Doctor Who: The Doctor Falls

Did Steven Moffat see an advance copy of Logan?

I say that, as this episode mirrors the tone of that film. As Bob Chipman put it, “a [story] about disappointment that isn’t afraid to disappoint you.”

That’s not a criticism; I liked this episode and I think it’s a pretty good ending.

All the story arcs run to their conclusion and end not where we’d been hoping they would but where they should. Specifically, the Doctor doesn’t have a way of reversing Bill’s condition as a Cyberman, Missy’s journey to becoming an ally is ended early by herself/himself and the Doctor does not come up with any awesome plan beyond die in a horrible explosion.

The Master/Missy’s story is the most prominent example of this. Everything right down to the trailer for this episode said she was going to fight along side the Doctor. But when it comes to it, she’s shot in the back by herself/himself after stabbing herself/himself in the back. This also nicely mirrors the theme of the Master being the dark parody of the Doctor. The Doctor will team up with himself and will normally have some sort of epiphany about himself. The Master will literally kill himself/herself if he doesn’t like what they have to say. The most tragic part of this arc is that the Doctor will never know that Missy tried to come back to help him.

Bill’s story arc is similar with the Pilot returning to save her at the end. There’s a throw away line about the Pilot being able to make Bill human again, which I wish wasn’t in there. I get that she has to have something close to a happy ending, but I think it would have been better if her story arc paralleled Missy’s.

Even Nardole gets a look in on the story theme, going to live on a floor with some farmers, safe in the knowledge that one day they’ll all be killed by the Cybermen.

The Doctor of course gets the lion’s share of the story, but I still wish that more time had been spent establishing his desire to remain as he is. Don’t get me wrong, Moffat writes the reluctant regeneration far better the Davies did. When Davies did it, it was basically, “I like my hair and Converse, please don’t make me change.” Here, we learn that the Doctor wants to stay the same because he’s afraid of the man he might become. This makes sense, given that one series before this he became the Hybrid and broke every rule that he’s ever lived by. He learnt his lesson from that and even used it to try and make the make the most dangerous creature in the universe (Missy) a better person. But given how strikingly different he knows himself to be from his predecessors, how can he be sure that the next Doctor will remember the lessons he’s learnt.

It’s also quite neat that the episode harkens back to the Doctor’s statement in Hell Bent. Bill now thinks he’s dead, but just because his body is dead doesn’t mean he’s not regenerating. “That’s why [Timelords] prefer to die around our own kind; they know not to bury us too soon.”

Overall, this is a pretty good ending to the series and the ending stinger of a team up with the First Doctor is pretty good.

Personally, I really hope that they don’t announce the new Doctor and that it’s revealed in the actual Christmas episode.