Doctor Who Series 12: 10 Huge Talking Points After The Timeless Children
8. How Did The Companions Survive?
All through this series there has been a feeling that at least one of the Doctor’s companions would be leaving. The only question was which one, and would it all end in tragedy. We were even teased a heart-wrenching ending. Remarkably, Graham, Yaz and Ryan all survive and will be back for the Christmas special. So it’s not exactly a parting of the ways, yet at least. Bradley Walsh and Tosin Cole will both be leaving at the end of the special.
By rights, they should all be dead. The Cybermen, who were supposed to be bigger and badder than ever after their resurrection by Ashad, turned out to have a terrible aim. At several points it looked harder to miss. Graham’s masterplan to get off the ship undetected by doing the Han Solo/Luke Skywalker Stormtrooper trick was as crazy as it sounded to the others. It led to an awkward bit of exposition about how the organic bits of the Cybermen would need to be removed. But seemingly with relative ease and speed, they did it.
Things became all the more ridiculous when Ashad opened the pods and stared at the suited and booted companions in turn. It upped the tension stakes a little, though the close-up of Yaz’s tear made us feel sad rather than scared for her. The scene undermined the character of Ashad, who in the previous two episodes had added a fear factor often absent from Cybermen stories.