Doctor Who Dark Water

[selenak]

You know, I'm not going to mount a defense of Torchwood: Miracle Day as great tv (though I think it's better on avarage than TW's first season, if you must know - just way worse than Children of Earth), but it had its moments, and one of these was when Gwen was ready to trade Jack in to save her family and Jack was ready to kill Gwen to save his life (having gotten over any death wish by that point), and they were still friends not in spite, but because of that - they saw each other clearly now, without idealization, and accepted what they got. This was when I realised that the Gwen & Jack relationship had won me over in a way I'd never have anticipated back in s1 when they were trying to play it as UST. That scene - culmination of a long term development - did it for me. Why do I mention it now? Because you won't be in the least surprised the sequence starting with Clara trying to blackmail the Doctor into changing time to save Danny and culminating into "I' don't deserve a friend like you"/"I'm sorry, Clara, but I am exactly what you deserve" did it for me, too. Also I'm not in the least surprised that Clara, who has seen the Doctor (all three of him) rewrite time so Gallifrey is saved (somewhere), reacts to losing Danny with the immediate decision that this needs to be rewritten, too. This is Clara-as-Doctor-in-Time-Lord-Victorious mode, after she's already been the Doctor-as-hero.

We also get an explanation for where several of this season's dead ended up, and it's spectacularly nasty. If I get the principle right, the dead get uploaded into the Nethersphere (btw, knew this had to be something along the same lines as the Matrix on Gallifrey, more about that in a moment), get told that they remain linked to their body and hence are subjected to the pain and horror of whatever happens to it (burning, rotting), unless they delete their emotions, once they've been tricked into doing that, they're downloaded again into Cybermen bodies, presto, new Cybermen. This is literally body horror, and when What's-his-name told the Doctor and Clara (while his colleague told Danny pretty much the same thing) that the dead are still conscious in their bodies, the idea creeped me out to no end. And the gradual reveal of the Cyber bodies was brilliant (I was unspoiled for that, since I hadn't seen the trailer which I take it included a Cyberman shot), when the implication of "only organic matter is visible in dark water" sank in, I whistled.

But of course what fandom will talk about isn't the latest appearance of the Cybermen. Back when I reviewed the season opener, I wrote "my crack theory" and then found out it was practically everyone's crack theory: Missy is the Master. But the more time passed, the more inevitably logical it seemed. Because I was pretty sure Moffat is done with River and won't bring her back, Evil!Romana would be awful, not to mention New Who only watchers don't know her (or the Rani, who in any case wasn't into playing games with the Doctor, she was into getting her experiments to succeed). The only other theory that made thematic sense was Missy as an alternate future version of Clara. But really, it had to be the Master. And it was! I'm so staying away from fandom the next few weeks, because if there ever was something so designed to invite kerfuffles... Meanwhile, thoughts:

1.) Yes, letting the Doctor/Master relationship go from subtext to text only now when the Master has regenerated into a female body is everyone's favourite word, problematic. Mind you, the Moff isn't responsible for the lack of previous Doctor/Master main text, only for what happens under his own watch. However, it doesn't escape my attention that the only other time he's written the Master, the Children in Needs sketch "The Curse of Fatal Death" which was broadcast before RTD ever revived the show, Doctor/Master ended up as m/f, too, that time with the Doctor as the one ending up in a female body.

2.) This being said, I'm still delighted that one of the best known Time Lords after the Doctor - arguably the most famous non-Doctor Gallifreyan in the decades of show history - is the first one to get an on screen female incarnation. Two seasons ago, The Doctor's Wife established Time Lords can change gender when regenerating via the Doctor reminiscing about his old friend the Corsair (who had both male and female regenerations), but dialogue about a never seen character (unless you count The Sarah Jane Adventures and RTD declaring that yes, that was the Corsair, too) doesn't carry the same narrative weight as an on screen example.

3.) Of couse Missy is theatrical. The Master doesn't do low key. No reason why she should start now she's a woman. (BTW, re: pronouns - I'll use "he" for past regenerations and "she" for the current one, that seems to make the most sense.) And Missy is still less camp than Ainsley!Master.

4.) Considering the Master has a long and proud tradition of allying with the monsters du jour, only for that to bite him in the second act so he's forced to temporarily work with the Doctor, I'm tempted to assume the Mistress actually did unearth some Cybermen to start this latest enterprise with, but she might as well have just gotten her hands on the technology and used it.

5.) Though that still leaves unexplained what the whole "my Clara" thing was about, so I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop in that regard.


Lastly, the obvious mythical comparison to what Clara is trying to do is the one with Orpheus, making Danny Eurydike. (Which btw makes the Doctor Hermes, who in some versions guides Orpheus to and back. Of course he'd be a trickster god.) Orpheus loses Eurydike the second time when he turns around, which is forbidden. What Eurydike thinks about nearly getting resurrected, the Greeks and Romans don't tell us, though later writers had an opinion. Here, Danny, having accepted this is the afterlife, wants to save Clara from it and thus says what she said would make her break the connection, but at a guess, this very selflessness proves to Clara he is actually Danny, and she will turn around, i.e. look for him further. Of course, Orpheus ends up not only losing Eurydike again but also getting torn apart by maenads later. Not a good prospect for Clara. Honestly, I have no idea how this will play out. Moffat is notoriously the writer who doesn't let anyone die, so it could simply be that Danny will be re-uploaded (with emotions) in his body and Clara will have saved him, with the two departing the tale. But there's a first time for everything, and it may be this time Clara-as-Orpheus will be the one who dies as the price for Danny's resurrection, leaving Danny and the Doctor stuck with each other for the next season. But I'm pretty sure about is that not both Clara and Danny will die/remain dead; killing Danny at the start of this episode was an (intended) shock, but killing Clara while leaving Danny dead wouldn't be, and far too depressing for Moffat. And there'd better be some resolution for the not-Danny people currently trapped in the Netherworld and not yet Cyberfied, not just some "they couldn't be saved" handwaving.

In conclusion: I'm looking forward to next week - which may yet change my feelings about everything, granted, bad endings can do that -, but so far, so good, with some nitpicks.

Comments

[kalypso]

There was a phase halfway through the episode where I thought "Good heavens, maybe the 'Missy=Susan' camp are on to something!" - because the motif of throwing away the TARDIS keys tied in with Susan deliberately dropping the key after she was shut out of the TARDIS, and when Missy said the Doctor had abandoned her that seemed to tie into that moment, too. But, even if Susan could have become vengeful as a result of that moment, it would have been pretty worrying if she'd referred to the Doctor as her boyfriend. (I much prefer the idea that she was the woman in The End of Time.) Really, once Missy said "boyfriend", it was never going to be anybody else - that precise combination of malevolence and obsession with the Doctor had to be the Master. Plus the dancing! I think Moffat may have dropped in a couple of Susan hints as the obligatory red herring, but there was only one fish in the pool.

I did know the Cybermen were going to appear, and still didn't twig when we heard about the exo-skeletons, so was delighted by the of-course moment when the reveal began.

And yes. A very good Doctor-Clara episode. I'm not quite sure whether this particular Doctor would have had the maturity at the start of the season to cope so calmly with what she did, but he's ready for it now.

[selenak]

I hear you on Susan, who definitely is the woman in End of Time for me, too.

that precise combination of malevolence and obsession with the Doctor had to be the Master.

Yes. Like I said, the Rani was never obsessed with him (and rather impatient with the Master's obsession), and turning a formerly good character bad isn't something Moffat is into. Incidentally: the actress playing Missy has that smirk down pat, as evidenced in your icon. Very Masterly. :)

Clara and the Doctor have both come a long way. I'll miss their dynamic if this is the end for Clara this season.

[lonelywalker]

Having seen the trailer / promo pics, the reveal of the Cybermen was no surprise at all for me (and, I'm assuming, a lot of people who watched) which really ruined the entire mystery of the Dark Water and so on. But at least there was a backup mystery in the form of Missy, and Capaldi played the resulting horror wonderfully well.

Oh, I'd forgotten about "my Clara". Um. Hm.

Re: Danny. I think if they find a way to bring him back to life it'll feel like a huge cheat, given the way the show has explored trying to reverse death before. This doesn't mean they won't do it, of course! I wonder if we'll find out that Missy ran him over on purpose to get Clara and the Doctor there. If his death was an "unnatural" one (that is, part of an enemy plan rather than a simple accident) I'd be a bit more accepting of a reversal, even though it'd still be annoying.

Presumably the Afghan boy will factor into what happens to Danny somehow. I can definitely picture them walking off hand-in-hand into a true netherworld. But it could equally be a more life-affirming twist "I died, but you don't have to".

I'm not sure how Clara's story might continue with a dead-for-good Danny, though. Either way it doesn't bode very well for her future as a Companion. Unless this whole plot is a result of dream patches and memory worms or other shenanigans.

[selenak]

If Danny is Eurydike, a modern updating could very well be Eurydike saying that she stays in the underworld and Orpheus should go on, instead of Orpheus turning around, yes. Which actually is what Danny is doing near the end of this episode already, in a way. Now resurrecting him instinctively would strike me as wrong, too; a car accident is so familiar a cause of loss for many viewers (including this one) and it's just too much of a blatant wish fulfillment if that's reversed. (Note: Rose's father staying dead in Father's Day made the episode. Yes, another version of him would later be introduced, but the Pete from our world remained dead.)

However, like you I'm not sure that does means it won't happen, because Moffat has really been consistent anti-death. Then again: first time for everything. The only thing I'm sure of that Danny and Clara won' both be dead by the end of the finale.

The Afghan boy: since he doesn't seem to have his emotions deleted yet, I wonder whether he and Danny will have to team up to sabotage the Cyber project from the inside? Alternatively, he could simply be there to wrap of the question of whether or not Danny killed someone.

[lonelywalker]

Danny and Clara both dying is too similar to the Ponds (who okay at least got to live to a ripe old age first, but still).

Your point about the other version of Rose's dad brings up the fact that they do still have a "Danny" in the form of Orson, who okay wouldn't be Clara's bf, but would make the loss less terrible from the viewer perspective. Although I'm not sure how Orson is supposed to exist unless Clara's pregnant right now.

Something that's really bugged me is that Dr. Chang thought they were government inspectors. So the UK government circa 2014 is fully aware of this netherworld operation with skeletons and so on happening in St. Paul's???

[kalypso]

Danny has messed up my theory that the people Missy has been collecting may not be actually dead, because (apart from Half-Face, who wasn't human so bets are off) most of them seemed to die in a dematerialisation-sort-of-way, and the people who dematerialised in Time Heist turned out to have been teleported somewhere. Also, if Missy is building an army of Cybermen, bodies and minds would be a more convenient package. But Danny clearly left a body in the street, which it would require an explanation as daft as anything in The Empty Hearse. (And yes, I do think he was run over as part of the plan to get Clara to deliver the Doctor. But possibly the fact that she's betrayed him already and he's forgiven her will change the way that plan plays out.)

Department of the Immediately Predictable: "So if they can bring Danny back, can we have Ianto?"

[lonelywalker]

I think the next episode should be entirely about different ways Danny could've faked his own death, each involving him snogging another character, all of which will be dismissed in the end without providing any real answer.

Ianto! Heck, Owen and Tosh too. And... whatshisname. Adric?

I'm a bit fuzzy on how this soul collecting is supposed to work. Did she really travel in time and space to get the Afghani boy's body / soul?

At this point I wouldn't be at all surprised if "it was all a dream". Possibly involving memory worms. And also that thing under the blanket was a mini cyberman.

[percysowner]

I'm not exactly clear on how the the soul harvesting thing works either, but I do think Missy is jumping over time to get souls. I thought it was clear Into The Dalek took place in the future. The soldiers seemed to be human, not alien. The clockwork man's soul was taken in Victorian times. I don't know how Missy is taking souls, but we've been shown them coming from several time periods.

[lonelywalker]

Yes, time travel is definitely necessary. But at least the other ones were directly connected to the Doctor (although I'm not sure whether they're actually going to have any use?). Going back to the Doctor's Companion's boyfriend's past to get a child he inadvertently killed... that's some serious planning. Unless they're trying to say Missy & Co have actually been harvesting LITERALLY EVERYONE since at least Victorian times, and we've only seen the ones relevant to the show.

[jesuswasbatman]

Who was supposedly the Corsair in SJA? I missed that.

[andraste]

The Shopkeeper, played by Cyril Nri, who hangs about with the Captain.

[selenak]

What she said. It's been a while, but I think he and the Captain were responsible for sending Rani back in time to Lady Jane Grey?

[likeadeuce]

Being a fan of the Doctor/Master relationship, I am pleased with this development, even while agreeing the gender implications are annoying.

I'm also interested in how the Orpheus story resolve next week -- if this is Clara's sendoff, I hope it's a good one, since I've been really pleased with her development this season (and I've always loved the actress).

[selenak]

Yes, here's hoping for Clara getting a worthy sendoff, if that is it. I'm really glad about the way she came into her own this season.

Oh, the Doctor/Master shipper in me squeed. And was v. v. amused pretending-to-be-an-android Missy came up with such lines as "my heart is maintained by my doctor". :)

[andraste]

Yes, letting the Doctor/Master relationship go from subtext to text only now when the Master has regenerated into a female body is everyone's favourite word, problematic. Mind you, the Moff isn't responsible for the lack of previous Doctor/Master main text, only for what happens under his own watch.

I have decided that I will not be annoyed about this unless the next episode explicitly rules out a prior sexual relationship between the two. I mean, I'm not demanding canonisation of every Doctor/Master fanfic ever written, but it would be nice if he just left the question open.

Meanwhile, I am choosing to believe that the Doctor is disturbed by Missy's, uh, 'greeting' not only because this incarnation isn't into anything touchy-feely, but because she kisses just like her previous selves and his subconscious is frantically trying to remind him that the last time someone snogged him like this they had a beard.

[nenya_kanadka]

Heee. Headcanon accepted. :D

The new Master really does look, to me, like a female Delgado. Which is cool.

[andraste]

Along with the 'my boyfriend' thing, that had me leaning strongly toward the 'Missy is the Master' theory from very early on.

[nenya_kanadka]

I wish I'd watched this one on my laptop as usual instead of live on TV, because I really, really want to go rewatch the pretends-to-be-an-android again and note the exact dialog. I mean, I'd already been spoiled for her identity before I saw the episode, but there was still so much going on there that I don't remember all of it. "Two hearts, both of them yours" and "the doctor takes care of my heart", yes, but not the "boyfriend" line.

[kalypso]

The "boyfriend" quote came from Deep Breath - just after the scene in which the Doctor told Clara "I'm not your boyfriend", we met Missy for the first time, saying to Half-Face "I hope my boyfriend wasn't too mean to you... He can be very mean sometimes. Except to me of course, because he loves me so much."

[nenya_kanadka]

OHH. Haha. I had forgotten that entirely!

Of course, with the Doctor and Master, it's not like "being mean to" and "loving" are mutually exclusive. Pretty sure they've each murdered the other at least once (or close to, with the Valiant). But that's the exact kind of dramatic flair the Master would use in either gender, though. LOL.

[kalypso]

Also, in that very first scene we saw Missy dance. We know the Simm!Master liked to dance - and that Moffat likes the idea of "dancing"!

[selenak]

Or a wife. *points to Simm!Master* :) I'm so with you on that, though. :)

[andraste]

I figured Lucy was covered by the other meaning of beard, thanks to Time Crash *g*.

I am both surprised and amused by the number of fanboys who had apparently managed to completely miss the phone sex in Series Three and think this came out of nowhere. (Not that I don't think they had decades of sexual tension before that, but the Simm Master isn't exactly about it.)

[selenak]

Quite. I mean, all the way back when Three first spots Delgado!Master on the surveillance cameras in Sea Monsters, he proclaims with the glint of a bitchy ex: "He put on weight!" Who says that about their platonic nemesis? :)

But even New Who only fanboys should have gotten a clue during that phonecall, yes.

[nenya_kanadka]

Yeah, I mean, just the way Ten breathed, "Master!" down the phone line! Plus all the dying in each other's arms business.

And even before Sea Monsters (which I shall be seeing for the first time soon!), there's all the tying the Doctor to a chair and leaning over him suggestively with the Keller process.

These two have a pretty kinky relationship of long standing, is my point. :P

[kalypso]

They even had the Doctor standing in front of a poster stating "Saxon is your man"! How much more blatant do you have to get?