This is a post-UK broadcast review of Doctor Who: The Doctor Falls. River Song always warned the Doctor against spoilers, so be sure to watch the episode first. Doctor Who, season 10, airs on Saturdays at 6:30pm UK time on BBC One, and 9pm EDT on BBC America.

Bookends are a common theme in the final episode of season 10 of Doctor Who—the reading material in between places Missy and the Master in the same time stream, and the 12th Doctor and, tantalisingly, the first Doctor also collide in the final moments of The Doctor Falls.

And the seed was there from the very beginning of Steven Moffat's swansong season at the helm of Doctor Who. "Never underestimate a crush," the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) tells Bill (Pearl Mackie) in The Pilot, after he manages to see off the ever-advancing, drippy goth monster Heather (Stephanie Hyam). In The Doctor Falls, Heather returns to bring Bill back to life and mend her broken heart. All the while, Bill is oblivious to the fact the Time Lord is still alive, albeit fatally wounded.

It also means we once again see a companion exploring time and space with a sidekick who isn't the Doctor. A similar idea was planted right at the end of Clara Oswald's Doctor Who storyline. She was last seen racing off in a stolen TARDIS with Me. Could these worlds be stitched together to form a new, female-led spin-off, somehow? "Is the future going to be all girl?" the Master (John Simms) asks. "We can only hope," the Doctor replies.

Intriguing, too, is Bill's appeal to the Doctor to regenerate as a young woman next time around. Is this explicit request there to see how it plays out among the fans? Or have the producers already bagged their Doctor? (I would love to see Zawe Ashton in the role.)

We're certainly seeing that a major reboot of Doctor Who is now underway—thrillingly through the prism of the upgraded, gone viral Mondasian Cybermen. And by cleverly bringing it right back to the beginning with William Hartnell's original Doctor, played here by David Bradley, the intent is clear about which way the next series is headed for showrunner Chris Chibnall: it won’t be business as usual.

Bill may well be ousted for good, Nardole (Matt Lucas) is left babysitting some humans seemingly for an eternity, and the Doctor needs some weighty help to return himself to factory settings bringing with it a yet-to-be-revealed fresh face. All of which promises a far superior Christmas Special to last year’s flimsy superhero pastiche The Return of Doctor Mysterio, that’s for sure.

While The Doctor Falls—deftly directed by Rachel Talalay and penned by Moffat—was a fairly strong exit for what has been a duff-in-places series, it's disappointing that the symmetry of the Master and Missy (Michelle Gomez) doesn't get more screen time. The Master's return isn't blockbuster enough for me, even with the good versus evil Superman III undertones in his cheeky exchanges with Missy.

I like that they wipe each other out in pure, ludicrous, backstabbing fashion, though I have a wee bit of melancholy for the demise of Missy. It seems to point to the Master regenerating into someone new. Gomez's contract is up and Simms seems to be passing through rather than returning for good.

Plenty of action was squeezed into this hour of solid telly, after we saw the Doctor trapped against the clock in World Enough and Time—this season's best episode of the bunch. But Moffat's decision to pack it so tightly, not only with the battle between Missy and the Master, but also with the onslaught of the Mondasian Cybermen, a heartbroken CyberBill (or RoboMop), and a small cast of country bumpkins living on a spaceship meant that the whole thing felt a little suffocating at times.

Simon Ridgway/BBC

BBC

Simon Ridgway/BBC

Simon Ridgway/BBC

Simon Ridgway/BBC

Simon Ridgway/BBC

Simon Ridgway/BBC

Simon Ridgway/BBC

Simon Ridgway/BBC

BBC



BBC

New faces

The Doctor and his impending regeneration is a little lost in the noise of this episode, even as Capaldi continues to deliver a stellar performance. It's a relief, really, that the audience is spared a first sight of the 13th Doctor. We'll need bellies full of turkey/goose/nut roast for that big reveal, which will be Moffat's final episode of Doctor Who.

But what of the appearance of the original Doctor here? It would be odd if Chibnall's reboot for season 11 literally means returning to the very beginning of the show. So, presumably, Bradley's Doctor is here merely to coax out the next version of the beloved Time Lord, rather than be in it for the long game.

We've also seen the new iteration of the Doctor's regenerative abilities: in this series he has been able to prevent himself from changing into someone else—for now. In 2013's The Time of the Doctor, he notably received a new cycle of regenerations and a different way of controlling those powers. Might we finally see an entirely different flavour of regeneration come Christmastime?

Despite some sloppy plot points, hurried storylines, underwritten characters, crap monsters, and too much exposition (phew!), I have enjoyed season 10 of Doctor Who. Capaldi has been a terrific Doctor, bringing the same gravitas to the role as Tom Baker with an added bit of gusto. Bill, for me, is one of the all-time best companions, and Nardole grew on me as the series went on. But Missy flitted too briefly into view only to be killed off at the end, while leaving Simms' Master fiendishly free to regenerate supervillain-style, no doubt.

To paraphrase the Doctor, new faces—like sewage, smartphones, and Donald Trump—are just inevitable. Get over it!

Now read all our reviews of season 10 of Doctor Who...