Warning: The following article will touch upon spoilers from throughout series 14 of Doctor Who, though spoilers for “Empire of Death” will be limited.

It would be reductive to say that “Empire of Death” was another standard Russell finale, but all the big beats were there. No change with the production team though. Russell is of course doing the finale to his first series (I’ll fight you till you say it) back and Ben Chessell finishes off his work as started in part 1, “The Legend of Ruby Sunday.” An episode that saw the return of Sutekh, or if you’re a fan of Egyptology, Set or Seth. First appearing in season 13’s third serial, “Pyramids of Mars,” the Osiran warmonger sought to be released from prison.

Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor and Elisabeth Sladen’s Sarah Jane Smith banished Sutekh into the Time Vortex, only to be seen in comics, audios, and books, until now. Riding on the back of the TARDIS through all of space and time, Sutekh is noted outright as cultural appropriation. He lets the show call itself out, and complete the quinquevalent of villains mentioned and we’ve seen recently. Those being The Toymaker (God of Games), The Trickster (God of Traps), Maestro (God of Music), The Mara (God of Beasts), and of course, Sutekh himself, the God of Death.

I think the big difference between something like “Empire of Death” and all of, say, Flux was that Ncuti has emotion. Not just emotion but raw, unadulterated sadness and anger over the actions that not only he (and past incarnations) have taken, but Sutekh as well. Was “Empire of Death” the conclusion that paid off everything in this series? No, and I don’t think that was ever going to happen given how much Russell has done. Was it a big red button of “make good?” No, but it also wasn’t a complex series of events fixed through equally complex actions.

As I’ve laid feeling sorry for myself all week, hoping for the sweet release of Sutekh, all I’ve heard in social posts and comments I’ve tried to scroll away from is that “Empire of Death” is bad, doesn’t make sense, and so on. I honestly don’t understand what people want/expect anymore. This was the most Russell episode as there has been and I’m including “Rogue” and “Space Babies.” That’s not to argue it is great, I’d say this was on the lower end of Russell’s finales. Not for the episode itself, but I think the series. Which I’ll talk about soon.

Plot-wise we’re basically explaining how the season came to be, i.e. when we saw Susan Twist that was as a result of Sutekh’s need to plant a seed of destruction. A person or sleeper agent who, when the time was right (once the Doctor had realized) it was time for all the many Susans to spread Sutekh’s dust. A dust of death. A death that is spread across the universe, in every place the Doctor has visited with the TARDIS since Sutekh has been riding on top. That’s a lot of places with hundreds of TV episodes, hundreds of Big Finish, hundreds of books, and more.

With that the entire universe is dead once again, but unlike Jodie during Flux Ncuti is on the verge of flinging himself out of the TARDIS. Or Rather the remembered TARDIS (or Memory TARDIS) as we’re calling this one we’ve seen in the UK-exclusive Tales of the TARDIS shorts. I like this cramped and messy thing because it feels homely, and not just because we see Mel, Ruby, and the Doctor huddled up in it on the run from Sutekh. I say it all the time, but any TARDIS where it looks like you can get a good sit or lean on, that’s a good TARDIS.

“But what about the episode, idiot?” See, this is the thing, I’ve already given the best non-spoiler description of it in the opening line. If you’ve seen “Parting of the Ways,” “Doomsday,” “Last of the Time Lords,” “Journey’s End,” and let’s throw in “The End of Time” too, then you know the beats Russell is hitting. We have that quick second and third act of part 1 that wasn’t in the first part then we’re into the second part’s three acts; the 2nd through 5th acts of the two parts together.

The trouble is that a lot of this series has been a mystery box: Who is Ruby Sunday? Why does it snow around her? Why am I listening to a Christmas song in June and is it diegetic? Who is Ms Flood? Where is Susan Twist turning up this week? Why did we have to listen to that crap song by Murray Gold about there always being a Twist in the end? Other than that trip to the destroyed Houses of Parliament (oh well, nothing was lost), how were we supposed to guess Sutekh was riding the TARDIS?

In order, the answers given are: A normal human woman, and we’ve no idea about the snow or song. No clue, ask Bryan May. Sutekh’s death dust puppet. Someone made Murray Gold do it. As for how we were supposed to realize the fact Sutekh was riding the TARDIS is that it has been whining since “Wild Blue Yonder” and crashing a lot since that Dalek-based special. I’ve seen a whole lot of “there are so many questions unanswered,” which I’d get if we didn’t already know the show continues on.

Unlike seemingly everyone and their 12th cousin twice removed, I don’t think I need an explanation for everything ever in a show. That said, I’d have liked something to explain “73 Yards” and if that tied into Sutekh. I don’t need a whole 45-minute episode or two parts to explain it, I just need something to say why it happened and then I can move on. However, it does become an integral part of “Empire of Death” and Ruby’s backstory too.

Doing this without spoilers or detailed explanations is difficult. We get the end of the “Who is Ruby Sunday” storyline and we get the reason for the point in the time window. Reasons that some have taken to bumping their gums about because of who exactly her mum is, why it was it mystery, and how much sense it makes to them. Quite frankly, if you’re expecting light sci-fi to make 100% logical sense, then I’ve got some news for you about the Egyptian-themed dog that rode the time machine for decades planting powerful women around the place to spread his death dust.

If you’ve actually sat and enjoyed this series, I think you’ve got a great chance of sitting to enjoy “Empire of Death.” Is it a bit messy and convoluted? Did I stutter when I said it was a Russell T Davies series finale second part? He always is a bit messy and convoluted when it comes to his finales. That said, unlike Chibnall he has emotional beats in there as well: The woman with the spoon tells her baby to be quiet when she isn’t making a sound, then you get that moment when she realizes.

Of the series, “Empire of Death” was the one where the audio mixing seemed to be the most off, I think. I had to eventually EQ the episode for a better, more balanced mix through headphones on a second watch. Sometimes Murray Gold’s soundtrack was overpowering, especially when it comes to Gabriel Woolf’s VO. Most of the series has had bits here or there with dodgy moments, but nothing like the Chibnall era where I was moaning about this nearly every episode. This was the closest we got to that with a good portion of the episode needing that EQ.

Russell’s pacing isn’t unsurprising, but is rather quick in places making me think it would have been better to have had something more in that first part. I don’t hate “Empire of Death,” but all the same I don’t think it’s on the same level as Russell’s other series finales. This is where I need to try to figure out if that’s nostalgia or not, with the likes of “Doomsday” or “Journey’s End” I’m left wanting something but “Empire of Death” is so far away from “The End of Time,” “Last of the Time Lords,” or even that first finale “The Parting of the Ways.”

Ultimately, “Empire of Death” is a moderately good finale for this series of Doctor Who, and I’m singling out this series for a reason. This 8 (9) episode run with Ruby (so far) has been vastly different from all we’ve seen from Russell before, which I plan to get into with a further editorial talking spoilers and details. The finale itself fits the series that has been equally strange and paced a little too quickly.

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Doctor Who

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• She didn't have to be special, everyone just had to think she was.
• The scene with the woman on Agua Santina.
• Calling out the idea of the Osirans.

Cons

• I could have done with some more of this spread out between the parts to let it breathe.
• Whoever mixed the episode needs a lesson in where human ears are.