{"id":1581,"date":"2014-11-11T15:34:14","date_gmt":"2014-11-11T15:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1581"},"modified":"2014-11-11T15:34:14","modified_gmt":"2014-11-11T15:34:14","slug":"so-what-did-i-think-of-death-in-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2014\/11\/11\/so-what-did-i-think-of-death-in-heaven\/","title":{"rendered":"So… what did I think of Death in Heaven?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"doctor-who_series_8_episode-12_death-in-heaven_looking-back-2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Agh! So close!<\/p>\n

Finales are tough, there\u2019s no question about that, but after the lean, purposeful drive of part one, I had very high expectations for part two. Sad to say,\u00a0while it delivered some excellent moments, Death in Heaven<\/em> didn\u2019t really work for me as a narrative, falling as it did into a pile of largely unrelated episodes; and it didn\u2019t really work as drama because so little of it really resonated or indeed made sense.<\/p>\n

Some of Steven Moffat\u2019s recent work on the series has stretched the boundaries of narrative sense past visual poetry and into Dada-ist absurdism. The events at the end of The Name of the Doctor<\/em> are basically incomprehensible nonsense, but everyone sounds so committed and the pictures keep whirling past the viewer\u2019s eyes so fast, it seems inescapable that it all must mean something terribly important. I fear that this is an illusion and what we are actually watching isn’t storytelling, it’s \u2013 to appropriate a phrase from linguistics \u2013 image salad.<\/p>\n

This has been largely kept at bay under Capaldi\u2019s realm, with really only In The Forest of the Shite<\/em> dipping into this kind of pretty-pictures-and-funny-lines-doesn\u2019t-have-to-mean-much-just-let-it-wash-over-you montage effect. In the finale however, while nothing is quite as bad as the gibberish of the later Matt Smith stuff, there\u2019s an awful lot which just doesn\u2019t quite hang together.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with that bizarre pre-titles sequence with Clara claiming to be the Doctor, which then segues into the titles, now sporting Jenna Coleman\u2019s eyes in place of Peter Capaldi\u2019s and putting her name first. With all the opportunities Clara has had to attempt the role of the Doctor recently, especially in the excellent Flatline<\/em>, and given her dementedly absurd back-story, it\u2019s clear that this is far more than a feeble lie intended to stall a plodding cyber-assassination. It would be gamesmanship of the most poisonous kind to redo the titles just for the sake of a completely pointless plot feint.<\/p>\n

Well, it was a completely pointless plot feint, and I couldn\u2019t help but feel a bit of a \u201cfuck you\u201d from Steven Moffat to the fans. The Next Doctor<\/em> played the same stupid games but at least Jackson Lake\u2019s mental confusion was integrated into the main plot a bit. Clara\u2019s pretence is abandoned almost instantly and now it just feels like a retread of Flatline<\/em> instead of a fascinating development of it.<\/p>\n

Next, evil villains need an evil plan. Death in Heaven <\/em>brings us two evil villains who presumably, between them, can muster at least one evil plan. But that doesn\u2019t seem to be the case here. All the cybermen seem to want to do is plod around and cos-play at Iron Man (when they aren\u2019t re-enacting the end of Carrie<\/em>) and all Missy\/The Master seems to want to do is make speeches. This is a significant drawback in what is supposed to be the great big dramatic culmination of 12 episodes of rollicking science-fiction adventure.<\/p>\n

Outside St Pauls, things start briskly enough with Kate Stewart and Osgood marching up and taking control in a very pleasing way, and the notion of the Doctor on board Moffat One, forced to be President of Earth and take decisions for the whole human race is very striking and a logical progression from UNIT\u2019s relationship with the Doctor in recent years. So \u2013 what will the Doctor do with this terrible power? Absolutely nothing. The Cybermen blow up the plane and the whole idea is completely forgotten about forever. You can essentially remove everything from Kate\u2019s entrance to the Doctor\u2019s arrival at the graveyard and you will have missed nothing essential to the plot.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s really not clear to me what is happening at these and other graveyards. Missy has amassed a collection of minds of the deceased (\u201csoftware\u201d) which she now proposes to turn into decant into waiting bodies in graves on Earth. But cyber-conditioning generally removes what makes people individual so the minds cannot be especially valuable, and they replace most of the flesh with metal, so the rotting corpses are going to be of little use. What they need is the great hunks of steel which make up most of the body, which Missy doesn\u2019t supply and which just mysteriously finds itself six feet under after a brief downpour. So, anyway, Missy has created her metal army of obedient killers, who generally aren\u2019t disposed to killing anyone today. But one is not so obedient. Danny Pink has come back in cyber-form but he still has his human memories and emotions, and apparently he\u2019s the only one.<\/p>\n

Why is this? Something to do with a button that should have been pressed, or not pressed, or sonic-ed or \u2013 I don\u2019t know, look this is pretty unforgivably sloppy. To the extent that anything here makes sense, everything that happens once our four main protagonists are together in that graveyard depends on cyber-Danny\u2019s disobedience, yet there is not one line to account for why he, out of countless billions of resurrected chrome corpses is the only one still in control of his faculties. Nobody else in love died in the last 48 hours across the entire world? C\u2019mon, this is lazy, lazy stuff.<\/p>\n

The Doctor is desperate to know what the cyber-army\u2019s instructions are, and his moral dilemma with Danny\u2019s emo-button is interesting, but when the light in Danny\u2019s eyes goes out, he mysteriously fails to fall in line with the others and maintains his independence. Still, at least the Doctor now has the vital information he needs, so the horrendous sacrifice of Danny\u2019s emotional life was worthwhile. No, it wasn\u2019t. Danny doesn\u2019t know anything and in any case, Missy is about to explain the entire plan anyway. All the Doctor had to do was wait two minutes.<\/p>\n

And what is her ghastly, season-finale, earth-shattering plan? To give the Doctor an army. To make him the most powerful man in the\u2026 wait, what? First of all this is pretty thin stuff, dramatically. I do prefer my evil villains to have a rather more grandiose plan than simply Making A Point. And if their plan is just to Make A Point, it should at least leave a medium-sized trail of destruction in its wake (see The Dark Knight<\/em>). But not only is Missy\u2019s plan feeble, it\u2019s redundant, because the Doctor was in the exact same position twenty minutes ago on-board that sodding plane.<\/p>\n

Danny\u2019s final speech contrasting the orders of a general with the promise of a soldier is, I suppose, the culmination of all this relentlessly repetitive soldier-talk we\u2019ve had to put up with, but \u2013 and maybe this is just me \u2013 it didn\u2019t feel like it resonated. The ending of The Big Bang<\/em> is at least as nonsensical as the ending of The Name of the Doctor <\/em>but the notion of the TARDIS being something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue is so beautiful that I just don\u2019t care. Danny\u2019s speech by contrast is less than the sum of its parts, an exercise in joining-the-dots, nothing more.<\/p>\n

Better that I suppose than the ghastly necrophiliac resurrecting of the poor old Brigadier for a final Doctor Who hurrah. When you\u2019ve got Jemma Redgrave on the payroll, you don\u2019t really need to be constantly sticking her in Nicholas Courtney\u2019s shadow \u2013 let her be her own character for christ\u2019s sake and let us remember the Brig by watching Inferno<\/em> or The Invasion<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Danny Pink, now inexplicably back in the Nethersphere, has the opportunity to resurrect himself with the aid of a magic bracelet, whose properties again make next-to no sense but I can\u2019t bring myself to plod through the problems it presents. He selflessly offers the Iraqi sprog whom he shot in the face another chance at life instead, which is a scene which did have some power and resonance, finally. But this Noble Act Of Self Sacrifice strongly suggests that Clara is already pregnant with Orson Pink\u2019s ancestor \u2013 either that or something is seriously screwed-up with the timelines. And then, finally we get the chance to resolve the ongoing Doctor\/Clara relationship drama.<\/p>\n

In an episode full of bizarre, incomprehensible plot muddle, this scene might just be the strangest. Both of these two people who have suffered so much, who have gone through so much together, are just purposelessly lying to each other for the sake of a cutely ironic bittersweet ending. Light years away from the power and raw honesty of their confrontation at the beginning of Dark Water,<\/em> this is hard-to-follow, obscure and rooted in a psychology which I cannot begin to relate to or understand.<\/p>\n

And then, Santa Claus shows up.<\/p>\n

Well, what did<\/em> I like? Actually, there is some good stuff here, among the debris. Once again, everything looks fantastic, with the colour grading in the graveyard scenes working particularly well to remind us of those oppressive clouds. Even though nothing that happens affects the rest of the story in any way at all, a lot of the stuff on board the plane works well, with Missy\u2019s murder of Osgood probably a highlight, if you can stomach just how dopey she was to go over there. Not that it made a difference, as Missy was already free of her bonds at this point.<\/p>\n

In fact, Michelle Gomez as Missy is pretty much the saving grace of this episode \u2013 funny, scary, mercurial and \u201cbananas\u201d, she\u2019s a wonderful addition to the roster of actors to play the Doctor\u2019s nemesis. I\u2019m very keen for a rematch, hopefully this time when she\u2019s thought of an evil plan.<\/p>\n

And amid the whirl and flurry and nonsense of it all, Capaldi stands fiercely tall, a remarkable casting coup which has created an indelible version of this most flexible and yet most constant fictional character. For the season as a whole, I\u2019m hugely pleased. For the final episode, I\u2019m baffled and bitterly disappointed at the missed opportunity. The combination of Capaldi, Gomez and Coleman, plus a handful of stand-out moments means that this episode scrapes in with three stars.<\/p>\n

So, here\u2019s my run-down of Series 8.<\/p>\n

Deep Breath<\/strong>, 3.5 stars, a bit bumpy but enjoyable enough<\/p>\n

Into the Dalek<\/strong>, 4 stars, pushes all the right buttons<\/p>\n

Robot of Sherwood<\/strong>, 2.5 stars, smug and silly<\/p>\n

Listen<\/strong>, 4 stars, very well done, but a bit empty<\/p>\n

Time Heist<\/strong>, 4 stars, less ambitious, but probably more successful than Listen<\/em>, so it\u2019s a wash<\/p>\n

The Caretaker<\/strong>, 3 stars, shoddy production values and clumsy humour weigh it down<\/p>\n

Kill the Moon<\/strong>, 5 stars, epic but divisive<\/p>\n

Mummy on the Orient Express<\/strong>, Flatline<\/strong>, 4.5 stars, both basically perfect, but neither has a scene which can match the end of Kill the Moon<\/em><\/p>\n

In the Forest of the Night<\/strong>, 1 star, even the title is wrong<\/p>\n

Dark Water<\/strong>, 4.5 stars, fantastic take-off\u2026<\/p>\n

Death in Heaven<\/strong>, 3 stars, wobbly landing.<\/p>\n

If anyone wants to know how in-line this is with fandom at large, readers of Gallifrey base who voted put these 12 episodes in a very narrow band of average marks out of ten from 6.89 (Robot of Sherwood<\/em>) to 8.48 (Flatline<\/em>) with In the Forest of the Night <\/em>a significant outlier on 5.68.<\/p>\n

The final ranking of stories according to this group is as follows (from best to worst)\u2026<\/p>\n

Flatline
\nListen
\nDark Water
\nMummy on the Orient Express
\nInto the Dalek
\nDeep Breath
\nDeath in Heaven
\nTime Heist
\nKill the Moon
\nThe Caretaker
\nRobot of Sherwood
\nIn the Forest of the Night<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s almost nothing between the top four. So, my own views are broadly in-line with fan consensus, but I\u2019ve availed myself of a wider range of marks and I\u2019m considerably more enthusiastic about Kill the Moon <\/em>and a bit less excited about Listen.<\/em><\/p>\n

That\u2019s it for Doctor Who until Christmas, see you then. Next week \u2013 Star Trek<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Agh! So close! Finales are tough, there\u2019s no question about that, but after the lean, purposeful drive of part one, I had very high expectations for part two. Sad to say,\u00a0while it delivered some excellent moments, Death in Heaven didn\u2019t really work for me as a narrative, falling as it did into a pile of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[18,19],"class_list":["post-1581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-doctor-who","tag-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-pv","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1581"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1586,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1581\/revisions\/1586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}