I've been letting my thoughts on this episode stew for a bit, I rewatched it again, and I really liked it— thought it was the best Capalid finale, and second best Moffat finale. Capaldi shined as usual, Mackie was great, Lucas was great, Simm was great— the whole cast was great.
Although I wish they would have stuck with the original cybermen design (oh how I love those cybermen), and not included any of the newer ones. And I didn't like that Missy got "the full blast" and supposedly can't regenerate, because that's just something some future writer is going to have to find a loop hole for when they bring Missy/the Master back. She could have just been incapacitated by the regeneration.
On the second viewing, I found the puddle ex machina bothered me less since I felt they set up for it enough, and it was a fairly unique solution (and because I like Bill). Just about every season has that sort of cop out, and it usually works story wise— like Jack being brought back by Bad Wolf Rose, Rose being saved by Pete, the earth reseting back a year in the Master story arc, the Doctor being remembered and brought back from the crack, etc... And they all sort earned it because of proper set up and unique circumstances. This is also why I don't think it cheapened the cyber-conversion, because they set up the tear thing in the first episode, and constantly mentioned it in this last episode (the Doctor says it should be impossible for her to cry, and that's because it's not her tears), and it's such a unique circumstance that I don't think it cheapens too much—
I don't we'll never have another lesbian puddle of space oil come save her girlfriend. Though I wish she hadn't of said she could have made her human, there should still be some consequences.
But like how Jack being brought back didn't cheapen the Daleks, because I doubt we'll have a Bad Wolf moment again, and now he's sort of cursed to never die (until in New New York I don't even know how many years later). But then there's the cop outs that don't work, because it's not a once-in-a-lifetime sort of deal— I hated Clara being brought back to life because that technology is ALWAYS ACCESSIBLE TO THE DOCTOR (if he really tries) and makes death moot. God, I hated Hell Bent...
Anyways...
I also at first didn't like the whole "I don't want to go" mentality coming back. Hated that about Ten's departure, but after thinking about it, it sort of makes sense, and is a fairly different mentality. It looks like he'd rather die than change again, and I think his protests can be understandable to a degree since he's now gone past the normal regeneration cycle of a Time Lord. He feels like he's done it too many times, and he's sick of it. We'll see how they handle that in the Christmas episode.
Well to be fair 11ths last episode and this last one are essentially the same episode, with a sprinkle of Clara's last episode, no wonder they killed off both Masters so early, there was no lines for them in the script they were recycling.
I'm sure we can probably just agree to disagree, but I'm also curious why you think this is the same as 11's last episode? In Time of the Doctor, he spent 900 years guarding the crack and protecting the town against all sorts of enemies, Daleks, weeping angels, cybermen, sontarans, and probably more; while in this one he's spending less than a day holding off an army of cybermen so the townspeople can escape.
I read your earlier post about fighting an endless war against cybermen (well, the war ends pretty quickly after the attack came), but it also bears the same resemblance to almost every episode, where the Doctor defends some group of people against some sort of alien/aliens— that's the show. Town Called Mercy (the Doctor defends the town against a cybernetically enhanced gunslinger), Day of the Moon (The Doctor defends earth against an endless number of silence), Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel (the Doctor defends the human race against an ever-growing number of cybermen) etc.
