doc Who rarely does big character electric discharge . By its very nature it ’s a fugacious program : every calendar week a newfangled adventure , every few years a novel Doctor and unexampled companions . That means that a character , especially the Doctor , is established chop-chop and bide like that till they leave alone . But this weekend ’s time of year ten finale put a wonderful bookend on an development that ’s been in the employment for all of Peter Capaldi ’s time on the show .
Peter Capaldi ’s run on Doctor Who could arguably be determine by a much stronger serial publication of thematic arcs — particularly for his first companion , Clara , who went on a journey of learninghow to be more and more like the Doctor , before the recklessness that can occur with travelling with him got her kill ( aside from the whole “ frozen in the moment before her deathto run off with Arya from Game of Thrones ” thing ) . But “ The Doctor Falls ” is really all about wrap up an spark that ’s been bubbling aside for much prospicient than one season . One that ’s been cardinal to Peter Capaldi ’s personation of the Doctor .
When the Twelfth Doctor first arrive on the show , there was much talk ofhow much darker he would be — and season eight gave us a Doctor harsher and more standoffish than we ’ve seen in years , full of disdain for the retard he has to save around him and running around with Clara as his carer , who cares so he does n’t have to . Season nine , while taking Clara herself down a non-white path , saw the Doctor soften up and warm up to his role as a protector and Redeemer , with the realization that he regenerated with the face of someone he ’d saved out of kindnessas a monitor to keep him fair . Season ten , meanwhile , has been all about putting that into practice , not just in the people the Doctor agitate to economize , but in his charge of Bill not as someone to become more like him or to be his emotional translator , but as a booster .
“ The Doctor Falls ” crystallize that journey with another base under besieging , a Who story trope that feel like it ’s been a much unassailable part of Capaldi ’s time on the show than it has any other modern Doctor . This sentence , a solar farm of survivor on a Mondasian colony ship that , thanks to a black gob creating timeline dilation , has live for years as its own ego - sufficient community , avoiding the experiential crisis thatturned their former fellows to the genesis of the Cybermen on the lower deck .
From the get go , it ’s presented as an unwinnable scenario . The clip dilation has led to the Cybermen to evolve into their militaristic , Iron Man - esque forms visit in late serial , making them a much deadlier military group than the shambling half - changeover the colonists had antecedently carry on with . And even if the Doctor and his gang could do anything to help them , it would only be delay the inevitable , moving them up to a solar farm higher up in the ship , giving them a bit more meter before the Cybermen regroup and hound them down again .
The Masters — who spend much of their time dancing around each other trying to calculate out exactly what the other is up to a wonderful tête - à - tête between John Simm and Michelle Gomez — straight off decide to black market away from the unfavourable betting odds and make their elbow room back to their own TARDIS , leading to a lineament - define , soul - stirring plea to them from the Doctor that finally respond the dubiousness he ’d been asking of himself moderately much since his regeneration three years ago : whether or not he ’s a good human being . And the answer is that he ’s willing to endure , willing to fall so that gross strangers to get a hazard to survive another 24-hour interval , not because he ’s a warrior or because he ’s tempestuous , but because he is kind . It ’s a mo that will likely define Capaldi ’s clip on the show , not just because it’sanother of his heart - rendingly performed trouper actor’s line , but because it is the ultimate firmness of the journeying this embodiment of the Doctor has go on .
It ’s taken three years , but he ’s grow from a human beings who does n’t care to a valet de chambre unforced to die because he manage so much — and one that , when he ’s about to reclaim , is so ferocious at the scene of becoming someone else and having to potentially re - get word that whole journeying again , necessitate to just die so his outgrowth , his act of forgivingness , can sincerely mean something .
“ The Doctor Falls ” is n’t just about the physician himself accept death — it touches passably much every main fictional character in the episode , neatly wrapping a bow around a lot of Steven Moffat ’s sentence on the show . There ’s Nardole , pass on the task of safeguarding the settler ’s journey to the fresh solar farm and looking after them , essentially consigning himself to a late death when the Cybermen regroup and observe them on a higher level of the ship ( I really hope that now the Doctor has TARDIS access again , he goes back and saves them at Christmas ! ) . There are the Masters themselves , who both go out in a blaze of gloriously Master - y betrayal of each other : Missy , accepting her change to good , pour down her past self so he can start his own process of renewal as her , and the Master then killing her , allegedly for good , as one last human action of revengeful spite that reflects his own unwillingness to accept that he , like this incarnation of the Doctor and Missy , could change .
And then there ’s Bill Potts , who gets the happy ending that no one else in this episode can . It ’s one that comes out of unspeakable repulsion , with her genial roadblock breaking down and see the cybernetic monster she ’s been transformed into — but it also comes out of the fact that , like the Dr. , she ’d rather exit if she ca n’t stay on being the person she had become thanks to her time with him , fighting back against the Cybermen ’s programing to stomach with him against them . The space puddle x machina ofthe Pilot from the first episodeshowing up to transcend her to another plane of existence feels almost like a reward , in that room , even if it is a bite of a fuzz out : Bill ’s acceptance of her end pave the way to the next step in a journeying she has to take without the Doctor and as a wholly new being .
Doctor of the Church Who ’s tenth season has been veer with an underlying theme about the time value we place on a individual animation — howawful it can be when that value is discarded , howdestructive cling on to it can become , and ultimately , the honor and integrity involved in choosing to give it up for a baronial drive . As we head into one net dangerous undertaking with Peter Capaldi at Christmas , it seems like the final lesson this Doctor must learn is that sometimes there ’s just as much honor in carrying on ( albeit with a young eubstance ) as there is in falling for your principles — as lesson he ’s going to take from someone who ’s got all that to experience ahead of him .
Assorted Musings (in Time and Space)
Sure , it was done to keep Pearl Mackie in the episode as much as possible , but having Bill around as that ’s how she still perceives herself cut in to everyone else seeing the Mondasian Cybermen she has been turned into was stunningly effective at pose across the tragedy of the Cybermen as a concept .
The Doctor quote a ton of past locations of preceding Cybermen stories as he run out in his explosive blaze of glory — Mondas , Telos , Planet 14 , Voga , Canary Wharf , and even the Moon itself . But he also advert Marinus , which has only every appeared in one story : 1964 ’s “ The Keys of Marinus , ” two years before the Cybermen were first introduce . I enquire why he mentioned it ?
Steven Moffat is now three for three in “ fellow dies but not really ” tale conclusions . While Bill ’s is the closest to an literal death — she still went through the horror and painful sensation of being shot and then convert into a Cyberman , she just transcended to a unlike frame of existence afterwards — it’d be nice if we contract a associate who leave the show for a rationality other than their kinda - sorta death .
With the Christmas special seemingly using the First Doctor to help the Twelfth come to terms with regenerating again , I wonder just where in his timeline this First Doctor is from — and evaluate by the snowy environ the Doctors are in at the end of the installment , how close Doctor 1 is to his own “ reclamation . ” After all , there never really was a right explanation for how he began his own positive feedback in “ The Tenth Planet ” , with fans theorizing possible outcomes to fill the disruption like Mondas ’ Energy Department theater of operations debilitate him . Could the Christmas special see not one , but two regenerations , two Doctors struggling to accept their inevitable change ?
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