Rate and Discuss: Death in Heaven

[Philipnet]

What did you think of the finale, Death In Heaven?

Was it a satisfying resolution to last weeks revelations?
A good conclusion to the Danny and Clara storyline?
Or were you as frustrated as the Doctor at the end?

[egdcltd]

Did anyone else notice that when the Master/Mistress was disintegrated, it looked like it was the blue of the teleportation not the red of the disintegration?

[SiHart]

Awful.

[dalekkiller]

Half brilliant half awful

[Andrew Curnow]

I didn't hate it, but it was unquestionably an uneven, sprawling, rambling mess - and a very disappointing follow-on from last week.

Lots to moan about, but to just pick one at random - although I'm sure it was meant well, I would rather not be left with the idea that the Brigadier is now a Cyberman.

[Jason Thompson]

Badly plotted, badly padded, badly paced. Generally pretty bad. President fo Earth stuff was rubbish, as all he did was talk to a few people who then died. Osgood deserved much better than to die pointlessly because the plot stupidly insisted that the only place she could work was in the hold right next to a dangerous psycopathic alien genius, and sadly her death was telegraphed too early, pretty much the minute the Doctor offered her all of time and space. Pretty much everything that followed the plane crash was absurdly dragged out under the guise of emotion and angst. I was just bored with it.

And would somebody please tell the production team the difference between the Cybermen and the Borg. Someone seems to be confused....

[Andrew Curnow]

I guess there's also the timing of it - arguably a story about the dead climbing out of graves, featuring a speech to this army of soldiers about to die.... may not have been the most sensible/sensitive episode to air immediately before the Festival of Remembrance.

Maybe it's the modern series trying to do something like 'The Time Monster' - something that's a huge sprawling nonsensical mess, but which ultimately we end up loving because rather than in spite of that...?

[Philip J Ludlam (Admin Account)]

As the audience, we're now confused over the Cybermen.

Along with the Show Runner/Writer, Producers, Director and cast

[Andrew Curnow]

That business about Clara being the Doctor was nonsensical too. Based on it being the lead-in to the titles (plus the replacement eyes) I'm assuming we were supposed to have a sense of "is she or isn't she", which would have been good, but the script didn't bother trying to convince us at all did it.

Hmm, maybe I did hate it after all? Certainly a very unsatisfying end to a generally superb season.

Must add, though, I didn't mind a female Master at all - certainly, she was very convincingly the same character as John Simm a few years back. And the Doctor's anger at the end was well done. So, I guess, not all bad.

And, Father Christmas in Doctor Who? I'm sure I've seen that done somewhere before......?

[Mike Saville]

What a mess. An absolute car crash of a mess.

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

It wasn't just Clara's eyes in the titles; Jenna got top billing too!

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

I think the only positives I can take from it us that Peter Capaldi was great in both episodes. To me he was the most Doctory in this story.
However I have to say that I struggled to enjoy anything else about tonight's episode at all. I'm really not sure that I understood any of it, especially the stuff about the Master getting Clara and Doctor together etc. I thought that Cybermen had individual minds, or is that the point that Jason made earlier about the Borg?
I will have to give it another watch as I really wanted to enjoy it more. Maybe I will enjoy it more with repeat viewings?
I thought the changes in the title sequence were unnecessary and rather juvenile to be honest!

[Dino]

Spoilers if anyone still hasn't seen it yet warning.
And even when voting positively I appear to be out of sync with everyone else!

I knew I should have waited a bit before voting. But I'm happy Osgood got written out.
I'm reading on Facebook "Oh it was her Zygon copy" No, no, no! That won't wash with me and I'll be disappointed if that trick gets pulled. It's more dramatic what happened to her (For a character I never really saw the appeal of in the first place, fandom is odd!) than for this to be cheapened.

That said, I was thinking of PS's Jon when this episode was showing and it did feel uncomfortable at times. I suppose my high mark was partly because it didn't end the way I thought it would. There were a couple of times my blood went cold. But not at the episode, more at the thought of "NO!!! NOT COURTNEY!!" the second after Kate said "President" and during the credits I really did think "Are they going to break the fourth wall and have a member of BBC staff telling the Doctor it can't end like that?"

And given that the TARDIS dematerialised in public with nobody battling an eyelid, then who really are the dead or Cybermen?

[Darren]

1 out of 10

Contender for the worst episode of Doctor Who since it returned.

Absolutely appalling on so many levels. Michelle Gomez as the Master/Mistress was never, ever menacing or scary, just a much more irritating version of River. And she was never believeable as the Master.
The story hinged in the end on Clara and Danny, a problem as I hated Danny right up to the end. A drab, boring unlikeable man.
The Cybermen were wasted as they did *nothing*. They stood around empty graveyards. Why would they follow the Master?
The death of Osgood was a shock. The one likeable, interesting character who deserved a chance as companion.

And Santa in the TARDIS?

The tagline in the vote poll is very apt -1; Goodbye

I've had enough of Steven Moffat's vision. I won't watch again until we have a new Executive Producer.

[Darren]

It wasn't just Clara's eyes in the titles; Jenna got top billing too!

I didn't notice. Good god!

[Alex]

What a mess. An absolute car crash of a mess.

My thoughts too. There were a couple of elements I liked (Capaldi and Gomez''s performances) but it was so dull and messy and annoying and irritating and plain dumb at times that it really frustrated. Without doubt the worst season finale, and I'd agree that it was one of the worst episodes in general too.

A very generous 4/10, but I'm already thinking I should have rated it lower.

[Si Hunt]

I really enjoyed it. It was an episode stocked full of big ideas. The "Danny Cyberman" was very chilling, and his corpse face beneath the mask was very effective and gruesome. I liked the surprise ending of him being able to come back, but he chose to save the child instead (I found the murdered child peering at him from the crack in the door in the previous episode one of the most haunting images), the idea of the Doctor and Clara both lying to each other because they thought it would set the other one free; the idea of the Master/Mistress (one comment - she declared she would have to be The Mistress as she couldn't keep calling herself Master, then the term Mistress was never mentioned again) doing it all essentially to give an Army to the Doctor, to "get her friend back". It makes sense - what else does the Master want? This twisted, insane creature now just wants her friend back. I liked the idea of a hug being "an excuse to hide your face". The plane action was very well done, with the Cybermen clinging to the outside. And I liked the twist at the end, with the Brigadier returning to save his daughter. Why not? It's not as if it's "our" Brigadier exactly, but even if it was it was in keeping with the character that he re-appeared briefly to save the Doctor again. And finally the Doctor realises he IS a good man after all.

I love Michelle Gomez at the Master - if at time veering a little close to the John Simm manic version, she was spell-binding throughout. Osgood's death was there, as confirmed in the red button feature, to demonstrate that this was the Master, evil through the through (so not "pointless" at all - remember when the new series never killed ANYBODY and how anaemic that felt). I agree though, that the scene lacked a little punch somehow. But this is the price New Who pays for being able to zip about in time, resurrect people, and genuinely spend 10 years tying the audience in rings of deceit - it's the series that cried wolf; now when they want to do something shocking, you only half believe them anyway.

A case in point was one of two sadly misfiring moments, bungled by execution. When Clara was cornered by the Cybermen, we EXPECTED her to lie to save her life because that's what anyone would do. Clearly in hindsight, her announcement that she was the Doctor was intended to make us think this was a revelation, but not only were we not convinced, but it didn't even occur to us until her eyes had been pasted into the credits that that WAS what they were getting at. If they were going to try that one, they ought to have done it in a situation where she wouldn't obviously lie.

The biggest shame for me, though, was that they bungled the big visual moment. For a story that strongly echoed one of Doctor Who's fondest remembered visual reveals in "The Invasion", here was a chance to create a new Iconic Scene for the twenty first century. Ever since a DWM comic strip depicted the "Doctor Who moments we never got but should have done" a few years ago, and included the image of a Cyberman bursting through a grave, I've wanted to see it, and surely this was what gave Steven Moffatt the idea for this entire story? So this is how you do it.

We don't know what's going to happen - obviously, or you lose the shock factor. We have the scene setting start, with Clara wandering around a misty graveyard - they got this right, it looked fabulous. The scene does not cut away - obviously, or you lose the suspense. The music is subtle. Suddenly with audio 'stabs' as per the Auton Shop Window scene, Clara leaps back as fists punch through the graves! Just as the Cybermen once emerged from the sewers, we then get a Thriller-like Doctor Who moment as the silver giants crawl out the graves, lifting themselves out, a few emerging from behind tomb doors. Finally they converge on Clara menacingly, as the scene ends. Brilliant. They could even have contrived to make this last weeks cliffhanger.

But oh dear, the execution. There was no momentum at all. We knew the Cybermen were in the graves before it happened, via dull scenes of someone looking at a scanner screen showing it. Every time it got going, it cut back to a talky scene on the plane. There were a few tantalising shots of what we wanted to see, particularly one of a fist punching through and another of a Cybermen crawling out the ground, but they were cut, chopped and lost in the edit, with no strong direction of staging or single scene to bring it to life. What a shame.

So execution and direction, unusually, were lacking in what was a script that made more sense than usual, once you sort of accepted the bonkers re-tooling of Cybermen logic that now enables you to create a new Cyberman by a particle touching a corpse. Oh well, they have evolved; no longer are they machine creatures, but sort of fluid, biological ninjas who can pop up anywhere. I can live with the evolution. And yes, there was less of a strong sense of Cyber intelligence than usual, but they have been the tool of others before.

It was the themes here that won out; the Doctor deciding the sort of man he was, the choice of Danny Pink to redeem himself as well, I liked UNIT making the Doctor the President of Earth, I liked the mayhem caused by the Master/Mistress and her mad plan and fun performance. I liked the epic feel and the sense of closure to the season. It's just a shame a few more moments weren't given a little more care to make them completely effective.

Si.

[SiHart]

It was one huge mess of an episode. So much potential, but none of it used.

I thought the Brig Cybermen was the worst moment of all. Far from being moving, it was crass and a horrible end for a much loved character. Why bother? Really? It made me so cross!

[egdcltd]

One of the worst things for me was what happened to Danny Pink. Not because it was upsetting - but because it wasn't. Osgood's death was more upsetting. Danny Pink had failed to grab me - and I think others - as a character like he was supposed to. So what should have been an upsetting ending (?) of a relationship wasn't.

[Si Hunt]

I think they should have made more out of Danny's actual death, when he was hit by the car. We didn't even see it.

Si.

[Perry Vale]

For only the second time this season, I'm in agreement with the general consensus here, it was pretty awful. I didn't understand the plot, or care to, and didn't feel any sympathy or empathy for Danny Pink. Not the worst NuWho finale, that's still reserved for TLotTL, but not much to redeem it. I won't be missing the show while it's off air.

Suffered from not featuring Vastra, Jenny and Strax.

[Si Hunt]

That's really sad! I will miss it next week

Si.

[Mike Saville]

There were things I liked. The notion that the world's governments would pressgang him into being president was inspired, and made absolutely perfect sense. Governments don't trust each other, so deferring to an external CIC is inspired writing. It's one of the few bits that worked for me.

The idea that a Cyberman's cells contains the blueprints for cyberconversion is an inspired extension too, but so badly executed. The whole graveyard thing was badly written purely to get a particular scene, with no logic behind it. Why would Danny take Clara to a cemetary if he's trying to protect her from cybermen who can climb out of the graves, or did I miss something?

Missy building an army subservient to the Doctor was very clever, and as someone who loves a good mindf**k you could see the anguish of the dilemma on the Doctor's face. It came close to being a good scene.

Missy is atrocious though. The whole new gender/sex (was it established which if either it was?) makes sense in the pantomime dame it so apparently is. Oh no it isn't I hear you cry, but sadly I am not convinced. It was a pantomime dame of a villain, camped up to a level that only people who are obsessed with Shirley Bassey, Judi Garland and Sue Pollard think women are actually like.

The incidental music when CyberDanny launched his army was laughably bad. It had no real power or majesty, and sounded like it was from an eighties daytime movie. They could have gone for 'man sacrifices himself for the woman he loves' music, or 'badass Robocop goes to war' music, but ended up with something that fell in between and was neither.

There were too many things crammed in unnecessarily. The Brig cyberman was just silly and cheap. I know Who does a lot of that in series finales these days, but it's getting tiresome.

The worst episode of the worst series since its return for me, and I'm really not sure what it'll take to recover.

[Mike Saville]

I won't be missing the show while it's off air.

Seconded.

[egdcltd]

Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, it got mostly positive reviews, with bits that weren't liked here going down well with critics.