I was so disappointed. The reveal of Rubys past, the way they beat sutehk, Ruby figuratively dumping her adoptive mother, the lame tea joke, Kate holding hand scene. Everything felt wrong. I dont know. It feels like there was another script for this and it was replaced last minute because RTD changed his mind and now got lost stick everything together. Damnit Russel, if you have no clue how to resolve a mystery you created about a companion in a good way, ask Steven, he knows.
It definitely feels like there’s another version of this, or at least draft, that wasn’t used. Also I forgot to mention Ruby saying her birth mother was her “real mum”. Hated this line. I know she’s happy she found her, but her REAL mother is Carla - the woman who took care of her for years. As you say, figuratively dumping her is super disrespectful.
@@Georgie_R While I definitely didn’t reach this conclusion, it sucks that you’ve had to come out of the episode with such a takeaway. I agree that the show is not as inclusive as it claims to be at the moment. I think it’s a lot of virtue signalling without any real respect or care. And I suppose this is just another example of that. I hope you can continue to enjoy the show as it progresses. With some luck, some more care will be put into the writing over the next few seasons. If not, just do as I do and watch Classic Who + listen to the audios!
I notice Davies is now talking about a genre of "internet era writing" in which apparently the way to engage an audience is to produce a disjointed mess and dare us to try to explain the deliberately inexplicable. Ambiguity is good in fiction but not as the main purpose. Remove all the speculation about what's going on here and all that remains is a series of artful seeming incidents connected by vapid catchphrases and images, and driven ultimately by little more than indulgent sentimentality. Even in the purest postmodernism there are still actually coherent stories. In stories like Tomb of the Cybermen and Genesis of the Daleks we didn't stop watching because we knew from the title who the villains were and that it was going to be about their death, resurrection and creation. Dr Who has always been 10% what you do and 90% how you do it. The how is a far more worthwhile exercise in audience speculation and engagement that "what on earth is going on?" Especially when we've been told in advance that nothing is going to really mean anything. As to your "toxic masculinity" don't apologise. Expressing one's emotions is indeed healthy but emotional incontinence isn't - and it certainly isn't mature. Faced with distressing situations, weeping, punching lifts and jumping up and down and howling is a child's behaviour. That applies to both men and women. Of course, we all lose control sometimes but for adults it should be the exception not the rule. And it certainly shouldn't be the default behaviour of a fictional role model.
Very well worded, I agree with everything here. I adore surprises in Doctor Who, as rare as they are, but only when they’ve been planned. Again, I cite Utopia as a great example of this (also written by Russell crazily enough), But you are right. Doctor Who has always been more about the how than the what. Hell, there are even studies that show people enjoyed novels more when they knew the ending beforehand. Spoilers aren’t always detractors, and sometimes help build suspense or anticipation or excitement. To reveal NOTHING about your story from the offset, only to have it turn out to be totally inconsequential is just BAD writing. What was the point in stringing us along when this wasn’t even a mystery we needed, or should’ve had? And I’m glad you agree with the emotional state of the Doctor. I’m all for male characters crying in fiction, and being open about it.. but I don’t want it happening all the time because, in fiction as opposed to reality, it lessens more dramatic scenes. People might think I’m just being “toxic male” with this argument but I don’t want women crying all the time in fiction either? It’s an annoying trope from the “olden days” that thankfully doesn’t happen anymore. Women don’t cry all the time in fiction. Neither should our male protagonist. But both are ALLOWED to cry, and when they do: it should make the story feel even more impactful in my opinion.
@@MrGreaves DT's reactions to Donna's memory wipe, leaving Rose, and his own demise felt real because we had time and reasons to become invested in those characters and their relationships (neither of which has happened with NG and Ruby), and the 10th Doctor wasn't constantly crying about everything. I agree 100% that characters being able to show emotions is important, but that the more something happens, the less impactful it becomes.
@@MrGreaves I agree that Utopia was a well handled surprise reveal. But YANA was as stupid an example of childish wordplay as Sue Tech. In neither case did the teatime kids' wordplay puzzle need to be there, yet in both it was focused as the climax of the reveal. YANA was just a writer's contrivance that has no possible explanation in-universe. Sue Tech seems to be a demonstration that despite the Osirans' phenomenal intellect, Sutekh's idea of clever is now fridge magnets. Compare that with Pyramids, which included the classic liar logic puzzle. And the ultimate solution involved the propagation speed of radio waves. Oh but it's for children? Well I was nine in 1975 and that stuff took me some thinking but I understood them. I also felt informed and not insulted. Moffat's Melody Pond/River Song trick worked because it was an understandable linguistic consequence of different translations of the same concept.
I kind of agree.. I think it was better handled in Utopia just because the reveal had more weight. But overall the wordplay is a bit silly. Glad you cited the Melody Pond / River Song thing though. Genuinely a good translation of words, etc. And while I do think Doctor Who should be accessible for kids, I think it should also introduce science and logic and information to them. Can’t speak for Pyramids of Mars coz I always forget what the puzzle is about, but I imagine it introduced a fascinating concept to you at the time and I wish Doctor Who would go back to that. As I keep saying, bring back the sci-fi element please!
@@MrGreaves Think of it like this. One always lies and one always tells the truth. So you ask either of them what the other's answer to a Y/N question would be and the result will be a lie. Because the process always involves the liar. Or alternatively, one will tell the truth about a lie and the other will lie about the truth.
TBH, I teared up when Kate died. I wasn't expecting that. That could have been an extremely impactful moment. But then, three seconds later, Ruby's mother and grandmother were taken out and I realised we were just waiting 35 minutes for the magic reset button. When will writers realise that the magic reset button will never be a satisfying way to end a series? It just leaves people wondering why they bothered to watch in the first place.
Yeah it’s a huge shame. There could’ve been some genuine emotion here but it’s all just one big “and then it never happened and they all lived happily ever after.” Hope RTD fixes this mistake for next season but.. I doubt it.
OMG thank you for being like the only person to point out how forced the "inciting incident" is for this two parter. The Susan mystery and the Ruby mystery are both 1.unrelated to one another and 2.lack urgency. Ruby and the Doctor might as well have walked out of the tardis at UNIT and said "Hey guys, looks like we've reached the end of the season so how about we use these last two episodes to deal with the Susan stuff, and the Ruby stuff while we're at it?"
Well...what a pile of pants that was. Plot holes so big you could drive a double decker bus through. Sutehk saying rubys secret was a bigger threat than the timelord...only for her to be just a normal person? What the absolute flipping heck was all that about? You telling me the doctor couldn't find a spoon or a peice of metal anywhere but only from a random woman? Ruby making snow everywhere...WHY....she not just normal after all? why did meistro panic over her song of she was just normal? why was rubys mum wearing a huge robe? who was supposed to see her pointing? if it's the doctor, why would rubys mum care to stop and point just to tell him a name that would mean nothing to him? why did ruby make it snow everywhere if it was a memory of an event she would probablyexperiencd when she was DAYS OLD! TIME IS NOT A MEMORY RUSSEL!! why did sutehk look like a fiberglass dog on the flashback screen yet immediately looked like scoobydoo when he attatched himself to the tardis? Are we really supposed to believe sutehk was there when the tardis splintered at frontios? What about the big bang reset? was stupid!!! Just a stupid reset button. How completely LAME. Don't get me started on the cultural appropriation quip. Egyptian culture was based on tbe osirans..not stolen by sutehk. Sutehk was totally wasted. That ending was abysmal! So now death brings life? Really? It reversed every death? Why? Sutehk lived for centuries sitting on top of the tardis in the vortex, but now he is destroyed by exposure to it? Russel apparently can't write for toffee anymore and i have to say I only enjoyed a single episode this series....last week's. Russel failed to end on a high and fumbled the ball. Rubbish episode ending a rubbish season. This ending could have been so different...My speculation. Go back to star beast. At the end of the episode, Donna spills a drink on the console sending the tardis to the end of the universe where the walls of reality are thin. After the crash on the ship in episode 2, the tardis groans and then runs off. Imagine if sutehk waa the cause of the crash and the tardis reacting. Sutehk in his time tunnel sees the tardis through the thin walls and latches on. End of episode...the tardis leaves but the tardis is still reacting causing it to crash in the tree where sutehk sees the lady and using his increased powers, is able to make echos of her everywhere the tardis will go. So every episode after we see more Susan's. This ultimately leads to unit where he springs his trap. He doesn't have to be hanging on the tardis since pyramids. He could have been beaten by the doctor going back to the tunnel and casting sutehk off back to his eventual demise. Susan could then have faded away rather than joining unit! Undoing sutehks work? Maybe returning sutehk to the point where he left the tunnel would stop the susans being made, undoing her dust of doom! Maybe have horus return through ruby giving her arc some meaning? Anything but what we had. That solves all of the plot holes and makes the season a self enclosed arc. You can see the fingerprints of this in the story. Of course this is just my head canon bit makes more sense in universe than russels awful version!
I had a similar idea that Sutekh latching onto the TARDIS in WBY would be a better story. Especially since he gets sent to the end of his existence in Pyramids, right? So it makes sense he could discover the TARDIS at the edge of the universe. Where he was banished? I agree with everything you’ve said here. Maybe you should start writing my reviews for me 😅 Except for enjoying other episodes! I actually did but I’ll say the season overall was underwhelming.
29:03 Thank you! Finally, someone gets it! They killed him off in a way that should have been impossible because it didn't work the first time, according to RTD!
In the original it was even said by tom bakers doctor that he saw him live up to 7000 more years and died and troughout the history of the show how on earth could he still be on the Tardis and not be found? this has got to be the laziest and lack of understanding writing i have ever seen. They just dont care about the lore anymore.
Yes! Thank you for pointing out how 73 Yards was pointless by the end of it. I didn't see anyone else talking about it, I started to think that I'm the odd ball here, so thank you for that. IANA (sorry)
You Are Not Alone after all ;P Yeah, I liked the episode mostly but it didn't pay off to anything at all, did it? It would've been unsatisfying in a regular season of Who, but especially in a compact, 8-episode season? Yikes. Each episode needs to be slightly more important in my opinion. Next season, hopefully they get it right.
@@MrGreavesSeries 7b was a 8 episode run and that felt like a much more smoother run to this. I feel like I get the Doctor and Clara's dynamic by the end of that run of stories. I know series 7 may not be high on some people's list but it's a personal favorite of mine where you feel the fun of bouncing around time and space.
I've been a fan of the show for 45+ years and Empire of Death is the worst episode of Doctor Who I've ever watched, listened to, or read. I was viscerally angry by the end at how phenomenally stupid and insulting it was. Getting through the last 10-15 minutes was a chore and afterwards, my son and I went on a 15 minute rant over how pissed off we both were at this episode. I despise the temporal reset button and hearing RTD's writing philosophy that his scripts are there as click-bait really makes me angry as well. WTF? That is incredibly disrespectful to the fans and to a show that has existed in multiple formats for 60 years, with countless strong, traditional stories, and that he himself helped to revive. FU RTD.
WOW. That’s quite the statement. I do understand your frustration though. I could ramble for days about how much of a letdown and a mess this episode was. And yeah, RTD’s philosophy of writing feels very disrespectful and offensive - especially as an aspiring writer who was only inspired to do so BECAUSE of Doctor Who. It feels like I’ve been betrayed. I’ve spent years learning the importance of storytelling, characters, pacing, dialogue, formatting, killing your darlings, subtext, blah blah blah… and then this guy comes in, says internet content is more important than the actual narrative, and gets a huge pay check for it! When I have to work incredibly hard to get any projects made and passed off.
I don’t want to sound all “poor me” either. That’s not the point. It’s a struggle shared by every aspiring writer. It’s just a giant middle finger to ALL OF US that my biggest inspiration has so easily written off all of these tricky elements because of his status.
@@MrGreaves I, too, am an aspiring writer. One of the things I've learned is that the rules of writing are there to be broken--but only if doing so serves to strengthen your story. That said, sacrificing strong narrative for internet click-baits is NOT something you should be doing in this sort of storytelling.
@@timelesschronicles2182 They always say, write the story you want to write. Feels like RTD wrote the story that would get him popular on tv for a bit and that's it. You can always tell when art is just a job rather than a passion.
@@guinotrool Not really. Even with molecular rope, he still could’ve tapped into the Doctor and Ruby’s minds and forced them to stop. Or restrained them with his telepathy. Or he could’ve blown out more death dust and reduced them to nothing in seconds.
I think Russell had some really good ideas for the season and just shot himself in the foot for one with how many episodes he had to develop the ideas and two he didn’t plan out a proper ending for them or at least that would feel narratively satisfying I don’t think it was awful, but I don’t think it was good. Also on Ruby’s mom I didn’t think it was that big a deal of her just being a random person, except for the fact that the memory of that event changed so something strange had to have happened there and a God of death not being able to see her.
Agreed. Too few episodes, too many ideas, no plans for a payoff. All trademarks of a crappy season of TV. Huge shame but here's hoping next season is better!
Love how you open your video by making precisely the point that drove me nuts. Why would UNIT busy themselves with Ruby's mother (!) when they are terrified of the Susan Triad thing.
The story was just so rushed into. Wouldn’t have hurt to cut out some of the unnecessary things like the granddaughter stuff and the spoon quest, and replace them with reasons for the plot to happen and emotional character beats. Really wish we had the opening montage that actually drives the Doctor to visit UNIT in the first place. It’s just so random lol. And yeah.. again, feels like the Doctor is just a bad friend for waiting so long to investigate Ruby’s mother. Couldn’t he have just parked further down the street in The Church on Ruby Road and seen her anyway?
@@MrGreaves dude, this series has been well written, RTD has said Ruby is important next series, and is you know, fucking in it. I dont get why everyone is just accepting this ending as is and cant seem to comprehend what a red herring is. Bloody song in the show said 'theres always a twist at the end'. And you know Mrs Flood's entire last scene.
@@flightlesslord2688 I’m glad you enjoyed it. I wish I did. And I disagree. The reveal about Ruby’s mum is not a red herring, or at least it isn’t presented as one. A red herring is a misleading element of a mystery. Louise Miller and the lamppost are presented as definitive answers. Especially because the Doctor confidently explains how her importance was applied by everybody who was interested in finding her, and Russell has also stated this reveal was his response to the Star Wars Sequels. Ruby may be important next season, but I doubt anything about her is going to change. We’ll see, but I doubt it. And either way, none of this is relevant to my other criticisms of the finale.
I figured that all the dusting happened simultaneously at every point where the tardis had landed. So the events on 2024 had no bearing on 2046 as it was happening in that individual moment. But yeah...they needed to actually reference this info in the yards episode. One line...that's all that was needed.
I know this is what the episode says, but thinking about it.. it makes no sense with how the show actually works. Like.. as an example, let’s look at Adelaide Brooke. Her death is a fixed point in time, but said fixed point was temporarily erased in The Devil’s Chord, for example, when Maestro destroyed the world. A fixed point can be re-written if previous events render it impossible to happen. So many episodes of the show tackle the idea that the Earth can be destroyed in our past, thus eliminating future fixed points. I know the Doctor says that 2046 is a fixed point because he landed there.. but if the whole universe was destroyed in 2024, or 2005, or 1066, or 50AD.. then 2046 can’t exist. Inconsistent logic. And yes, we definitely, definitely needed a line about DNA sampling in 73 Yards.
This was such a good vid honestly. No BS or constant repetitive jabbing, just straight up thoughts of how you felt about the episodes and nice pacing too. I too was disappointed with the finale and a lot of it just didn't make sense. It really is just lazy writing. Even if moff(or is it RTD? I always get confused if they are both working on this or if one of them is the main writer but you get what I mean) has some kind of bigger reveal next season about ruby not being so normal, it's just dis-interesting to me at this point. I will still go ahead and continue to watch dr who though, As I basically feel like "welp, I have come this far, I might as well see what else happens, even if it's disappointing". I will say tho, I have very low expectations for the next season.
@@MrGreaves you're welcome~ Yeah, I know technically it's a bad practice to keep engaging in content, since most people will make the argument that nothing will change if people keep eating it up but at the same time, I think this season has gotten quite a low amount of people watching already, So I am hoping that they make a better story-line for next season based on the decrease of viewership. Anyways tho, I would also like to add that I love the funny moments in your vid lmao. The part about the rope around sutekh and the part where you insert a clip of deadpool, absolutely fantastic LOL.
@@GrimmSmile Here’s hoping! Not sure how much the viewership has decreased but I imagine this season probably lost some people, even though overall ratings are pretty good. Either way, I hope it’s been made clear that stories for the sake of online content aren’t good. And thank you! I appreciate it. While I’m more fond of serious criticism, I try and keep stuff as light as I can :P glad it pays off!
I would add another FU to RTD with regards to his removing what I consider to be one of the most emotional impacts in the history of the show, namely Donna's tragic exit. Not only did he remove that, he did it in a stupid and unsatisfying way.
Oooooh believe me.. I have a lot to say about that. Journey’s End is retroactively ruined for me because I just can’t buy the emotion behind it anymore, which is the only thing that stopped it feeling like a lazy deus ex machina.
Felt exactly the same saying about 15 and ruby maybe butting heads and arguing. Think they both have great chemistry together but just aren't fleshed out
@flightlesslord2688 not ignoring but Martha left as a companion and came back for guest appearances too but she actually changed over time in her one full solo companion on screen
even though the story was very bated I found it was way too plot driven. I wouldn't have minded it if it was character driven. like don't blink even though that stopped me from waking doctor who for a while.
I agree. If there was more importance and focus on the characters, this wouldn’t have been *as* bad. I wish they did something with Ruby being angry or at least at odds with the Doctor in this episode, like I hypothesised in the video.
There is nothing emotionally stable or mature about this Doctor. He behaves like a wet jibbering fliberty jibbert. He is no longer the Hero. SpaceBabies - he saved the villain, NanE saved the babies. DevilsChord- Beatles save the Day Boom- AI saves the day 73 irks - no one dies DotsEtc - They all die ( off camera at the end) Rogue - Doctor is incompetent again, his post twirk flirt nearly gets ruby killed and Rogue saves the day. It felt to me that loads was cut from this series- is why the Docs U Turn on Bogeyman makes no sense. This new Doctor is not the Doctor. Great review BTW 👏
Damn, I can feel the anger behind the keyboard haha. I’d argue that the Doctor technically does save the day in Boom and Dot & Bubble (he did all he could to save them with the resources he had) and definitely in the Xmas episode… but I do know what you mean overall. Something feels a little off I suppose. But it’s not bugging me massively yet. Here’s hoping Season 2 improves!
Excellent analysis! Also, how does just dragging Sutekh through the time vortex force him to use his powers? The stupidity of death + death=life notwithstanding, it makes no sense. He's so powerful, yet so weak. The best scene with the nameless woman and the baby felt very like something Moffat would write. So much so that I wondered if he actually had.
Yeah, the whole defeat of Sutekh had like no logic behind it. And you're right, the spoon lady scene was very Moffat-y. Kind of "fairytale sad", if that makes sense? But then again, RTD is trying to mimic Moffat's fairytale Doctor Who style so idk. Either way, thank you for your kind words
@@MrGreaves You're quite welcome. It seems to me that RTD has always been compositing other people's styles from the beginning. Now, he's just adding Moffat and Chibnall to the mix.
@@MichaelPhillipsatGreyOwlStudio I don’t think that’s necessary a bad thing, but it’s clear that he’s providing a lot of style over substance here. As I’ll always argue, originality is pretty much impossible. Of course you’ll have influences, but you need to add your own importance and style and substance and dynamics, blah blah blah. RTD isn’t really doing that right now.
You must be fun at parties. Plus I wasn’t even on about “Suetech”. I was talking about “Sutech” morphing into “Sutekh”. You can hear me even verbally spell out “The S and U from Susan and the Tech part of Technology”. So your “clever” moment wasn’t really as clever as you were hoping I’m afraid.
I will say - as a disappointment to the ending being too upbeat, and a happy ending with no downsides, the whole season was based on Fairytale's and life (i.e. each episode documenting birth to life (space babies - teenagers on social media - death)) but all Fairytale's have a happy ever after - and I'm using head-canon to suggest that this universe split or Toymaster implementation has shifted this dynamic to make it different to the realities we've experienced in previous Doctor's adventures.
This is a nice idea. One of my biggest problems with the season though is that so many people are resorting to “head canon” to fix / improve the show.. and people shouldn’t have to speculate, theorise and make up stories so that a show actually makes sense.
A story cannot be too plot driven as the plot is the most important thing. I suspect you mean all the wierd over the top stuff (BUT IT IS DOCTOR WHO). MY only problem was the bits not explained but hopefully they will be in future
a story can be too plot driven. if you abandon character arcs and it feels like your characters are being pushed into choices and situations without any real grounded reasons, then it is too plot driven. it has to be a balance or it feels flat in places.
I’d argue that the story every writer should be telling is the story of the main character(s). Every great story focuses primarily on forming the plot around a central character. When plot informs the characters, like it does in this season of the show, it becomes a hindrance to the story. That’s just my take anyway :P
It was a bit disappointing, but no where as bad as the cliffhanger between Ascension of the Cybermen and Timeless Children. Upon further rewatches, I can see what RTD was going for but it definitely relies on emotion more than logic. I feel like he needed to do another draft on the episode, or that it was written without reading the previous one. Like “Dust of Death” is the cheesiest thing I’ve ever head, and they literally said “Gift of Death” in the previous episode. That’s a minor detail in a storyline with some massive holes, but it just proves my point about the two parts feeling out of joint
Oh God don't remind me of The Timeless Children please! Honestly, I didn't even feel the emotion in this one. It felt devoid of anything substantial for me. Just RTD aiming at the sky but barely being able to jump out of the trench. And yes, both episodes feel very disjointed! The previously trailer even alters footage from The Legend of Ruby Sunday! Which is strange..
@@captainawesome0711 no it’s actually “I bring Sutekh’s gift of death for you and all of this tiny, vile, incessant universe” as opposed to it being “for you and all your tiny, vile..” in the previous episode.
Mother a nurse, DNA science and the Doctor couldn't find Rub's mother? This in 2024 is ridiculous. Why too does Sutekh love grammar conventions so much. I thought a god might be interested in doing evil than confusing portmanteaus with anagrams. RTD's writing tropes really have had their dash now.
Sutekh - the God of Wordplay. Yeah, it was stupid. The fact that the God of Death doesn’t even kill anyone in the end is hilarious too. The only permanent death was Harriet and that was caused by the Doctor! 😂😂
And people criticise Chibnall... I've been saying RTD does terrible mystery boxes / reveals since "Bad Wolf". Also, child RTD never worked out that anagrams in Doctor Who were solely for hiding the presence of the actor playing the Master from the audience, not from the characters. To compare, Chibnall was excellent at pulling the stunt in Spyfall. The moment you realise, your memory ought to tweak a cascade of notable moments that actually make you feel like you could have worked it out. RTD has never once come close to "hints" that might lead to a conclusion. It's usually just an incongruous label that has no real connection to the plot until someone points out how they are connected. Actually not surprised at the revelation, just disappointed he didn't have any decent episodes to show for this season. Real shame, because I love Ncuti.
I can definitely agree with this, even if I wasn’t a big fan of the Spyfall reveal. As it stands, Doctor Who’s just been a bit naff since 2018 and I’d really, really like it to pick up soon! (In my eyes)
The whole season has been disappointing. This Dr is soooo over the top, that's its annoying. And the crying, gee I'm so over that. All the stories have been rushed. And to much magic and supernatural. I want aliens. They are such more interesting. Can't say I'm in a rush for the Christmas special.
Agreed. Bring back sci-fi please! I’m fed up with hearing “the salt” or “the magic” or “the Doctor’s timeline was made into a jigsaw by the Toymaker” being used to explain everything.
The whole Sutekh reveal/storyline feels like it should have happened two seasons from now. It just feels like so much of the story was removed, or rearranged. And what was kept was already really rushed. It's also funny to consider the Sutekh, the destroyer of all life, was.defeated.because he couldn't unclip himself from a rope.
Yes! I was meant to say something in the video about how this should’ve been the BIG finale of the era, with far more stakes and deaths and emotional weight. Sutekh being the random villain you bring back for a quick and easy finale is such a bad move.
Creased at the mention of Adam Mitchell. 🤣🤣 Kate seems to just employ anyone at UNIT. There are too many people working there, too many faces and names to remember no memorable acting or lines, and a generally boring arrangement of actors. I didn’t feel anything when Kate and her colleagues were reduced to dust. How can I? There’s no personality, just the reciting of lines. Ruby’s storyline is equally as boring, and she’s just not an interesting character. Her mother was a 15-year-old human in a cloak with the hands of a 60-year-old man. More to the point, a God wouldn’t care about a random nurse who likes coffee. Hell, Ruby didn’t even seem to care when her own mother was reduced to dust! Also, I hate the CGI Sutekh. I thought Sutekh was a horse at first. He just recites ominous lines while his minions stand around menacingly, and he’s… defeated with a dog lead? I don’t like Ncuti’s Doctor either. I did wonder if this iteration of the Doctor goes through stages of disassociation because he seems to cry over the wrong things… Susan? 🤔 His ‘best friend’ (scraping the barrel a bit if Ruby’s his bestie) leaving the TARDIS? 🤔 A random racist on an alien world? 😩😥 A love interest he’d only known for an hour? 😭😡
Again, I agree with pretty much all of this. Seems a lot of the fanbase is actually siding with each other on this one, which is refreshing. I’m most angry about Ruby and Sutekh. Just absolutely wasted both of them. More so Sutekh. Why even bring him back if there’s no good story to tell with him? Jesus man… And yeah, I’m very concerned about children working at UNIT lol. Rose especially. At least Morris is a super-genius. What does she bring to the table?
For the 2nd doctor of the 3rd reboot of the series dubbed Doctor Boo Who. I have nothing good to say about this season other than it had nice animation. Jodie Whittaker had bigger nuts than this doctor. Hell Donna Noble's daughterrr, Rose had bigger balls than Ncuti Gatwa doctor. I wont defend anything about this hot trash lol. Oh and can we point out the fact that Ncuti got his companion killed over some ass. LIKE Bruh!!!!!
the only thing i like about empire of death was how sutek looked ( also i did find how funny it looks when sutek was dragged along despite how cheep it feels ) besides that everything kind of just felt meh over all but the main issue is how cheep the ending feels there were parts that felt good besides those points
@@MrGreaves i think his dog design should have been saved till closer to the end as it would have made the rope thing not feel as cheep well i think it feels a bit cheep but there are alot of small things i like about the ep the designs and the time window but the pace feels a bit rushed over all
I'm pretty sure Russell said something to the effect of "things will be said that can never be taken back" in the final. A statement that like that make me expect something as big as the timeless child retcon but the closest thing we got to that was the idea that sutek has secretly been present throughout the last 26 seasons of who and wejust didn't know it, which is just . . . Ehh. I like you this episode also unders the only in universe impact of 73 yards. At the time it seemed like Ruby's whole ordeal was basically a roundabout way to save a future Britain from its worst prime Minister. As in the future timeline changed as implied by the doctor not mentioning him the second time round. But now we know that wasn't even true so the episode really does feel pointless. Also, do you reckon you'll add an addendum to your eventual completed dalek timeline video where you say something to the effect of "ow and literally every single time the doctor has encountered the daleks over these hundreds of stories, everyone present has been killed and then immediately resurrected due to empire of death but no one remembers I guess."?
Oh he said that? Yikes, that makes the finale feel even more disappointing lol. Yeah, the overall uselessness of 73 Yards is very disappointing. Of course, not episode has to be integral to the plot and characters (though in an 8 episode season, that is ideal) but making NOTHING matter in the long run is very dumb. Also that’s a pretty funny idea 😂 Maybe when I eventually get round to the complete omnibus of the Dalek Timeline, I’ll sneak that joke in. Speaking of which, I can finally get back to work on that series, which is awesome!
Legend of Ruby Sunday was good, but Empire of Death dropped the ball big time. I'm with you; it killed my excitement for upcoming episodes. Legend of Ruby Sunday: 7 Empire of Death: 1 RTD needs to go; he never should have come back. I'm hoping he just becomes a producer after next season and steps down from being showrunner.
Damn, a 1/10? Honestly I don’t blame you though. I’m with you about RTD. I have a lot of love and nostalgia for his first run and I was somewhat excited to see him coming back.. but I think he honestly lacks respect for the fans of the show and we need some fresh ideas for the series anyway. Since 2005, it’s just been RTD, Moffat and Chibnall. They’ve all been writing for the show for a loooong time so we’ve not had the chance to hear many new voices. It’s high-time we had a new batch of writers. New perspectives and concepts and characters. And for the love of God, take us back to sci-fi!
Despise the plot holes and the bad resolutions, I think the writer having a shit eating grin and trying to gaslight the audience saying "No, Ruby and her mom were special because you through they were special on X/twitter/Tumblr/Whatever" ...no? The fanbase through they were special BECAUSE they show said so, is not just bad writing, is bad writing in bad faith and calling the audience idiots to their faces. So I am suppose to believe the GOD OF DEATH, who has KILLED THE UNIVERSE was terrified over a mother abandoning her daughter? Well, i guess I would also confused over said teenager mom wearing the REAPER'S CLOTHES and POINTING DRAMATICALLY AT A STREET SIGN TO NO ONE too but if she is a normal human, she died with the rest, so...what? Sutekh literally lost due to bad writing, I feel bad for Gabriel Woolf being dragged at his 91 years old to voice such disappointment. And writers need to know the higher the stakes, ironically, the less stakes there is, because people will realize the only solution is a reset button, this is why small scale is actually more dramatic, like Midnight...I would even go as far as said the Impossible Planet/The Beast did the plot way better about an unstoppable evil god/demon who will destroy the universe by having the plot revolving about it trying to escape instead of "It has manifested, killed all the people and then dragged like a bad dog around the timestream to reset all reality" And to go back to the reveal of Ruby's mom being just a teenager pregnancy...I think Meet the Robinsons (Yes, the disney one) did it better by keeping the reasons a mystery instead of "oh yeah, you were just a unwanted baby lol" Anyway rant over Edit: Rant not over, what the .... was that "cultural appropriation" line? Why did that line exist? Who through it was a good idea? What was trying to achieve? Literally what was the point of that line? Somebody please try to make it sense!
Yet again, a comment has hit the nail on the head. Agree with everything here. I really wish that RTD would realise that the finale doesn’t have to be on modern day. His best finale was Bad Wolf/Parting of The Ways for me. The finale shouldn’t have to be some crazy destruction of our world for us to feel any emotions in the end… it just needs to be a high-stakes story that challenges the main characters and pays off their storyline. World Enough and Time / The Doctor Falls, for example. Low-scale. It’s on a spaceship we have had no previous encounter with. But it’s high stakes because it proves to be the threat that undoes our main characters. There’s no other hook than “the main characters are all screwed” and it works so well! And yeah.. You and loads of other people found issue with the cultural appropriation line. I did too. I think RTD is desperate to get brownie points from the audience by being as “progressive” as possible. But in my opinion, he’s not very progressive at all.. and you can kinda tell by how much he forces it.
First off, great video! Gave great points and supporting arguments. My main issue with the season was the writing for Ncuti. I thought he played a great doctor, but the writing really put him in a hole. Boom was the only episode he actually got to be brilliant. I thought they would really do something with him in the finale, or give him some character growth like most seasons do, but instead of being brilliant, it was kinda just….. well here’s a random solution. And last thing……. If he could’ve just whistled the tardis from him….. how did Sutekh stay on it so long and why didn’t he do that in the first place instead of a whole Memory Tardis? I enjoyed the season, but the finale just made everything in retrospect, blah.
Thank you! I actually agree with this. Ncuti is ace but his character is a bit all over the place. Hoping some consistency or at least acknowledged flaws get brought up soon. And yeah, the whistle was cheap lol
I can’t disagree for the most part. I actually really liked The Legend. But I thought that it was leading up to a massive climax, but I just got metaphorically blue balled instead. I can accept that some stuff doesn’t make sense. It’s timey wimey. That’s fine. But the finale was such a mid season style episode. Legend was a better finale than the actual finale. My fiance actually got into the season, and he’s never been a DW fan. So he was excited for the last episode too, and we both just sat there afterwards quietly, wondering what the hell just happened, because it was so…. easy…
Ah God that's the worst thing... one of my best friends has never been into Doctor Who but wanted to watch the new season because he saw my reviews, and I've kinda got to steer him away from it now because I know he hates fantasy stuff and he'll definitely hate the finale lol. It's kinda embarrassing trying to get new people on board when the show is shooting itself in the foot like this. We should both get our respective parties to start back at Series 1 with Eccleston lol. Maybe that'll help.
@@MrGreavesSeries 1 2005 still remains as one of the go to seasons to introduce new fans to Doctor Who. Along with Series 5 for example. Solid jumping on point there too.
Really excellent breakdown and review. But the only thing I quibble with is the idea that stories don't matter without character deaths. I'm probably misconstruing what you're saying. But I hear that complaint often in other fan circles. Naruto being the prime example
Thank you! And sorry, that wasn’t what I was trying to get across. Apologies if I explained myself poorly. I more mean that.. if you start your story off by killing everyone, when we know they’ll be back.. so the story ends with a big reset that undoes everything.. then your story doesn’t matter.
For the most part I enjoyed the season, but I wasn’t impressed with the finale. I wasn’t disappointed because I’ve only ever liked one of RTD’s finales (his first one), so this was actually about par for the course in my expectations. I really hope we get a season of Ncuti with a brand new show runner before he moves on.
Fair enough. I do think that his first finale is his best by a landslide. I expected something not great, but I didn’t quite expect this to be as bad as it was.
Apologies for being greedy with three comments. Your review is spot on. A lesson for RTD. The stark difference between a great success and a huge letdown in one following sentence. Most reviewers agreed Back to the Future was among the year's most entertaining films, partly because of its focus on storytelling instead of pure spectacle. Give up the spectacle RTD and hyperbole and write a good narrative focusing on storytelling.
No worries! Listen, firstly you're doing me a favour by boosting the algorithm xD and secondly, I love hearing viewer input! It's one of my favourite things about making commentary content. Thank you very much for the engagement and the kind words. And yes I agree, he needs to forward-plan his stories if he's going to have dangling threads and mysteries... and he's relying far too much on the Disney budget when he should be focusing on tightening up scripts. As you say, spectacle isn't cutting it.
This one was solid, and I think its relative simplicity compared to other Who finales helped that out. Two that I still can't abide by are The Last of the Time Lords, and the Wedding of River Song. With TLOTTL, while the idea of the Doctor being imprisoned by the Master and eventually saved by Martha and the people of Earth is a good one... the whole making him into a sort of Dobby-in-a-cage who's then saved like some sort of Tinkerbell Jesus was... something. And I never really liked (sorry) John Simm's takes on the Master, either. And he's in camp overdrive in that one. Then there's TWORS. Hoo boy. My least favorite NuWho finale I've seen. I refer to this one as a finale entiredly constructed out of plotholes and "But wouldn't THIS be cool?" moments. (Note that, well, I've never watched any of the Chibnall era finales, and only watched half of #13's first season. Love Jodie; not a fan of what she was given.) Back to TWORS. I won't go into the laundry list of reasons why it bothers me, but a few: the whole "time all happening at once" thing makes nothing like sense on the face of it; River secretly being an assassin obsessed with the Doctor who's involved in some ridiculous plot (astronaut suit? waiting in that lake), and then there's the mental gymnastics around the actual Doctor hiding in a Tessalecter version of himself that... someone... appears to try to regenerate... but... yeah. No. I have to stop there. So yeah, I'd call Empire of Death right down the center average--some great stuff, some underwhelming stuff, but far from the worst Who finale ever.
TWORS is probably in my top 3 worst finales also, and I definitely have big issues with TLOTTL. I don’t think Empire of Death is the worst finale DW has had, but it’s the most disappointing imo. (You didn’t miss much with the Jodie era)
Sigh... I hate to say it but yes I didn't much enjoy EOD. I watched LORS for the first time in the cinema, spending the week before avoiding spoilers. Although the Sutekh reveal meant nothing to me in terms of who the character was, it was a great reveal and I was pumped. I think LORS is a great episode that i thoroughly enjoyed. EOD death though, was a whole lot of nothing with so much that made little sense and was hella contradictory. However, for me, this season has been thoroughly enjoyable and a marked improvement over the last few years. Five of the eight episodes are great, a couple of alright episodes and just the one low point. Similarly to how i really don't like Last of the Time Lords and the resolution to Journeys End, EOD doesn't detract from my overall enjoyment of the respective series/season.
Glad to hear you enjoyed the season overall! I will say that it’s been a great season for getting lots of people back on board with the show. Also glad to hear that you enjoyed TLORS. Shame about Empire of Death though. Here’s hoping the next finale packs more of a punch!
Looks like the master of manipulation has been leaving Spoons around.... The 7th Doctor 😂. Mind you the Doctor could of found a spoon in the memory TARDIS as I'm sure in the 7th Doctor segment you see the spoons. Yet everyone knew how Ruby got her name in the Christmas special 😂. Oh it was bad. Aaaaah yes Sutekh reduced to Scrappy Doo hugging the TARDIS and chuckling to himself 😂. Plus there's been elements of this Doctor character which have been dark and sadistic - making the Space Babies cry and fearful not once but twice whilst he laughs with glee being one example. So I don't think he's stable. But if Sutekh destroyed everything in 2024 there would of been no 2045 as those events would never of happened.
Yes I saw that! Not sure what the point of the spoon was.. apparently the monitor needed “something real, not remembered” but that’s stupid in my opinion. Could’ve been easily cut from the episode. And yeah I really don’t think this incarnation is as emotionally stable as everyone seems to be making out. I hope we actually get to see what his deal is next season because I feel like I don’t quite understand his Doctor yet? And this is what I’ve been saying! It’s like Russell has no idea how Time Travel works in this show.
@@MrGreaves yeah I noticed In several of his stories he's got a dark side to him in Boom once Ruby was unconscious he turned quite nasty to the religious soldier about belief. Yet in Series 3 Martha spread the word of the Doctor to make people believe in him effectively turning him into Space Jesus and it was like a religious belief... Funny he forgot that 😂. Also I noticed in most of the stories he doesn't solve the situation or villain somebody else does it. RTD has this thing about Mobility devices having weapons of violence and death (and a character who is meant to be 13 yrs old) firing away this is perfectly fine but Davros is Problematic. The way they dismissed the 4th Doctor as just someone who used to travel in the TARDIS. Also odd comment about Cultural Appropriation esp in the context story didn't make sense and seem to give the impression that RTD finds Pyramids of Mars now problematic 😂 if it was a joke he knows full well there are pockets of fandom who have similar ideology to him will grab the pitchforks and torches screeching and baying for Pyramids of Mars to be singled out. The sad thing we know it will eventually happen.
@@Mark-nh2hs Yeah I’m very upset how he’s been handling Davros and the comment about cultural appropriation… I see how the Egyptian mythology influencing Pyramids of Mars can be problematic, but what’s done is done and trying to retcon it as cultural appropriation is a bit… like… it kinda puts down Pyramids a bit, right?
@@MrGreaves the thing with Pyramids of Mars is it's implied that the humans were absorbed into the Osrians culture in ancient Egypt - like many cultures around the world a new stronger powerful civilisation takes over and the weaker culture gets absorbed - ancient Rome, the Greeks even here in the UK it's all happened. Yet he calls it Cultural Appropriation yet Sutekh in his finale still looked like an Ancient Egyptian diety so wasn't he doing the same thing. It's odd that he focuses on the 4th Doctor story.
Fair enough, I support that. For me, I was only like 6 when the Series 6 finale aired so I wasn't able to be disappointed by it really. And by the time I'd grown up a bit, I'd seen it so much (and everything that comes after) that it would no longer be disappointing. Just a bad episode in hindsight. This is the first time I've felt properly let down by a finale. Maybe except for Series 12? But that just angered me more than anything.
Your opinion is not the blueprint for everyone. I’m allowed to consume media how I do, and you’re allowed to consume it how you do. I have no issue with you enjoying the episode. And fyi, if you spent a minute to check my review of 73 Yards.. I literally DID enjoy the episode. I just said in hindsight it is pointless because it provided absolutely nothing. No character growth, no plot development, no solutions/answers to its mysteries… Nada. Just that Welsh bloke reappearing in the finale, albeit talking about something completely different to what he actually was in 73 Yards.
I couldn't give a single care about Ruby unfortunately, I liked Bill so much more from her one season. But at least she's not as bland as Ryan Sinclair. This whole season feels like an erasure of everything that happened since RTD moved on in 2009. Like the best years of the nu-who revival is just... nothing? I know so many people irl who stopped watching when Tennant left. They assume its bad when they havent even seen it. I hate the Tennant stans and it makes him my least favorite Doctor of all of them
Yeah I love Bill. Proof that one season is more than enough to establish, develop and write off a companion with emotional impact. Twice Upon a Time honestly makes me tear up every single time 12, “Bill” and “Nardole” hug at the end.
Bro doesnt know what a red herring is. Why is everyone just accepting the ending as is when its obvious its gonna be a twist, hence why its absolutely disappointing, plot hole ridden, makes 0 sense, and fucking Mrs Flood basically tells us to just ignore it. Are Doctor Who fans just expecting shit writing or are we just dumb?
As I answered in a previous comment to you, in which you said the same thing, the Ruby’s mum reveal is not a red herring. It is presented as a definitive answer with definitive proof supporting it. And if it is a red herring, I will criticise it for being bad writing. Because a red herring should not be presented as an answer. It should be presented as a misleading factor that people think will LEAD to an answer. Maybe you don’t know what a red herring is 🤔 Also, your basis for it being a red herring is that it makes 0 sense when there are plenty of other things in this finale that make 0 sense and are in no way even part of a mystery. Maybe you just need to accept that this finale isn’t as well-written as you think. If you enjoyed it, that’s fine! I don’t want to take that away from you. I’m glad you had fun with it. But being hostile towards other people’s critiques and calling me dumb for having a different point of view than you.. is not on.
I disagree with you on Lost. ;) But I'm almost completely on the same page with you around this finale. So disappointing. I think the little side mission for the spoon was well done, albeit jarringly out of place, but it also just confused me even more about how the death dust worked. I'm glad that I kept my expectations firmly in check this season - there were some good ideas at the core of almost all of the episodes, but the execution was often lacking. The finale felt like it was the very definition of that.
Yes! The spoon side-quest also confused me about the dust too, forgot to mention this. I thought it just insta-killed? Glad you managed to keep your expectations in check, because I was so dang excited for this season and I feel very let-down overall. Maybe in the future I won’t feel so bitter towards it, maybe my hype got in the way.. but I would really describe it as a “mixed season” overall. And look… I really don’t mind that we didn’t get all the answers in Lost. I personally LOVE the finale, and I was more invested in the characters than anything since I was told going in that the ending wouldn’t explain everything anyway… but I do think that, for the time, it was probably a huge let-down for all the people who spent years speculating and theorising. But yeah overall Lost is one of the greatest shows of all time for me. Will never not love it!
@MrGreaves Yeah, that was it - we saw the dust killing people who came into contact with it, and then suddenly it's travelling up and down people's timelines or something like that. Raised a few more questions. And yeah, I was only messing with the Lost comment there. I was one of those people who did throw myself fully into the forums, did the ARGs between seasons, and all the theorising with my friends. I did love the finale, though. I kind of felt that for the most part, where a concrete answer wasn't given, I had enough to go on that I could come up with a decent theory myself, and I was fine with that.
@@arch1017 Yeah like.. it working in reverse was confusing too? Like child before parent, what was that about? And no don’t worry lol, I was only being light in my response. Sorry if that didn’t come through. Yeah I’m in the same boat. I feel like I personally have enough to go on to explain the ending, but I understand how it’s unsatisfactory.
@MrGreaves Yeah - it almost felt like there was an element of luck at play in when you'd succumb to it. Just not if you're Ruby or Mel in the Memory Tardis for some reason. Oh, no, it's cool, honest - that did come across. It's just a case if you give me any excuse to talk about Lost, I'll happily run with it. 😀
I have a feeling we're supposed to be annoyed by feeling baited in the final episode but everything seems to me like a double bluff. We're supposed to be confused that we never found out about the snow.. we're supposed to be confused that Ruby's mother was dressed in a cloak and pointing at a sign, even though nobody was watching. I believe all will be revealed next season! If not, then I will be very disappointed!
You’re a bigger optimist than me! If that’s the case, it’s gonna be a fantastic double bluff. Though I will say, if it’s true, for someone who cares so much about engagement and popularity.. RTD will have shot himself in the foot there. I’m sure many new viewers dropped out after seeing the lacklustre reveal - even if it’s revealed to be a fakeout.
@@MrGreaves Old viewers are dropping out too. I subscribed to Disney Plus ($22.95/month) just for Doctor Who but after this 2-part disaster I unsubscribed.
@@MrGreaves Hehe my wife says the same as you about him probably shooting himself in the foot already. I have a feeling I'll be half right.. at least there will be something to do with the snow as it's snowing around Mrs Flood at the end!
the whole series was awful and should have been called the crying dr. dr who ended half way through matt smith at best but mainly after david tennant, russell t davies should stop and. this show has passed its sell by date, awful
@@MrGreaves the actors and show runner has there only themselves to blame, its funny that DW is failing and the viewing figures proves that people have pissed off.
@@neil4920 spoken like a true politician: you not only dodged my comment but lapped up some “facts” you’ve been fed elsewhere that are in no way substantial.
I was so disappointed. The reveal of Rubys past, the way they beat sutehk, Ruby figuratively dumping her adoptive mother, the lame tea joke, Kate holding hand scene. Everything felt wrong. I dont know. It feels like there was another script for this and it was replaced last minute because RTD changed his mind and now got lost stick everything together.
Damnit Russel, if you have no clue how to resolve a mystery you created about a companion in a good way, ask Steven, he knows.
It definitely feels like there’s another version of this, or at least draft, that wasn’t used.
Also I forgot to mention Ruby saying her birth mother was her “real mum”. Hated this line. I know she’s happy she found her, but her REAL mother is Carla - the woman who took care of her for years. As you say, figuratively dumping her is super disrespectful.
@@MrGreaves i know right?
@@Georgie_R While I definitely didn’t reach this conclusion, it sucks that you’ve had to come out of the episode with such a takeaway. I agree that the show is not as inclusive as it claims to be at the moment. I think it’s a lot of virtue signalling without any real respect or care. And I suppose this is just another example of that.
I hope you can continue to enjoy the show as it progresses. With some luck, some more care will be put into the writing over the next few seasons. If not, just do as I do and watch Classic Who + listen to the audios!
I notice Davies is now talking about a genre of "internet era writing" in which apparently the way to engage an audience is to produce a disjointed mess and dare us to try to explain the deliberately inexplicable. Ambiguity is good in fiction but not as the main purpose. Remove all the speculation about what's going on here and all that remains is a series of artful seeming incidents connected by vapid catchphrases and images, and driven ultimately by little more than indulgent sentimentality. Even in the purest postmodernism there are still actually coherent stories.
In stories like Tomb of the Cybermen and Genesis of the Daleks we didn't stop watching because we knew from the title who the villains were and that it was going to be about their death, resurrection and creation. Dr Who has always been 10% what you do and 90% how you do it. The how is a far more worthwhile exercise in audience speculation and engagement that "what on earth is going on?" Especially when we've been told in advance that nothing is going to really mean anything.
As to your "toxic masculinity" don't apologise. Expressing one's emotions is indeed healthy but emotional incontinence isn't - and it certainly isn't mature. Faced with distressing situations, weeping, punching lifts and jumping up and down and howling is a child's behaviour. That applies to both men and women.
Of course, we all lose control sometimes but for adults it should be the exception not the rule. And it certainly shouldn't be the default behaviour of a fictional role model.
Very well worded, I agree with everything here. I adore surprises in Doctor Who, as rare as they are, but only when they’ve been planned. Again, I cite Utopia as a great example of this (also written by Russell crazily enough),
But you are right. Doctor Who has always been more about the how than the what. Hell, there are even studies that show people enjoyed novels more when they knew the ending beforehand. Spoilers aren’t always detractors, and sometimes help build suspense or anticipation or excitement. To reveal NOTHING about your story from the offset, only to have it turn out to be totally inconsequential is just BAD writing. What was the point in stringing us along when this wasn’t even a mystery we needed, or should’ve had?
And I’m glad you agree with the emotional state of the Doctor. I’m all for male characters crying in fiction, and being open about it.. but I don’t want it happening all the time because, in fiction as opposed to reality, it lessens more dramatic scenes.
People might think I’m just being “toxic male” with this argument but I don’t want women crying all the time in fiction either? It’s an annoying trope from the “olden days” that thankfully doesn’t happen anymore. Women don’t cry all the time in fiction. Neither should our male protagonist. But both are ALLOWED to cry, and when they do: it should make the story feel even more impactful in my opinion.
@@MrGreaves DT's reactions to Donna's memory wipe, leaving Rose, and his own demise felt real because we had time and reasons to become invested in those characters and their relationships (neither of which has happened with NG and Ruby), and the 10th Doctor wasn't constantly crying about everything. I agree 100% that characters being able to show emotions is important, but that the more something happens, the less impactful it becomes.
@@MrGreaves I agree that Utopia was a well handled surprise reveal. But YANA was as stupid an example of childish wordplay as Sue Tech. In neither case did the teatime kids' wordplay puzzle need to be there, yet in both it was focused as the climax of the reveal.
YANA was just a writer's contrivance that has no possible explanation in-universe.
Sue Tech seems to be a demonstration that despite the Osirans' phenomenal intellect, Sutekh's idea of clever is now fridge magnets.
Compare that with Pyramids, which included the classic liar logic puzzle. And the ultimate solution involved the propagation speed of radio waves.
Oh but it's for children? Well I was nine in 1975 and that stuff took me some thinking but I understood them. I also felt informed and not insulted.
Moffat's Melody Pond/River Song trick worked because it was an understandable linguistic consequence of different translations of the same concept.
I kind of agree.. I think it was better handled in Utopia just because the reveal had more weight. But overall the wordplay is a bit silly.
Glad you cited the Melody Pond / River Song thing though. Genuinely a good translation of words, etc.
And while I do think Doctor Who should be accessible for kids, I think it should also introduce science and logic and information to them. Can’t speak for Pyramids of Mars coz I always forget what the puzzle is about, but I imagine it introduced a fascinating concept to you at the time and I wish Doctor Who would go back to that. As I keep saying, bring back the sci-fi element please!
@@MrGreaves Think of it like this. One always lies and one always tells the truth. So you ask either of them what the other's answer to a Y/N question would be and the result will be a lie. Because the process always involves the liar.
Or alternatively, one will tell the truth about a lie and the other will lie about the truth.
17:50 the only consequences are that everyone he met in a parallel universe has had their planet killed but that’s never acknowledged.
I was gonna say like.. Rose Tyler should be dead right? 😂
TBH, I teared up when Kate died. I wasn't expecting that. That could have been an extremely impactful moment. But then, three seconds later, Ruby's mother and grandmother were taken out and I realised we were just waiting 35 minutes for the magic reset button. When will writers realise that the magic reset button will never be a satisfying way to end a series? It just leaves people wondering why they bothered to watch in the first place.
Yeah it’s a huge shame. There could’ve been some genuine emotion here but it’s all just one big “and then it never happened and they all lived happily ever after.” Hope RTD fixes this mistake for next season but.. I doubt it.
OMG thank you for being like the only person to point out how forced the "inciting incident" is for this two parter. The Susan mystery and the Ruby mystery are both 1.unrelated to one another and 2.lack urgency. Ruby and the Doctor might as well have walked out of the tardis at UNIT and said "Hey guys, looks like we've reached the end of the season so how about we use these last two episodes to deal with the Susan stuff, and the Ruby stuff while we're at it?"
Exactly! It’s so forced!! It’s literally just, as you say, “hey we’ve reached the finale!”.
Well...what a pile of pants that was.
Plot holes so big you could drive a double decker bus through. Sutehk saying rubys secret was a bigger threat than the timelord...only for her to be just a normal person? What the absolute flipping heck was all that about? You telling me the doctor couldn't find a spoon or a peice of metal anywhere but only from a random woman? Ruby making snow everywhere...WHY....she not just normal after all? why did meistro panic over her song of she was just normal?
why was rubys mum wearing a huge robe? who was supposed to see her pointing? if it's the doctor, why would rubys mum care to stop and point just to tell him a name that would mean nothing to him?
why did ruby make it snow everywhere if it was a memory of an event she would probablyexperiencd when she was DAYS OLD! TIME IS NOT A MEMORY RUSSEL!!
why did sutehk look like a fiberglass dog on the flashback screen yet immediately looked like scoobydoo when he attatched himself to the tardis?
Are we really supposed to believe sutehk was there when the tardis splintered at frontios? What about the big bang reset? was stupid!!!
Just a stupid reset button. How completely LAME. Don't get me started on the cultural appropriation quip. Egyptian culture was based on tbe osirans..not stolen by sutehk.
Sutehk was totally wasted. That ending was abysmal! So now death brings life? Really? It reversed every death? Why?
Sutehk lived for centuries sitting on top of the tardis in the vortex, but now he is destroyed by exposure to it?
Russel apparently can't write for toffee anymore and i have to say I only enjoyed a single episode this series....last week's. Russel failed to end on a high and fumbled the ball.
Rubbish episode ending a rubbish season.
This ending could have been so different...My speculation.
Go back to star beast. At the end of the episode, Donna spills a drink on the console sending the tardis to the end of the universe where the walls of reality are thin. After the crash on the ship in episode 2, the tardis groans and then runs off. Imagine if sutehk waa the cause of the crash and the tardis reacting. Sutehk in his time tunnel sees the tardis through the thin walls and latches on.
End of episode...the tardis leaves but the tardis is still reacting causing it to crash in the tree where sutehk sees the lady and using his increased powers, is able to make echos of her everywhere the tardis will go. So every episode after we see more Susan's.
This ultimately leads to unit where he springs his trap. He doesn't have to be hanging on the tardis since pyramids.
He could have been beaten by the doctor going back to the tunnel and casting sutehk off back to his eventual demise. Susan could then have faded away rather than joining unit!
Undoing sutehks work? Maybe returning sutehk to the point where he left the tunnel would stop the susans being made, undoing her dust of doom! Maybe have horus return through ruby giving her arc some meaning? Anything but what we had.
That solves all of the plot holes and makes the season a self enclosed arc. You can see the fingerprints of this in the story.
Of course this is just my head canon bit makes more sense in universe than russels awful version!
I had a similar idea that Sutekh latching onto the TARDIS in WBY would be a better story. Especially since he gets sent to the end of his existence in Pyramids, right? So it makes sense he could discover the TARDIS at the edge of the universe. Where he was banished?
I agree with everything you’ve said here. Maybe you should start writing my reviews for me 😅
Except for enjoying other episodes! I actually did but I’ll say the season overall was underwhelming.
29:03 Thank you! Finally, someone gets it! They killed him off in a way that should have been impossible because it didn't work the first time, according to RTD!
He made such a point about Sutekh being able to survive the vortex in interviews too 😭
In the original it was even said by tom bakers doctor that he saw him live up to 7000 more years and died and troughout the history of the show how on earth could he still be on the Tardis and not be found? this has got to be the laziest and lack of understanding writing i have ever seen. They just dont care about the lore anymore.
Yes! Thank you for pointing out how 73 Yards was pointless by the end of it. I didn't see anyone else talking about it, I started to think that I'm the odd ball here, so thank you for that. IANA (sorry)
You Are Not Alone after all ;P
Yeah, I liked the episode mostly but it didn't pay off to anything at all, did it? It would've been unsatisfying in a regular season of Who, but especially in a compact, 8-episode season? Yikes. Each episode needs to be slightly more important in my opinion. Next season, hopefully they get it right.
@@MrGreavesSeries 7b was a 8 episode run and that felt like a much more smoother run to this. I feel like I get the Doctor and Clara's dynamic by the end of that run of stories. I know series 7 may not be high on some people's list but it's a personal favorite of mine where you feel the fun of bouncing around time and space.
I've been a fan of the show for 45+ years and Empire of Death is the worst episode of Doctor Who I've ever watched, listened to, or read. I was viscerally angry by the end at how phenomenally stupid and insulting it was. Getting through the last 10-15 minutes was a chore and afterwards, my son and I went on a 15 minute rant over how pissed off we both were at this episode. I despise the temporal reset button and hearing RTD's writing philosophy that his scripts are there as click-bait really makes me angry as well. WTF? That is incredibly disrespectful to the fans and to a show that has existed in multiple formats for 60 years, with countless strong, traditional stories, and that he himself helped to revive. FU RTD.
WOW. That’s quite the statement. I do understand your frustration though. I could ramble for days about how much of a letdown and a mess this episode was.
And yeah, RTD’s philosophy of writing feels very disrespectful and offensive - especially as an aspiring writer who was only inspired to do so BECAUSE of Doctor Who. It feels like I’ve been betrayed. I’ve spent years learning the importance of storytelling, characters, pacing, dialogue, formatting, killing your darlings, subtext, blah blah blah… and then this guy comes in, says internet content is more important than the actual narrative, and gets a huge pay check for it! When I have to work incredibly hard to get any projects made and passed off.
I don’t want to sound all “poor me” either. That’s not the point. It’s a struggle shared by every aspiring writer. It’s just a giant middle finger to ALL OF US that my biggest inspiration has so easily written off all of these tricky elements because of his status.
@@MrGreaves I, too, am an aspiring writer. One of the things I've learned is that the rules of writing are there to be broken--but only if doing so serves to strengthen your story. That said, sacrificing strong narrative for internet click-baits is NOT something you should be doing in this sort of storytelling.
@@timelesschronicles2182 They always say, write the story you want to write. Feels like RTD wrote the story that would get him popular on tv for a bit and that's it. You can always tell when art is just a job rather than a passion.
it was not a normal rope, it was a super molecular rope xD
And he’s the God of all Gods who has both the powers of mind control and the ability to literally bring death wherever he goes.
@@MrGreaves Science > godhood
@@guinotrool Not really. Even with molecular rope, he still could’ve tapped into the Doctor and Ruby’s minds and forced them to stop. Or restrained them with his telepathy. Or he could’ve blown out more death dust and reduced them to nothing in seconds.
I think Russell had some really good ideas for the season and just shot himself in the foot for one with how many episodes he had to develop the ideas and two he didn’t plan out a proper ending for them or at least that would feel narratively satisfying I don’t think it was awful, but I don’t think it was good. Also on Ruby’s mom I didn’t think it was that big a deal of her just being a random person, except for the fact that the memory of that event changed so something strange had to have happened there and a God of death not being able to see her.
Agreed. Too few episodes, too many ideas, no plans for a payoff. All trademarks of a crappy season of TV. Huge shame but here's hoping next season is better!
Love how you open your video by making precisely the point that drove me nuts. Why would UNIT busy themselves with Ruby's mother (!) when they are terrified of the Susan Triad thing.
The story was just so rushed into. Wouldn’t have hurt to cut out some of the unnecessary things like the granddaughter stuff and the spoon quest, and replace them with reasons for the plot to happen and emotional character beats.
Really wish we had the opening montage that actually drives the Doctor to visit UNIT in the first place. It’s just so random lol.
And yeah.. again, feels like the Doctor is just a bad friend for waiting so long to investigate Ruby’s mother. Couldn’t he have just parked further down the street in The Church on Ruby Road and seen her anyway?
@@MrGreaves dude, this series has been well written, RTD has said Ruby is important next series, and is you know, fucking in it. I dont get why everyone is just accepting this ending as is and cant seem to comprehend what a red herring is. Bloody song in the show said 'theres always a twist at the end'. And you know Mrs Flood's entire last scene.
@@flightlesslord2688 I’m glad you enjoyed it. I wish I did.
And I disagree. The reveal about Ruby’s mum is not a red herring, or at least it isn’t presented as one. A red herring is a misleading element of a mystery. Louise Miller and the lamppost are presented as definitive answers. Especially because the Doctor confidently explains how her importance was applied by everybody who was interested in finding her, and Russell has also stated this reveal was his response to the Star Wars Sequels.
Ruby may be important next season, but I doubt anything about her is going to change. We’ll see, but I doubt it.
And either way, none of this is relevant to my other criticisms of the finale.
I too found it jarring how Roger ap Gwilliam became PM and introduced compulsory DNA if we are all dead already.
I figured that all the dusting happened simultaneously at every point where the tardis had landed. So the events on 2024 had no bearing on 2046 as it was happening in that individual moment. But yeah...they needed to actually reference this info in the yards episode. One line...that's all that was needed.
I know this is what the episode says, but thinking about it.. it makes no sense with how the show actually works.
Like.. as an example, let’s look at Adelaide Brooke. Her death is a fixed point in time, but said fixed point was temporarily erased in The Devil’s Chord, for example, when Maestro destroyed the world.
A fixed point can be re-written if previous events render it impossible to happen. So many episodes of the show tackle the idea that the Earth can be destroyed in our past, thus eliminating future fixed points.
I know the Doctor says that 2046 is a fixed point because he landed there.. but if the whole universe was destroyed in 2024, or 2005, or 1066, or 50AD.. then 2046 can’t exist.
Inconsistent logic.
And yes, we definitely, definitely needed a line about DNA sampling in 73 Yards.
This was such a good vid honestly. No BS or constant repetitive jabbing, just straight up thoughts of how you felt about the episodes and nice pacing too.
I too was disappointed with the finale and a lot of it just didn't make sense. It really is just lazy writing. Even if moff(or is it RTD? I always get confused if they are both working on this or if one of them is the main writer but you get what I mean) has some kind of bigger reveal next season about ruby not being so normal, it's just dis-interesting to me at this point. I will still go ahead and continue to watch dr who though, As I basically feel like "welp, I have come this far, I might as well see what else happens, even if it's disappointing". I will say tho, I have very low expectations for the next season.
Thank you, I really appreciate the comment. Glad to know you thought so and so about my video
@@MrGreaves you're welcome~ Yeah, I know technically it's a bad practice to keep engaging in content, since most people will make the argument that nothing will change if people keep eating it up but at the same time, I think this season has gotten quite a low amount of people watching already, So I am hoping that they make a better story-line for next season based on the decrease of viewership. Anyways tho, I would also like to add that I love the funny moments in your vid lmao. The part about the rope around sutekh and the part where you insert a clip of deadpool, absolutely fantastic LOL.
@@GrimmSmile Here’s hoping! Not sure how much the viewership has decreased but I imagine this season probably lost some people, even though overall ratings are pretty good. Either way, I hope it’s been made clear that stories for the sake of online content aren’t good.
And thank you! I appreciate it. While I’m more fond of serious criticism, I try and keep stuff as light as I can :P glad it pays off!
I would add another FU to RTD with regards to his removing what I consider to be one of the most emotional impacts in the history of the show, namely Donna's tragic exit. Not only did he remove that, he did it in a stupid and unsatisfying way.
Oooooh believe me.. I have a lot to say about that.
Journey’s End is retroactively ruined for me because I just can’t buy the emotion behind it anymore, which is the only thing that stopped it feeling like a lazy deus ex machina.
@@MrGreavesDavis ex machina
This season needed more episodes to set up the finale
Who is Ruby's mother? I couldn't give a rats crap!!!!
Felt exactly the same saying about 15 and ruby maybe butting heads and arguing. Think they both have great chemistry together but just aren't fleshed out
shes coming back in the next series, her story isnt over. Fucking how is everyone everywhere ignoring this.
@flightlesslord2688 not ignoring but Martha left as a companion and came back for guest appearances too but she actually changed over time in her one full solo companion on screen
even though the story was very bated I found it was way too plot driven. I wouldn't have minded it if it was character driven. like don't blink even though that stopped me from waking doctor who for a while.
I agree. If there was more importance and focus on the characters, this wouldn’t have been *as* bad. I wish they did something with Ruby being angry or at least at odds with the Doctor in this episode, like I hypothesised in the video.
the finale was really bad and you make some amazing points!! another great video :)
There is nothing emotionally stable or mature about this Doctor. He behaves like a wet jibbering fliberty jibbert.
He is no longer the Hero.
SpaceBabies - he saved the villain, NanE saved the babies.
DevilsChord- Beatles save the Day
Boom- AI saves the day
73 irks - no one dies
DotsEtc - They all die ( off camera at the end)
Rogue - Doctor is incompetent again, his post twirk flirt nearly gets ruby killed and Rogue saves the day.
It felt to me that loads was cut from this series- is why the Docs U Turn on Bogeyman makes no sense.
This new Doctor is not the Doctor.
Great review BTW 👏
Damn, I can feel the anger behind the keyboard haha.
I’d argue that the Doctor technically does save the day in Boom and Dot & Bubble (he did all he could to save them with the resources he had) and definitely in the Xmas episode… but I do know what you mean overall. Something feels a little off I suppose. But it’s not bugging me massively yet.
Here’s hoping Season 2 improves!
Excellent analysis!
Also, how does just dragging Sutekh through the time vortex force him to use his powers? The stupidity of death + death=life notwithstanding, it makes no sense. He's so powerful, yet so weak.
The best scene with the nameless woman and the baby felt very like something Moffat would write. So much so that I wondered if he actually had.
Yeah, the whole defeat of Sutekh had like no logic behind it. And you're right, the spoon lady scene was very Moffat-y. Kind of "fairytale sad", if that makes sense? But then again, RTD is trying to mimic Moffat's fairytale Doctor Who style so idk.
Either way, thank you for your kind words
@@MrGreaves You're quite welcome.
It seems to me that RTD has always been compositing other people's styles from the beginning. Now, he's just adding Moffat and Chibnall to the mix.
@@MichaelPhillipsatGreyOwlStudio I don’t think that’s necessary a bad thing, but it’s clear that he’s providing a lot of style over substance here.
As I’ll always argue, originality is pretty much impossible. Of course you’ll have influences, but you need to add your own importance and style and substance and dynamics, blah blah blah. RTD isn’t really doing that right now.
Suetech is not an anagram, it's a portmanteau.
You must be fun at parties.
Plus I wasn’t even on about “Suetech”. I was talking about “Sutech” morphing into “Sutekh”. You can hear me even verbally spell out “The S and U from Susan and the Tech part of Technology”. So your “clever” moment wasn’t really as clever as you were hoping I’m afraid.
19:43 is defeated via the strangest thing I’ve seen a fictional parent do, dragging em around to hard
I will say - as a disappointment to the ending being too upbeat, and a happy ending with no downsides, the whole season was based on Fairytale's and life (i.e. each episode documenting birth to life (space babies - teenagers on social media - death)) but all Fairytale's have a happy ever after - and I'm using head-canon to suggest that this universe split or Toymaster implementation has shifted this dynamic to make it different to the realities we've experienced in previous Doctor's adventures.
This is a nice idea.
One of my biggest problems with the season though is that so many people are resorting to “head canon” to fix / improve the show.. and people shouldn’t have to speculate, theorise and make up stories so that a show actually makes sense.
A story cannot be too plot driven as the plot is the most important thing.
I suspect you mean all the wierd over the top stuff (BUT IT IS DOCTOR WHO).
MY only problem was the bits not explained but hopefully they will be in future
a story can be too plot driven. if you abandon character arcs and it feels like your characters are being pushed into choices and situations without any real grounded reasons, then it is too plot driven. it has to be a balance or it feels flat in places.
I’d argue that the story every writer should be telling is the story of the main character(s). Every great story focuses primarily on forming the plot around a central character. When plot informs the characters, like it does in this season of the show, it becomes a hindrance to the story.
That’s just my take anyway :P
It was a bit disappointing, but no where as bad as the cliffhanger between Ascension of the Cybermen and Timeless Children. Upon further rewatches, I can see what RTD was going for but it definitely relies on emotion more than logic. I feel like he needed to do another draft on the episode, or that it was written without reading the previous one. Like “Dust of Death” is the cheesiest thing I’ve ever head, and they literally said “Gift of Death” in the previous episode. That’s a minor detail in a storyline with some massive holes, but it just proves my point about the two parts feeling out of joint
Oh God don't remind me of The Timeless Children please!
Honestly, I didn't even feel the emotion in this one. It felt devoid of anything substantial for me. Just RTD aiming at the sky but barely being able to jump out of the trench.
And yes, both episodes feel very disjointed! The previously trailer even alters footage from The Legend of Ruby Sunday! Which is strange..
@@MrGreaves really? What footage was altered?
@@captainawesome0711 I think it was Possessed Susan’s cliffhanger line. It’s a very very minor change but still a very odd and unnecessary one.
@@MrGreaves is it Dust of Death vs Gift of Death?
@@captainawesome0711 no it’s actually “I bring Sutekh’s gift of death for you and all of this tiny, vile, incessant universe” as opposed to it being “for you and all your tiny, vile..” in the previous episode.
What a God of Gods that was.
Mother a nurse, DNA science and the Doctor couldn't find Rub's mother? This in 2024 is ridiculous. Why too does Sutekh love grammar conventions so much. I thought a god might be interested in doing evil than confusing portmanteaus with anagrams. RTD's writing tropes really have had their dash now.
Sutekh - the God of Wordplay.
Yeah, it was stupid. The fact that the God of Death doesn’t even kill anyone in the end is hilarious too. The only permanent death was Harriet and that was caused by the Doctor! 😂😂
And people criticise Chibnall... I've been saying RTD does terrible mystery boxes / reveals since "Bad Wolf". Also, child RTD never worked out that anagrams in Doctor Who were solely for hiding the presence of the actor playing the Master from the audience, not from the characters. To compare, Chibnall was excellent at pulling the stunt in Spyfall. The moment you realise, your memory ought to tweak a cascade of notable moments that actually make you feel like you could have worked it out. RTD has never once come close to "hints" that might lead to a conclusion. It's usually just an incongruous label that has no real connection to the plot until someone points out how they are connected. Actually not surprised at the revelation, just disappointed he didn't have any decent episodes to show for this season. Real shame, because I love Ncuti.
I can definitely agree with this, even if I wasn’t a big fan of the Spyfall reveal.
As it stands, Doctor Who’s just been a bit naff since 2018 and I’d really, really like it to pick up soon! (In my eyes)
The whole season has been disappointing. This Dr is soooo over the top, that's its annoying. And the crying, gee I'm so over that. All the stories have been rushed. And to much magic and supernatural. I want aliens. They are such more interesting. Can't say I'm in a rush for the Christmas special.
Agreed. Bring back sci-fi please! I’m fed up with hearing “the salt” or “the magic” or “the Doctor’s timeline was made into a jigsaw by the Toymaker” being used to explain everything.
While its definitely a letdown, definitely don't think its the first finale.
Assuming you meant "worst finale", I agree. I don't think it's as bad as some finales, but it's probably the most disappointing finale in my eyes.
@@MrGreaves Yeah mb bro 😭 And I completely understand the take considering how it was built up.
whole seasons been a let down sadly.
The whole Sutekh reveal/storyline feels like it should have happened two seasons from now. It just feels like so much of the story was removed, or rearranged. And what was kept was already really rushed.
It's also funny to consider the Sutekh, the destroyer of all life, was.defeated.because he couldn't unclip himself from a rope.
Yes! I was meant to say something in the video about how this should’ve been the BIG finale of the era, with far more stakes and deaths and emotional weight. Sutekh being the random villain you bring back for a quick and easy finale is such a bad move.
Creased at the mention of Adam Mitchell. 🤣🤣
Kate seems to just employ anyone at UNIT. There are too many people working there, too many faces and names to remember no memorable acting or lines, and a generally boring arrangement of actors. I didn’t feel anything when Kate and her colleagues were reduced to dust. How can I? There’s no personality, just the reciting of lines. Ruby’s storyline is equally as boring, and she’s just not an interesting character. Her mother was a 15-year-old human in a cloak with the hands of a 60-year-old man. More to the point, a God wouldn’t care about a random nurse who likes coffee. Hell, Ruby didn’t even seem to care when her own mother was reduced to dust! Also, I hate the CGI Sutekh. I thought Sutekh was a horse at first. He just recites ominous lines while his minions stand around menacingly, and he’s… defeated with a dog lead?
I don’t like Ncuti’s Doctor either. I did wonder if this iteration of the Doctor goes through stages of disassociation because he seems to cry over the wrong things… Susan? 🤔 His ‘best friend’ (scraping the barrel a bit if Ruby’s his bestie) leaving the TARDIS? 🤔 A random racist on an alien world? 😩😥 A love interest he’d only known for an hour? 😭😡
Again, I agree with pretty much all of this. Seems a lot of the fanbase is actually siding with each other on this one, which is refreshing.
I’m most angry about Ruby and Sutekh. Just absolutely wasted both of them. More so Sutekh. Why even bring him back if there’s no good story to tell with him? Jesus man…
And yeah, I’m very concerned about children working at UNIT lol. Rose especially. At least Morris is a super-genius. What does she bring to the table?
For the 2nd doctor of the 3rd reboot of the series dubbed Doctor Boo Who. I have nothing good to say about this season other than it had nice animation.
Jodie Whittaker had bigger nuts than this doctor. Hell Donna Noble's daughterrr, Rose had bigger balls than Ncuti Gatwa doctor.
I wont defend anything about this hot trash lol.
Oh and can we point out the fact that Ncuti got his companion killed over some ass. LIKE Bruh!!!!!
the only thing i like about empire of death was how sutek looked ( also i did find how funny it looks when sutek was dragged along despite how cheep it feels )
besides that everything kind of just felt meh over all
but the main issue is how cheep the ending feels
there were parts that felt good besides those points
Yeah I didn’t mind his design. I do prefer his more humanoid design though - the mask will never be topped!
@@MrGreaves i think his dog design should have been saved till closer to the end as it would have made the rope thing not feel as cheep
well i think it feels a bit cheep
but there are alot of small things i like about the ep the designs and the time window
but the pace feels a bit rushed over all
I'm pretty sure Russell said something to the effect of "things will be said that can never be taken back" in the final. A statement that like that make me expect something as big as the timeless child retcon but the closest thing we got to that was the idea that sutek has secretly been present throughout the last 26 seasons of who and wejust didn't know it, which is just . . . Ehh.
I like you this episode also unders the only in universe impact of 73 yards. At the time it seemed like Ruby's whole ordeal was basically a roundabout way to save a future Britain from its worst prime Minister. As in the future timeline changed as implied by the doctor not mentioning him the second time round. But now we know that wasn't even true so the episode really does feel pointless.
Also, do you reckon you'll add an addendum to your eventual completed dalek timeline video where you say something to the effect of "ow and literally every single time the doctor has encountered the daleks over these hundreds of stories, everyone present has been killed and then immediately resurrected due to empire of death but no one remembers I guess."?
Oh he said that? Yikes, that makes the finale feel even more disappointing lol.
Yeah, the overall uselessness of 73 Yards is very disappointing. Of course, not episode has to be integral to the plot and characters (though in an 8 episode season, that is ideal) but making NOTHING matter in the long run is very dumb.
Also that’s a pretty funny idea 😂 Maybe when I eventually get round to the complete omnibus of the Dalek Timeline, I’ll sneak that joke in. Speaking of which, I can finally get back to work on that series, which is awesome!
@@MrGreaves Noice!
Legend of Ruby Sunday was good, but Empire of Death dropped the ball big time. I'm with you; it killed my excitement for upcoming episodes.
Legend of Ruby Sunday: 7
Empire of Death: 1
RTD needs to go; he never should have come back. I'm hoping he just becomes a producer after next season and steps down from being showrunner.
Damn, a 1/10? Honestly I don’t blame you though.
I’m with you about RTD. I have a lot of love and nostalgia for his first run and I was somewhat excited to see him coming back.. but I think he honestly lacks respect for the fans of the show and we need some fresh ideas for the series anyway.
Since 2005, it’s just been RTD, Moffat and Chibnall. They’ve all been writing for the show for a loooong time so we’ve not had the chance to hear many new voices. It’s high-time we had a new batch of writers. New perspectives and concepts and characters. And for the love of God, take us back to sci-fi!
I thought Sutekh was wasted in the empire of death
I agree with you completely.
Despise the plot holes and the bad resolutions, I think the writer having a shit eating grin and trying to gaslight the audience saying "No, Ruby and her mom were special because you through they were special on X/twitter/Tumblr/Whatever" ...no? The fanbase through they were special BECAUSE they show said so, is not just bad writing, is bad writing in bad faith and calling the audience idiots to their faces.
So I am suppose to believe the GOD OF DEATH, who has KILLED THE UNIVERSE was terrified over a mother abandoning her daughter? Well, i guess I would also confused over said teenager mom wearing the REAPER'S CLOTHES and POINTING DRAMATICALLY AT A STREET SIGN TO NO ONE too but if she is a normal human, she died with the rest, so...what? Sutekh literally lost due to bad writing, I feel bad for Gabriel Woolf being dragged at his 91 years old to voice such disappointment.
And writers need to know the higher the stakes, ironically, the less stakes there is, because people will realize the only solution is a reset button, this is why small scale is actually more dramatic, like Midnight...I would even go as far as said the Impossible Planet/The Beast did the plot way better about an unstoppable evil god/demon who will destroy the universe by having the plot revolving about it trying to escape instead of "It has manifested, killed all the people and then dragged like a bad dog around the timestream to reset all reality"
And to go back to the reveal of Ruby's mom being just a teenager pregnancy...I think Meet the Robinsons (Yes, the disney one) did it better by keeping the reasons a mystery instead of "oh yeah, you were just a unwanted baby lol"
Anyway rant over
Edit: Rant not over, what the .... was that "cultural appropriation" line? Why did that line exist? Who through it was a good idea? What was trying to achieve? Literally what was the point of that line? Somebody please try to make it sense!
Yet again, a comment has hit the nail on the head. Agree with everything here.
I really wish that RTD would realise that the finale doesn’t have to be on modern day. His best finale was Bad Wolf/Parting of The Ways for me. The finale shouldn’t have to be some crazy destruction of our world for us to feel any emotions in the end… it just needs to be a high-stakes story that challenges the main characters and pays off their storyline.
World Enough and Time / The Doctor Falls, for example. Low-scale. It’s on a spaceship we have had no previous encounter with. But it’s high stakes because it proves to be the threat that undoes our main characters. There’s no other hook than “the main characters are all screwed” and it works so well!
And yeah.. You and loads of other people found issue with the cultural appropriation line. I did too. I think RTD is desperate to get brownie points from the audience by being as “progressive” as possible. But in my opinion, he’s not very progressive at all.. and you can kinda tell by how much he forces it.
First off, great video! Gave great points and supporting arguments.
My main issue with the season was the writing for Ncuti. I thought he played a great doctor, but the writing really put him in a hole. Boom was the only episode he actually got to be brilliant. I thought they would really do something with him in the finale, or give him some character growth like most seasons do, but instead of being brilliant, it was kinda just….. well here’s a random solution.
And last thing……. If he could’ve just whistled the tardis from him….. how did Sutekh stay on it so long and why didn’t he do that in the first place instead of a whole Memory Tardis?
I enjoyed the season, but the finale just made everything in retrospect, blah.
Thank you!
I actually agree with this. Ncuti is ace but his character is a bit all over the place. Hoping some consistency or at least acknowledged flaws get brought up soon.
And yeah, the whistle was cheap lol
I can’t disagree for the most part. I actually really liked The Legend. But I thought that it was leading up to a massive climax, but I just got metaphorically blue balled instead. I can accept that some stuff doesn’t make sense. It’s timey wimey. That’s fine. But the finale was such a mid season style episode. Legend was a better finale than the actual finale. My fiance actually got into the season, and he’s never been a DW fan. So he was excited for the last episode too, and we both just sat there afterwards quietly, wondering what the hell just happened, because it was so…. easy…
Ah God that's the worst thing... one of my best friends has never been into Doctor Who but wanted to watch the new season because he saw my reviews, and I've kinda got to steer him away from it now because I know he hates fantasy stuff and he'll definitely hate the finale lol. It's kinda embarrassing trying to get new people on board when the show is shooting itself in the foot like this.
We should both get our respective parties to start back at Series 1 with Eccleston lol. Maybe that'll help.
@@MrGreavesSeries 1 2005 still remains as one of the go to seasons to introduce new fans to Doctor Who. Along with Series 5 for example. Solid jumping on point there too.
Really excellent breakdown and review. But the only thing I quibble with is the idea that stories don't matter without character deaths. I'm probably misconstruing what you're saying. But I hear that complaint often in other fan circles. Naruto being the prime example
Thank you! And sorry, that wasn’t what I was trying to get across. Apologies if I explained myself poorly.
I more mean that.. if you start your story off by killing everyone, when we know they’ll be back.. so the story ends with a big reset that undoes everything.. then your story doesn’t matter.
@@MrGreaves Ah, now I’m picking up what you’re putting down.
Sorry if it was a little confusing, glad I was able to clear that up 😅
For the most part I enjoyed the season, but I wasn’t impressed with the finale. I wasn’t disappointed because I’ve only ever liked one of RTD’s finales (his first one), so this was actually about par for the course in my expectations. I really hope we get a season of Ncuti with a brand new show runner before he moves on.
Fair enough. I do think that his first finale is his best by a landslide. I expected something not great, but I didn’t quite expect this to be as bad as it was.
Apologies for being greedy with three comments. Your review is spot on.
A lesson for RTD. The stark difference between a great success and a huge letdown in one following sentence.
Most reviewers agreed Back to the Future was among the year's most entertaining films, partly because of its focus on storytelling instead of pure spectacle.
Give up the spectacle RTD and hyperbole and write a good narrative focusing on storytelling.
No worries! Listen, firstly you're doing me a favour by boosting the algorithm xD and secondly, I love hearing viewer input! It's one of my favourite things about making commentary content.
Thank you very much for the engagement and the kind words. And yes I agree, he needs to forward-plan his stories if he's going to have dangling threads and mysteries... and he's relying far too much on the Disney budget when he should be focusing on tightening up scripts. As you say, spectacle isn't cutting it.
@@MrGreaves Thank you for your kind words and thoughts I agree with.
I just finished it 3 minutes ago and went straight to RUclips to see if anyone else thought this was horrible
This is exactly what I do with stuff I love / hate 😂 sorry to hear you didn’t enjoy it.
This one was solid, and I think its relative simplicity compared to other Who finales helped that out.
Two that I still can't abide by are The Last of the Time Lords, and the Wedding of River Song.
With TLOTTL, while the idea of the Doctor being imprisoned by the Master and eventually saved by Martha and the people of Earth is a good one... the whole making him into a sort of Dobby-in-a-cage who's then saved like some sort of Tinkerbell Jesus was... something. And I never really liked (sorry) John Simm's takes on the Master, either. And he's in camp overdrive in that one.
Then there's TWORS. Hoo boy. My least favorite NuWho finale I've seen. I refer to this one as a finale entiredly constructed out of plotholes and "But wouldn't THIS be cool?" moments. (Note that, well, I've never watched any of the Chibnall era finales, and only watched half of #13's first season. Love Jodie; not a fan of what she was given.)
Back to TWORS. I won't go into the laundry list of reasons why it bothers me, but a few: the whole "time all happening at once" thing makes nothing like sense on the face of it; River secretly being an assassin obsessed with the Doctor who's involved in some ridiculous plot (astronaut suit? waiting in that lake), and then there's the mental gymnastics around the actual Doctor hiding in a Tessalecter version of himself that... someone... appears to try to regenerate... but... yeah. No. I have to stop there.
So yeah, I'd call Empire of Death right down the center average--some great stuff, some underwhelming stuff, but far from the worst Who finale ever.
TWORS is probably in my top 3 worst finales also, and I definitely have big issues with TLOTTL.
I don’t think Empire of Death is the worst finale DW has had, but it’s the most disappointing imo.
(You didn’t miss much with the Jodie era)
Sigh... I hate to say it but yes I didn't much enjoy EOD.
I watched LORS for the first time in the cinema, spending the week before avoiding spoilers. Although the Sutekh reveal meant nothing to me in terms of who the character was, it was a great reveal and I was pumped. I think LORS is a great episode that i thoroughly enjoyed.
EOD death though, was a whole lot of nothing with so much that made little sense and was hella contradictory.
However, for me, this season has been thoroughly enjoyable and a marked improvement over the last few years. Five of the eight episodes are great, a couple of alright episodes and just the one low point.
Similarly to how i really don't like Last of the Time Lords and the resolution to Journeys End, EOD doesn't detract from my overall enjoyment of the respective series/season.
Glad to hear you enjoyed the season overall! I will say that it’s been a great season for getting lots of people back on board with the show.
Also glad to hear that you enjoyed TLORS. Shame about Empire of Death though. Here’s hoping the next finale packs more of a punch!
Looks like the master of manipulation has been leaving Spoons around.... The 7th Doctor 😂. Mind you the Doctor could of found a spoon in the memory TARDIS as I'm sure in the 7th Doctor segment you see the spoons.
Yet everyone knew how Ruby got her name in the Christmas special 😂. Oh it was bad. Aaaaah yes Sutekh reduced to Scrappy Doo hugging the TARDIS and chuckling to himself 😂.
Plus there's been elements of this Doctor character which have been dark and sadistic - making the Space Babies cry and fearful not once but twice whilst he laughs with glee being one example. So I don't think he's stable.
But if Sutekh destroyed everything in 2024 there would of been no 2045 as those events would never of happened.
Yes I saw that! Not sure what the point of the spoon was.. apparently the monitor needed “something real, not remembered” but that’s stupid in my opinion. Could’ve been easily cut from the episode.
And yeah I really don’t think this incarnation is as emotionally stable as everyone seems to be making out. I hope we actually get to see what his deal is next season because I feel like I don’t quite understand his Doctor yet?
And this is what I’ve been saying! It’s like Russell has no idea how Time Travel works in this show.
@@MrGreaves yeah I noticed In several of his stories he's got a dark side to him in Boom once Ruby was unconscious he turned quite nasty to the religious soldier about belief. Yet in Series 3 Martha spread the word of the Doctor to make people believe in him effectively turning him into Space Jesus and it was like a religious belief... Funny he forgot that 😂. Also I noticed in most of the stories he doesn't solve the situation or villain somebody else does it. RTD has this thing about Mobility devices having weapons of violence and death (and a character who is meant to be 13 yrs old) firing away this is perfectly fine but Davros is Problematic. The way they dismissed the 4th Doctor as just someone who used to travel in the TARDIS. Also odd comment about Cultural Appropriation esp in the context story didn't make sense and seem to give the impression that RTD finds Pyramids of Mars now problematic 😂 if it was a joke he knows full well there are pockets of fandom who have similar ideology to him will grab the pitchforks and torches screeching and baying for Pyramids of Mars to be singled out. The sad thing we know it will eventually happen.
@@Mark-nh2hs Yeah I’m very upset how he’s been handling Davros and the comment about cultural appropriation… I see how the Egyptian mythology influencing Pyramids of Mars can be problematic, but what’s done is done and trying to retcon it as cultural appropriation is a bit… like… it kinda puts down Pyramids a bit, right?
@@MrGreaves the thing with Pyramids of Mars is it's implied that the humans were absorbed into the Osrians culture in ancient Egypt - like many cultures around the world a new stronger powerful civilisation takes over and the weaker culture gets absorbed - ancient Rome, the Greeks even here in the UK it's all happened. Yet he calls it Cultural Appropriation yet Sutekh in his finale still looked like an Ancient Egyptian diety so wasn't he doing the same thing. It's odd that he focuses on the 4th Doctor story.
@@Mark-nh2hs Agreed. I think RTD just wants brownie points from the audience.
Today is judgement day for the Greaves. Thinking of Judging things as always
Always judging things.
most disappointing is a stretch imo. nothing will ever reach the lows of the s6 finale for me
Fair enough, I support that.
For me, I was only like 6 when the Series 6 finale aired so I wasn't able to be disappointed by it really. And by the time I'd grown up a bit, I'd seen it so much (and everything that comes after) that it would no longer be disappointing. Just a bad episode in hindsight.
This is the first time I've felt properly let down by a finale. Maybe except for Series 12? But that just angered me more than anything.
You think 73 yards was pointless?💀 that was one of the best episodes of dr who I’ve ever seen, maybe the point is to watch a show and enjoy it 😂
Your opinion is not the blueprint for everyone. I’m allowed to consume media how I do, and you’re allowed to consume it how you do. I have no issue with you enjoying the episode.
And fyi, if you spent a minute to check my review of 73 Yards.. I literally DID enjoy the episode. I just said in hindsight it is pointless because it provided absolutely nothing. No character growth, no plot development, no solutions/answers to its mysteries… Nada. Just that Welsh bloke reappearing in the finale, albeit talking about something completely different to what he actually was in 73 Yards.
I couldn't give a single care about Ruby unfortunately, I liked Bill so much more from her one season. But at least she's not as bland as Ryan Sinclair. This whole season feels like an erasure of everything that happened since RTD moved on in 2009. Like the best years of the nu-who revival is just... nothing?
I know so many people irl who stopped watching when Tennant left. They assume its bad when they havent even seen it. I hate the Tennant stans and it makes him my least favorite Doctor of all of them
Yeah I love Bill. Proof that one season is more than enough to establish, develop and write off a companion with emotional impact. Twice Upon a Time honestly makes me tear up every single time 12, “Bill” and “Nardole” hug at the end.
Bro doesnt know what a red herring is. Why is everyone just accepting the ending as is when its obvious its gonna be a twist, hence why its absolutely disappointing, plot hole ridden, makes 0 sense, and fucking Mrs Flood basically tells us to just ignore it. Are Doctor Who fans just expecting shit writing or are we just dumb?
As I answered in a previous comment to you, in which you said the same thing, the Ruby’s mum reveal is not a red herring. It is presented as a definitive answer with definitive proof supporting it.
And if it is a red herring, I will criticise it for being bad writing. Because a red herring should not be presented as an answer. It should be presented as a misleading factor that people think will LEAD to an answer. Maybe you don’t know what a red herring is 🤔
Also, your basis for it being a red herring is that it makes 0 sense when there are plenty of other things in this finale that make 0 sense and are in no way even part of a mystery. Maybe you just need to accept that this finale isn’t as well-written as you think.
If you enjoyed it, that’s fine! I don’t want to take that away from you. I’m glad you had fun with it. But being hostile towards other people’s critiques and calling me dumb for having a different point of view than you.. is not on.
I disagree with you on Lost. ;)
But I'm almost completely on the same page with you around this finale. So disappointing.
I think the little side mission for the spoon was well done, albeit jarringly out of place, but it also just confused me even more about how the death dust worked.
I'm glad that I kept my expectations firmly in check this season - there were some good ideas at the core of almost all of the episodes, but the execution was often lacking. The finale felt like it was the very definition of that.
Yes! The spoon side-quest also confused me about the dust too, forgot to mention this. I thought it just insta-killed?
Glad you managed to keep your expectations in check, because I was so dang excited for this season and I feel very let-down overall. Maybe in the future I won’t feel so bitter towards it, maybe my hype got in the way.. but I would really describe it as a “mixed season” overall.
And look… I really don’t mind that we didn’t get all the answers in Lost. I personally LOVE the finale, and I was more invested in the characters than anything since I was told going in that the ending wouldn’t explain everything anyway… but I do think that, for the time, it was probably a huge let-down for all the people who spent years speculating and theorising.
But yeah overall Lost is one of the greatest shows of all time for me. Will never not love it!
@MrGreaves Yeah, that was it - we saw the dust killing people who came into contact with it, and then suddenly it's travelling up and down people's timelines or something like that. Raised a few more questions.
And yeah, I was only messing with the Lost comment there.
I was one of those people who did throw myself fully into the forums, did the ARGs between seasons, and all the theorising with my friends. I did love the finale, though. I kind of felt that for the most part, where a concrete answer wasn't given, I had enough to go on that I could come up with a decent theory myself, and I was fine with that.
@@arch1017 Yeah like.. it working in reverse was confusing too? Like child before parent, what was that about?
And no don’t worry lol, I was only being light in my response. Sorry if that didn’t come through.
Yeah I’m in the same boat. I feel like I personally have enough to go on to explain the ending, but I understand how it’s unsatisfactory.
@MrGreaves Yeah - it almost felt like there was an element of luck at play in when you'd succumb to it. Just not if you're Ruby or Mel in the Memory Tardis for some reason.
Oh, no, it's cool, honest - that did come across. It's just a case if you give me any excuse to talk about Lost, I'll happily run with it. 😀
@@arch1017 silly writing.
And me too! Honestly I’ve barely spoke about it with anyone in the 4 years I’ve seen it. Which sucks :/
Yeah, the whole "Bad Doggie" thing, wasn't so great...
😂
After all the hype with ruby's origins and everything else its a big disappointment
I have a feeling we're supposed to be annoyed by feeling baited in the final episode but everything seems to me like a double bluff. We're supposed to be confused that we never found out about the snow.. we're supposed to be confused that Ruby's mother was dressed in a cloak and pointing at a sign, even though nobody was watching. I believe all will be revealed next season! If not, then I will be very disappointed!
You’re a bigger optimist than me! If that’s the case, it’s gonna be a fantastic double bluff.
Though I will say, if it’s true, for someone who cares so much about engagement and popularity.. RTD will have shot himself in the foot there. I’m sure many new viewers dropped out after seeing the lacklustre reveal - even if it’s revealed to be a fakeout.
@@MrGreaves Old viewers are dropping out too. I subscribed to Disney Plus ($22.95/month) just for Doctor Who but after this 2-part disaster I unsubscribed.
@@MrGreaves Hehe my wife says the same as you about him probably shooting himself in the foot already. I have a feeling I'll be half right.. at least there will be something to do with the snow as it's snowing around Mrs Flood at the end!
Yep worse than the Key to Time. That finale should have been titled: The Legend that Could Have Been
Great title 😂
@@MrGreaves Well I thank you kind sir. Much appreciated.
the whole series was awful and should have been called the crying dr. dr who ended half way through matt smith at best but mainly after david tennant, russell t davies should stop and. this show has passed its sell by date, awful
absurd.....a piece of rope hold a being that can vanish and appear at will. Piss poor storyline
Stop pretenting, it's a failure on all fronts.
Rose was written as a Buffalo Bill allegory. A trans loner sewing skins in the shed.
TecKnology
Petition to have the word "technology" be officially changed to "tekhnology" so that the cliffhanger in Doctor Who makes sense!!
It was shite
I touched grass all series, and I'm glad I did.
I refuse to believe you actually got offended by the lead of the show telling you to “touch grass”.
But the lefties are apparently snowflakes.. lol
@@MrGreaves the actors and show runner has there only themselves to blame, its funny that DW is failing and the viewing figures proves that people have pissed off.
@@neil4920 spoken like a true politician: you not only dodged my comment but lapped up some “facts” you’ve been fed elsewhere that are in no way substantial.
@MrGreaves got my facts from DrWhoTV. You keep shilling for this woke rubbish and enjoy consuming shit.