If Dark Water was gentle and full of ideas and thoughts with little action, then Death In Heaven is the complete opposite and more than makes up for it. In fact, it too has plenty of ideas so it was quite a heady rush of explosive content (with it's share of literal explosions as well!) By the end of the story, the whole series had been wrapped up and shipped off to the archives with a glowing report and the gripes about the continuing drama and ties to Earth seemed almost irrelevant. Except, the very end had still left an open question along with a terrible teaser for the Christmas special and suddenly the concerns and displeasure at the poorer episodes came flooding back. Sometimes a tease is nice and makes you feel excited with anticipation leaving you wanting more, but sometimes it can leave you feeling violated, belittled and bullied, desperately wishing your tormentor would leave you alone... but I'm getting ahead of myself...
Being a two-parter, as Peter Capaldi delighted in saying during last week's Doctor Who Extra, the last episode ended with a classic cliffhanger and this one of course began with a reprise (albeit in the form of a "Previously..." highlights compilation). We are reminded that Missy is using a Gallifreyan Hard-drive and that Earth's weakness is the fact that the dead outnumber the living. In new content, we see Clara stand up to a Cyberman much as she stood up to the Clockwork Robot in Deep Breath by trying to negotiate, saying that alive she is a tactical advantage but dead she would be his biggest mistake. In a new innovation, the Cyberman scans her from the disk on his chest-plate and identifies her as Clara Oswald, an insignificant human. Quick as a flash and without blinking, Clara tells him that Clara Oswald never existed and was just a cover for the man that could hide from the Cybermen in plain sight by changing his appearance and ultimately leads into the title sequence with "I'm the Doctor!" As if to re-enforce her claim, the titles roll with Jenna Coleman getting top billing ahead of Peter Capaldi and even her eyes take the place of his peering through the swirling clouds!
Of course, it's just a ruse, but with her experience and extensive knowledge she is able to provide proof to her claim including more intricate details that even a fan would forget to mention (like having been married four times, all deceased) but the Cybermen all disregard this a mere facts until a solitary rogue backs her up and is apparently sad to confirm that she is a very good liar... before zapping her lightly and destroying the others outright...
But again I've got ahead of myself. As with Dark Water, this episode takes a two threaded approach, at the start at least. While Clara has been facing the Cybermen, the Doctor has been dealing with Missy (whom we must now remember has been revealed as being the Master) and reacquainting himself with a couple of faces last seen nearly a year ago. As Missy is flirting with the public, offering "Photos with the big metal men" for one pound, Osgood strolls up and offers to take a picture of Missy and the Doctor (because 'selfies' never look as good). She seizes Missy's device and the Doctor seizes Missy, complementing Osgood's bowtie (having sported a Fourth Doctor style scarf in The Day Of The Doctor, she is now also wearing Tenth Doctor style Converse sandshoes). It seems odd that Osgood apparently recognises the Doctor since he has regenerated, but she is closely followed by Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (and a host of UNIT soldiers) and she makes a comment about his new haircut so clearly they have been keeping an eye on him and thus avoiding any of the confusion or doubt that we have seen in the past. It's better to just gloss over such things than deal with messy repetitive scripting (hence the Brigadier was present at the regeneration from Third to Fourth Doctor all those years ago). A nice additional touch in this scene is Kate's reminder to the Cybermen of what they are up against as she says "You left this behind on one of your previous attempts" and drops a battered old style Cyberman head. At first sighting it was clearly Classic Series era with its large stepped ovals at the side but clearly wasn't the one I remember so clearly from my childhood in the 80s. Of course my retrospective viewing experience of recent years helped me identify that it was an early model probably from the 60s, noting in particular that the eye holes didn't have the tear-drop so effectively used in last week's episode as a tease. The logical conclusion, following the steps of St Paul's Cathedral being the location, was that this Cyberman head (though probably a reproduction) was from The Invasion where the Doctor worked with the recently promoted Brigadier for the second time and was introduced to their mobile command unit on plane... that too was reprised here. Steven Moffat tactically reversed Russell T Davis's introduction of the oversized and overly 'futuristic' Valient (which was effectively a spaceship hovering over London) and returned to the more believable and, as Kate put it, less conspicuous "Boat One" - clearly a reference to the US Presidential "Aircraft One" but with a confusing twist! Moffat even slips in a joke about Jerry Anderson series, with reference to 'Cloudbase', and the Doctor foxtrotting with Sylvia Anderson (presumably it was a relationship with no strings attached. I'm sorry, but if Moffat can do it then so can I!) One final nod to the past and a lovely tribute to Nicolas Courtney is a large portrait of the Brigadier as he appeared the last time he featured in the series when he came out of retirement (in Battlefield) rather than a much younger portrait from his actual retirement (as seen in The Five Doctors). It is rather odd, given all this long-term continuity that when Kate asks the Doctor who Missy is, he dismisses it with "It's a long story". Granted, the development and background may be a long story, but given UNIT's extensive encounters with the Master in the 70s it can surely be assumed that Kate would know about him already. Having said that, she did have the Doctor drugged temporarily before asking and had explained "Your co-operation is to be ensured and your unreliability assumed. You have a history" so perhaps he was being deliberately 'unreliable'. This is backed up a little later when Osgood asks the same question and actually says she thought it might be the Master... before reminding us of another bad idea from RTD, that the Master had been Prime Minister not so long ago. This has the effect of highlighting Osgood's intuitive brilliance and Kate's military minded lack of creative thought. In an almost throw away line, the Doctor offers Osgood "All of time and space. One for your bucket list", clearly a mark of appreciation and offer to join him in the TARDIS...
When re-watching Death In Heaven, I wrote twice as many notes as normal. Once again I am in danger of retelling the whole story in my attempt to express all the little details that made it such a joy to watch. It should be suffice to say that the Cybermen take on several new innovations, which is crucial when reusing fifty year old enemies, and the whole 'heaven' theme introduced by Missy finally gets explained as a way of building a new army and harvesting the dead. We see Cybermen flying into the clouds so even being in an aircraft doesn't make the Doctor safe, we see them climbing out of graves and wandering around aimlessly (which is really creepy!) We even see one lift off the Y-shaped mask section of the helmet to reveal the human beneath as he struggles to switch on his inhibitor...
The story of Clara and Danny comes to its final resolution and its purpose throughout the series suddenly becomes clear. The Doctor explains that "Pain is a gift. Without the capacity to feel pain, we can't feel the hurt we inflict" which is exactly what Danny has been going through since Afghanistan but he remains a soldier to the end and we again see him in conflict with the Doctor on that matter. It is, however, Danny who saves the day precisely because he is a soldier and the Doctor isn't. He can make the sacrifices that the Doctor can not.
Missy gets to flaunt her brilliantly evil and twisted quirks throughout. Killing just for fun, ordering the plane to be blown up and then some Belgians "Why not? They're not even French". She taunts Osgood and delights in explaining how "bananas" she is, sings "Hey Missy, You're so fine..." and arriving back on the ground hanging from her umbrella like Mary Poppins (having actually teleported, so the umbrella was purely for effect) To top it all, she reveals that the whole raised-from-the-dead Cyberman army is a gift for the Doctor "Armies are for people who think they're right, and nobody thinks they're righter than you. I need you to know we're not so different." Ultimately of course, the Doctor comes out on top and Missy vanishes in a sparkle as she is zapped by a Cyberman... only the sparkle we see is the blue fizz seen whenever she teleported rather than the orange spark seen when Cybermen kill someone so it seems that, as always, the Master has escaped... hopefully to return next year while her departure is still remembered.
One final twist in the main story sees the safe return of someone thought dead. Missy killed two major characters on the plane but we see one of them waking up on the ground. Kate had been saved by what is now the last Cyberman standing and who fired the shot that 'killed' Missy. It is, of course Kate's father, and as a final mark of respect, the Doctor salutes him, something the Brig had always wanted but had always been refused. A poignant end and another lovely tribute to a beloved character and actor.
Had the episode ended there, everything would have been great. Just short of fifty minute, only a little extended. But we are given not one but two epilogues, or arguably three. Two weeks later, Danny uses Missy's transporter bracelet to bring one person back from the dead and to Clara's dismay, rather than saving himself he sends the young Afghan boy who's death he had been responsible for. Clara would of course have fully understood and expected this (had she known about him already) since Danny has always been putting the children first. This is a bit of extra fluff but again would have made a reasonable ending. However, Clara wears the now powerless bracelet as a reminder of Danny and when the Doctor next sees her he assumes they are settled down and happy together and Clara has finally put her TARDIS days behind her... he tells her that he has found Gallifrey and is going home (Missy's parting gift was to tell him their home world was back safely where it had always been, quoting coordinates first stated in The Pyramids Of Mars), so Clara lets him continue to believe his assumption rather than correct him... yet we see in a slightly confusing flashback that in fact when he arrived at said coordinates there was nothing to see. Once again this series they have both lied to each other 'for their own good' in an emotional scene that feels like a filler after such a packed episode, just a little too slow and sad. We even learn that the Doctor doesn't hugging because "It's just a way to hide your face. Never trust a hug" and of course as they hug we see their true sadness revealed behind each other's backs.
One final epilogue is tacked on after the credits start to roll. After all character credits have appeared, we hear a knock at the door and see the Doctor moping in the TARDIS. A falls calls out "Cooey! You know it can't end like that" as if the thoughts of all viewers were being made manifest, telling the Doctor that neither he nor Clara were alright and that it still needs to be sorted. The Doctor gets up and the owner of the voice says he's coming in... it appears to be Santa Claus and he asks the Doctor what he wants for Christmas! While part of me now feels that this is a nice throw back to the early days when one story would end with a surprise cliffhanger leading into the next, the gut reaction was that it was a complete slap in the face that seemed to pre-empt the audience's reaction to the dual lies and throw it right back at them and tell it straight, just in case they missed it. And on top of that, the dreaded Christmas episode which has traditionally been a bit fluffy and without regular companions looks set to feature a mythical character which goes against the whole 'everything has a scientific explanation' ethos... but then we were faced with Robin Hood earlier on in the series. To be fair though, the last two Christmas episodes have been pretty good and both featured Clara as the companion, one way or another. The episode preview that followed featured the line "Christmas in the North Pole. Who ya gonna call?" and what could have been Ice Warriors waking up from under some sheets... and some unidentifiable figures stood in front of the TARDIS that could have been Ood or Silurian, or even Sicorax (it was frustratingly brief and out of focus in low light!
Two final thoughts that didn't come to me until late. Firstly, when Danny wakes up in a morgue, it is seen to be the "Chaplet Funeral Home", a nod towards the Doctor's shortest lived companion Dodo Chaplet (bearing in mind that I don't count Katarina as a companion and while Liz Shaw had one less adventure, all other means of measurement put her longer than Dodo). On first viewing, the sign appeared for such a short time that I misread it as "Chapel". Secondly, it struck me that Missy's comment that she was "the timelord you left for dead" could also have been interpreted as being Jenny, who is surely due a return appearance!
Less than two months until Christmas though, so that's the positive to end on!
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