{"id":7331,"date":"2019-06-24T13:00:20","date_gmt":"2019-06-24T20:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=7331"},"modified":"2019-06-18T18:40:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T01:40:00","slug":"mark-watches-doctor-who-s10e12-the-doctor-falls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2019\/06\/mark-watches-doctor-who-s10e12-the-doctor-falls\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Doctor Who’: S10E12 – The Doctor Falls"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the twelfth and final episode of the tenth series of Doctor Who<\/i>, if there are tears, there is hope. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Doctor Who<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Trigger Warning: For discussion of body horror and death<\/b><\/p>\n

Holy shit, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. This is truly one of the most emotional episodes of this show, and I spent like half of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Doctor Falls\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with tears in my eyes. It was so intense? There were so many good monologues? What have y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all done to me?<\/p>\n

Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s discuss.<\/p>\n

The Doctor Stands<\/b><\/p>\n

So much of this episode relies on the notion of the Doctor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s morality: What does it mean to do the right thing? At what cost will this be done? Who becomes collateral damage, and who chooses to be apart of the final stand? Who have these people become while traveling with the Doctor? I should note upfront that while there is hope in the second half of this episode, I found the tone of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Doctor Falls\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to be decidedly grim and upsetting for the first half. Which I get! The stakes are so high here, first of all, but Moffat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s script also does not lean away from the horror of Bill\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s transformation. (More on that in a bit.) So we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got a situation that seems hopeless. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s by design! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a way for this story to address the concept of hope in the darkest of timelines.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So why do anything<\/i>? If the Cybermen have force on their side, evolution on their side, and the effects of time dilation on their side, and if this struggle is just an endless cat-and-mouse game, why not give up? Why not escape with your own life if the inevitable end is that the humans will die by the hands of the Cyberman? As dark as this episode gets, the prevailing theme is that you can always<\/i> hold out hope for another possibility, no matter how terrible things get. Maybe the humans will never escape, and maybe the Cybermen will eventually get them; but the Doctor and his companions worked to give them more<\/i> life. Why?<\/p>\n

Because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kind.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But what does kindness mean in this context? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fascinating to me that the Doctor begs the Masters to choose kindness in an episode where Bill has to struggle with the kindness offered to her by the humans while she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been converted to a Cyberman. Alit (who is a child!!!) is the first of the humans to offer Bill kindness, and later, so does Hazran. But what of the others? How can they offer kindness when Bill looks like their greatest enemy? Intentional or not, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a metaphorical reading of this whole scene, especially since Bill is both Black and a lesbian, and so often, people from those groups and at the intersection of those identities are<\/i> treated monstrously by others who judge them on sight. And yet, Bill still tries to offer kindness. She still tries to do her very best to help these people and save their lives, even if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re terrified of her. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the right thing to do, yes, but I think there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s another context here as well: Bill is clinging to every last shred of humanity in her, and I feel like her actions are beautifully human in this regard. Without witness or reward, Bill, who slowly accepts over the course of this episode that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll never get to be human again, still chooses to help others<\/i>. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s who she has always been: a nice, joyous human being. And she has to hold on to that because if she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t? Well, we know what she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll become.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But the major focus for this theme comes in the depiction of The Masters. I truly cannot overstate the surreal joy I felt at seeing Michelle Gomez AND John Simm get to play their versions of this iconic character WHILE STANDING NEXT TO EACH OTHER. Simm disappears so fully into this villain, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an incredible spectacle, but I really, really have to compliment Gomez once again. Her ability to convey complex emotions without a word spoken is immense. Watching her struggle with the Doctor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s impassioned plea for her to choose kindness was a damn privilege, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all! That whole sequence was beautifully written, and all three actors killed it. It was so RAW, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, and it had<\/i> to be. We had to believe that the Doctor was truly convinced that he probably wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to be able to save himself, Bill, or any of the humans. There might be a slim chance, but even then, the Doctor knows that he can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t act because he will win. This is never about winning and it never has been.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such a great distillation of what Doctor Who<\/i> is about.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Doctor Falls<\/b><\/p>\n

Hi, still going to fight you all for the end of the previous episode and the ENTIRE LAST HALF HOUR of this episode. Oh my god, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still so emotional about this! Missy made her choice, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, and it turns out that she AGREED WITH THE DOCTOR. She is responsible for the previous Master\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s incarnation into herself! Oh, that whole scene was too much, and I love that it was played so quietly, so that we wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what Missy had done as she sent her previous regeneration to his death. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, the Doctor did it. He fundamentally changed the Master, so much so that she KILLED HERSELF to make a statement about what she believed in.<\/p>\n

And then she fell. Killed by\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, technically herself. And look, this show has always found ways to bring back characters who are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dead,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but this did have a final ring to it. Missy is dead, and the Master looks to be dead, too. And she died laughing<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Bill, whose mind fought the Cyberman programming so much\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand I loved the explanation of this by referencing the Monks\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat she was able to see herself in her human body. From a visual storytelling perspective, this was so effective and chilling, and also IT BROKE MY HEART. Pearl Mackie is just incredible here. This performance is\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just so crushingly human, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. Bill stands beside the Doctor to help buy the humans more time, all while knowing that it buys no time for herself. This is who she is now.<\/p>\n

Or is it?<\/p>\n

I feel some type of way about the fact that two of the Black companions on this show got made into Cybermen. (Danny Pink in series eight.) Here, though, I found myself less bothered by Bill\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fate because her conclusion leaves a door wide open. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not dead, and she is certainly not gone, though that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily negate the criticism I brought up before about how much her character suffers in this series. But when Bill falls, the context is very different. Missy fell as she died, but Bill \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fell\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as her Cyberman body plummeted to the ground, her consciousness removed by Heather from \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Pilot.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This twist is more sentimental than bittersweet, in part because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s now canonical that Heather could turn Bill back into a human at any time that she wants. But knowing that the Doctor is about to die\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand not<\/i> knowing that he can regenerate\u00e2\u20ac\u201dshe bids goodbye to the Doctor and becomes a different kind of traveler. Even though Bill doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know Heather all that well, I found this conclusion to be strikingly romantic, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just mean that because Heather and Bill kissed. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something grandiose and beautiful in Bill choosing to experience life in a new form of existence, in choosing to lead Heather around the universe instead of the other way around, in how this show gave a story like this to queer characters when we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen it so many times with straight characters.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not dead! Either one of them! I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know that Bill will show up again, and if this is the last episode she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll ever be in, I would be\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 somewhat satisfied with her arc. As it stands, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much I love about her character, but I would have liked to explore her life in depth. What is<\/i> she like outside of these adventures? These last few episodes have focused more on Bill\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reaction to the things that have been done to her or have happened to her, and I think there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s room for more outside of that.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And then we have the Doctor, falling as he blows up the entire level full of Cybermen, and he does it knowing he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be forced into a regeneration, one he is not thrilled to experience. I was reminded of Ten\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s refusal to change, but granted, this is not nearly that prolonged and intense. This isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Waters of Mars,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d you know? But the Doctor saves the humans, and Nardole becomes their protector, unsure if his friends will ever show up again. Even his arc comes to a place of uncertainty in this sense. Will we ever see any<\/i> of these characters again? Even if we do, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve all been changed so dramatically. Nardole is not the person we met in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Pilot\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and he is DEFINITELY not who we met in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Husbands of River Song.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But who will the Doctor become? That question already has an interesting clue of an answer, since the TARDIS took the Doctor to his FIRST incarnation. Why there? Why that Doctor? Why are we going back to the beginning before we plunge into the future? Oh, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t wait for this Christmas Special!!!<\/p>\n

The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Doctor Falls\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n

– The paperback edition of my debut, ANGER IS A GIFT, is now OUT!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"