Doctor Who Episodic Coverage: “Empire of Death”

Empire of Death Does Not Finish The Season Well

Empire of Death has weird pacing, a rushed ending for its conflict, and tries to pretend unrelated moments from the season actually reincorporate into the plot. But I didn’t hate watching it. Little sci-fi and fantasy ideas sprinkled throughout are interesting—and I’m glad that the episode finally explains Susan Triad.

Let’s do the praise for that first, actually. Of the many reveals between Empire of Death and The Legend of Ruby Sunday, Susan’s secret was one of the better ones. Because it made enough sense. Doctor Who has extremely loose lore, sure. But I still like it when Doctor Who uses its established sci-fi rules to explain what’s happening. That the setups and payoffs were at least seeded with intent. And the “perception filter” being essentially hijacked to produce envoys for Sutekh is a cool idea.

Maybe Half The Ideas In The Last Episode Are Cool

And like I said, Empire of Death has a few cool ideas on top of that. Retroactive death because of the nature of time travel is a premise that could be used for an entire season. It has that much potential. If I understand it well enough, stuff is dying in the “past,” but not immediately being wiped away from the “present.” And that’s messing with memory, with information, and much more in a surreal and nightmarish way.

Another thing that actually makes Sutekh way too powerful and would break the entire plot if explored fully—but is a really cool idea—is that he’s the god of all death. Meaning he has some control over dead skin cells. Meaning he should be able to do things like raise corpses, control human hair, or use dust in (other) various ways. If Sutekh ever returns for any reason, I do hope they use this idea more.

In league with that, Empire of Death has some really cinematic moments. That big motorcycle chase scene right at the start of the episode was great. It pushed overarching destructive horror to the PG limit. The CGI isn’t always good on Doctor Who—that’s honestly an understatement—but this scene was tense and exciting and a good opening to an episode.

Finally, before I go for the sharp criticism—though I’ve snuck a little in this part too—I do want to say the ending was super emotional in a good way. Like I said in the other review, I can’t tell you if the representation of adoptive families, and finding birth parents, and all of that, is respectful. But, from a pure acting perspective, Millie Gibson and Faye McKeever do a great job getting across so many emotions in their scenes. It’s hard not to feel something when they both start crying. And the ending of the episode does feel like a solid conclusion for Ruby’s arc. It does tie up those more domestic subplots.   

Ah, but I’ve played nice long enough now, haven’t I? I’ve danced around it enough. Let’s talk about Sutekh and let’s talk about twists. Or, in other words, let’s talk spoilers for Empire of Death. But is it really a spoiler to say that the whole universe doesn’t stay dead? Doctor Who isn’t going to end the show with everyone everywhere turned to dust and Sutekh ruling. So, the story had to undo it somehow. The only issue is it undoes it with weird logic that has no basis in anything; no rules that make much sense. The Maestro and The Toymaker were defeated in much the same way: pure nonsense. I understand that having The Doctor win against divinity is going to take some weird justifications, but could we at least have had some clues beforehand about what would work? Can we at least not have Sutekh lose so easily?

Empire of Death Has Such An Anti-Climatic Battle

And speaking of payoffs falling flat: there’s the pointing. I can kind of understand all of the other weird magical stuff for Ruby’s biological parent. The episode does establish some rules with Susan Triad that make it less out-of-nowhere. But the pointing. The framing. The way the story portrays it. It’s just cheating. Who was she pointing for? Why did she do a dramatic spin?

And then there’s the snow. Maybe I missed it or didn’t quite understand it, but did we ever actually get an adequate explanation for the snow? That snow and the stuff related to it stopped The Maestro in The Devil’s Chord—a being that can affect humanity on a global scale. The snow’s capable of being summoned in the far, far future in Space Babies. That’s absurd. I really, truly don’t mind if Doctor Who has magic, but please give it some internal consistency—just a little.

So, yes, like I said. Empire of Death is a mess of an episode with some good moments. All of the acting is grand, especially during the big, emotional ending scenes. I wasn’t bored even as I was baffled. But this is by no means a way to end a season. This is not how you pay off so much foreshadowing. The Legend of Ruby Sunday and Empire of Death, taken as a combo, are probably my least favorite episodes of the whole endeavor. I’d still rewatch them—because I love Doctor Who—but I know I’d be disappointed all over again.    

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