Honestly, the most unforgivable part of this episode is them canonizing the memory Tardis, but not releasing Tales of the Tardis worldwide

I'm someone who gave up a child. And she did find me and her mother. I thanked her family for taking a responsibility I couldn't.

- Why didn't they just go to 2046 right at the start of the series? - Why did it actually snow? - Why bother pointing at the sign? Nuns didn't see her so no one would know she was naming her - What happened to Sutekh when the TARDIS was split? - What happened to the memory TARDIS? - 14 and Donna must have been turned to dust, wonder what he thought of that lol - Sutekh was mystified by this random woman even though he could see ALL of time and space. Why couldn't he see 2046 when the mum took the DNA test? Surely he could find out who she was - If the Toymaker was outside the universe until WBY with the Salt, when did he ever have chance to 'play a game' with Sutekh? He didn't want to go up against the one who waits, who “was there in the dark”, but Sutekh wasn't in the dark, he was on the TARDIS lol Episode just felt rushed and empty when you stand back and look at it. Dunno what RTD was thinking lol

I think the biggest problem with this finale was that it was only two episodes. Story wise, the amount of time between Sutekh being revealed and being defeated felt like watching Utopia and then Last of the Time Lords, with no The Sound of Drums. I think the death wave part of the episode with Sutekh controlling all of reality needed to be a whole episode of its own in order for the resolution to feel impactful/properly earned.

On Ruby saying 'I love you' and the Doctor just smiling and turning away: I read Ruby's 'I love you' as also saying 'if you say the word, I'll go with you' - and that the Doctor heard that, and choose to let her go.

At last. It's time for the real finale. Take us home, Vera.

Re: your point about how the doctor seems to be "running away". As someone who has gone through a quite extensive mental health journey, I clocked that this doctor wasn't "healthy" at all by around episode 4 as he actually reminds me of how I was when I first started therapy. Overly cheerful and prone to infodumping about his past, constantly emotional, crying all the time because he spent so long holding it in and now _he can't turn it off anymore._ it's a bit healthier than he used to be, yeah, but now it's just hurting him in a slightly different way, and the second something triggers him he's relapsing into old habits. I find this to be very realistic! Progress is not linear; the fact that he changed at all is good, anything that's not stagnant or backwards is good, but he didn't flip a switch and become better. I really relate to that.

Why on earth did they give did her the line "my real mum"? That was so mean to Carla.

I think both parts of the finale would have been improved by tightening up the first episode and having it end on the Doctor shouting in grief out the door of the memory TARDIS. That would have raised the stakes significantly and wouldn't have hinged the whole episode on what was an underwhelming anagram twist. The second episode should have opened with Sutekh saying there's still someone he wants to track down, cut to the Doctor on the dying planet. Then the second episode could have had more breathing room which it dearly needed because it felt so truncated. I'm fine with killing Sutekh undoing all the damage because the whole season has been hammering how it's working on fairy tale logic, and that's some straight up fairy tale logic.

RTD said in the behind-the-scenes for this episode that after watching Pyramids of Mars Part 4 as a child, he said to himself "but Sutekh could survive that, what if he secretly grabbed onto the TARDIS as they left?" And I really love that. There's something very wholesome about the fact that he can take the idea he had as a child fan of the show and make it the big season finale so many years later, in his second stint as showrunner no less. That said, I'm still with you on this finale being a mess. All the tension the previous episode built up (which was a LOT) was gone for me the moment I saw Rose and Morris die. Kate dying is unlikely enough, but two minors including Donna's daughter and a kid played by the wonderful Lenny Rush? Nah. I got Last of the Time Lords vibes as soon as that happened. And as you said, it only escalated from there which all felt pretty meaningless. When the stakes are that high, they cease to exist. Morris' pop-out segway guns at the beginning were amazing though. I think I loved that even more than I loved the wheelchair missile in The Star Beast, they're both such UNIT things to have. Obviously giving segway-mounted machine guns to a child is unethical as hell, but unlike the Kate hand-holding thing I gotta give it a pass on Rule of Cool grounds.

One big disappointment: Remember when the Doctor used the "language of ropes" to escape, and was explaining to Ruby how the universe has magical "new rules" he's learning? That really should have played a major role in how he defeated Sutekh, and yet...Not only does it not, but it never really matters to the season as a whole. The one time I think it does is in 73 Yards, and it's not even the Doc who uses it there!

If Ruby's mother had already decided on a name, why didn't she just leave a note in the basket?

I saw someone refer to the moment between Kate and Ibrahim the "UNIT Dating Controversy" and imo that's perfect.

Have to say that RTD disappointed me here in his handling of Ruby's birth mother. It wasn't just Ruby calling her "Mum" last week it was the use of "real Mum" (I'm afraid Vera went even further in this video with "true Mum"). I watched this with the eldest of my two adopted sons and whilst it bothered me, it really upset him. He was insistent that Carla is Ruby's "real Mum", and that's a very common reaction with anyone who was raised by someone other than their birth parents. I understand that RTD has addressed this and has said that it's just Ruby struggling to work out the language because it's all so new to her. I'm glad he'd thought about this and it wasn't just ignorance, but I'm afraid he's got that one badly wrong. The person is new to Ruby, but she's been having conversations about her birth mum her whole life, the language is not new to her. To compound it, my son and I objected strongly to Carla not being present for the initial meeting with the birth mum. I've no problem with the Doctor being there, but Carla should be, too. That's why she was so insistent on going to UNIT in the last episode - I know Vera thought that was clunky but as a fellow adoptive parent I was right there with her - you couldn't have kept me away. When my boys reach 18 they have the choice as to whether they reach out to contact their birth family. If that's what they choose to do, you can bet my wife and I will be there with them.

In Kate Stewart's DEFENCE...everyone in HR was dead lol

So with Kate and Colonel Ibrahim holding hands, why does that have to be a romantic thing? Can't a male and female hold hands platonicly - my reading of it was that it was just a spurr of the moment, glad-to-be-alive thing after being ressurected?

with RTD 1.0 the endings were bolstered by the dynamics between Dr and Rose. Here, we barely got to know Ruby. She hasnt been fully fleshed out the way Rose was. The "I love you" "Goodbye" really didnt hit.

When they dragged Sutekh with the tardis, all I could think of was in National Lampoon’s Vacation when they forget the dog is leashed to the bumper.

yes, colonel sexy and kate's relationship might be a headache for unit hr, but at least she did not pick from her ever-growing pool of child labourers

Death Gods are for life, not just for Christmas!

Ruby’s mother being perfectly normal with no mystery around her sits odd with me precisely bc of how hard it was to find her. There should’ve been workable records. And she was on national TV and specifically stated where she was dropped off and on a very memorable day.

A friend of mine made a really good point that the whole bit with Rubys mom could have been solved if the reveal of her identity had been moved up to the end of the first half, and if Suhteks whole galaxy obliteration had been slower. Then have the doctor running around, ripping his hair out trying to figure out why this woman is so important. Because she must be important. Susan was important, and he missed how until it was to late. Then have it all tie back into not only what we've learned about the power of belief this season, but into one of Dr. Who's oldest dogma. That no one is "unimportant". Even the most ordinary person can be as essential to the fate of the world as the doctor is. He and Ruby then use that knowledge to trick Sutek into thinking this nobody is actually a threat to him, and then itbcan proceed from there.

The way the mystery of Ruby's mother was resolved amounted to "the parents were never DNA tested before"-but the way it was set up was that Ruby had _no DNA matches in any database!_ When you get your DNA tested for ancestry research, the matches you get aren't limited to your parents and siblings: you get hundreds of vaguely distant relatives, and then any second cousins or closer will show up as well. Even without the parents having any recorded relationship, it should've been possible to triangulate pretty closely who their families were, if not find the exact individuals. Having *zero* matches *requires* that Ruby is from another century, at the very least. And anyone who's had such a test and checked the results would know this. An obvious error that's likely to be noticed by hundreds if not thousands of people? Well, this is the same show that claimed pumping *more* oxygen into the atmosphere would make Earth's surface *less* flammable, so 🙄

I don’t like how Sutekh seems less powerful than the Toymaker and even Maestro. For someone who was so hyped up, I didn’t think he lived up to it. Like in a metaphysical way. Yeah he destroyed the universe but it took a long time of planting STriads on every planet. Like the Doctor only beat the other two by challenging them to their own game. Imagine he tried putting either of the other two on a leash and dragging them through the vortex, he would’ve been dead

It feels silly to introduce a one time villain from the classic era that most fans haven't heard of only to kill him off the next episode. This has been a problem with RTD's writing from the start. When he wants a "big bad" for a season he looks to the original series despite being pretty good at writing memorable villains. In his first run it was a safe decision for a reboot with uncertain future. It got old and repetitive (flip a coin, heads Daleks, tales the Master). Now it's a detriment. The villain could have easily have been some new, unknown entity the Doctor accidentally brought back with him in Wild Blue Yonder. Then we wouldn't be wondering what Sutekh was doing for the HUNDREDS of years between Pyramids of Mars till now. We wouldn't be wondering what happened to Sutekh when the TARDIS exploded, or duplicated, or possessed by the House, or anything else that might have happened to it. We wouldn't have to wonder why an ancient god of death would be so fascinated by the mystery surrounding this random human. If it came to the universe recently then it would make sense why it waited till now because it's just figuring out what existence is like. It would be fascinated by Ruby because she was the first enigma it ever came across. But because RTD can't help himself it needs to be something on the Doctor Who wiki already.

RTD seems to berate the fans for being stuck in the past but relies so heavily on nostalgia when it suits him. Can we PLEASE just have a clean slate with the next showrunner like we did with the 2005 revival? Seeing an old Cyberman head in 'Dalek' and having Sarah Jane return in 'School Reunion' was nice, but having the characters literally watch Pyramids of Mars on a tablet is just pushing it.

Tbh it was poorly handled but I like the idea that this whole mess happened because of sutekh thinking that she was pointing at him and going crazy over someone being able to see him but she was just pointing at something behind him. This could also be used to explain the snow because sutekhs main goal was trying to figure out the information on the mother so changed the perception filter to snow when ever Ruby or the Doctor remembered her to encourage them to investigate.

I could see them putting in a brief cameo of Carole Ann Ford where she sees the Doctor and knows that it's him, but he's distracted by something else and just continues on his way and the camera flashes back to her as she just smiles briefly and continues on in another direction.

Empire of death feels more like a mid-season break than a finale.

The reveal of Ruby’s mother’s identity would have been less dumb if the show came up with a better explanation for Ruby’s magical properties.

I'm perfectly fine with Ruby's mother being an ordinary human, except... for the SNOW. What was up with the snow? Like, I can understand that people can imbibe a lot of meaning where none is, like Ruby's mum must be "special" if Ruby "has a song inside her" or if her mum is such a mystery. But they made it physically snow. Normal people can't wish snow into existence.

Nah, that puppy needed a walk. And I thought it was hilarious. XD

This felt like episode 2 & 3 of a three parter smushed into one. With the first ten minutes being speedrun Part 2 and the other 40k being the latter half of Part 3

Fun fact: In the West Midlands of England, Mom is actually the most common abbreviation! It's a small pocket of mom in a sea of mum xD

I’m really confused as to why the episode kept calling Sutekh the god of death. In ancient Egyptian religion, Sutekh was the god of chaos, destruction, deserts and storms. His brother Osiris (whom he killed) was the god of the dead. I also couldn’t recall ‘god of death’ being used ‘Pyramids of Mars’ so I looked up the script. The word death is used 7 times in the story arc. The word destroy (destroyed, destroyer) is used 26 times. Sutekh is referred to as Sutekh the Destroyer, and only once referred to as “Sutekh the great Destroyer, Sutekh the lord of death. I understand that Sutekh’s servants bring “Sutekh’s gift of death”, but that doesn’t make him god of death. I know he wasn’t actually a god in ‘Pyramids’ but I’m really confused as to why RTD made him ‘god of death’ and not ‘god of destruction’. I don’t understand this retconning choice.

I was meh on Space Babies, but every episode after that I have really enjoyed a lot. My problem with the finale is the way Ruby's story wrapped up. They spent almost the entire season building up the whole "Who is Ruby" only for it to be nothing...she is just ordinary. Ordinary people don't make it snow indoors. The emotional payoff was nice though.

Yes, Ruby’s longing to find her birth mother seems strange considering that she was raised from birth by Carla. She had a happy, fulfilling home. Obsessively watching the video of herself being dropped off is just weird to me. The abandonment issues that Ruby seems to have are usually the result of someone who personally knew the parent who bailed. It occurred to me how there’s no version of Superman where Clark longs to find his parents like Ruby does. Even his general curiosity about his background is rooted in his heritage. “Who am I? Why am I different?” But Clark on SMALLVILLE never called Jor-El “dad.” The Superman reference I made also reminds me of the unfortunate racial implication of the white adopted child desperately seeking their white mother while she has two amazing mother figures who are Black. I know it’s not intentional but it reads off to me.

It may be coincidence, or a deliberate misdirect, but... Mrs. Flood's cloak at the end of Empire of Death appears to be the same as the cloak Romana wore in her first appearance in The Ribos Operation.

For all we know, Kate is the younger guy's step mom and that was mother/son bonding. :D

Is anyone else noticing that Mrs Flood is wearing previous companion outfits. When she shows up to look after Cherry Sunday - the grey top and white collar was previously worn by Clara, the Fluffy white coat at the end of the episode looks like one of Romana's outlandish outfits, She wore a puffer vest and a tan / orangish shirt very reminiscent of Rory ... very intriguing

What's going to happen to the other Sutekh presumably sitting on 14's TARDIS..?

Here’s my idea for how the explanation for Ruby’s mother could have worked. The events of The Church on Ruby Road create several precarious paradoxes: first the Goblins steal Ruby as a baby after meeting her as an adult, then the Doctor goes back to 2004 to save her, prompted by her newfound non-existence. It’s safe to assume by the time the Doctor sees Ruby’s mother in 2004, the Tardis is working extra hard to maintain the delicate balance of time. We know Sutekh has an ill-defined ability tied to the Tardis’s perception filter, which allowed him to create Susan Triads. So what if: Sutekh’s usual attempt to create a Susan Triad at this moment was too much for the Tardis to handle and something happened, a glitch of sorts. Instead of creating a Susan Triad, Sutekh’s malfunctioning ability projects instead onto Ruby’s Mother, who happened to be standing exactly 73 yards from the Tardis, and she becomes permanently cloaked in a perception filter. Which is why no one could ever find her. And Sutekh, at the epicentre of this phenomenon, could not perceive her no matter how hard he tried, thus prompting his obsession with her. When Sutehk dies, the filter drops and Ruby can finally find her Mother, who is indeed just an ordinary person who’s always struggled to be noticed and is overjoyed to finally be seen.

My counterpoint to you saying this is what RTD usually does as he did in his old era is that most people expect after 15 years away from the show for him to write it different and don't make same mistakes as RTD1. He should have grown as a writer in that time nit just do the same old thing

Gods were introduced to up the stakes. To be The Doctor’s biggest foes. The Celestial Toymaker is defeated by a game of catch. Maestro is defeated by someone playing the piano. Suntak is killed by The Doctor cutting a piece of rope

I often got the impression that Ruby wanted to find her mother mostly to tell her she was okay- she wanted her birth mother to know how wonderful her life was not to gloat or say that it happened in spite of her, but because she was worried her mother would live her life worried about the child she felt she had to leave behind. He see a lot of thatvwith the penultimate episode.

Frankly I think "messy" is very polite. It also strikes me that even those who are avowedly enthusiastic about recent Who have mostly been saying, hand on heart(s), that this was confusing and disappointing - the rooting crowd are starting to grumble... The overriding sentiment I'm getting is dissatisfaction that we're expected to sit at the feet of the great storyteller and be happy to just be shushed and told it's only fun and fabulous. Nor am I quite sure how much fun it actually is anymore. I think there's a big problem here and it isn't anything to do with agenda. Davies now seems to be in the position where none of his ideas or decisions are even discussed, let alone challenged. No way to run a ship. I also believe that those who haven't seen Pyramids will be encouraged to seek it out and I don't think the recent state of affairs will fare very well in the comparison. Yes it's old, but it's best form in every respect and there's very little jankiness from the production limitations of the day to distract.

I think really, the only way a Susan cameo could work and has a payoff is if she gew old with whatshisface and that allows an older Carole Ann Ford to come back, then either that's that and we don't see what happens next, or she signs off the role onto someone else via a regenration (if she can regenerate). Probably the only way I see it really working

This was the first Doctor Who finale that actively made me want to go to sleep while watching it... at least we got memes of "How did Sutekh react to X story?" I think the point you reference at 9:17 is where I immediately zoned out (possibly influenced by how the last 'full' series ALSO dealt with the threat of the entire universe ending for its stakes). I think both Sutekh and The Beast work better when the threat of what they would do if they escaped is left implied and narrowly avoided by the end of the story. Also imagine if the Season 13 villain that latched onto the TARDIS was Mr Chase instead of Sutekh: "I bring the Krynoid's gift of plants!"

it saw online The Doctor was supposed to say "I love you" to Ruby after she leaves the TARDIS but it was felt that Ncuti Gatwa's performance conveyed the message without needing to say it aloud.

36:30 I think it's worse in the departure scene where Ruby is talking about Louise and says "my mum, my real mum".

I'd rate Empire of Death a 3.5/10. By far the worst finale Russell T Davies has ever written, and while I accept that all of his previous finales also had a deus ex machina ending of some sort they all at least made sure the events of the plot had a lasting consequence on SOMEONE. Pros: - While his intimidation factor wore thin in the later half, Sutekh was genuinely terrifying at the start of the episode. - Mel's character was well acted and her turn to becoming a harbinger of Sutekh gave me chills - I though it was clever how Ruby tricked Sutekh into getting close enough to attach the intelligent rope to Sutekh's collar. - The Doctor being reluctant to kill Sutekh worked well, and Nucti expressed the inner struggle he had between needing to save everyone and remaining a pacifist at heart beautifully. Cons: - As soon as everyone at UNIT HQ and Ruby's family were killed all of the stakes completely disappeared, as it was obvious they were all coming back. - Sutekh killing everyone except Ruby and the Doctor because he was invested in Ruby's backstory was one of the most ridiculous plot contrivances I have ever seen in an episode of Doctor Who. - I immensely dislike the implication that Sutekh managed to kill everything because the Doctor has travelled everywhere in the universe, and I suspect that it will soon be contradicted the next time he travels somewhere presented as being new. - Plot hole 1: If Sutekh has been on the Tardis ever since Pyramids of Mars, how did he survive all those times the Tardis was blown up? - The "Kind Woman"'s story was a complete waste of time. We learnt practically nothing about her or why the Doctor went specifically to her to get a piece of metal. - Plot hole 2: If the Doctor needed a piece of metal to operate the time stream viewer thingy, why didn't he just use one of the many metal objects cluttering the remembrance TARDIS? - Plot hole 3: If the very criteria of Sutekh being able to conquer somewhere was that the Doctor had to visit there first, why was it explained that Roger Ap Gwilliam was safe because he had already been visited by the Doctor? Did no one on set notice how much of a massive self-contradiction that was? - Plot hole 4: So... bringing death to a being that causes death brings life? That's like saying if you shine a light in an already well lit room it'll make the room darker! - None of the people Sutekh killed displayed trauma from thinking that they were going to die and then literally experiencing death. This goes back to what I said before about plot events having no consequences. - Plot holes 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9: If Ruby isn't special, then why did it snow every time she thought of family? Why was her teenage mother wearing monk garb in the CCTV footage? Why did her mother point at the street sign, when she had no idea who was going to find her and choose to name her? Why did Maestro mention that she could feel something powerful inside her? Why did the people in 73 Yards look back at Ruby before they ran away? - Plot holes 10 & 11: If Roger Ap Gwilliam was able to collect Ruby's mother's DNA sample, why did Ruby not look her up in 73 Yards after learning about the DNA samples being collected? I feel like the scene where Roger makes that DNA announcement on the news was deliberately not shown in 73 Yards so people wouldn't notice the plot hole. Also why was Davina McCall, a family tracing expert, unable to find any record of her like Roger's government did?

The more I think about this episode the more angry I get at RTD. I was so excited for his return after years of shit, and he spent a whole season basically lying to the viewers. It's like he was trying to have a go at theorists and speculatiors for trying to predict his story, but he put so much focus on the clues that they weren't even clues, they were questions designed to lead the viewer in a certain direction, even though it's completely meaningless, and you were the idiot for thinking otherwise. I'd honestly like that Ruby's mother is a normal person, if it didn't completely contradict what we were told the whole season. If she's just a normal woman, why does it snow? Why was Maestro so freaked out by the hidden song? Why was she completely impossible to track down? How was she able to carry a baby through a pregnancy presumably for 9 months as a 15 year old, deliver it, and abandon it without anyone finding out? Why did she randomly point at a lamppost for no reason to name her child? And wasn't that a changed memory? I've watched this show my entire life, I've been disappointed at it for years, that's nothing new. I think the difference now is that they're implying future seasons are going to directly continue on from this season, which is in stark contrast to how the show normally works with everything being tied up by the end of the season. I'd honestly be excited if they wanted to take a more serialised approach, but if this is the quality we can expect, how can I get excited?

So the thing about Ruby referring to her birth mother as Mum is that in that final scene in the tardis with the doctor, she does at one point refer to her birth mum as Louise and Carla as mum, which I think quite a few people seemed to have missed.

RTD really needs to comprehend that he is an artist with flaws and actually works on the things that don't work out in his stories. This is way better than blindly self-praising his work "the bestest, the maddest...etc". Not listening to criticism does not mean you are cool or unbothered. Now that season 15/2 is already done, i hope series 3 will have improvements cos Ncuti really deserves a good era. We don't want a repeat of Jodie's situation with Chibnall.

I had a bit of a different take on the Doctor not saying "I love you, too" when Ruby leaves. Part of the arc of their relationship has been about how quickly the Doctor moves on afterwards. He's shown a lot of emotion throughout the season, but after he shows emotion, he then tries to say "okay, moving on" very quickly. He started this right off the bat in The Giggle, when he starts up the TARDIS before 14 and Donna have stepped out. He does it most clearly in Boom. In my opnion (and I think I probably commented this on your Rogue review), the ending of Rogue showed the growth of Ruby's and The Doctor's relationship, because she was able to push back more directly and get The Doctor to stop and process before moving on. In that context, I think the last scene between him and Ruby made sense as a sort of realistic regression of this aspect of character growth. When The Doctor is trying to convince Ruby not to go into the cafe and talk to his mother, the implication is that he knows this will end their travels together, and he's grieving the loss of his best friend and traveling companion. So when they say goodbye on the TARDIS, just as in The Giggle, The Doctor starts it up before Ruby has left in order to try to move on as quickly as possible. When he doesn't say "I love you, too", you can see when he turns around that he's trying not to cry. I don't think this undoes his character growth throughout the season, but it felt like a realistic reaction in the moment to me. On an unrelated note, I'm surprised your discussion around 36:30 didn't include a mention of the phrase "my REAL mom" from Ruby in the TARDIS goodbye scene. THAT line felt VERY out of place to me.

RTD does need to leave these world-ending threats that get resolved and reset so easily, out of his finales and focus on what he does best: character, drama, emotions! Sutekh was just background noise in the engaging (but ultimately disappointing) search for Ruby's mum. Great setup and a meh resolution, pretty much on track for RTD. Anyway, we got some good episodes in this series and hopefully s2 will be better.

In many ways Ruby's story was like my own. I didn't have an obsession with finding my birth parents but I had questions. I spent a year of document research. It was fun and interesting and we were successfully reunited. Just because something is common in literature doesn't mean it isn't true.

It should’ve had sutek just dropped off the tardis and not clung into it for so long

My biggest ruby issue is they made the whole thing about Sutekh only being interested in ruby cos of her mother which is exactly what RTD did, spent the whole season obsessing over her mother than revealed it and now she’s gone. That was her whole story arc which was the storyline tryna paint Sue-tech in a bad light.

The scene with the spoon I count as a negative because it's a wasted idea. I kept thinking of the Big Bang watching this (as the other season that destroyed the universe), and the absence of some of its key elements really stood out: 1) Destruction of the universe was in part 1 so you had time to mull over what on earth they could do next week. That's where last weeks should have ended 2) There was no equivalent of the stone Dalek in this episode to keep the pace up, pacing wise this was a mess. Sutek caring about Ruby's mother made zero sense, the episode needed to be rewritten to see the Doctor basically fleeing into a disintegrating universe with Harbinger pursing them in the real TARDIS. The mystery of Ruby shouldn't have featured at all. 3) As you point out in this case we know everything comes back. In the Big Bang we have only the earth left - but the earth is where you could theoretically pull back to. You have what the cracks had been consuming over time - and eventually what you get back is basically the universe with the damage from the cracks still in place *but* with a few extras from Amy's memory. 4) The Big Bang was a joy of vortex manipulator travel to get all the pieces in place. Empire of Death had no pieces to get into place, the ending felt like it could have happened at any time.

Thinking about it - you know what might have worked better for this episode? Keep the idea of Sutekh being obsessed with the mystery of an orphan - but he's not obsessed with finding out who Ruby's mum is, he's obsessed with The Timeless Child and where The Doctor really comes from - not because he cares who The Doctor really is, but because Sutekh knows there's more universe to be conquered that only The Doctor's memories hold the key to - With Sutekh trying to tempt The Doctor into opening the fobwatch throughout the episode. And then at the end of the episode have The Doctor say he doesn't care about where he comes from, but he knows the pain of not knowing and gives UNIT the DNA sample to help Ruby track down her birth mother. Sutekh gets a better motivation, The Doctor now has some personal stakes in the story, and the idea Ruby's mum is this special being is less overblown.

How did anyone at the time when Ruby was found, know her mother pointed to a sign to name her? At first I thought Mrs flood was going to be Ruby's mum. Now I am torn between her been Susan or maybe. Amy Pond had named her daughter River, so Flood? 🤔

My favourite thing to come out of this finale is the Sutekh memes. And I don't know what that says about the episode but I spent 90 minutes scrolling through them and it was time well spent.

Repeatedly throughout the episode I found myself saying out loud, "This is bad. This is just bad." The story has far too much and too obvious "hand of the author" in it. Far too much of what happened and the way it happened can only be explained with "because that's what the writer wanted to happen." As an example. The explanation for why Sutehk kept The Doctor and Ruby alive was that he didn't get a clear look at Ruby's mother in the past, and it bothered him that he didn't know who she was. But why would that ever bother Sutehk? Sutehk places no value on mortal life. Human beings mean NOTHING to him. Why would it ever bother him that he didn't get to see one random human that he literally does not give one fuck in the universe about? Because that's what the writer wanted and no other reason whatsoever. Too much of the episode is like that. It's not a story where characters are placed into a situation and make decisions to resolve it. It's a story where the author controls the characters like puppets to force the "right" things to happen, and it's bad. 3/10

I thought the same thing about Kate. The way it was shot, and her final words... and then everyone started dying lol. I do feel that if Mel and Susan Triad hadn't survived (they died in a very different way to everyone else), that would've grounded it all a bit more for me.

My main complaint is it was resolved way too quickly and we didn’t have time to sit with the terror of Sutekh’s death wave. I think we needed one more episode: a standalone story in the vein of Utopia or Turn Left, which leads to the Susan Triad/Sutekh reveal as a cliff hanger. Then we get a proper two part finale. Part 1: Sutekh is returning but not at full strength yet, they work out Ruby’s birth mother is tied up it in all (maybe Sutehk let’s something slip), thus organically prompting the investigation in the time window, we get some real consequences (i.e. character deaths) that won’t be undone later, and the episode culminates in Sutekh & his harbingers reaching full strength and initiating the full death wave. We end on The doctor’s agonised scream from the memory Tardis. Part 2 picks up with the scene with the mother and the spoon (pacing wise, that scene feels like the start of a new episode anyway). And then we just get way more time to experience the horror of sutekh’s empire of death as they travel around in the memory Tardis trying to find a solution, figuring out how Ruby’s mother factors in, finally confront Sutekh, and ultimately defeat him with a few more steps, switches in who’s winning, and a better sci-if explanation for why the death + death = life things actually works. When I imagine the episode spaced out like this it resolves most of my gripes. Then just fix the weird details in the conclusion to the Ruby’s birth mother story that Vera mentioned, which, again, if we had more time, would be much easier to do. Basically it all comes down to: 8 episodes is not enough!!!

I can buy that Ruby's mom is ordinary. We've had Bad Wolf, the DoctorDonna, the Impossible Girl, the Hybrid, even the Timeless Child. I'm fine that Ruby isn't another demigod tied in with a cosmic prophecy. I can buy that the supernatural things around Ruby (the snow, the music, the Doctor remembering an event that he didn't stick around to see, even the records to her parents being missing) were the result of Mrs. Flood making Ruby's life more mysterious to keep Sutekh distracted so that her and the Doctor can defeat him. We'll probably get a different answer at Christmas or maybe not at all, but that's what I'm sticking with. BUT I cannot buy that explanation for the point. To have so many false flag clues, to only explain one of them, and that's what you came up with? I'd rather have the woman reach out and whisper something that the Doctor can't hear, and when they figure it out it's something like "Goodbye, Ruby". Still contrived but it makes more sense than just pointing at a sign when there is no one around other than the Doctor.

I mistakenly assumed that dragging Sutekh along the edge of the time vortex was forcing him to "kill his death" as they went so to speak. Not just 'killing sutekh undoes everything'

My personal interpretation on the snow and the recurrent instances of "Carol of the Bells" (presumably, the 'hidden song' mentioned by Maestro) is that it wasn't Ruby's doing at all, but Sutekh's. If Sutekh was present in every place the Doctor and Ruby went, and was bothered by the mystery of Ruby's mother, then possibly he could have been trying to covertly exert some influence in an attempt to trigger Ruby or the Doctor to unearth an unconscious memory of that night. Even though it would potentially jeopardize his plans for revenge against the Doctor, I might be able to buy that the mystery would irritate him enough to do that, given that he's supposed to be omniscient, or likes to think he is. (That, or maybe Mrs. Flood is somehow behind it, and her involvement has yet to be revealed?) The problem, of course, is that all of this is really just a speculative headcanon, because RTD never bothered to _actually_ explicitly explain it, and that... is just poor management of continuity. I get what he was going for with the 'normal person' reveal, but the snow was a massive Chekhov's gun this season, and RTD left it unfired. No amount of 'investing importance' into her mother's identity accounts for the strange things that seemed to follow Ruby the whole time. Honestly, I feel a bit like RTD fell into the same trap that Moffat fell into with Clara in Series 7. Making the mystery box of your season be a major character like the Doctor's companion just isn't a great idea, because in the long run, you're crippling your ability to do the character development work necessary to get the audience to fully connect with them. It forces you to balance 'getting to know them' against 'not getting to know them so quickly that it spoils the reveal at the end'. And with only 8 episodes in the season, that's barely enough time to make the connection with the character even _without_ that balancing act. Any emotional payoff that you're trying to cultivate for the ending isn't going to resonate properly without that connection.

When it comes to Susan, I'd have been happy for the closing shot of this season to be The Doctor visiting Susan, but not saying hi, just watching her from afar and smiles as he sees she's got old, and she's survived and is happy, before leaving. I don't think she needs a big role. Just to give us closure that she's ok and to see Carol Ann Ford reprise the role even just for a small scene like that

So, why did it snow for Ruby during the season if her mother was just a regular woman?

Killing the God of death made me roll my eyes but whatever...I could accept it. It was the fact the mystery surrounding Ruby's mom completely ignored every single clue that we were given is what ticks me off.

The episode had real shining moments Mel bring a badass, Mrs flood honestly her actress nailed it I wouldn’t mind at all if she was just the next missy, the memory tardis although I don’t know why only Ruby could remember it Mel and the doc could’ve helped ? The spoon scene was amazing the acting was great. That said 3 things struck me. Sutekh should’ve entered the tardis when it absorbed the flux. A force of death engineered outside the universe would’ve been perfect for him to ride in on like the maestro with music or toy maker with superstition. It would’ve been 15s specific adventures that made him stronger making it more personal to him and explained Susan’s sudden appearances. Also would’ve been a possible flux fix. I liked that her mum was normal as I was worried she’d have no parents. think ruby and her mum could’ve been explained by being enveloped in a mega perception filter when he landed at the church. It caused her mum to be hard to focus on the cloak, memories changing etc she could’ve been pointing at the tardis as a clue as to what was causing it or like you said leave it unexplained and sutekh being linked the more he brooded the stronger it got. Ruby wasn’t actually making it snow/music it was just a perception filter when her memories were triggered. The doctor going back to the church resulted in the perception filter being cast in the first place wibbly wobbly paradox. Perception filters have been a big thing this season so would’ve fitted in. That colonel that died the last episode should’ve stayed dead. Just one casualty to weigh on the doctors mind, him living really robs that scene between him and Kate. Lastly I’m straining my lower back with that ‘pointing at the sign because of s camera…I’m a snowstorm….73 yards away…’ stretch lol n

I think rtd went over the top with the damage sutek did and he should’ve just kept it to destroying unit or maybe just the uk

A playlist of videos covering the issues with the BBC and transphobic reporting: kzfaq.info/sun/PLmWFOeT2jEofVIDW9X3OL7GqWuX3Dxopu

I'm thunking Mrs Flood is a new God who's power is being aware they are in a tv show , hence the 4th wall breaks. I think if done well it could be really great.

Didnt bat an eyelid when ruby left. Which sucked. I never saw her and the Doctor build any relationship, not enough for that “sad” goodbye.

Mrs Flood theory. She's the god of stories and that's why she can talk to camera, it'll also be a return of the land of fiction which was one of the tales of the TARDIS episodes.

I kinda feel like this episode could have been 2 parts. What Sutekh did was basically in the same scale as Thanos's snap in Avengers: Infinity War. It would have been more interesting if Sutekh would have done his dust of death thing more slowly, made it more personal for the Doctor. Regardless, I liked this episode.

RTD1 finales were way more emotionally satisfying for me. A lot of the problem lies with the length of the season now, there hasn't been much time to invest in 15 and Rubys relationship. Also, RTD1 arcs were subtler than now; this season had way too many mystery boxes. This finale doesn't hold together for me, far too much waffle, too many plot holes, too many questions either unanswered or poorly answered. Totally undermines the whole season.

I see what you're saying about the pointing. The way I rationalized it was by considering that her mother was approximately 15 yrs old at the time. The exposition framed it like a declaration, while the scene itself framed it as if it was meant to be a realization or an epiphany. RTD is getting sloppy imo.

This episode proves your "this needs more than 8" video so, so right. I know and am familiar with the whole cascade of events if this last part, but my experience/enjoyment was affected with the amount of adventures and emotional engagement we did not see. But I still cried in the end. We just should have had more.

For me it was pretty average up till the Ruby reveal... not cause she's normal... just cause all of those things don't make sense... The Maestro commenting she's special and her mom skipping in the time window just cause "we" want her to be special didn't sit right for me... also the snow and the doctor's memory changing wasn't addressed at all... and it prolly has to do with mrs Flood, but they didn't even comment on it... You don't write a mistery for the audience to solve and drop hints all around the place and in the end you go "ah but you see... the butler did it... the reason why none of the clues pointed towards the butler is cause all of those have been hallucinations but you didn't see the people taking the drugs"... When the reveal dropped it felt like RTD going "Aren't I clever?" and me going "no... no, you're not"...

He killed Satan by smashing some pots. He stopped the Master by having the world chant the word "Doctor". Are we going to talk about how he defeated a god planet with a leaf? This is Who. I LOVED this fanale. Im SO excited for the future.

26:00 OH GOD I DIDN'T EVEN CLOCK THAT. Russel dude c'mon don't endorse that!

A Forces CO being romantically involved with a subordinate in most forces is against regulations btw.

I believe that the Memory TARDIS was always intended for this episode, so it's fully canonical. The fact that they retrospectively decided to reuse the set for the "Tales of the TARDIS" series is a bonus... at least for those who can access those minisodes.

With how meta this season has been, it wouldn´t surprise me if Mrs Flood turned out to be Verity Lambert.

I have a feeling with the way they've talked about Susan this season, particularly with where The Doctor reached by the end means that we'll probably see Susan again before the end of RTD's second run as showrunner.

I don't think it's nostalgia goggles making this finale feel worse than other RTD finales, because it wasn't _just_ that everything was resolved conveniently, it's that everything leading up to that was less engaging. Yes, you know everything is gonna get reversed in Last of the Time Lords, but you still FEEL the seriousness of the Master's victory before then, and you specifically want to see Martha succeed because of what it would mean for her. With this, I didn't feel anything toward Sutekh, and all of the good human drama felt incredibly separated from the Sutekh stuff, despite how hard RTD tries to connect the two. It all just felt meaningless

About the orphan thing: I'm personally not an orphan, but I've lived in a happy foster home most of my life, so watching this I clocked on most of the same things. It felt forced to me how easy it was for them to meld together and I felt like calling her birth mother 'mum' was a slap in Carla's face. In my own experience with a living mum, your birth mother takes a different role in your life when they aren't your caregiver. For me, that's a kind of friend, I don't see my mother as having any authority over me, so I speak openly however I want and I don't have to mind my Ps and Qs, but in saying that, I also can't respect her as a mother. Like for example when I do the 'introduce your partner to your parent' thing, I let her have the moment, but my foster parents are going to be the ones I actually want them to impress. Also the name stuff rung hollow to me. I kinda didn't see the point in caring who thought to name Ruby after the road she was brought to, and it could kinda be cruel if it was the mother like... that she didn't think of a name beforehand and just... winged it? This episode could have had more time to deal with the awkwardness that having a mother who isn't filling the mother role imparts. As it was, I was happy for Ruby, but I saw it as another loose end to tie up, not an experience that could very easily have resonated with me. And with the parting scene I clocked on too how weird it was. I mean for me the biggest weirdness was saying 'I love you' to a friend, but that's also a personal ick, I reserve that for romantic partners and for the closest members of my family because well... disjointed family, there is literally no one who has been in my life consistently for long enough to be a PART of it apart from my foster parents, so I don't like to say I love you for much else. So when Ruby said it, it struck me as that hollow 'I love you' you get from someone you see like once or twice a year where you either lie and say it back or try and sidestep it because you don't feel that and don't want to be inauthentic. Either that, or as a very f*cking sudden love confession which is just even worse. So his lack of response didn't strike me as wrong purely because of the hollowness I was reading into the admission. However him trying to avoid the family reunion was very 9th doctor to me, and that clocked to me as a regression in character development. I feel like for me, barring a longer episode count, they couldve had them saying 'I love you' before this, at least in Rogue. I can't interpret this 'love you' as a deep 'I see into your soul and I see how good you are', so it feels kinda dumb for them to portray it like that. Between Ruby and the Doctor 'I love you' should have been the lighter 'hey you're a great mate and I like all the time we spend together' one which was definitely a threshold crossed in Rogue.

You should also do a ranking of Ncuti's outfits through the series

Martha was one season but you saw Martha actually go through alot in many episode and her walking away hit the feels and was dramatic but Ruby sure gets shot but still the 8 episodes didn't feel like she got to grow as much and go through as much of an emotional journey. For me.

I really appreciate your reviews. You're very good at explaining why the thing that bothers me actually bothers me when I can't put into words why. I really feel like if they had another episode to build things a little smoother this storyline would have been better balanced and less underwhelming of a conclusion.

Gonna miss these reviews. I found you through them and have really been enjoying em. Highlight of the week 😅

Good review. I liked the episode, but it has indeed some issues. I agree with most of your points. About the Kate holding hands, my views are a bit different. I noticed that afterwards others suggested that it was romantic. But in the moment to me it was more a familiar gesture. As in we, as a Unit family, just survived an apocalyptic event. And that they were both grateful to be back alive, with their Unit family. I didnt see anything romantic in that. And in a way for me the reaction from the Doctor to Ruby's saying: I love you, mirrored that. A little smile to acknowledge we're family. Similar, because their non-verbal demeanor says we are a family. But maybe that's just me reaching, I just like it as my headcannon.

I had exactly the same experience about thinking they really could be killing off Kate Stewart, to realising it would all un-happen once they also killed Ruby’s family. Everything after that was boring while I waited for the Doctor to find this season’s cosmic ctrl-z.

At the end when the doctor lists off the planets brought back I don't know if they mentioned skaro. that could be Davies trying to phase out the daleks (I know there has been negotiations with the baker Terry estate due to Disney getting involved but I don't know if it's public what the outcome of that was)

My big hangup is... well, I don't know how I feel about rest buttons as a narrative trope (I think I lean towards not liking them). But I feel like it's a trope you have to build up to, or bury the lead on them. But in the first minute of the episode (not counting the recap & opening credits), RTD kills off the entire UNIT cast. In the moment, Russell has so blatantly set up he's doing a reset button. I spent the remainder of the episode going, "you're undoing all of this, why should I care about what's going on?" (That being said, I like the nature of what the reset button is, because it's one of my favorite fantasy tropes: double negative, what happens when death kills death? Life!)

Question: when 15 doubled the Tardis in “Giggle”, did Sutekh pass from 14’s Tardis to 15’s? Or did the process double Sutekh as well?