Doctor Who season 8, episode 11 was certainly filled with darkness, pain, and the rediscovery of an old nemesis.

Time to play ‘Taps’ for Danny Pink

In what was a bit of a shocker, Danny Pink was run over by a car and killed. Clara, understandably, has trouble grieving and letting go. She does what anyone with a time-travelling, history tampering, semi-stickler for rules friend would do. She attempts to trick the Doctor into rewriting her and Danny’s future. Despite Clara’s botched attempt at blackmail, because the Doctor cares for Clara so deeply, he will literally go to and through hell for her. While he’s at it, the Doctor might want to hide the Tardis keys in a better place, or put a remote setting on the sonic screwdriver.

Welcome to the Underworld, Paradise, The Great Beyond, etc.

Whatever you want to call it, Missy’s world of the dead isn’t what anyone expected. We’ll have to give Steven Moffat props for originality on this one. His underworld was literally an under-upside-down world. In it, as you wait around while being processed, you apparently feel what your corpse does: the fires of cremation, or the cold of a morgue slab. While you’re waiting, you’re faced with metro-sexual staff in pastel suits, and skeletons in fish tanks. Danny doesn’t meet the creepy skeletons in the fish-tanks that the Doctor and Clara stumble upon. He deals with a personal hell of facing a child he shot to death when he was a soldier.

Cybermen clues

Clues start to add up after awhile. Amy Pond once ripped the head off a Cyberman to reveal a skeleton inside. The 3W logo is exactly like the eye with a teardrop that has been the hallmark of the Cybermen for decades. The water in the tanks masks anything non-organic so the exoskeletons must be inorganic—nothing holds up to water better than metal. In case it wasn’t clear, the Cybermen want new arrivals to elect deletion to become units in the Cyberman army. Presumably, their endgame is some type of after-world conquest.

Meet the Master, and he’s a she

When we last met the Master, it was in the Tenth Doctor’s final episode. The Master was presumed destroyed, or possibly sent back with Rassilon and the other Time Lords into a time locked Time War. So how exactly did he get out and regenerate into a she? Perhaps part of the answer lies in what the Doctors did last November 23. Methinks someone found a hole in the pocket of the pocket universe (See video below.).

What does the Missy want?

This seems to be the question of the hour. What exactly was Missy up to in her fortress underneath St. Paul’s Cathedral? Why does she need the Cybermen? Is there a willing alliance, or are they plotting to do away with each other eventually? How does Missy using Clara figure into all of this?

More unanswered questions

Does Danny get out? Is Clara currently pregnant, and is her and Danny’s child is the ancestor of Orson in the future? Can or should the Doctor rewrite Danny’s history?

So with one episode left this year, the Doctor will have to battle the Cybermen and the Master. It remains to be seen if this all wraps up by next week, or perhaps even the Christmas special. Could the BBC possibly leave us with a huge cliffhanger that won’t be solved until season nine. Presumably, season nine won’t air until fall 2015.