Doctor Who: All Of Series 8 And Last Christmas Ranked
6. Dark Water
The penultimate episode of Series 8 is vastly entertaining. Although fans guessed Missy = Mistress = Master weeks earlier, the final reveal of her identity still works (Capaldi's reaction sells it). Throughout this episode, events gather pace in a natural manner. Danny's surprise fatal accident, Clara threatening to melt the TARDIS keys, the Doctor and Clara meeting Missy, the watery dead turning out to be Cybermen and Missy blurting out her secret - all of these parts are honestly interesting and engaging. And when a Cyberman invasion story shows the silver giants marching out of St Paul's Cathedral, fans can only grin wildly. It's always easier to build up the threat in a story than to resolve it, which is why Dark Water is better than Death in Heaven. However, Dark Water deserves to be appreciated on its own merits. Apart from everything else, it provided viewers with a genuinely excellent cliffhanger, which is something that Doctor Who had lacked for quite a while.
Mike has lived in the UK, Japan and the USA. Currently, he is based in Iowa with his wife and 2 young children. After working for many years as a writer and editor for a large corporation, he is now a freelancer. He has been fortunate enough to contribute to many books on Doctor Who over the last 20 years and is now concentrating on original sci-fi & fantasy short stories, with recent sales including Flame Tree, Uffda, and The Martian Wave. Also, look for his contribution on Blake's 7 to "You and Who Else", a charity anthology to be released later this year.
You can find him on Tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/culttvmike
