James Lomond is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.
It’s over – we’ve been teased and baited for twelve weeks, and dumped like jilted lovers! Series 8 (or Moff Wars – Episode IV: A New Bloke) has been and gone. That, ladies and Gentleman was the Twelfth Doctor’s first run. But what did YOU, dear reader, think of the parting shot?
Death in Heaven was broadcast last Saturday to an overnight audience of 5.45 million. This tops the overnights for all of Series 8 bar the opening episode Deep Breath that snared 6.8 million. So while not spectacular, this is good and makes sense given it’s the part wth the *big bad*. As usual the final figures will go up by at around 2 million with catch up and repeats and the BBC’s Live+7 figures will add-in all the iPlayer requests over the first seven days.
And what of the casual viewer? The Audience Appreciation Index (AI) is rated out of 100 and gives an indication of the average viewer’s enjoyment. Death in Heaven scored an AI of 83 – given that a score of 85 is considered “excellent” and the average BBC One AI is 81.5 this is pretty good, though represents a drop in appreciation compared to last week’s score of 85 for Dark Water.
The Kasterborous Appreciation Index (KAI) is a similar score out of 100 extrapolated from Kasterborite votes in the first 24 hours after the episode airs. It can’t be directly compared but gives an idea of how much you enjoyed an episode compared to the rest of the series. Death in Heaven scored a KAI of 59.7 which is a pretty big step-down from the first part of the finale with a KAI of 78.2 for Dark Water. In fact this is the second worst rating Kasterborous users have given an episode in Series 8 and well below the Series average of 71.1! More on Series 8 KAIs later…
We should note that a significant majority of people still rated the episode positively (53.3% versus 31.17%) though there were two camps with a bimodal distribution as for last week – this finale has certainly split the audience!
And what did you have to say?…
On the whole you were working through the things that seemed wrong or out of place. The Brigadier as a Cyberman and the appearance of Father Christmas (“Santa Claus”) mid-credits were common sticking-points.
For Ranger, Cyber-Brig was a particular quibble… “And my ultimate hatred, for which Moffatt should be hung, drawn and quartered repeatedly until he doesn’t like it anymore: the Brigadier as a Cyberman, even a good one. What a horrible, despicable thing to do to such an iconic character… A thousand times NO!! It’s even more ghastly than a female Master.”
Bonobobananas got in there minutes after the credit rolled with crushing disappointment… “Words can’t express how much I hated that episode of Who. Sloppily written, mawkish, weeing on the graves of the great and good. And when I thought the last 5 minutes might get something back up pops Santa.”
He later cooled down (a bit)… “…a cyberman with a heart of gold? My word. Goodness me I am fuming. Still, only a program you love can do that to you eh? … I think I left fingernail marks in the armchair.”
Whereas Time Chaser was stoical… “This was in no way the worst finale, that’s for sure. I can deal with this better than I could magic-pixie Doctor in Last of the Time Lords, that’s for sure.”
Fair enough! Some were outraged at Missy’s plan to get the Doctor back on-side which seemed like a betrayal of the character’s MO. Castellan Spandrel answered… “Remember Colony in Space? The Master is awfully keen for the Doctor to rule the galaxy with him.”
Touche! Bonobobananas later returned with a more considered appraisal including the bulleted queries:
“• How do non corporial beings come out from the nethersphere. I can get that Missy can go in and out but dead people? Nope.”
Exactly! And…
“• Why does the Doctor put so many sugar lumps in his tea and then drink from the saucer? (ok never mind)”
Yes. Let’s move on from the tea… DonnaM picked up on the way we’d been told that Danny and Clara loved eachother but never really saw it… “The big problem is the Clara/Danny romance, which never really cut it with me as The Love That Overcomes. It’s probably a matter of the way it was written – Coleman and Anderson are both fine actors, but I had to be told their characters were madly in love because I never actually felt it. Add in the fact that the whole idea has been – pardon the pun – done to death in recent years and there’s a whole plot strand that doesn’t really work…”
While Ranger lamented the lack of agency on the Doctor’s part… “Having another think, I was struck once I got over the sheer dazzling display of Capaldi’s acting, of how little the Doctor does in both episodes of the finale, he actually doesn’t do anything except hang around and chat with a few people. It’s an episode that belongs wholly to Danny Pink as saviour of the human race. That grates a bit, I want a more proactive Doctor and I thought we were getting it in episodes like Mummy and Deep Breath.”
Good point! Though, while there wasn’t any science-cleverness, his decision to give the army over to Danny involved both an answer to his “am I a good man?” question and a rejection of the “blood-soaked general” label…
Then Law S burst onto the scene… “I’m really new to reading the comments and adding my own meagre thoughts on this site. However all the comments iv read have proved interesting and challenged my own perception of Dr Who.”
Hurrah! They continued… “Big unresolved question is what do we all talk about between now and Christmas??”
Don’t you worry 
DonnaM gets the final say, “…Yes there are what some of you will call plot holes, things I will use as challenges to my imagination between now and Series 9. No, it didn’t all make perfect sense, but you can say that about many a story over the years. Not a classic, but a solidly enjoyable tie up to a massively enjoyable series, from my sofa at least.”
And with that we are set adrift in the inter-Series seas… I am quietly confident. And with the new chap at the TARDIS controls, very excited about Series 9 (or Moff Wars – Episode V: The Eyebrows Strike Back). There are good things ahead of us, Kasterborites. But first Christmas! Did anyone else notice that the Doctor seemed to be nodding off as the seasonal knock came on the door?…
The post How Fans Reacted To Death In Heaven! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.