Doctor Who recap: An enemy wants revenge in finale The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos
By James Aggas
The TARDIS crew meet Paltracki, who’s struggling to remember who he is in The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos.
(Image credit: Doctor Who/BBC.
Image obtained from: official Doctor Who website.)
The Doctor Who series finale features a surprise return in the form of Tzim-Sha. But what is he planning in The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos?
Doctor Who‘s final episode of its eleventh series, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos, began with two strangers, Andinio and Delph, each of whom has significant powers. Just when Delph starts to use his power to construct something, something else begins to materialize…
Thousands of years later, the Doctor and her friends find a distress call. Nine distress calls, in fact, all coming from the planet Ranskoor Av Kolos. The planet can affect the crew’s minds, but fortunately, the Doctor has neural balancers ready for each of them.
When they arrive on the planet, they find themselves in a seemingly abandoned spaceship. They also meet a man carrying a gun who doesn’t remember his own name or why he was there. After eventually giving him a neural balancer, the man begins to calm down. He even remembers his name: Paltraki.
We then begin to find out more about what’s happened to him and his crew when the ship receives a message. A message from both Andinio and someone the TARDIS crew are all too familiar with: Tzim-Sha, whom they first met in Thirteen’s first episode, The Woman Who Fell to Earth.
Tzim-Sha is threatening to kill each of Paltraki’s crew members until he brings back what was taken. While they can clearly see the strange object that was taken, Paltraki can’t remember what it is, and even the Doctor can’t work out what it is when she scans it with her screwdriver. Nevertheless, they take it with them, as they head to where Tzim-Sha’s located.
The sniper bots from The Ghost Monument return in the finale.
(Image credit: Doctor Who/BBC.
Image obtained from: official Doctor Who website.)
Moral dilemma
As they walk, Graham has a very honest word with the Doctor. If Graham finds Tzim-Sha, he’s going to kill him. The Doctor is against it, to the point where she explicitly says that Graham can’t travel with her if he goes through with it.
They find where Tzim-Sha is located: a levitating structure that’s later referred to as a “shrine”. They enter it through teleport and split up: Yazmin and Paltracki, Ryan and Graham, with the Doctor on her own.
Ryan has an upfront conversation with Graham, and knows what his granddad’s planning to do. Graham is still arguing how killing Tzim-Sha would be the best thing for everyone when they’re suddenly attacked by sniper bots, previously seen in The Ghost Monument.
Yaz and Paltracki come across similar objects to the ones they recovered, while the Doctor meets Andinio. Andinio is part of a race with a devout faith and only two members. They’re also incredibly powerful. Andinio comes close to shooting the Doctor, until Tzim-Sha asks for the Doctor to be brought to him instead.
Tzim-Sha explains to the Doctor that, after he was almost killed by his own DNA bombs, he was sent to Ranskoor Av Kolos 3,407 years ago. Initially, it looked like a death sentence. And then he met the Ux.
Not only saving his life, but worshiping him as a “creator”, the Ux gave Tzim-Sha the power to take away entire planets and create genocide on a huge scale. Each of the five small objects are in fact the planets compressed to an incredibly small size. Andinio and Delph then use the power of the shrine to attack the sixth planet: Earth.
The Doctor has to stop Tzim-Sha from destroying planet Earth.
(Image credit: Doctor Who/BBC.
Image obtained from: official Doctor Who website.)
Graham’s choice
Meanwhile, Graham and Ryan find more of the missing crew in stasis chambers. As they do their best to rescue them, Ryan continues to try to convince Graham not to go through with trying to kill Tzim-Sha. He even tells his granddad that he loves him (something that Graham is very surprised to hear).
Just as they’re attacked by an army of Tzim-Sha’s robots, Paltracki arrives to rescue them. He then rescues the rest of his crew, and Ryan helps to lead them to safety at Paltracki’s ship. Graham stays behind to confront Tzim-Sha.
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When the Doctor realizes exactly what the Ux are being used for, she’s put in a very difficult position: kill two people or let the Earth die. However, she decides to take a third option instead: using her and Yaz’s neural balancer, they’re able to block the Ux’s minds from connecting to the weapon.
Initially, Andinio is reluctant to stop working for “the creator”. But the Doctor eventually makes her realize that Tzim-Sha isn’t what he claimed to be. With the planets threatening to break out of their cages and cause a hole in reality, the Ux decide to help the Doctor, using her TARDIS to send the planets home.
When Graham finally confronts Tzim-Sha, despite much taunting and having him in his sights, Graham realizes he can’t kill him. Tzim-Sha comes close to killing Graham instead, until Ryan comes in. As Tzim-Sha turns to attack him instead, Graham shoots him in the foot. Together, they lock him in a stasis chamber, making sure he remembers Grace for all eternity.
With the Ux deciding to join Paltracki as a part of his crew, the Doctor and her friends head off for their next adventure.
Next. Review: Entanglement presents an intriguing mystery for the First Doctor. dark
Did you enjoy The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos? What did you make of Tzim-Sha’s return? And how well does it hold up as a finale? Let us know in the comments below.