12 Great Moments From Death in Heaven

Mark McCullough picks out twelve faves from the final episode of Series 8.

Note: Episode spoilers naturally!

Death in Heaven is one of the strangest episodes to write a 12 Great Moments article for. I may as well state it from the off, I didn’t like it and was thoroughly disappointed. I felt the story was weak and didn’t flow, the threat was next to non-existent and it didn’t have the scale normally associated with a finale. That said if you asked me to describe it, I would say it felt like an attempt at making the perfect Doctor Who episode via an amalgamation of great moments. Sadly most of these had their respective flaws and some didn’t come together particularly well. On the plus side it means I was spoilt for choice for moments to include in this article. I’ve tried to cover a lot, so like last week, it’s another long read. So without further ado:

12. Clara Who

One major question left lingering from Dark Water was how the “Clara Oswald has never existed” storyline teased in the trailer fitted into the wider narrative. As it transpired it was used as the pre-credits scene of the episode (meaning all pre-title scenes made it onto their respective lists). When faced with a life threatening situation as she is in a Cyberman’s line of sight, Clara once more utilises the know how we have seen throughout the series when faced with an enemy. This time she steals her best friend’s identity claiming to be the Doctor and that Clara Oswald was someone she had made up as a cover story. Using the large amounts of knowledge she has acquired throughout her travels she is able to put up a convincing act, once more proving her skills as a liar. Something else this storyline afforded was the opportunity for the production team to have a bit of fun in the titles. Namely this was switching the order in which Capaldi and Coleman’s names appeared, and having Coleman’s eyes appearing instead. Whilst this was quite funny, I can’t help but feel disappointed that this whole storyline was hyped up so much only to have no significance at all other that an opportunity for Moffat to play with his audience a little.

11. The Brigadier

This one I’ve noticed has been a little bit divisive. As theorised by a fair few commenters in the week between the episodes, any character that is dead and buried has now been converted into a Cyberman. Moffat utilised this opportunity to bring about the return of fan favourite the Brigadier, albeit in Cyber form. He then used the character to save Kate and then had him ‘kill’ the Master thus sparing the Doctor from having to do so. Speaking on Doctor Who Extra, writer Steven Moffat had this to say about the decision: “The Brigadier would never be taken over by an alien monster. He’d stay the Brigadier whatever happened, so to bring him back in a super-heroic role, get the Doctor off the moral hook and save his daughter for another day, that’s the sort of thing the Brigadier would do.”

This is all well and good and does fit the character of the Brig to a tee, but was it really necessary, is it the best ending the character could have had? I would say it wasn’t, as the lovely moment in The Wedding of River Song was the perfect send off to the character, so this undermined that a little and really wasn’t anywhere near as good. Furthermore there is also the horrifying thought that like Danny, the Brig’s face is also decomposed, due to the timescale in fact it is probably much worse. That thought is actually quite unsettling for me and was not worth the trade-off of seeing a super-heroic Brig in action once more. I would go as far as saying it was too far by Moffat and I didn’t like it. To say it was disrespectful would be too harsh of a verdict, so instead I would say it was a wee bit distasteful towards a wonderful character.

10. UNIT

The UNIT we are presented with here is quite a different one from what we are accustomed to in the new era of the show thus far. They are still a military presence, but this is much more toned down from its RTD Era counterpart. The impression I got from Moffat’s narrative was that they were an organisation specialising in information and secrecy. (I was getting vibes similar to that of Marvel’s SHIELD). The first scene we see UNIT is where they apprehend Missy who appears to have the upper hand over the Doctor. Once Osgood appears we realised something is up, and within moments UNIT have control with the Doctor and Missy as their prisoners. Efficient and effective, everything a secret organisation need to be. Well there is one more necessary ingredient, they need to be powerful. This is shown by the plan they have in place for events like in the finale: One man in charge of the entire world. The authority and power to implement something like this really serves to establish the strength of the organisation. This makes the Cybermen seem all the more threatening when they are able to tear all this down with minimal effort. Seeing the Doctor in a position of absolute power was also wonderful, although at times it did feel too much like fan fiction, especially as it was a position in name only. He didn’t actually do anything as President of Earth.

9. Osgood

In the build up to the episode much of the excitement centred on the return of fan favourites Kate Stewart and Osgood. Within the first portion of the episode, the focus was strongly on Osgood who played a significant role in apprehending and identifying Missy. One of the characters defining traits has been her desire to please the Doctor and we see this come into play once more. In her efforts to please the Doctor she researches Missy and evidently impressed him enough to be offered a spot on the TARDIS. From this moment on her fate was sealed as she fell victim to the ruthless Missy. The death in its self was beautifully simple and effective, yet for some reason I found it to be lacking. It seemed to me like Moffat had included it only to make Missy seem more evil and to show that he wasn’t afraid to kill off popular characters. Whilst it was effective on these criteria, I couldn’t help but feel it was a waste of a good character. Aside from the wonderful moment when the Doctor picks up the glasses, there was no scene where the impact of her death on other characters was shown. For this reason her death lacked real consequence and seemed just for shock value. I would have loved to have seen Kate’s reaction, it would have been heart breaking and would not have left Osgood’s character feeling wasted.

8. The Cybermen

Several awesome moments with the Cybermen meant that it was impossible to settle on just one, so I have grouped them together under this heading. When we first see them, they appear to be cornered by UNIT only to fly off. This was the first time that Cybermen had aerial capabilities since their introduction and was a chilling addition to the metal menaces. This new ability was put to good use soon after as we see a group of flying Cybermen ambush UNIT’s plane destroying it with relative ease. The scenes with the exploding Cybermen and the concept of Cyber Cells being able to convert any compatible matter (including the dead) elevated the Cybermen to their highest heights yet. Moffat had promised that he would make the Cybermen scary again, and despite what I have said so far, I think he failed to deliver. So what went wrong? For starters their sense of threat was virtually non-existent, we didn’t see them actually kill anyone. For most of the episode they are actually walking around doing nothing. Secondly it is rather difficult to make something scary when you essentially have them as puppets to a greater evil. It becomes even more embarrassing when you have them so submissive that they dance at the will of this greater force. The third and arguably worst offence was the manner of their defeat: Once again, true love causes a Cyberman to break free of his emotional inhibitions. Personally I don’t mind the Cybermen being beaten by love as it shows that humanity will always prevail. However I have seen it raised numerous times as a complaint by others, so I suspect this twist will not go down so well with certain areas of the fandom.

7. Clara and Danny

If the threat of the episode was sacrificed in favour of anything, it was so as the narrative could focus on the characters. Much of this focus was on the relationship between Clara and Danny which came to a head here. Upon finding out he was a Cyberman, Danny’s instincts were to find Clara and save her from the other Cybermen. Why he chose to bring her to a cemetery, the most dangerous place with the nature of the invasion remains to be seen. Before Clara realises who she is dealing with she speaks of the Doctor in a way which must have been heart-breaking for Danny to hear, and also later transpired to be untrue (she did and has lied to the Doctor). The greatest scene between the two was the one where Clara faced the decision to turn off his emotional inhibitor to spare him the pain. Sadly the audience was given no such mercy as their final goodbye was more than painful to watch. Danny’s final attempt to get Clara to see what the Doctor was really like felt unnecessary to the narrative, although it could perhaps be argued that he was utilising reverse psychology on the Doctor. Later in the episode, we are given a glimmer of hope that the two may be re-united, but in a typically cruel manner, this is ripped from us by Moffat. One question lingers though: What happens with Orson Pink?

6. The Comedy

What’s a good finale without a good laugh, eh, especially one as emotionally heavy as Death in Heaven turned out to be. The timing of the funnier aspects of this episode was spot on creating a tone reminiscent of the Marvel Universe, which has been hugely successful. (You may have gathered that I’m a Marvel fan). Of the comedic moments, there are four which particularly stand out for me:

• Oh Missy you’re so fine: This take on a well-known song ‘Hey Mickey’ was incredibly well utilised and served to show just how unhinged Missy was. When being held captive by her enemies, her first instinct was to sing about how great she was. The lyrics fit her character too.
• Seb’s Death: It’s not very often that a character’s death would be classed as funny, that said I doubt anyone could hold back a smile as the Merciless Missy murdered Seb rather than face his over the top attitude. In fact I actually think this scene showcased her ruthless nature better than the Osgood one.
• Ex-Prime Ministers: Doctor Who is a show with a long past and sometimes that makes it difficult to address continuity. In one of his previous appearances, the Master was Prime Minister of the UK. A reference to this allows a cheeky yet hilarious joke that this murderous mad man was in fact not the worst Prime Minister we have had.
• Easy: A small amount of backstory is subtly revealed by this humorous interaction between the Doctor and Missy. Something what the Master has always wanted is given to the Doctor who has never really wanted it. The Doctor is quick to rub it in.

5. Kill Missy

In the aftermath to the climax of the Missy storyline, we see Clara place the Doctor in an impossible situation. Armed with Missy’s own weapon, Clara threatens to kill her in retaliation for what she has done and what has happened to Danny. Whilst this may be extremely out of character for Clara it is perfectly excusable as she has just suffered a major loss and isn’t thinking properly. In this volatile state she see an opportunity to do it. Having difficulty to get her to step down, the Doctor offers to kill Missy in her place, something I suspect he thought she wouldn’t want. However she does indeed ask him to do it, claiming that if he cared he would, furthermore she blamed him for everything saying that if he had ever let the Master live in the past, then everything Missy has done was on him. The dilemma the Doctor faced was easily the tensest part of Moffat’s narrative, so it was somewhat a disappointment when he opted for a cop out by having the Brigadier Cybermen perform the deed. It would be a shame if Missy was actually dead, so I am glad that the director chose to have her death look similar to her teleport from earlier in the episode. Still I would love to see what the Doctor would have done.

4. Happy Birthday

This revelation was admittedly a little strange in that there was no masterplan from Missy; all her efforts were in fact to give the Doctor a gift. Instead of a threat it was an effort to prove to the Doctor that they were the same after all, by empowering him with an army to shape the universe how he wants. This part of the story I really didn’t like, because it didn’t seem very logical, nor did it fit with Missy’s behaviour until now. For that reason I found this revelation to be an anti-climax. What followed thankfully redeemed the scene, as we are given answers to the ‘Is the Doctor a good man’ arc. This gives Capaldi’s Doctor the moment of realisation who is, something which may have been holding the character back until now. He’s just a man who’s here to help, with his friends who he loves and hopes to learn something along the way. To me this just epitomises exactly what the Doctor is. He then has the realisation that love means that you are never able to hurt the people that you love. It is this realisation that allows him to empower Danny with the mechanism to save the world. The Doctor has been presented as alien, lacking fundamental human emotions all series and now the reason is obvious. Missy is same and this is her downfall, she underestimates the Doctor and she underestimates humanity.

3. Clara’s Exit

Another talking point before the episode was what would happen to Clara, would she make it out alive, and if so would she still be on good terms with the Doctor? As it transpired, we are as much in the dark about what happens next as we were before the episode, albeit for a different reason. The companion exit (if it is that) comes about as a result of a misunderstanding between the Doctor and Clara. Based on the assumption that Danny has returned to Clara, without giving her a chance to speak first, he falsely tells her that he has found Gallifrey and wants to go home. Keen not to take away from what is a wonderful thing for the Doctor, Clara too lies that she is happy with Danny and doesn’t need the Doctor anymore. It is completely tragic and pure torture from Moffat to inflict this upon the fans. That said it is quite fitting that their relationship ends on a lie given that most of its foundations were based on the same. The scenes where the Doctor looks for Gallifrey only not to find it were just as heart breaking. Seeing him lashing out at his TARDIS in anger was arguably one of the most depressing points of the episode. There is something about the exit which doesn’t sit right with me, it felt forced and unnatural. The dialogue was spot on, particularly in relation to hugging. I think the issue was that it felt too fabricated and was perhaps too out of character for both of our protagonists.

2. Danny Pink

We had been promised that there would be a moment going which immortalised Danny; as far as I am concerned, we got two:

The first was when he was given the bracelet by the Doctor meaning the entire army of Cybermen was under his control. One he has this power he only has one thought in his mind, to save the world. Turning to the rest of the Cybermen he delivers a motivating speech before leading them to the ultimate sacrifice, blowing themselves up to save the living. In principle this idea is beautifully poetic, it is one the logic score that it falls down. Did Moffat forget what he had established earlier in the episode? Surely given that it was Cybermen exploding that caused the problem in the first place an entire army doing the same would only escalate the situation.

The second was to do with the bracelet again, this time once Danny had figured out that the Doctor had made it so as the bracelet would allow one return trip before the Nethersphere fully shut down. Instead of using it for himself, he uses the opportunity to correct the mistake which has plagued him all series and returns the boy he killed. This is very fitting for Danny’s character as he always puts others before him, so to see him do it one last time immortalises the character. Again whilst the content of the scene was spot on, its execution was sub-par and tainted the moment slightly. Despite this, it is a beautiful sentiment that the man who started with saving the world (The Caretaker), bows out by saving one life.

1. Missy Who?

Why have I used that phrase to describe these moments? The answer quite simply, is because Michelle Gomez’s take on Missy stole the show. Despite outstanding performances from regular high achievers Capaldi, Coleman and Anderson, none even came close to matching Gomez. I’m going to state from the off that I struggle to actually see Missy as the Master, she doesn’t fit the vision I have of the character, mainly because of how her relationship with the Doctor was presented. Perhaps if we had seen more scheming, domination or other activities I normally associate with the Master I would have been able to see it more. In all likelihood however it is probably a similar effect as with the Doctor, it usually takes me a few episodes to accept a new take on the role. So I really hope to see the Master back as Missy. That sounds awfully negative when it doesn’t mean to be, because in truth Missy was superb as Missy, she didn’t need to be a past character to deliver the impact she did. So what did I love about her? She was delightfully evil and completely insane, to such an extent that we were always guessing what she was going to do next. The revelation that she had in fact been the one to bring the Doctor and Clara together and then kept them together was not a surprise and the reason behind it was more than a little disappointing. However I suspect there is more to it given the impact that has had on the Doctor’s life. The narrative would lead us to believe that Missy is now dead, I for one hope that this is not the case. I need to see more of her, and the sooner the better. Take note Mr Moffat.

BONUS: Santa Claus

It had to be done, the return of the bonus Moment for the teaser for Christmas. Having Santa burst into the TARDIS after an episode as emotionally taxing as Death in Heaven was also going to be a bit of a mismatch. Since it was placed midway through the closing credits, this doesn’t really matter too much and it certainly whets the appetite for the upcoming Christmas special. What it also does is raises a few questions: Is Santa who he says he is? (Remember that Moffat’s first episode for the show had the Doctor claiming to be Father Christmas). How does he know the Doctor? Who (or what) is the ‘she’ that he refers to? I guess we face another six week wait to find out…