Review: Doctor Who, “Empire of Death”
Photo: Doctor Who (Disney+)
When I’m reviewing an episode of TV, I’m always trying to balance my initial gut reaction with a more measured perspective on how the episode might age over time. And that can be a hard thing to sum up. Last week, for instance, I found “The Legend of Ruby Sunday” really frustrating on a first watch, but far more engaging on a second, when I let go of my expectations of its plot and just let its vibes wash over me. This week, I’ve got the opposite dilemma. While actively watching “Empire of Death,” I found it to be a thrilling, surprising, moving addition to the Doctor Who canon. By the time it ended, however, I was already starting to feel some doubts creep in. This inventive season finale is the sort of episode that works really well on a scene-to-scene basis, but doesn’t entirely add up to something more in the end. And that’s a bit of a microcosm for what this season as a whole has felt like too.
More than anything, the big-picture problems with this episodically strong season come down to time management. With Ruby’s (at least temporary) goodbye here, she and the Doctor are officially the shortest running TARDIS duo of the modern era. Yet instead of crafting this season with that endpoint in mind, it feels like Davies structured it as if he had all the time in the world. The final scene of “Empire of Death” clarifies the emotional arcs Davies intended for his two leads: Ruby finds her birth mom and realizes her greatest adventure is awaiting her at home, while the Doctor is inspired to think of his own family in a whole new way. But part of the reason the characters have to state those arcs so bluntly is because they haven’t really been woven into this season all that effectively.
Even this two-part finale feels oddly balanced. While the opening Roland Emmerich-by-way-of-Thanos scenes of London-wide destruction are effectively unnerving, it feels like they’ve should’ve taken place last week to beef up the substance of that episode and give this one more room for character work. As is, we spend the first act establishing Sutekh as a threat, five minutes on the Doctor chatting with a mystery woman, a plot-heavy second act on Ruby and the Doctor saving the day, and a final epilogue swerving to Ruby’s birth mom. And while each of those segments are compelling enough in isolation, it’s just a lot for one episode to handle—particularly when it also has to bid farewell to a Doctor/companion duo.
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