This issue of the Trenzalore Dispatch is brought to you by The Place Where Things Go When You Delete Them. We know you're out there somewhere, Danny!

The Elusive Promised Land

Series 8 from the very start presented two big mysteries for its primary story arc: the identity of the new character, Missy, and an explanation for the "afterlife" that Missy immediately appeared to be Lord and Master of. (See what I did there?) 

Do we really need a "spoiler" warning at this point?

In what is eventually explained (note: not revealed) to be the grand scheme of the Master/Missy to create a Cyberman army out of all the dead people on earth as a birthday present for his/her old pal, the Doctor, Series 8 tracks several incidents of Missy's "Gallifreyan hard drive" soaking up the recently departed as a precursor to the Cyber-zombie resurrection day. 

The visual effects provided for the matrix data-slice as well as the story narrative itself demonstrated that the Cyber-zombie army was to be composed of millions of flying emotionless dead people wearing support exoskeletons that were constituted out of their corpses and the rain-like Cyber-pollen that fell from the Cyber-clouds. 

Putting ALL THAT aside, however, we were introduced to multiple characters throughout the season who, at the end of the day, really only existed to establish that some sort of after-deathy thing was happening. They were welcomed into "the Nethersphere" (variously and falsely denominated by interchangeable afterlife terms) never to be heard from again during the series. 

Except for Danny. And Danny is indeed a special case. We'll come back to him shortly. 

But in a quick bit of what must be some of the ever most cleverest dialog EVAR, Missy's right hand "interface," SEB, (why does she need to zap an interface into oblivion?) quips that this whole "afterlife" business, which constituted one of the main elements of the series arc, was in reality just a made up bit of poetic license when describing the Time Lord technology.  

I might have been slightly disappointed to learn that there was no tie-in with the rest of the modern era of the show as I had speculated and that the entire "heaven" business instead was just a lie. 

Just a teeny bit.

Oh, Missy, You're So Fine

So, moving along to the other main mystery of the season, the identity of the Mary Poppins-like nutter, early speculation among fans of the show included the theory that "Missy" could be short for "Mistress" which could be a female form of the word "Master" and thus the character would mark the return of the Doctor's old friend/nemesis. 

Again. 

Many, myself included, dismissed that possibility as being entirely too trite and obvious. I, therefore, joined the guessing game and eventually concluded, based upon a number of clues reaching back into and throughout the modern era of the show, that Missy was in fact the embodiment of the Papal Mainframe. I had reasons (that still make sense) stretching back at least to the Demon's Run episodes, not the least of which was the fact that there's a religious order that's composed of soldiers and the "soldier" motif appears repeatedly throughout Series 8. Plus Steven Moffat had expressly said this was a "new" character. 

Nope. 

Missy is the Master. 

Again. 

So, congratulations to everyone who guessed "wordplay" as the solution to the Missy puzzle!

I might have been slightly disappointed that Missy was the Master. 

Again.

A Good Man Goes to Hades

So now what becomes of all the business having to do with Danny being a soldier and the Doctor not liking soldiers and then the Doctor saluting both the mummy and the Cyber-Brigadier and the little toy soldier? 

Well, Danny, the soldier, meets the child he killed in battle and, using the device he obtained from Missy before he died-died, sends that child "back" to Clara's flat from the post-Nethersphere-afterlife (whatever that is,) partly redeeming himself from the battlefield condemnation that has troubled him throughout the Series. 

And we do discover that both the Cyber-Brigadier and the Cyber-Danny love someone, which is not an emotion but a promise, and that's why the Doctor doesn't need an army of soldiers. 

Because of the army of loving-promising soldiers implied by these two characters? 

Not sure. 

Anyway, REASONS. 

Of course, this means that the Missy/Master scheme to convert all the dead into Cyber-zombies might seem fatally flawed because of this love-promise business but that isn't even important because moments after Missy turns the Cyber-zombie army over to the Doctor, the Doctor turns it over to Cyber-Danny and then they all burn up in the sky and stop all the everything. 

The End. 

Except for Kate, and her deceased and zombified father, Cyber Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart, who flies away. 

And Danny, who sends the child back from the after-Cyber-afterlife and speaks to Clara from beyond the Cyber-grave or wherever.

Because he had a promise to keep. 

Or something.

Danny Pink is dead a couple of times over by now but I think he might be back. Just saying.

Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire

Finally, there's one more major theme that bears mentioning and that has to do with the notion of lying and deception. 

So, the Nethersphere is just one big lie. 

Lying is a great survival strategy. 

Clara tells a whopper (which was also, quite disappointingly, just another lie.)

Laying aside for the moment whether it's a great idea for a show with a significant youth audience to be celebrating lying this way, the "finale" ends up with the Doctor and Clara lying to each other while in each other's embrace. 

"Never trust a hug. It's just a way to hide your face." 

So, love is not an emotion but a promise, but a hug is neither emotion nor love but a deception. 

OK 

Got it. 

That's awesome. 

See, I'm not so much concerned at the end of the day whether Cyber-pollen clouds could really become a global army of Cyber-zombies or whether the overnight world forest evaporates into space fairies or whether the moon is really a giant alien egg. And I'm not necessarily looking for some great morality tale to help conclude the "Am I good man?" theme. (And a good thing, too, since that moral is ultimately that the Doctor is "an idiot, with a box and a screwdriver.") 

However, these are themes with profound resonance in the collective Western psyche and for the show to implicitly take the position that the moral choices it portrays mean nothing because this is all just a bit of fluff entertainment is disingenuous to say the least. How these things are handled actually matters. There are millions of people and children around the globe inspired by these tales and that represents an awesome responsibility toward humanity, quite frankly. How we deal with and relate to notions such as love and honesty and duty are the essence of our character. 

I'm not saying that a television show must handle deep and universal issues. But if it does venture into these themes, it should handle them well. 

Unfortunately, I'm not sure we've really done more this season than watch Capaldi become comfortable with the role of the Doctor and Coleman develop Clara into a more three-dimensional character. Which was interesting enough, I suppose, but left the whole of Series 8 feeling mostly hollow.

Next Stop: The North Pole

So, given that matters about good and bad, and truth and falsehood, and love and honor, have all gotten rather twisted up in an overly complex narrative about the Doctor's birthday present from the Master that ultimately doesn't lead anywhere much at all, how, oh, how can things ever get set right for another go at making interesting stories for the beloved characters in our favorite television show? 

Well, I wouldn't look for any actual resolution of any of the above shortcomings in the Christmas episode. 

Rather, I'd expect that this is exactly what we're going to get:

And have a Happy New Year!

Some Metry Guy