2nd Opinion, Take 2 “Empire of Death” – Doctor Who Gets So Stupid It Hurts

J.C. reviews the eighth episode of Series 14.

During his first stint as Doctor Who showrunner, Russell T Davies’ finales were known for their dramatic setups, complete with apocalyptic stakes and gripping cliffhangers, only to falter in delivering a completely gratifying resolution in their latter halves. In this new era, I was hoping that RTD would deviate from this trajectory. Sadly, “Empire of Death” fell into the same pitfalls, offering a nonsensical conclusion that also failed to provide satisfying answers to the major mysteries of this run.

The episode admittedly starts with a bang as we see the Doctor and Mel making their escape out of London as the population is devastated in an exciting sequence. Soon after, as Kate, the entire UNIT team, and the world was turned to dust in a Thanos-like snap, that’s the moment when I knew exactly where the episode was heading, and the tension evaporated. I found myself actually shouting at the screen, “No way in hell this is sticking!” RTD escalated things to such an absurd degree that the only plausible resolution was a reset. And sure enough, just 30 minutes later, everything was back to normal, with no real consequences and the only major casualty being Sutekh.

Sutekh himself was another massive disappointment. First, one of my fears from last week came true: he stayed as the CGI doggy for the duration instead of resembling something closer to his iconic look in Pyramids of Mars, when he was just a man in a costume. It’s another problem with RTD in that he has an annoying tendency to think that bigger almost always equals better. He could really learn some restraint and needs someone to pull him back on his worst impulses. The Sutekh of old is infinitely more menacing, despite the smaller scale and budget.

Second, the explanation for how Sutekh survived in the first place just created a host of issues. RTD seems to have retconned the ending of Pyramids of Mars. Sutekh was actually trapped in his own time tunnel, not the time vortex. Even if we ignore this factor, are we seriously to believe Sutekh was “riding the spine of the TARDIS” for so many incarnations, and not once was he detected by any other Doctor, the Time Lords, or the TARDIS itself? It’s been established the TARDIS has numerous built-in defensive mechanisms and can protect itself from threats – remember the cloister bell? How come in “The Doctor’s Wife” when the TARDIS was given a human form as Idris, she didn’t let the Doctor know something was up? Sutekh’s complete inactivity and invisibility during numerous crises and cataclysmic TARDIS events (e.g., during Logopolis, Frontios, the Time War, “Journey’s End”, “The Big Bang”, “The Name of the Doctor”, Flux and more) is too significant to just hand wave away.

And then there’s Sutekh’s demise. If you’d told me last week that a villain as powerful as Sutekh would be defeated by putting a magical leash on him and taking him for walkies through the time vortex, well, I would have said, “Your name must be Russell T Davies, and what are you thinking?” Sutekh uses his mind control on the Doctor to restrain him, but he can’t put up any more resistance latterly? The method of his demise doesn’t make a lick of sense either. He’s already survived being dropped into the vortex (according to the retcon) but not this time, for… reasons. The most absurd part is that this so-called god of death was ultimately damned by his curiosity about finding out who Ruby’s mum is. Are you serious?! Why on Earth would he care?

Which brings me to the revelations about Ruby’s mystery. I think it will go down as one of the most disappointing in Doctor Who history. I suspect RTD did this again to subvert expectations (as is in vogue). While I’m glad Ruby didn’t turn out to be “the girl who was key to everything” either, having her mother as just an ordinary girl was only ever going to lead to the majority of fans saying, “Is that it?”. The reveal itself could’ve worked if not for the fact that we’ve been so misled by witnessing so many supernatural occurrences around Ruby and her mother. What caused the repeated snow? Why was Maestro so concerned? Why is her mum, a “scared little girl”, wearing a creepy black cloak and acting so composed and ominous? Why was her face concealed in the Time Window? Who points a sign to name a baby? How did she even know anyone was watching?

Last week, I joked that the 14th Doctor must have been chilling in the Noble’s garden during this cataclysmic event. But seriously, he was the most obvious solution to a major plot point when the Doctor loses his TARDIS to Sutekh. Fifteen has nowhere else to go and needs a way out. So why wouldn’t he drop by the Noble household and borrow Fourteen’s replica TARDIS (which raises the question – does it also come with a replica Sutekh?!). It’s still funny to imagine the 14th Doctor just watching the chaos and mass murder happen and saying “It’s OK, Fifteen will deal with it”. Russell T Davies created this problem for himself by introducing a bi-generation. This is going to be an issue every time a major Earth event occurs in the present day. Instead, RTD’s solution to the problem is that a TARDIS is magically brought into existence from the power of Ruby’s memories (not the Doctor’s, bizarrely) by her “remembering it harder.” And Ruby can do this despite being an ordinary girl!

Finally, there’s the whole reset after everyone and everything in the universe was wiped out. So how do you fix a problem as big as that? Super easy, barely an inconvenience. Turns out if you just “bring death to death”, it brings life. What?! That’s so stupid it hurts. I can’t even find the words. Honestly, there are so many dumb moments in this episode that don’t make sense. The more you sit and think about it, the worse it gets. I’m going to have to stop questioning all these things before I go insane!

Despite all the massive, glaring problems with this episode, it still had some redeeming qualities. I enjoyed some of the quieter scenes following the “dusting” of Earth in the Memory TARDIS. Bonnie Langford was fantastic again as Mel, particularly as she was mentally tormented by Sutekh. Gatwa had his moments – he’s much better when the story requires him to be more restrained. Even though it didn’t really fit into the story, Sian Clifford’s scene was incredibly well acted and affecting.

Even though I knew it was coming, I’m sad to see Ruby exit as a full-time companion already. I feel like we barely got to know her. “73 Yards” helped a little, but still I’m left wanting. I think this highlights a big problem with this shorter run. Eight episodes is just not enough. And considering that both Ruby and the Doctor had a reduced role in one or two episodes, her companion arc with the Doctor doesn’t feel as developed as the companions that came before. Still, her final scene (for now) was well done, apart from one thing: they should have cut the scene right before the Doctor cried (again!).

Overall, “Empire of Death” falls at the last hurdle with its nonsensical storytelling and unsatisfactory resolutions to the plot and the major mysteries. While there were some strong performances from the core cast, the overall narrative feels rushed and disjointed. The sheer amount of story issues and the failure to provide meaningful consequences undermines the emotional weight and potential impact of the story.

Asides

• The biggest unintentional laugh came from the scene where Morris was firing guns from his Segway. It was even funnier that a UNIT soldier was right in front of him!
• Also, nice to see UNIT not only breaking child labour laws, but also arming children with guns!
• Speaking of which, RTD changed the sonic screwdriver to look nothing like a screwdriver because he was worried about it resembling a gun, yet showing a child firing machine guns is fine. OK then!
• Bravo to Rose Noble for doing something on that iPad! What another fantastic contribution to the story.
• Despite allusions to “73 Yards,” it provided no further insight (other than the explanation for the distance) and instead made the episode retroactively worse. Roger ap Gwilliam still becomes PM and Ruby never saved the world. So the episode is now confirmed to be a complete waste of time!
• I recommend looking at the memes of Sutekh just hanging out on the TARDIS in awkward moments from the show’s history.
• Wow, Kate is just giving away jobs at UNIT. Easiest high-security military organization to work at ever!
• Why does the Doctor not tell Ruby that it is him and Sarah Jane? He was fine talking about Sarah in Tales of the TARDIS.
• The Susan Foreman teasers were just that. Another tease that went nowhere.
• Who is Mrs. Flood? Who cares? It’s kinda hard to put much trust in RTD to deliver something satisfying now after this.
• “What was all that Egyptian stuff?” “Cultural appropriation.” Oh, give it a rest, RTD. Spend more time polishing your scripts than virtue signalling.