Legion contributor Angelique Toschi is recapping and reviewing Doctor Who this season. Follow her on Twitter @AngeliqueToschi!
Series 8 of Doctor Who is coming to a close. This season has introduced us to the new Doctor, redefined his relationship with Clara, and introduced a mysterious new character of Missy. In addition, viewers also saw the effects of Clara’s involvement with The Doctor and how it complicates her personal relationships, like the one with Danny Pink.
This episode opens with Danny Pink calling Clara. She keeps telling him to shut up – she wants to tell him everything, including all the stuff she did wrong. Always needing to be in control she has a series of post-it notes stuck on her bookcase in order to keep her thought straight, although this doesn’t seem to be working. Not sure where to start, she finally realizes the first thing she needs to tell him is “I love you”. This is a big deal for Clara as she states this is the last time she will ever say this to anyone.
When Danny doesn’t respond at this monumental announcement she begins to panic, thinking he isn’t answering her because he doesn’t reciprocate her emotions. Finally a woman comes on the line. She says she found the phone on the ground, and that she is sorry, there has been an accident. Clara runs out to the street Danny was walking across to find that he had been hit by oncoming traffic and was dead.
Clara muddles along in a daze after Danny’s death. In fact she says it was ordinary, uneventful and that he was owed better. With this thought in her mind she finally connects with The Doctor (who is unaware of everything that has transpired so far) who asks “What can I do for you?”
What follows is the first of multiple misdirects that occur in this episode. This is truly a case of “nothing is as it seems”. Clara, having lost the man she has loved, is so distraught she will do anything in order to bring him back. This includes walking into the TARDIS with a plan to put The Doctor to sleep using a patch, steal all the keys to the TARDIS, throw them into the only substance that will destroy them (lava), and make him take her back to before he was killed in order to save him regardless of the consequences. Except instead The Doctor uses the patch on her to see how far she would go in her attempt to rescue Danny. Despite Clara’s betrayal, The Doctor is going to help her go to “hell” and bring Danny home.
Using Clara’s link to Danny that was established in “Listen”, Clara and The Doctor are able to locate the next place where Clara and Danny’s timelines will intersect. They end up in a building that has a series of enclosures holding what appear to be skeletons in a liquid substance. It is here that The Doctor finally encounters Missy, a character the viewer has been introduced to since the beginning of the season, and who has had a small part in several episodes throughout the season, but has always remained mysterious.
Next comes, after ten episodes of waiting, an explanation as to what the “Nethersphere” is and what happens to people when they die. The theory is that people remain linked to their bodies when they pass. As a result, the building that they are in is to preserve the skeletons from the deceased – hence why they are submerged in “dark water”, a substance that only shows organic matter. This does not set well with The Doctor, and he is convinced he is missing something important.
Danny Pink is still being briefed on his recent death in the Nethersphere. Two significant interactions take place while he is there. The first is a meeting between him and a boy who he killed during his time as a soldier. This interaction visibly shakes Danny. The second is a call between him and Clara. He refuses to give her proof of his identity, only saying that he loves her. Finally Clara ends the call out of frustration. Danny is then given an option to release himself from the emotional pain he is feeling. He can delete his emotions.
While Clara is talking to Danny’s consciousness, The Doctor confronts Missy. She activates a button which seems to alert the skeletons and the “dark water” begins to drain from the tanks. The Doctor finally realizes what felt wrong, if “dark water” was what was in the tanks, what was around the skeletons? The answer: an army of Cybermen, which are now being released. Not only that, but Missy reveals that the Nethersphere is really a Gallifreyan Matrix Data Slice. This is what is holding the consciousness of the recently deceased, ready to be uploaded into the newly
upgraded bodies of the Cybermen once their emotions have been eliminated. With the Cybermen army being released from their tanks, the Doctor runs out of the building to find himself in the middle of London outside St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Trying to put the final pieces of the puzzle together, The Doctor begs Missy to reveal her identity. He knows now from the Gallifreyan technology that she is a Time Lady. When she finally reveals her identity the last piece of the puzzle falls into place. Missy is short for “Mistress”, and in a previous regeneration she was The Master. In the final scenes all the main characters are left in peril: Clara is in the building with a Cyberman looming behind her, The Doctor is in the middle of London with an army of Cybermen and his newly returned arch-nemesis, and Danny’s finger is hovering over the button to delete his emotions.
To be continued…
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