Series 10: The Doctor Falls (Finale) Advance Review
Note: Doctor Who TV’s pre-air views aim to be as detail-free as we reasonably can while still offering a critique, but as everyone’s spoiler sensibilities are different, we advise you read on at your own discretion.
“World Enough & Time” was a strong finale opener, setting the stage for what should be a spectacular last tour for the current team.
Following a brief pre-title detour, we pick back up a little while after the cliffhanger. The Master and Missy have the Doctor seemingly right where they want him: powerless and working out the best way to finish their archenemy. While the Cybermen are preparing to rise up and upgrade the world.
While this is how the episode starts though, as with Moffat’s last finale “Hell Bent”, “The Doctor Falls” decides to shift direction and take a different path not long after. Instead, the apocalyptic nightmare is shifted in favour of a sedate countryside setting and things slow down to become more of a “Magnificent Seven” homage. Only with Cybermen invading a small settlement instead of bandits, while our heroes fend them off. In Doctor Who terms, “The Time of the Doctor” seems a rather apt comparison.
Marketed and teased as a big “Two Masters” finale, this is where the episode may start to feel a bit deceptive for fans. This is not really the Master/Doctor showdown for the TV ages many will be expecting, so best moderate those expectations accordingly. While the evil duo appear in several key moments, they just don’t contribute a great deal to the main plot after the opening because of the focal shift.
It’s a shame, especially in Simm’s case after 7 years away and spending the majority of his first episode under prosthetics. Simm and Gomez are still very good in the moments they have. But it’s hard not to feel a bit disappointed with how they are actually used here after their brilliant opening scenes have passed. They feel a bit too peripheral in the end considering they’re the poster advertisement. And if this is the end for the pair, it feels a tad unceremonious.
One of the absolute positives of the episode is Peter Capaldi. After being a little sidelined last week, Capaldi’s role as the Doctor is given more limelight. And quite right too as this is his penultimate ever episode. As revealed in the pre-title scene last week, he is a weakened Doctor on his very last legs. It’s saddening to see and Capaldi gives one of his strongest performances in his tenure, comfortably sitting alongside “Heaven Sent”.
Bill’s was left in an equally tragic position last time we saw her, as a newly converted Cyberman. This doesn’t quite mean we’ve quite seen the last of Pearl Mackie though. There’s a clever (if familiar) method Moffat uses to allow a way for Mackie to give a more human performance to her horrible predicament. Bill’s ultimate fate will very likely prove to be divisive though. It’s hard to say much without giving it all away, but all we’ll say is, it’s everything you’d expect from Moffat. Read into that what you will. Some will love it, the rest not so much.
Nardole too sees a little more of the action (quite literally). There’s nothing that really breaks him out from what he has been doing for the majority of this run, but there’s a few nice little touches. He catches the eye of guest star Samatha Spiro who plays the kindly Hazran (and no, those rumours about her character are not true).
Of course we haven’t really mentioned the Cybermen. While you get to see a fair bit of them (and from several eras, right up to present design), they only really exist to show up in a few skirmishes and essentially are little more than cannon fodder. There’s a fair amount of action (directed competently again by Rachel Talalay) in this half compared to the more horror-based nature of last week.
In conclusion, “The Doctor Falls” is another finale that unfortunately can’t quite live up to its opening half. While the episode contains some brilliant moments, classic even in some cases, it doesn’t all gel into a perfectly satisfying whole, and is let down by some questionable writing choices at times.
