- Title: Doctor Who – Empire of Death
- wiki: link
Wrapping up the first Disney season of Doctor Who, Sutekh (Gabriel Woolf) wipes out most life across the universe. The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa), Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson), and a corrupted Mel (Bonnie Langford) slowly falling under Sutekh’s control, survive to find a way to undo Sitekh’s wave of death following backwards through time everywhere the Time Lord’s T.A.R.D.I.S. has traveled. One thing keeping The Doctor and his companion alive is the mystery surrounding Ruby’s mother which even Sutekh can’t uncover and becomes obsessed with the answer.
While it isn’t a wow, the finale works well enough to wrap up most of the stories of the season as well as Ruby’s run as a companion. The swerve of turning Ruby’s mother into a red herring (who only has special meaning because she’s been given that by Ruby and The Doctor) is a bit odd. From the perspective of subverting expectations and not making Ruby the daughter of some strange alien and just allowing her to be a normal human it makes since, although it doesn’t really explain Ruby’s ability to make it snow indoors. The finale also doesn’t resolve the identity of Mrs. Flood (Anita Dobson), leaving that to be explored at some point in the future, although it certainly suggest she (unlike Ruby’s mom) is anything but a normal woman from Earth.
