I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE VIDEO! And the Season. LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS BELOW TO BE INCLUDED IN THE COMMUNITY REACTION! - Edit: 14:56 I meant the 4th Doctor not 14th lol 3am brain. Also, if the point I’m making here wasn’t clear, what I meant was the idea of the Doctor having made a mistake and being vain is needed for the story- as Sutekh’s arrival is his punishment from the universe. But the 4th Doctor did not do anything worthy of punishment. On the other hand, the 14th Doctor DID do something worthy of punishment, so that is when Sutekh should’ve attached himself as it is more fitting thematically. Hope that makes sense :)
I copy pasted this from my review on Reddit so here: Honestly, the finale was a mixed bag for me. Good things more than bad things, but the bad things are more noticeable in this one. I'll start with the good things, because they're easy to talk about. - Gabriel Woolf does a wonderful job with Sutekh's voice, despite not being in the role for a little more than 47 years. His performance is imposing and sinister, which makes his presence more terrifying. I know people don't really like the big CGI jackal (his big snoot taking up the space of one shot in The Legend of Ruby Sunday is hilarious), but if I was a kid, I'd be having nightmares for days. - Everyone's performances are stellar, especially Millie Gibson's acting. She's had some really good performances in her time on the show and honestly she's my favourite companion. Ncuti Gatwa's performance is amazing as always, he's just perfect for the role AHHHH. - The scene with the woman and the spoon. It was extremely heartbreaking and it really showed the impact of Sutekh's death storm. The part where she tells her baby to hush even though it's not actually there made me feel very empty and heavy at my throat. - The Doctor proclaiming that he is the God of Life to Sutekh's being the god of death. It's such a powerful scene, and Ncuti says these lines so wonderfully, and it's just a really good scene. I actually like the whole sequence of the Doctor and Ruby's plan to drag Sutekh back into the time vortex and actually made sense. I always love it when the Doctor uses his skills to formulate a plan, in his usual Doctor-y way. I feel like the 15th Doctor has been a bit passive this series after Space Babies I also like the part where Ruby calls Sutekh, "You great big god of nothing." That was just gold. - Murray Gold's soundtrack is perfect. That is all. - I like that Ruby's mum is an ordinary person, which is a subversion of many NuWho companions who are treated as very important to the universe itself. The reunion scene was gorgeous and the ending with the Doctor and Ruby, with Ruby tearfully saying "I love you" to her dear friend is honestly just the best scene. I really like this ending. Now onto the bad things: - This episode is too short. I know it's ten minutes longer than a regular episode but it's too short. The finale should have been a 3-parter, or at least have Empire of Death be an hour and a half. This great big apocalypse was too big for a regular sized NuWho episode, and the story suffers from it. Future showrunners should really consider a return to ClassicWho 4-parters with each part being 24 minutes. The deaths of UNIT and Ruby's foster family went too quick without any hint of slowing down. For something to have an emotional impact, there needs to be room to process this. This did not happen in Empire of Death. Instead, a lot of it can end up feeling underwhelming, which is what happened in this episode. Actually this series is too short. Too many Doctor-lite and experimental episodes for a fresh start, when there should have been time to breathe and really take in the 15th Doctor and Ruby. I love what we got, but it's gone way too fast for my liking. Going from goblins and space babies to the GOD OF DEATH that appeared in 1976 in only 8 episodes in what is technically a first season for new viewers is a bit much, no? I really hope the episodes in Series 15 are longer, so that the pacing and therefore the story gets to be fleshed out more. - The world-building is a bit screw-y. Sutekh hanging onto the TARDIS since the events of Pyramids of Mars is too much. Why is the TARDIS only groaning now after 113 years (perhaps even longer!) of having Sutekh on her? If Susan Triad has appeared where the Doctor has landed in that time interval, why haven't they noticed before? Surely this would be a detail that the Doctor, of all people, would note down. Why is he only noticing now? Also if Sutekh can see through the dead cells of bodies, why does he choose to see through Mel's eyes, and not the Doctor's or Ruby's? (I mean, it could just be a way of messing with the Doctor's emotions but still, that's a big mistake to do something like that to the Doctor, because he's gonna end up finding a solution). The BIG question is that where is the 14th Doctor? Sutekh's death sandstorm had extended to the entire universe, so did he just turn to dust? Why didn't he help? The return of a villain would be something he would most certainly jump to action to, even if he is in rehab. I get that it's both Tennant retiring from the role and also not wanting to steal Gatwa's spotlight as the Doctor, but it just messes with the world building of the Whoniverse, and just creates a huge hole where there should be something. - Ruby's mother pointing at the sign (THAT WASN'T THERE BEFORE) to name her baby was stupid. Enough said. If I were to put the episodes of Series 14 into a tier list, including Empire of Death, it would be: S (Spectacular): Boom, Dot and Bubble A (Really Good): Space Babies (fight me don't fight me actually I am weak), The Devil's Chord, The Legend of Ruby Sunday B (Just Good): 73 Yards, Rogue, Church on Ruby Road C (Meh but it's Good Enough): Empire of Death Addendum: The Doctor wearing the outfit he wore in The Church on Ruby Road is literally the most satisfying thing I have ever seen. Not only is that outfit my favourite, it’s like a way of saying how the season has come full circle Also, when I said that there were too many experimental/Doctor-lite episodes, that doesn’t mean I didn’t like them haha I loved them all Also ALSO Rose wasn’t just standing there. She was operating the lasers using her tablet. We have a 13 year old with a Segway gun and a 15 year old with lasers 😭 Peak Doctor Who I don’t care
This season was literally so good. Definitely one of my favourites, however the execution for the last few bits of the finale really fell flat for me. Similar to what you said in the video, the doctor's crying really ruined a lot of emotional scenes for me, and the "I love you" from Ruby would have had so much more impact without it. That being said, it kinda paralleled 10 and Rose's scene in Doomsday - and I'm a little confused as to why RTD made that comparison as Ruby and the doctor's relationship thus far has only been portrayed as a friendship type bond (I may be reading into it too much, and Ruby's i love you was platonic but idk that was my interpretation of it). Another bit I didn't really like was also the Mel possession bit - I feel like it was extremely predictable (having Mel show symptoms of becoming dusted right after the interaction with the forgetful woman for example), and even after she left the room in 2049, I could immediately tell that the doctor had sussed it out. Despite all this, I really did enjoy this episode (much like I did with the rest of the season), and I hope the new specials coming out will be even better.
I think that the doctor crying at the end will retroactively be amazing. He's not crying because Ruby is saying goodbye. He's crying because he knows that's not her mum. That *something* is wrong and still needs fixed. He knows that Ruby's happy ending is a lie. We already know she's back for the next series, so it makes sense that something is off with how she's leaving. I think that Ruby has the ability to impact the narrative, which is why we got space babies, why there was a "bridgerton episode", and why Ricky September is so similar to herself. She needed a mother so she created one. Staying with the doctor can get her family killed. So she wrote him out of her story in a neat little bow. But it won't stay that way.
"The Doctor's Wife" is the one that gets me. "No. I just wanted to say…hello. Hello, Doctor. It’s so very, very nice to meet you.... Oh and by the way. Sutekh hasn't been trapped in the Time Vortex and has been latched on to me this entire time. You might want to do something about that"
Honestly this whole two parter didn't make much sense. It's kinda just a typical RTD finale. Let's pretend we have huge stakes while we know everything just gets turned back at the end with no consequence.
Doesn't everything get turned back in Doctor Who finales? Unless we know the companion is getting written off, the stakes are almost non-existant with the almighty Time Lord
It was kind of a traditional RTD two-parter. He introduces a MacGuffin in the final episode that defeats the villain. Everything goes back to normal. Any finale set on Earth can be guaranteed to have no real consequences.
Yeah we all knew they weren’t going to actually Thanos everyone on earth. It was intensely creepy and I loved it, but…. No one fell for that, right? Please tell me no one was actually expecting that to stick.
@@ThePonderer yeah I really didn't get everyone slobbering over The Legend of Ruby Sunday. It's 30 minutes of fannying about and only 15 minutes of useful Time Window + Sutekh reveal There were faaaar too many characters doing so little. I was genuinely pleased seeing Empire of Death essentially only having 3 protagonists take on Sutekh
I like the idea of Ruby's mom being a normal person who just happens to be surrounded by mystery boxes, but then the actual explanation for half the mysteries turned out to be... nothing??? Wtf
I liked how Ruby's mistery wasn't supernatural or cosmically special. It was just so simple, realistic and fresh. Not every companion has to be an impossible girl, a bad wolf or the mother of the Doctor's wife. To me the highlight of this series definitely was Millie's Ruby. It's now in my top 5 companions of all time.
Yet somehow she makes it snow and plays music every time she's thinking about it. Also, The Doctor's memory somehow changing. It's supernatural, and just overwritten by 'the power of belief'.
Nah this was awful. He clearly didn’t intend for her to be normal from the beginning given that she clearly was “cosmically special” for the entire season but Russell copped out because he didn’t actually have an answer to any of it. We still don’t know why this ordinary person causes it so magically snow. We still don’t know why her “ordinary” mum was dressed like the trickster (where do you even buy a cloak like that in the modern day? And why would you wear it instead of a regular hoodie?) This felt like Russell tried to pull a Rian Johnson by giving us every reason to think she was important and then gaslighting us into believing that we were just overthinking things because we ‘wanted’ her to be important. No, we thought she was important because she did stuff that breaks the laws of physics like making it snow indoors and stuff.
@@YodaOnABender thank you! To your point, Maestro literally said Ruby "has power like Him(Sutekh)"..... So HOW CAN HER MOM BE NORMAL?!? This definitely wasn't the right choice and makes me really heated. We just spent 8 episodes theorizing for what?!
I LOVED the finale! Ruby's mom being an ordinary person would have fallen flat for me IF it weren't for the scene where the two meet. The way it was acted and written perfectly justified the whole thing for me, emotional impact will always be more important for me than some fan-servicey conclusion that could have happened with literally any of the "Oh it's _!" characters.
HELLO to The girls in front of me at odeon who connected with me over ‘eat my salad’ guy from woman who fell to earth, and then said they were going home to watch drwhofan 91 after the episode
I’m largely convinced Russel either wrote this finale on a time crunch or just gave up. The season was going so strong but really started faltering at Legend of Ruby Sunday. That episode and this one had a lot of moments that made me smile but a lot of random parts that also just had me questioning “why?”. The script for both feels like a first draft that could’ve been tightened up so much better with time; it just feels like these episodes spend so much time meandering on random plot points instead of giving us more time with the characters, which is all the more vital in a season with only 8 episodes. The Doctor and Ruby have great chemistry but I feel like we don’t know enough about their relationship! Three of the 8 episodes of this season were Doctor-Lite, Companion-Lite, and both (and those episodes were undeniably great, it’s just… what’s the point of having them there if they’re not going to prop up anything greater?). Sutekh’s buildup was great but was just completely squandered in this episode and leaves too many questions. How did he birth the pantheon and evolve into godhood while still attached to the TARDIS, why did the dust leave survivors throughout the universe? To name a couple. I could go on but I feel like it’s a waste of time to name all my grievances when others have already summed them up about as well as I could’ve. I just wish this season gave us a little more! I hope Russel can negotiate for more episodes in Season 3, if we get that far. Regardless, I’m still a massive fan of this era and I want nothing but success for the show going forward. Wherever this show goes, I’m sticking around! I hope the next series gives us more consistency and a better thought out plot!
Unfortunately that’s how shows are trending. Most aren’t doing long seasons anymore, and we’re lucky if we get them once every year. I have no idea why this is the direction studios are going in.
okay, so first time i watched it, i had the same reaction as seemingly most people here - omfg, the big reveal is that it's a random person, seriously? and how they brought everyone back to life didn't make much sense, i have to admit that too. but upon watching it for the second time, it feels like maybe that's the entire point. that we were waiting for the reveal that her mother was someone special, someone magical, someone divine on the same level as Sutekh and that this reveal was going to be the huge twist that saves the day. and this ending says: the thing that has just as much power as the god of death, the thing that has enough power to stand against pure destruction itself, is human connection, memories and love. is it cheesy? yes. do i personally find it a fitting ending? YES. not even the first time in this season, tdc was about how important such an abstract thing as music can be to humans, and Boom also ended with familial love being the final solution. so i guess i'm an empire of death defender now. this is a "power of love saves the day" type ending done right imo
I think that's beautiful messaging but it doesn't explain all the other stuff going on with Ruby apparently having some kind of power or special ability. That would have been a beautiful lesson if the mystery was just "Who is her mother" instead of "Who is the mother? Why does it snow? Why was Maestro scared of Ruby? What hidden power did Ruby have?" I like the messaging, but it doesn't pay off any of the other mysteries. It's not even internally consistent with what else happened in the season.
The only reason why people thought she was special is because she cab make it snow indoors like ofcorse she's special and she hade sutehks song inside her heart I guess that's over the doctor
@@Thief555WWJD i heard that RTD said we're not done with stories centered around Ruby so we'll probably find out the answer to those things later, although i agree this season/the finale could've made that intention more clear. or maybe that information i heard was just copium from people defending the episode lol
I completely agree with this take, and also felt like this after a second rewatch. The scene of them meeting was so good too, it definitely helped the episode. My only issue with the episode is the whole Sutehk having been on the tardis the whole time, it doesn't make sense, especially because the noises and the Susan's only just started. How do you feel as a defender of it lol
@@Mia.S13 i do think pretty much everything related to the Sutekh storyline was kinda rushed/didn't make sense lol, from it being incredibly obvious from the first minute that the apocalypse was going to be reversed with no consequences to a literal god somehow being powerless against a piece of rope, and also the stuff you mentioned. i'm just more of the type that simply ignores what i don't like and focus on and enjoy what i do like instead so that didn't really ruin the episode for me i just accepted i would have to appreciate this for the moment between characters and cool scenes rather than the overarching story of the villain. but yeah it made zero sense💀
Also, I really really liked the whole bit about ruby's mum being regular. now that I think about it, them figuring out she was a god or something and her busting out some crazy powers to save the day would've been a little, too overdone. I like that they made her a regular joe and that the power of pure mystery can fuel so much. it really plays into the new supernatural universe, because the power of pure belief mixed in with some timey whimey shenanigans made it snow and play christmas carols.
exactly! i think it would've been hype at first but then would fall flat with time when it wasn't such a fresh mystery in the fandom anymore, if they went with some crazy reveal
Personally I loved this finale, and have thoroughly enjoyed this series as a whole (73 Yards is far and away my favourite of the run) I think what has left so many people feeling deflated by "Empire of Death" is not too dissimilar to what put them off "73 Yards." Both episodes play around with the idea of expectation and how we assume a certain degree of explanation will be given for what we've seen; in 73 Yards we're invited to accept that perhaps the unknowable can sometimes be just that, whereas EoD takes a different approach and asks us to examine the power of mythologising the mundane in a bid for answers. The Doctor has a line in EoD that's reminiscient of Kate's in 73 Yards: Kate mentions to Ruby how humans will take something they don't fully understand and invent the rules to make it work, while the Doctor claims that Ruby's mother was important because she was made important by others' (namely Ruby and the Doctor's) beliefs about her. They made their own rules for Ruby's mum because they couldn't understand her. It was this building of a legend around the events that took place on Ruby Road combined with a universe still imbued with the residual powers of the Toymaker that gave way to Ruby's "snow powers." It was this mythologising of that night that caused concern in Maestro and agitated Sutekh; for the latter, an apparent "creation myth" involving the purest form of life - a newborn baby - is sure to pose a threat to the God of Death and bringer of total destruction. That's how powerful the Legend of Ruby Sunday had become. A young woman who desired nothing more than to know where she came from managed to conceive a story so powerful that it began to bleed into reality and was enough to bring fear to the God of All Gods. Personally, I think that's a worthy resolution to this series. Quick addendum: SUTEKH IS NOT A BLOODY DOG.
I found the holes too much on a first watch, but after reading this comment, I think i'll go back and rewatch with a different mindset. I really want to like it. I understand that the whole season has been very metaphorical (not sure that's the right word), and not always followed the straight-foward analytical thinking of prior series, and most TV shows generally. Also, I caught on pretty quick that 73 yards would be like this, and I think that is why I enjoyed it, even without a full explanation.
I thought it had its moments. The beginning was fun, Sutekh's voice was fantastic, and his lines were epic, Ncuti was absolutely excellent and Millie was brilliant. I also loved Bonnie being KEY to the episode as Mel. But the actual episode was a major disappointment. It was often nonsencial, Sutekh's defeat is one of the worst ways a villain has ever been defeated on the show in recent years, and we've had some bad solutions to episodes. Everything is fixed with a complete lack of an explanation (the whole bringing life thing in the vortex makes zero sense, let's not kid ourselves). I don't mind the idea of Ruby's mother just being a random person, but the story also falls apart here. I don't understand how Sutekh can't figure it out just because they view her as so important. What, she's really important to the Doctor and Ruby, so Sutekh can't figure her out? That makes no sense, lol. Ruby's mother pointing to the sign at Ruby Road is also one of the most laughably bad things I've ever seen, and I was cringing in embarrassment whilst watching it. Are you seriously telling me that not only was this mystery (which I was more invested in than to who Ruby's mother actually was) was her naming her child? She named her child by pointing at a sign? Who did she think was gonna listen to that? How would anyone even know? Did she expect the man in the blue box to run to the church and tell them that the baby's name is Ruby because the woman pointed at a sign? I think RTD is possibly using this whole thing about Ruby's mum as some sort of meta commentary about the community caring so much about these mysteries, the same way he did with Susan Triad, but it just feels like he's laughing at us. I'm glad some people enjoyed it, and I loved part one and have enjoyed other episodes of the season, but I want to be honest about how I feel about this episode, and I seriously think it's an utter disaster of a finale that clearly wasn't well thought out in the slightest. I'd take most Chibnall finales over this sadly. I feel like I didn't watch the same episode as a lot of people and I'm seriously SHOCKED people are just ignoring the million holes in the episode. I don't see this episode being looked back on fondly in the future.
This, exactly this. There’s just so much that falls apart on looking into it. I miss RTD1’s character writing and better payoffs 😭 (albeit, also often falling short)
@@dwfan91-oof, can’t agree. Having just rewatched Flux recently I think The Vanquishers blows Empire of Death clean out of the water, as does Timeless Children. Ranskoor Av Kolos and Name of the Doctor are the only finales Empire of Death is remotely comparable to imo, and they’ve both got *just* enough going on that they surpass it too.
This is the comment that just understood my stance exactly, with this line "Sutekh's defeat is one of the worst ways a villain has ever been defeated on the show in recent years". I know it wasn't all that bad, but the potential of what it could have been, made it feel terrible.
@nobodyimportant4099 it's definitely more the fact that this is the way SUTEKH is being defeated, the finale villain. If it was a one-off mid-season episode for a new villain, I'd still think it was dumb, but I wouldn't care very much.
Anyone else watch Empire of Death but lose all tension within the first ten minutes as literally every single person dies on screen? I just had immediate Infinity War flashbacks so I immediately realised everyone who was shown dead is going to be alive somehow.
literally same lol, at first i was like "noo the Vlinx! nooo Rose! noo Kate- wait there is no way they're killing off the entirety of UNIT they're gonna come back to life aren't they"😭
I'm gonna be honest, the more I watch, rewatch, and think about New Who, the more I think the 20 minute, multi-part format meme is actually real 💀 Like at the very least, imagine if this season had ONE more episode, and they extended all the moments up until the Sutekh pulling a flux and have the next episode be the finale. In general, good ep for what it was. It feels at least like RTD was trying his hardest to fit everything he wanted out of this season into an 8 episode format, and he did a pretty good job at it when it came to the finale, I think? Hopefully next season's even better. This definitely deserves a rewatch, because I genuinely have no Idea what I just watched. Also, the scene where The Doctor pulls Sutekh through the time vortex is literally cinema.
Really felt like they could’ve benefited from an extra episode. Having this episode be the disaster that seems irreversible (somewhat like The Stolen Earth) and then one after being the last stand to save everyone would’ve paced out the story a lot better.
Honestly I get why anyone would be frustrated with the finale, but I like it. It focuses on the emotional weight of the events in the episode, especially with Ruby's mom, and that stuff really got me. Plus, apparently RTD said that Ruby's family story isn't over yet and there's more to come (and the snow never got explained). We saw Ruby's mom but never her dad which makes me feel like THE TRICKSTER MAY STILL BE AN OPTION
It just doesn’t work though. The set up and the reveal don’t line up with each other. Ruby’s entire character is OBJECTIVELY not ordinary. Her mother wasn’t dressed like an ordinary person. She caused unnecessary things to happen around her e.g. making it snow. You can’t show us all that and then say “well, actually you guys just ASSUMED she was going to be something special, it was just you guys overthinking it” um no, all of the things about Ruby make no sense if she’s ordinary… therefore making her NOT ordinary at all
@@YodaOnABenderProblem is, Ruby was said to be human from the very first episode. I always had suspicions that the mother would be just an ordinary person, but the father would be the one setting Ruby apart. And since we never met him, I think that's the direction RTD is taking it. I'm not saying the ending is flawless, just that I like it and I think there's more to come
It was a good/ok ending, but not the one expected or desired by fans. That said, I'm happy with what they gave us, after all a lukewarm ending doesn't ruin a season full of good, interesting, and diverse ideas, or Ncuti's performance as the doctor, RDT simply needs to see the criticism and improve the weak aspects for the next season.
Honestly this felt like a finale that was tailor-made for me specifically. I only got into Doctor Who in December and I have hyperfixated completely on it, watching through the entire show, classic and modern, (Jon Pertwee's my favourite Doctor, The War Games is my favourite serial) and only just finishing it right before watching Empire of Death in cinemas and honestly, because of that and a couple of other things, it was the perfect finale for me. The idea of every planet the Doctor has visited since Pyramids of Mars being destroyed by Sutekh's dust of death just hits so much harder when all those various worlds and people are so fresh in your memory. Yes I knew immediately it would've all been undone at the end but that didn't really matter to me I think, mainly because I've seen other RTD finales and like, this isn't the first time he's done that lmao. Also, although I completely understand why some people were disappointed by it, I was a huge fan of the reveal of Ruby's mum. I was anxious all series that they would make her someone super important because I really didn't want that. I just wanted her to be normal right from the get go and I'm just very relieved honestly that's the route they went down. I completely understand why it doesn't work for some people (especially with how telegraphed it was that there was some greater mystery to it what with the memory changing and the snow falling and everything) but it worked brilliantly for me. Gotta say though, the explanation for the pointing was the dumbest fucking thing ever lmao me and my friend just looked at each other in the cinema like 🤨 Also last thing, Mel was the highlight of the episode for me. I loved her appearance and how she was utilised so much. But yeah no, for me that was a 10/10, perfect finale, but also I can completely understand every single valid complaint for the episode that I've heard and I think if I had watched and gotten into Doctor Who in any other way than the way that I did, that probably would've been like a 7/10 for me instead.
Personally, I don't think people give this episode enough credit. Although there are a few plot holes, and the plot resolution of Sutekh and Ruby's origins are a bit messy, I absolutely adore how it's all thematically and symbolically perfect for the story that Russel has been telling this season. Like the idea that Sutekh ascended to Godhood through the time energy of the Tardis, and also his perception by the Doctor after waiting so long aligns perfectly with Ruby's mother, and the snow, and the christmas song. Ruby's mum was so special and broke the laws of time itself simply because of the importance that people placed on her, in the same way that Sutekh became a God because of how he was mythologised over time. This is the same as how the bogeyman from Space Babies lost his power and fear factor when the Doctor and co. started viewing him as a genuine creature. This is the same as how the 73 Yards lady (a metaphor for Ruby's abandonment issues) only grew in power and ruined Ruby's life when she became obsessed with her and viewed her as a curse, and so on. This season is trying to tell us that the importance, and the power held by people, objects, and events is only as much as you perceive them to be. That's why Ruby's mother is so ordinary, yet at the same time, so monumentally important, and I think that's beautiful. In this way, Empire of Death is a perfect thematic conclusion to the season, however I do still have problems with how quickly Sutekh was defeated. To build him up as the strongest enemy the Doctor has ever faced, and then kill him in five minutes feels anticlimactic, and the fast paced scene when they defeated him was really confusing and difficult to follow on a first viewing. In conclusion, a great finale overall, even if a bit slow paced and containing a few plot holes. Also, JUST KILL THE DOCTOR SUTEKH, ISN'T THAT YOUR JOB?!
I mean instead of death plus death equals life what if you just had the Doctor say "Sutekh, reverse what you've done, or your agony will continue for as long as this Tardis operates". I mean the Toymaker was powerful enough to do literally anything, I'm sure it's not a stretch to have Sutekh reverse what he did being the all powerful god. Also framing it as a oh shit Doctor timelord victorious moment would have made the deus ex nature of it easier to swallow. And then killing him, essentially lying to Sutekh of letting him go, would have been the Doctor giving pause to himself moment.
I definitely feel like Mrs Flood was the one who caused it to snow in order to lure in the doctor and sutekh so that the doctor would defeat sutekh so that mrs flood could do her plans that she spoke of when she was turning to dust. That’s why she has a suitcase at the end because she is leaving ruby because she doesn’t have to use her or her mum as a lure anymore. She also says that the doctor ends in terror as a threat because I believe she is the trickster as she basically set a trap for sutekh by using the snow and rubys mum to trick him. God of traps.
I’m a bit confused as to how ruby summoned snow if her mum was just a regular person, was that really explained? And also I liked that 73 yards had some importance in this episode but I feel like it needed more. I really feel like the fact of the tardis having a perception filter that is 73 yards wide has some massive involvement with how 73 yards even happened. I hope they revisit this again at some point because I feel that 73 yards has a bigger meaning than we know of. My season rankings: 73 yards 10/10 The legend of ruby sunday 9.5/10 Dot and bubble 9.5/10 Boom 9/10 Empire of death 8.5/10 The church on ruby road 7/10 Rogue 7/10 The devils chord 7/10 Space babies 6.5/10
The snow & the song & the mother's invisibility & probably some other things I'm forgetting were all waffled away with the line "we thought she was important so she became important". Basically the pivot toward the supernatural this season has already become licence to just have stuff happen for no reason.
@@sleepeybunney I saw a theory that maybe mrs flood caused the snow and that stuff to lure in sutekh and the doctor so that the doctor could get sutekh out of the way so she can do her plans. But I don’t know if that will be true or not I guess we’ll just wait and see?
It sounded like the Doctor was saying Ruby summoned the snow, without any kind of powers, because it was just such a powerful memory. But Ruby can't have any actual memory of that night, because she was a newborn baby. Was it supposed to be the mom's memory??
I know this episode will get a lot of flak, but I really enjoyed it. The scenes with Ruby's mum hit incredibly hard for adopted children and the reveal she's an ordinary person plays perfectly into the themes of the season. Those themes were even reinforced by the ground level view of Sutekh's destruction, seeing the ordinary mother who lost her daughter do an act of kindness that would ultimately lead to Sutekh's downfall. Sutekh hanging onto the TARDIS but not having enough strength to be recognised until Wild Blue Yonder is a fun concept that I've seen a lot of jokes about from the fandom and Sutekh being dragged behind and detached and whisked into the edge of the time vortex to slowly disintegrate was a really cool visual. I know people have issues with how quickly he was defeated but honestly the scenes from the return of the TARDIS to Sutekh's disintegration more than made up for it for me personally (plus knowing Doctor Who it's not like we'll never see Sutekh again now that he's reoccurred as a finale antagonist in New Who, similar to the Great Intelligence. I have no doubt future writers would want to give Sutekh another run later down the line). A few other miscellaneous thoughts: Murray Gold's music was on point as always; the Mrs. Flood ending was a nice little addition (I don't mind the green screen, Doctor Who's cheesiness always makes it endearing for me) and I'm looking forward to the Christmas special and next season. I'd put it somewhere in the middle in regards of finales, definitely no where near the heights of Journey's End or The Doctor Falls, but also nowhere near the lows of The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos or The Vanquishers. Probably closest to finales like The Wedding of River Song where there's definitely noticable flaws but it's still a fun time that I wouldn't mind checking out again.
This whole thing felt like the first 10 minutes were meant to be the last 10 minutes of the previous episode, but (once again) the episode runtime was too short, which just meant it was tagged onto this episode and that left us with even less time to actually fix the problems or properly let the narrative unfold.
So according to RTD Rubys story isnt complete and will continue further into Season 2. But i wish they had alluded to that more in the season finale instead cus it made it feel like they just gave up with it.
This episode, even though everything gets reversed in the end, still shows a conceptually cool apocalypse and I find value in that. I also really want to see this reversal having its own side effects, like he accidentally brings some more people back. I think that would help this finale in the long run.
I agree on the 7/10 rating. I find with episodes like this its easier to talk about its flaws, but it had a hell of a lot of merits. I would have prefered Ruby to find out who her mother is and then choose not to talk to her. Would have been a character-beat thinga-ma-jig. She started the series banging on about how she would love to meet her mother, but her choosing to leave her mother be would have shown how she'd outgrown that obsessive desire. I think Sutekh was underutilised, but he was also in Pyramids of Mars so *that's alright then!* I love how the Tardis became an altar to Sutekh, and all his dialogue was operatic; so commanding! Also Ms Flood is the Master I'm calling it now. Can't wait for Joy to the World!
I think the choice to talk to her mother was a parallel to the Doctor and Susan. He wanted Ruby to walk away, which is what he did to Susan; but Ruby took the risk and it paid off. That's why the Doctor says "you changed me" to Ruby at the end of the episode.
I have some thoughts. Im going to have to give this one a rewatch, but I have more questions than I had going in and not in a good way. So, with Ruby's mum being just a normal woman, how does that explain everything that was happening around Ruby? Why did it keep snowing around her? Why was the Doctor's memory of christmas eve 2004 changing? If the woman pointing was just ruby's mum pointing at the lamp post sign to name her daughter, why did that moment change time/change the doctor's memory of that night? Is it because Sutekh travelled back to that night a second time? Did he travel back there a second time and thats why that swirling black sand appeared in the time window initially? Also, whilst I thematically understand what Russell was going for with Ruby's mum, why would it be this that suddenly causes Sutekh to start making the TARDIS groan? Out of everything he saw since latching on in Pyramids of Mars (literally everything that has happened on tv over the past 49 years) why would this cause Sutekh to come out? I won't ramble on too long, but it's the Giggle all over again. Worldbuilding that confuses the fuck out of me being introduced in act 3 of an otherwhise good episode (like 14 is just assumed to be killed by Sutekh, which I don't believe). Why do they keep doing this to us?! P.S When Kate said that Ruby's birth father ended up in Coventry, everyone in my cinema laughed out loud. I was watching in Coventry so we were all surprised. Someone even shouted "Is he here with us?" Best part of the episode.
The reveal that the abandoned child has no special lineage and is just an ordinary person is always the correct choice. It was correct in The Last Jedi and it is correct here. It is the most respectful to real-life foundlings as thematically hopeful and honest. Having 14 show up to save they day is a DREADFUL idea. Any high stakes situation in the future, you'd ask "where's 14?" not to mention the optics of having the first main Doctor of colour being "bailed out" by a previous white Doctor. Ick!
I think for the last jedi its different because the force can affect anyone. if ruby hadn't been given all these snow powers and they hadn't set up 'the glitching lady' and 'the oldest one was there' and all of that stuff then it would've been fine. Even so, the twist itself isn't the problem for me its moreso the fact that the entire last 10-15 minutes are devoted solely to something I couldn't care less about. also saying people would always ask "where's 14?"... we're already asking so bit too late for that😭
I feel like this would've been much better as a single episode. TLORS already felt drawn out for the sake of revealing Sutekh as a cliffhanger, and as soon as the Doctor started talking to the woman losing memories I was thinking "why didn't the episode just start here?". I actually like the epilogue a lot but I agree it wouldn't have hurt to trim it down.
Man, just found out about your channel and I love the fact that you don't sound like a review channel, it just seems like I'm listening the opinion of a friend with a different point of view. Great video dude 🤌
Seeing The Legend of Ruby Sunday and Empire Of Death in a cinema last night was an absolute joy and definitely a different experience from watching it at home. Empire of Death itself I liked, I really enjoyed how dark it was but it was uplifting at the end
My thoughts on the episode improve the more I sit on it. Perhaps it was better at meeting the Seasons themes rather than its big mysteries. The more I think about it the more I think that it feels right that it ended like this.
Ngl i loved the ending. I loved how it made us have theories the whole series for it to just be something quite obvious which id never thought of before. Im also the opposite to you that i didnt care as much for the first half and was more invested in rubys story
For me it annoyed me cos it was just a misleading hype train that had no pay off - also if rubys mum is just a random person how did she make it snow? I was a bit confused by that
@@popscape8490 i think thats meant to be more of the power ruby put on her. Ruby, Dr, Tardis etc all thought she was powerful so that emotion and confusion was powerful enough to make stuff happen
@@no-nr6de ehhh see I just think that explanation is just a stretch too far for me - I get we’re talking about a show where there’s a lot of impossible things but that feels cheap and flaky for me. That’s just my taste though I’m glad you enjoyed it!
@@popscape8490 yeah i get that. I do think id have been happy with a different ending but the twist on the viewer for thinking about it too deep and for ruby, doctor, sutekh etc was quite rewarding to me. It was like "your thinking too deep and simplicity is powerful alone" like it made me quite emotional to be flipped like that. I must admit tho im a sort of new fan. I was into it the season before tenant then watched him then kinda stopped till this new one
For me, this episode hit the mark with the emotional scenes and the emotional scenes only. Kate's final words actually made me tear up, but that was also the point where the episode lost the plot. When literally everyone dies, you know things are not staying like that so there's no stakes. In a way, I wish Sutekh wasn't so powerful, at least not from the jump. My idea was that the time vortex would still be holding him back from unleashing his full power, and he would have to use Susan's new technology that she was announcing to fulfill his plans. Then the Doctor would have to defeat him in time before everything goes to shit or something. The scene with the woman and the baby was really really good, and the scene with Ruby meeting her mother too. But did we really need all that mystery around her? I don't mind that she's ordinary but just... make it ordinary. Let Ruby just be a foundling looking for her mother, and then she finds her and they reconnect and that's it. If you take away all the "we can't see her face" and "why is she pointing" and "it snows", it would change nothing about the end result and we'd have a better story. I also wanna highlight Bonnie's acting. Her reaction to seeing Sixth's coat, the scene where she was posessed by Sutekh, just phenomenal. They're breathing new life into her character and she really deserves it, I hope she sticks around. Overall it's a 5/10 for me. I'd still rank it over any Chibnall finale, mostly because the dialogue was great and it didn't end with someone sacrificing their life while the Doctor runs away, or someone's species being genocided off-screen. But what a bummer way to end a great season.
This is such a divisive episode. People seem to be like it's a 8-9/10 or 0-2/10 or even negative numbers. Honestly why are people saying that? Do they actually think it's one of the worst episodes. Probably let their expectations get ahead of themselves. Personally it was fine. Ruby's mum being just someone regular is fine. People expecting it to have to be a super important person cause the characters fiction focus on have to be the most important person ever right? I feel like making characters overly important is annoying and definitely feels a bit like power creep. Ask yourself do you want Ruby to be like Dave Lister?
@@dwfan91- I guess you don't need to go as far as Ruby's mum is Ruby. I did think we'd learn who dropped her off and it wouldn't be her mother. I was wrong
I went in with pretty measured expectations, I think, and I *do* genuinely feel that if this isn’t one of the show’s worst episodes, it’s easily one of the worst finales.
We were consistently told throughout the season that Ruby and her mum were _not_ normal (with the snow thing, the music thing, the lack of any trace of Ruby’s mum, the cloak, the pointing, etc.). So the reveal that she and her mum were just normal people didn’t make sense, it wasn’t consistent with we were told so many times. In contrast, in Series 7, we kept being shown evidence that Clara was a normal person - whenever the Doctor investigated her (e.g., in Hide, Rings of Akhaten), the evidence was that she was a normal girl. So, the reveal in Name of the Doctor that she _was_ a normal girl made special by her own decision made good sense.
@@ob4161 we really weren't given a lot of information. I kinda expected more but only cause of the snow and the comment by Maestro. The whole no trace thing doesn't make her weird. People seem to think that nurses would have then DNA on file why? Doesn't seem weird for someone not to have it on file even if they work in the medical field. She just would never have had a reason to have it taken. Ultimately I'm not too fussed. Yeah it kinda hinted but not that strongly. Really it's just the snow. I still think some people get into trouble with their fan theories. But tbh you always see silly theories people always have to link things to the past.
I loved this episode. It retroactively made the whole season better for me. I loved how the Susan stuff wasn’t just dropped after the Sutekh reveal and instead informs the whole point of the season, contrasting Ruby’s goal of finding her mother with The Doctor unwilling to go back for Susan. For that, the ending with Ruby’s mom felt perfect for me. Does it make sense? No, but I don’t care too much. I thought everything before that was really good too. The use of the Memory Tardis also felt like the climax of a big theme across the season of memory being time. I do agree completely with your theory that tying Sutekh into Wild Blue Yonder’s Mavity bit makes WAY more sense than just having Sutekh around since Pyramids of Mars. I wonder though if Sutekh being dragged through the time vortex, bringing the universe back to life, also undid a lot of the destruction from Flux. Seems like a pretty big missed opportunity to not do that. Overall, I went in thinking this season was really disjointed structurally, and yeah it kinda is, even though I love Boom, 73 Yards, and Dot and Bubble (and the others are all good at least). But seeing what they were building to thematically with Ruby helps me see how all the pieces fit together and really enjoy the season as a whole. Maybe in my top 3 of NuWho?
I loved legend of ruby Sunday, I watched it over five times within the first two days and even went back and watched pyramids of mars. Now empire of death I thought was good but just a little to easy to defeated suetekh especially watching after pyramids of mars but I thought the rest of the episode was fine except for ruby’s mom witch I kinda thought was boring.
I like that she’s just a woman, it’s good for the heart, for every once and a while for it to be a genuine character thing, only has meaning if we put meaning onto it, why would she be so important, even sutekh thought it was a bigger mystery than it was, like it was a heart breaking reunion
Such an underwhelming episode 😢😢 The series has been awesome up until now, but everything the finale was set up with just completely lacked to payoff. Felt really similar to all the various random plot points that Flux introduced and never paid off or lead to anything, just done for the sake of being done. Enjoyed all the domestic scenes with Ruby as Russell always delivers them well Ultimately just disappointed lol
I actually thought it was really good with some caveats up until a certain point where all energy just deflates and the major flaw of this season rears it's ugly head. But first the positives: I genuinely really enjoyed the concept of an evil god sticking itself to the TARDIS to destroy every place in every timezone the TARDIS ever landed on. Conceptually that's such a strong visual. Now, I didn't watch the original story (and I didn't watch the Tales of the TARDIS episode either) so I don't have a history with the character or story. But as a concept, that's just deliciously sinister to me. I love it and I love how it makes the Doctor, unknowingly, complicit. Really great visual, really great concept. I loved Sutekh's dialogue and voice, he really felt sinister. "Every living thing is an abomination. I am come to release them into blessed death. And I find that good." Love it love it love it. The scene with the survivor on Agua Santina was really beautifully done as well, maybe one of my favorite individual scenes in the show. So heartbreaking and wonderfully performed. There really is just a lot to love about this finale. I'm sure a lot of people will find the solution unsatisfactory. But even there I am rolling with it. This season has been pretty "vibes based" as I like to call it. Proper sci-fi explanations for what's going on have been largely out of the window in favor for THEMES. The themes take center stage. Sutekh bringing "death to death everywhere" makes no sense on a logical level but on an emotional, thematical level I can roll with it. And this really only works because the villains of this series have been godlike entities. They're not explainable with logic so earthly (or sci-fi) logic does not necessarily need to apply if the thematic execution lands. In my book it does. The visual of Sutekh ripping open the time vortex to bring life, the over the top theatrical belting of the themes by the Doctor. It landed for me. My only hope is that we're not going to continue this forever. I think it's good to have experimental things like this and the supernatural and "vibes based" approach to Doctor Who is refreshing to me. But I need some rules at some point, because this trick won't work forever. That's a problem for the future though. Of course, this is all really nice and good and I quite enjoyed my time up until... the biggest flaw of the entire season comes around. This season is far too short. 8 episodes (or 9) is simply not enough for the last 20 minutes to land. I don't care enough about Ruby, I don't care enough about Ruby's and the Doctor's relationship (there weren't even enough episodes they really shared together! One they were only on screens for the majority of it and in another the Doctor was gone!!!). It just fell completely flat. The reveal of Ruby's mother just being an ordinary woman was kind of predictable to me. The entire series made meta nods at the audience and is trying to examine the audience's interaction with television in the modern day. Sutekh , in a way, represents a long-time Doctor Who viewer. Someone that has seen it all but longs for that twist at the end (get it), that one thing that will make him feel alive despite being obsessed with death (like how the long-time audience is somewhat obsessed with worrying over the shows cancellation). So yeah, I get it. The woman is just a regular person that we ascribed meaning to so we can get one more fix of excitement. But it's a bit of a trick. He wrote the snow in. He wrote the pointing "at the doctor" in and the resolution to that is so groanworthy and stupid that it just doesn't fly, he wrote it so we could not see her face and her wearing a hood (who wears a cloak like that in 2004?). So no, I'm sorry Russel, but you wrote the meaning in. It's not just us. And that's why it doesn't land. I don't mind that she's a regular woman. That's fine. But ironically the reason why she is an ordinary woman is incredibly contrived. That said, loved the season overall. And it's really only the last 15 minutes that I think fall flat. If the show continues past the next season (which I hope it does!), please please please don't have 8 episode seasons again. Make the show look cheaper. But please, for the writing and characters to land we desperately need more time or a complete restructuring of how the show works. I also wanna thank you for your videos. They are so refreshingly positive and quite frankly a bright light in a sea of shallow or overly negative content on the internet when it comes to this show. I really enjoyed watching your videos every week and see the discussions in here. It's rare to see a good community like this on RUclips I think. So thanks for that and keep it up!!
You can’t set up a mystery of someone supposedly being so mysterious that they confuse a god, only to then basically pull a “the real treasure was the friends we made along the way” ahh twist. If her being completely ordinary was the reason then why didn’t every McDonald’s employee also confuse Sutekh? And why was she dressed like someone who very clearly ISN’T a random 15 teenager from Manchester. No modern day human being walks around in a medieval cloak
@@brucesimmons5517 no, she was made important by the fact that she was very clearly NOT just and ordinarily person. Her mother was not remotely dressed like a normal person would, she was dressed like a damn cult member. And she made it magically snow somehow. The twist is not only bad, it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t remotely line up with how her entire character is written. Imagine if, after all these years, they revealed that the doctor wasn’t really a time lord but just a really charismatic guy and the explanation for why we believed he was a time traveler was “you can make people believe anything if you’ve got enough charisma” and they just ignored the fact that he very clearly DOES travel through time and space
"You can’t set up a mystery of someone supposedly being so mysterious that they confuse a god, only to then basically pull a “the real treasure was the friends we made along the way” ahh twist." Yeah, that's.. that's not what happens. "If her being completely ordinary was the reason then why didn’t every McDonald’s employee also confuse Sutekh?" Because it was the act of mythologising the night of Ruby's birth and creating a "legend" around it by both Ruby and the Doctor (and if you want to get meta, us the audience) that caused it to become so powerful. In a universe still susceptible to the forces of fantasy due to the actions of the Toymaker and his legions, this creation myth began to bleed through into reality; this is how Ruby could bring on the snow and why Maestro was so concerned about her hidden song - Ruby was creating her own legend, albeit unintentionally. Just as the Doctor created a second TARDIS with a big ol' hammer, Ruby manifested a fairy tale of her own beginnings through her memories. And why did it confuse Sutekh? Because the Legend of Ruby Sunday was everything that stood as a direct antithesis to him: a creation myth, a story of a child born on Christmas Eve, a fable about the purest form of life - a newborn baby. A story that can challenge even the Great Destroyer himself. This is what the finale was about. What the whole series was about. The sheer, raw power of mythology - from the Toymaker and Maestro, to marauding goblins, to fairy circles and cryptic ghouls 73 yards away, to the God of Death and the girl who created a story of her mother to banish him.
Didn’t think the episode was as excellent as others in the season (namely 73 yards and boom) but also not absolute crap, I think a 6 or 7/10, which just goes to show how good this season is, a few problems tho. Who tf is Mrs Flood? Did Sutekh revive Gallifrey? Is ruby going to be in the next season? If the 14th doctor was on earth, did he receive the dust of death and if he did, did he just die or regenerate? In the doctors wife the tardia turned into a human, did sutekh still stay attached to her? Seems like a lot of points to explore deeper with this episode, most of it will probably be answered in the next season. Edit: -Gallifrey wasn’t revived because it wasn’t killed by sutekh Sorry if my English is bad, as it is not my native language
sad to say that this episode just did not hit. russell absolutely nerfed sutekh which was really annoying to me because i always loved sutekh, so to see him do nothing but sit on the tardis, get like 10 minutes of screen time and then get defeated by a fucking bungee cord was really disheartening. also i dont like the retconning of sutekh's abilities. like hes the god of death but he doesnt embody it, killing him wouldnt undo the damage he did. i think the goodbye was okay but it dragged on and on and on. im actually the opposite of you opinion wise, i thought that everything in the episode was pretty bad until the end which was okay i guess. this is very minor but i was a little dissapointed that sutekh's eyes didnt turn green when he used his abilities on the doctor. overall im really disappointed in this episode, definitely at the bottom of my list. 4.5/10
*15 with the ToyMaker's Hammer in "The Giggle"* Sutekh: "Hey buddy. What are you doing with that hammer?" Sutekh latching on during "Wild Blue Yonder" makes so much more sense. Sutekh latches on when they arrive at the end of the universe and that's the reason the Tardis leaves cause it's trying to shake him off. But Sutekh takes control and arrives back in time to save 14 and Donna and his plans are in motion.
i'm choosing to interpret sutek's latching onto the tardis as happening during WBY, then evolving and empowering susan triad on earth during the time 14 was living with donna and travelling around, so that when (in the tardis's timeline) it became 15's tardis he was just about ready to finalize his plan
I really thought this entire season was great, except Space Babies which kinda wasn’t that great, but every episode was enjoyable, Doctor Who is no longer boring imo
Rubys parents being normal was my favorite part about the finale. Nothing would have been as good, or fitting with the themes of the season. The mythologizing of Rubys story (the legend of ruby sunday) in a post Toymaker world was created Ruby's powers associated with memory. I loved that
It gives me huge "Last of the Time Lords" vibes.... Once again, RTD puts the belief and the power of the story on the line! I never liked the resolution of this episode, making the Doctor a holy messiah driven by the faith of the people, and now.... well, at least it's consistent. I've watched so many theories about who Ruby's mother is, the mystery of the snow and the hidden song, the way she and the Doctor met, and after this episode I have to say I'm disappointed. I really thought the whole "Ruby's mother" storyline would be something that would change the Doctor's life, but no.... it's another "your faith has power" (K, we get the scene when he's thanking Ruby for making him care more ab family but is it that life-changing!?). Not to mention that some things just doesn't add up with how important Ruby is... to whom?! The Doctor, her mom n gran? or her mother naming Ruby after the street? How did you manage to get that Doc? Some things were just too random. While watching the dust covering the planets, cool shots I admit, I stopped for a moment and thought: "That's damn Flux 2.0." A big cloud destroying more than half of the universe "because of the Doctor".... If I had a nickel for every time the universe is destroyed by a Great Dusty Cloud because of the Doctor's sheer existence, I'd have 2 nickels, which isn't much, but it's funny that it happened twice. Then there's Sutekh... I really liked the character! Damn I wish I had his patience. Now I'm just trying to understand how this "bringing life" worked? I might have missed something? Idk (Fun fact: the pronunciation of the word Sutekh is the same as the pronunciation of the word nipple in my language, so sometimes I just couldn't take it seriously). Finally, the more I think about this episode, the more I understand it. It's not as satisfying an ending, but I guess my expectations were too high. We still haven't learned the answer to the question of who Ms. Flood is, but is it wrong to think she's the Master/Missy or another Time Lord? After this ending, I don't know if I'll be excited about the theories for s2. Yes, Russel has delivered, but have we as fans overshot a bit? Did we overanalyze it? Were we so hungry for shocking twists that the ending may have been disappointing to some of us? I need to watch it again, but for the first time 6/10? There are many good things about this episode, but these aspects struck me the most. Overall, I rate the season 8.5/10 and I like it a lot. Dwfan91, I love your videos, thanks a lot for your dedication to these reviews, it's been the highlight of the past weeks.
I loved this last episode personally, I loved watching mel change and I feel for her even though I haven't gotten to her part of classic. I loved the part where she looks at the coat rack of past doctors/costumes. Intentional but small is still sweet to me. I loved them using the 4th doctors scarf for the Tardis. I loved sutek throughout but I lost track of the point of his goal, but that's just my not getting the loneliness..I feel I understood taking music more than killing the universe but thats not the shows fault 😄. There were so many references that I'm happy I couldn't least catch a good bit of them or at least know its a reference even if I don't know what episode or doctor it is specifically. My friend knows less and we've watched it all together and he got some I didn't know so that was fun to point out. We called the death wouldn't last when Kate died but it was clearer when everyone else died 😄 however the doctors frustration felt valid to me, his scream felt warranted to me if a little awkward. And when Rubys questions got answered I loved it.. though In hindsight I don't get why it was still.. My friend explained why the mom reveal was so big but it doesn't feel obvious on first watch maybe it will if I watch again? I like her being basic..only if sutek doesn't care about her, if he cares about this random girls mom then I want her to have purpose. I get her reading it and being confused why sutek would care and going to ask, I love that she plays into that a little and then breaks it. I love the doctor on the floor "begging" when it's part of the plan but he plays it straight with emotion, they both play it so well! Honestly I liked only half of this two parter, the first part for me was boring and I loved this part..for me it was a perfect end. On its own 10/10 as a doctor who finale I dare not rank after just watching 😂
The reaction the 100s of cinema goers at my screening had at the end would shock The BBC, Bad Wolf & RTD to their core. Virtually utter silence apart of some vocal negative reactions & expletives at the explanation for Ruby & the snow ❄️ I expected some excited chatter but it didn’t really come. It didn’t cause positive conversations with my party of ppl after. The Atmosphere on leaving was that of a wake compared to the excitement at the interval. I'm still trying to comprehend that explanation for Ruby & the lack of explanation for the snow, a 15 year old girl wearing a hooded cloak from The Traitors & pointing at a street sign in front of no one in the vicinity in 2004 to name her child 🤯, Maestro calling Ruby "very wrong" & having a xmas song deep within her soul. I'm still in shock! I knew Sutekh would be tricked so thats by the by but if you have had such a build up for Ruby & got that I can tell you it felt so flat. The impact of Ruby briefly leaving did not feel earned after the many missing adventures we did not see & the 6 month time gap we heard about in "The Devils Cord" The ludicrous explanation that Ruby had been travelling for 6 months before landing on her very first planet in "Boom" is now so disjointed. This felt like a good first draft finale to be worked & developed on by RTD that he ran out of time to complete. The 8 episode run goes some way to explaining so many rushed decisions but they are brushed away narratively over Rubys arc. It's the Ruby stuff that brings the whole ep down for me & it broke my heart I feel this way 💔
Feel like you summed it up perfectly. Just so disappointing. It was built up to be something only to never deliver. I'm so tired of this. Every film, book, TV show and even music videos now have to build up mystery box stories - it sells because people always love mysteries. But it's also the trend now to either never deliver & drag it out as long as possible, or when they do finally come up with an answer it's like an anti-mystery or whatever. It's just so cliche and annoying. I'm disappointed. Really don't know if I want to watch Doctor Who anymore, and I've been here since 2010.
@@Branogeni I hope you stick around for more Doctor Who. Even when it's disappointing I still don't want to be in world where DW doesn't exist & wish for it to succeed
I thought after ruby saw her mother the episode was gonna end with a clip of the tardis landing on earth in the future the doors opening and we hear susan say "grandfather?". THAT would have made the episode a classic but they missed.
You’ve been gifting us with bangers back to back, thanks! After rewatching Empire Of Death, I still feel disappointed. I feel a bit robbed of the ending that the series deserved, the show-down between Sutekh and The Doctor was ripped from us. Instead we got The Doctor taking a big old dog for a walk, just seemed everything in the episode was down to luck and convenience. I’m generally curious to why Sutekh died in the time vortex while he was chilling in there during Pyramids Of Mars and latched onto the tardis? I don’t like the fact that RTD has moved away from using Big Finish plot lines. It just creates more division. If The Doctor used Sutekh to bring life to everywhere he’s been, did he bring back Gallifrey and the Time Lords? Or was it only the people that Sutekh killed. Or was it down to the fact they’re in a pocket universe. Or something else. Why were the suns dying out? I don’t believe our lives are required for them. I’m pretty sure The Doctor hasn’t landed on one, I may be wrong. I know the tardis became one in Series 5, Sutekh must have been roasting. I feel that Sutekh was far more powerful in Pyramids Of Mars, it just feels like his powerful evolution was more of a nerf if anything, this version of him to me doesn’t live up to the idea he’s an all powerful being. If anything he felt like an insect in comparison to the Doctor and Ruby. The idea that Sutekh has been chilling on the tardis the whole time is quite problematic, and silly. Why did the tardis never mention that she’s been dragging a dog around for years? Was Captain Jack hugging Sutekh? Was The Doctor sitting on Sutekh while he was on the tardis mediating? I hate that I’m being so critically about this episode, but it’s really something that can’t be left unsaid. The whole idea that Ruby’s mother was just a normal person, was quite anticlimac
I personally thought Sutekh latched onto the TARDIS in the Giggle, specifically when the Doctor uses the Toymaker’s hammer to clone it. I figured, since it was born of the Toymaker’s power, it was of the realm from which the gods reign. Oh well, hope RTD does better next time.
I really like how Ruby’s mum is just a normal person. It means that Ruby wasn’t “destined” to meet the doctor, nothing paranormal about her. It was a chance that Ruby met the doctor.
But it makes no sense. You cannot say “she was so mysterious because… uhhh, she wasn’t” If she wasn’t special then why wasn’t any other “ordinary” person also given the same treatment with the snow and Sutekh etc
It’s a sweet idea, that isn’t something the episode remotely earns. You can’t spend 9 episodes going “Ruby is special, she literally affects the weather with her mood, her mom is so mysterious with the black robe and the pointing!” and then just say none of that meant anything. It’s Davies wanting to have his cake and eat it to. If he wanted the mystery of Ruby’s mom to resolve as this mundane bit of drama, it shouldn’t have had *anything* to do with Sutekh, shouldn’t have had had anything to do with the fantastical elements of the show. It should’ve just been a quiet, grounded bit of drama throughout the show. No dramatic pointing, no Ruby making it snow, that’s all just cheap theory baiting at that point.
@@ThePonderer no seriously, why tf was she dressed like that if she was just a rando from Manchester? Why wasn’t she wearing “ordinary” clothes if she was such an “ordinary” person all along lmao This reveal felt like it was made up because Russell had no idea how to actually tie all this together and was just going “wouldn’t it be cool if…” all season long and panicked once he had to explain them all… so he just decided not to
@@YodaOnABenderthe snow was because of the tardis’ perception filter and sutekh’s obsession with ruby’s mother was because he was literally there that night. It’s not well explained but it makes sense
Sutekh created a Susan on every planet the doctor has visited since Pyramids and been waiting for a critical mass of them to exist throughout time before enacting his endgame
In various magic systems regarding gods, one of the most common is gods built on belief, whose power and existence depend on those who believe in them. Although not always the case, there's a bit of that in Doctor Who. I always remember Series 3 in "The Shakespeare Code" using language as a code that, when spoken, can turn things into reality, and how that ties with "Last of the Time Lords" as the whole world thinks about the Doctor and how he could save the world, making him become this embodiment of hope that restored his body and allowed him to defeat the Master. To me, that was an example of the collective belief of mankind, who aren't strong enough to defeat a timelord on their own, joining together in the hope of something that could. I see "Empire of Death" as being the opposite. The ordinary people didn't think there really was something profound about Ruby's mother. There are always stories about children who are given away and never find their parents. Some are easier to find than others, but not being able to find their biological parents isn't something that needs a deeper explanation; for some, that is sadly just a part of their lives. Something that some people just accept, while others don't. But here, since "The Church on Ruby Road", we are shown the idea that maybe there's a deeper power behind the ordinary, the power of coincidences, that the Doctor seems to understand and is sought by the Goblins. At that moment, when the Doctor comes back, he sees Ruby's mother. He can't go there to see her because he has to save Ruby from the goblins, so he gives up that opportunity. Maybe he thought there was something more to it, and maybe it was there alongside Sutekh that the two thought there was more; they started to "believe" there was more. If ordinary people around a single planet can make a Timelord be restored to its original form, what could happen when two of the most important and powerful beings in the universe start to think of a single ordinary person as mysterious and important, and that starts to snowball across all the months the series took place, always creating more mysteries, not because there really was something deeper, but because powerful people thought there was something important, and as they believed that, they manifested that into existence? I think there really might have been powerful forces around that day that were not directly tied to Ruby's mother herself but imposed into the moment by the expectations of those with great power and importance in the universe. Maybe someone wanted it to be that way, and we just don't know, but I generally think that most of it was really just a side-effect of the expectations from the Doctor and Sutekh. RTD really wanted this series to be more about the supernatural and magic. Well, what is magic if not thinking that there's something more profound in the ordinary? This season was an amazing experience; I really wanted more of it. Having each episode be about a completely different theme with a completely different structure really made it hard to think of it as one cohesive experience, but individually, I had a great time with each and every one of the episodes, and for that, I'm very happy.
Sadly, I found this to be one of the weakest finales in the whole revival. The reveals and answers (that we got) sucked, Sutekh was wasted, Ruby felt as one-dimensional as ever - though I did like the cafe scene - and… like… it was boring! RTD loves to make the stakes feel higher and higher with his finales, and in this one he literally wiped out the whole universe to start with… but that just lowered the stakes completely in my eyes. Because you’re sat there the whole time just KNOWING that it will end with a big reset button. Honestly really sad how this ended. I hope Season 2 picks up the quality a bit and ends in a satisfying way… because it feels like RTD just planted the mysteries here for internet hype, not because he had a story planned. I also think this episode retroactively harms The Legend of Ruby Sunday, which I wasn’t a massive fan of anyway. Idk man. I’m just sad.
I understand why they wouldn't have 14 in this, as Ncuti deserved to not have focus pulled in his first finale, but storywise it would have made much more sense for them to team up, and even for 14 to sacrifice himself to take out Sutekh and that to be how the bigeneration/regeneration was finally completed. Also, though I'm not suggesting Mrs. Flood (or Ruby's mum or anyone else) is secretly Clara, it's so weird that The Snowmen was all about memory snow, snow that can remember, and that never got connected with Ruby's...memory snow. I did see one person theorize that Mrs. Flood is the Great Intelligence and I almost want to agree just to make that connect.
sorta feels like ruby's meeting with her mother takes from both time and story from the episode, at first i thought her smashing the tv screen infront of sutekh would be something of like giving up her lifelong search to save everyone and i think that would've been somewhat more powerful than the "ordinary but special cause we thought she was" that was super rushed in.
oh but they did, you guys are just too stuck on your theories about Ruby's parents not coming true to see that (not trying to start a fight that's just how i see this comment section tbh😭 but i guess i kinda understand the problems people have with the episode too)
@@darkacadpresenceinblood “she was just an ordinary person all along” then why was she wearing that ominous ass cloak that no “ordinary” person would ever wear? Why was she the only person that confused a literal god if she was never abnormal to begin with? The reveal isn’t just bad, it flat out doesn’t work and contradicts itself
@@YodaOnABender she was wearing the cloak bc she was keeping her pregnancy + child a secret so she didn't want to be recognized, and Sutekh was confused by her because all the significance Ruby gave her made her actually powerful, not through any divine means but through simple human love and belief. you can say you don't like that bc it's too cheesy but it *was* explained
To me this finale was simply, good. Alright. Decent. Mid. Not Bad. Just ok. I feel like the reveal of Ruby's mother was very disappointing, I get the happy ending for Ruby and all that and it was nice, but also we've had so many theories on who Ruby's mum could be and it just ended up being a normal woman, a total nothing burger and how does anything that happened in this episode explain the snow? Also, was not a fan of the way they defeated Sutekh. The most powerful entity The Doctor has ever faced and the solution is putting him on a lead and dragging him into the time vortex? Even though he managed to survive that before? I dunno again, just anticlimactic I feel. Another way I think it killed it's own momentum was by Sutekh destroying literally everyone. When an extinction level event happens in Doctor Who we know for a fact The Doctor is going to find a way to reverse it. Like, the show doesn't work if The Earth just no longer exists. I think it would have been much better to kill just a few people at UNIT for example, who matter to The Doctor on a personal level. That way you leave the audience thinking, are they genuinely gone? Are they dead for real? And even if you chose to have The Doctor still reverse everything, it keeps the tension I feel. Less is more and all that. Anndddd where was the 14th Doctor? Unless I missed it we got no explanation as to where he was or might have been. Life on the planet he now lives on is being wiped out and he's no where to be seen? Again I could of missed it, but a simple line from Rose saying her mum and him had gone on an adventure clears all that up. I could go on and on but with all that being said, the one thing this episode did do is make me excited to come back for more! That final scene with Mrs Flood was simply perfect. I do worry about who she ends up being after the reveal of who Ruby's mum was, but still. RTD has got me wanting to come back for more so on that level, it worked, but as a satisfying conclusion to this series? I think it could have been alot better. Also just wanna say I really enjoy your content man, I came back to Who for the 60th after being completely out of the loop, wasn't watching the show, any RUclips videos about it nothing. In a way your love for the show has kinda reinvigorated my own and yeah, just really grateful for what you do my guy!
I think the biggest critique of the season that is summarized by this finale is that there wasn’t enough; we wanted and needed more which is a nice critique to have though. We had a bunch of great episodes in this season but 8 is not enough compared to the usual 12. Despite the part 2 being 50 minutes, 15 minutes was finding ruby’s mum while the other 35 is the fight with Sutekh. I think it should have an additional 15 so that sutekh pulls a surprise up his sleeve and then Ruby does something that destroys him despite her ordinary nature, the companion saving the day. I think the “fight” scene or climatic scene with the Tardis walking sutekh honestly went hard. it kind of felt like I was watching a Tim Burton film when sutekh started ripping the wormhole. And I like that RTD put the doctor on a route of “f*** it, I am a monster cuz now I gotta choose who’s gonna die.”
I think that when the 14th doctor did the thing with the salt, it sort of altered the fabric of the universe in a way making superstitions and god like beings more real and powerful. So Sutech was always there, but when the 14th doctor did the salt thing, he became more.....real? That's why it took him so long That'sa my head canon at least
With the fact there is only 8 episodes and the 2 parter being a bit underwhelming I really hope that going into series 2 they see there mistakes and bump it back up to 13 and with longer story’s like the 2 parter just make the story’s longer please it felt so poorly paced. I still love the doctor and ruby but I’m a bit sad they are moving to a new companion already but it seems more like a classic approach to them having them come and go more regularly then a moffet approach to having them stay for 3 season lol. It’s 4am for me and I just watched it so I’m sure my grammar has been poor but I hope I still got my points across!
Series 2 is already written and filmed and is in production, there will be 8 episodes. Ruby will appear again as companion, it has been revealed a while ago.
I definitely hear you and it’s not the satisfying ending I expected but I found myself crying and smiling at the end because that’s exactly the point. There are no happy endings - truly. Sutekh was an archetype of death. And that was defeated by life AKA the Doctor where he finally realized that maybe he doesn’t bring death and destruction. I don’t think that they tried to insinuate Tom Baker made a mistake but that he was the mistake. His Doctor was brash and silly - an archetypal Doctor. Ncuti is a new more refined version of that so he was able to defeat Sutekh because of who he is now not what he did
Good video. Interestingly I think I’m the complete opposite - very underwhelmed with how quickly and easily Sutekh conquered the universe, and also underwhelmed by how quickly and easily he is defeated. However I thought the resolution to ruby’s Plotline in the last twenty minutes was effective, heartfelt and well done (although I’m not sure how much of that is thanks to Murray Gold’s bloody awesome score!)
I was really hoping that Empire of Death would improve/salvage The Legend of Ruby Sunday for me. It didn't. While I preferred Empire of Death to The Legend of Ruby Sunday, and I have many positives, I still have my negatives and I'll get into both of them now. Positives: The ending. I actually like that Ruby's parents were normal people (even though it's a bit silly that Sutekh cared about this in the first place). I just thought the ending was super sweet and wholesome. I also liked how people like KLS died right off the bat to make Sutekh impactful (which I called btw), even though I think that at least some of them should have stayed dead (especially the people who died last episode). The negatives: Everything else. WHY DID THAT SPOON SCENE HAVE TO TAKE SO LONG?!?! One could argue that the spoon scene has a right to exist in theory, as it further fleshes out what the remaining universe is like after it receives Sutekh's gift of death (even though I would argue that you didn't need a scene where the only takeaway is that The Doctor gets a spoon), but I am yet to find anyone who has tried to argued in good faith that that scene needed to be as long as it was or that it shouldn't have also included Ruby and/or Mell too (not that it hasn't happened, I just haven't seen it). This whole part had me internally screaming "WHY IS THERE FILLER IN YOUR PROFESSIONAL FINALE?!?!" Sutekh did nothing and was defeated too easily (although I'm sure this is not a unique insight). I also think that RTD could have SO easily avoided many ridiculous comparisons by saying that Sutekh only latched onto the TARDIS in wild blue yonder when 14 spread the salt at the edge of the universe, allowing certain members of the pantheon back in from wherever they had been banished to (such as the time vortex). Overall I did like this season. Most of the episodes were bad but 73 Yards and Dot and Bubble were so good that they make the rest of it worthwhile.
RTD'S INABILITY TO WRITE A SATISFYING FINALE STRIKES AGAIN! In all seriousness, I really enjoyed this episode! I thought that it was an excellent ending that wrapped up many questions I had throughout. And the way that Sutekh was defeated was truly hilarious! As I saw someone say "It was the Doctor Who equivalent of strapping someone to your car and driving down the highway at 100 kmph, making sure to hit every pothole on your way" LMAO I also really enjoyed the reveal that Ruby's mom was a regular, everyday person. Doctor Who definitely has a problem with making every single character ultra special, so I appreciated this change of pace! One criticism I do have with it is that this finale definitely should've been a three partner, like Series Three. All in all, this series was a *good-ass series*! I honestly think that this series is my second favourite modern series, just behind Series 3(I don't think anything will beat Ten/Martha, THE GOATS). If RTD keeps this up, Ncuti's era is definitely one for the history books! :D
I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE VIDEO! And the Season. LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS BELOW TO BE INCLUDED IN THE COMMUNITY REACTION!
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Edit: 14:56 I meant the 4th Doctor not 14th lol 3am brain. Also, if the point I’m making here wasn’t clear, what I meant was the idea of the Doctor having made a mistake and being vain is needed for the story- as Sutekh’s arrival is his punishment from the universe. But the 4th Doctor did not do anything worthy of punishment. On the other hand, the 14th Doctor DID do something worthy of punishment, so that is when Sutekh should’ve attached himself as it is more fitting thematically. Hope that makes sense :)
At least you cooked. That's what's important.
I copy pasted this from my review on Reddit so here:
Honestly, the finale was a mixed bag for me. Good things more than bad things, but the bad things are more noticeable in this one. I'll start with the good things, because they're easy to talk about.
- Gabriel Woolf does a wonderful job with Sutekh's voice, despite not being in the role for a little more than 47 years. His performance is imposing and sinister, which makes his presence more terrifying. I know people don't really like the big CGI jackal (his big snoot taking up the space of one shot in The Legend of Ruby Sunday is hilarious), but if I was a kid, I'd be having nightmares for days.
- Everyone's performances are stellar, especially Millie Gibson's acting. She's had some really good performances in her time on the show and honestly she's my favourite companion. Ncuti Gatwa's performance is amazing as always, he's just perfect for the role AHHHH.
- The scene with the woman and the spoon. It was extremely heartbreaking and it really showed the impact of Sutekh's death storm. The part where she tells her baby to hush even though it's not actually there made me feel very empty and heavy at my throat.
- The Doctor proclaiming that he is the God of Life to Sutekh's being the god of death. It's such a powerful scene, and Ncuti says these lines so wonderfully, and it's just a really good scene. I actually like the whole sequence of the Doctor and Ruby's plan to drag Sutekh back into the time vortex and actually made sense. I always love it when the Doctor uses his skills to formulate a plan, in his usual Doctor-y way. I feel like the 15th Doctor has been a bit passive this series after Space Babies I also like the part where Ruby calls Sutekh, "You great big god of nothing." That was just gold.
- Murray Gold's soundtrack is perfect. That is all.
- I like that Ruby's mum is an ordinary person, which is a subversion of many NuWho companions who are treated as very important to the universe itself. The reunion scene was gorgeous and the ending with the Doctor and Ruby, with Ruby tearfully saying "I love you" to her dear friend is honestly just the best scene. I really like this ending.
Now onto the bad things:
- This episode is too short. I know it's ten minutes longer than a regular episode but it's too short. The finale should have been a 3-parter, or at least have Empire of Death be an hour and a half. This great big apocalypse was too big for a regular sized NuWho episode, and the story suffers from it. Future showrunners should really consider a return to ClassicWho 4-parters with each part being 24 minutes. The deaths of UNIT and Ruby's foster family went too quick without any hint of slowing down. For something to have an emotional impact, there needs to be room to process this. This did not happen in Empire of Death. Instead, a lot of it can end up feeling underwhelming, which is what happened in this episode. Actually this series is too short. Too many Doctor-lite and experimental episodes for a fresh start, when there should have been time to breathe and really take in the 15th Doctor and Ruby. I love what we got, but it's gone way too fast for my liking. Going from goblins and space babies to the GOD OF DEATH that appeared in 1976 in only 8 episodes in what is technically a first season for new viewers is a bit much, no? I really hope the episodes in Series 15 are longer, so that the pacing and therefore the story gets to be fleshed out more.
- The world-building is a bit screw-y. Sutekh hanging onto the TARDIS since the events of Pyramids of Mars is too much. Why is the TARDIS only groaning now after 113 years (perhaps even longer!) of having Sutekh on her? If Susan Triad has appeared where the Doctor has landed in that time interval, why haven't they noticed before? Surely this would be a detail that the Doctor, of all people, would note down. Why is he only noticing now? Also if Sutekh can see through the dead cells of bodies, why does he choose to see through Mel's eyes, and not the Doctor's or Ruby's? (I mean, it could just be a way of messing with the Doctor's emotions but still, that's a big mistake to do something like that to the Doctor, because he's gonna end up finding a solution). The BIG question is that where is the 14th Doctor? Sutekh's death sandstorm had extended to the entire universe, so did he just turn to dust? Why didn't he help? The return of a villain would be something he would most certainly jump to action to, even if he is in rehab. I get that it's both Tennant retiring from the role and also not wanting to steal Gatwa's spotlight as the Doctor, but it just messes with the world building of the Whoniverse, and just creates a huge hole where there should be something.
- Ruby's mother pointing at the sign (THAT WASN'T THERE BEFORE) to name her baby was stupid. Enough said.
If I were to put the episodes of Series 14 into a tier list, including Empire of Death, it would be:
S (Spectacular): Boom, Dot and Bubble
A (Really Good): Space Babies (fight me don't fight me actually I am weak), The Devil's Chord, The Legend of Ruby Sunday
B (Just Good): 73 Yards, Rogue, Church on Ruby Road
C (Meh but it's Good Enough): Empire of Death
Addendum: The Doctor wearing the outfit he wore in The Church on Ruby Road is literally the most satisfying thing I have ever seen. Not only is that outfit my favourite, it’s like a way of saying how the season has come full circle
Also, when I said that there were too many experimental/Doctor-lite episodes, that doesn’t mean I didn’t like them haha I loved them all
Also ALSO Rose wasn’t just standing there. She was operating the lasers using her tablet. We have a 13 year old with a Segway gun and a 15 year old with lasers 😭 Peak Doctor Who I don’t care
This season was literally so good. Definitely one of my favourites, however the execution for the last few bits of the finale really fell flat for me. Similar to what you said in the video, the doctor's crying really ruined a lot of emotional scenes for me, and the "I love you" from Ruby would have had so much more impact without it. That being said, it kinda paralleled 10 and Rose's scene in Doomsday - and I'm a little confused as to why RTD made that comparison as Ruby and the doctor's relationship thus far has only been portrayed as a friendship type bond (I may be reading into it too much, and Ruby's i love you was platonic but idk that was my interpretation of it). Another bit I didn't really like was also the Mel possession bit - I feel like it was extremely predictable (having Mel show symptoms of becoming dusted right after the interaction with the forgetful woman for example), and even after she left the room in 2049, I could immediately tell that the doctor had sussed it out. Despite all this, I really did enjoy this episode (much like I did with the rest of the season), and I hope the new specials coming out will be even better.
I think that the doctor crying at the end will retroactively be amazing. He's not crying because Ruby is saying goodbye. He's crying because he knows that's not her mum. That *something* is wrong and still needs fixed. He knows that Ruby's happy ending is a lie.
We already know she's back for the next series, so it makes sense that something is off with how she's leaving.
I think that Ruby has the ability to impact the narrative, which is why we got space babies, why there was a "bridgerton episode", and why Ricky September is so similar to herself. She needed a mother so she created one. Staying with the doctor can get her family killed. So she wrote him out of her story in a neat little bow.
But it won't stay that way.
i am confused, are the events of the flux undone?
Sutekh just staring at captain Jack hanging on to the outside of the Tardis is really funny to me
Jack hanging on to the tardis: DOCTOOOOOOOR
Sutekh: YO WTF
The Tardis: help
Jack probably flirted with him
Sutekh: Oi! That's my spot???
He was also there when Amy and Rory were getting it on 🤣
Sutekh casually burning in the sun during "The Big Bang" also i like the idea of him and house chilling during "The Doctors Wife"
Also I wonder what he was doing during Journey to the center of the Tardis
How long has been on the Tardis tho!
@bengregory1235 since Tom Baker it seems lol
"The Doctor's Wife" is the one that gets me. "No. I just wanted to say…hello. Hello, Doctor. It’s so very, very nice to meet you.... Oh and by the way. Sutekh hasn't been trapped in the Time Vortex and has been latched on to me this entire time. You might want to do something about that"
Sadly the season didn't end with santa crashing through the wall with a big "Doctor who will be back on christmas" in classic RTD fashion
Honestly this whole two parter didn't make much sense.
It's kinda just a typical RTD finale. Let's pretend we have huge stakes while we know everything just gets turned back at the end with no consequence.
Yeah as soon as rose and morris died I knew it would just be undone
There isn’t a single doctor who finale that hasn’t reset the status quo by the end of the
Doesn't everything get turned back in Doctor Who finales? Unless we know the companion is getting written off, the stakes are almost non-existant with the almighty Time Lord
It was kind of a traditional RTD two-parter. He introduces a MacGuffin in the final episode that defeats the villain. Everything goes back to normal. Any finale set on Earth can be guaranteed to have no real consequences.
I hope the doctor does learn from it if he doesny I will be mad
Yeah we all knew they weren’t going to actually Thanos everyone on earth. It was intensely creepy and I loved it, but…. No one fell for that, right? Please tell me no one was actually expecting that to stick.
A messy second part to an Incredible first part of a finale? WE ARE SO BACK!!!!!
I found both parts to be fatuous wheel-spinning with one or two good scenes scattered in each.
@@ThePonderer cool bro
@@ThePonderer yeah I really didn't get everyone slobbering over The Legend of Ruby Sunday. It's 30 minutes of fannying about and only 15 minutes of useful Time Window + Sutekh reveal
There were faaaar too many characters doing so little. I was genuinely pleased seeing Empire of Death essentially only having 3 protagonists take on Sutekh
Ok@@ThePonderer
This was definitely one of the episodes of all time
😂😂😂😂
I like the idea of Ruby's mom being a normal person who just happens to be surrounded by mystery boxes, but then the actual explanation for half the mysteries turned out to be... nothing??? Wtf
I liked how Ruby's mistery wasn't supernatural or cosmically special. It was just so simple, realistic and fresh.
Not every companion has to be an impossible girl, a bad wolf or the mother of the Doctor's wife.
To me the highlight of this series definitely was Millie's Ruby. It's now in my top 5 companions of all time.
Yet somehow she makes it snow and plays music every time she's thinking about it. Also, The Doctor's memory somehow changing. It's supernatural, and just overwritten by 'the power of belief'.
Nah this was awful. He clearly didn’t intend for her to be normal from the beginning given that she clearly was “cosmically special” for the entire season but Russell copped out because he didn’t actually have an answer to any of it.
We still don’t know why this ordinary person causes it so magically snow. We still don’t know why her “ordinary” mum was dressed like the trickster (where do you even buy a cloak like that in the modern day? And why would you wear it instead of a regular hoodie?)
This felt like Russell tried to pull a Rian Johnson by giving us every reason to think she was important and then gaslighting us into believing that we were just overthinking things because we ‘wanted’ her to be important. No, we thought she was important because she did stuff that breaks the laws of physics like making it snow indoors and stuff.
@@YodaOnABender thank you! To your point, Maestro literally said Ruby "has power like Him(Sutekh)"..... So HOW CAN HER MOM BE NORMAL?!?
This definitely wasn't the right choice and makes me really heated. We just spent 8 episodes theorizing for what?!
Who points like that? Lol how'd she name Ruby if that was after she left her? Trash. It snows because we care? Trash.
@@dominickeijzer5844don't you just hate it when your thinking of your mum and than it starts playing Christmas music and it starts to snow
RTD be like : "hope they won't remember the snowing stuff when she thinks about her mom"
I LOVED the finale! Ruby's mom being an ordinary person would have fallen flat for me IF it weren't for the scene where the two meet. The way it was acted and written perfectly justified the whole thing for me, emotional impact will always be more important for me than some fan-servicey conclusion that could have happened with literally any of the "Oh it's _!" characters.
Great acting, awful writing
It doesn't make sense it's just clickbait really because she can make Christmas songs play whenever and make it snow whenever
@@Pat12379 she can't make anything. That was sutekh
@@idiaridiNADecio I never said she can make anything
HELLO to The girls in front of me at odeon who connected with me over ‘eat my salad’ guy from woman who fell to earth, and then said they were going home to watch drwhofan 91 after the episode
stop making me so jealous i wish i was british sm😭 that sounds like an awesome experience to watch it with other whovians
I really was sad they didn't do more with Sutekh or his defeat, just felt like a cheap solution to have him cancel himself out
It didn't make sense
I’m largely convinced Russel either wrote this finale on a time crunch or just gave up. The season was going so strong but really started faltering at Legend of Ruby Sunday. That episode and this one had a lot of moments that made me smile but a lot of random parts that also just had me questioning “why?”. The script for both feels like a first draft that could’ve been tightened up so much better with time; it just feels like these episodes spend so much time meandering on random plot points instead of giving us more time with the characters, which is all the more vital in a season with only 8 episodes. The Doctor and Ruby have great chemistry but I feel like we don’t know enough about their relationship! Three of the 8 episodes of this season were Doctor-Lite, Companion-Lite, and both (and those episodes were undeniably great, it’s just… what’s the point of having them there if they’re not going to prop up anything greater?). Sutekh’s buildup was great but was just completely squandered in this episode and leaves too many questions. How did he birth the pantheon and evolve into godhood while still attached to the TARDIS, why did the dust leave survivors throughout the universe? To name a couple.
I could go on but I feel like it’s a waste of time to name all my grievances when others have already summed them up about as well as I could’ve. I just wish this season gave us a little more! I hope Russel can negotiate for more episodes in Season 3, if we get that far. Regardless, I’m still a massive fan of this era and I want nothing but success for the show going forward. Wherever this show goes, I’m sticking around! I hope the next series gives us more consistency and a better thought out plot!
Did they say next season will have 8 episodes
@@Pat12379 that’s what I’ve heard
@@qwert_511 that's very sad I want more episodes
@@Pat12379 season 3 hasn’t been commissioned yet, there’s a chance it could have more episodes of season 2 is a big success!
Unfortunately that’s how shows are trending. Most aren’t doing long seasons anymore, and we’re lucky if we get them once every year. I have no idea why this is the direction studios are going in.
okay, so first time i watched it, i had the same reaction as seemingly most people here - omfg, the big reveal is that it's a random person, seriously? and how they brought everyone back to life didn't make much sense, i have to admit that too.
but upon watching it for the second time, it feels like maybe that's the entire point. that we were waiting for the reveal that her mother was someone special, someone magical, someone divine on the same level as Sutekh and that this reveal was going to be the huge twist that saves the day. and this ending says: the thing that has just as much power as the god of death, the thing that has enough power to stand against pure destruction itself, is human connection, memories and love. is it cheesy? yes. do i personally find it a fitting ending? YES. not even the first time in this season, tdc was about how important such an abstract thing as music can be to humans, and Boom also ended with familial love being the final solution.
so i guess i'm an empire of death defender now. this is a "power of love saves the day" type ending done right imo
I think that's beautiful messaging but it doesn't explain all the other stuff going on with Ruby apparently having some kind of power or special ability. That would have been a beautiful lesson if the mystery was just "Who is her mother" instead of "Who is the mother? Why does it snow? Why was Maestro scared of Ruby? What hidden power did Ruby have?"
I like the messaging, but it doesn't pay off any of the other mysteries. It's not even internally consistent with what else happened in the season.
The only reason why people thought she was special is because she cab make it snow indoors like ofcorse she's special and she hade sutehks song inside her heart I guess that's over the doctor
@@Thief555WWJD i heard that RTD said we're not done with stories centered around Ruby so we'll probably find out the answer to those things later, although i agree this season/the finale could've made that intention more clear. or maybe that information i heard was just copium from people defending the episode lol
I completely agree with this take, and also felt like this after a second rewatch. The scene of them meeting was so good too, it definitely helped the episode. My only issue with the episode is the whole Sutehk having been on the tardis the whole time, it doesn't make sense, especially because the noises and the Susan's only just started. How do you feel as a defender of it lol
@@Mia.S13 i do think pretty much everything related to the Sutekh storyline was kinda rushed/didn't make sense lol, from it being incredibly obvious from the first minute that the apocalypse was going to be reversed with no consequences to a literal god somehow being powerless against a piece of rope, and also the stuff you mentioned. i'm just more of the type that simply ignores what i don't like and focus on and enjoy what i do like instead so that didn't really ruin the episode for me i just accepted i would have to appreciate this for the moment between characters and cool scenes rather than the overarching story of the villain. but yeah it made zero sense💀
My favourite idea of sutekh on the TARDIS is that Ncuti accidentally cloned sutekh when he duplicated the TARDIS in the giggle
Hot take but it’s the same tardis
@@unclekarl5219 One has a jukebox though and the other doesn't lol.
Also, I really really liked the whole bit about ruby's mum being regular. now that I think about it, them figuring out she was a god or something and her busting out some crazy powers to save the day would've been a little, too overdone. I like that they made her a regular joe and that the power of pure mystery can fuel so much. it really plays into the new supernatural universe, because the power of pure belief mixed in with some timey whimey shenanigans made it snow and play christmas carols.
exactly! i think it would've been hype at first but then would fall flat with time when it wasn't such a fresh mystery in the fandom anymore, if they went with some crazy reveal
Personally I loved this finale, and have thoroughly enjoyed this series as a whole (73 Yards is far and away my favourite of the run)
I think what has left so many people feeling deflated by "Empire of Death" is not too dissimilar to what put them off "73 Yards." Both episodes play around with the idea of expectation and how we assume a certain degree of explanation will be given for what we've seen; in 73 Yards we're invited to accept that perhaps the unknowable can sometimes be just that, whereas EoD takes a different approach and asks us to examine the power of mythologising the mundane in a bid for answers. The Doctor has a line in EoD that's reminiscient of Kate's in 73 Yards: Kate mentions to Ruby how humans will take something they don't fully understand and invent the rules to make it work, while the Doctor claims that Ruby's mother was important because she was made important by others' (namely Ruby and the Doctor's) beliefs about her. They made their own rules for Ruby's mum because they couldn't understand her.
It was this building of a legend around the events that took place on Ruby Road combined with a universe still imbued with the residual powers of the Toymaker that gave way to Ruby's "snow powers." It was this mythologising of that night that caused concern in Maestro and agitated Sutekh; for the latter, an apparent "creation myth" involving the purest form of life - a newborn baby - is sure to pose a threat to the God of Death and bringer of total destruction. That's how powerful the Legend of Ruby Sunday had become. A young woman who desired nothing more than to know where she came from managed to conceive a story so powerful that it began to bleed into reality and was enough to bring fear to the God of All Gods. Personally, I think that's a worthy resolution to this series.
Quick addendum: SUTEKH IS NOT A BLOODY DOG.
he is a good dog
Really cool interpretation I'm ngl.
I really like this line of thinking
yes finally someone else that liked it! i really like your thoughts on the episode :D
I found the holes too much on a first watch, but after reading this comment, I think i'll go back and rewatch with a different mindset. I really want to like it. I understand that the whole season has been very metaphorical (not sure that's the right word), and not always followed the straight-foward analytical thinking of prior series, and most TV shows generally. Also, I caught on pretty quick that 73 yards would be like this, and I think that is why I enjoyed it, even without a full explanation.
In a perfect world Sutekhs gift of life would reatore Gallifrey
If you bring death to death what is life?
Razzilon confirmed?
I was really hoping Gallifrey would be the final planet mentioned there.... 😢
I thought it had its moments. The beginning was fun, Sutekh's voice was fantastic, and his lines were epic, Ncuti was absolutely excellent and Millie was brilliant. I also loved Bonnie being KEY to the episode as Mel. But the actual episode was a major disappointment.
It was often nonsencial, Sutekh's defeat is one of the worst ways a villain has ever been defeated on the show in recent years, and we've had some bad solutions to episodes. Everything is fixed with a complete lack of an explanation (the whole bringing life thing in the vortex makes zero sense, let's not kid ourselves). I don't mind the idea of Ruby's mother just being a random person, but the story also falls apart here. I don't understand how Sutekh can't figure it out just because they view her as so important. What, she's really important to the Doctor and Ruby, so Sutekh can't figure her out? That makes no sense, lol. Ruby's mother pointing to the sign at Ruby Road is also one of the most laughably bad things I've ever seen, and I was cringing in embarrassment whilst watching it. Are you seriously telling me that not only was this mystery (which I was more invested in than to who Ruby's mother actually was) was her naming her child? She named her child by pointing at a sign? Who did she think was gonna listen to that? How would anyone even know? Did she expect the man in the blue box to run to the church and tell them that the baby's name is Ruby because the woman pointed at a sign? I think RTD is possibly using this whole thing about Ruby's mum as some sort of meta commentary about the community caring so much about these mysteries, the same way he did with Susan Triad, but it just feels like he's laughing at us.
I'm glad some people enjoyed it, and I loved part one and have enjoyed other episodes of the season, but I want to be honest about how I feel about this episode, and I seriously think it's an utter disaster of a finale that clearly wasn't well thought out in the slightest. I'd take most Chibnall finales over this sadly. I feel like I didn't watch the same episode as a lot of people and I'm seriously SHOCKED people are just ignoring the million holes in the episode. I don't see this episode being looked back on fondly in the future.
Its about the level of the s12 finale, far above the s11 and 13 imo
This, exactly this. There’s just so much that falls apart on looking into it. I miss RTD1’s character writing and better payoffs 😭 (albeit, also often falling short)
@@dwfan91-oof, can’t agree. Having just rewatched Flux recently I think The Vanquishers blows Empire of Death clean out of the water, as does Timeless Children.
Ranskoor Av Kolos and Name of the Doctor are the only finales Empire of Death is remotely comparable to imo, and they’ve both got *just* enough going on that they surpass it too.
This is the comment that just understood my stance exactly, with this line "Sutekh's defeat is one of the worst ways a villain has ever been defeated on the show in recent years". I know it wasn't all that bad, but the potential of what it could have been, made it feel terrible.
@nobodyimportant4099 it's definitely more the fact that this is the way SUTEKH is being defeated, the finale villain. If it was a one-off mid-season episode for a new villain, I'd still think it was dumb, but I wouldn't care very much.
I actually yelled "WALK THAT DOG" at the screen during the leash scene 😂
Anyone else watch Empire of Death but lose all tension within the first ten minutes as literally every single person dies on screen? I just had immediate Infinity War flashbacks so I immediately realised everyone who was shown dead is going to be alive somehow.
YES I THOUGHT I WASNTHE ONLY ONE, it was so big it killed all stakes, this episode had good moments but as a finale it's a stinker
@@kadegetslaid634 parts were good don’t get me wrong, but I just knew that it was too strong of an opener for me to go ‘yeah, they’re not dead.’
@johndoe35859 yeah exactly same for me, took me out, which usually doesn't happen to me
literally same lol, at first i was like "noo the Vlinx! nooo Rose! noo Kate- wait there is no way they're killing off the entirety of UNIT they're gonna come back to life aren't they"😭
Yuuuup. I saw Kate “die” and immediately went “well there’s any genuine sense of tension gone.”
I cannot believe you got a blackout on your bingo card! Congratulations!
Thank You!!
I'm gonna be honest, the more I watch, rewatch, and think about New Who, the more I think the 20 minute, multi-part format meme is actually real 💀 Like at the very least, imagine if this season had ONE more episode, and they extended all the moments up until the Sutekh pulling a flux and have the next episode be the finale.
In general, good ep for what it was. It feels at least like RTD was trying his hardest to fit everything he wanted out of this season into an 8 episode format, and he did a pretty good job at it when it came to the finale, I think? Hopefully next season's even better.
This definitely deserves a rewatch, because I genuinely have no Idea what I just watched.
Also, the scene where The Doctor pulls Sutekh through the time vortex is literally cinema.
ITS NOT A MEME IT IS REAL!!!
@@dwfan91- AMEN!
Really felt like they could’ve benefited from an extra episode. Having this episode be the disaster that seems irreversible (somewhat like The Stolen Earth) and then one after being the last stand to save everyone would’ve paced out the story a lot better.
exactly what i thought, the entire universe ending was too big a threat to just be over in a single episode
they need to give us time to invest in a universe ending scenario if they're gonna do it again and again
Honestly I get why anyone would be frustrated with the finale, but I like it. It focuses on the emotional weight of the events in the episode, especially with Ruby's mom, and that stuff really got me. Plus, apparently RTD said that Ruby's family story isn't over yet and there's more to come (and the snow never got explained). We saw Ruby's mom but never her dad which makes me feel like THE TRICKSTER MAY STILL BE AN OPTION
It just doesn’t work though. The set up and the reveal don’t line up with each other. Ruby’s entire character is OBJECTIVELY not ordinary. Her mother wasn’t dressed like an ordinary person. She caused unnecessary things to happen around her e.g. making it snow.
You can’t show us all that and then say “well, actually you guys just ASSUMED she was going to be something special, it was just you guys overthinking it” um no, all of the things about Ruby make no sense if she’s ordinary… therefore making her NOT ordinary at all
@@YodaOnABenderProblem is, Ruby was said to be human from the very first episode. I always had suspicions that the mother would be just an ordinary person, but the father would be the one setting Ruby apart. And since we never met him, I think that's the direction RTD is taking it. I'm not saying the ending is flawless, just that I like it and I think there's more to come
It was a good/ok ending, but not the one expected or desired by fans. That said, I'm happy with what they gave us, after all a lukewarm ending doesn't ruin a season full of good, interesting, and diverse ideas, or Ncuti's performance as the doctor, RDT simply needs to see the criticism and improve the weak aspects for the next season.
All I know is that I was sobbing uncontrollably by the end of this episode and I think that’s a good sign
Literally
Honestly this felt like a finale that was tailor-made for me specifically. I only got into Doctor Who in December and I have hyperfixated completely on it, watching through the entire show, classic and modern, (Jon Pertwee's my favourite Doctor, The War Games is my favourite serial) and only just finishing it right before watching Empire of Death in cinemas and honestly, because of that and a couple of other things, it was the perfect finale for me.
The idea of every planet the Doctor has visited since Pyramids of Mars being destroyed by Sutekh's dust of death just hits so much harder when all those various worlds and people are so fresh in your memory. Yes I knew immediately it would've all been undone at the end but that didn't really matter to me I think, mainly because I've seen other RTD finales and like, this isn't the first time he's done that lmao.
Also, although I completely understand why some people were disappointed by it, I was a huge fan of the reveal of Ruby's mum. I was anxious all series that they would make her someone super important because I really didn't want that. I just wanted her to be normal right from the get go and I'm just very relieved honestly that's the route they went down. I completely understand why it doesn't work for some people (especially with how telegraphed it was that there was some greater mystery to it what with the memory changing and the snow falling and everything) but it worked brilliantly for me. Gotta say though, the explanation for the pointing was the dumbest fucking thing ever lmao me and my friend just looked at each other in the cinema like 🤨
Also last thing, Mel was the highlight of the episode for me. I loved her appearance and how she was utilised so much.
But yeah no, for me that was a 10/10, perfect finale, but also I can completely understand every single valid complaint for the episode that I've heard and I think if I had watched and gotten into Doctor Who in any other way than the way that I did, that probably would've been like a 7/10 for me instead.
Personally, I don't think people give this episode enough credit. Although there are a few plot holes, and the plot resolution of Sutekh and Ruby's origins are a bit messy, I absolutely adore how it's all thematically and symbolically perfect for the story that Russel has been telling this season. Like the idea that Sutekh ascended to Godhood through the time energy of the Tardis, and also his perception by the Doctor after waiting so long aligns perfectly with Ruby's mother, and the snow, and the christmas song. Ruby's mum was so special and broke the laws of time itself simply because of the importance that people placed on her, in the same way that Sutekh became a God because of how he was mythologised over time. This is the same as how the bogeyman from Space Babies lost his power and fear factor when the Doctor and co. started viewing him as a genuine creature. This is the same as how the 73 Yards lady (a metaphor for Ruby's abandonment issues) only grew in power and ruined Ruby's life when she became obsessed with her and viewed her as a curse, and so on. This season is trying to tell us that the importance, and the power held by people, objects, and events is only as much as you perceive them to be. That's why Ruby's mother is so ordinary, yet at the same time, so monumentally important, and I think that's beautiful.
In this way, Empire of Death is a perfect thematic conclusion to the season, however I do still have problems with how quickly Sutekh was defeated. To build him up as the strongest enemy the Doctor has ever faced, and then kill him in five minutes feels anticlimactic, and the fast paced scene when they defeated him was really confusing and difficult to follow on a first viewing. In conclusion, a great finale overall, even if a bit slow paced and containing a few plot holes. Also, JUST KILL THE DOCTOR SUTEKH, ISN'T THAT YOUR JOB?!
Remembering that 14th doctor is just chilling with donna somewhere is giving me vibes of a giant egg that is the moon
I mean instead of death plus death equals life what if you just had the Doctor say "Sutekh, reverse what you've done, or your agony will continue for as long as this Tardis operates". I mean the Toymaker was powerful enough to do literally anything, I'm sure it's not a stretch to have Sutekh reverse what he did being the all powerful god. Also framing it as a oh shit Doctor timelord victorious moment would have made the deus ex nature of it easier to swallow. And then killing him, essentially lying to Sutekh of letting him go, would have been the Doctor giving pause to himself moment.
Yeah I really did think we would get smtg more darker there.
I definitely feel like Mrs Flood was the one who caused it to snow in order to lure in the doctor and sutekh so that the doctor would defeat sutekh so that mrs flood could do her plans that she spoke of when she was turning to dust. That’s why she has a suitcase at the end because she is leaving ruby because she doesn’t have to use her or her mum as a lure anymore. She also says that the doctor ends in terror as a threat because I believe she is the trickster as she basically set a trap for sutekh by using the snow and rubys mum to trick him. God of traps.
I’m a bit confused as to how ruby summoned snow if her mum was just a regular person, was that really explained?
And also I liked that 73 yards had some importance in this episode but I feel like it needed more. I really feel like the fact of the tardis having a perception filter that is 73 yards wide has some massive involvement with how 73 yards even happened. I hope they revisit this again at some point because I feel that 73 yards has a bigger meaning than we know of.
My season rankings:
73 yards 10/10
The legend of ruby sunday 9.5/10
Dot and bubble 9.5/10
Boom 9/10
Empire of death 8.5/10
The church on ruby road 7/10
Rogue 7/10
The devils chord 7/10
Space babies 6.5/10
The snow & the song & the mother's invisibility & probably some other things I'm forgetting were all waffled away with the line "we thought she was important so she became important". Basically the pivot toward the supernatural this season has already become licence to just have stuff happen for no reason.
@@sleepeybunney I saw a theory that maybe mrs flood caused the snow and that stuff to lure in sutekh and the doctor so that the doctor could get sutekh out of the way so she can do her plans. But I don’t know if that will be true or not I guess we’ll just wait and see?
@@Pokenerd11 I could get behind that!
It sounded like the Doctor was saying Ruby summoned the snow, without any kind of powers, because it was just such a powerful memory. But Ruby can't have any actual memory of that night, because she was a newborn baby. Was it supposed to be the mom's memory??
I know this episode will get a lot of flak, but I really enjoyed it. The scenes with Ruby's mum hit incredibly hard for adopted children and the reveal she's an ordinary person plays perfectly into the themes of the season. Those themes were even reinforced by the ground level view of Sutekh's destruction, seeing the ordinary mother who lost her daughter do an act of kindness that would ultimately lead to Sutekh's downfall.
Sutekh hanging onto the TARDIS but not having enough strength to be recognised until Wild Blue Yonder is a fun concept that I've seen a lot of jokes about from the fandom and Sutekh being dragged behind and detached and whisked into the edge of the time vortex to slowly disintegrate was a really cool visual. I know people have issues with how quickly he was defeated but honestly the scenes from the return of the TARDIS to Sutekh's disintegration more than made up for it for me personally (plus knowing Doctor Who it's not like we'll never see Sutekh again now that he's reoccurred as a finale antagonist in New Who, similar to the Great Intelligence. I have no doubt future writers would want to give Sutekh another run later down the line).
A few other miscellaneous thoughts: Murray Gold's music was on point as always; the Mrs. Flood ending was a nice little addition (I don't mind the green screen, Doctor Who's cheesiness always makes it endearing for me) and I'm looking forward to the Christmas special and next season.
I'd put it somewhere in the middle in regards of finales, definitely no where near the heights of Journey's End or The Doctor Falls, but also nowhere near the lows of The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos or The Vanquishers. Probably closest to finales like The Wedding of River Song where there's definitely noticable flaws but it's still a fun time that I wouldn't mind checking out again.
Yes! Rubys mom being normal fits the themes so well!
wearing an ominous cape and menacingly pointing at a road sign is the best way to name a kid in my opinion
This whole thing felt like the first 10 minutes were meant to be the last 10 minutes of the previous episode, but (once again) the episode runtime was too short, which just meant it was tagged onto this episode and that left us with even less time to actually fix the problems or properly let the narrative unfold.
So according to RTD Rubys story isnt complete and will continue further into Season 2. But i wish they had alluded to that more in the season finale instead cus it made it feel like they just gave up with it.
This episode, even though everything gets reversed in the end, still shows a conceptually cool apocalypse and I find value in that. I also really want to see this reversal having its own side effects, like he accidentally brings some more people back. I think that would help this finale in the long run.
I agree on the 7/10 rating. I find with episodes like this its easier to talk about its flaws, but it had a hell of a lot of merits. I would have prefered Ruby to find out who her mother is and then choose not to talk to her. Would have been a character-beat thinga-ma-jig. She started the series banging on about how she would love to meet her mother, but her choosing to leave her mother be would have shown how she'd outgrown that obsessive desire. I think Sutekh was underutilised, but he was also in Pyramids of Mars so *that's alright then!* I love how the Tardis became an altar to Sutekh, and all his dialogue was operatic; so commanding! Also Ms Flood is the Master I'm calling it now. Can't wait for Joy to the World!
I think the choice to talk to her mother was a parallel to the Doctor and Susan. He wanted Ruby to walk away, which is what he did to Susan; but Ruby took the risk and it paid off. That's why the Doctor says "you changed me" to Ruby at the end of the episode.
oo great review! thank you so much for all your reviews of this season, I've been watching them as they uploaded and every one was so fun to watch!
I have some thoughts. Im going to have to give this one a rewatch, but I have more questions than I had going in and not in a good way.
So, with Ruby's mum being just a normal woman, how does that explain everything that was happening around Ruby? Why did it keep snowing around her? Why was the Doctor's memory of christmas eve 2004 changing? If the woman pointing was just ruby's mum pointing at the lamp post sign to name her daughter, why did that moment change time/change the doctor's memory of that night? Is it because Sutekh travelled back to that night a second time? Did he travel back there a second time and thats why that swirling black sand appeared in the time window initially? Also, whilst I thematically understand what Russell was going for with Ruby's mum, why would it be this that suddenly causes Sutekh to start making the TARDIS groan? Out of everything he saw since latching on in Pyramids of Mars (literally everything that has happened on tv over the past 49 years) why would this cause Sutekh to come out?
I won't ramble on too long, but it's the Giggle all over again. Worldbuilding that confuses the fuck out of me being introduced in act 3 of an otherwhise good episode (like 14 is just assumed to be killed by Sutekh, which I don't believe). Why do they keep doing this to us?!
P.S When Kate said that Ruby's birth father ended up in Coventry, everyone in my cinema laughed out loud. I was watching in Coventry so we were all surprised. Someone even shouted "Is he here with us?" Best part of the episode.
The reveal that the abandoned child has no special lineage and is just an ordinary person is always the correct choice. It was correct in The Last Jedi and it is correct here. It is the most respectful to real-life foundlings as thematically hopeful and honest.
Having 14 show up to save they day is a DREADFUL idea. Any high stakes situation in the future, you'd ask "where's 14?" not to mention the optics of having the first main Doctor of colour being "bailed out" by a previous white Doctor. Ick!
I think for the last jedi its different because the force can affect anyone. if ruby hadn't been given all these snow powers and they hadn't set up 'the glitching lady' and 'the oldest one was there' and all of that stuff then it would've been fine. Even so, the twist itself isn't the problem for me its moreso the fact that the entire last 10-15 minutes are devoted solely to something I couldn't care less about. also saying people would always ask "where's 14?"... we're already asking so bit too late for that😭
But the "oldest one" was supposed to be Sutekh, no? Maestro saw Sutekh when the Doctor travelled back and saw Ruby as a baby
I feel like this would've been much better as a single episode. TLORS already felt drawn out for the sake of revealing Sutekh as a cliffhanger, and as soon as the Doctor started talking to the woman losing memories I was thinking "why didn't the episode just start here?". I actually like the epilogue a lot but I agree it wouldn't have hurt to trim it down.
Man, just found out about your channel and I love the fact that you don't sound like a review channel, it just seems like I'm listening the opinion of a friend with a different point of view. Great video dude 🤌
Seeing The Legend of Ruby Sunday and Empire Of Death in a cinema last night was an absolute joy and definitely a different experience from watching it at home. Empire of Death itself I liked, I really enjoyed how dark it was but it was uplifting at the end
My thoughts on the episode improve the more I sit on it. Perhaps it was better at meeting the Seasons themes rather than its big mysteries. The more I think about it the more I think that it feels right that it ended like this.
Ngl i loved the ending. I loved how it made us have theories the whole series for it to just be something quite obvious which id never thought of before. Im also the opposite to you that i didnt care as much for the first half and was more invested in rubys story
For me it annoyed me cos it was just a misleading hype train that had no pay off - also if rubys mum is just a random person how did she make it snow? I was a bit confused by that
@@popscape8490 i think thats meant to be more of the power ruby put on her. Ruby, Dr, Tardis etc all thought she was powerful so that emotion and confusion was powerful enough to make stuff happen
@@no-nr6de ehhh see I just think that explanation is just a stretch too far for me - I get we’re talking about a show where there’s a lot of impossible things but that feels cheap and flaky for me. That’s just my taste though I’m glad you enjoyed it!
@@popscape8490 yeah i get that. I do think id have been happy with a different ending but the twist on the viewer for thinking about it too deep and for ruby, doctor, sutekh etc was quite rewarding to me. It was like "your thinking too deep and simplicity is powerful alone" like it made me quite emotional to be flipped like that. I must admit tho im a sort of new fan. I was into it the season before tenant then watched him then kinda stopped till this new one
You're probably the most generous reviewer I've ever seen.
For me, this episode hit the mark with the emotional scenes and the emotional scenes only. Kate's final words actually made me tear up, but that was also the point where the episode lost the plot. When literally everyone dies, you know things are not staying like that so there's no stakes.
In a way, I wish Sutekh wasn't so powerful, at least not from the jump. My idea was that the time vortex would still be holding him back from unleashing his full power, and he would have to use Susan's new technology that she was announcing to fulfill his plans. Then the Doctor would have to defeat him in time before everything goes to shit or something.
The scene with the woman and the baby was really really good, and the scene with Ruby meeting her mother too. But did we really need all that mystery around her? I don't mind that she's ordinary but just... make it ordinary. Let Ruby just be a foundling looking for her mother, and then she finds her and they reconnect and that's it. If you take away all the "we can't see her face" and "why is she pointing" and "it snows", it would change nothing about the end result and we'd have a better story.
I also wanna highlight Bonnie's acting. Her reaction to seeing Sixth's coat, the scene where she was posessed by Sutekh, just phenomenal. They're breathing new life into her character and she really deserves it, I hope she sticks around.
Overall it's a 5/10 for me. I'd still rank it over any Chibnall finale, mostly because the dialogue was great and it didn't end with someone sacrificing their life while the Doctor runs away, or someone's species being genocided off-screen. But what a bummer way to end a great season.
been watching ur vids after i watch the episodes and you say exactly what im thinking, gonna miss this saturday morning routine for me 😔
Same🥲
@@dwfan91- better be back again with it for season 2 ‼️
@@krispy1877 You betcha boss🫡
This is such a divisive episode. People seem to be like it's a 8-9/10 or 0-2/10 or even negative numbers. Honestly why are people saying that? Do they actually think it's one of the worst episodes. Probably let their expectations get ahead of themselves.
Personally it was fine.
Ruby's mum being just someone regular is fine. People expecting it to have to be a super important person cause the characters fiction focus on have to be the most important person ever right? I feel like making characters overly important is annoying and definitely feels a bit like power creep.
Ask yourself do you want Ruby to be like Dave Lister?
yes i do
@@dwfan91- I guess you don't need to go as far as Ruby's mum is Ruby. I did think we'd learn who dropped her off and it wouldn't be her mother. I was wrong
I went in with pretty measured expectations, I think, and I *do* genuinely feel that if this isn’t one of the show’s worst episodes, it’s easily one of the worst finales.
We were consistently told throughout the season that Ruby and her mum were _not_ normal (with the snow thing, the music thing, the lack of any trace of Ruby’s mum, the cloak, the pointing, etc.). So the reveal that she and her mum were just normal people didn’t make sense, it wasn’t consistent with we were told so many times.
In contrast, in Series 7, we kept being shown evidence that Clara was a normal person - whenever the Doctor investigated her (e.g., in Hide, Rings of Akhaten), the evidence was that she was a normal girl. So, the reveal in Name of the Doctor that she _was_ a normal girl made special by her own decision made good sense.
@@ob4161 we really weren't given a lot of information. I kinda expected more but only cause of the snow and the comment by Maestro. The whole no trace thing doesn't make her weird. People seem to think that nurses would have then DNA on file why? Doesn't seem weird for someone not to have it on file even if they work in the medical field. She just would never have had a reason to have it taken.
Ultimately I'm not too fussed. Yeah it kinda hinted but not that strongly. Really it's just the snow.
I still think some people get into trouble with their fan theories. But tbh you always see silly theories people always have to link things to the past.
I loved this episode. It retroactively made the whole season better for me. I loved how the Susan stuff wasn’t just dropped after the Sutekh reveal and instead informs the whole point of the season, contrasting Ruby’s goal of finding her mother with The Doctor unwilling to go back for Susan. For that, the ending with Ruby’s mom felt perfect for me. Does it make sense? No, but I don’t care too much. I thought everything before that was really good too. The use of the Memory Tardis also felt like the climax of a big theme across the season of memory being time. I do agree completely with your theory that tying Sutekh into Wild Blue Yonder’s Mavity bit makes WAY more sense than just having Sutekh around since Pyramids of Mars. I wonder though if Sutekh being dragged through the time vortex, bringing the universe back to life, also undid a lot of the destruction from Flux. Seems like a pretty big missed opportunity to not do that. Overall, I went in thinking this season was really disjointed structurally, and yeah it kinda is, even though I love Boom, 73 Yards, and Dot and Bubble (and the others are all good at least). But seeing what they were building to thematically with Ruby helps me see how all the pieces fit together and really enjoy the season as a whole. Maybe in my top 3 of NuWho?
I loved legend of ruby Sunday, I watched it over five times within the first two days and even went back and watched pyramids of mars. Now empire of death I thought was good but just a little to easy to defeated suetekh especially watching after pyramids of mars but I thought the rest of the episode was fine except for ruby’s mom witch I kinda thought was boring.
I like that she’s just a woman, it’s good for the heart, for every once and a while for it to be a genuine character thing, only has meaning if we put meaning onto it, why would she be so important, even sutekh thought it was a bigger mystery than it was, like it was a heart breaking reunion
Why was Maestro afraid of her? Why was she making it snow? It doesn't make sense.
Mrs Flood is certainly seeming to be shaping up as Beep the Meeps "New Boss".
Such an underwhelming episode 😢😢
The series has been awesome up until now, but everything the finale was set up with just completely lacked to payoff. Felt really similar to all the various random plot points that Flux introduced and never paid off or lead to anything, just done for the sake of being done.
Enjoyed all the domestic scenes with Ruby as Russell always delivers them well
Ultimately just disappointed lol
They lowkey cooked. Ruby needs to come back. She x Doctor is peak along with Mel hanging with them
I actually thought it was really good with some caveats up until a certain point where all energy just deflates and the major flaw of this season rears it's ugly head. But first the positives: I genuinely really enjoyed the concept of an evil god sticking itself to the TARDIS to destroy every place in every timezone the TARDIS ever landed on. Conceptually that's such a strong visual. Now, I didn't watch the original story (and I didn't watch the Tales of the TARDIS episode either) so I don't have a history with the character or story. But as a concept, that's just deliciously sinister to me. I love it and I love how it makes the Doctor, unknowingly, complicit. Really great visual, really great concept. I loved Sutekh's dialogue and voice, he really felt sinister. "Every living thing is an abomination. I am come to release them into blessed death. And I find that good." Love it love it love it.
The scene with the survivor on Agua Santina was really beautifully done as well, maybe one of my favorite individual scenes in the show. So heartbreaking and wonderfully performed. There really is just a lot to love about this finale. I'm sure a lot of people will find the solution unsatisfactory. But even there I am rolling with it. This season has been pretty "vibes based" as I like to call it. Proper sci-fi explanations for what's going on have been largely out of the window in favor for THEMES. The themes take center stage. Sutekh bringing "death to death everywhere" makes no sense on a logical level but on an emotional, thematical level I can roll with it. And this really only works because the villains of this series have been godlike entities. They're not explainable with logic so earthly (or sci-fi) logic does not necessarily need to apply if the thematic execution lands. In my book it does. The visual of Sutekh ripping open the time vortex to bring life, the over the top theatrical belting of the themes by the Doctor. It landed for me. My only hope is that we're not going to continue this forever. I think it's good to have experimental things like this and the supernatural and "vibes based" approach to Doctor Who is refreshing to me. But I need some rules at some point, because this trick won't work forever. That's a problem for the future though.
Of course, this is all really nice and good and I quite enjoyed my time up until... the biggest flaw of the entire season comes around.
This season is far too short. 8 episodes (or 9) is simply not enough for the last 20 minutes to land. I don't care enough about Ruby, I don't care enough about Ruby's and the Doctor's relationship (there weren't even enough episodes they really shared together! One they were only on screens for the majority of it and in another the Doctor was gone!!!). It just fell completely flat. The reveal of Ruby's mother just being an ordinary woman was kind of predictable to me. The entire series made meta nods at the audience and is trying to examine the audience's interaction with television in the modern day. Sutekh , in a way, represents a long-time Doctor Who viewer. Someone that has seen it all but longs for that twist at the end (get it), that one thing that will make him feel alive despite being obsessed with death (like how the long-time audience is somewhat obsessed with worrying over the shows cancellation). So yeah, I get it. The woman is just a regular person that we ascribed meaning to so we can get one more fix of excitement. But it's a bit of a trick. He wrote the snow in. He wrote the pointing "at the doctor" in and the resolution to that is so groanworthy and stupid that it just doesn't fly, he wrote it so we could not see her face and her wearing a hood (who wears a cloak like that in 2004?). So no, I'm sorry Russel, but you wrote the meaning in. It's not just us. And that's why it doesn't land. I don't mind that she's a regular woman. That's fine. But ironically the reason why she is an ordinary woman is incredibly contrived.
That said, loved the season overall. And it's really only the last 15 minutes that I think fall flat. If the show continues past the next season (which I hope it does!), please please please don't have 8 episode seasons again. Make the show look cheaper. But please, for the writing and characters to land we desperately need more time or a complete restructuring of how the show works.
I also wanna thank you for your videos. They are so refreshingly positive and quite frankly a bright light in a sea of shallow or overly negative content on the internet when it comes to this show. I really enjoyed watching your videos every week and see the discussions in here. It's rare to see a good community like this on RUclips I think. So thanks for that and keep it up!!
You can’t set up a mystery of someone supposedly being so mysterious that they confuse a god, only to then basically pull a “the real treasure was the friends we made along the way” ahh twist.
If her being completely ordinary was the reason then why didn’t every McDonald’s employee also confuse Sutekh?
And why was she dressed like someone who very clearly ISN’T a random 15 teenager from Manchester. No modern day human being walks around in a medieval cloak
@@brucesimmons5517 no, she was made important by the fact that she was very clearly NOT just and ordinarily person. Her mother was not remotely dressed like a normal person would, she was dressed like a damn cult member. And she made it magically snow somehow.
The twist is not only bad, it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t remotely line up with how her entire character is written.
Imagine if, after all these years, they revealed that the doctor wasn’t really a time lord but just a really charismatic guy and the explanation for why we believed he was a time traveler was “you can make people believe anything if you’ve got enough charisma” and they just ignored the fact that he very clearly DOES travel through time and space
"You can’t set up a mystery of someone supposedly being so mysterious that they confuse a god, only to then basically pull a “the real treasure was the friends we made along the way” ahh twist."
Yeah, that's.. that's not what happens.
"If her being completely ordinary was the reason then why didn’t every McDonald’s employee also confuse Sutekh?"
Because it was the act of mythologising the night of Ruby's birth and creating a "legend" around it by both Ruby and the Doctor (and if you want to get meta, us the audience) that caused it to become so powerful. In a universe still susceptible to the forces of fantasy due to the actions of the Toymaker and his legions, this creation myth began to bleed through into reality; this is how Ruby could bring on the snow and why Maestro was so concerned about her hidden song - Ruby was creating her own legend, albeit unintentionally. Just as the Doctor created a second TARDIS with a big ol' hammer, Ruby manifested a fairy tale of her own beginnings through her memories. And why did it confuse Sutekh? Because the Legend of Ruby Sunday was everything that stood as a direct antithesis to him: a creation myth, a story of a child born on Christmas Eve, a fable about the purest form of life - a newborn baby. A story that can challenge even the Great Destroyer himself.
This is what the finale was about. What the whole series was about. The sheer, raw power of mythology - from the Toymaker and Maestro, to marauding goblins, to fairy circles and cryptic ghouls 73 yards away, to the God of Death and the girl who created a story of her mother to banish him.
I would watch a hi light reel of the cinema
Didn’t think the episode was as excellent as others in the season (namely 73 yards and boom) but also not absolute crap, I think a 6 or 7/10, which just goes to show how good this season is, a few problems tho. Who tf is Mrs Flood? Did Sutekh revive Gallifrey? Is ruby going to be in the next season? If the 14th doctor was on earth, did he receive the dust of death and if he did, did he just die or regenerate? In the doctors wife the tardia turned into a human, did sutekh still stay attached to her? Seems like a lot of points to explore deeper with this episode, most of it will probably be answered in the next season.
Edit:
-Gallifrey wasn’t revived because it wasn’t killed by sutekh
Sorry if my English is bad, as it is not my native language
sad to say that this episode just did not hit. russell absolutely nerfed sutekh which was really annoying to me because i always loved sutekh, so to see him do nothing but sit on the tardis, get like 10 minutes of screen time and then get defeated by a fucking bungee cord was really disheartening. also i dont like the retconning of sutekh's abilities. like hes the god of death but he doesnt embody it, killing him wouldnt undo the damage he did. i think the goodbye was okay but it dragged on and on and on. im actually the opposite of you opinion wise, i thought that everything in the episode was pretty bad until the end which was okay i guess. this is very minor but i was a little dissapointed that sutekh's eyes didnt turn green when he used his abilities on the doctor. overall im really disappointed in this episode, definitely at the bottom of my list. 4.5/10
*15 with the ToyMaker's Hammer in "The Giggle"*
Sutekh: "Hey buddy. What are you doing with that hammer?"
Sutekh latching on during "Wild Blue Yonder" makes so much more sense. Sutekh latches on when they arrive at the end of the universe and that's the reason the Tardis leaves cause it's trying to shake him off. But Sutekh takes control and arrives back in time to save 14 and Donna and his plans are in motion.
that idea for an ending with the 14th doctor would've been SO COOL OMG why didn't they do that 😭
i'm choosing to interpret sutek's latching onto the tardis as happening during WBY, then evolving and empowering susan triad on earth during the time 14 was living with donna and travelling around, so that when (in the tardis's timeline) it became 15's tardis he was just about ready to finalize his plan
I really thought this entire season was great, except Space Babies which kinda wasn’t that great, but every episode was enjoyable, Doctor Who is no longer boring imo
It would be funny if in the intro this episode sutekh would be clinging to the tardis
Rubys parents being normal was my favorite part about the finale. Nothing would have been as good, or fitting with the themes of the season. The mythologizing of Rubys story (the legend of ruby sunday) in a post Toymaker world was created Ruby's powers associated with memory. I loved that
i can’t believe dwfan91 invented the word “goddamn”
It gives me huge "Last of the Time Lords" vibes.... Once again, RTD puts the belief and the power of the story on the line! I never liked the resolution of this episode, making the Doctor a holy messiah driven by the faith of the people, and now.... well, at least it's consistent. I've watched so many theories about who Ruby's mother is, the mystery of the snow and the hidden song, the way she and the Doctor met, and after this episode I have to say I'm disappointed. I really thought the whole "Ruby's mother" storyline would be something that would change the Doctor's life, but no.... it's another "your faith has power" (K, we get the scene when he's thanking Ruby for making him care more ab family but is it that life-changing!?). Not to mention that some things just doesn't add up with how important Ruby is... to whom?! The Doctor, her mom n gran? or her mother naming Ruby after the street? How did you manage to get that Doc? Some things were just too random.
While watching the dust covering the planets, cool shots I admit, I stopped for a moment and thought: "That's damn Flux 2.0." A big cloud destroying more than half of the universe "because of the Doctor".... If I had a nickel for every time the universe is destroyed by a Great Dusty Cloud because of the Doctor's sheer existence, I'd have 2 nickels, which isn't much, but it's funny that it happened twice.
Then there's Sutekh... I really liked the character! Damn I wish I had his patience. Now I'm just trying to understand how this "bringing life" worked? I might have missed something? Idk
(Fun fact: the pronunciation of the word Sutekh is the same as the pronunciation of the word nipple in my language, so sometimes I just couldn't take it seriously).
Finally, the more I think about this episode, the more I understand it. It's not as satisfying an ending, but I guess my expectations were too high. We still haven't learned the answer to the question of who Ms. Flood is, but is it wrong to think she's the Master/Missy or another Time Lord? After this ending, I don't know if I'll be excited about the theories for s2. Yes, Russel has delivered, but have we as fans overshot a bit? Did we overanalyze it? Were we so hungry for shocking twists that the ending may have been disappointing to some of us?
I need to watch it again, but for the first time 6/10? There are many good things about this episode, but these aspects struck me the most. Overall, I rate the season 8.5/10 and I like it a lot.
Dwfan91, I love your videos, thanks a lot for your dedication to these reviews, it's been the highlight of the past weeks.
Loved it 9/10. Except a few simplifide answers, like Ruby's parents. And Mrs Flood... still guessing 😂
Why didn't Sutekh just read Ruby's mind so then he would know that she had a plan? Massive plote hole.
@@Cringeharvester because even if he did Ruby really believed it? It’s not a plot-hole.
I loved this last episode personally, I loved watching mel change and I feel for her even though I haven't gotten to her part of classic. I loved the part where she looks at the coat rack of past doctors/costumes. Intentional but small is still sweet to me. I loved them using the 4th doctors scarf for the Tardis.
I loved sutek throughout but I lost track of the point of his goal, but that's just my not getting the loneliness..I feel I understood taking music more than killing the universe but thats not the shows fault 😄. There were so many references that I'm happy I couldn't least catch a good bit of them or at least know its a reference even if I don't know what episode or doctor it is specifically. My friend knows less and we've watched it all together and he got some I didn't know so that was fun to point out. We called the death wouldn't last when Kate died but it was clearer when everyone else died 😄 however the doctors frustration felt valid to me, his scream felt warranted to me if a little awkward. And when Rubys questions got answered I loved it.. though In hindsight I don't get why it was still..
My friend explained why the mom reveal was so big but it doesn't feel obvious on first watch maybe it will if I watch again? I like her being basic..only if sutek doesn't care about her, if he cares about this random girls mom then I want her to have purpose. I get her reading it and being confused why sutek would care and going to ask, I love that she plays into that a little and then breaks it. I love the doctor on the floor "begging" when it's part of the plan but he plays it straight with emotion, they both play it so well!
Honestly I liked only half of this two parter, the first part for me was boring and I loved this part..for me it was a perfect end. On its own 10/10 as a doctor who finale I dare not rank after just watching 😂
The reaction the 100s of cinema goers at my screening had at the end would shock The BBC, Bad Wolf & RTD to their core. Virtually utter silence apart of some vocal negative reactions & expletives at the explanation for Ruby & the snow ❄️ I expected some excited chatter but it didn’t really come. It didn’t cause positive conversations with my party of ppl after.
The Atmosphere on leaving was that of a wake compared to the excitement at the interval. I'm still trying to comprehend that explanation for Ruby & the lack of explanation for the snow, a 15 year old girl wearing a hooded cloak from The Traitors & pointing at a street sign in front of no one in the vicinity in 2004 to name her child 🤯, Maestro calling Ruby "very wrong" & having a xmas song deep within her soul. I'm still in shock!
I knew Sutekh would be tricked so thats by the by but if you have had such a build up for Ruby & got that I can tell you it felt so flat.
The impact of Ruby briefly leaving did not feel earned after the many missing adventures we did not see & the 6 month time gap we heard about in "The Devils Cord"
The ludicrous explanation that Ruby had been travelling for 6 months before landing on her very first planet in "Boom" is now so disjointed.
This felt like a good first draft finale to be worked & developed on by RTD that he ran out of time to complete.
The 8 episode run goes some way to explaining so many rushed decisions but they are brushed away narratively over Rubys arc. It's the Ruby stuff that brings the whole ep down for me & it broke my heart I feel this way 💔
Feel like you summed it up perfectly. Just so disappointing. It was built up to be something only to never deliver. I'm so tired of this. Every film, book, TV show and even music videos now have to build up mystery box stories - it sells because people always love mysteries. But it's also the trend now to either never deliver & drag it out as long as possible, or when they do finally come up with an answer it's like an anti-mystery or whatever.
It's just so cliche and annoying. I'm disappointed. Really don't know if I want to watch Doctor Who anymore, and I've been here since 2010.
@@Branogeni I hope you stick around for more Doctor Who. Even when it's disappointing I still don't want to be in world where DW doesn't exist & wish for it to succeed
Honestly I'm shocked that 15 did not find a spoon in the Memory TARDIS as 7 used to play the spoons.
The moment Kate Stewart turned to dust I was like "nah bro", knew immediately everything was gonna be easily resolved in one hit
I thought after ruby saw her mother the episode was gonna end with a clip of the tardis landing on earth in the future the doors opening and we hear susan say "grandfather?". THAT would have made the episode a classic but they missed.
You’ve been gifting us with bangers back to back, thanks! After rewatching Empire Of Death, I still feel disappointed. I feel a bit robbed of the ending that the series deserved, the show-down between Sutekh and The Doctor was ripped from us. Instead we got The Doctor taking a big old dog for a walk, just seemed everything in the episode was down to luck and convenience. I’m generally curious to why Sutekh died in the time vortex while he was chilling in there during Pyramids Of Mars and latched onto the tardis? I don’t like the fact that RTD has moved away from using Big Finish plot lines. It just creates more division. If The Doctor used Sutekh to bring life to everywhere he’s been, did he bring back Gallifrey and the Time Lords? Or was it only the people that Sutekh killed. Or was it down to the fact they’re in a pocket universe. Or something else. Why were the suns dying out? I don’t believe our lives are required for them. I’m pretty sure The Doctor hasn’t landed on one, I may be wrong. I know the tardis became one in Series 5, Sutekh must have been roasting. I feel that Sutekh was far more powerful in Pyramids Of Mars, it just feels like his powerful evolution was more of a nerf if anything, this version of him to me doesn’t live up to the idea he’s an all powerful being. If anything he felt like an insect in comparison to the Doctor and Ruby. The idea that Sutekh has been chilling on the tardis the whole time is quite problematic, and silly. Why did the tardis never mention that she’s been dragging a dog around for years? Was Captain Jack hugging Sutekh? Was The Doctor sitting on Sutekh while he was on the tardis mediating? I hate that I’m being so critically about this episode, but it’s really something that can’t be left unsaid. The whole idea that Ruby’s mother was just a normal person, was quite anticlimac
I personally thought Sutekh latched onto the TARDIS in the Giggle, specifically when the Doctor uses the Toymaker’s hammer to clone it. I figured, since it was born of the Toymaker’s power, it was of the realm from which the gods reign. Oh well, hope RTD does better next time.
I really like how Ruby’s mum is just a normal person. It means that Ruby wasn’t “destined” to meet the doctor, nothing paranormal about her. It was a chance that Ruby met the doctor.
But it makes no sense. You cannot say “she was so mysterious because… uhhh, she wasn’t”
If she wasn’t special then why wasn’t any other “ordinary” person also given the same treatment with the snow and Sutekh etc
It’s a sweet idea, that isn’t something the episode remotely earns. You can’t spend 9 episodes going “Ruby is special, she literally affects the weather with her mood, her mom is so mysterious with the black robe and the pointing!” and then just say none of that meant anything.
It’s Davies wanting to have his cake and eat it to. If he wanted the mystery of Ruby’s mom to resolve as this mundane bit of drama, it shouldn’t have had *anything* to do with Sutekh, shouldn’t have had had anything to do with the fantastical elements of the show. It should’ve just been a quiet, grounded bit of drama throughout the show.
No dramatic pointing, no Ruby making it snow, that’s all just cheap theory baiting at that point.
@@ThePonderer no seriously, why tf was she dressed like that if she was just a rando from Manchester? Why wasn’t she wearing “ordinary” clothes if she was such an “ordinary” person all along lmao
This reveal felt like it was made up because Russell had no idea how to actually tie all this together and was just going “wouldn’t it be cool if…” all season long and panicked once he had to explain them all… so he just decided not to
@@YodaOnABenderthe snow was because of the tardis’ perception filter and sutekh’s obsession with ruby’s mother was because he was literally there that night. It’s not well explained but it makes sense
Sutekh created a Susan on every planet the doctor has visited since Pyramids and been waiting for a critical mass of them to exist throughout time before enacting his endgame
In various magic systems regarding gods, one of the most common is gods built on belief, whose power and existence depend on those who believe in them. Although not always the case, there's a bit of that in Doctor Who. I always remember Series 3 in "The Shakespeare Code" using language as a code that, when spoken, can turn things into reality, and how that ties with "Last of the Time Lords" as the whole world thinks about the Doctor and how he could save the world, making him become this embodiment of hope that restored his body and allowed him to defeat the Master. To me, that was an example of the collective belief of mankind, who aren't strong enough to defeat a timelord on their own, joining together in the hope of something that could.
I see "Empire of Death" as being the opposite. The ordinary people didn't think there really was something profound about Ruby's mother. There are always stories about children who are given away and never find their parents. Some are easier to find than others, but not being able to find their biological parents isn't something that needs a deeper explanation; for some, that is sadly just a part of their lives. Something that some people just accept, while others don't.
But here, since "The Church on Ruby Road", we are shown the idea that maybe there's a deeper power behind the ordinary, the power of coincidences, that the Doctor seems to understand and is sought by the Goblins. At that moment, when the Doctor comes back, he sees Ruby's mother. He can't go there to see her because he has to save Ruby from the goblins, so he gives up that opportunity. Maybe he thought there was something more to it, and maybe it was there alongside Sutekh that the two thought there was more; they started to "believe" there was more. If ordinary people around a single planet can make a Timelord be restored to its original form, what could happen when two of the most important and powerful beings in the universe start to think of a single ordinary person as mysterious and important, and that starts to snowball across all the months the series took place, always creating more mysteries, not because there really was something deeper, but because powerful people thought there was something important, and as they believed that, they manifested that into existence?
I think there really might have been powerful forces around that day that were not directly tied to Ruby's mother herself but imposed into the moment by the expectations of those with great power and importance in the universe. Maybe someone wanted it to be that way, and we just don't know, but I generally think that most of it was really just a side-effect of the expectations from the Doctor and Sutekh. RTD really wanted this series to be more about the supernatural and magic. Well, what is magic if not thinking that there's something more profound in the ordinary?
This season was an amazing experience; I really wanted more of it. Having each episode be about a completely different theme with a completely different structure really made it hard to think of it as one cohesive experience, but individually, I had a great time with each and every one of the episodes, and for that, I'm very happy.
I LOVED THIS EPISODE. It was a great closure, also I love the way the doctor let go of ruby knowing that he could kill her if she stays
Sadly, I found this to be one of the weakest finales in the whole revival.
The reveals and answers (that we got) sucked, Sutekh was wasted, Ruby felt as one-dimensional as ever - though I did like the cafe scene - and… like… it was boring!
RTD loves to make the stakes feel higher and higher with his finales, and in this one he literally wiped out the whole universe to start with… but that just lowered the stakes completely in my eyes. Because you’re sat there the whole time just KNOWING that it will end with a big reset button.
Honestly really sad how this ended. I hope Season 2 picks up the quality a bit and ends in a satisfying way… because it feels like RTD just planted the mysteries here for internet hype, not because he had a story planned.
I also think this episode retroactively harms The Legend of Ruby Sunday, which I wasn’t a massive fan of anyway.
Idk man. I’m just sad.
I understand why they wouldn't have 14 in this, as Ncuti deserved to not have focus pulled in his first finale, but storywise it would have made much more sense for them to team up, and even for 14 to sacrifice himself to take out Sutekh and that to be how the bigeneration/regeneration was finally completed. Also, though I'm not suggesting Mrs. Flood (or Ruby's mum or anyone else) is secretly Clara, it's so weird that The Snowmen was all about memory snow, snow that can remember, and that never got connected with Ruby's...memory snow. I did see one person theorize that Mrs. Flood is the Great Intelligence and I almost want to agree just to make that connect.
sorta feels like ruby's meeting with her mother takes from both time and story from the episode, at first i thought her smashing the tv screen infront of sutekh would be something of like giving up her lifelong search to save everyone and i think that would've been somewhat more powerful than the "ordinary but special cause we thought she was" that was super rushed in.
let me help you… they did not cook
You really summed it up, huh? 😂
@@AngieDeAguirrekinda like how the season long mystery of Ruby’s mum was also summed up with just “nah, jk”
oh but they did, you guys are just too stuck on your theories about Ruby's parents not coming true to see that (not trying to start a fight that's just how i see this comment section tbh😭 but i guess i kinda understand the problems people have with the episode too)
@@darkacadpresenceinblood “she was just an ordinary person all along” then why was she wearing that ominous ass cloak that no “ordinary” person would ever wear? Why was she the only person that confused a literal god if she was never abnormal to begin with? The reveal isn’t just bad, it flat out doesn’t work and contradicts itself
@@YodaOnABender she was wearing the cloak bc she was keeping her pregnancy + child a secret so she didn't want to be recognized, and Sutekh was confused by her because all the significance Ruby gave her made her actually powerful, not through any divine means but through simple human love and belief. you can say you don't like that bc it's too cheesy but it *was* explained
To me this finale was simply, good.
Alright. Decent. Mid. Not Bad. Just ok.
I feel like the reveal of Ruby's mother was very disappointing, I get the happy ending for Ruby and all that and it was nice, but also we've had so many theories on who Ruby's mum could be and it just ended up being a normal woman, a total nothing burger and how does anything that happened in this episode explain the snow?
Also, was not a fan of the way they defeated Sutekh. The most powerful entity The Doctor has ever faced and the solution is putting him on a lead and dragging him into the time vortex? Even though he managed to survive that before? I dunno again, just anticlimactic I feel.
Another way I think it killed it's own momentum was by Sutekh destroying literally everyone. When an extinction level event happens in Doctor Who we know for a fact The Doctor is going to find a way to reverse it. Like, the show doesn't work if The Earth just no longer exists. I think it would have been much better to kill just a few people at UNIT for example, who matter to The Doctor on a personal level. That way you leave the audience thinking, are they genuinely gone? Are they dead for real? And even if you chose to have The Doctor still reverse everything, it keeps the tension I feel. Less is more and all that.
Anndddd where was the 14th Doctor? Unless I missed it we got no explanation as to where he was or might have been. Life on the planet he now lives on is being wiped out and he's no where to be seen? Again I could of missed it, but a simple line from Rose saying her mum and him had gone on an adventure clears all that up.
I could go on and on but with all that being said, the one thing this episode did do is make me excited to come back for more! That final scene with Mrs Flood was simply perfect. I do worry about who she ends up being after the reveal of who Ruby's mum was, but still. RTD has got me wanting to come back for more so on that level, it worked, but as a satisfying conclusion to this series? I think it could have been alot better.
Also just wanna say I really enjoy your content man, I came back to Who for the 60th after being completely out of the loop, wasn't watching the show, any RUclips videos about it nothing. In a way your love for the show has kinda reinvigorated my own and yeah, just really grateful for what you do my guy!
I think the biggest critique of the season that is summarized by this finale is that there wasn’t enough; we wanted and needed more which is a nice critique to have though.
We had a bunch of great episodes in this season but 8 is not enough compared to the usual 12. Despite the part 2 being 50 minutes, 15 minutes was finding ruby’s mum while the other 35 is the fight with Sutekh. I think it should have an additional 15 so that sutekh pulls a surprise up his sleeve and then Ruby does something that destroys him despite her ordinary nature, the companion saving the day.
I think the “fight” scene or climatic scene with the Tardis walking sutekh honestly went hard. it kind of felt like I was watching a Tim Burton film when sutekh started ripping the wormhole. And I like that RTD put the doctor on a route of “f*** it, I am a monster cuz now I gotta choose who’s gonna die.”
I think that when the 14th doctor did the thing with the salt, it sort of altered the fabric of the universe in a way making superstitions and god like beings more real and powerful.
So Sutech was always there, but when the 14th doctor did the salt thing, he became more.....real? That's why it took him so long
That'sa my head canon at least
With the fact there is only 8 episodes and the 2 parter being a bit underwhelming I really hope that going into series 2 they see there mistakes and bump it back up to 13 and with longer story’s like the 2 parter just make the story’s longer please it felt so poorly paced. I still love the doctor and ruby but I’m a bit sad they are moving to a new companion already but it seems more like a classic approach to them having them come and go more regularly then a moffet approach to having them stay for 3 season lol. It’s 4am for me and I just watched it so I’m sure my grammar has been poor but I hope I still got my points across!
Series 2 is already written and filmed and is in production, there will be 8 episodes. Ruby will appear again as companion, it has been revealed a while ago.
Sutekh on a leash dragged behind the tardis is the same death as the dog in national lampoons vacation 😂
I definitely hear you and it’s not the satisfying ending I expected but I found myself crying and smiling at the end because that’s exactly the point. There are no happy endings - truly. Sutekh was an archetype of death. And that was defeated by life AKA the Doctor where he finally realized that maybe he doesn’t bring death and destruction. I don’t think that they tried to insinuate Tom Baker made a mistake but that he was the mistake. His Doctor was brash and silly - an archetypal Doctor. Ncuti is a new more refined version of that so he was able to defeat Sutekh because of who he is now not what he did
Good video. Interestingly I think I’m the complete opposite - very underwhelmed with how quickly and easily Sutekh conquered the universe, and also underwhelmed by how quickly and easily he is defeated. However I thought the resolution to ruby’s
Plotline in the last twenty minutes was effective, heartfelt and well done (although I’m not sure how much of that is thanks to Murray Gold’s bloody awesome score!)
I was really hoping that Empire of Death would improve/salvage The Legend of Ruby Sunday for me. It didn't.
While I preferred Empire of Death to The Legend of Ruby Sunday, and I have many positives, I still have my negatives and I'll get into both of them now.
Positives:
The ending. I actually like that Ruby's parents were normal people (even though it's a bit silly that Sutekh cared about this in the first place). I just thought the ending was super sweet and wholesome. I also liked how people like KLS died right off the bat to make Sutekh impactful (which I called btw), even though I think that at least some of them should have stayed dead (especially the people who died last episode).
The negatives:
Everything else.
WHY DID THAT SPOON SCENE HAVE TO TAKE SO LONG?!?!
One could argue that the spoon scene has a right to exist in theory, as it further fleshes out what the remaining universe is like after it receives Sutekh's gift of death (even though I would argue that you didn't need a scene where the only takeaway is that The Doctor gets a spoon), but I am yet to find anyone who has tried to argued in good faith that that scene needed to be as long as it was or that it shouldn't have also included Ruby and/or Mell too (not that it hasn't happened, I just haven't seen it). This whole part had me internally screaming "WHY IS THERE FILLER IN YOUR PROFESSIONAL FINALE?!?!"
Sutekh did nothing and was defeated too easily (although I'm sure this is not a unique insight).
I also think that RTD could have SO easily avoided many ridiculous comparisons by saying that Sutekh only latched onto the TARDIS in wild blue yonder when 14 spread the salt at the edge of the universe, allowing certain members of the pantheon back in from wherever they had been banished to (such as the time vortex).
Overall I did like this season. Most of the episodes were bad but 73 Yards and Dot and Bubble were so good that they make the rest of it worthwhile.
RTD'S INABILITY TO WRITE A SATISFYING FINALE STRIKES AGAIN!
In all seriousness, I really enjoyed this episode! I thought that it was an excellent ending that wrapped up many questions I had throughout. And the way that Sutekh was defeated was truly hilarious! As I saw someone say "It was the Doctor Who equivalent of strapping someone to your car and driving down the highway at 100 kmph, making sure to hit every pothole on your way" LMAO
I also really enjoyed the reveal that Ruby's mom was a regular, everyday person. Doctor Who definitely has a problem with making every single character ultra special, so I appreciated this change of pace! One criticism I do have with it is that this finale definitely should've been a three partner, like Series Three.
All in all, this series was a *good-ass series*! I honestly think that this series is my second favourite modern series, just behind Series 3(I don't think anything will beat Ten/Martha, THE GOATS). If RTD keeps this up, Ncuti's era is definitely one for the history books! :D
my theory is after the salt thing 14th did Sutech... Was able to cross in his timeline and gain power by crossing into the main story timeline...
14 definitely should have come back but Im sure he'll probably be a part of the eventual unit spinoff, even if just in a few select eps
Great video man, after a rewatch appreciate it a bit more but still feeling very underwhelmed.