After last week's "Dark Water" took the time to move Doctor Who's various pieces around the proverbial chessboard, "Death in Heaven" took the chessboard and blew it up into an action-packed finale that brought back a few familiar faces (Hi, Osgood!), tied together several ongoing themes and storylines, like whether the Doctor is a good man, and finally put the Doctor on the course to Gallifrey.
In hindsight it's possible to see how the entire season was building up to the reveal of the Master, and like I suspected last week, the Doctor finding Gallifrey, but I wish we'd taken a less circuitous route to get here. It feels like we spent an awful lot of time running in place, but the end result was mostly enjoyable. From the Master's instantly classic Mary Poppins moment to a sort-of cameo from Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, the episode brought everything back into focus. And so while I have a few grumbles about the journey the show took this season, the destination was worth it in the end.
Peter Capaldi's first season as the Doctor might not be the most fondly remembered, but it won't be because of anything he did. Capaldi truly is, if I may steal Nine's favorite word, fantastic in the role. He brings a sense of depth and anguish to the character as he runs from one place to the next, just trying to maneuver in this world like anyone else. A lot of the stuff involving UNIT on the plane was just exposition, but it showcased the deep madness hiding within the Master (and also kind of made me wish for a Master-centered spin-off?) and pointed out that the Doctor has what the Master always wanted—the power to rule the world—and he didn't have to scheme and plot his way to the top. The Doctor's past heroic behavior has rewarded him with the role, even if the Doctor doesn't A) want it, or B) think he deserves it, and that's truly what sets the Doctor and Master apart.
The Master claims she created an entire army of Cybermen for the Doctor ("Armies are for people who think they're right; Nobody thinks they're righter than you") so he could win every battle because he's always got to be a big damn hero. But the Doctor doesn't need an army—he never has—he only needs his friends, his companions. Underneath the ravings of a lunatic, the Master really just wanted her friend back and wanted to rule the world with him. She organized this entire scheme involving the Cyberman in an attempt to force the Doctor to admit that they're not that different (and, of course, to tie together the show's ongoing theme involving soldiers and commanders and what part the Doctor plays in all of it). The Doctor is forced time and again to make difficult, sometimes horrible decisions to save the world, and even though having an army of his own would probably come in handy, no one person should have the kind of power the Master was offering up.
But Danny wasn't necessarily wrong about the Doctor, because he's not a good man. Of course, he's also not a bad man either. The Doctor is not a hero, nor is he a president—he's a single man who's just passing through, helping out, and learning as he goes, which makes him no different than the rest of the human race. The difference is that the Doctor has a TARDIS, is far, far more clever than everyone else, and he's always, always looking at the big picture. His brain is always a step ahead of everyone else trying to calculate how best to save the world in any given moment, but that doesn't automatically make him a hero. Danny might not like the Doctor, but he's certainly better than the alternative. And if the Doctor is always looking at how to save the world and not just a single person, the Master is the opposite. She always fails to take into account the rest of the world. Everything she does revolves around the Doctor, and she has tunnel vision to the point where she's so focused on her diabolical plans that she ultimately fails to notice the flaw in her design: the single Cyberman who wasn't under her control, and it became her undoing.
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