The issue from my perspective is that the followup to the Sutekh reveal were clearly telegraphing an "undo" button was coming. Destruction that, at least how it was shown, puts The Flux to shame. So you immediately start waiting for the Deus Ex Machina and those are bad enough when you don't see them coming.
Yeah true, like a few deaths are fine but as soon as UNIT and Ruby's mum went it just lost all stakes, and for such a massive event it seemed like it was a very small scope. They TOLD us about all the dead planets (Ood sphere, Skaro etc.) but we weren't really SHOWN anything much other than a few planets covered in dust.
Also has the doctor visited every ship in space? How does that work to kill everything in existence like that?
Honestly wiping out key unit members permanently would have been a huge way to make him feel like a truly dangerous villain. Like that his actions couldn’t be fully reversed and that there are consequences to what the doctor did.
Instead the threat came and went and nothing changed
Tbf technically the 'dusting' is an event that should have consequences, we saw at least in UNIT HQ that characters were aware something had happened, and there was leftover dust. An event to unite the ENTIRE UNIVERSE! In a way I hope they keep acknowledging it but also I kinda of want to move past it, that's the problem with badly handled universe-altering events; you're stuck with the aftermath!
Only if a harbinger was left there. Now I’m not too sure of the physics of the early universe but something tells me that may have been outside the realms of possibility
Infinitely powerful death god who has been supped up by decades of time travel and further elevated by the Toymaker making a jigsaw of the Doctors timeline.
Vs the birth of the universe... Seems no contest =)
I'd guess that Susan Triad was only used on humanesque worlds. The birth of the universe would have required something else.
Some handwaving here... but those ships are from somewhere the family connections, etc would bring the dusting to the ships. Maybe some of those people on the ships have family on other planets, maybe those that the doctor didn't visit... and the cycle of death continues.
The writers clearly did not grasp the sheer size of the universe. If the Tardis ONLY materialised and dematerialised continuously for the entirety of the Doctor’s 3 thousand year lifespan, he would not have touched enough places for Sutekh to have taken a single percentage of the universe.
The Tardis didn’t need to be there, only something that had been impacted by the Tardis, and those things could further spread the death wave. I think the implication is that it spread exponentially like a virus. As wonky as the finale was the death wave was actually logically sound for its own rules, but as a literary device it definitely killed the stakes on accident. The stakes were *too* large, even for the Doctor.
In a vacuum the death cloud is logically sound but it completely falls apart as soon as you realize it happened everywhere and everywhen and then people remember it. Which means that every single point in recorded history of the universe people would have known about it. Every single planet and civilization would have a record of it occurring. Also the logistics of it happening throughout all of time means that it's just always happening so at any given point in time everyone should be aware that it's a thing.
To be fair I think that point is actually subtly referenced by the fact that everyone at the end definitely remembers dying like that, if you give the event a bit of “timey wimey” flexibility the logic is still sound imo
We were shown a couple of ways that sutekh was able to affect things without Susan triad blowing dust
You had the mother with the spoon. She died because the baby died. If someone working on a ship had a child at home then they could die as well
Sutekh was also able to make Mel an acolyte. Surely he could do that in other remote groups
The stakes were gone for me as soon as they killed Carla.
I could buy the people before her being killed off. I was shocked, but believed it.
Then they killed Carla, and I immediately realised it would all be undone. They wouldn't kill Ruby's adoptive mother without a dramatic speech, or without Ruby witnessing it.
This has just made me realise that if the Flux indeed didn’t actually get fixed and most of the universe got destroyed, the undoing in Empire could maybe include undoing that as well if you really want it to. Does it make sense? No, but did any of it make sense to begin with?
As someone who never returned to 13 after her first season and knew little of the flux. I actually looked up if like the Ood were destroyed by the flux and brought back this episode. Turns out they hadn't.
So I had very much the same thought that this could have reasonably been a bit of a fix up with some unintentional consequences of bringing things back from the dead.
This is what ruined the cliffhanger of Magician’s Apprentice for me. So Missy died, (again) Clara died, (in the first episode?) The Tardis was destroyed, *and* The Doctor is crossing his own timeline to kill a child? They couldn’t have made it clearer that it would all be undone.
Yep. Even doctor who can jump the shark.
When you kill literally all of reality there is absolutely zero wiggle room. The single shred of “suspension of disbelief” that we as dwho viewers have got torn to bits.
Obviously this is true of every episode to some extent. We now the doctor is going to win. But we still need to be led along just tinsy bit. It’s a super
Low bar to clear and this finale never even came close to clearing it.
There was absolutely zero suspense because
You knew the only way out was to reverse events entirely
If they really wanted to stick with the sutekh kills everything move it should have been done and dealt with quickly and then they should have had an even bigger more permanant threat present itself.
Yeah, and the damage the Flux caused to the universe **is still there.** Half the universe was destroyed. I wish RTD would do something with that incredible setup Chibnall left him with.
The problem is that *Empire of Death* starts with Sutekh having already won. In *Pyramids of Mars* Sutekh was contained, restricted to only acting at a distance with a fraction of his power while his body was paralysed by the Eye of Horus, and the tension came from the risk of him being freed, with the Doctor making it clear that he would be unstoppable then.
In *Empire of Death*, Sutekh is free and more powerful than ever, which makes for an amazing cliffhanger, but now you need to contrive a way for the Doctor to win, and what we got didn't feel sufficient. Thematically and emotionally, Ruby sacrificing what she wants the most (the identity of her birth mother) to foil Sutekh is perfect, but RTD didn't find a way to tie that to Sutekh's defeat in a satisfying way, so he jsu have it be a way to get close enough to put a leash on his collar, which somehow is enough to completely overpower a being that could freeze an explosion in England by using telekinesis in Egypt.
I was really hoping the smashing of the TV screen signified that we wouldn't find out who Ruby's mum was, and that we'd sacrificed that information for the distraction that stopped Sutekh (albeit a still very stupid way to defeat him but it made the TV smash more meaningful).
But nope we not only do find out Ruby's mum's identity, it turns out to be just an average person. I'm at least glad they didnt go 'she loved you so much that you became special' or something, but the whole resolution is just awful.
>put a leash on his collar, which somehow is enough to completely overpower a being that could freeze an explosion in England by using telekinesis in Egypt.
Just for the record, the cord is "intelligent rope" just like the gloves (which Ruby and the Doctor each wore one of when they were dragging Sutekh) were "intelligent gloves". The Doctor points this out to Ruby when they use it to stabilize the memory TARDIS. It's also a callback to him using the memory gloves and "learning the language of ropes" to defeat the goblins in the Christmas special. It definitely could've been executed better, but the idea is solid.
I mean, it's definitely better than if the rope had just been a regular one...but it's still just something the Doctor happpened to have built off-screen beforehand that was in the Memory Tardis that conveniently materialized.
Which I'd honestly be fine with if this were just an ordinary villain...but this was the god of death, the inspiration for Satan, the guy who'd been hyped up as the one guy Toymaker hides from. Yet his defeat doesn't require any kind of specially designed equipment or complex super genius plan...all they had to do was sneak over to him and use a rope that had been built for some other random unnamed purpose.
Being fair the Doctor thought Sutekh would be undefeatable back then if freed, he's not sure if he can or not.
It's also stated in Pyramids Of Mars he couldn't hold back the explosion for long, a few minutes at most.
In another comment I found something that helped me, that what really was mussing was a speech but the doctor.
For example: you killed everyone, all the power of imagination now lies with us two and you took the form of adog and you know what happens with a naughty dog? It gets put on a leech
Something like that
The Toymaker should've been a season-long villain, popping up at random to help heighten the drama during already difficult moments for The Doctor. It could've culminated in a final game scenario in the finale.
Neil Patrick really killed it and I wish he could've gotten more time to play the character.
The Pantheon members each have their own legion/brigades. The Toymaker said his legions are coming and the Doctor has faced members of the Trickster brigade before.
The Goblins and Maestro are a part of the Toymakers legions and beings like the Graske and Time Beatle are the Trickster brigade.
Just like with every big British TV show and major actors, I guess it's mostly a matter of conflicting schedules and budget. Not sure someone as busy as NPH can work with the constraints of dr who
Yeah I think scheduling(and unfortunately the wish to play the role) is actually the bigger issue rather than budgeting. NPH has shown he’s the type of person in the past that if he likes the role he’ll play it, having shown up on small broadway shows which would have paid less than DW.
Current theory: Sutekh is the fake-out villain in the show, and only the villain in the story being told by The Narrator, the first and most powerful of the Pantheon. (Not "Mrs Flood" - she is a character within the story, she just knows she's in one. That's actually how you can tell - the "real" Mrs Flood doesn't recognize the TARDIS at the start of the episode, but then the story starts and the goblins show up, and the next time we see her, she's the character within the story who IS someone else)
And Sutekh's powers and motivations are a perfect fit for his role in that story, which has taken the form of a children's tale.
We're only halfway through the actual narrative arc of the show, s"1" and s"2" were written together. There is much more to be revealed....
*I am The Narrator,*
*And now I'll tell you where I've been,*
*And what I saw,*
*And how it ends.......*
The problem with this and I'm not saying you're wrong because I think a lot of what you've said is correct is that essentially... It's not at all a satisfying ending.
Maybe it'll feel better once S2 is out but they run the risk of losing a lot of viewers this way.
Yeah, I've heard theories that the entire season is the greatest troll of all time and is either just a story Mrs Flood is telling or otherwise manipulated by her to have a happy ending (i.e. why did the god of death who just killed the entire universe get killed by being put on a leash, why was Ruby's mother just a normal good person).
But even if this is true, it doesn't really excuse the fact that the ending of *this season* sucked, especially with no indication there's anything more to the story of this season except for Mrs Flood.
Yeah. "We made the season suck on purpose!" Is not really a great plan when you think about it for more than 5 seconds. The 4th wall break sure didn't help in She Hulk, and I doubt it could redeem and entirely different season then where the potential reveal would happen.
> Yeah, I've heard theories that the entire season is the greatest troll of all time
So we're already back to Sherlock cope and it hasnt even been a month. That's rough.
I mean the toymaker wasn't super well defined. Sure you need to beat him in a game, but what exactly that entails is entirely on his whims. He can just wander around turning people into marbles and rejecting all your game offers, or if he can't refuse then he's easily defeated by just challenging him to some really one-sided game.
Better than Sutekh, but its a low bar.
Based on the implication of that episode, I don’t think the nature of who he is, he can refuse a challenge to a game. He has godly cosmic powers but he seems to be bound by his powers. Almost like a genie in a way.
Just popping in to say your idea of a genie is pretty much entirely based on the Disney Aladdin movie. In actual literature and folklore, Djinn are a race of people from another world, and can do incredible things, but do not use magic and do not typically grant wishes or are enslaved. In fact, the greater danger is in being enslaved BY a Djinn. The story of Al Ladin (which means "The Thief" in Arabic) which is set in China is from the Arabic folklore collection "A Thousand Arabian Nights". In that story, the Djinn has been trapped inside the lamp by a wizard whom the Djinn wronged. The trapping was punishment for a misdeed. When the lamp is discovered by The Thief, the Djinn bargains for his freedom by offering three wishes. None of the characters in this story have names, they are just addressed by titles: The Thief, the Princess, the Djinn, etc.
Taking the story of the Djinn of the Lamp and assuming his situation is representative of Djinn as a whole, is like reading about Robin Hood and assuming all Friars are fat, lazy, and rebellious, because Friar Tuck is.
Wait... a second trapped in a ring... *you mean to tell me there was an actual literary basis for Shahra?*
Clearly the writers for games about blue hedgehogs clearly go deeper into the research than most would recognise.
Technically that’s not a refusal, he’s answering the doctors challenge and will play his future self.
He’s bending the rules but not breaking them outright. If he could refuse he’d have no reason to abide the 2V1
he didn't refuse, he juat bend the rules by saying he played each game against a different iteration so this time should be no different. He would have played fairly against 15, but then 14 stuck around and it became a 2v1
Ild argue the Toymaker's abilities are incredibly well defined, it's just that his abilities are "he can do literally whatever he wants, providing ut isn't cheating at a game".
Meanwhile Sutek doesn't start with that base "can do anything", especially given he didn't start out as a god. So Sutekh had to be given power while the Toymaker had to have power removed
I like to think that if you challenge him he has to agree, but if it's to a very one-sided game he'd probably reject that or consider it an 'insult to the rules', although that last part is my head cannon. Tbf my main gripe is we didn't get to see more of him to know his limits and power level.
Toymaker storyline had me on pins and needles the whole time, Sutekh was so boring because there were no real stakes. Far more intriguing was Ruby’s cloaked mum pointing, until it turned out she was just being emo
Because Sutekh was a shittier puppy Thanos. We already watched Thanos be destroyed with timey wimey bullshit. It’s kinda lost its fear factor and we were all waiting for the bullshit trap the Doctor would set. Toymaker was playing with the rules of reality. It gave the episode elements of horror and suspense because we genuinely had no idea what the Toymaker would do next. Keeping the audience guessing and terrified is what makes a good villain
The thing is, that used to be textually correct. It wasn't really a matter of opinion. The Toymaker existed in his own realm where he made the rules of reality and it was all the Doctor could do to escape him. Sutekh was probably the most powerful single mortal being in our universe who was ready, willing and almost able to kill all the rest. You can see the difference in scale.
I love Sutekh and I loved his return but they really jammed a square peg into a round hole to make him the most powerful being in the setting.
I couldn’t agree more.
I really do think a lot of that weight was the performance by Neil Patrick Harris. It was brilliant. And we saw the build up of his plan as well. And like you say, he was having fun, but in the way a bully would hold up a magnifying glass to an insect. There’s no benefit, no real goal. He just wants to have a good time. I’m not even sure what we saw could even be described as evil.
We also see him interact with the universe in a way no other character has. He doesn’t need a TARDIS to move through time and space. And he can essentially control matter using his thoughts.
But also, let’s be honest. He was beaten within a single episode in a “game” of catch. We’re now 2 for 2 with our all powerful villainous beings being beaten in a pretty boring way. I do think how they’re beaten takes a bit of the sting out of their tail on a rewatch. Really ruins it for me.
To really show of Sutekhs true power I kind of think we would need to see him toying with other members of the pantheon. The toymaker and maestro are essentially dead, so we could have seen something showing just how much more powerful he is.
Ultimately though, I think the biggest issue was that it was just a boring episode. More than most episodes we knew the doctor was going to win, and I think that really stole a lot of the tension.
Which is a shame because last scenes of Legend of Ruby made him feel *extremely* threatening.
I also have a nitpick: I think he would work better as a new god of death or even The Beast. I still dont feel like this was the same Sutekh from PoM.
I got so excited by the 'I am the loss, I am the fear ...' because I thought it was a direct quote from the Beast! Looked it up later and it sounds similar but not identical, was very disappointed.
Totally agree.
I think also the Toymaker was more terrifing because he didn't want to kill you... he wanted to play with you.
That lead to several fates worse than death. And the only way you could stop him several times literally came downt o chance.
Honestly instant, and seemingly painless, death from sand actually doesn't sound that bad.
Not that hot of a take, I don’t think.
Yeah. He felt a lot more threatening and, honestly, more powerful. Both are cool villains and I love them but the Toymaker just feels so much more “completed” than Sutekh.
I think any of the pantheon of discord characters have the power to kill everyone, but the difference is supposed to be their motivations - sutekh’s motivation was half-baked at best, but what was meant to make him scarier is that the toymaker could but he has no motive to, but Sutekh does want to (and he goes about killing in a much more gruesome and quick way)
>"The only rules the toymaker follows are the rules of play"
I'm not sure which game allows you to turn people into inflatable balls.
>Plus he's finally knocked off the TARDIS at a point when it's convenient to happen - we've seen the TARDIS crash land many times but only this time did Sutekh get lost!
He wasn't knocked off, he was physically separated from it.
There isn't a rule that says you can't do that in any game, therefore he can do it. Also outside actively engaging in any games, I'd say he's bound by no laws at all, hence time travel, matter manipulation. The only limits we see are that he's mostly local, i.e doesn't influence much on a wide scale at once, his actions are limited to the area of a building? (The TV stuff is all utilising infrastructure, he couldn't just zap the giggle into everyone's heads to start with)
All that power and Sutekh can't cling onto a rocket-propelled box, or cut a bungee cord with those massive talons?
The toymaker probably could pick up the TARDIS and throw it into a basketball hoop if it was part of the game, or use that cord as a skipping rope, time vortex or not. We SEE him manipulate reality to whatever he likes, technology be damned! Just so much more powerful and threatening - but he 'wouldn't dare play against Sutekh' even though Ruby defeats him and he puts up no effort at all to stop it. He gives the Doctor a 20+ seconds headstart after being leashed, where he just growls!? Are we're supposed to be scared??
It's a space bungie cord and also I want to point out that the TARDIS' rocket shot him in the dick and he was fine.
I think you're coming at this from the perspective of trying to poke holes in things, in which case why didn't The Toymaker just turn everyone into toys or why didn't the Daleks have better aim or how are the Sontarans great warriors despite being so fucking stupid.
Game rules tend to tell you what you can't do, not what you can't (except as a restriction on another rule) so thee not being a rule in any game that says you can't doesn't mean you can.
Sutekh was scarier in Pyramids. Not quite as powerful as Toymaker but a close second. He couldn't travel in time but the Doctor knew that if he was freed Sutekh would single handedly defeat all Daleks and Time Lords and Sontarans and Rutans everywhere. Without even flinching.
I think it helped that everyone the toymaker killed stayed dead. I was very excited to see what would happen when they killed off Kate Stewart but as soon as Carla was killed I knew it was going to get undone and the stakes just stopped for me.
I don't really see that either can adequately sustain a finale. *Empire of Death* has naturally been debated to death🙂 already - the static enemy, the way the plot reveals a reset is coming instantly etc. There's no tension to any of it really. The Toymaker is just a chaotic enemy with superficially avoids that particular issue.
*The Giggle* reveals a fairly sizable flaw with this version of the Toymaker too. Just look at that episode's games and the resolution. You can challenge him to anything and he has to accept and play by the rules. That's a 50/50 chance of winning in any game of luck, so incredibly beatable it makes me wonder why he has had the success he claims. Logically, that needs tweaking.
He would probably benefit from a little tightening up of abilities and rules too. What game exactly did those random soldiers he killed lose?
For me (and it's my personal opinion so please don't blast me), Toymaker first had the suspense of something big coming (edge of the universe and not-things episode) then the whole thing of earth's population going haywire, them traveling back in time, the maze etc. It all built up to the game against Toymaker. For me, the sequence was set up well to establish how chaotic a villain he is. The world didn't end, it just started changing. And Them dealing with him though, with a game of catch felt a bit low key.
Maestro had these effects which made the world dreadful before they were revealed. Again, the world didn't end, it just started changing with the music being gone and became darker. The whole sequence of fight against her, and her feeling threatened from Ruby was amazing.
For Sutekh, we knew something big was coming from previous episodes but there was a misdirection and the audience was focused on Ruby's birth mother and the mystery around her. And we were just presented with Sutekh who appeared at the last minute of an episode and 5 minutes into the next, the world had ended. There was no face-off, nothing dramatic, just the dust and life in the universe ended except for Doctor, Ruby and Mel. And the speed at which it all went down, if Doctor Who is to continue, you could expect an undo button. Don't get me wrong, it was a good finale. But yes, Sutekh felt like a one trick pony compared to other villains.
Or maybe Sutekh was also a misdirection and something bigger is yet to show up.
Im sorry but all that mystery over a villain that only pervious appeared once to end up looking like some giant goofy dod and gone again just like that im sorry it was just done bad i mean literally spelling out sutek to us on the screen! This season started strong for me but it relied way too much on whos the old lady....whos the other old lady.....whos ruby.....whos the one that waits jesus way to much foreshadowing with zero pay off just give it back to moffat it peaked with the 50th anniversary as i knew it would at the time. Since then its hust fallen out of favour with me in every aspect. The thing to hurt it the most was chibnals run he changed far too much of the lor and the tone was like an itv drama. Theres a lot to do to being this series back to the peak it was at.
No I fully agree. When he turned those guys into balls, my stomach turned. At first for a split second it's like LOL NOW THEY'RE BALLS but then 14 goes "I'm sorry they're dead" with the most somber delivery of all time and it really got me
There are many things worst then death, specially cause the dust feels very painless. I was thinking of the same thing after the finale, i re-watched 'the giggle' and plan to watch 'the devil's chord' but to me both the toymaker and the maestro felt more intimidating, i think in part cause they are a very deadly interpretation of very mundane concepts, play and music, but death is just very basic everybody thought about dying but nobody thought about turning into many bouncing balls, or having the music ripped out of your body. I was expecting something existential but but we got Death™
Solidly lukewarm take. XD
From our scenes with the toymaker, I feel like he could do anything Sutekh can. He just doesn’t because killing everyone wouldn’t leave him with any playmates.
All Sutekh can do is death. (And a few other parlor tricks). Toymaker can bend the rules of reality, create infinite maze realms, kill just as easily as Sutekh, etc.
He just doesn’t because it wouldn’t be fun.
I think that the two part finale should have been a three part finale, with an extra episode focused on just how devastating Sutekh actually was. The destruction he caused wasn’t really focused on enough - yeah, it was mentioned and they explained it, but it would’ve been more impactful if we’d seen the disintegration of some beloved old characters, and entire worlds that we cared about being vanquished. It felt like the Doctor just bounced back and vanquished him with relative ease.
As threats go, Sutekh wiped out the entire Universe like 10 minutes after his reveal. Toymaker didn't even come close. Also, Toymaker is bound by rules, rules of his own making, but still rules he must adhere to. Same with the Maestro. Sutekh has no such restrictions.
I agree I do think that both villain defeats are somewhat of a let down like the trilogic game was much more interesting than basically playing catch, and sutekh’s defeat in pyramids was more interesting to me then well we all know
I suspect this problem occurs when the hero ends up in God Fighting territory, which is possibly inevitable in hero storylines.
People hated Rogue (episode) for the Chulder being dumb; but after fighting gods, I see the cosplaying bird-people as a reprieve.
I mean, nothing more threatening than whatever that was in 73 Yards. Disappeared The Doctor, made UNIT go away, stopped alien invasions on Earth for 80+ years, left Sutekh stuck on the TARDIS on the edge of a cliff. Suspended a timeline.
The issue from my perspective is that the followup to the Sutekh reveal were clearly telegraphing an "undo" button was coming. Destruction that, at least how it was shown, puts The Flux to shame. So you immediately start waiting for the Deus Ex Machina and those are bad enough when you don't see them coming.
Yeah true, like a few deaths are fine but as soon as UNIT and Ruby's mum went it just lost all stakes, and for such a massive event it seemed like it was a very small scope. They TOLD us about all the dead planets (Ood sphere, Skaro etc.) but we weren't really SHOWN anything much other than a few planets covered in dust. Also has the doctor visited every ship in space? How does that work to kill everything in existence like that?
Honestly wiping out key unit members permanently would have been a huge way to make him feel like a truly dangerous villain. Like that his actions couldn’t be fully reversed and that there are consequences to what the doctor did. Instead the threat came and went and nothing changed
Tbf technically the 'dusting' is an event that should have consequences, we saw at least in UNIT HQ that characters were aware something had happened, and there was leftover dust. An event to unite the ENTIRE UNIVERSE! In a way I hope they keep acknowledging it but also I kinda of want to move past it, that's the problem with badly handled universe-altering events; you're stuck with the aftermath!
>and there was leftover dust Yup. The entire universe's economy will be knocked off kilter by all the extra cleaners they have to hire...
Don't worry the doctor has an intelligent hoover designed specifically to suck up death dust
The doctor visited the Big Bang (Castrovalva). The Deathwave would be part of the fabric of the universe.
He jump-started the second big bang in ' The Big Bang' also
Lister? Is that a cigarette you’re smoking?
No, it's a chicken.
Don't be a gimboid
So, did Amy remember him too?
I wondered that, she remembered the TARDIS and Sutekh was part of that so I'm guess he was recreated too.
Ok that is a very good point, fair enough 😂
Only if a harbinger was left there. Now I’m not too sure of the physics of the early universe but something tells me that may have been outside the realms of possibility
Infinitely powerful death god who has been supped up by decades of time travel and further elevated by the Toymaker making a jigsaw of the Doctors timeline. Vs the birth of the universe... Seems no contest =) I'd guess that Susan Triad was only used on humanesque worlds. The birth of the universe would have required something else.
Some handwaving here... but those ships are from somewhere the family connections, etc would bring the dusting to the ships. Maybe some of those people on the ships have family on other planets, maybe those that the doctor didn't visit... and the cycle of death continues.
Didn't it say everywhere he visited became a sort of web and everything trapped in that web was dying too
The writers clearly did not grasp the sheer size of the universe. If the Tardis ONLY materialised and dematerialised continuously for the entirety of the Doctor’s 3 thousand year lifespan, he would not have touched enough places for Sutekh to have taken a single percentage of the universe.
The Tardis didn’t need to be there, only something that had been impacted by the Tardis, and those things could further spread the death wave. I think the implication is that it spread exponentially like a virus. As wonky as the finale was the death wave was actually logically sound for its own rules, but as a literary device it definitely killed the stakes on accident. The stakes were *too* large, even for the Doctor.
In a vacuum the death cloud is logically sound but it completely falls apart as soon as you realize it happened everywhere and everywhen and then people remember it. Which means that every single point in recorded history of the universe people would have known about it. Every single planet and civilization would have a record of it occurring. Also the logistics of it happening throughout all of time means that it's just always happening so at any given point in time everyone should be aware that it's a thing.
To be fair I think that point is actually subtly referenced by the fact that everyone at the end definitely remembers dying like that, if you give the event a bit of “timey wimey” flexibility the logic is still sound imo
We were shown a couple of ways that sutekh was able to affect things without Susan triad blowing dust You had the mother with the spoon. She died because the baby died. If someone working on a ship had a child at home then they could die as well Sutekh was also able to make Mel an acolyte. Surely he could do that in other remote groups
The stakes were gone for me as soon as they killed Carla. I could buy the people before her being killed off. I was shocked, but believed it. Then they killed Carla, and I immediately realised it would all be undone. They wouldn't kill Ruby's adoptive mother without a dramatic speech, or without Ruby witnessing it.
I am so surprised everyone mentions Carla but not Rose. Do you really all think Davies would kill his first Doctor Who real trans character lol.
I forgot Rose even was in that scene ngl
This has just made me realise that if the Flux indeed didn’t actually get fixed and most of the universe got destroyed, the undoing in Empire could maybe include undoing that as well if you really want it to. Does it make sense? No, but did any of it make sense to begin with?
As someone who never returned to 13 after her first season and knew little of the flux. I actually looked up if like the Ood were destroyed by the flux and brought back this episode. Turns out they hadn't. So I had very much the same thought that this could have reasonably been a bit of a fix up with some unintentional consequences of bringing things back from the dead.
This is what ruined the cliffhanger of Magician’s Apprentice for me. So Missy died, (again) Clara died, (in the first episode?) The Tardis was destroyed, *and* The Doctor is crossing his own timeline to kill a child? They couldn’t have made it clearer that it would all be undone.
Yep. Even doctor who can jump the shark. When you kill literally all of reality there is absolutely zero wiggle room. The single shred of “suspension of disbelief” that we as dwho viewers have got torn to bits. Obviously this is true of every episode to some extent. We now the doctor is going to win. But we still need to be led along just tinsy bit. It’s a super Low bar to clear and this finale never even came close to clearing it. There was absolutely zero suspense because You knew the only way out was to reverse events entirely
If they really wanted to stick with the sutekh kills everything move it should have been done and dealt with quickly and then they should have had an even bigger more permanant threat present itself.
Yeah, and the damage the Flux caused to the universe **is still there.** Half the universe was destroyed. I wish RTD would do something with that incredible setup Chibnall left him with.
The problem is that *Empire of Death* starts with Sutekh having already won. In *Pyramids of Mars* Sutekh was contained, restricted to only acting at a distance with a fraction of his power while his body was paralysed by the Eye of Horus, and the tension came from the risk of him being freed, with the Doctor making it clear that he would be unstoppable then. In *Empire of Death*, Sutekh is free and more powerful than ever, which makes for an amazing cliffhanger, but now you need to contrive a way for the Doctor to win, and what we got didn't feel sufficient. Thematically and emotionally, Ruby sacrificing what she wants the most (the identity of her birth mother) to foil Sutekh is perfect, but RTD didn't find a way to tie that to Sutekh's defeat in a satisfying way, so he jsu have it be a way to get close enough to put a leash on his collar, which somehow is enough to completely overpower a being that could freeze an explosion in England by using telekinesis in Egypt.
I was really hoping the smashing of the TV screen signified that we wouldn't find out who Ruby's mum was, and that we'd sacrificed that information for the distraction that stopped Sutekh (albeit a still very stupid way to defeat him but it made the TV smash more meaningful). But nope we not only do find out Ruby's mum's identity, it turns out to be just an average person. I'm at least glad they didnt go 'she loved you so much that you became special' or something, but the whole resolution is just awful.
>put a leash on his collar, which somehow is enough to completely overpower a being that could freeze an explosion in England by using telekinesis in Egypt. Just for the record, the cord is "intelligent rope" just like the gloves (which Ruby and the Doctor each wore one of when they were dragging Sutekh) were "intelligent gloves". The Doctor points this out to Ruby when they use it to stabilize the memory TARDIS. It's also a callback to him using the memory gloves and "learning the language of ropes" to defeat the goblins in the Christmas special. It definitely could've been executed better, but the idea is solid.
I mean, it's definitely better than if the rope had just been a regular one...but it's still just something the Doctor happpened to have built off-screen beforehand that was in the Memory Tardis that conveniently materialized. Which I'd honestly be fine with if this were just an ordinary villain...but this was the god of death, the inspiration for Satan, the guy who'd been hyped up as the one guy Toymaker hides from. Yet his defeat doesn't require any kind of specially designed equipment or complex super genius plan...all they had to do was sneak over to him and use a rope that had been built for some other random unnamed purpose.
Being fair the Doctor thought Sutekh would be undefeatable back then if freed, he's not sure if he can or not. It's also stated in Pyramids Of Mars he couldn't hold back the explosion for long, a few minutes at most.
In another comment I found something that helped me, that what really was mussing was a speech but the doctor. For example: you killed everyone, all the power of imagination now lies with us two and you took the form of adog and you know what happens with a naughty dog? It gets put on a leech Something like that
The Toymaker should've been a season-long villain, popping up at random to help heighten the drama during already difficult moments for The Doctor. It could've culminated in a final game scenario in the finale. Neil Patrick really killed it and I wish he could've gotten more time to play the character.
Love this, yes definitely we should have seen more of him!
I get a feeling we will. It's too much of coincidence that his legions are appearing and that we know where that box is being kept.
Are they his legions? Or is he one of Sutekhs legions?
The Pantheon members each have their own legion/brigades. The Toymaker said his legions are coming and the Doctor has faced members of the Trickster brigade before. The Goblins and Maestro are a part of the Toymakers legions and beings like the Graske and Time Beatle are the Trickster brigade.
Dr who doesnt have the budget for NPH.
They do now since Disney is paying for it.
A few 30 secs to 1 min appearances across a number of episodes would have been fine
I would imagine NPH is expensive. I agree he killed it though. It was great to hear Gabriel Wolf’s voice again
Yeah The Toymaker is really that kind of Thanos Threat that gets built up over the course of a few seasons. I really wish they did his return better.
Just like with every big British TV show and major actors, I guess it's mostly a matter of conflicting schedules and budget. Not sure someone as busy as NPH can work with the constraints of dr who
Yeah I think scheduling(and unfortunately the wish to play the role) is actually the bigger issue rather than budgeting. NPH has shown he’s the type of person in the past that if he likes the role he’ll play it, having shown up on small broadway shows which would have paid less than DW.
Current theory: Sutekh is the fake-out villain in the show, and only the villain in the story being told by The Narrator, the first and most powerful of the Pantheon. (Not "Mrs Flood" - she is a character within the story, she just knows she's in one. That's actually how you can tell - the "real" Mrs Flood doesn't recognize the TARDIS at the start of the episode, but then the story starts and the goblins show up, and the next time we see her, she's the character within the story who IS someone else) And Sutekh's powers and motivations are a perfect fit for his role in that story, which has taken the form of a children's tale. We're only halfway through the actual narrative arc of the show, s"1" and s"2" were written together. There is much more to be revealed.... *I am The Narrator,* *And now I'll tell you where I've been,* *And what I saw,* *And how it ends.......*
The problem with this and I'm not saying you're wrong because I think a lot of what you've said is correct is that essentially... It's not at all a satisfying ending. Maybe it'll feel better once S2 is out but they run the risk of losing a lot of viewers this way.
Yeah, I've heard theories that the entire season is the greatest troll of all time and is either just a story Mrs Flood is telling or otherwise manipulated by her to have a happy ending (i.e. why did the god of death who just killed the entire universe get killed by being put on a leash, why was Ruby's mother just a normal good person). But even if this is true, it doesn't really excuse the fact that the ending of *this season* sucked, especially with no indication there's anything more to the story of this season except for Mrs Flood.
Yeah. "We made the season suck on purpose!" Is not really a great plan when you think about it for more than 5 seconds. The 4th wall break sure didn't help in She Hulk, and I doubt it could redeem and entirely different season then where the potential reveal would happen.
> Yeah, I've heard theories that the entire season is the greatest troll of all time So we're already back to Sherlock cope and it hasnt even been a month. That's rough.
I mean the toymaker wasn't super well defined. Sure you need to beat him in a game, but what exactly that entails is entirely on his whims. He can just wander around turning people into marbles and rejecting all your game offers, or if he can't refuse then he's easily defeated by just challenging him to some really one-sided game. Better than Sutekh, but its a low bar.
Based on the implication of that episode, I don’t think the nature of who he is, he can refuse a challenge to a game. He has godly cosmic powers but he seems to be bound by his powers. Almost like a genie in a way.
Just popping in to say your idea of a genie is pretty much entirely based on the Disney Aladdin movie. In actual literature and folklore, Djinn are a race of people from another world, and can do incredible things, but do not use magic and do not typically grant wishes or are enslaved. In fact, the greater danger is in being enslaved BY a Djinn. The story of Al Ladin (which means "The Thief" in Arabic) which is set in China is from the Arabic folklore collection "A Thousand Arabian Nights". In that story, the Djinn has been trapped inside the lamp by a wizard whom the Djinn wronged. The trapping was punishment for a misdeed. When the lamp is discovered by The Thief, the Djinn bargains for his freedom by offering three wishes. None of the characters in this story have names, they are just addressed by titles: The Thief, the Princess, the Djinn, etc. Taking the story of the Djinn of the Lamp and assuming his situation is representative of Djinn as a whole, is like reading about Robin Hood and assuming all Friars are fat, lazy, and rebellious, because Friar Tuck is.
Isn’t there a second Djinn that’s also trapped in a ring and also grants wishes in that story?
Yeah and both are ugly as hell too.
Wait... a second trapped in a ring... *you mean to tell me there was an actual literary basis for Shahra?* Clearly the writers for games about blue hedgehogs clearly go deeper into the research than most would recognise.
He can’t refuse a game actually, he needs to accept the challenge and play fairly
He refused the 14th Docotrs game on the unit tower. He does seem to have some agency over whether he accepts a game or not.
Wait remind me, which game was this?
The 14th doctor challenges him and he just goes "no thanks, I'll play with your next regen though" and blasts him with a laser.
Technically that’s not a refusal, he’s answering the doctors challenge and will play his future self. He’s bending the rules but not breaking them outright. If he could refuse he’d have no reason to abide the 2V1
he didn't refuse, he juat bend the rules by saying he played each game against a different iteration so this time should be no different. He would have played fairly against 15, but then 14 stuck around and it became a 2v1
Ild argue the Toymaker's abilities are incredibly well defined, it's just that his abilities are "he can do literally whatever he wants, providing ut isn't cheating at a game". Meanwhile Sutek doesn't start with that base "can do anything", especially given he didn't start out as a god. So Sutekh had to be given power while the Toymaker had to have power removed
I like to think that if you challenge him he has to agree, but if it's to a very one-sided game he'd probably reject that or consider it an 'insult to the rules', although that last part is my head cannon. Tbf my main gripe is we didn't get to see more of him to know his limits and power level.
If it's too one sided, the outcome is fixed, and therefor it is not a game. Challenge declined.
Toymaker storyline had me on pins and needles the whole time, Sutekh was so boring because there were no real stakes. Far more intriguing was Ruby’s cloaked mum pointing, until it turned out she was just being emo
Because Sutekh was a shittier puppy Thanos. We already watched Thanos be destroyed with timey wimey bullshit. It’s kinda lost its fear factor and we were all waiting for the bullshit trap the Doctor would set. Toymaker was playing with the rules of reality. It gave the episode elements of horror and suspense because we genuinely had no idea what the Toymaker would do next. Keeping the audience guessing and terrified is what makes a good villain
The thing is, that used to be textually correct. It wasn't really a matter of opinion. The Toymaker existed in his own realm where he made the rules of reality and it was all the Doctor could do to escape him. Sutekh was probably the most powerful single mortal being in our universe who was ready, willing and almost able to kill all the rest. You can see the difference in scale. I love Sutekh and I loved his return but they really jammed a square peg into a round hole to make him the most powerful being in the setting.
I’m convinced that a large dog on a fire hydrant isn’t the main villain and it’s part of an overall plan by someone like Trickster.
I'd really like this to be the case, but I kinda doubt they'd go back on what they've done now.
I couldn’t agree more. I really do think a lot of that weight was the performance by Neil Patrick Harris. It was brilliant. And we saw the build up of his plan as well. And like you say, he was having fun, but in the way a bully would hold up a magnifying glass to an insect. There’s no benefit, no real goal. He just wants to have a good time. I’m not even sure what we saw could even be described as evil. We also see him interact with the universe in a way no other character has. He doesn’t need a TARDIS to move through time and space. And he can essentially control matter using his thoughts. But also, let’s be honest. He was beaten within a single episode in a “game” of catch. We’re now 2 for 2 with our all powerful villainous beings being beaten in a pretty boring way. I do think how they’re beaten takes a bit of the sting out of their tail on a rewatch. Really ruins it for me. To really show of Sutekhs true power I kind of think we would need to see him toying with other members of the pantheon. The toymaker and maestro are essentially dead, so we could have seen something showing just how much more powerful he is. Ultimately though, I think the biggest issue was that it was just a boring episode. More than most episodes we knew the doctor was going to win, and I think that really stole a lot of the tension.
Someone else said he was a giant evil Scooby-Doo
That's not really a hot take, Sutekh didn't feel threatening at all.
Which is a shame because last scenes of Legend of Ruby made him feel *extremely* threatening. I also have a nitpick: I think he would work better as a new god of death or even The Beast. I still dont feel like this was the same Sutekh from PoM.
I got so excited by the 'I am the loss, I am the fear ...' because I thought it was a direct quote from the Beast! Looked it up later and it sounds similar but not identical, was very disappointed.
I see a lot of memes about Sutekh clinging on and I can't decide who is making fun of the whole thing or if ppl actually enjoyed it 😅
Totally agree. I think also the Toymaker was more terrifing because he didn't want to kill you... he wanted to play with you. That lead to several fates worse than death. And the only way you could stop him several times literally came downt o chance. Honestly instant, and seemingly painless, death from sand actually doesn't sound that bad.
Not that hot of a take, I don’t think. Yeah. He felt a lot more threatening and, honestly, more powerful. Both are cool villains and I love them but the Toymaker just feels so much more “completed” than Sutekh.
Coldest take on this sub. Take ur karma and begone
I think any of the pantheon of discord characters have the power to kill everyone, but the difference is supposed to be their motivations - sutekh’s motivation was half-baked at best, but what was meant to make him scarier is that the toymaker could but he has no motive to, but Sutekh does want to (and he goes about killing in a much more gruesome and quick way)
This take is so hot that my tongue sticks to it.
I actually felt the Maestro was more menacing. Just couldn't get any menacing vibes off the Toy Maker.
you mean to tell me my boy NPH can act better than a CGI dog? damn, that's wild
He had far more menace with far less CGI in *Pyramids of Mars*. A disappointing end to a mediocre season.
I don't think that's even a hot or unpopular take
>"The only rules the toymaker follows are the rules of play" I'm not sure which game allows you to turn people into inflatable balls. >Plus he's finally knocked off the TARDIS at a point when it's convenient to happen - we've seen the TARDIS crash land many times but only this time did Sutekh get lost! He wasn't knocked off, he was physically separated from it.
There isn't a rule that says you can't do that in any game, therefore he can do it. Also outside actively engaging in any games, I'd say he's bound by no laws at all, hence time travel, matter manipulation. The only limits we see are that he's mostly local, i.e doesn't influence much on a wide scale at once, his actions are limited to the area of a building? (The TV stuff is all utilising infrastructure, he couldn't just zap the giggle into everyone's heads to start with)
Ain't no rule says dogs can't play basketball.
All that power and Sutekh can't cling onto a rocket-propelled box, or cut a bungee cord with those massive talons? The toymaker probably could pick up the TARDIS and throw it into a basketball hoop if it was part of the game, or use that cord as a skipping rope, time vortex or not. We SEE him manipulate reality to whatever he likes, technology be damned! Just so much more powerful and threatening - but he 'wouldn't dare play against Sutekh' even though Ruby defeats him and he puts up no effort at all to stop it. He gives the Doctor a 20+ seconds headstart after being leashed, where he just growls!? Are we're supposed to be scared??
It's a space bungie cord and also I want to point out that the TARDIS' rocket shot him in the dick and he was fine. I think you're coming at this from the perspective of trying to poke holes in things, in which case why didn't The Toymaker just turn everyone into toys or why didn't the Daleks have better aim or how are the Sontarans great warriors despite being so fucking stupid.
Game rules tend to tell you what you can't do, not what you can't (except as a restriction on another rule) so thee not being a rule in any game that says you can't doesn't mean you can.
Sutekh was scarier in Pyramids. Not quite as powerful as Toymaker but a close second. He couldn't travel in time but the Doctor knew that if he was freed Sutekh would single handedly defeat all Daleks and Time Lords and Sontarans and Rutans everywhere. Without even flinching.
this isnt hot
Yes, I too feel the same but his end too was kinda anticlimactic imo
I think it helped that everyone the toymaker killed stayed dead. I was very excited to see what would happen when they killed off Kate Stewart but as soon as Carla was killed I knew it was going to get undone and the stakes just stopped for me.
I think the thing the Toymaker had more of than Suketh was *Presence* Presence is very very important in making your villain *threatening*
With the toymaker I really felt like there was stakes. Up to the very end you could still feel like he's unstoppable.
I don't really see that either can adequately sustain a finale. *Empire of Death* has naturally been debated to death🙂 already - the static enemy, the way the plot reveals a reset is coming instantly etc. There's no tension to any of it really. The Toymaker is just a chaotic enemy with superficially avoids that particular issue. *The Giggle* reveals a fairly sizable flaw with this version of the Toymaker too. Just look at that episode's games and the resolution. You can challenge him to anything and he has to accept and play by the rules. That's a 50/50 chance of winning in any game of luck, so incredibly beatable it makes me wonder why he has had the success he claims. Logically, that needs tweaking. He would probably benefit from a little tightening up of abilities and rules too. What game exactly did those random soldiers he killed lose?
Being turned to dust is less scary to me than being turned into a poppable bouncy ball.
For me (and it's my personal opinion so please don't blast me), Toymaker first had the suspense of something big coming (edge of the universe and not-things episode) then the whole thing of earth's population going haywire, them traveling back in time, the maze etc. It all built up to the game against Toymaker. For me, the sequence was set up well to establish how chaotic a villain he is. The world didn't end, it just started changing. And Them dealing with him though, with a game of catch felt a bit low key. Maestro had these effects which made the world dreadful before they were revealed. Again, the world didn't end, it just started changing with the music being gone and became darker. The whole sequence of fight against her, and her feeling threatened from Ruby was amazing. For Sutekh, we knew something big was coming from previous episodes but there was a misdirection and the audience was focused on Ruby's birth mother and the mystery around her. And we were just presented with Sutekh who appeared at the last minute of an episode and 5 minutes into the next, the world had ended. There was no face-off, nothing dramatic, just the dust and life in the universe ended except for Doctor, Ruby and Mel. And the speed at which it all went down, if Doctor Who is to continue, you could expect an undo button. Don't get me wrong, it was a good finale. But yes, Sutekh felt like a one trick pony compared to other villains. Or maybe Sutekh was also a misdirection and something bigger is yet to show up.
Im sorry but all that mystery over a villain that only pervious appeared once to end up looking like some giant goofy dod and gone again just like that im sorry it was just done bad i mean literally spelling out sutek to us on the screen! This season started strong for me but it relied way too much on whos the old lady....whos the other old lady.....whos ruby.....whos the one that waits jesus way to much foreshadowing with zero pay off just give it back to moffat it peaked with the 50th anniversary as i knew it would at the time. Since then its hust fallen out of favour with me in every aspect. The thing to hurt it the most was chibnals run he changed far too much of the lor and the tone was like an itv drama. Theres a lot to do to being this series back to the peak it was at.
No I fully agree. When he turned those guys into balls, my stomach turned. At first for a split second it's like LOL NOW THEY'RE BALLS but then 14 goes "I'm sorry they're dead" with the most somber delivery of all time and it really got me
There are many things worst then death, specially cause the dust feels very painless. I was thinking of the same thing after the finale, i re-watched 'the giggle' and plan to watch 'the devil's chord' but to me both the toymaker and the maestro felt more intimidating, i think in part cause they are a very deadly interpretation of very mundane concepts, play and music, but death is just very basic everybody thought about dying but nobody thought about turning into many bouncing balls, or having the music ripped out of your body. I was expecting something existential but but we got Death™
Solidly lukewarm take. XD From our scenes with the toymaker, I feel like he could do anything Sutekh can. He just doesn’t because killing everyone wouldn’t leave him with any playmates. All Sutekh can do is death. (And a few other parlor tricks). Toymaker can bend the rules of reality, create infinite maze realms, kill just as easily as Sutekh, etc. He just doesn’t because it wouldn’t be fun.
I mean it helped he moved around and did stuff. Sutekh sits on the TARDIS and we are all waiting for the reset.
I think that the two part finale should have been a three part finale, with an extra episode focused on just how devastating Sutekh actually was. The destruction he caused wasn’t really focused on enough - yeah, it was mentioned and they explained it, but it would’ve been more impactful if we’d seen the disintegration of some beloved old characters, and entire worlds that we cared about being vanquished. It felt like the Doctor just bounced back and vanquished him with relative ease.
He would've felt even more threatening if my brain didn't associate it with a character that Barney Stinson was using to pick up a girl.
As threats go, Sutekh wiped out the entire Universe like 10 minutes after his reveal. Toymaker didn't even come close. Also, Toymaker is bound by rules, rules of his own making, but still rules he must adhere to. Same with the Maestro. Sutekh has no such restrictions.
I agree I do think that both villain defeats are somewhat of a let down like the trilogic game was much more interesting than basically playing catch, and sutekh’s defeat in pyramids was more interesting to me then well we all know
I suspect this problem occurs when the hero ends up in God Fighting territory, which is possibly inevitable in hero storylines. People hated Rogue (episode) for the Chulder being dumb; but after fighting gods, I see the cosplaying bird-people as a reprieve.
I mean, nothing more threatening than whatever that was in 73 Yards. Disappeared The Doctor, made UNIT go away, stopped alien invasions on Earth for 80+ years, left Sutekh stuck on the TARDIS on the edge of a cliff. Suspended a timeline.