10x12 'The Doctor Falls' community reaction post

Jul 01, 2017 18:48

Series 10 finale on BBC1 at 6.30 BST. Share your reactions here! Enjoy!

squee post

Leave a comment

elenopa July 1 2017, 19:03:08 UTC
I don't believe it's the end of The Master/Missy. No way would she remember needing a spare de-materialisation circuit and not remember shooting herself in the back. She will have put in some safeguards.

Reply

gonzo21 July 1 2017, 19:10:15 UTC
Agreed. I really thought that last scene was going to have been the Tardis taking the doctor back to the patch of devastated forest where Missy was laying, and she'd pick herself up and help him out with his regeneration.

Having made the whole season about the redemptive arc of the Doctor/Missy, it was... really peculiar that they just let it resolve that way.

Reply

dbskyler July 2 2017, 08:38:23 UTC
I kind of feel like it went down like this:

1) "Let's have both the Master and Missy in the season finale!"
2) "We need an arc. Let's build up this whole thing about a vault, and slowly reveal it's Missy in the vault."
3) "We need something about Missy and the vault. How about if we tease that maybe Missy is getting reformed?"

So the redemptive arc was really the tacked-on excuse, not something that was integral to the planning of the season. It sure came off that way in the finale, anyway.

Reply

gonzo21 July 2 2017, 12:32:36 UTC
That sounds possible, yes.

Did we find out the whole story of how and why Missy was in teh vault anyway? There was that scene where she was going to be executed by somebody, and for some reason the Doctor was called in to perform the execution, and instead... somehow she wound up in the vault instead, but the Doctor could let her out whenever as it turned out. And... I feel like I must have missed something.

It's a shame, apart from the monks, I've really quite enjoyed this season. I enjoyed last weeks episode. But the resolution felt untidy.

(And cheap, my gosh, when they can only muster a half dozen people as the tides of at risk humanity, then, the budget has seriously been squeezed.)

Reply

tonyp927 July 2 2017, 17:05:23 UTC
Yes, but they had to make sure Bill lives at the end as that is tradition now.

Reply

gonzo21 July 6 2017, 14:23:06 UTC
And I'm glad she did, but it was way too deus-ex-ey I thought.

Reply

dbskyler July 2 2017, 18:07:44 UTC
No, we never found out. It was, "I made an oath to guard her body," but it didn't seem to be much of an oath. Also, since the Doctor could keep Missy a prisoner in his own TARDIS, there apparently wasn't any point to the vault at all.

Reply

gonzo21 July 6 2017, 14:23:48 UTC
No, it's not like she was getting... radical Cognitive behavioural therapy in the vault or anything. She was just sitting being bored.

Reply

tonyp927 July 2 2017, 17:02:51 UTC
Yes. The dematerialization circuit line sounded like it was written in at the last minute with no continuity for it. When Missy fell to the ground, she was laughing, hinting that she had a plan. We know The Master always survives somehow.

Reply

bitter_suite24 July 2 2017, 22:22:48 UTC
Yep, that was my thought. The way she was laughing there was no way she hadn't taken measures to protect herself.

Reply

gavluvsga July 2 2017, 22:02:09 UTC
I have a theory that John Simm will end up not regenerating into Missy but someone else, and that Missy will turn out to be a much later incarnation.

Reply

tonyp927 July 3 2017, 01:41:24 UTC
I was really hoping for some references or tie-ins to pre-Delgado Master. In some of the extended media, the story goes that Koschel (former name for The Master) burned most of his regenerations trying to escape from a black hole. This is why when he first appears in the 3rd Doctor stories, he's already in his last incarnation.
The series finale is a multi-master episode that takes place near a black hole and before the events of The Tenth Planet.

Reply

whoandme July 4 2017, 02:33:25 UTC
I feel that Missy's reformation has been coming for some time. So much of her time in the Capaldi era has focused on her once-and-future friendship with the Doctor. I also think there was some precedent for it, especially when you consider that Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks were going to finish off Roger Delgago's Master with an ambiguous act of redemption in the unrealised The Final Game. This felt like a call-back to that earlier idea. As we are now nearing the end of Steven Moffat's era I think it is fine to have definite endings set in stone - i.e. the Master/Missy being killed. I think sometimes that Doctor Who fans and writers can be too precious about these things, "We can't kill off this character because it means they won't be able to appear in the future." Nonsense ( ... )

Reply


Leave a comment

Up