A good finale can often influence one’s perception of a show. Like we did last week, let’s use Game of Thrones as an example. For seven seasons, it was consistently a critical darling, and most people would classify it as a great show. However, with the broadcast of the Final Season, public opinion shifted, and much less people were willing to recommend the show to others.
While I still maintain that this series is a decent watch, especially Planet of the Mechanoids, the finale does taint the series a little. I found it to be full of holes and tropes, as well as slightly rushed.
Let’s start with the holes. All of a sudden, we are told that there was some kind of secret bunker on Skaro, that the Emperor was hiding a bunch of Daleks in, off screen. This has no buildup whatsoever, and begs the question, why would the Daleks abandon Skaro in the first place if there were still Daleks there?
There’s also the Strategist “betrayal” plotline. Note the quotes, since it’s not really that convincing, and I found myself sighing inside when, as predicted, the Strategist betrayed the Mechanoids. The series already gave a chance for the Strategist to betray the Emperor back in The Sentinel of the Fifth Galaxy, and it didn’t. Granted, the seeds were there, but there wasn’t enough development to make this feel worthwhile.
Finally, while I get the fact that this is part of the “Time Lord Victorious” storyline, and you can’t play your whole deck at once, why couldn’t we have learned more about the Entity? I checked the wiki, and it gets a name in another story, apparently called “the Slave of the Hond”, but that’s about it so far. We know it comes from another dimension, but why not hint that it’s not the main villain of the saga? Why not drop some clues about its origins?
Still, I must say this isn’t the worst thing the Whoniverse has ever done. There’s a pretty sizable amount of Dalek v Mechanoid action, so there’s that going for it.
Overall, I’d still recommend watching the series, even if the finale did disappoint me. Plus, there’s the added bonus that it’s free on YouTube, so you only need to invest around an hour and a half to watch it.
With that, we’ve finally made it to January 1st of 2021, where a new Dalek adventure will soon be on our screens………..
