Written by Chris Chibnall
Directed by Jamie Magnus Stone
The Master: "That's a good entrance, right? Be afraid, Doctor because everything is about to change forever."
Oh shit. Those rumours are going to be true, Chibnall is going to go there and mess about previously established lore in a massive way and it's going to end up causing more headaches than anything else. Come on, Chris, I'm all for you taking risks but this might be one risk too big for the show to come back from. Oh fuck, he's going there, isn't he?
Anyways on to the main action of this episode, well it felt like we were watching two different stories waiting to actually connect with one another but they didn't. Inevitably they will though next week but even still, it did feel like watching two different shows at times.
Taking a trip to an unspecified part of Ireland (the amount of frustration with this, I could go to town with) a little baby boy got adopted by a nice rural family, gets called Brendan, grows up to be a strapping young Garda (Evan McCabe), then gets himself shot into the head, dives off a cliff and doesn't fecking die at all.
Then there's the bit where he's older, retiring and his non ageing father and mentor cuff him to a chair in the station and decide to start the process all over again. Yeah, right, now I'm running on the assumption that Brendan's one of the Timeless Children with Ruth/Fugitive Doctor probably being another but seeing how this will all be resolved in a satisfying manner on Sunday will be the real test here.
Elsewhere, the Cyberwarriors were rocking up led by the very emotional Ashad and the last few humans had the blessing and curse of also being paired off with the Doctor and her companions. Not many of them really stood out, except for Ravio (Julie Graham) who seemed to have a bit of a flirty rapport with Graham but basically Team Graham/Yaz got trapped on a ship with a mess load of Cybermen as Ashad had woke up his band of warriors.
As for Team Doctor/Ryan, well they did manage to meet Ko Sharmus (Ian McElhinney) who was some sort of ferryman surrouding the Border but the real exciting bit was the Master coming back at exactly the last minute to tell the Doctor that everything was about to change. With one episode left at least we know he's not entirely taking the piss with this one.
- Julie Graham previously popped up in The Sarah Jane Adventures as Ruby White. A part of me did wonder if Ravio was going to be revealed as another Doctor.
- Nice mixture of different era Cybermen for this episode but no Mondasian ones? They worked so well in World Enough And Time/The Doctor Falls.
- Back to the cold open again and also the use of the middle eight during the end credits.
- It does feel like they're setting up a companion death but which one though?
- The Cyberdrones looked absolutely ridiculous.
- Chronology: Ireland throughout various decades, but most of the action was space based.
Ascension Of The Cybermen - it's a decent enough set up to the finale and while I'm sure the Brendan plot will tie into the other stuff next week, it did feel too separate from the main action and the latter itself certainly felt too padded out for it's own good. Thank goodness the Master rocked up at the last minute.
Rating: 7 out of 10
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