✦ÐOCTOR WHϴ✦

There’s no sense of it being a last hurrah for Fifteen or a celebration of his time as The Doctor. There’s so many conclusions that just don’t land as firmly as they should for an episode that rounds off an entire era, so many threads that should go somewhere but don’t, so many what ifs destined to be unexplored.

And that doesn’t necessarily mean that the concept of a surprise regeneration inherently doesn’t work – I think it could work if the story still satisfyingly sets up a regeneration without entirely letting the audience in on it until the time is right – but the complete and blatant lack of intention lets this final farewell down badly.

It’s bad enough that we had to say goodbye to The Fifteenth Doctor after so little time with him, that it felt like his era was unfinished, that we’re now left to process the loss of all that potential. But the fact that the story itself imbues this, hurriedly tacking on his regeneration at the end of an episode that does nothing to serve or justify it, makes this loss so much more bitter and insulting.