom Salinsky

Now the structure of the season starts to reveal itself. The over-familiar gibberish of Sleep No More is not going to be redeemed by a second episode which ties everything up. Actually, what we’re heading in to is a three-part finale. Just as well, the nonsense of last week is probably best forgotten.

But even if last week isn’t being referenced, events from earlier this season and indeed, last season, certainly are. Capaldi and Coleman practically waltz into the TARDIS, chattering happily about unseen adventures. This is a little on-the-nose – an even more extreme version of Ten and Rose’s smug self-satisfaction around the time of Fear Her, all designed to set up the tragedy of Doomsday. So it’s pretty clear what we’re heading towards.

Early on, though this is pretty much business-as-usual. In what is becoming quite a familiar Moffat-trope, the TARDIS lands in response to a telephone call from an old friend. This time it’s Joivan Wade’s chirpy Rigsy from last year’s excellent Flatline who is now in possession of an unseen wife and daughter and a suitably creepy countdown tattoo.

The search for the source of this is a little bit plodding, a little bit procedural, for modern Doctor Who. And I must slightly take issue with some of nomenclature. Including made-up details in factual compendiums to guard against copyright theft is certainly a real thing. A trivia book compiler invented the fact that Lt Columbo’s first name was Philip for a book he published in the 1970s which enabled him to show that his book had been ripped off by the makers of Trival Pursuit years later (although in fact he lost the case).

So, I’m perfectly happy that a street which is shown on a map but which you can’t walk down is known as a Trap Street, but it seems a little odd to use that same terminology to describe a street which is not shown on a map but which you can walk down. And anyway, as pretty much every fan in the world has noticed, the correct name for this street is Diagon Alley.

Here we find Maisie Williams returning as – are we really supposed to call her “Mayor Me”? And the true nature of the street is gradually revealed. It’s a refugee camp for stranded aliens and Maisie rules it with a rod of iron because she can’t risk any funny business. Most of this works, but it feels like Jenga storytelling to me – pull out too many of the pieces and have a look at them it all starts to fall apart a bit.

The aliens use the same misdirection trick as the street to appear human. But why? The point of the street is that they are all aliens, but the street is inaccessible to humans. They know they aren’t human and no human will ever see them. Also, why doesn’t the trick work on Anah’s second face which seems to be visible throughout? And what’s the point of sentencing someone to death, sending them home so they can set their affairs in order, but wiping their memory so that they no longer know they’re going to die? Maisie must have been very sure Rigsy was going to call the Doctor and that’s a bit of stretch. And how are we to square her protestations that nobody was supposed to die with her cold-hearted execution of the convicted criminal earlier in the episode?

The rules of the Chronolock seem to be that if person A is Chronolocked then Maisie has the power to cancel it. Person B can agree to have the Chronolock transferred to them at any time, but presumably can’t give it back to Person A again, and once transferred, Maisie loses the power to cancel it. Okay, I guess, but this all seems terrifically arbitrary and doesn’t really make any sense except to set up the ending.

But in the last fifteen minutes, none of this really seems to matter. Terrific performances from Capaldi, Coleman, Williams and Wade sell the emotional content of the situation and Clara’s death when it comes is really affecting, aided by some of the very best CGI that the series has ever used – that horrible black smoke curling out of the lips of the executed is totally convincing. Almost as chilling is the Doctor’s cold, muted reaction. He grimly straps on the teleport and disappears to…

So let’s finally have a quick chat about cliff-hangers. The point of a cliff-hanger is to leave the audience wondering “what will happen next?” This can be done by subjecting the hero to a mortal threat or by using the next surprise which the narrative has to offer. If you pick the latter, then you have two choices. You can pose only the question – have the villain take off his mask but then cut to the hero murmuring “You…?” before we smash into the credits. Or you can reveal the shocking answer and let the audience mull the ramifications for the next seven days. Obviously, the first of these is rather easier, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily less effective. It was a surprise to me that the credits appeared when they did. The confession dial returns at least, so maybe now we’ll have some kind of an explanation as to just what it was and why the Doctor sent it to Missy.

Okay, so a rather plodding first third, a rather muddled middle third, but a full-bloodied, totally committed final act. I’d certainly rather have it that way around. As an exit for one of the series’ longest-running companions it works very well indeed. (From first appearance to last appearance it’s been over three years if you count Asylum of the Daleks and she’s done 35 episodes, most of which were complete stories. Amy Pond counts 33 episodes over two and a half years and among classic companions, only K9, Sarah Jane Smith and Jamie McCrimmon come anywhere close.)

That’s four stars – on the absolute proviso that Clara Oswald stays dead. If they resurrect her in any meaningful way I’m taking off a whole star, maybe more. This is the first time a companion has actually, properly died since Adric and that needs to be given a little bit of respect. If Moffat tries to Rory her, I won’t be happy.

(Sorry this is so late – Heaven Sent is coming now.)