Revelation of the Daleks written by Eric Saward and directed by Graeme Harper

 

This story in a nutshell: The Doctor and Peri visit a planet devoted to the dead...

Theatrical Adventurer: Some have argued that the sixth Doctor does take something of a back seat in Revelation of the Daleks and that this has something to do with Eric Saward's casting of Colin Baker as the Time Lord. Both may be true but I don't think that it detracts from the story as a whole. Colin Baker's Doctor is such a wonderfully dominant figure in every other story in his tenure that a one-off story where he is sidelined in favour of a superbly drawn guest cast is no bad thing. It also helps that the half of the story that he does feature in prominently sees some of his finest characterisation and certainly one of Baker's most charismatic performances. I love the respect that he shows to the mutant, gently holding his hand as he dies in his arms despite the fact that he has just attempted to kill him. This is a Doctor that because of his extremes of personality is capable of surprising you when he is tender. There have been few scenes so perversely engaged in the double entry in Doctor Who then that of the Doctor and Peri climbing over the wall ('I rarely use it...').  Stengos, like Azmael, Magellan and Tonker Travers, is another character that we have never heard of before but has apparently played a pivotal role in the Doctor's life before. There's no reason to assume that everybody that we have encountered with the Doctor are the only people he knows - he surely has off screen adventures (look at all those novels for a start). It's nice for the sixth Doctor to be drawn into an adventure on a personal note for a change, to look out for a friend rather than t repair some piece of the TARDIS. Colin Baker excels at the moments where the Doctor is confronted with something that haunts him (remember his reaction to the end of the universe in The Two Doctors) and he delivers a genuinely traumatized turned when the Time Lord has to face the possibility of his own death (in keeping with the theme). The thought of never again regenerating and that this is where his body will end up, it's the events of The Name of the Doctor in a microcosm. Apparently it would take a mountain to crush an ego like his. The Doctor/Davros confrontation in episode two is one of the greatest scenes of the eighties, both characters given the chance to shine verbally and the Doctor in particular coming to the fore as a moral character who wont stand for Davros' revolting scheme. It's witty, dramatic, grotesque and hugely entertaining. What a shame they didn't get more time together (go and listen to the Big Finish audio Davros for more magic from this pair). The quiet moment where he sits with Orcini at the climax and allows him the dignity of killing himself without objecting might be my favourite sixth Doctor moment and he doesn't say a word.

Busty Babe: Proof, if it was needed, that Peri can work extremely well as a solo companion, that she compliments this Doctor perfectly and that the pair of them can get on. Saward is clearly as bored with all the griping between the pair as everybody else (mind you he was the script editor, he had the power to do something about that a long time ago) and presents a far more effective pairing; playful, considerate and sparky. There's a sly piece of continuity in the opening scenes, harkening back to the Doctor's newfound vegetarianism thanks to the events of The Two Doctors. Peri does not approve, especially of the Doctor's ghastly nut roast rolls. Her botany degree is given some consideration again and she mentions that her grades aren't exactly spectacular - there is an effort to make Peri less of a cipher and more of a person. The scene where she beats the mutant to death to save the Doctor and feels remorse for behaving so savagely could have been hideously overplayed but instead is hauntingly played by both Bryant and Baker and shows the Doctor comforting his companion at a disquieting time. This is the first time Peri has had to kill in order to protect the Doctor. Tellingly Peri admits that the Doctor is a close friend when she thinks that he is dead, a sign of how far they have come since his regeneration. Her scenes with the DJ are vital for her growth, showing her homesick for America that would continue to be explored in the next season.

Scarred Scientist: 'It is an offer that must be fulfilled through blood! Show me your total obedience and kill Jobel!' My personal favourite Davros story. I can sympathise with anybody who might disagree and put forth Genesis of the Daleks of Big Finish's Davros as a alternative (because they are both top dollar too) but for me this is the story that does the most interesting things with the character and presents the most shades. Not only does he live up to the ranting old loon of repute he is also teasing and hilarious, sadistic and manipulative, intelligent and patient, blackly comic and terrifying. Terry Molloy cites this as his personal favourite because he had the chance to bring his voice right down and show a boarding, menacing side to the character that was absent in Resurrection. Early scenes of him sitting like a spider in the heart of Tranquil Respose and directing everything, chuckling to himself as the Doctor walks into his trap, are genuinely unsettling. When Davros has something to giggle about, be scared. He is forced into doing business with people like Kara ad tries to restrain his tongue when dealing with her, sometimes failing dismally. He's in hiding from the authorities and other factions of Daleks and so doesn't want his real name mentioned on open communications. Davros takes perverse pleasure in manipulating Tasambeker, he can see how weak and easily led she is and selects her because of it. He strokes her ego a little, tugs on her insecurities and then directs her to murder the man she loves to please him. It shows a new kind of sadism in the character, playing with peoples emotions for sick pleasure. He had no intention of upholding his promises - as soon as Tasambeker has seen Jobel off, Davros sends in the Daleks to polish her off too. He could have just have easily have dispatched a squad to kill Jobel too, he wanted to manipulate his victim into doing it for him for his own perverse gratification. He's drawn the Doctor to Necros to pull off another joke in awful taste, trying to convince the Time Lord that this is where he is going to die...and then attempting to kill him. He's lost his mind but there is still a keen intelligence shining through, directing all of the insidious threads of this story. I'm not sure if the Davros in the tank was a clone throughout or whether he put one in place as soon as he realised he was being targeted by Orcini but it's a marvellous surprise either way. Trust Davros to be so paranoid as to create another version of himself purely for the purpose of being blown away. His method of receiving universal acclaim (a nice reversal of his usual notoriety) is to take a starving universe, develop a way of luring in the dead, turning them into food and selling it back to them. He's had some revolting ideas in his time but that takes the biscuit. 

Grotesques: Such is the quality of the performances and the dialogue that I feel compelled to give the astonishing guest cast in this adventure a section of their own. It might be predictable to say that they are split into Robert Holmes style double acts (no he wasn't the first person to pair of strong characters against one another but he is responsible for some of the best double acts the show ever presented) but Saward's close friendship with Holmes and his sudden penchant for vivid character pairings is a remarkable co-incidence. When the usual Saward massacre takes place in the second episode you feel every death because these characters have the depth to go on beyond this story...

Few people could admit to have such a bloated ego with so little reason than Mr Jobel, the Chief Embalmer at Tranquil Repose. You'd have to search a long time to find a character quite this grotesque, drowning in his own self importance, convinced that he is something of a ladies man, insulting, flirtatious, lecherous and turncoat. As soon as Jobel sets his sights on Peri nothing can hold him back. His charm has the same effect as repelling magnetic poles, she wants to run as far away from him as possible. Somehow he has caught the eye of Tasambeker, one of the supervising attendants. Jenny Tomasin's performance has come under fire in the past but this is one occasion where an uncomfortable turn isn't a problem - that is the whole point of the character. Dumpy and awkward, she is the obsessive sort who takes out her frustrations with herself out on other people whilst fawning over somebody out of her reach. She's a character that you both despise and pity, not an easy mix to pull off. It's ironic that this doomed love match should end up with a pair of scenes of both characters being killed and Jobel's fate at the hands of the woman he has spurned is perfect, his toupee falling off with his last breath revealing his hideous egg-like dome underneath. All his barely concealed ugliness revealed at his death. Perfect.

One of Sward's most bizarre characters is the DJ, an entertainer that is set up in Tranquil Repose to communicate with the those in suspended animation and keeping them up to date with current affairs and playing them music to make their lying in state an entertaining experience. Whilst his public persona is all overdone humour and in yer face broadcasts, he makes snide and sarcastic asides to the bodies at times that reveal a much more complex character. I think I would be far less forgiving of such an outrageous character (I know some people who wont give this story a chance simply because of the DJ) if it weren't for his gorgeous scenes with Peri in part two where he is revealed to be quite a shy, bashful man. He's confident and charismatic when behind the microphone, adopting the persona of old American DJ's (he'll adopt every persona from Elvis to a stoned out student) but in reality he is quite an unassuming man. I imagine a lot of actors to be like this.

There are also a pair of grave robbers in town, Natasha and Grigory, the former who is trying to find out why the courts were so unwilling to give her fathers body back. Saward uses this pair to suggest that something very sinister is going on, performing the Doctor's role in episode one of investigating the dark underbelly of Tranquil Repose. These two talk in typical Saward macho dialogue but I do love the occasional moment of morbid humour that Grigory brings to the table ('You forget I'm a Doctor, when they slice me open I'll know the name and function of each organ that plops out.').

Saward manages to further carve out this vivid slice of the universe with the use of Kara and Vogel, a shrewd businesswoman and her secretary who are responsible for the processing and shipping of Davros' product. With this pair there is the suggestion that there is a much larger world out there in Necros beyond Tranquil Repose, an industrial nightmare headed by officials with entangled relationships and secrets of their own. With very little help in the way of the script, Eleanor Bron and Hugh Walters manage to suggest that there is far more going on beneath the surface between this pair. The scenes between Davros and this pair are wonderfully entertaining in episode once he realises that she has sent a hit man after him, talking politely about potential dangers but knowing that they are the only danger to each other. The longing look that Vogel gives Kara when he is blasted by a Dalek suggests great regret at the life they could have had with Davros out of the way. Isn't it wonderful how Davros forces Kara into admitting that she sent Orcini to murder Davros with a great big bomb and thus signs her own death warrant? Since when did Davros getting the upper hand become so delightful?

The corner of the galaxy that this story portrays is further expanded with Orcini and Bostock, a pair of assassins hired by Kara to take out Davros. Steeped in honour and looking for glory, these two could easily have been macho clichés but thanks to a pair of subtle performances, especially from William Gaunt, who imbues Orcini with a courteous stillness that somehow makes his history as a professional murderer even more convincing. It is the relationship between the two characters that us again so interesting, a pupil and a mentor but it seems to go much deeper than that. There is a respect between them that suggests a long partnership and Orcini's quiet and understated stroking of his squire's head after he dies and he is about to commit suicide speaks a thousand words. Interestingly as soon as Bostock is dispatched by a Dalek, Orcini is happy to throw his life away too.

Probably the least interesting are Takis and Lilt because they are portrayed as little more than violent thugs (well Lilt is, Takis usually stands back smugly and let's it happen) but once again they are terrifically cast. The most interesting thing about this twosome is their apparent turn at the climax, suddenly becoming the good guys after spending the story roughing up characters, going at them with knives and alcohol and fists. Clearly Lilt is a little deranged ( Takis is no better, setting him on people like a guard dog) but were they simply reacting to a restrictive situation set up by Davros? Will things genuinely be more productive with these two in charge?

Sparkling Dialogue: I could recite half the script, but these are my personal favourites...

'I hope they're on time, she's already started to froth.'

'I killed him...and he forgave me. Why did he have to be so nice about it?' 'You had no choice.'

'You've got a wife and half there, George. They found a cure for Bex syndrome forty years ago. Still, it would be interesting to know what she's really doing with the money.'

'There will be no drinking, swearing or smoking of herbal mixture in the presence of the deceased...'

'Those rose red ruby lips were made for kissing...' '...but not by you' 'I love a woman who plays hard to get' 'Then you'll love me to death!'

'Serve me with your total being and I shall allow you to become a Dalek...'

'I would rather run away with my mother than own a fawning little creep like you.'

'This is a highly directional, ultra sonic beam of rock and roll! It kills!'

'But did you bother to tell anyone that they might be eating their own relatives?' 'Certainly not! That would create what I believe is coined consumer resistance! They were grateful for the food...it allowed them to go on living.' 

The Good:

* Few things excite me more than seeing the TARDIS make a beautiful landing in a picturesque setting (I don't get out much) and the opening to Revelation of the Daleks is a particularly gorgeous example. Standing askew atop a snowy hillock, freezing mist battering its exterior. Graeme Harper sure knew how to get value on screen and the most out of his locations.

* I love the confidence of Saward's writing and how he isn't afraid to have two narratives co-incide briefly in the same scene without either of them meeting (such as the grave robbers dashing through the corridors of Tranquil Respose at the end of Jobel's rant about etiquette).  Or how he can shift tones so self-assuredly, turning the mutants attack into a touching warning of the shocking experiments that are going on on Necros. He's far more invested in his guest characters in episode one than he is in the Doctor and Peri (despite characterising both of them magnificently) but in order to pull that off there has to plenty going on and real complexities in the relationships. It's hard to believe that this is the same writer that brought us the surface-level depth of The Visitation and Earthshock (both stories barely contained characters) - with Revelation Saward has managed to brew up a whole world of nuanced characters, intriguing situations, engaging relationships and twisting loyalties. There are plenty of worlds in Doctor Who that seem specifically designed for the titular character to land in and sort out its problems. That is it's only function, to provide a setting for a Doctor Who story. Not so with Necros, this is busy world, populated with strange, perverse, wonderful characters and it's complexities exist whether the Doctor visits or not. The fact that the Doctor is kept out of the action for so long and this world keeps on turning in a fascinating way proves that. It's Saward's greatest achievement on the show.

* Not only is Revelation of the Daleks one of the funniest serials of the eighties but it is also one of the scariest too. It is packed to the gills full of horrific imagery and frightening moments that I'll give some consideration to here. The attack by the mutant a great example, a thrilling fight sequence that sees a blistered, blemished, salivating man come screaming from the darkened woods and threaten the Doctor and Peri. It's a revolting make up job  and the camera settles at the bottom of the snowy ravine so the Doctor and the mutant can come rolling dynamically down the hill. Truly this is the stuff of nightmares. Although not quite as much as the much celebrated sequence where Natasha discovers her fathers remains in Davros' laboratory of horrors. Lit from below in a pulsating red light, discovering brains suspended in tanks, Natasha and Grigory stumble upon a glass Dalek holding the sickening remains of her father. There is all manner of technology grafted onto his body and pulsating organs and offal smeared across his head - it is one of the most unpleasant sights in the series' long history. More insidious is the psychological implications of the scene, Natasha having a neat breakdown at having to murder her dad in order to protect him. It is impeccably scripted, acted and directed and one of the finest moments of horror in small screen science fiction I have ever seen. I've watched it dozens of times and it still gives me the chills. Stengos is bring turned into a Dalek in the most horrific way imaginable and the way he slips from caring father to mechanical killer (with excellent, rising music) is superbly acted. The assassinations begin in episode two and some of the murders are up close and personal.

* If you are going to write a Doctor Who story that revolves around the theme of death you have to be very sure of the tone you are going for. Saward settles for blackly comic and explores the theme in a number of entertaining ways. I love the idea that if you take a look at the numbers that the whole idea of Tranquil Repose doesn't work - there are simply too many people alive now for people to be stored and brought back once their terminal conditions are curable. And yet people like to believe that there is the possibility of going on and the relatives can live their lives safe in the knowledge that they have done their best by the loved ones...it is a shared delusion when secretly everybody probably knows the truth. That kind of pretence exists in our lives all the time and it's nice to see the most subversive Doctor Who story built around that kind of self delusion. The truth of the matter, though, is positively nauseating. Trust Davros to come along with a scheme that takes care of both over population and starvation in such an awesomely disgusting manner. Yes, that's right, he's turning the dead into food and delivering them back into the hands of their loved ones to nosh on. An idea so grim I am surprised it made it past the censors.

* It's no secret that Graeme Harper is considered one of the finest directors to have worked on Doctor Who, despite only having worked on two stories in the classic series his work really stood out as being more imaginative and dynamic than the directors around him. Some inspired moments of direction: shooting the Daleks from below (designed in cream and gold, looking sexier than ever) for maximum dramatic impact, another scene shot from below that reveals the disfigured state of the corpse told entirely from the point of view of Jobel's haunted face ('I suppose you can't make him look any worse...'), the sudden flick of a knife in front of Vogel's face, the Doctor looking straight into the camera that is posing as a security camera (but with no concessions to the fact until he looks straight at us), the sweeping camera work as the Doctor and Peri walk the steps up to the President's wife's death bed that takes in all the stylish detail of the set, the chilling Dalek eyestalk that comes into view as Tasambeker is offered immortality, the dramatic handheld camerawork as Tasambeker chases Jobel with the hypodermic needle, Davros' hand stretched out with Bostock aiming his gun slowly in the background, the sexiest computer voice in science fiction, plenty of explosive Daleks but especially the exploding glass one and the guard that erupts and parts of it flutter to the ground for an age.

* In Resurrection of the Daleks Saward simply used the creatures as assassins but he tries a completely different and far more insidious tactic in Revelation and thus manages to find new ways to make them Scary. Firstly there is the terrifying notion of people being turned into Daleks on their death bed and the psychological implications of that (dealt with in the transformation of Stengos). Then there is the idea of being offered that form of immortality as a reward. That's chilling. Davros sends a squad of Daleks to 'escort' Kara to him for her protection and it is loaded with ominous threat. Check out the menacing shot of them coming through the mist in the catacombs. Then there is the whole idea of a Dalek civil war, that is barely touched upon here but has massive implications. Finally I love the notion of Daleks being destroyed with music, the joy of which is something that simply could not comprehend. It is the perfect method to dispatch a Dalek because if they took over there would be no music. The Daleks get to murder a great number of the characters and I found the DJ's casual execution the most shocking, mostly thanks to Peri's horrified reaction.

The Bad: The transitions between floors are a neat idea but they don't really work. Tasembeker's 'Find the intruders!' has to be seen to be believed. I get that the Dalek voices are untreated to suggest that they are human...but they don't really work. The climax of the Daleks sweeping in and taking Davros away only feels unsatisfying because I was desperate to know what happened next - a sure sign that this story had sunk its claws into me.

Result: The fact that Revelation of the Daleks was the last story before the hiatus that was enforced on the show because the powers that be thought it was getting too adult is an irony that isn't lost on me. For one story only we enter a world of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, a world of lecherous old men drooling over pretty young things, where blood is on everybody's hands and funky music can be used as a weapon. Mentions of necrophilia, incest, alcoholism and murder. Fingers sliced away by laser beams, women stabbed in the gut, legs blown clean off, organs pulsing organs grafted onto heads, psychological torture and men being force fed liquor. It's a perverse, squalid world that fascinating characters inhabit, a setting that stretches far beyond the confines of Revelation of the Daleks, where the characters pairings have so much more to say than the little they do when they converge at Tranquil Respose. Each double act feels expertly crafted and is impeccably cast, so much so that it feels like a world that is populated by characters that could front a series beyond the trip Doctor Who makes to Necros. It's the perfect world for the Doctor and Peri to visit, a Doctor/companion pairing that has always been a bit more larger than life, because for once they are most subdued and normal characters in the show. I've waxed lyrical about Eric Saward's script and Graeme Harper's direction but both are so different from the norm in the mid eighties that they are worthy of great praise. Saward writes with absolute abandon, refusing to conform with the rules of telling a Doctor Who story and producing his finest work as a result. Harper packs every scene with visual interest, assembles a first rate guest cast that gets to grips with their characters and ensures that the whole piece is constantly moving, imaginatively realised and thick with atmosphere. A lot of credit for that has to go to the set designers and the lightning supervisor, there is far more much creativity in those areas than was the norm during this period. I have watched Revelation of the Daleks more times than I can remember and every time I do there is always something new that I spot, such is the complexity of how this has been put together. The sixth Doctor and Peri might be forgotten in episode one but their material once they join the action is their best and Davros has rarely been written as such a nuanced character, revelling in the madness of his own schemes and seen to be much more than just a one-note ranting villain. It's rare for everything to come together quite this perfectly for Doctor Who, it's even rarer for a story to achieve that and push the envelope quite as much as this one does. Revelation of the Daleks is a thrilling one-off in the season that also gave us Vengeance on Varos and The Two Doctors. It's a remarkable oddity and has stood proudly in my top ten ever since I first saw it: 10/10

Death in Heaven written by Steven Moffat and directed by Rachel Talalay

This story in a nutshell: The dead are coming back and they have been upgraded...

Indefinable: Capaldi slips into Pertwee mode quite easily as he teams up with UNIT but manages to insult, baffle and contradict them at every turn. He is dressed for the part too so it's nice to see him live up to his predecessors role. I'm not sure about this President of Earth nonsense and I'm pleased that the Doctor looks unsure too. Like Pertwee he manages to run rings around them, chastise them but secretly seems to working with them. It takes a great deal to impress this Doctor, especially if you are a human being so for him to offer all of time and space to Osgood says an awful lot. I prefer this Doctor as a more thoughtful, contemplative man and so his James Bond stunts falling from an exploding plane into the TARDIS left me a little cold. Leave that to the younger boys, Doctor. You get back to brooding. The Doctor has been pondering on whether he is a good man or not for an entire season now and delving into the complexities of that question. The conclusion that he has come to in the final episode is that he is simply an idiot with a box and a screwdriver. I can't say that was exactly where I thought this was heading - I was figuring we were going to draw some complex emotional conclusion to all this therapy. Instead the Doctor realises pretty much what he knew all along. That he's a drifter, a helper, a healer. Well, duh. What really worked was the scene between the Doctor and Clara at the conclusion because all the fucked up science fiction nonsense that this episode sports has been dealt with and we are back to two people talking about their relationship. It feels very right that these two should hide their real feelings and pretend that they are okay for sake of the other and part amicably. There's has always been a dysfunctional relationship and it felt right that it should end on this warped and poignant note of pretence. A shame that this couldn't have been the end for them because it would have been a uniquely disquieting split. The Doctor's furious anger at being lied to about the position of Gallifrey, kicking the shit out of the console, was a real eye opener. I hope there is some fallout from that disappointment next year. He's got some scores to settle with Missy.

Impossible Girl: Clara is not needed until the climax in the graveyard and the episode spends an awful long time forgetting about her until then (aside from a brief trip back to the Neversphere where she is keeping up her Doctor ruse). It's a little strange because Dark Water invested so much time in the character and when watching the two episodes back to back it seems very strange to suddenly just forget about her completely for 20 minutes. Not only has lost the man that she loves but now she has to make the choice to kill him all over again. What a cruel decision to have to make. You might think that the writer enjoyed torturing this character? We get some insight into why Clara travelled with the Doctor: because it made her feel really special. She really has had an impressive overhaul this year. It's just a shame things couldn't have worked out better with Danny.

Fruit Bat: Ah, the Master. Or the Mistress. Or Missy. Or whatever we are supposed to call him/her these days. You see what a can of worms you have opened, Moffat? Do I have a problem with the Master regenerating into a woman? Not at all, in fact I find the idea rather a refreshing one for a character that has been pretty much done to death. Why can't Time Lords become Time Ladies? With the feats of science that this race have achieved I'm sure a little gender swapping isn't beyond them. Is this a backdoor way of seeing how well a female Doctor might be taken in the future? Perhaps, and with the near universal acclaim for Michelle Gomez's female Master I could well see that being a possibility in the future. The simple fact of the matter is it comes down to the writing and the performance, not the gender of the character. And one of the reasons that the first half of Death in Heaven was so enjoyable was getting acquainted with this nuttier than squirrel shit Mary Poppins versions of the Master. She's absolutely psychotic and embraces that madness whole-heartedly. Cold blue eyes piercing out of pale moonlight, whispering sadistic threats in the ears of our friends, casually taking lives of people we care about. As much as I enjoyed John Simm's childlike insanity as the Master he never frightened me in the way Gomez does when she murders Osgood. It's so calculated and yet unpredictable, I was on the edge of my seat. Simm's Master was so inextricably linked with David Tennant's Doctor that I cannot imagine the villain without his heroic counterpart (it was their relationship that was so interesting, not so much the character), Gomez stands alone as a formidable nasty. You can see the look of jealousy in Missy's eyes when the Doctor offers Osgood a place in the TARDIS - her cards were marked from that point on. The way she plays with Osgood, making the scientist believe that she has made a decent case for staying alive before killing her is heart in the mouth stuff. I didn't even mind it when she ascended from the heavens, literally playing Mary Poppins. I rather like the fact that she's taking inspiration from the practically perfect. The Master has always been a playful character and why should Missy be any different? Is this the last we have seen of her given that she appears to have been bumped off? Have you seen this show before?

Mr Pink: Danny Pink is resurrected as a Cyberman, a soulless automaton and I couldn't tell the difference between this and the man that has dragged his heels throughout this past season. That's probably the blackest joke of the year. It goes back to presenting a relationship that is fun and zesty and heartfelt...because that wasn't done with Clara and Danny so much of the tragedy that Moffat is trying to present in the graveyard scenes lacks any emotion. I honestly couldn't tell the difference between their conversation about switching off his emotions and their conversation earlier in the season about unruly school kids. We're being asked to care about this pair at the eleventh hour without being given a good enough reason to in the previous eleven episodes. His death felt perfunctory to me, something to tie up the plot and little more.

Sparkling Dialogue: 'You know the best part of not knowing? Not telling you...'

'How can you win a war against an enemy that can weaponise the dead?'

'I'm going to kill you in a minute...'

'Pain is a gift.'

Dreadful Dialogue: 'Hey Missy you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind, hey Missy...' - really?

'Permission to SQUEEEEEEEEEE!' - rivals 'I'm not your boyfriend' as the worst line to grace the series.

Danny's entire speech in the graveyard. Why would he need to make a big rousing speech to a bunch of emotionless automatons? It's almost as if he knew this was his swansong from a popular series and wanted to go out with some style. Logically, it's nonsense.

The Good:

* Kate Stewart throwing down the Invasion-style Cyber head gave me a little thrill.

* Flying Cybermen and a Travelodge. Sums up Doctor Who perfectly. The fantastical and the mundane, side by side.

* What a delicious, macabre idea it is to bring the dead back to life en masse. There was a real buzz of excitement in my house around the appalling concept of dead bursting free of their graves and turning on the living. It continues the themes that were mooted last week in a very in yer face fashion. What's the one thing more appalling than people being burnt alive and begging you to stop whilst it is happening? People being shoved back in their decaying bodies and brought back to life. Missy admitted that our dead far outweigh the living in terms of numbers and we wouldn't have a hope in hell if they were directed to slaughter us. The only problem that I have with the idea is the bodies being turned into Cybermen. Quite aside from the fact that this is their least terrorizing manifestation, just where do the constituent elements come from to turn those rotting corpses into metal men? Even if there is nanotech in the water, you would still need the basic materials for them to make a Cyberman. I find the idea of decomposing cadavers being animated far more frightening (like the one in Mummy on the Orient Express) but I don't think the audience is ready for an episode of The Walking Dead on BBC1 on a Saturday night. Saying that the shots of Clara wandering the moodily it graveyard with Cybermen slowly clawing their way out of the graves are exceptionally creepy. Rachel Talalay should certainly return.

* The scene in the morgue was wonderfully reminiscent of both The Moonbase (the Cyberman under the blanket) and The TV Movie (the rattling door).

* I loved every second of the action sequence on the plane and it proved without a doubt that Doctor Who can pull off cinematic action set pieces on a TV budget. These Cybermen are designed as evil Action Men and work much better when treated like that, performing impossible stunts. Seeing them gliding alongside the plane by use of rocket propelled feet and then smashing their way inside was desperately exciting, the sort of visuals we could only dream of in the classic series. I was floored by the moment when Missy caused the hull of the plane to tear asunder and Kate Stewart was ejected out into the vacuum, screaming. With Osgood murdered too it felt like Moffat had genuinely restored the pulse back to Doctor Who. It's not every day the show sports action like this and it should be relished whilst it lasts. I've heard complaints that the series favours 'the moment' over plot logic and that is a valid argument but when you have moments as dizzying as this it is hard to question the approach.

* The painting of the Brig on the plane was lovely, I wish this tip of a hat to the character had ended there.

The Bad:

* I don't want to be accused of being sexist but I'm not very keen on these sleek, feminine looking Cybermen that the Moffat era has developed. The idea for the redesign in Nightmare in Silver (spits in corner) was that they were smooth and slender so that they could run at incredible speeds. The redesign made sense in that context. Now they are slim line and curvy and yet still stomp around like the old cumbersome ones. When I think back to the original Cybermen with stitched together cloth faces and scream-like mouths this is a world away from that kind of blank horror. Nowadays they look as though they are built for marketing purposes. Frankly, I don't find them very scary and that is a bit of a problem when you are talking about the walking dead.

* This has been a year of pretty impressive pre-title sequences, gripping hooks that sink their claws in and never let go until the credits. Death in Heaven tries to pull off an audacious gag by suggesting that Clara has been the Doctor all along this season. It even goes to the effort of having Coleman's name first in the credits and her eyes replacing Capaldi's in the graphics. The trouble is I could well believe that this was the case. Clara has slowly become the dominant figure in season eight and it has done her character the world of good as a result. She even got to play the Doctor in Flatline whilst he was relegated to the TARDIS. Why not take this idea to its natural conclusion and come out and say that she is the Doctor and that strange Scottish fella is her companion. Unfortunately I was groaning under the weight of the possibility that Moffat (who has made some pretty whacko decisions of late, including adding a whole new Doctor to the shows mythos that we knew nothing about) might genuinely thinking of going ahead with this crazy notion. When it was all revealed to be a con I was left thinking thank goodness for that...and what was the point of it all except to be clever clever?

* People taking selfies with Cybermen? Suddenly comparisons with The Invasion seem irrelevant. What an appalling comment on today's society (and unfortunately an accurate one).

* Why does Kate Stewart talk in sassy quotes all the time. She's less of a character and more of a walking sound bite. Seriously, go and watch this episode again and try and look out for one natural piece of chatter from this character. The Brig was always on duty but I always believed he was a real person. Not so with his daughter.

* There were hints of the Big Finish adventure The Reaping (which made vivid connections between Cybermen and the dead in graves) and the DWM comic strip The Flood (the rain).

* Once the Cybermen have left their graves they amble around the graveyard in a discombobulated fashion, like rat-arsed punters after closing time. Hardly a terrifying threat.

* Missy brought the Doctor and Clara together because one day in the future she would ask him to take her to Hell? Was anybody else expecting a little bit more than that as an explanation for the woman in the shop? Does that mean Missy had a hand in Danny's death. If that was explicitly stated that would make a lot more sense. It would still be pretty underwhelming, but at least it would suggest some kind of pre-planned scheme to bring the Doctor to Missy. This does strike me as Moffat once again suggesting a great overall plan and then tossing a scrap of an answer just to tie up that loose end (see Time of the Doctor and the appalling wrap up of the Silence arc).

* Once Danny has been 'murdered' (i.e. had his emotions switched off) why didn't he kill Clara? Such a song and dance was made of this but instead he gives her the longest hug in the history of television.

* It's time to see where all this insane plotting of Missy's has been heading. She's created a falsified version of Hell and trapped souls there in order to turn her victims bodies into Cybermen and download those souls back in to them once they have been converted. Try saying that three times fast. Complete insanity but certainly on par with the Master's usual lunacy. The only thing that is missing is why. I could have gone along with the idea of her wanting an army to conquer the galaxy and play Goddess. Or to use the Cybermen to systematically destroy every world that the Doctor has ever saved. Instead Moffat goes down the baffling route of Missy having performed this entire stunt simply to give the Doctor an army of Cybermen as a gift. Huh? She wants to give him a present so he can conquer the universe and she can get her friend back. I'm sorry, what? In what should have been a scene where their relationship was laid bare and some conclusions were drawn I was left scratching my head in bewilderment. Either she has fundamentally misunderstood the Doctor and his role in the universe or she is completely bananas. Either way this climactic revelation falls flat on its face. It takes a potentially horrific scenario and turns it into a farce. Suddenly the Cybermen aren't scary, they're just fodder in a bizarre misunderstanding. If Missy wanted to please the Doctor then why didn't she simply ask him what he wanted? If she wanted to show him how similar they are why didn't she ask to travel with him? If she wanted to please him why did she do something that would horrify him as much as resurrecting the dead population of his favourite planet? Or murder his friends? It's best I move on and simply accept that Missy is so gaga that she just makes it up as she goes along. And that goes for Moffat too.

* Why are the wrap up of all these season finales so unconvincingly simple? Let's suck all the Daleks and Cybermen into the void. Let's delete the past year. Let's tow the Earth back to orbit. Let's reboot the universe because Amy Pond says so. This is possibly the worst example yet. The dead have been brought to life and violated across the globe. With the sacrifice of Danny Pink and his compatriots the clouds have vanished and everything has gone back to normal. I think perhaps we are supposed to be thinking more about the sacrifice than how insultingly the grisly developments have been swept away but unfortunately this time Moffat pushed the series off a precipice and attempted to claw his way back up invisibly and failed. Like this madness can just be forgotten?

* The Brigadier Cyberman. Dear God no. Poor Nicholas Courtney must be turning in his grave at the thought of this perverse violation of his character. Watch the Confidential for this episode and listen to Moffat's reasoning behind this. It sounds like he's gone mad. Plus it guts the episode of one of it's best moments, the death of Kate Stewart.

* I don't understand the return of the kid at all. Hasn't the kid been dead for yonks? Shouldn't his body be a decaying mess? Isn't this all a bit cloyingly obvious?

Result: If you had got in touch with me half an hour into Death in Heaven I would have happily have told you that this was the most exciting script that Moffat had written since The Pandorica Opens. Had you come and seen me during the last fifteen minutes you would have found me banging my head on the dining table wondering how it had all gone to pot. It's such a mishmash of good and bad it is impossible trying to judge episode as a whole. At one point I was riveted to my seat at the callous death of a character I liked and later I was trying to claw out my eyeballs as a tribute is made to the Brigadier in the worst possible taste. There's no denying that Moffat has found some inspiration in his creation of Dark Water/Death in Heaven but it is laden with huge flaws that seem destined to crop up with every season finale where everything needs to be tied up neatly for the next season. The good stuff is easy to spot; this is genuinely dynamic episode in parts with an unforgettable attack on a UNIT plane by Cybermen, the ideas are once again pleasingly morbid and the duo of the Doctor and Clara continues to shine when they are together. Michelle Gomez springs into action as Missy and she is as mad as a box of frogs and yet utterly compelling with it, even when Moffat feeds her some appalling dialogue. The only thing that spoils this version of the Master is her motive for why she has pulled off such an insane scheme - it lacks any sense whatsoever. Pretty much everything that takes place in the last 20 minutes sees season eight heading into the delirium of madness, embarrassment and cloying emotion of the sort that it had managed to avoid until now (aside from the climax of Into the Forest of the Night). The graveyard climax that sees Danny Pink depart the show turned me right off. Good riddance, I say. Moffat, like Davies before him needs a strong script editor to tap him on the shoulder and ask 'are you sure that's a good idea?' to ideas like resurrecting the Brigadier as a flying Cyberman, bringing a war victim back to life in a magic glowing cloud or waving a magic wand and making the grim developments of the past couple of episodes disappear like they had never happened. You really shouldn't set up such an insolvable dilemma if you have no means of tidying up satisfactorily. Fortunately the closing scenes restore a little dignity with the Doctor and Clara departing on dishonest terms in what would have been a exclusive way for a Doctor and companion to say goodbye. But Santa has something to say about that. Yeah, you heard me right. Death in Heaven = gripping, action packed, barmy, disturbing, illogical, humiliating, farcical and unsatisfying. A contradictory episode: 6/10 

Dark Water written by Steven Moffat and directed by Rachel Talalay

This story in a nutshell: The Doctor takes Clara to the technological equivalent of hell to save Danny...

Indefinable: Since when was popping off to Hell an option for the Doctor? Capaldi plays the scene when the Doctor learns about Danny's death perfectly, not reacting in the slightest. The moment when the Doctor reveals how much he cares about Clara gives me goosebumps all over - that is the sort of pay off that an entire season of an estranged friendship deserves. The Doctor and Clara have had a hard time adjusting to one another, they have almost split from each other completely when their approaches to time travel clashed dramatically and they have certainly disapproved of each others' lifestyles. At times you have had to wonder whether they like each other at all. In a moment of crystal clarity you realise the depth of feeling between the two of them in a moment worthy of Moffat's predecessor. It's gorgeous. And before it gets too cloying, Moffat pulls back and allows the Doctor to insult his friend immediately after offering his kindest gesture to her. The Doctor's reaction to Missy's identity mirrored my own; absolutely shock and horror. Suddenly the episode takes on a whole new meaning. There is real potential in the relationship between the two of them. Not only are Capaldi and Gomez terrific performers, there is definitely a spark of something special between them (the aggressive, abrasive Time Lord and the flirty, sadistic villainess). This could be a rivalry to watch.

Impossible Girl: I finally got my wish with Clara. She has finally been thrust into a situation of which she has absolutely no control over and where her whole life has been turned upside down in a devastating way. That carefree, smug, unshakeable Clara has most definitely left the building and what is left in its place is a shell of a person that is trying (and failing) to deal with the grief of losing the man she loves. It's an unusually bold step for a writer on this show to make, to put a companion through this kind of turmoil and follow through on the emotional consequences (Victoria, Adric and Tegan also lost loved ones but seemed to get over it in record time - certainly in time to not affect the excitement of the next episode). Clara is in hell, so it seems quite appropriate that she should end up there. Painfully she gives Danny the most precious words that you can just as he steps out into the road and loses his life - it feels as though Moffat is being deliberately perverse to a character that he has championed for the last couple of years. Who cares, it makes great drama. Calling Danny's death boring and ordinary makes perfect sense to somebody who has seen the things she has but to an outsider it might seem that she is heartless. How lovely it is to see Clara's Gran back again, Sheila Reid has makes quite an impression in the few minutes screen time she has and grounds Clara in a way that Moffat rarely achieves. I'd like to see more of her. Clara is so enraged with guilt that she is willing to cut the Doctor off from the TARDIS for good. She's not thinking, she's consumed with guilt and anger and hitting out at the one person she loves. I wish it had played out for real (because it shows a rare intensity and depth between the Doctor and a companion the likes of which I haven't seen since the departures of Amy and Donna). When people are grieving they act out and they push the people they love on the road to acceptance - look at Clara's face when she realises what she has done to the Doctor. This is not the actions of somebody in control of their faculties.

Mr Pink: At last Danny has a reason to be a dour, funless bore - he's been smacked by a car and woken up in the afterlife. That'll put a crimp in anyone's day. One of my biggest issues with Dark Water is Moffat's choice of victim. It has been very hard to give a damn about Danny throughout the season because he has more often than not been portrayed as a right sourpuss, cramping the Doctor's style, dragging his assistant away from fun adventures for lunches in the park and games of scrabble at night and generally pooh-poohing the chance to travel through time and space. He's just not my kind of man. He's got both feet firmly placed in reality and he doesn't want to broaden his horizons. His relationship with Clara hasn't exactly been thrill a minute either. Say what you will about Amy and Rory (and boy did I) but at least they were seen to have fun together and enjoy the moments between either one of them being murdered for the umpteenth time. Clara and Danny's life together seems to consist of their work and dreary evenings at home discussing their work. Frankly the best thing I can imagine happening is Danny being put out of the way so that Clara can sever her ties back home and embrace the life of a time traveller full time. Obviously Danny being killed is a shocking moment but I was immediately thinking of how the show would benefit from such an act, which probably wasn't the effect Moffat was going for. Killing off a character that a portion of the audience hasn't warmed to has potential by putting them in the uncomfortable position of sympathising with somebody they don't like but that isn't the route that Moffat takes because the emphasis is almost entirely on Clara (of course it is, it is practically her show by now). Imagine for a moment that Dark Water was the penultimate episode of season four and it were Wilf who was knocked over by the car. Imagine the effect on the audience that that would have had (I have rarely met anybody who didn't love Wilf). With Danny it is the Adric effect all over again - bumping off a character that hasn't really made a great impact on the show.

Sparkling Dialogue: 'Time can be rewritten' 'With precision. With great care.'

'Do you think that I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?'

'You have IPads in the afterlife?' 'IPads? We have Steve Jobs!' - absolutely tasteless but it's nice to see Moffat making a bold stab at black humour.

The Good:

* The pre-credits sequence has a disquieting air to it throughout, even before the absolute silence when Danny is killed. The image of Clara standing in the middle of the road as the cars roll silently by, trapped in her own morbid delirium pretty much sums up the numbing effect of the first five minutes of Dark Water. It is a brave and uncompromising way to begin in episode, killing off one of your three leads without any fanfare whatsoever and leaving the audience to cope with the news. It's the polar opposite of all those epic 'let's throw everything in but the kitchen sink' pre credits that Moffat was so fond of in the Matt Smith era (see The Time of Angels, The Pandorica Opens, The Impossible Astronaut, Day of the Moon, A Good Man Goes to War, The Wedding of River Song, Asylum of the Daleks); it is focused, intense and loaded with character. This is the sort of Doctor Who I have been expecting from Moffat since he took over. Not clever clever, just smart. 

* I love the fact that an entire CGI landscape (and a pretty interesting looking one as well) is created simply to show that the Doctor is off having adventures without Clara when she phones him. Kudos on creating a volcanic scene as well without using any stock footage (it's a clever mix of CGI, smoke and lighting and feels very old school). The astonishing production values keep on delivering and perhaps the most winding moment of the entire episode comes when Danny looks through a porthole out onto the metropolis spectacle of the Neversphere. The 360 degrees view of the technological Time Lord hole disorients and is best viewed in the dark for maximum effect (accompanied by a super vocal score). Topping off an episode of opposing settings is the flashback to Afghanistan, with it's bleached out colours and dry atmosphere. A step into real world horrors, expertly realised.

* Was I the only person who got a Necros vibe from the Doctor and Clara visiting the Neversphere? The recently departed being taken care of by an organisation that advertises their services. If Capaldi is a riff on Sixie (some would say he is Sixie done right and others would say he is an extension of what has already been trialled in the eighties) and Clara is Peri (argumentative, independent and bizarrely similar looking in places) then it seems appropriate that at the end of their first season they should visit somewhere that is devoted to taking care of the dead (with something sinister going on beneath the surface). If you squint hard enough you can see Sixie and Peri during those initial scenes of the Doctor and Clara exploring the cathedral-like corridors of the Neversphere. I love these moments of the Doctor and his assistant landing somewhere and investigating - it doesn't happen often enough in the new series and is pulled off with a real sense of dread and unsettlement here. 

* What a courageous choice it was to have a flashback to Danny's life in the army, bringing the audience up close and personal with the moment where he took a little boy's life in error. Suddenly the science fiction is stripped away and this terrifyingly real for an instant. Following that up with the reunion with Danny and the boy he killed is one of those scenes where you almost have to pause to take in the implications. You have the chance to talk to innocent child you shot to death in the madness of war. For Doctor Who to even attempt to go here (and it is only an attempt because Moffat doesn't quite have the chops to script the conversation between them where I feel Davies would have known exactly what to say) is dipping its toes in new waters. 

* 'Don't cremate me' A concept so disturbing that Moffat had to pre-warn the audience before it was dumped on them. As much as this is billed as a family show for all ages a large portion of Doctor Who's audience is made up of children. Imagine a seven year old having just lost an uncle or grandparent watching this episode and being introduced to the concept that when they were cremated they were fully conscious of the experience of being burnt alive and begging the family to stop. And breathe. That's a dark place to go. Personally, I love it when the show dares to dig this deep into the pits of despair but I can fully appreciate if parents found this distressing concept a step too far. This is the second time in as many weeks that the series has left a lingering impression with me that I was thinking about for days afterwards (Flatline also had that effect, I found the ideas expanding my mind). Amazing how three words can have such a profound effect. Great stuff.

* 'This is impossible, the dead don't come back...' I think you might have forgotten all of your experiences with the Cybermen, Doctor. They have always been portrayed as the walking dead so they were the natural baddie to bring back for this story. What frustrated me at the climax of this story was how and why they tied into the actual story. They just seemed to be dumped there for impact. 'Upload the mind, upgrade the body...' Interesting hints for the next episode.

* The Master has regenerated into a woman. This is either genius at work or Moffat has finally lost his mind. Let's find out in the next episode.

The Bad:

* Wouldn't Clara have heard Danny being hit by a car? Wouldn't he scream? Wouldn't there be blood? Surely the Doctor doesn't need the keys since he has been seen opening the doors with a click of his fingers?

* I don't like all of the cheats that Moffat pulls off in this episode, like a magician who shows you a trick and then reveals that it was all a con in the first place. Danny Pink is dead (shock horror)...oh no wait he's alive again in some industrial afterlife. Clara has thrown all the TARDIS keys into the heart of an active volcano (shock horror)...oh no wait it was a memory patch illusion created by the Doctor to what she is up to. The Doctor is going to cross the barrier between the living and the dead and step foot into the afterlife (shock horror)...oh no wait it is a piece of Time Lord technology that traps departing souls and holds them until they are ready to be implanted into Cybermen. It's a shame because these moments in the first fifteen minutes are about as gripping as Doctor Who has been in the past four seasons and to have them revealed to be cheats guts them of a lot of their worth. There is nothing more irritating than a writer pretending to be bold and fearless.

* Moffat cannot resist putting a little sex in, can he? The thought of the Master snogging the Doctor's face off is a little disturbing. Isn't it a tad sexist to suggest that because the Master is suddenly a woman that she suddenly wants to jump the Doctor's bones?

* What is the purpose of the dark water beyond hiding the surprise reveal of the Cybermen?

* The cliffhanger should have been just a few seconds earlier when the camera disappeared up the Cybermen's eye. Who gives a damn if Danny presses the button?

Result: We Doctor Who fans are a fickle bunch. We like the familiar as much as we profess to enjoy the show pushing the envelope. The reaction to Dark Water was near complete critical acclaim and I can accredit that to three familiar Doctor Who staples; the return of the Cybermen, the return of the Master and the return of two parters. Don't get me wrong there is a great deal more than that to recommend Dark Water but that triple whammy of surprises in the last ten minutes left most fans in a sticky mess, fangasming over the return of the status quo. Whilst I found a great deal of this episode powerful in its implications, it was also a little too static and cerebral to pass as the lead in to a season finale. I have massive respect for Steven Moffat for attempting to push the envelope as much as he does here; killing off a regular character in such a mundane way, exploring the horror of a companion struggling with grief, the horrific implications of 3W and the dead who have been cremated, the new guise of the Master, the flashbacks to Danny's time in Afghanistan...if his intent was to make the audience sit up and pay attention by taking the show where it had rarely dared to go before then he succeeded admirably. For the most part Dark Water ticks over a lot like Listen earlier in the season, Moffat returning to his horror roots with the show and doing some dark and intelligent things with it. The trouble is this is also the penultimate episode of the season and as such it lacks the sort of showmanship that Davies projected, taking the show to a precipice and wondering how on Earth the show would drag itself back. Moffat writes a twisted piece of science fiction that wants to be quiet and affecting but in the last five minutes he has turn it into a noisy blockbuster because it is the lead in to the final episode of the year. Dark Water lurches into cliffhanger mode, Cybermen inexplicably stepping onto the streets of London and the taking the story into The Invasion territory. It is such an unnatural wrench it gave me narrative whiplash. A lot of this rides on the finale and whether this distraction from the exploration of death was worth it. There are other concerns; Danny death isn't as affecting as it might be because he hasn't enamoured himself to the audience greatly, the dark water is pointless and serves only to hide the Cybermen from view and Moffat cheats on a lot of his promises throughout. Countering that are more strengths; the whole piece looks amazing and features very strong direction courtesy of newcomer Rachel Talalay, the performances are out of this world (particularly Capaldi and Coleman) and the reveal of the Master was a genuine surprise for me (and the implications of that are very interesting). On balance I really enjoyed this for it's courageousness but there were enough flaws to hold it back from being as perfect as everybody is making out. Interestingly I think this would work even better as a standalone episode that didn't have to prop up the climax of the season: 8/10

Flatline written by Jamie Mathieson and directed by Douglas MacKinnon

This story in a nutshell: Creatures from another dimension bleed in to ours with devastating consequences...

Indefinable: He's on fire now. There's no mistaking the fact that Peter Capaldi is playing the Doctor and even trapped in the TARDIS in the strangest of circumstances he still manages to steal the show. The crabby old git is delighted at the fact that he has come face to face with something he hasn't expect and doesn't know how to deal with, his shrinking transport. The twelfth Doctor finally gets one of those big brash 'I am the Doctor' speeches but unusually I was cheering rather than trying to gouge my eyeballs out with a rusty fork. It was nice to see him step from the Ship and take his part in the conclusion (this is the opposite of Kill the Moon in that respect where he took part in the main body of the story but stepped out at the end) but more importantly than that I think this was an exclamatory moment where he is established as the Doctor of the moment. He's had moments before in the season where he has flirted with the role but this is where he embraced it head on and stood up for humanity as he has always done. It helps that it was well scripted and played, naturally. Interestingly the Doctor chooses to interpret the two dimensional creatures motives as hostile when he has no real evidence to support that (body snatching could come as natural to them as breathing). I think viewing them as monsters helps to make what he is about to do more comfortable for him. The fact that he chooses to see conflict rather than communication says a lot about this Doctor.

Impossible Girl: Finally Steven Moffat has made his dream come true and excised the Doctor from the show and pushed a companion of his making centre stage. Moffat has a similar obsession with Clara fronting the series as Davies did with Rose and yet I find the on the whole the Doctor managed to keep hold his series in the first four years in a way that Capaldi failed to do so, relenting a little in season eight. The main thrust of the series is the Clara/Danny relationship, Listen saw her taking another important position in the Doctor's history, Kill the Moon left the weight of the climax entirely in her hands whilst the Doctor skipped off for some tea, Flatline writes him onto the sidelines whilst Clara does all the reacting and come the end of the season Jenna Coleman has replaced Capaldi's face on the credits and her name shoots at the audience first in a bizarre gag. Make no mistake - Moffat has gone on record as saying the show is more about the companion than it is the Doctor and certainly this season he has set out to prove it. Strangely I have reached a point in Flatline where I don't mind anymore. Clara is being written for in such a skilful way and Coleman's performance rockets as a result. Seriously, go back and watch her struggling with the insubstantial characterisation she was handed  in series seven and then watch Flatline. There is a massive difference. I don't know if it is confidence, growth or simply that the writing is geared to making her a character who struggles as opposed to a character who smugly takes everything in her stride. It has taken a whole season (Kill the Moon is where I really felt the shift in her character) but finally Clara works and what's more she's likable, practical and relatable. Credit where it is due, that is quite a transition. Flatline shows you how the show can be fronted by a companion and it can still be recognisably great Doctor Who (the only other time I have felt that was Turn Left, which this episode can't quite match).

I still don't like the idea of Clara popping back and forth between two lives - despite the evidence I fail to see how that could work for either parties or be an entirely satisfying existence for her either. It makes me feel like she is only a temporary companion rather than somebody who is embracing the life and staying for good (I know no companion is ever going to stay for good but I do like the illusion that they will be travelling with him indefinitely for some time). She's bequeathed the screwdriver and the psychic paper and I think (given how abusive he has been to her this year) she has more than earned the chance to prove herself. I'd say she's also earned the opportunity to poke fun at the Doctor whilst pretending to be him. She skips away from a harrowingly dangerous experience whilst lilting 'I love you!' to Danny. I've lamented about her fearlessness in the past but this was pulled off brilliantly. She's been lying to Danny about travelling on board the TARDIS and the Doctor wants answers about that. Clara gets some shocking insight into why the Doctor has to make the decisions he does and gets to understand his cold logic a little better. She talks quickly and smartly when it comes to convincing Rigsy not to sacrifice himself at the climax. In a moment of clarity for the character she stops thinking about what the Doctor would do and starts thinking what she is going to do. It's an important moment and the point where the character has outgrown her mentor. A renaissance moment. Clara uses the resources that she has around her (Rigsy's talent, the 2DIS) to think her own way out of danger. The Doctor wont tell Clara to her face that she did an incredible job but when the moment came he was extremely proud of her.

Sparkling Dialogue: 'It's bigger on the inside!' 'You know I don't think that statement has ever been truer.'

'It's long been theorised but no-one could go there and prove its existence without a heck of a diet!'

The Good:

* A beautifully simple teaser that tells you very little about the villain of the piece but informs you that it is going to be something very different to the norm. I love the dreary lighting and uncharismatic panic of the man, right from the off Flatline is aiming for a cold realism.

* I commented in my piece on Listen that horror is far more frightening when you don't know what is frightening the characters. Despite something of an outcry at the indefinite conclusion of Moffat's best episode of the year, I stand by that opinion. A shadow moving, a noise in the next room, heavy breathing behind you, something brushing past you in the dark...scary ideas that would lose their impact if the lights came on and you could see the nasty that you are facing. Imagination takes you much further than prosthetics and CGI. Flatline takes the idea of an unknowable horror and puts a fascinating spin on it - the horror from another dimension is so different from us we can't tell whether their terminal attacks are intentional or simply their attempts to communicate with us. That's a terrifying notion, especially when you could have the dimensions sucked out of you and wind up a silhouette on the wall in the effort to determine their intentions. At the end of the story we still don't know whether this is a spectacularly bad introduction between the human race and the two dimensional beings or whether they deliberately leaked into our plan of existence to wipe us out. The various ways in which the creatures attempt to understand us prove to be far more chilling than any bog standard Doctor Who monster dribbling along a corridor. There is enough of a hint (the chilling moment where they try and communicate verbally and we realise they are targeting the numbers on the workers jackets) that they are doing something by design...but it is never confirmed what.

* I was starting to wonder with a sense of dread that I had seen everything that this show had to offer (at least under a Moffat administration). At the beginning of the season everything was starting to feel a little samey (the Paternoster Gang, another take on the droids from The Girl in the Fireplace, a lone Dalek in a cell, a celebrity historical, the Doctor living the life of a human being for a spell, etc) but somewhere along the line the innovation train took over and fresh ideas have started to emerge. Imagine my delight with Flatline and it's shrinking TARDIS, an idea so simple (and low budget) that I'm surprised nobody (aside from Christopher H. Bidmead before he officially fell in love with the TARDIS and married one) has played about with it before. A toy sized TARDIS with the Doctor inside? A genius notion that kids can mimic with their toys. The rapidly shrinking doors offering some wonderfully odd visuals and comic moments. Matheson doesn't just suggest the idea, he really plays about with it to see how many ways he can delight us. The 2DIS. Come on, a weapon that bring a two dimensional drawing to life and flatten a three dimensional object into an outline? That's bloody cool. 

* 'No decent characters....bibble bibble bibble' That's pretty much been my biggest complaint in Moffat Who and I've started to sound like a broken record. To be honest the characters in Flatline aren't much cop either, which is a shame after Matheson provided a stellar guest cast in Mummy on the Orient Express. What saves this is the performances, the fact that the situation they are placed in is so interesting and that they are true to themselves throughout. Fenton might be a one-dimensional bully that enjoys getting in the way and insulting people but nothing that he goes through in this episode changes that one jot. Rigsy (an unfortunate name that left me thinking about Rising Damp) is Clara's one-shot companion and he's likable enough. You can't help but cheer for the underdog and clearly society has treated this lad badly. I think the problem with the characters in Flatline is that that the setting is looking to be as naturalistic as possible and as a result the cast are all folks you could meet on the street without any particular quirks that make them stand out.

* I can't remember the last episode that conjured up as much dazzling and terrorizing imagery as Flatline; the one dimensional victims trapped in the walls slowly coming to life, the teeny weeny TARDIS with Capaldi's grumpy face peering out, the spatial dimension trickery of seeing the Doctor in the TARDIS being held by Clara (I kept doing a double take), the blistered desert crags adoring the wall that turn out to be a blown up piece of human skin, the fluidic effect of the creatures running across the floor to reach out to the police officer and watching her melt away into the carpet (a million times more effective than a similar scene in Night Terrors), the giant hand that snatches its victim away, the flickering, screaming shadows emerging from the tunnel...

* Why on Earth is there a chair hanging from the ceiling? That was my first question. Where can I get one? That was my second. What followed was one of my favourite set pieces to have sprung from the last four series of Doctor Who. When the couch bursts and melted away like paint simultaneously exploding outwards and inwards I was slack-jawed and had no idea what was going on. That's an exciting feeling I haven't felt for ages. Terrifying in it's strangeness, whacky in design and an amusing cameo by Danny (let joy be uncontained, he can be funny)...I was in seventh heaven watching this on transmission. That would go down as my favourite scene of the year if it wasn't for the TARDIS on the train track (the Doctor on the train track - Uncle Terrance must be appalled!). Walking the TARDIS off the track with his hand and his little dance when he has succeeded left me applauding the TV. I haven't been this much in love with the show for a long time. The build up to the TARDIS being smacked by the train was expertly handled by the director, leaving me breathless.

* One aspect of the show that I cannot fault this year is the music. There have been some repetitive cues but that doesn't matter one iota because they are all fantastic. Flatline has a terrific soundtrack that allows for quiet moments of understated horror as the reality of the danger that the characters face sinks in and also fast moving action, foot tapping cues that me dancing in my seat whilst gripping the arms in fear.

* Trains! Just when you think this is going to be the super cheapie of the season (comparisons with Fear Her were fair, at least in budgetary terms, until about halfway through) Clara and her chums head into the train dock into what proves to be a vast and robust setting. There are no concessions to this being science fiction as far as the setting is concerned, it's forbidding realism all the way. A neglected council estate, the filthy, forgotten storage area of a train station and dark and dank tunnels underground. After reading Damaged Goods this is was precisely the sort of urban realism that I expected Russell T Davies to bring to the show.

* In a season that has thrown all kinds of horrors at us - hands grabbing from under the bed, giant spiders spitting in the face, a desiccated mummy reaching out of its victims - Flatline delivers the most frightening visuals of the year. Ambling forwards awkwardly like Walking Dead rejects with features that melt and cohere endlessly, the two dimensional beings cloaked in human flesh are a chilling sight to behold. No way to reason with them, no way to stop them. They're coming out of the dark and they're coming for you for goodness only knows what purpose. They're relentless, even after Clara has deployed the train. That's enough to give me nightmares. It's their indefinable nature in conception and realisation that chills the blood.

* Even the climax isn't a cheat. Another of my regular complaints is that the conclusion so often fails to match up to what has gone before it. Unanswered questions, bad logic, deus ex machina, spectacle over intelligence...there are a wealth of reasons why so many NuWho adventures don't quite click. Flatline works because it makes up its own rules and it uses them to provide the solution. The creatures trying to open a door that never existed and leeching the power back into the TARDIS (when it was drawn from it in the first place) makes perfect sense. It's very cleverly done.

The Bad: I am reliably informed by a very handsome friend of mine that despite the odd gesture to suggest that this story is set in Bristol that it does not recognise any part of it that he knows (and he should know, he works at the Caaaaan-cel). It's not a problem for me, Doctor Who often dresses up parts of Wales as other parts of the globe but I wonder if it would be different if it were my home town that was being misrepresented? The closest we've come is Brighton in The Sound of Drums and that nearly brought me out in hives.

Result: The series eight episode that single handedly restored my faith in Doctor Who. Kill the Moon was bold and uncompromisingly frightening and daft and Mummy on the Orient Express provided an atmospheric thrill ride but Flatline truly went where Doctor Who has never gone before and I was all of a tingle throughout. I haven't felt this kind of excitement from the show simply through the possibilities of the ideas and the breadth of the storytelling since series four. Flatline is Doctor Who being made for adults with very little in the way of light relief, pleasant characters or quirky settings and it has a truly foreboding menace. How this aired in the same season of The Caretaker baffles me. You wouldn't want the show to be like this every week but my word has it pulled its socks up and delivered something unique and transfixing. What I loved about this story was how it never stopped giving; it opened up in an unique approach (the shrinking TARDIS) and rather than rest on that idea it kept delivering surprising and ingenious notions until my brain was rattling with them. Matheson pins them to a gripping narrative that puts Clara centre stage and truly allows her to shine. Goodness knows where MacKinnon has been hiding these talents but he is making huge leaps in quality with each episode he directs (check out the progress: The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky, The Power of Three, Cold War, Listen, Time Heist, Flatline). This is the most tautly directed piece of drama to have leapt from Moffat's era, packed full of memorable images and with a tangible sense of tension. I've not been discreet when it comes to my dissatisfaction with the series over the past couple of years and I will equally effusive in my praise for a season that has just knocked three standout episodes out of the park, each one improving on the last. Flatline is bold, imaginative, terrifying and original. An argument for a season comprised entirely of new writers has been made. This is the evidence: 9/10