The choice to release two episodes at the start of this season may be due to the fact that the first episode was decidedly weak and might not have had the ability to retain viewers.  The Devil’s Chord had a much better chance of that.  Fair dues, but the 2 episodes that needed to be released on the same day were The Legend of Ruby Sunday and Empire of Death.  This is a two-parter and it’s painful to go back to the ways of classic Who, relying on a cliffhanger to keep us tuned in.  (Double-releases work better for watch-parties anyway and I had a few friends over to watch both parts together – I was the only one who had already seen part one.)

Whatever the logic behind it, it threw me off with our posts: I wanted to cover one story a week.  However, the advantage of the way they did it was that my release of the review for episode 7 comes after the televised release of episode 8, meaning we can cover them both together.  Wish me luck…

Coming into this episode, I had high hopes but fairly low expectations.  This has been a weird season that feels Doctor-lite.  I like this Doctor a lot but we need something to bring us back to the pre-Chibnall approach to the show.  There is a lot of buildup around this season especially with the “twist in the end” and references to the Doctor’s granddaughter.  Ruby’s mysterious mother is also a major plot point.  They have a lot to cover in 2 episodes.  Then we get a massively cinematic opening with the TARDIS flying right into Stark Tower… um, sorry, UNIT HQ.  The doors open, the Doctor emerges with an enthusiastic “Gimme the loviiiiiiiiiin….” and I was hooked.  Ncuti’s exuberance is addictive.  Then we get the line that closes the cold open, “Susan is the name of my granddaughter!”  The stage is set.

There’s a lot of stuff happening in part one, but it’s all a big buildup to the reveal that Gabriel Woolf is back as Sutekh.  Wonderful!! Sadly, it’s a buildup that doesn’t have a huge payoff despite being one of my favorite villains of all time and that’s where I was left distinctly confused.  

As a lifelong fan, there’s a lot to love.  We know who Kate’s dad is, the “best of men”, and his stories mean something to us.  We wax nostalgic over Kate talking to the Doctor.  By part two, when Kate signs off with “thanks and love”, I struggled to keep it together.  We know “bonkers” Mel, the Doctor’s old “mate”.  When she died later in the story, I felt the air get knocked out of me.  “I loved you, Mel.”  The impact is real.  But what else is there?  We know Doctor Who as a show isn’t about to wipe out all of mankind and have the Doctor never set foot on Earth again, so the impact is lost once we go beyond the deaths of the UNIT team.   

Furthermore, when the Doctor hugs Rose, he asks “how’s your uncle?” and we fans know he’s talking about the 14th Doctor, now living with Donna Noble on Earth.  If you’re a new viewer, it doesn’t impact your ability to enjoy it – in fact you’re probably better off because if you know who her uncle is, you have to question how he and Donna handled the crisis as everyone on Earth died!  Are we seriously to think they are dead?  Sutekh says only the Doctor and Ruby are left, but surely there’s another Doctor in another TARDIS with Wilf and Sylvia and the rest of the family out there, right?  Rose was better off not getting any screentime this week – she would have survived with David’s Doctor.  She certainly didn’t play any part in the second half (I don’t think she had a single line in part 2).

There are some clever things.  I initially thought Susan Triad’s comment about her mom and dad were a red herring, but it took me three viewings to realize when she said her mother was a dinner lady that she likely meant the woman the Doctor and Ruby interact with in The Devil’s Chord.  I also assume the “except the obvious” in reference to the evil genius UNIT hasn’t caught yet is the Master, but that’s a whole different conversation because doesn’t someone with red nails have the Toymaker’s tooth; you know, the one that has the Master captive?  Ah, another lack-of-payoff to a season with no payoff.  And we are finally ready for the one who waits.  “He waits no more!”  Exciting….

But the clever things wane.  Where’s Shirley Ann Bingham?  We were introduced to the magnificent Ruth Madeley and now we have Morris Gibbons.  The problem is, I had to turn the subtitles on for him alone because I really could not understand a thing the actor had to say.  I don’t fault the fella, but it made enjoying the episode that much harder.  

Then we need to throw logic out the window for most of the episode.  Unfortunately, there’s a lot that is broken.  Sutekh destroys the cosmos – we’re talking wipes out everything except the Doctor and Ruby because there’s a woman he didn’t see and he’s curious  about her.  That’s what it comes down to.  “She was important because we think she was important.”  Oh.  You mean the millions of people across the globe on this planet alone who have someone who is as important to them for perhaps unspoken reasons don’t count? We get the reveal that Ruby’s mother is the most mundane of people but then, why would Sutekh care?  “The secret the child carries with her…”  Yeah, no one else had one of those here on earth!  This all happens because he couldn’t see her face under the cloak?  Good God, Harry Potter and his ilk were safe too, then!  No one else on earth was wearing one of those that day?  My son wore one coming up the stairs after waking up the very day I viewed this, like every other teenage on the planet.  Sutekh must have been really annoyed by a lot of teens scattered all over the planet that he couldn’t see.  And bear in mind: none of this explains why snow appears anytime Ruby is stressed.  The daughter of Miss Mundane can generate snow on a whim, but she’s completely normal!  She’s a more impossible girl than The Impossible Girl!  (Oh, Russ, did you forget about that pesky bit with the snow when you wrote the ending?  Tsk, tsk!)  

Let’s also talk about that scene too.  The Doctor’s memory kept changing.  Granted, memory is a tricky thing but the Doctor wasn’t forgetful; he said it was changing. The change had Louise turn and point right at him.  Here’s a funny thing: people don’t typically name their children while walking down the street alone.  They don’t usually point to something with no one else around, as if to say, “yeah, that thing is what I want to call my kid.  Mailbox Jones!  Streetcar Smith!”  The very legend around Ruby is all there as a lure to keep us watching, but there’s zero payoff.  As a story on its own, it’s lovely.  As a story forming a season-long arc and the lynchpin to the whole season, it’s ridiculous.  Ridiculous, I say!  

Don’t get me wrong: perhaps counterintuitively, I loved the episode.  It’s exciting.  There’s good writing in the dialogue like Mel asking what the Doctor meant by “being an ambulance?” because that sentence wouldn’t make sense otherwise.  There’s great use of season-long hints like the indigestion the TARDIS experienced in Rogue.  I adored Harriet’s speech about the Gods and the undead Susan’s quote, “I bring Sutekh’s gift of death”; a line from the original Pyramids of Mars.  And believe me, the split second I heard Sarah Jane’s voice, I announced it to the room.  I was beside myself with glee seeing those scenes again.  (Also nice having the color flashback to Susan, the Doctor’s granddaughter.)  And what about that amazing delivery behind this threat, to our Maker, “I will come to storm down his gates of gold and seize his kingdom in my true name.”  The emotions throughout, despite being based on hollow threats, were charged.   Oh, and don’t get me started on the Remembered TARDIS.  I’ll actually be coming back to that in the coming weeks (stay tuned).

But for every good piece of dialogue, there’s some real whoppers.  Yeah, I’m talking about the random link to the TARDIS having a perception filter of 73 Yards, just to give more meaning to that odd episode.  Or worse, the Doctor’s granddaughter means he must have children right?  “Not quite.  Not yet.”  Huh?  Actually, Russ, yeah it does.  What are you, Chris Chibnall now?  That’s another area where there’s more mystery to the Doctor having a family.  Changing it to a future event takes away from the mystery.  Yeah, this could have a proper payoff one day, but I’m not holding out much hope.  

There is one area that I’m teetering on.  It’s either silliness or pure fan genius: the spoon.  Is there more to it than just a piece of metal?  Since we’re fighting a Tom Baker era nemesis, let’s go back to his era for another clue.  He once said that all he needs is a teaspoon and an open mind.  Admittedly, that looked more like a soup spoon, but a spoon and a remembered TARDIS (the product of an open mind, surely), does allow him to save the day.  “Time is memory, and memory is time… If time is memory, then memory is a time machine.”  Don’t tell me that’s not the product of an open mind; it’s the very definition!  So was RTD being really clever in that moment?  Could the spoon have been a subtle reference to a great line that Baker said once a long time ago?

The idea of bringing death to death is a weird use of a double negative too.  It’s very damned convenient, but as this Doctor’s theme music started playing at that moment, I can’t say I cared.  I was taken up in the triumph of it.  What I didn’t get was why Sutekh was made an invalid.  Ruby puts a leash on him then the Doctor pulls the TARDIS away from Sutekh with a whistle.  Why didn’t Sutekh just go run over to it to hold on again?  Because the CGI couldn’t be programed to show him running?  Come on!  It should have been a breeze for him to get over to it since he was being tethered and pulled towards it.  I think the molecular bonded bungee cord was meant to be holding him in place, until it wasn’t.  Again, like the double negative, it was all too damned convenient.  Sure, the Doctor has to become a monster to save others but I think it’s a murder he will be forgiven for.  Sutekh is truly dead now.  (Or is he…?)   If I’m honest, I wanted the man-sized version back.  Cheesy as it might be to modern viewers, I utterly adored the original, both with mask on and off.

At the end we get a very heartfelt reunion between mother and daughter, and Ruby parts from the Doctor.  I really liked this companion.  She had the bond with the Doctor akin to what Rose had back in 2005.  Millie is a beautiful companion too, so I will miss her twice as much.  I thought they were going for a Clara vibe with all her skirts (which she wore magnificently), but then in the final confrontation, she wears combat boots, pants and a tank top and she still looked fabulous in that.  She will be missed on many levels.  But what’s the story with Mrs. Flood, still the enigma.  And remember when the Meep said he’d tell “the boss” about the Doctor?  Surely you’re not convincing me that the Meep worked for Sutekh!  Not exactly boss status there.  Guess we’ll have to wait some of these things out.

There’s still the matter of the Remembered TARDIS but that’s too much for one write up and there’s more to mine there.  We’ll come back to that soon.  Doctor Who wrapped up far too quickly this season and I’m not ready to say goodbye just yet.  I have more that needs to be remembered… next week.   ML