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So, Death In Heaven feels like a mish-mash of half-arsed bad ideas, along with ones nicked from other films and TV series. None of it particularly made sense, but it threw in a dig at the government in general by having The Doctor pass the sonic screwdriver to Clara so she can sort out Danny’s inhibitor and effectively ‘kill’ him, since that’s the only way to have him activate and, thus, reveal the plan for the remaining clouds.
Michelle Gomez has been great, but Missy is like an evil Mary Poppins, flying in on her umbrella, then trying a Marilyn Monroe impression, singing “Happy Birthday, Mr President” to the Doctor, since he’s forgotten what day it apparently is, and she’s bestowed this Cyberman army on him… which he then passes onto Danny, because he’s NOT a real Cyberman after all! And he then commands all the dead Cybermen to burn the clouds and put a stop to mankind being totalled.
Oh, and Kate Stewart is fine after all, since she was saved by one stray Cyberman… who could it be? The Doctor didn’t even need to say. It was Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, CMG, CBE, DSO, aka The Brigadier.
But then, two weeks later, Danny manages to speak to Clara from wherever he is, telling her that Missy’s bracelet lets her travel from one world to another, but there’s just enough charge left for one last trip. So that means he can come back home, surely? Oh no, please say it isn’t so… And it isn’t! Since he saves the boy he killed.
Michelle Gomez, as the devilish Missy, and Ingrid Oliver, getting her sexy geek-chic on as Osgood,
are the two best things about Death in Heaven.
Jesus H Fanny, if I ever thought that Russell T Davies had lost the plot (literally) when writing Doctor Who episodes, then I think Steven Moffat has overtaken him with this utter powerball of dreadfulness.
And what the hell was going on with making the Doctor fall out of the plane and have the TARDIS fly up and come and save him? Oh, pur-lease!
The ending is both ridiculous and excruitating, since Clara and the Doctor are separating, but both of them are lying to each other – her claiming that she and Danny can live happily ever after, and him saying Missy was right about Gallifrey’s co-ordinates taking him home, when it’s not there after all. This is echoed when she goes to hug him. He doesn’t want to, so she asks, “Why don’t you like hugging, Doctor?” and he replies, “Never trust a hug… it’s just a way to hide your face”, which is a surpisingly good line – probably the best of the episode, and one of the few good things about this episode, because as sure as hell, there isn’t much to enjoy in this one.
In fact, under Moffat’s tenure, this is his WORST. EPISODE. EVER. Rest assured I was on the internet within minutes, registering my disgust.
And then just as you think it’s all over, the Doctor is woken up from a snooze in his TARDIS by a knock at the door. Who could get all that way out there to him? Santa Claus. Yes, although we call him Father Christmas in the UK, the BBC are more interested in the American market and so he’s called Santa Claus. And jolly old Saint Nick is played by another Nick – Nick Frost. Turning up in bloody everything else, and now this, and he’s hinting that Clara and our leading man will be back together. (and you can see the Doctor Who Christmas Special 2014 trailer here)
At this point, I was going to do a trawl through series 8 and say which episodes are good and which were crap, but quite frankly, Deep Breath – Capaldi’s first full episode – was good fun, and Flatline was a great late-series entry, while Listen promised to be a new ‘Blink’ and ended up a let-down by comparison. All the other episodes… anywhere from forgettable to dire, ending with the worst of the lot.
Moffat. You’re killing Doctor Who. Please resign, with immediate effect.
Score: 1/10
Director: Rachel Talalay
Producer: Peter Bennett
Screenplay: Steven Moffat
Music: Murray Gold
Cast:
The Doctor: Peter Capaldi
Clara Oswald: Jenna Coleman
Danny Pink: Samuel Anderson
Missy: Michelle Gomez
Seb: Chris Addison
Osgood: Ingrid Oliver
Kate Lethbridge-Stewart: Jemma Redgrave
Colonel Ahmed: Sanjeev Bhaskar
Boy: Antonio Bourouphael
Teenage boy: Shane Keogh-Grenade
Teenage girl: Katie Bignell
Graham: James Pearse
Cyberman: Jeremiah Krage
Voice of the Cybermen: Nicholas Briggs
Santa Claus: Nick Frost
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.