I respect your opinions but I do fundamentally disagree with you on some key points. Most specifically re: the importance of the ordinary. Far from lazy writing, I feel the exact opposite. It’s so easy and so common these days for characters to be “special” because of who they are (they were born that way, they were born different). It’s far more meaningful (and empowering) when ordinary people transcend the mundane everyday and become something more. It’s the counterpoint to the banality of evil. The worst evils come from people who allow that evil to be and (worse) actively participate in it by normalising it (Dot and Bubble is a great example). It is when ordinary people stand up that this can be defeated. Ruby HAS to be ordinary, as does her mother, for the defeat of evil to be meaningful and for Ruby to really matter as a character.
That’s a quick explanation, written whilst I’m cooking, but it’s broadly why the finale works for me, and indeed the season as a whole. I don’t exoect to convince you, and that’s fine, but wanted to present my take nonetheless.
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Yeah, actually, I totally agree - it didn’t feel like chess as much as, idk, a spint. ‘Noise with very little substance’ - again, so true and that’s exactly what I’ve been saying. It’s all very flashy and a bit fun to get caught up in but as an actual story, but as @turnoftheearth has been saying, if Ruby’s mother had been special or ordinary, it wouldn’t have actually changed the narrative impact that much because RTD always always has to have a sappy and sweet ending to his flashy finales.
Also so true about what you’re saying about the mega deaths - I really did have a second where I thought Kate was killed off For Reals but then everyone else also died so it took any real impact away to the point where I actually forgot that happened until you said that just now…
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Yeah I had a minute there where I was ready to flip all the tables when Kate became dustified! 
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See, I agree with what you’re saying, but I think the payoff is what doesn’t work with Ruby and her mother. I do like that it’s just normal, but the reason why, say, the Clara mystery box works is because you can see that it really is just the Doctor making this normal girl into someone who will sacrifice herself for him, and that he’s been wrong about why she’s special all that time - she’s special because she’s normal, if that makes sense (7b defense squad in the house)
But this was like, the same beats but without any of the conviction to me, I think. Sutekh thought she was special so we thought she was special and then? They can can just do a DNA test after all? Idk, I keep going back and forth on it all in my head
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The point isn’t that her being ordinary is a satisfying pay-off; in fact it could have been. My point isn’t that the plotline wasn’t a valid one, it’s that it was done so inexpertly that it came across as lazy and rushed. There are versions of this story that don’t feel that way for me, and as I said, I am a huge Rings of Akhaten fan, which tells this story more effectively. There are things that could have been done throughout the season to more effectively land the reveal; for example, the reveal in Dot And Bubble feels like it makes sense because we can put together all the context clues of the previous 45 minutes, see how they matter, and then realize what the story is about.
The whole season does not have that same level of narrative skill - this finale didn’t feel like a bunch of things clicking into place to support the fact that Ruby was actually not special (and therefore hugely special.) The whole season spent its time going “Oh my god, how cool is it going to be when we find out how special Ruby is”, which misdirects clumsily thrown all over the place, so that finally when the reveal is revealed, it’s so bogged down in how confusing the mire has become that it has no real impact. I don’t need to be convinced that the plotline itself is a good one, I need to be convinced that it was achieved successfully, because I don’t think it was.
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Yep. This 10000%. The defeat of godlike beings has to be written with nuance and emotion to feel the amount of strength and effort that goes into the defeat. Look at The Satan Pit for example. A lot of the side characters there die, something that doesn’t even happen in this episode. No characters were permanently dead which makes us percieve Sutekh as weaker than someone like the Beast despite Sutekhs massive buildup. Even in PoM, every single side character dies. Here, basically no one dies which leaves the whole “God of Death” moniker feel undeserved despite the ending.
Moving back to the Satan Pit, the Beasts defeat here is logical and uses a plot point, the blackhole, which had previously already been set up. The solution there is not something pulled out of the writers ■■■ but instead a unique concept for the first part which is brought back as a cructial part of the defeat for the godlike creature. Having all the buildup for Sutekh as the god of death makes it extremely anticlimactic to have him get defeated by a rope. Sure you could say the gloves haa previously been set up in CoRR but that was 7 episodes ago and had no connection to the current story. It leads to a very milquetoast ending that doesnt feel deserved in the slightest.
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Well I’m afraid most of that episode made absolutely zero sense! It was all smoke & mirrors. For example:
What was 73 Yards all about? Trying to prevent the DNA database being created to reveal the mother’s identity? If that database existed why didn’t the Ambulance have access to it in Boom? We were originally told that Ruby was 100% human but was not related to any other human.
Was the ending genuine or a construct? Are we still in the Land of Fiction? Is it the Trickster? What about mavity?
How were the Susan Twists inserted into history? For one to be Lindy’s mother she would have had to be inserted at least 20 years earlier than the Doctor landed.
Sutekh cannot possibly have been hitching a ride ever since Pyramids of Mars. The TARDIS has had too many mishaps since then, also Captain Jack did the same at one point - wouldn’t he have noticed he had company. And we have had the whole of the Time War in between.
Not to mention the Deus ex Machina “the death of death is life”!
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Ikr? How many times in just the Shows alone has the TARDIS exploded sense then? I guess I could believe he was hanging on somehow but it still feels like quite a bit of a stretch
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Survived through a universal reset that hinged on Amy remembering the TARDIS.
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Finetime is ancient Skaro confirmed
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And a trip to E-Space and back
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Also there was the whole time she actually got put into a human being with vocal cords and totally spaced on mentioning it, which is fairly in character for Idris so I’ll let it slide.
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Not mentioning Sutekh meeting himself several times 
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Pictured: Sutekh and Sutekh and Sutekh having a catch up
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And same episode, 10 Sutekhs (think it is 10) saving Gallifrey - that must have been a bit embarrassing for the God of Death
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My intial response to whatever on earth that episode was…
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& the Doctor hitting the TARDIS with a giant hammer (yes I know 
) to create a perfect duplicate which I guess has a duplicate of Sutekh. Well 14 can deal with that seeing as he just sat around in the Noble’s garden doing nothing during this season’s finale.
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No. You see, Sutekh knew the “”“plot”“” would be following Fifteenths TARDIS, so he did a jump over. It’s so obvious. /sarcasm
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Ahhh, @sircarolyn this is why I like chatting with you and why I love this forum. We agree on much but, delightfully, not everything. Why is that delightful, you may wonder? Because it provides us with a platform and a reason to think more about defending episodes (and/or elements) we love. You see, I was never really sold on Clara as a character or companion. She was never quite real to me (this is no criticism of Jenna Coleman who was fantastic) and that, for me, undermined her arc(s) throughout. I loved her performances but never quite the character. Ruby, by comparison, I believe in.
I’m going to stop there because I’m stuck on my phone this weekend, which makes my typing tiresomely frustrating. That said, I’m sure I’ll write more when I’m back on my laptop.
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What happened with Sutekh in these two instances?
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