So...that was something. This is the first part in the three part finale of this season of Doctor Who, here Clara's friend Rigsy (Yeah, remember him?) calls her up about a strange tattoo he's received, as it turns out, he's been sentenced to death by a hidden alien city in London after supposedly murdering an innocent alien. The Doctor and Clara investigate and as it turns out the entire thing was a hoax so Ashildr could capture The Doctor. However because Clara took Rigsy's sentence for him, she is killed and The Doctor is powerless to do anything.
Let's get the small stuff out of the way, Rigsy is a character from the previous season, granted it was the best episode from that season he really didn't leave much of an impression and i don't see why they brought him back. I guess they just needed someone to be a walking plot point who has some connection to Clara and The Doctor but seriously this is not an important character. He's not bad per say but...seriously, who gives a damn about this guy? Also Ashildr is back, hey, always happy to have more Maisie Williams in this show but i feel like she was wasted, this felt like a role that anyone with a grudge against The Doctor could play, it didn't require any of Ashildr's previously established skills, in fact they had to give her an entirely new one just so the plot makes sense. Both these roles feel very transferable and that really hurts the narrative of this episode.
But that's not what you care about, let's get to Clara's death. Now there are a few things that need to be established beforehand, i've made it clear i was not a fan of Clara in her first season but she has gotten much better lately mostly because of her chemistry with Capaldi and the fact that they've finally written a character for her outside of little miss perfect. And also no, i did not cry at this, not even teary eyed. With that being said, they couldn't have handled her death scene more perfectly, her dialogue with The Doctor and even in death she has to comfort him because she knows he can be a loose cannon, if he blames anyone for her death, hell will break loose. That's what a good companion should do, be there to humanise The Doctor but not fix his mistakes, just help steer him away from making those mistakes in the first place. Even more so Jenna Coleman's performance is excellent, having the perfect mixture between brave yet fearful, compassionate yet angry, supportive yet sad. Not to mention this is pretty rare for Doctor Who to kill off the companion before the finale, i mean yeah this is technically part of the finale but this is only the 1st act, this is usually the bittersweet end of the 3rd act type material, give em credit for handling it differently and making me curious what they're going to do with the next 2 episodes. Seriously i can not understate how well handled this death scene was, the build up was shocking, the killing was disturbing and the aftermath was worrying, top it all off with The Doctor's threat/promise to Ashildr should she mess with him again "I strongly advise you to stay out of my way. You'll find it is a very small universe when I'm angry with you." truly brilliant.
Really that's all there is to talk about, the death scene was perfectly handled while the rest of the episode was ok and didn't really have much to talk about, actually that's kinda been a recurring thing for several episodes this season, most of the episode is just ok but then the finale is fucking brilliant. Hm. Oh well, guess i'll do the same i did for the Zygon episode.
The majority of this episode gets a 6/10, there was a lot of nice production design but the story was lacking.
The final few minutes gets a 9/10, perfectly executed it's just i didn't care enough about Clara to get invested to the point for a 10/10.
-Danny
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