The final episode of Jodie Whitaker’s Doctor. Was it as bad as everyone thought it would be? Was it going to be a terrible mess with no good story like every episode? Or was it actually good?
I’m writing this as I watch the episode so ideally if you’ve watched the episode already you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
Well, let’s start with how it opens. We get a fantastic shot of some train in space flying around at high speeds. It’s a cool but short-lived cinematic, then we find the cybermen are attacking. But, it’s not just any cybermen, it’s the cybermen with regeneration powers. It’s nothing special. This extensive starting action sequence is exactly the same as a lot of Chibnall stuff. Ultimately it’ll probably amount to nothing. The cybermen are too boring, they’ve already appeared tons in Jodie’s seasons. It’s the same as the Daleks (Which do appear in this episode). I’ve said it before but the same villains always appearing doesn’t make the episode good, it just makes it blend in with all the other episodes in the season, there is nothing stand-out about it. This is a shame because it’s an hour-and-a-half-long episode with nothing special about it.
Anyway, the cybermen are on this train to find some “cargo”. The “Cargo” ends up being a mysterious young girl who will probably be important to the story but also will probably cause a ton of plot holes. Like “Why was she on a space train?”
Anyway, after the train, we ended up in Serbia in some really old year, literally only there for like 30 seconds. We then jump to 2022 London and find another mystery, paintings being taken down for restoration. An amazing mystery that Ace (an old companion) is trying to solve with Tegan. Tegan gets sent a mysterious tiny Cyberman toy claiming it’s from the Doctor trying to reach her.
Now, I have no clue who these two are. Chibnall is using these characters as a way to make fans happy, but that doesn’t change his writing. His writing is still terrible.
Back with the Tardis crew, Dan is dropped off for his date and finally realises that he could die easily. It only took him now to realise this and not the sword fighting with some fish people that could have easily killed him. After a short but touching talk, Dan leaves. I can only assume he will be back.
BUT! SUDDENLY! DALEKS! (How original)
This Dalek has critical information about the future of both humans and Daleks. This Dalek turns out to not believe in the Dalek mission. There is some interesting stuff happening here. A Dalek spy is a cool idea. But I fear it’s another storyline that isn’t needed.
Suddenly, we are in St Petersburg, Russia, where we see the Master pretending to be Rasputin(?). Obviously, this is another storyline that will combine into the final one, but it just seems to be happening a little too quickly. I’ve already forgotten about the cybermen at the start and we are only 15 minutes in.
(Chibnall also reminds us this person is the Master by having a random character announce their name (He does this a lot))
The next mystery appears (This is mystery 4), and it’s another Tardis with Joker laughing on the front.
The child from the start has returned, and the Doctor can’t help but tell and not show. To sum it up, this child isn’t a child but an energy source. At least the planet looks cool, the CGI isn’t bad.
So with one mystery, kinda solved, we get a fresh new one! Kate from UNIT is back, but it’s about the painting mystery. Even the Doctor doesn’t care. But a reunion with the old Tegan and Ace is actually kinda nice even if I don’t know them. It’s a sweet thing that doesn’t happen enough as most companions meet some tragic end.
Apparently, Yaz is bothered by the fact that the Doctor had past companions, I’m pretty sure the Doctor has mentioned it before.
The Master appears through a video message and I am reminded why I dislike the Master of this Doctor. The Master seems a little too insane, it undoes a lot of the Master from the previous Doctors. The relationship between the two was complicated, but Chibnall has reduced it to a simple “Hate” relationship.
When the Master gets captured by UNIT the Doctor tells Yaz to take a gun. The Master even makes a little quip about it being so out of character for the Doctor, and I believe so. No matter what the Master or anyone could say to the Doctor would never make her do this. The Doctor is too secretive in these episodes. It turns it into more drama than an epic sci-fi adventure.
We are almost half an hour into this episode and I could probably cut out most of this. There is no reason this episode should be this long. Chibnall keeps adding characters to stretch out the time. The more characters he has the longer he can make the episodes, but it also massively lowers the quality of the episodes. Too many characters is an easy way to ruin any script.
The toy Cyberman that Tegan was given turned out to be a doorway (Because why not) that flooded UNIT with Cybermen. The surprising part is that UNIT is unprepared to deal with these threats as all they use are guns with real bullets and not some plasma bullets that could actually kill a Cyberman.
The next thing that happens only happened because Chibnall saw how many people liked his Weeping Angel Doctor now he has put the Doctor into a Dalek.
Back in St Petersburg, the Doctor has met Rasputin Master.
It’s time for the Master to explain his plan because Chibnall’s writing is impossible to work out.
I didn’t mention but the Vindor dude from Flux is back.
Anyway, The Master is playing Rasputin and it makes me want to die. The song is great but it’s kinda cringe. This Master is walking cringe.
His plan of force regeneration apparently turns the Doctor into the Master. Giving the Master the Doctor’s body? For what reason? At this point, it’s not clear, but I assume it’s the timeless child rubbish. Did he want her infinite regenerations? Or did he want to just be her? It makes no sense. Like, what now? I hope this Master meets a terrible end. I want his arrogance to be completely destroyed. I used to really like the Master during the 10ths era, but this Master is just too different and unlikeable.
I feel like Master Doctor would have been much cooler if it was a mind transfer thing instead of just a title swap. So like, it was Jodie acting as the way the Master acts, similar to what they did in Harry Potter when Hermonie was disguised as that one villain (I can’t remember her name).
At this point (45 minutes in) I want to shut it off. This post is already getting long because there is so much to talk about. I’ll try and only talk about the important stuff but it’s all so rubbish. I just hate it all.
The Master went to some sort of TV drone and said “I am the Doctor, I caused this war” or something. As if that means anything. That’s like me saying I’m the King of England. The title of the Doctor means literally nothing. What a terrible plot.
There is a classic meeting of the current Doctor meeting old Doctors. But for some reason, they are saying Jodie Whitaker’s Doctor is strong and refusing to regenerate as if David Tennets Doctor wasn’t so stubborn about regeneration. Those words should be used for the 10th Doctor, not her. But again this is just Chibnall giving in to the fans because his stories are weak. But then again, this is cool. I always like seeing past Doctors with the current Doctor.
I take back what I said about the CGI, this parachute scene is bad.
Damn Bradley Walsh’s character is back. I just hope Ryan isn’t here.
Why does UNIT exist if they seem so bad at what they do? They seem so unprepared for alien attacks. It’s really their own fault the Cybermen took over.
The CGI suddenly got better again with that cool drill thing.
Oh wait, never mind, these volcanic eruptions look bad.
There are about 20 minutes left in the episode and the Doctor is back in her body. But we still have to deal with the Cybermen and Daleks.
So far everything is a little bit pointless.
One thought is I do miss the old Cyberman method of turning someone into a Cyberman. This new method is lazy electricity. The old method was far scarier and not laughable. If you don’t remember, it was literally saws and blades, implying that you were literally being cut open and converted into a machine. Now it’s just a kink to some. Some people would get turned on by this method.
This Dalek blow up method is similar to what happened with the Sontarans.
Also, how did Bradley Walsh’s character end up there? That’s never explained.
Am I the only one that feels like this is a terrible last episode? It doesn’t feel tense at all because so much is happening at once. It’s all too perfect.
As I was writing this, I was going to say that I couldn’t explain why it felt bad. I was going to say it seemed as if the Doctor wouldn’t regenerate and that whatever they did it would have to be very rushed and unprepared.
Then, I reached the part where the Doctor gets hit by that giant laser and had to stop myself from laughing. This is a different way to regenerate because it’s not in some selfless act like a lot of Doctors. It’s not really that sad at all.
As far as regenerations go, it’s weak. Very weak. There isn’t this grand speech like past Doctors, and there isn’t this sadness in the doctor. The regenerations show the emotions of the Doctor we normally don’t see often, but this time it wasn’t really that.
I’m just glad they didn’t kiss. The relationship between Yaz and the Doctor is toxic and the writing was too weak for it, there was no build-up, and it was too forced.
What the hell is this weird Alcoholics anonymous thing at the end? I guess it’s kinda cute and sweet, but something about it doesn’t sit right. Something still feels incomplete about the regeneration.
Why does this regeneration change the clothes? Could they not find ones big enough for “SPOILER NEXT DOCTOR”?
Anyway, that was the final of Jodie and Chibnall. It’s been a ride. From underdeveloped characters to bad and incomplete plots. This episode alone had tons of weird build-ups to plots that didn’t really mean much. The paintings at the start were pointless, the only reason UNIT was involved is because why not. The Cybermen just kinda were there for some reason. They could have been anywhere (I don’t actually know why they were there other than the regeneration energy bit towards the end).
Chibnall showed us that Doctor Who can be terrible, and honestly, I’m not hopeful for RTD. I think he’ll have a lot of the same issues.
Thanks for reading. Sorry if this post was a mess, I’m just glad to get this show over with. I may review the first episode of the new series when that happens but that’s about it.
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