Who knows

So, it was the season finale of Peter Capaldi's maiden season as Dr Who.  Checking IMDb, on the basis of 51 users, A Death in Heaven (riffing on various 'deaths in paradise') was given 9.3 out of 10.  I'm a little more sober in my judgement.
After the terrific menace of the previous episode, Dark Water, I was a little underwhelmed by how little the Cybermen did off their own back (they are my favourite Who villains), merely serving as tools for the Master/Missy (Michelle Gomez) to claim moral equivalence with the Doctor and to defeat the latter on a psychological battlefield.  The victory of the Master would be to corrupt the Doctor and in a way the Doctor did that by disintegrating Missy (though no doubt it was actually a dematerialisation).
Yes, their were some storylines tied up by Steven Moffat, the master of long-form exposition; and yes, the emotional arcs were believable if a little overextended in the case of Clara and Danny, the boyfriend following the pattern of the Doctor's compatriots, if rarely companions, in self-sacrifice.  So we've seen it before - variation on a well-worn theme.  The brutality of the episode was welcome - the death of Osgood was almost as big a shock as her death (when the Master says they will kill you, demise is usually forthcoming) - for the 50th anniversary, she wore a Tom Baker scarf, here a Matt Smith bowtie complete with catchphrase.  Seemingly taking out Kate Stewart, daughter of Brigadier (ultimately General in the Sarah-Jane Adventures) Lethbridge-Stewart, was another refreshing slap in the face, although I doubt the Brigadier would have approved of being made into a zombie Cyberman, as I did as the apparent desecration of a beloved Who character.
The problems for this conclusion began in Dark Water.  A science fiction enterprise only has credibility if there is some grounding in basic facts.  If those facts are wrong, then disbelief is hard to suspend.  Missy's contention that the human race is "at a strategic disadvantage.  The dead outnumber the living." is a case of no-one telling Moffat that he creating cobblers as creaky as the sets in the original Dr Who serials.  And like those sets there is a domino effect.  The dead do not outnumber the living.  I can't recall how many times I've heard that more people are alive today than have ever lived, the repetition being because it's true.  Hence the dead do not outnumber the living.  Further compounding this flaw is Missy's masterplan of pollinating corpses, yet the vast number of people today are cremated (something mentioned in Dark Water) so the Cyberman army is further reduced.  So even if the Master/Missy harvested consciousness from across time (an offensive concept further pushing Who into the bounds of controversy), inhumation has never been universal and still isn't to this d.ay across much of the world (I think of the funeral pyre barges on the River Ganges alone).  If the central concept has such a gaping hole, the rest must be taken on tolerance.  There were a few other logic gaps - why were only Danny and the Brigadier able to retain consciousness?  Why were we told Danny would never hurt Clara but he zapped her so she collapsed in a heap on the floor.  Why did Kate Stewart threaten essentially Earth cybermen with a relic of a Mondas cyberman - they were almost completely different models.
I still am not a fan of Capaldi as the Doctor and he has only got better as the scripts improved, rather than any acceptance on my part.  All the same, he produced a masterclass in acting for the finale as Moffat's genius allowed him to flex his dramatic muscles.  There have been some nice touches as things have developed - telling the 2D monsters 'this plane [i.e. planet] is protected' or referencing classic Dr Who versus Cyberman serial The Invasion, with the cyborgs walking outside to a backdrop of St Paul's Cathedral (the cupola opening up like a Terry's Chocolate Orange was not to my liking).  Missy parachuting into the graveyard like Mary Poppins was very amusing.  I did like Jenna Coleman as Clara, the consummate timelord companion but it seems the parting of the ways is final and a new companion will join the series after the Christmas special, with Nick Frost as Father Christmas appearing mid-credits and recognising the downbeat nature of the curtain-closer - very meta.
Maybe I'm still in mourning for the Russell T Davies era but for me, Dr Who has never really captivated me since and this is no reflection the abilities of Smith, Capaldi or indeed Moffat and his team.  It's good that Moffat has stamped his signature on the series but it is out of sync with my own direction.  I will still watch the Doctor's derring-do but there is always a background feeling of disharmony between myself and what I'm watching.  Who knows if synchronisation will be achieved in 2015?