[WARNING: Spoilers ahead for the first part of Doctor Who‘s season eight finale.]
Doctor Who has finally forced the BBC to respond to upset viewers.
The first part of season eight’s two-part finale aired in the U.K. on Saturday, and saw Peter Capaldi’s Time Lord and sidekick Clara Oswald (played by Jenna Coleman) entangled in a story involving the afterlife, with a car crash death and an invasion of Cybermen. In the episode, entitled Dark Water, one character suggests that dead people can feel the pain of cremation, and claims that those donating their bodies to medical science also experienced such discomfort.
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The storyline provoked more than 100 complaints, which the BBC confirmed were regarding the references to pain.
“Doctor Who is a family drama with a long tradition of tackling some of the more fundamental questions about life and death,” the broadcaster said in a statement. “We were mindful of the themes explored in Dark Water and are confident that they are appropriate in the context of the heightened sci-fi world of the show.”
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The BBC also added that the claims made in the series regarding the afterlife were immediately dismissed by the Doctor as fraudulent.
Saturday’s show was watched by around five million people in the U.K. The two-part episode will conclude on Nov. 8.
