Okay, this episode was really magnificent in terms of character, and clever dialogue, and my God, Michelle Gomez killed it as the Master. But... I'm actually getting a little hung up on some plot details that felt really silly to me. Like... it just reeked of the typical Moffat plot, wherein the audience doesn't deserve an explanation as to how any of this is actually happening. It's just... mysterious and wibbly wobbly, I guess. It feels lazy and a bit insulting to me. Maybe I should start with a summary, and then I'll nitpick.
So. Missy's plan is revealed to be something like this: the Cybermen spread themselves out across London and release a sort of pollen thing that activates all the corpses in London, updating them as Cybermen and awakening them to a hive mind, controlled by Missy. UNIT shows up and takes the Doctor and Missy into custody. Danny is turned into a Cyberman, but he still retains his emotions. He rescues Clara from 3W and delivers her to a graveyard.
On board a UNIT airplane, the Doctor has been given the title "President of the World," and thus has control of all of Earth's armies. Missy manages to escape from her confinement, unfortunately killing Osgood in the process. With the help of her Cybermen, Missy takes over the plane and blows it up. The Doctor survives by falling out of the plane just as the TARDIS is also careening to Earth. The Doctor manages to get inside the TARDIS mid-air.
He meets up with Clara in a graveyard, where he finds her with Danny the Cyberman. Turns out, Danny wants Clara to turn off his emotions because it hurts too much. Clara is in the process of doing this when the Doctor shows up and tries to stop her - if she succeeds, then Danny will kill her! However, it turns out that Danny is part of the Cyberman hive mind, and if the Doctor wants information on Missy's plan, then Danny is going to have to turn off his emotions to access that. Clara takes the sonic screwdriver from the Doctor and she uses it to turn off Danny's emotions. She runs to embrace him, and... surprisingly, Danny-the-Cyberman doesn't harm her. Danny reveals that there's a rainfall coming that will "upgrade" all living people into Cybermen.
Missy shows up and tells the Doctor part of her evil plan - she did all of this for him! To give him an army! She says that he should have an army because "armies are for people who think they're right, and nobody thinks they're righter than [the Doctor]." Missy gives the Doctor her bracelet, the one that controls the Cybermen. She tempts the Doctor with the idea that he could control the armies of the world and make sure that the good guys win. However, the Doctor doesn't give in to temptation. He gives the bracelet to Danny-the-Cyberman. Danny then orders all of the Cybermen to fly into the cloud and self-destruct, which will somehow stop the rain from coming down, and save the day.
Clara plans on killing Missy, but the Doctor says he'll do it instead, in an effort to save Clara's soul. Just as he is about to kill Missy, one last Cyberman shows up and kills Missy instead. Turns out, this was Kate's father, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. The Doctor salutes him, as Kate always said he hoped the Doctor would.
A few weeks later, Clara hears Danny's voice coming from the nethersphere. Turns out, Missy's bracelet can give one person the chance to return to the world of the living. Instead of coming through himself, Danny sends the little boy that he accidentally killed when he was a soldier. Danny is gone forever. The Doctor and Clara meet up. The Doctor thinks that Clara is about to tell him that she's with Danny and she can't travel with him anymore, and so in order to make her feel better, he lies and says that he found Gallifrey, and that he's going to stay there and help to make it a better place. Clara then lies and says that Danny came back and that they're happy together. Clara and the Doctor hug goodbye, and sadly both of them go off alone.
As the Doctor travels in the TARDIS, he is interrupted by Santa Clause, who comes in the TARDIS door and asks him what he wants for Christmas.
Well then. My complaints are pretty much all about the plot. Like... what was even going on here? We never got any answers as to how the Master survived. And it's insulting, you know? You can't just dangle something sparkly and quippy in our faces and expect us not to have questions. I hate Moffat's smug, insufferable writing style, wherein he just doesn't give a crap if it doesn't make sense, and then if questioned, he'll just turn around and say it's a mystery on purpose or some such nonsense.
And yeah, it's romantic and cute and all that Danny's emotions didn't get turned off when he became a Cyberman, but how did that happen? And why did it only happen to him, and to Kate's dad? There have got to be other Cybermen out there who remember their loved ones. And why would blowing themselves up stop the rain from falling? I don't get it! And how does Cyber-pollen, or whatever it's called, just suddenly turn decaying corpses in to metal machines? It makes no sennnnsse! How did Kate know that the Doctor was the Doctor when she first saw him? So many questions!
Also (this is only a minor annoyance), it was a total cop out to put the whole "Clara Oswold has never existed" thing in the promo. It ended up just being a brief moment of Clara trying to lie her way out of a bad situation. I wish they hadn't built that up so much, because the reality would have been fine if I hadn't been expecting something so much bigger.
Then there's a moment in the script that I have to critique a little bit... When Clara is talking to the Cyberman, and she doesn't know that it's Danny yet, she goes on and on about how the Doctor is her best friend and how he's the closest person to her, and how he's the one person that she would never lie to, yadda yadda, and I was jut getting a little bit fed up with how heavy-handed it all was.
The last complaint I have? I can't believe that the Doctor was really going to kill Missy. I know that this show has been getting darker and darker over the years, but that's just... that's just messed up. The Doctor wouldn't kill the Master at the end of Season Three, even though he actually succeeded in taking over the world for an extended period of time. Not only does the Doctor abhor violence, he also would never kill his oldest friend... and the last Time Lord/Lady that exists besides himself. I don't care if he was saving Clara's soul, or whatever. Frankly, I don't believe Clara would pull something like this, either. It's too much.
But... there are a lot of things that worked really, really well in this episode. First of all...
Michelle Gomez as Missy. Holy. Hell. She was amazing! I can't even begin to list all of my favorite moments with her. How about "Well, look at me, I'm bananas!" or "I'm accelerating for dramatic effect," or "kill some Belgians! Might as well, they're not even French!" Or how about when she comes down in the graveyard a la Mary Poppins, on an umbrella? Or when she asks the Doctor to "say something nice," and he says "you win," and she says "I know." Damn! Excellent! She did an amazing job, and her chemistry with Capaldi was off the charts. I was totally invested in every second of her presence on screen.
Then there's Clara's deception of the Cybermen. I loved how she pulled on all her knowledge of the Doctor to make it seem like she was really him. Mentioning his marriages, his children, etc.... that was all fantastic.
Danny had some really cutting lines when he was talking to the Doctor. I like how these two never really got along, but by the end they had a lot of respect for each other. I think my favorite part here was when Danny said "those beautiful speeches just disappear in the face of a tactical advantage... sir." Damn. Sick burn.
I've complained a lot in the past about Clara and Danny's relationship, and how I felt like I didn't understand them enough as individuals to feel like their relationship was realistic. However, these two actors were good enough, and the script had enough genuine moments in it, that I actually got a little weepy there at the end. In particular, my heart broke when Clara said "I wasn't very good at it, but I did love you."
We also solved a very old mystery in this episode... Missy was the woman in the shop who gave Clara the Doctor's number! I remember thinking it might have been River or something, but honestly this works out better. Great resolution to that dangling plot thread.
Lastly, we've got the relationship between the Doctor and Clara. Early on, Kate calls Clara the Doctor's "assistant," and the Doctor corrects her - "my friend." One of the creepiest moments for Missy was when she was taunting the Doctor for the fact that he would do anything for Clara, including go to Hell. Then there's that goodbye. How sweet. How sad. The Doctor hugs Clara! And he says the reason he doesn't like hugs is that it's always an excuse to hide your face. They both lie to each other because they're trying not to be burdens to one another, and that's just... so sad. Great dialogue in that last scene. Usually I hate plots that center around a misunderstanding, but in this case, it felt so believable that these two would let a lack of communication mess things up for them. Their parting lines to each other were poignant and tragic:
Clara says: "Doctor, traveling with you made me feel really special. Thank you for that."
The Doctor replies: "Thank you for exactly the same."
Wow. Sad. Beautiful. And then that's the end! Until... Santa? I'm gonna hold off on judging that one until I see the Christmas special...
7/10
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