Empire of Death

A decent Finale. With some disappointing moments, I thought Sutekh was defeated easily. And some of the ideas, I think they were a bit hot to handle for RTD. With all that said, the rest of it was enjoyable. The hide behind your sofa elements of Who are back, and the memory Tardis brought back so much wonderful memories. And there's still the old saying Timey whimey, stuff is all here. And we've got character drama back, Ruby trying to find her mother. And the ordinary speech from the Doctor was great, although maybe a little disappointing how she was just an ordinary person. But how it played out and execution wasn't terrible for what it was. And It had some edge of your seat moments that were very intense. It's also not the worst Finale, we've had Seasons 6's, and Season 8's with Season 11 and 12 Both being worse. And maybe even Season 13's Finale. But it could of been better.

I'm deeply disappointed with this season of Doctor Who. It feels like the writers have shifted focus to cater to anyone but their core followers who have loved the show since the 2005 revival, and many even loved it before that.

One of the most jarring changes is how they've portrayed the Doctor. This season, the Doctor seemed to weep in every episode (at least four times in the finale), showing so much fear with each new story and even running away at times. That's not who the Doctor is and has been. Sure, he feels emotion and cries. Sure, he feels fear. But that has never been the focal point, showing the audience how much he is like us. This new humanization undermines the very essence of the Doctor, who we've come to admire for being a Time Lord with bravery, wit, and a unique, almost otherworldly perspective; a Lord of Time who faces his enemies without hesitation and who doesn't have time to constantly give in to his emotions and feelings.

I miss the confident, enigmatic Doctor who faces challenges head-on with a mix of intelligence and humor. These new changes in character make it feel like I'm watching any other human in a show rather than the Doctor. Ncuti Gatwa is clearly an excellent actor with great charismatic magnetism, but he's being made to portray a character that is so very human, just like me. There are hundreds of sci-fi shows featuring people just like me. That's not why we watch this show. There's a reason this show has lasted so long, and I think that's being forgotten or put on a shelf to collect dust.

It's disheartening that the season finale didn't leave me eagerly anticipating the next season. A strong, cliffhanger ending or enigmatic build is crucial for keeping viewers excited about what's next, but this season failed to deliver that. This season started with a great "save the cheerleader, save the world" vibe but, just like Heroes, it seems as if they didn't plan it all the way through and didn't deliver what they set out to achieve.

I truly hope the creators will listen to the broader fanbase and bring back the elements that make Doctor Who the iconic show we love. Return the show to its roots, its core, its formula that kept us on the edge of our seats each and every episode.

So we get a great reveal last episode with one of the greatest villains of all time, and now the real question is how do we defeat him? Well I think RTD doesn't know how to either. The Entire Sutekh storyline felt so forced and random. There were no real payoffs or dramatic moments. It felt so rushed and confusing. Ruby's mother storyline also suffered greatly. I understand some people are going to like the ending, but explanations for all the weird stuff that has been happening just feel so randomly explained just for the sake of it. The episode wasn't all bad, there were some good moments. Millie Gibson gave a great performance and so did Bonnie Langford, who in my opinion, carried the episode.

After all the hype this story failed to land. While the return of Sutekh was an excellent choice and his the idea that he had never left the TARDIS was an excellent way to threaten the entire universe, this episode fell flat for the simple reason that everyone had plot armour.

Plot armour is generally only used on the main character, but in this episode like in the Flux episodes a degree of plot armour was applied to everyone.

There were no stakes.

There was no way they wouldn't either completely reverse it or save a good portion of people.

Doctor Who relies on a universe that is varied and populated. Universe ending plot lines are now a non-starter and after a while produce zero suspense.

Like 73 Yards, this episode has no significant consequences as the events were, to an extent overwritten.

Ruby's mystery ended up being utterly uninteresting, to the extent that while a major plot point of the episode, it only served as bait.

Personally I find that after Amy and Clara, mysteries surrounding companions are now uninteresting. Short of exceptional and intriguing writing, the companions should just be ordinary people given the chance to shine.

The story telling in Doctor Who has seriously declined. This story had no significant consequences and has yet again relied on wishful thinking (see Parting of the ways, Last of the Time Lords and Journeys End) to end a universe threatening event. It seems that Russell T Davies is only capable of writing inherently flawed universe ending finales.

These finales no longer satisfy and should be abandoned.

Started really strong, amped the stakes and then failed to deliver.

I really enjoyed the beginning of this episode, I could feel the tension and was excited to see how it would end. The ending unfortunately did not hit the mark for me. I am absolutely fine with the resolution to Ruby's mother, however, I think it was handled poorly. The acting between the cast was brilliant, the writing not so much. I was left with lots of questions that reddit cannot answer for me because it's far too early. The cliffhanger kind of bored me to say the least and felt unnecessary. I truly hope this isn't it for some of these plot lines and that they are touched on next season but I highly doubt that.

As always Ncuti and Millie are absolutely fantastic together. So the only person to blame really is myself for getting way too excited for this episode I will not make the same mistake again.