Theera of the thirteenth Doctoris over , and it went out how ultimately much of Chris Chibnall ’s sentence as Doctor Who ’s showrunner went over the last four years : with moments of brilliance outshine by a drudgery , unwieldy mess of tale that jeopardise to drag its excellent star down with it . In that way , it ’s perhaps a meet finale , if an unfair one .
“ The Power of the Doctor,”the final outingof Jodie Whittaker ’s 13th Doctor and Chris Chibnall ’s foot race as Doctor Who ’s showrunner , is , like a lot of the duo ’s recent escapades in sentence and space , a difficult composition of tv to publish about . ending are backbreaking , especially Doctor Who ones , where the mysterious process of Time Lord regeneration all but guarantees that no matter how hard the adventure before it , an end will always be outshadowed by the new root that comes immediately after it . They ’re even difficult in Doctor Who ’s renovate era , where the exit of one Doctor and the comer of another has , every once in a while , also coincided with the departure of theshow ’s flagship creative steward , turning the story into not just the end of a Doctor ’s embodiment , but a treatise on an intact time period of Doctor Who ’s story .
All this and morehangs heavily on the shoulders of “ The Power of the Doctor , ” an endcap on a tumultuous period of Doctor Who already heavily shadowed by the bananas potential drop of the return faces that have long been hail its future before we reached this end . There are few finales that could navigate the complex , nuanced outlandishness of the current state of Doctor Who and do out mostly immaculate . But the fateful problem with “ The Power of the Doctor ” is that for the Brobdingnagian legal age of its burdensome 90 - minute runtime it does not even try , discard cameo , story threads , and scenes at a wall and urgently praying that they will stick — and for the most part , they do n’t .
Image: BBC
To essay to explain what happen in “ The Power of the doc ” narratively is an exercise in futility . Which is presumably why at the peak of its muckle — a moment where the Master ( areturned Sacha Dhawan , now having given up any attempt to be endanger in favour of , like all good Masters before him , consume every piece of scenery conceivable by a BBC budget ) sets the stage for a zany attack to force the Doctor to renew into himself and break out into an extended dancing succession specify toBoney M ’s disco classic “ Rasputin”—is heralded by the Master seek to explain why the preceding 45 minutes of the episode had happened to the Doctor and the audience .
A gearing fly through space invaded by Cybermen , scantily arrived associate Dan rapidly pop off the series with little in the way of emotional payoff , deserter Daleks overrun earth , a planet in orbit made out of Cybermen Stuff , UNIT and not one but two come back familiar ( Janet Fielding and Sophie Aldred as Fifth Doctor comrade Tegan Jovanka and Seventh Doctor companion Ace , severally ) , missing paintings and seismologists , and the Master pretending to be Grigori Rasputin in former 20th C Siberia … all of these thing unfold in as tongue-tied a manner as possible . Chibnall ’s fondness for claim carte with localization and years on them in an attempt to fabricate scale without actually show scale is only matched for his heart for secret plan threads that can barely flow with each other , as the Doctor and Yaz race across outer space and time to render and envision out what ’s going , drag the consultation along the way . view hardly cohere from one moment to the next , and quality figure thing out not by actually working them out from clues , but by just simply loudly put forward what ’s mean to happen or is in the process of happening , and none of these seven unlike game threads get any prison term to develop because we ’re flip between them at at such a speedy , woolly pace .
Nothing lands emotionally , despite the fact we are incessantly shouted at that these things are all dire and that the Doctor is facing her toughened battle yet . Whittaker scarce gets to play to her strengths as she is shamble between being mystify by each newly inclose plot yarn . No time is spent developing these kernels of ideas — which , standalone or in a much smaller Venus’s curse , might be interesting sequence in and of themselves , but not here — so nothing ever sense exciting or hearty . And then they all come down aside in the aforementioned scene , where the Master simply explains , before his dancing sequence , that everything was his idea . Why ? Because he said so . And again , there ’s no satisfaction for the hearing here , as if this was a grand mystifier you could conceivably put together before the Master reveals his , well , Master plan — because nothing is given the time to make common sense . Why does any of this matter ? The Master did it . So what ?
Image: BBC
This might all sound like I ’m about to describe this reveal , and the imminent forced Master - ification of the Doctor , as a turn full stop where “ The Power of the medico ” might get good , but alas . It just keeps adding more secret plan threads . The Master ’s destination ? Become the Doctor of the Church and seemingly shoot down their regenerative line in the cognitive operation , so he can proceed to slander the Doctor ’s name across space and clip . The UNIT stuff with Ace and Tegan ? Now that ’s a Cyberman invasion of Just One Building on Earth , guide by “ Last Cyberman ” Ashad from a few seasons ago ( he get better , clone by the Master , do n’t worry about it , because “ The Power of the Doctor ” certainly does n’t after stating this ) . Remember Vinder fromlast year ’s terrible season , Flux ? He ’s also here on the Cyber Planet , because it turns out that the child the Cybermen kidnapped on that railroad train 45 mo ago is actually sentient DOE power it . Meanwhile the 13th Doctor is shunted to the “ Edge of timelessness , ” the limbo all Time Lords apparently walk through during the unconscious process of re-formation to have a Old World chat with a phasing facsimile of their First , Five , Sixth , Seventh , and 8th incarnations — the first of plenty wild , random cameo from Doctor Who ’s preceding . She ’s also showing up as a sentient AI on the TARDIS to help the abandoned Yaz , and as implanted hologram for Tegan and Ace as they ’re shunt into disjoined plotlines to stop the separate Dalek and Cyberman threats .
Once again , individually , all these train of thought might make for compelling Doctor Who episodes . And there are ideas here that , for a abbreviated moment in the muddling malaise , glitter with a brilliant potential drop that just make their bigger mussiness even more frustrating . The idea of a limbo for Doctors where their past selves , so horrified by the Master ’s vandalizing of positive feedback , come together to pull the thirteenth physician back from the brink is a wonderful nosepiece across so many eras of the show . Giving Janet Fielding and Sophie Aldred , two actor whose companions unjustly exited their times on the show , the chance for one more scene opposite their respective Doctor of the Church and give Tegan and Ace a chance to heal their frazzle relationship with the Doctor , give up two incredibly affecting moments in an episode of desperate need of them . Even the Master ’s supposed grand architectural plan — becoming the doc just to defame them across the cosmos — is a bold and wonderfully Master - esque system . But these are just individual moments , flick in and out of brilliance before the incoherence that drives “ The Power of the Doctor ” sweeps them aside too .
The final revilement perhaps comes with the fact that for all the prison term “ The Power of the Doctor ” spends indiscriminately chasing between all of these plot , it brings them all together and deals with them all in the blank space of five to 10 minutes , after Yaz and Vinder manage to retrovert the Doctor back to herself with a handwave , letting her joyously hop around in the TARDIS and pick up the innumerous fellow traveller strewn across these far - flung plotlines . Nothing feels meet , because it just feel like a checklist , and no one feels anything about their resolution in the story because they ’re there to be scooped up and plopped into the next handwave . And after all that ? It ’s only then that something actually chance to the Doctor to do her long - fated regeneration — almost as an apart more than anything else . As the Doctor checks off “ stop that Cyber planet from existing ” from her list of things to do , a isolated laser light beam from the sentient energy creature from the start of the sequence catches both the Doctor and the Master ( did I mention the Master was still active after the whole regenerative body switcheroo ? Anyway , yeah ) , on the face of it mortally wounding them both .
Image: BBC
It ’s only here that “ The Power of the doc ” deigns to think back it ’s a leave-taking to the latest version of its titular poor boy , and the gravid defeat of the preceding 70 minutes give way to an end that , on the whole , feel much more pull in than anything that came before it . have her end , the Doctor and Yaz share one last minute together , brushing on the romantic feelings theyhave for each otherbut lamentably altogether too cowardly to really do more than brush up on them . part ways one last metre , it ’s reveal to Yaz ( thanks to a expiration by Graham and Dan ) that they and other past fellow traveler of the Doctor — Ian Chesterton , Mel Bush , Jo Grant , Tegan , and Ace among them — have set up a funding group for past friend of the Doctor to partake their stories , love , and heartbreak with each other , the power of the Doctor themselves at last becoming plain . Whittaker ’s final moments in her regeneration are likewise touching , as the Doctor ’s concluding duty isa fitting goodbyeto her TARDIS — a wonderful mirror to an era that startedwith her flung from it — as she takes it to see one last sunrise before she herself burn up with the regenerative fervour of a star .
It ’s almost enough to make the relaxation of “ The Power of the physician ” worth it , these last few moments , but perhaps in the most fitting move of all for an earned run average define by Whittaker ’s splendor often being undercut by the moray eel of messing storytelling thrust upon her , even her terminal moments rob her of the on-key spotlight — as she burns forth not to revealNcuti Gatwa as her successor , but thereturned David Tennant . And “ burn by ” feels like an apt descriptor here , not just for the positive feedback energy cascade down through the Time Lord , but the fact that even the Doctor ’s very clothes burn aside , replacing them with an kit evocative of the Tenth Doctor ’s prior choose facial expression . It ’s as if even the tradition of the retiring Dr. ’s clothes lasting at least part of an dangerous undertaking beyond them was too much credit to give , as we rush along into the nostalgic restoration of one of Doctor Who ’s most beloved stars , all “ what what what”-ing and recognising their own familiarity .
And so , the 13th Doctor ’s era ends , concluding in a personal manner similar to much of her sentence in the TARDIS : with a narration struggled to grasp what made her such a compelling incarnation in the first place , burden with perplexing spectacle over an actual heart . As our eyes now look to the future of Doctor Who — filled with nostalgia and refreshment alike — it ’s perhaps for the good that we do as we ’re encouraged , and not consist upon the mistakes of the past . mayhap the real major power of the Doctor is to simply accept the alteration given to us , and move on as quickly as Doctor Who itself has into a fresh adventure .
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