Empire of Death can be summed up in one word: “disappointing” – Destructoid

The finale of the 14th season of Doctor Who was released on June 21st, and while The Legend of Ruby Rose gave us an epic experience, what we got was rather disappointing. Fans are understandably upset, so what went wrong?

Honestly, I don’t even know where to start. It could be the terrible CGI effects of Sutekh being dragged behind the TARDIS in the time vortex, or maybe it’s the anticlimax when Ruby’s mother’s true identity is discovered. But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself a bit. All of these things happened in the last 10 minutes of the episode, and Empire of Death was doomed from the start.

The episode begins with Mel and the Doctor speeding through London on a Vespa to escape the fast-moving “dust of death” released by Sutekh’s minions to consume all life in the universe.

After arriving back at UNIT, oddly unscathed considering literally everyone else in London has turned to dust, the Doctor and Mel head into the time window to join Ruby, who is still there, asking for her mum as the rest of the world crumbles around her. Honestly, if you put a gas mask on that girl, you could consider this a season rerun of The Empty Child. Even the Doctor has to tell her that they “have worse problems”.

As the trio stumble around the time window, Sutekh appears before them and explains that he has been connected to the TARDIS since 1975, going everywhere the Doctor has been and spreading the image of Susan Twist through time and space to spread his “dust of death” on every planet the Doctor has ever visited. He also explains why he’s letting the Doctor live, and it’s a doozy.

Sutekh, the God of Death and the Fearsome Beast, is just a giant dog who loves soap operas and the only reason he’s here is to find out who Ruby’s mother is. The same goes for the majority of the audience. I wonder if Sutekh would have been as disappointed as us common people if he had lived long enough to find out the answer.

Using Ruby’s memories, the only living trio in UNIT summon the Remembered TARDIS, escape the wrath of Sutekh, and fly into space. Another emotional breakdown from the Doctor follows as he stands in the doorway to the TARDIS, screaming into the void and watching the universe crumble around him.

Luckily, the Doctor is in possession of an iPad that is practically a glorified one, and after a quick trip to a poorly described planet to get a spoon (yes, you read that right), he passes the iPad to Ruby. In her hands, the iPad taps into her memories and we see a clip of Roger ap Gwilliam. Remember him? In 73 Yards, he is the Prime Minister in 2046, bringing the Earth to the brink of nuclear destruction.

Well, that gives the Doctor an idea. During his campaign, Roger made DNA registration compulsory for everyone in Britain, and that meant Ruby’s mother’s DNA would be registered. For some reason, the year 2046 still exists even though the world ends today, so the Doctor, Mel and Ruby travel to the future to find answers.

Fast forward ten minutes. The iPad contains the information that both the audience and Sutekh are still waiting for, and Mel is now a lackey to Sutekh. I’m still not entirely sure how that happened, but it’s not the weirdest thing that happened this episode, so I’m willing to look past it. Lackey Mel takes the Doctor and Ruby to UNIT HQ through the magic of teleportation, which is never explained, and the Doctor faces off against Sutekh for the second time.

Even if you ignore everything else that was odd about this episode, you can’t ignore the fact that the Doctor’s “epic battle” with Sutekh is nothing more than him putting the oversized dog on a leash and walking him through the time vortex once again. The Doctor shouts that you have to “expose death to death” to “create life” – I’m not sure that’s how it works – and miraculously everyone is alive again.

The episode ends with us finally learning the identity of Ruby’s mother. It turns out she was nothing more than a 15-year-old girl who abandoned her daughter at the door of a church. And the pointing? Well, she didn’t point at the Doctor at all, but at the street sign behind him to give her daughter the name “Ruby.”

Ruby is emotionally overwhelmed that her mother has given her a name, but that’s perhaps the most upsetting thing about this episode. Even if she had tried to name her baby, there was no one there to see her abandon her child, so how would anyone have known she wanted the baby to be named that? Another angry viewer asked on Twitter: “Did Sutekh email social services and tell them?”

After a heartfelt message saying that “things matter because we make them matter” that gets completely lost in the weirdness of the rest of the episode, the Doctor helps Ruby find her mother at a cafe. Despite his pointing out that her mother has made her choices and has had plenty of time to look for her, Ruby runs into the cafe and nearly throws herself at the woman who dropped her off on a doorstep in the middle of winter.

There is, of course, a happy ending, where Ruby is reunited with her birth mother and the Doctor tells Ruby she has “changed” him before saying a tearful but not final goodbye, but that is not really the end. The ending is set by Mrs. Flood, who again seems to bring us an ominous message. Dressed in a white fur coat (presumably a throwback to former Gallifreyan companion Romana) and holding an umbrella on the roof of Ruby’s house, she tells us that the Doctor’s story “ends in absolute terror.”

I wonder what is more frightening than the not so gradual decline in the quality of writing by Doctor Who. I’ve lost all faith in Russell T. Davies by now and can’t help but feel that unless radical changes are made, viewing figures will definitely suffer in Season 15 once the incredibly disappointing reveal of Ruby’s mother is over.

Until then, I will go back and start again in 2005 and watch all the old episodes again to remind myself why I Doctor Who so much. Season 14 left a bitter taste and I’m not sure if I’ll come back for season 15 or if I’ll bother watching the Christmas special. I have a glimmer of hope for the Christmas special as it was written by Steven Moffat. The man who brought us Weeping Angels can Doctor Whosecure?