Doctor Who: Series 10 Episode 12 - The Doctor Falls
So after the dramatic circumstances that occurred in "World Enough and Time", the two-part finale was about to reach its climax in an hour-long episode which saw the doctor battling the cybermen as they worked their way up the upper levels of the spaceship, and the doctor is faced with some tough decisions to make.
On viewing when it aired, it did seem to me to be awfully long, certainly longer than what I felt it needed to be, and as a consequence of things were very lengthened out and a bit dull. The impact of the action that needed to be there, I didn't feel it and I felt the episode lacked excitement for me. There were some good parts in it which I really enjoyed, but the thing that came to mind when watching the episode is made me think of scrambling through a box of old junk and every so often you'd find something that's not junk and is quite valuable. That's what this episode was like for me, there a bits of gold scrambled in a box of Steven Moffatt junk. I'm not implying Moffat's work is junk as a whole, that was a euphemism.
I watched it again and enjoyed it a lot more, if you can devote the time to sit down and watch it, you can actually get a lot out of it. And this is an episode in which several characters go through emotionally overwrought and go through overly emotional experiences, like Bill. Bill is a perfect example, she's been turned into a cyberman, she spent the best part of ten years believing the doctor was coming to save her, and he never came, and when he did come he was too late. I think I'd be entitled to be angry if I was Bill.
But Bill does go through an emotional journey throughout this episode and we as the audience feel the empathy she's experiencing as she goes on this journey, what lets it down for me was the fact I didn't like the water woman from episode one turning up again, because there was no backdrop or set up earlier in the series to prepare us for that, it just sort of went ahead and happened, and surely if this was going to lead into being an important thing into the series, we ought to have had something to help with the background to that storyline between her love story with Bill in order for it to make more sense, but there was nothing, no indication behind that at all. And I also didn't like how she could just change Bill back to normal, or nearly normal. Is she a water creature or some sort of goddess? Who knows? I don't know. That whole thing didn't really make much sense, and I would have much rather preferred that Bill remained a Cyberman. Because that just demonstrates the harsh reality on life and it's just spewed by a few moments of soppy romance.
Peter Capaldi was excellent as always, he always excels in the part and this episode in particular clearly demonstrates the reasons why I really don't want him to leave.
John Simm was excellent in the return to the master, it was as if he'd never been away, I really approved of his new look, I think it suited him. I liked the long black coat and the olive green shirt, even the goatie was good. I perticularly liked the scene where he and Missy had that sort of duel off where one ended up killing the other, any fan of the show would probably guess that if there's going to be two masters in the same story, sooner or later something like this was going to happen. And it also created a really good way to present an exit for Missy, as Michelle Gomez was leaving the show too.
Not much to say about the cybermen, other than the fact that I really enjoyed the mondasian versions in the story, my only critisim being I don't like the fact that they could fly. They couldn't do that in the sixties, so I don't see why they could do it now in 2017. I think you didn't really need to have other more modern versions of cybermen in the story, I felt the story was really strong in "World Enough and Time" just having the mondaisan ones and could have just stayed that way, because Cybermen never give up they could have just worked their way up to upper levels without the means of levitation and still would have been able to achieve the purpose of reaching the place where the Doctor was.
A quick comment about Nardole, easily for me Matt Lucas's best performance as that character and the situations he found himself in, he was written very well and I liked his involvment in the piece.
Last thing to mention would of course be, the cliffhanger which I didn't see coming. But even then, I'm sorry to have to keep pointing out faults with this, but I think it's worth mentioning that David Bradley was playing William Hartnell, playing the First Doctor in "An Adventure in Space and Time"
so I don't really think it works having him back in the canon of the programme as the First Doctor having in past portayed an actor playing the character. It's still good to have him in it, I am pleased to see him and I am very much looking forward to the Christmas episode, even though it's Capaldi's last.
That brings this review to an end. And my series of reviews to an end. It's been a really good series this year, I've throughly enjoyed series ten, even more so than more recent series. Peter Capaldi's best charactrisation of his doctor, and he had great support in Pearl Mackie's Bill.
I'll give this episode a 6/10.
Looking forward to Christmas.
