Doctor Who Series 12: Ten Huge Questions After Praxeus
3. Why Was Amuru Forgotten?
We have already noticed other examples in series 12 of death
being brushed over with uncomfortable ease. A character dying was almost always
a big deal during the Steven Moffat years. Even the grieving Ryan and Graham
are now so series 11. There was some particularly nasty deaths in Praxeus and
after the initial shock, perhaps we are supposed to put it down to adrenaline when
the characters carry on regardless.
Gabriela is ridiculously upbeat in the circumstance, when she insists she teams up with Yaz. There are no moments when the death of her travel partner, Jamila, really hits her. She even witnessed it herself. So where is the pain and the trauma?
Even worse, Suki’s assistant Amuru is last seen being attacked by the birds in Madagascar. We do not see his death on-screen, but after the others make their escape in the TARDIS without him, he is completely forgotten. Was he human or one of Suki’s crew? We do not even know that. It feels terribly harsh to have been cut from the script as if the character was never really there in the first place. Not for the first time, poor editing seems to have created unnecessary and distracting loose-ends in an otherwise strong story.