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<\/a><\/div>\nRussell T Davies you absolute madman. I feel like I\u2019ve said that a lot since he came back to writing Doctor Who<\/i>, but this has been the most experimental season we\u2019ve ever had from the show \u2013 full of unique elements, plot twists and big grand moments. We\u2019ve had 73 Yards<\/i>, a character study on abandonment, Rogue<\/i>, an alien-insert as fanfiction. And now comes Empire of Death<\/i> \u2013 a world where Sutekh has won, defeated the Doctor, using his TARDIS as a means of spreading death across all the universe, and in all of creation only one woman can save the day.\n<\/p>\n Much of the ongoing narrative has been built up around Ruby\u2019s mother. I posted on X, formerly Twitter, a few days ago that my theory was that it would\u2019ve been a The Last Jedi<\/i>-style answer, like Rey Nobody which was easily much more interesting than Rey Palpatine, and in Doctor Who Unleashed<\/i>, Davies clearly agrees. Ruby\u2019s mother being an ordinary woman who got pregnant when she was young and named Ruby after a road may not be the explanation that a fandom who loves to theorise wanted, but it\u2019s a refreshing change from the need to connect the dots. Anything else wouldn\u2019t have been satisfying \u2013 a deus-ex-machina moment too many.\n<\/p>\n They\u2019re not going to bring back a character they haven\u2019t teased already this season; that would feel sudden. That left someone completely new, Sutekh\u2019s pantheon, or Susan\/The Doctor himself; as 13. And I\u2019m really glad none of those options were correct because it would have been a little too silly. Yes; Ruby can make it snow \u2013 but there\u2019s an explanation for that, no matter how flimsy, the time window and the TARDIS fracturing at the presence of her birth creates the snow backlash. And there\u2019s still room for more to come on this front, remember \u2013 Doctor Who<\/i> likes to surprise, likes to reinvent. To tell something that everyone was speculating beforehand would\u2019ve felt somehow cheap.\n<\/p>\n Performance wise, there\u2019s some good stuff here. The weakness of Empire of Death<\/i> is that we barely have had any time with The Doctor and Ruby in the same way that their dynamic is over just as it\u2019s getting started. They were barely on screen for Dot and Bubble<\/i>, and 73 Yards<\/i> was Doctor lite. Gatwa\u2019s absence filming Sex Education<\/i> has been felt all over this season; as has the reduced episode count. Even Flux<\/i> with ten felt like it had more time to flesh out its many relationships between its large ensemble. That\u2019s what the biggest flaw of season one was, in that there were only 8 episodes. Thirteen seems like the bye gone days of distant past, but ten? That would\u2019ve been enough. To do a season with barely any sci-fi alien world exploring beyond Boom<\/i> until Empire of Death<\/i> somehow misses the opportunity for both Gibson and Gatwa to bond, but it says something about how good their chemistry is that their lack of presence together never becomes an issue when they\u2019re on screen. They\u2019re both excellent actors, Gibson is destined to big things, and this is the episode where Gatwa becomes The Doctor for me. He\u2019s sensationally gifted, he was of course \u2013 already, for much of this season, but this is where he becomes Fifteen. Unique \u2013 the bringer of life in comparison to the bringer of death.\n<\/p>\n Let\u2019s talk about deus-ex-machina for a minute because we all know it was coming. You can\u2019t kill off the entire ensemble of UNIT and not expect it to be reset. But then Doctor Who<\/i>, especially Russell T Davies Doctor Who<\/i>, has always done that. Every reset takes away a bit of the magic \u2013 maybe if Sutekh had just dusted Kate and that would\u2019ve been the cliffhanger? Secondly \u2013 what was the point in bringing back Rose; when she only raises more questions about why 14 didn\u2019t get involved, and yes this is a show that has had multiple Doctors on Earth at the same time, sometimes as many as 3 at once; but Flux for example gave a reason for why they couldn\u2019t help 13. Would 14 have come out of retirement to help 15? There\u2019s a lot of gaps here that are easy to poke fun at the end of the day, but the ultimate reminder is that it\u2019s Doctor Who<\/i>, and it\u2019s never been more fun to watch, thematically resonate \u2013 the most important woman in the world is nobody important because everybody is important to somebody, and everybody matters. The moment where Ruby meets her mother in the caf\u00e9 at the end is exceptional \u2013 Gibson delivering the best performance of the season. I was named after a road.\n<\/p>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n