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20

Ascension of the Cybermen / The Timeless Children



Series 12
Written by Chris Chibnall
Guest starring Sacha Dhawan, Patrick O'Kane, Julie Graham, Ian McElhinney, Steve Toussaint, Rhiannon Clements, Nicholas Briggs, Paul Kasey, Jo Martin

Audience Appreciation Index score: 81 / 82
Reviews: Radio Times (4 out of 5 stars / 2 out of 5 stars), Rotten Tomatoes (7.3 / 93% and 6.3 / 71%)

Been thinking how best to approach the commentary for this one, because there is just SO much to talk about (not all good, either), but I'll give it a shot anyway. As a single episode, I feel Ascension of the Cybermen is definitely the better of this two-part story. We start with what - until later - we don't know is a parallel to the Doctor, seeing Brendan growing up in rural Ireland. Then there's all the rest in between that started to get boring after a while, albeit still intriguing somewhat. How did it all feed into the main story and what was actually happening (or had already happened)? While a fresh approach at storytelling and keeping some mystery, it does make the episode feel quite disjointed at times and like they had to fill up some more time before the big reveal, so let's flesh it out with all of this prior.

Aside from Ashad marking the 'first' return for the Cybermen an episode earlier as the Lone Cyberman, I did feel that this was an incredible reintroduction to the Cybermen, and something that Chibnall managed to nail really well. Legacy monsters definitely are his strength when it comes to Doctor Who (Sea Devils aside) - his Dalek and Cyberman stories were excellent. Having older Cybermen appear early on in the story, and then the brand new versions aboard the spaceship was great. Granted, they weren't as menacing or as destructive as they could have been or have been in the past. The guest cast in these episodes were really good too - Ethan is one that I always think about, and one character that really could have worked as a companion, I think. One of those characters you see in one episode and think 'damn'. If only he'd been considered as a replacement for Ryan and Graham when the time came, that would have made for an excellent Series 13 I think (although I love Dan a lot so I don't know if I'd have been okay with sacrificing him for Ethan).

Anyway, fast forwarding a bit to the final act of the first half of the story and we arrive at the 'Boundary', guarded by Ko Sharmus. They really made us think Ko Sharmus was going to be some amazing, returning character or something pivotal to the story, but in the end it really was just some old dude protecting the crossing to the other side. Anyway, the scenes there were decent and it led us to the cliffhanger where the Master returns (Sacha Dhawan in all his crazy, unique brilliantness), and we see Gallifrey through the other side of the portal and the Doctor being told that everything's about to change forever... Ominous, but how? Of course it's going to be about the Timeless Child, so let's go!

So... final episode of the series, The Timeless Children, and the Master makes the Doctor enter the Matrix on Gallifrey and we end up seeing how the Timeless Child came to be, and that an explorer from Gallifrey called Tecteun found the child and became obsessed with their regenerative abilities and worked her whole life to find a way to take it, thus the birth of the Time Lords. This was a good sequence, I won't lie, but the whole episode ends up becoming a major info-dump and needless exposition that could have been executed so much better. I feel like I still haven't covered a lot of what actually happened in the episode that I actually enjoyed, but it did have its moments. The CyberMasters were a great idea in theory, and harnessing the regeneration energy so that they could never die could have been amazing, but again it ended up looking quite silly even though it was meant to be a powerful, quite terrifying moment. One of the Doctor's biggest enemies having that ability, but at least come The Power of the Doctor we know it wasn't all just forgotten about, I guess.

One of the only times Chibnall has actually managed to pull off some humour successfully is when Graham, Yaz and co. were inside the Cyber armour and then removed their helmets to reveal it was them, and the hilarity of all of that. Was a nice moment of comic relief in an episode otherwise dedicated to rewriting the entire history of the show in just over an hour. Anyway, as an episode itself it wasn't too bad - it was nice to see an old TARDIS interior again, it was nice to see Jo Martin's Fugitive Doctor again, and the resolution was alright, if a little rushed given how much of the episode was dedicated to the Timeless Child arc (despite us still having SO many questions). I still don't really know how I feel about this story to this day - I'm on the fence I think. I can appreciate it for what it is and its defining part in Chibnall's era, but at the same time if most of the elements are ignored in the future and completely disregarded by RTD and any future showrunners, I won't be mad. It's just a shame that it's all happened in the first female Doctor's era and just further fuels people's ideologies that Jodie Whittaker's Doctor was a failure on all fronts when that really isn't the case. A lot of individual elements here to enjoy, but as a whole package, not up to scratch (taking into consideration the build up, these two episodes themselves, and what came afterwards too). The cliffhanger was good too (always great to see the Judoon come back after being neglected for so long - more on them later!), but its resolution left much to be desired.