Some have complained that this series of Doctor Who is frightening the children.
Good. Children, and those with the IQ of children, already claim too much of the Saturday night TV schedules. I suppose the thinking is that all interesting grown-ups are out partying on Saturday nights, but I can say that's the one night of the week I'd never venture out. Saturday night in Glasgow, and elsewhere, I imagine, is rowdy and full of shrieking women and bellowing men. Walking home you'll find chip papers wrapped round your ankles and sick on the sole of your shoe. No, I stay in on Saturday nights and would happily watch TV if it wasn't mostly aimed at children who need sequins and songs to prevent them smearing Ben and Jerry's on the wall, or whatever it is they do of an evening.
Those killjoys who complained about Dark Water will be tapping out more outraged emails because the series finale, Death in Heaven, cranked up last week's darkness, adding deaths, plane crashes, decaying faces and erupting graveyards.
Missy harnessed the power of the dead, wiping their memories and personalities and reprogramming them to do her bidding. Their rotten bodies were transformed into Cybermen and, at her command, they came grappling and stumbling out of their graves. Every cemetery across the world began disgorging its dead. As Missy sweetly reminded The Doctor, the key weakness of the human race is that the dead outnumber the living.
Under threat from the risen dead, the world needed a leader to take charge. No ordinary chap would do, so The Doctor was appointed President of Earth. Against Missy they needed to fight fire with fire. Time Lord against Time Lord.
But in amongst the brash battle of goodies against baddies, in amongst all the special effects and the storming Cybermen, was real heart and sadness. This didn't just come from Clara and Danny, but from the Doctor's attempts to get back to Gallifrey and the awful moment when he thinks he is home only to realise there is nothing but blackness out there.
One moment, we're gung-ho and in the midst of a James Bond film, with folk snapping their handcuffs and tumbling out of aeroplanes, then we're crying with Clara when she realises Danny has one chance to restore life to himself, but he chooses to give it to the Afghan boy instead. He comes wandering out of a shimmering light towards Clara who's standing there with her arms empty, and she'll never say 'I love you' to anyone else.
Yes, this episode, and the whole run, was dark. Looking back to former shows which featured the giddy Matt Smith or the chirpy David Tennant, they often seem limp and flighty compared to the steel of this series. So perhaps it's fitting that its last two episodes were stolen by the supposedly dour and gritty Scots.
I was accustomed to the brilliance of Capaldi but Michelle Gomez was new to me, and she simply stole the show. Everyone else was invisible whenever she stamped and rampaged across the screen, flinging her arms wide, flirting and staring, swaying and plotting. She was addictive! Her depiction of Missy as some kind of deranged Mary Poppins was excellent, and when she put on a baby voice to ask the Doctor if he has any other friends she can play with, she was truly terrifying.
This has been my first series of Doctor Who. I'd never watched it till Peter Capaldi came along and those who read this column will know I found the first episode, Deep Breath, confusing, frustrating and silly. I was dismissive of the series until I was persuaded to watch Listen and, to quote Meatloaf, was like a sinner before the gates of heaven, crawling on back every week thereafter.
I had to stop fretting about being a newcomer, always wondering what the hell Gallifrey is, and why the Daleks have such a beef with the Doctor, and what was that Victorian lizard all about… I was even calling Capaldi's character 'Doctor Who' until a few weeks ago.
I was new and there was too much too learn, but once I stopped asking questions, and stopped frittering away the episodes by googling the backstory, and tracing the roots of all the references, I learned to enjoy the spectacle and the story. And now, just as I've learned to appreciate it, it's gone.
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