We stand at the breach.
We are on the precipice.
We confront the abyss.
We have arrived at the season finale of Doctor Who.
Humanity is on the verge of extinction.
Ashad, the Lone Cyberman, has activated a crap ton of Cybermen Warriors.
Graham, Yaz and three human refugees are trapped on a ship with that crap ton of Cybermen Warriors.
The Doctor is on a far distant planet looking into a portal that leads to a destroyed Gallifrey.
The Master leaps out of the portal to tell the Doctor it's only going to get worse.
And there's Brendan... whatever the hell that is about.
Where is all this going?
What is this all about?
Will we finally get answers?
We'll explore the nooks and crannies of Doctor Who's season finale after the spoiler break.
THE TIMELESS CHILDREN
by Chris Chibnall
Graham, Yaz and the human refugees are trapped on a ship with a crap ton of Cybermen Warriors? Graham has a plan for that. Strip out some unactivated Cybermen, wear the Cyber armor and hide out among the Cyberman.
There are many, many reasons why this is not a good idea. Graham concedes its not a perfect idea but it is an idea.
Somehow this works the gang (less one refugee casualty) makes its off the Cyberman ship. And just in time to save Ryan and a couple of other refugees (including a Gandahlf like Ko Sharmus, all snarky and ready to kick ass) from the Cybermen. Hey, the fam is all together now!
But not the Doctor.
The Master already her pulled her back over the Boundary into the ruins of Gallifrey where he has her trapped in a paralysis field as he shows her around the Time Lord Matrix to introduce the Doctor to the secret origin of the Time Lords.
Tecteun, a space explorer from Gallifrey, finds a planet with a weird portal to another universe swirling in its sky. Below that portal is a monument and at base of the monument is a child. Tecteun decides to take the child home.
One day the child is in a tragic accident that kills the child. But the child gets better after she regenerates. It is the first regeneration on Gallifrey.
Tecteun studies the child and is able to replicate the ability to regenerate which is given to the Time Lords.
The child who provided the gift of regeneration to the Time Lords is the Timeless Child. And the Timeless Child is the Doctor.
We see the Timeless Child recruited by the Time Lords into service The Division, a cryptically named organization that does not exist and will definitely interfere in other planets and times, Time Lord laws be damned.
Ka-boom! Mind blown. The Doctor is reeling from this revelation.
It doesn't help that the revelation is not complete. There is a whole section about this part of the Doctor's existence totally redacted, except for one scrap of intel: the story of Brendan, a filtered and edited version of the Doctor's story.
Meanwhile, the Cyber Carrier has entered through the Boundary and the Master has a meeting with Ashad, the Lone Cyberman. Ashad has in his chest plate "the Death Particle" that once it is unleashed can destroy all organic life. He intends to unleash the particle, kill all organic life and have the Cybermen ascend to a fully mechanical state.
Meanwhile, besides screwing around with the Doctor's mind, the Master has other things to do. Which includes shrinkifying Ashad, killing him and releasing the Cyberium which the Master absorbs.
Here's the plan: the Master killed everyone on Gallifrey but he kept the bodies on ice as it were. The Master intends to fuse Cybermen tech with Time Lord bodies to produce a race of perpetually regenerating Cyber Lords. Cool, huh?
OK, not cool! Cybermen with Time Lord powers seems like a bad idea to me! But I'm not a megalomaniacal, homicidal and suicidal evil genius.
Meanwhile, still stuck in the Matrix, the Doctor gets a vision of the (for lack of a better nomenclature) Fugitive Doctor which tries to help the Doctor get a handle on everything she's learned. Which have rattled the Doctor a bit but the Doctor is still the Doctor and uses this accumulated knowledge to feedback on the Matrix (with a rapid fire montage of past Doctors) and frees herself from captivity.
The fam and the refugees have crossed the Boundary into Gallifrey with a plan to blow up the Cyber carrier. The Doctor is on board with this plan but she needs to get the humans off the planet. She finds a TARDIS and programs it to take the fam and the refugees to 21st century Earth.
But not the Doctor. She's going to use the death particle in the shrunken Ashad to stop the Cybermen, the Cyber Time Lords and the Master once and for all.
As the Doctor takes her leave, Yaz stands trembling, on the verge of tears. "For crying out loud, Yaz!" I yell at the TV, "Tell the Doctor you love her!"
When Yaz does not do this, I yell at the TV again: "For crying out loud, Chibnall! One bit of character development for Yaz is too much for you? C'mon!"
After two seasons stretched over 3 years, the Doctor-Yaz shippers are once more denied.
The Doctor confronts the Master with micro Ashad attached to a bomb to unleash the Death Particle but Ko Sharmus has other plans. He started this when he sent the Cyberium back in time and he'll finish it. Running out of time and no room to argue, the Doctor leaves him to it.
The Doctor steals another TARDIS just as a dying Ko Sharmus pushes the button and Gallifrey is toast once more.
One TARDIS lands on Earth, it's perfectly functioning chameleon circuit disguising itself as a nice ordinary red brick home in Sheffield. The fam wonders what happened to the Doctor?
The Doctor has taken the other TARDIS to the shattered future Earth. The new TARDIS disguises itself as a tree. The Doctor is reunited with her TARDIS, lovingly still a police box.
She staggers in, a bit worn out from all that she has learned and endured. The Doctor needs a moment to rest but nope!
Judoon teleport in, arrest the Doctor and zap her into a space prison in an asteroid somewhere.
The end?
Oh, we do get a title card that tells us the Doctor will be back this holiday season in "Revolution of the Daleks".
Chibnall!!!
There's been speculation ever since the Brain of Morbius way back in the early 1970s that there are incarnations of the Doctor before the one we saw personified by William Hartnell. Chris Chibnall has made that canon.
So this is a significant change to the whole Doctor Who mythology. It adds a whole level of mystery to the Doctor that even the Doctor doesn't know.
There is the usual frantic pace one associates with Chibnall era Doctor Who where too much is going on at once. Even the Master has to be in two places at once as he torments the Doctor and confronts Ashad at the same time.
We do get a nice moment with Graham and Yaz where he says some really nice things about Yaz, you know, just in case they don't get out of this. It has a wrapping up kind of tone to suggest these characters are on their way out.
I expect the fam will be back for a proper goodbye in the Dalek special this December. Maybe then Yaz will confess she loves the Doctor? Oh, I've lost all hope on that.
I am concerned about all the TARDISes that are scattered about. Somewhere is the Master's TARDIS the Doctor borrowed in Spyfall Part 2. There's the brick house TARDIS in Sheffield, the tree TARDIS on future Earth and, of course, the Doctor's own TARDIS. And the TARDIS of the Fugitive Doctor is out there somewhere too. That's a lot of time travelling capability floating around out there.
The Timeless Children turns up the tension and the action to an eleven. It certainly delivered on the promise of what a season finale should be.
______________________________
Next Monday, since we will not have a Doctor Who Is NEW! post to make, I will endeavor to assess the season just past.
No comments:
Post a Comment