‘Physician Who’ season finale ‘Empire of Demise’ had a TARDIS stuffed with references – Cyber Tech

The historical past of Physician Who was without end modified by the season finale episode “Empire of Demise” — however not in the way in which we had been anticipating.

Regardless of inspiring a flurry of fan theories about Ruby Sunday’s mum (may or not it’s Rose?), showrunner Russell T Davies merely gave us the statistically probably reply. As foreshadowed in “The Legend of Ruby Sunday,” the thriller mom was … an strange younger lady. As a substitute of the looks of Susan the Physician’s granddaughter, we discovered that her identify was sprinkled all through historical past by Sutekh the Destroyer, god of demise.

However that does not imply Whovian brains aren’t exploding at what Davies simply casually revealed alongside the way in which, beginning with this unimaginable headline:

Sutekh has been hanging across the TARDIS for the final 49 years of Physician Who.

In “Pyramids of Mars” (1975), the one story previous to this season to comprise Sutekh, the Physician (Tom Baker) and Sarah-Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) thought he had trapped his strongest enemy in a time hall, the place he aged greater than 7,000 years. Then they jumped within the TARDIS and shortly left the scene of the entice — a burning priory in 1911 that might sooner or later turn into UNIT HQ.

However from that time onwards, we now know, Sutekh was wrapped across the TARDIS, “staring into eternity and slowly evolving into my godhood.”

That is proper — each single Physician Who story from “Pyramids of Mars” to “The Legend of Ruby Sunday” has been irrevocably modified, as a result of every one now comprises secret Sutekh.

The Sutekh-on-the-TARDIS period now begins with “The Android Invasion” (1975) and continues for an astonishing 231 extra TV tales, together with the whole lot within the final 19 “New Who” years of Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi, Jodie Whittaker, Tennant once more, and now Ncuti Gatwa. There are lots of of implications. To select only one: When Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) clung to the skin of the TARDIS in “Utopia” (2007), he was driving with Sutekh to the literal finish of the universe.

No surprise Gatwa’s Physician screamed when he considered all of the worlds he’d by chance contaminated with Sutekh’s Susan clones. We should always too. In watching him do it, oblivious themselves, the TV audiences of the final 49 years are successfully complicit. Title one other present that can provide you a twist like this!

The twist does, nevertheless, additionally mess with the tales of Sutekh’s return in Physician Who comics, novels, and Large End audio dramas. However hey, you possibly can at all times head-canon that downside away by saying Sutekh acquired splintered in time, or some such typical Who clarification.

The Reminiscence TARDIS is now canon.

That ersatz TARDIS held along with “recollections and desires”? Not solely is it a fan’s dream, with extra Easter eggs than you possibly can wave psychic paper at — such because the “WHO 1” license plate from the Physician’s automotive Bessie within the Jon Pertwee period, and the traditional present’s TARDIS console on the ceiling — it is also the setting for Tales of the TARDIS, a current BBC sequence that repackages traditional multi-part tales in omnibus editions — together with, most just lately, “Pyramids of Mars.”

In bookend scenes, companions and Docs from the traditional period (all performed by their unique actors at their present creaky ages) reminisce within the so-called Reminiscence TARDIS. Not one of the characters know the way they acquired there, besides to counsel that the TARDIS itself is dreaming. Now we all know why — and Davies can pat himself on the again for putting one of many key moments from the finale in a spin-off that began the earlier 12 months.

How one can watch: Tales of the Tardis is streaming on BBC iPlayer within the UK. No phrase but on when or even when Tales of the TARDIS will ever land on Disney+, although the companion bookend scenes have been uploaded by followers to YouTube.

The Physician likes to look at himself in “Pyramids of Mars.”

Gatwa’s Physician spends an excellent chunk of his first scene with Sutekh staring on the traditional Tom Baker story in query. Now at first look, it could appear unusual that this supposed reminiscence of the Physician’s seems to be very very like a BBC manufacturing from 1975, full with digicam angles and cuts.

However there’s precedent for this, most notably in “Trial of a Time Lord” (1986). On this season-long story, the Physician (Colin Baker) and his prosecutor the Valeyard (Michael Jayston) argue over a number of new-to-us Physician adventures whereas they watch them on a large projector display screen in court docket. The battered cathode ray tube display screen Gatwa is toting not less than appears rather more Physician-ish.

How one can watch: “Pyramids of Mars” is streaming on BBC iPlayer within the UK and Britbox within the U.S.

Mel misses the Sixth Physician’s uncommon outfit.

Ncuti Gatwa and Bonnie Langford in “Empire of Demise.”
Credit score: Disney+

Talking of Colin Baker, his polka-dot bow tie and his eyesore of a multicolored coat is entrance and heart within the Reminiscence TARDIS — which explains why Melanie Bush (Bonnie Langford) has a nostalgic second when she sees them.

Mel was launched in “Trial of a Time Lord,” however misplaced that model of the Physician within the very subsequent story when he regenerated into the Seventh Physician, Sylvester McCoy. Was this her manner of claiming McCoy ought to have saved the coat?

The Physician has historical past with spoons… and whistles.

The spoon that the Physician procures on a distant planet is much from the primary to look within the present. McCoy’s Physician, like McCoy himself, preferred to play the spoons. Peter Capaldi’s Physician as soon as dueled Robin Hood in a splendidly foolish spoon-on-sword struggle. And Jodie Whittaker’s Physician melted Sheffield metal spoons to make her sonic screwdriver.

However that is nothing in comparison with the Physician’s love of (literal) canine whistles. He used one many instances within the Tom Baker period, typically to summon his robotic canine Okay-9 and typically to incapacitate or annoy army figures and officers. The truth that it was a canine whistle ought to have been a clue to the Physician’s plan to pull Sutekh by the Time Vortex like Mitt Romney with the household canine.

The Beatles teased the ending of “Empire of Demise.”

The Beatles in “The Satan’s Chord.”
Credit score: Disney+

“My canine is alive, he isn’t lifeless,” the Beatles sang earlier within the season, in “The Satan’s Chord.” On the time it was seen merely as doggerel (pun very a lot meant), a sign that the world had misplaced its musical mojo. However the big invisible dog-headed deity sitting exterior the TARDIS on Abbey Highway knew otherwise. If solely the Physician had listened to the Beatles!

Sutekh is cultural appropriation.

Talking of the dog-headed alien deity, why did he simply occur to appear to be the Egyptian god named Sutekh? “Cultural appropriation,” says the Physician — a well timed reversal of an outdated Who trope.

In “Pyramids of Mars,” Tom Baker’s Physician says Sutekh was so evil that cultures throughout the universe designed their gods to appear to be him — which is, y’know, a bit dismissive of 1000’s of years of historic Egyptian historical past. So it is becoming that the primary Physician actor born in Africa (Gatwa is Rwandan-Scottish) will get to face up for the dignity of the continent’s oldest civilization.

73 yards is the radius of the TARDIS’ notion filter!

Aneurin Barnard as Roger ap Gwilliam in “73 Yards.”
Credit score: Disney+

Sutekh created all these Susans on the fringe of the TARDIS’ notion filter — which the Physician reveals to be a distance of 66.7 meters. Ruby remembers that that is 73 yards. Which is in fact the identify of this season’s episode during which an older model of her follows Ruby at this distance for her total life till she breaks a time loop, erasing her reminiscence of the whole story.

In “73 Yards,” UNIT commander Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) postulated that the thriller stalker had one thing to do with the TARDIS’ notion filter. (Confirmed!) That is additionally the space of the CCTV digicam that recorded the occasions on Ruby Highway seen in “The Legend of Ruby Sunday.”

We additionally see Roger ap Gwilliam (Aneurin Barnard), the longer term fascist Prime Minister from “73 Yards,” whose genetic database allowed Ruby to search out her mum. However that raises a terrifying prospect: if the time loop is damaged, and Ruby’s stalker not scares Gwilliam into resigning, and Sutekh restored the lives of everybody in that future Britain, does that imply the nuclear-mad PM will get to launch his missiles in any case?

Extra Physician Who planets than ever acquired a shout-out.

Skaro, residence of the Daleks. Telos, residence of the Cybermen. (Effectively, one in every of their properties — lengthy story.) The Ood Sphere, residence of the Ood. These are simply among the planet that get a shoutout from the Physician as Sutekh inadvertently restores life to all of them. (Agua Santina, the planet with the lady with the spoon and the newborn, is fully new.)

The others are fairly deep cuts, to place it mildly. Solely two are from the New Who period: Messaline from “The Physician’s Daughter” and Shan Shen from “Flip Left.” The others are all traditional present areas: Vortis from “The Net Planet”, Tigella from “Meglos,” Calufrax from “The Pirate Planet,” Spiridon from “Planet of the Daleks.”

You may most likely watch all these tales, however you may need to be an historic god wrapped round a TARDIS to have that type of time in your palms.

How one can watch: All Gatwa’s first season of Physician Who is on Disney+, the place accessible, and on BBC iPlayer within the UK.