Empire of Death - first thoughts

Spoilers follow.

Watch the episode before reading further.

— “Just the old favourites, eh?” —

“Pyramids of Mars” is one of the enduring classic stories of Who. It makes
almost everyone’s top ten list. So it’s not surprising that a sequel would
be on the cards - but surely it couldn’t feature Sutekh. Sutekh was killed
by Tom Baker’s Doctor. But to give RTD props - he explained it away. And -
sort of - the ascension of an Osiran to godhood.

But, I have to say that I was disappointed that Sutekh’s second demise was
basically a re-run of his first, with a bit of big red reset button magic
thrown in. It doesn’t make sense to utterly undo what was done in this way
- there should have been more of a sense of reversing time involved, or
preventing the first act. Personally I’d have liked to have the resolution
take place during the events of “Pyramids of Mars”, in a “Trials and
Tribble-ations” kind of way. Those Mummy robots could be costumes or the
robots could be subverted - I don’t think deepfake or CGI is up to Ruby
interacting with Sarah Jane yet, or Ncuti sharing the screen with the
youthful Tom - but I can dream.

— “Nothing’s forgotten. Nothing is ever forgotten.” —

I had thought that the Memory TARDIS was a fairly dumb framing device for
the “Tales of the TARDIS” cheapo spin-off / clip show series. But here it
is - and RTD actually has a fairly reasonable explanation for its
existence, is making good use of the money spent on it, and it’s critical
to the plot. Bravo, point recovered. And, of course, the new entry in the
“Tales” set is effectively part of this season finale - way to make the
classic show relevant to the 21st century, I guess!

— “They flutter behind you, your possible pasts” —

The Whoniverse is not just more magical now - it’s more fractured. That
dust of death through time and space thing - the implication is of many,
many universes. Earth was apparently destroyed every 5 years or so. So what
happened to the future events, the lives that were curtailed? Surely they
still happened in some sense, or the Doctor couldn’t visit them and destroy
the Earth again, and again.

Same for the other worlds - conspicuous by its absence is Gallifrey, which
would be destroyed by Susan Twist Time Lords four or five times at least
before the Time War, and before the Master could have a go.

Oh - and some of the worlds affected are only from BEFORE “Pyramids of
Mars” in the Doctor’s timeline. Vortis, for example, was the setting of the
much less fondly remembered “The Web Planet”.

And - the WHOLE universe is dead? The Doctor has been EVERYWHERE before?
Huge minus points for logic there. Half of it maybe, sure. We’re in Flux
territory again there though.

But leaving that aside - it’s not just the future that is potential, and
can follow various timelines. Now the past does, too. And maybe that’s why
the Shalka Doctor is now part of 15’s memories.

— “Lucie Bleedin’ Miller?” —

Which also means - maybe Ruby’s mum isn’t so ordinary after all. Can it
truly be a coincidence that “Louise Miller”, a perky Northern lass of 15 in
2004, gave birth to Ruby Sunday - and that 8th Doctor audio companion
(commissioned by the BBC for Radio 7) Lucie Miller was a perky Northern
lass born in Blackpool in July 1989? Alternate versions of the same person?
Faye McKeever even bears a passing resemblance to Sheridan Smith.

Now that means it makes a lot more sense for there to be something
temporally strange about Ruby’s mother. Because there isn’t a lot of sense
in the “we just made her special by making her a mystery” explanation in
the episode. How does that explain Carol of the Bells, snow manifesting on
spaceships and in desert war zones, or Sutekh being unable to see her or
know her? More minus points there.

— “Bye Den” —

So - really not fond of the fourth wall breaking that follows Mrs Flood
round like a bad smell. That said - who is she? Well, RTD teased that she’s
“a slow burner” and clearly she’s either the Christmas pantomime dame, or
next season’s Big Bad. She knows Death is coming, and she knows immediately
when she recovers from excessive dustiness what has happened, and who is
responsible.

Plus we have the speaking to screen. Which to my mind, makes her part of
this new Pantheon RTD is building out like a collectible card deck.

Well, a flood is a disaster. And RTD just name dropped a God of Disaster:
Incensor. And incense - burns slowly.

— “I’ll scream and scream until I’m sick” —

Shout out once more to Bonnie Langford and RTD for putting the awful car
crash that was Season 24 Mel Bush 73 yards away in the rear view mirror.
She was great again in this episode and I’d be happy to see her again.
Maybe travelling in the TARDIS one more time?

— “Goodbye, Ruby … Sunday?” —

And so we come to the end of 15’s first season. (And, of course, it’s not
goodbye to Ruby at all - but she may drop to recurring next season. We’ll
see.)

The finale was headed for greatness but took some shoddy, irrational paths
to get to its ending and the reset fix was a cheap cheat. That said, it was
still entertaining, well directed and oozed production quality. 6/10
overall.

As for the season as a whole, very much a little girl who had a little
curl. When it was good it was very very good. But when it was bad it was
horrid.

I was hoping for a major uplift from the Chibnall era, and I don’t think I
got it. It was more watchable than great - approximately 5th Doctor level.

--
“Most of the Universe is knackered, babes.”  - The Doctor