To regenerate or not to regenerate.
Spoilers follow for this episode of Doctor Who.
To regenerate or not to regenerate. That is the question.
In fact, it’s the question not just for the Twelfth Doctor here in the Season 10 finale, “The Doctor Falls,” but also in a way for Missy and for Bill as well. It makes sense that Peter Capaldi and writer/executive-producer Steven Moffat’s final regular season episode would be concerned with such matters, not just because they’re about to regenerate behind the scenes but also because the very idea of regeneration on Doctor Who has become such a point of hype for viewers whenever it rolls around.
Unfortunately, while “The Doctor Falls” does play with this concept, it doesn’t do so in a terribly successful way in at least two of the three cases cited above. Twelve, who for some reason is steadfastly against regenerating, doesn’t even get closure on his story here, which is unfortunate. Yes, it was super cool to see David Bradley (Game of Thrones) return as the William Hartnell First Doctor at the very end of the episode, and I can’t wait to get to the Christmas Special to see how this all plays out, but dramatically it doesn’t work in the context of this episode. Not only does Twelve’s refusal to regenerate seem to come out of the blue, but teasing it for two episodes and then not resolving that story in any meaningful way is a bit of a cheat. “I can’t keep on being somebody else,” Twelve laments to the TARDIS. It’s a great concept, and one that deserves to be fleshed out. Sure, the parallel between Bill’s dilemma and how it informs the Doctor’s is sketched out earlier in the episode when she says, “I don’t want to live if I can’t be me anymore.” But otherwise Twelve’s regeneration regret is more or less dumped on us in the final moments of the season.
(Which isn’t to say seeing Capaldi fight off regeneration isn’t fun, even as he repeats several first and last lines of previous incarnations. “Sontarans perverting the course of human history” was Tom Baker’s first line and also repeated by Capaldi in Season 8’s “Listen.” “I don’t want to go” were of course David Tennant’s final words. And “When the Doctor was me” is the last portion of Matt Smith’s last sentence. Tear.)
As for Bill, it looks like she’s a one-season and done kinda companion. This isn’t hugely surprising since Moffat is leaving (and he also recently said Pearl Mackie was leaving the show) and you’d figure new showrunner Chris Chibnall (Broadchurch) will want to start with a clean slate next season. But her departure disappoints me not just because I really like Mackie and the character and I feel like we barely scratched the surface with her, but also because she got such a lame send-off.
Basically, the Twelfth Doctor can now be said to have gotten his main two companions killed. First Clara and now Bill, who after being consigned to life as a Cyberman “regenerates” as one of those water creature things from the first episode of this season. Frankly, this is poor storytelling, a deus ex machina that spares us the pain of Bill dying or seeing her sign off as a soulless cyborg. Certainly the set-up of this scenario early in the episode is effective, tragic and horrifying, and the idea of intercutting between Mackie and the hulking robo-Bill is interesting. But whereas the Doctor’s story doesn’t get a resolution, Bill’s end is simply not earned. (There’s also the fact that the Doctor doesn’t even know what happened to Bill in the end which I find frustrating.)
And then there’s Missy and the Master, which perhaps is the portion of this episode that works best as a self-contained arc. Michelle Gomez and John Simm are terrific playing variations of each other, which yes, we now know for sure is the case (at least, if Missy it to believed!). The way they’re sort of somewhere between brother-sister and boyfriend-girlfriend is suitably gross, and the Master’s presence and how it serves to draw Missy back to her old ways makes so much internal sense that Moffat doesn’t really even need to write it on the page (and he doesn’t). It’s interesting, however, that while so much of the latter part of the season seemed to be about the will-she-or-won’t-she-turn-good Missy storyline, that matter is ultimately given very little time here.
But we do get a resolution to that question, and one that is so, so fitting for both Missy and the Master. In the end, not only does she betray her counterpart to (try to) help the Doctor, but she actually kills him, sparking her own creation (we think, though of course you never really know). That the Master takes it all in stride and the two laugh as he then zaps her is pretty perfect, and he sums up their very nature nicely: “We shoot ourselves in the back.”
And yet! While I understand why Gomez also leaving the show is a sort of housecleaning move for the incoming new administration, man if I won’t miss her and Missy. Also, the fact that the Doctor will never know that he was right to trust in Missy’s rehabilitation feels like another miss on the part of Moffat after priming us with this question again and again.
Some notes:
- Nardole winds up getting an appropriate ending as he assumes a Doctor-like role in caring for the inhabitants of the ship. He’s definitely up to the task.
- David Bradley returning as the original Doctor had been rumored previously, with some theories placing him as the mysterious figure in the vault, though I had pretty much ruled that all out as fanboy speculation by the time we got to these last two episodes.
- Not that I’m counting, but both of Twelve’s companions didn’t just “die” but also went off to explore space as souped-up cosmic beings in the end. Hm.
- “The Doctor’s dead. He told me he always hated you.”
- The Master and Missy’s dance plays like a creepy variation of the Rose/Jack scene from “The Empty Child,” also written by Steven Moffat.
- Oof, another Trump reference.
- Jelly Babies!
The Verdict
In the end, “The Doctor Falls” has much going on that is of note, with the season’s better-than-average visuals propping it up, some cool Cybermen battles, more than a few creepy moments (proto-Cybermen scarecrows!), and a real “wow” of a final scene. Unfortunately, much like Season 10 itself, the episode feels more like a bunch of interesting ideas that don’t quite congeal rather than a fully formed story.
New episodes of Doctor Who air on Saturdays on BBC One at 7:25pm and on BBC America at 9pm/8pm Central.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire