This is a spoiler-free review of Empire of Death. The spoiler-full review will follow the broadcast on BBC One. This review does contain spoilers for The Legend of Ruby Sunday.
Empire of Death feels as though it is the antithesis of The Legend of Ruby Sunday. Whilst that story felt overcrowded and as though it did not have enough to justify some character’s inclusion, Empire of Death feels much more intimate and contained. If the first part felt like the traditional Russell T Davies era set up for a finale, this episode feels in places more like how Steven Moffat would have wrapped up one of his series.
I really enjoyed a lot of Empire of Death and I think that it is a well-written balance of emotion and action, which is really where Russell T Davies shines. I think that the story benefits from feeling a bit more focused on fewer characters and generally feels tighter and more touching. There are still elements that don’t work so well and I feel as though this has been a pretty consistent issue throughout this series, that the pacing has often felt off and the resolution of stories suffers as a result. There was never any doubt in my mind that the resolution would resolve in a certain way. Ultimately though, I feel that the conclusion proves that Russell T Davies has not forgotten what Doctor Who is really all about and maybe shows that it was the right decision for him to come back. This is certainly a better finale than Last of the Time Lords or Journeys End, in my opinion.
The big bad who I was so hesitant to name in my spoiler-free review last week is of course, Sutekh, last seen in Pyramids of Mars, and the God of Death is certainly a decent foe to bring the Fifteenth Doctor’s first series to a close. This is helped by Gabriel Woolf, returning to lend his vocal talents to the character, which has lost nothing over the intervening years. The makeup work on Sutekh’s acolytes is really impressively creepy and serves to make the big bad feel all the more scary.
This story focuses more on the Doctor, Ruby and Mel than I was expecting going into this episode, and I feel that each get their chance to shine. Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson both get their fair share of decent moments and to my delight, this story finally gives Bonnie Langford something to do as Mel, and especially gets to show something that she did not get the chance to do when she was originally playing the character in the 1980s. There are some excellent speeches in here for the Doctor, some truly heartwarming dialogue and great performances all around.
For more spoiler-free reviews:
Space Babies – Spoiler-free review
The Devil’s Chord – Spoiler-Free Review
73 Yards – Spoiler-Free Review
The Impossible Blog 
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