#9 (1.8): Empire of Death.

Ruby presents a gift to Sutekh. Too bad it's not a better script.

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 54 minutes. Written by: Russell T. Davies. Directed by: Jamie Donoughue. Produced by: Vicki Delow.


THE PLOT:

Sutekh has returned to spread his "gift of death" to the entire universe. The centuries that have passed since the 4th Doctor defeated him in 1911 have only made him stronger. He's engulfed the TARDIS, feeding off its energy like a giant tick, and his minions spread his "dust of death" across all of time and space to extinguish all life in the universe.

The Doctor, Ruby, and Mel escape by using the Memory TARDIS in UNIT's Time Window. Now it's up to them to find a way to stop Sutekh and restore the universe. A tall order, since they only have access to a barely functioning "deathtrap" of a time machine, but the Doctor has it in hand. After all, he's able to convince a survivor (Sian Clifford) to let him have her spoon.


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor howling at the dying universe echoes another moment in this season: His cry of frustration and helplessness at the end of Dot and Bubble. But, much like Empire of Death itself, it mainly serves to remind me of a much better episode. His cry in Dot and Bubble felt organic: a raw reaction to an act of self-destruction that was based on pure irrationality. This howl? It's hollow artifice, a good actor doing his level best to try to lend some weight to a CGI apocalypse that we already know will be undone in the next half hour.

Ruby: The "Time Window" image of her birth mother is the key to the plot, such as it is. Just as she and the Doctor are unable to see the image of the woman's face, so is Sutekh, and he becomes obsessed with discovering this stranger's identity. Ruby gets a decent character scene when she refuses to allow the Doctor to blame himself for Sutekh's actions. That scene, and Ruby's brief but well-scripted encounter with Sutekh, allow Millie Gibson to show some of the talent we saw in the midseason, though this episode's Ruby remains more of a plot device than a character.

Mel: She gets a good moment early on, when she hauls the Doctor to her scooter to make an escape and declares that the only thing they can do now is fight. After that... Well, a little too much like in her actual tenure as a regular, she's reduced to a combination of Plot Device and Spare Part. Bonnie Langford continues to make the most of the little bits she gets, such as when an exhausted Mel remarks that her time in the TARDIS was the best time of her life - but for the first time since her return, those moments don't ultimately add up to much.

Sutekh: Gabriel Woolf returns to voice Sutekh, the villain he so memorably brought to life in Pyramids of Mars. Woolf's deep, rich tones are still a perfect fit for the God of Death. The characterization is... less good. Sutekh has been watching all season, and he's apparently gotten really invested in the mystery of Ruby's mother. This leads to him sparing the Doctor and Ruby; his goal may be the death of everything, but he's not about to let things end on a cliffhanger! I'm of two minds about Sutekh's CGI redesign. It does feel like a modernized extrapolation of the original design, and there is something effective about the way he hangs over the TARDIS. On the other hand, "New Sutekh" looks like he should be a Dark Souls boss, which further emphasizes the artificiality pervading this episode.


THOUGHTS:

When basically the entire recurring cast was vaporized within the first five minutes, it was obvious that this was headed for a bright red reset button. This doesn't have to mean disaster. Star Trek: Voyager's Year of Hell was a reset button episode, but it also made good use of that show's regular cast, showing both their vulnerability and their resilience in the face of a horrible situation.

Empire of Death doesn't do this. It pretends to, with the Doctor talking at the end about how much he's learned and Millie Gibson's Ruby trotting out her "holding back a sob" voice a few times too many for it to remain effective. But the attempts at emotion end up feeling like some sort of processed emotion substitute, something to sell in a convenience store in a blue-and-red tin.

The script doesn't so much build to a climax as arrive there after a collection of scenes. There's a callback to the malevolent Prime Minister from 73 Yards, but it seems to exist solely to have a callback. The whole bit just left me wishing I was rewatching that excellent episode instead of this dross.

The Doctor and Ruby ultimately outwit Sutekh by yanking something out of the Memory Nether Regions, which only works because in addition to being the God of Death, Sutekh is also the God of Stupidity. And I'm left reflecting that even though I've yet to listen to the character's audio return with Big Finish, I have no doubt that it was better done than this - largely because it had to be.


ONE GREAT SCENE:

The episode does manage to deliver one great scene. After the first Act, with Sutekh having unleashed his "gift of death" on the universe, there's a quiet exchange between the Doctor and a woman (Sian Clifford) on the remains of her planet. Clifford is excellent in this scene, conveying a certain serene weariness. She cannot remember her name, but she clings to fragments - an infant daughter, a husband whom she remembers was "tall," an opera house. She smiles at the Doctor's "kind face." This scene also sees Ncuti Gatwa's best acting of the episode, his Doctor compassionate and patient in his interactions with her.

This one scene keeps me from giving this episode an absolute rock bottom score - but it also makes the emptiness of the rest of the show stand out all the more. The soft, sad conversation between the Doctor and the nameless woman left me wanting a story centered around this specific situation... and instead we go right back to the CGI Feast of Sutekh.


OVERALL:

An extended epilogue tries to wring some emotion, and I'll be fair and acknowledge that there are a couple of good lines in this part. But writer Russell T. Davies lays it on a bit too thick for a bit too long, until it ends up feeling as hollow as the rest of it. In the end, I think the episode's defining moment is the Doctor's howl at the end of the First Act: a failed attempt at emotional resonance that collides ineffectually into a computer-generated void of nothingness.

In my review of Dot and Bubble, I reflected that after three excellent episodes in a row, this season was on track to be one of the strongest since the show's 2005 return. I think I jinxed it. Empire of Death is dreadful, easily the worst season finale since Doctor Who's 2005 return. Judged only as an episode, the only thing keeping this from being worse than Space Babies is that one excellent scene between the Doctor and the unnamed woman.

If nothing else, this has given me a newfound appreciation for the merits of The Battle of Ranskoor av Kolos.


Overall Rating: 2/10.

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#8 (1.7): The Legend of Ruby Sunday.

The Doctor investigates Ruby's past - and falls right into an old enemy's trap!

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 46 minutes. Written by: Russell T. Davies. Directed by: Jamie Donoughue. Produced by: Vicki Delow.


THE PLOT:

The Doctor comes to UNIT for help in identifying two people: the mysterious woman (Susan Twist) who keeps appearing wherever he and Ruby go, and Ruby's mother. The first is no problem. The woman is Susan Triad, head of S. Triad Technology, and she is preparing to unveil a remarkable piece of new, free technology. All of that would have been more than enough to put her on UNIT's radar, even if her company's name wasn't an obvious anagram for "TARDIS."

For the Doctor, there's one more issue involving this woman, aspects of whom keep appearing throughout time and space. Her name is Susan - a common name, yes, but also the name of his granddaughter!

The mystery of Ruby's origins is more complicated, but Ruby does have a copy of the 2005 CCTV footage from outside the church where she was abandoned. As expected from a twenty year old VHS tape, it's extremely grainy, the details impossible to discern. But with UNIT's technology, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart is confident that they can enhance it enough to see the woman's face.

But as the Doctor observes, memory is time - and whatever force is behind this, it clearly can travel or at least project itself through time. And UNIT's newest scientific advisor (Lenny Rush) feels certain that all of this is a trap!


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: This incarnation's emotional openness also leaves him feeling guilt more strongly. He confesses to Kate that he feels like he brings disaster everywhere he goes. This really isn't true - It's more that he tends to arrive just in time to reveal and fight the disaster that would have happened anyway. Still, he can get tunnel vision when he feels close to solving a mystery, which in this episode leads to a moment of carelessness.

Ruby: Despite the episode's title, I think this might be Ruby's weakest showing as a character. She's reduced entirely to a plot device, left to react to events rather than actually doing anything. I suspect it's no coincidence that Millie Gibson, who has been quite good for most of the season, is much worse here as well. If you assume she's putting a little squeak into her voice, often while softly crying "Mum? Mum!", then you really won't be too far off. Given some of the excellent material she received in Boom, Dot and Bubble, and particularly 73 Yards, this is a severe disappointment.

Mel: I'll admit to feeling some pleasure in observing that Bonnie Langford, one-time bane of Doctor Who fandom, gives easily the best performance of the episode. As in The Giggle, Mel retains her Classic Series positivity. Even as she investigates Susan Triad, she reports back to UNIT that the woman is not only human, but actually quite nice. She has absolute faith in the Doctor, reassuring Ruby's mother that she is safe with him. She also refuses to let the Doctor paralyze himself with guilt. When he has a moment of despair, she looks down at him and says: "Finished? Now stop grizzling and fix it!" As with Langford's Big Finish audios, her modern-day television appearances reinforce that neither Langford nor the character brief were the problems with Mel at the time; the writing was.

Carla Sunday: When Ruby comes for the tape, Carla decides that she's going to return with her. To the highly secure, top-secret government installation. To the episode's credit, she at least gets stopped by security, with the Doctor having to intervene for her to be allowed in. Once inside, she... doesn't do much of anything, more or less standing around until the Doctor sends her away again. It's still more than Yasmin Finney's Rose Noble gets to do (Rose's role: Present); but given how much of a point the script makes of Carla going to UNIT, it's odd that she contributes almost nothing to the actual story.

Kate Lethbridge-Stewart: She was raised on her father's stories of the Doctor; and though she's sometimes clashed with him, she argues against his claim that he brings disaster. She does get angry with him later, when his carelessness puts one of her men in harm's way, and Jemma Redgrave delivers a glare that would make a desert cactus wither. But she still defers to him. When he orders Ruby back to UNIT's Time Window, Ruby asks why - at which point Kate snaps, "You do not question. You move!"


THOUGHTS:

My biggest criticism about The Legend of Ruby Sunday is that it feels mechanical. Everything here revolves around two scenes: the scene in which the Doctor, Ruby, and UNIT look at the night Ruby was abandoned through a "Time Window"; and the big reveal at the end. The rest of the episode is designed to get to those two scenes. I was suitably gripped by the Time Window scene. Still, I can't quite escape the feeling that this central piece of the story amounts to the characters studying a blow-up of an old photo.

On the plus side, Davies and director Jamie Donoughue do a good job of filling the time. The episode establishes a sense of urgency early on, and momentum carries the viewer through. The plot amounts to an extended build to the big reveal, but script, performances, and direction do a fine job of making you feel that things are about to go badly wrong.

The reveal itself is a strong scene, particularly for those who watched Doctor Who's original run, and the cliffhanger has me ready for the finale. That said, I've been disappointed with Russell T. Davies's finales more often than not, and that tempers my excitement.


OVERALL:

I'm torn assigning a score, as The Legend of Ruby Sunday is less a story than a lead-in to the next episode. It does a good job with pacing and atmosphere. Ruby, however, is reduced to being little more than a plot device, and the thread involving Carla's visit to UNIT comes to exactly nothing.

The hour goes by quickly, and I wasn't bored. In the end, though, I'm left thinking that my final opinion on this episode is going to very dependent on the success or failure of the next one.


Overall Rating: 5/10.

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