Doctor Who 10x11: World Enough and Time

Doesn’t it feel like Series Ten has gone really quickly? Not so long ago we were being introduced to the wonderful Bill Potts in The Pilot. As we approach the end of the Capaldi era, Steven Moffat seems to be pulling out all of the stops to pull surprise viewers and create a sense of uncertainty as to how this era will end.

The first shock of the episode comes in the pre-titles sequence. We see the Doctor stepping out of the Tardis and start to regenerate in the middle of a snowy wilderness. It remains to be seen whether or not he actually completes this regeneration but it's already more intriguing than the one in The Lie of the Land because now we're at the end of the series. At this point, the departure of Peter Capaldi is almost upon us, and a sudden regeneration wouldn't seem too out of place.

After the titles, we are introduced to the main setting of this episode; an unnamed colony ship, reversing away from a black hole.  A distress signal has been sent from the ship which is what brings the Doctor, Bill Nardole and Missy into the story. The Doctor intends to test the sincerity of Missy's redemption and this is the perfect scenario. With Bill and Nardole as her companions, Missy must assume the role of the Doctor and save the ship. It's a funny scenario, which viewers a glimpse into what it might be like to see a female incarnation of the Doctor. Paving the way for Chris Chibnall, perhaps?

But nothing is ever straightforward. Upon leaving the Tardis, Missy and her companions meet the only surviving crew-member, Jorje. The arrival of a human is bringing something up the elevator from the bottom of the ship. Jorje is determined to kill the human to prevent the elevator from arriving. The Doctor gets involved and tensions escalate until we get the second shock of the episode when Bill is shot. The image of Bill with an empty hole through her chest is horrifying for a pre-watershed show. But before the viewers can truly process Bill’s death, the elevator arrives and a group of freaky patients emerge and take Bill’s body away to the bottom of the ship.

Normally, it would be simple enough for the Doctor to go down the elevator and rescue Bill except for the fact that this ship is experiencing time dilation. Because the ship is reversing away from the black hole, time is moving slower at the back end of where Bill is, and moving faster at the top where the Doctor, Nardole, Missy and Jorje are. This means that in the few minutes the Doctor is devising a plan to save Bill, weeks and months are passing for her. It’s a fascinating concept for Doctor Who to explore and adds tension as to quite how long Bill will have to wait to be saved.

Meanwhile, Bill wakes up and finds that the hole in her heart has been filled with a huge chest unit. As she gets up and explores, she finds she is trapped in a really creepy hospital along with the patients. Her only friend is a mysterious man with an Eastern European accent, called Razor. These patients it seems are being prepared for the greater good, and long-time viewers of Doctor Who will start recognise that they are being turned into Cybermen. The months go by for Bill, as she befriends Razor.

When the group are eventually reunited it is after the three key revelations. The Space Ship is actually from Mondas and Bill has been converted into a Cyberman. Missy discovers that Razor is actually her previous incarnation in disguise.  The duel threats of the Cybermen and Missy certainly represent one of the best cliff-hangers of this period of the show.

It is a sign of how likeable Bill is that you feel sorry for her in the episode. Amy and Clara being converted would never have seemed so sad. Pearl Mackie really sells the horror of the hospital and her disapproval of the Doctor’s plan to redeem Missy. Pearl's performance and some good writing have combined for a really interesting character. As much as I like Bill I hope the Cyber-Conversion sticks. It would be so much like Steven Moffat to reverse it.

Fans have long wanted to see a Genesis of the Cybermen on television and this is a really good one.
The Patients are creepy form of Proto-Cybermen with voice boxes and horrible bandaged faces. The designer is to be congratulated for adapting the Mondasian Cyberman. The ones here are more streamlined creature and Nicholas Briggs provides them with creepy voice. I also liked the idea that the handlebars were an early version of the emotional inhibitor. It went towards justifying that strange design choice.

The Doctor goes through a range of emotions. The look of disbelief on his face when he sees Bill has been shot is excellent, as is his look of surprise at the return of John Simm's Master in the climax. The Doctor's desire to redeem Missy’s is a little naïve but the writing makes it more understandable from his perspective. If he can turn an evil person like Missy good then it will be better for the rest of the universe. His mistake may end up in leading to not only the death of others, but the end of his current incarnation as well.

With so much else happening, Nardole doesn’t get a lot to do this week apart from cracking the odd jokes. Missy takes his place as a computer expert, making him almost redundant. Hopefully he will contribute a bit more to next week’s episode. It's not yet known for certain whether he will stay on for the Christmas episode, or even for Series Eleven. If the next episode is Nardole's last then it would be great if he could go out on a high. Matt Lucas has been great this series and I don’t want his departure to be a disappointment.

Missy also goes through the ringer here. The scenes where she pretends to be the Doctor are absolutely hilarious. Her look of uncertainty when she meets her other self is good. If she truly is searching for redemption then the appearance of her old self will be a temptation. It will be interesting to see where this goes.

John Simm is great in the dual role of Razor and the Master.  The character of Razor is a bit of a funny caricature but Simm makes him hilarious. His Master so far seems just the same as before but now with a goatee and a really great costume designed by Hayley Nebauer. I can’t wait to see him in full in the next episode

The rest of the supporting cast play a fairly peripheral role. The blue skinned Jorje is a largely forgettable character, largely serving as a plot device to shoot Bill and then spout exposition. The crew of the bottom deck are far more effective. Paul Brightwell as the Surgeon is a wonderfully sinister character. Alison Lintott as the nurse is a nasty type. They are both the kind of characters you wouldn’t want to s meet in a real hospital.

Rachael Talalay is the best director of the Peter Capaldi years. Only Ben Wheately comes close. The scenes at the bottom of the ship are as close to a horror movie as you could get for an early Saturday evening family show. Murray Gold must also be congratulated for providing some very distinctive music. The violins and falsetto sell the creepiness. We're a long way from the work of Ed Bazalgette.

World Enough and Time is a fantastic episode. Steven Moffat has never killed off a companion before. As this is his very last series it would be a great opportunity for him to leave after doing something shocking.

9/10

From Sherlock Holmes to Dracula

It turns out that after leaving Doctor Who , Steven Moffat is going to be working on an adaption of Dracula. He will be writing this series with Mark Gatiss and Sue Vertue's Hartswood Films will be producing it. The show share the same mini-series structure as Sherlock.

The fact that this is another adaption of an old British fictional character makes the show feel a little familiar, especially if it shares the same episodic structure. It will be interesting to see who gets cast as Dracula. Will they go for a traditional actor or someone new and unexpected? If Dracula is a surname then they could easily cast a woman. The sexuality of vampires is something Moffat will do well and I can't imagine Steven Moffat creating anything like Twilight so that is just as well. Hopefully it will be better than that turgid 2006 adaption which starred Mark Warren. Time will tell if this is as popular as Sherlock or whether it will dissapear into obscurity like Jekyll.

Doctor Who 10x10: The Eaters of Light

The writer of this episode, Rona Munro, is as a playwright and scriptwriter but Doctor Who fans would identify her as the writer of Survival, the final story of Doctor Who’s original 26 year run. Survival was a pretty good story and I was curious to see whether The Eaters of Light would live up to it.

The Eaters of Light does share a few similarities with Rona’s previous tale. In Survival the Doctor and his companion met a group of young people surviving in the wild from monsters. In this story he meets two different groups of young people surviving in the wild from monsters. One of these groups is the Pict people, the residents of Scotland. The other group are the survivors of the Ninth Legion, a group of young male Romans sent to conquer the country. As with Survival, the fighting of these different factions is causing damage to the greater world at large and the Doctor also gets a speech where he implores each group to stop fighting or they will die together.

The monster that the Picts and the Legion are faced with is an Eater of Light.  For many years, a warrior of the Pict tribe would enter a Cairn to fight this monster and keep the rest of the world safe. Since the Romans invaded, the young warrior Kar decided to allow a Eaters of Light into the world to kill the Romans. Kar's actions have had grave consequences as there is now a risk that many more Eaters of Light will go on. Although the concept of a creature that can eat light is a good one, the realization of the Eater was slightly disappointing. The CGI dragon looked like something that would come from a PS2 game. It was a fairly standard threat. 

Ultimately, the Ninth Legion and the Picts decide to sacrifice themselves by throwing themselves into the portal and fighting the Eaters. As time is different in the Cairn where the portal is, the Picts and Romans can fight the Eaters for a few minutes and the outside world will be getting years of peace. Kar’s decision to take the Doctor’s advice about growing up and fight is necessary to fight evils. It is suitable message for young people who should take a stand against the problems of the world like terrorism. It was interesting that the Doctor was initially willing to sacrifice himself. I thought he would stay and this would lead itno the finale, but it is a scene for the companions to pull him away.

The supporting cast are decent. Rebecca Benson is good in the role of Kar, alternating between being a fighter and having a vulnerability. A female character who is not too brave to be unbelievable. She is well-meaning and naïve attitude. The Roman Legion are well played, but the most we learn about them are their sexualities.

The Celtic music is probably my favourite pieces of Murray Gold’s music so far this series. It would be great if we could get a soundtrack of this and his Series 9 scores that Silva Screen couldn’t be bothered to release.  The direction was nothing special but at least the damp hillside location looked very atmospheric.

Bill is really good this week. The episode makes up for Empress of Mars where she side-lined. She comes into the story already knowing the Ninth Legion and is able to persuade the Romans to leave their hiding place so they can find the Doctor.  I’m not sure she demonstrated being a history buff before but this is something the writers are pushing now. Once again she is chatted up but this time by a bisexual person. This is also the episode where she finds out the Tardis translation circuits and it’s nice that she is still learning the different facets of the show as she goes on.

Nardole is also fantastic in the episode. He is the only member of the crew to ingratiate himself with the Pict tribe. He also gets the brilliant joke about Scotland causing death. It is wonderful seeing him on a proper adventure with the Doctor and Bill. He is a really fun character. His only downside is that he hates Jazz.

Peter Capaldi is on top form.  His Doctor getting some great lines this week and shares a lot of fun banter with Nardole and Bill. He shows off his ruder side when he declares the two warrior groups as children and we see him act as a magician when he outwits the Picts with a bag of popcorn and the warrior who wants to self-sacrificial side when he offers to be the one who stays over the rift.

One final similarity between Survival and Eaters of Light is the appearance by the Master, or rather Missy, who makes a brief appearance at the end of the episode. Although the Doctor told Bill and Nardole that he had taken her back to the vault he had actually kept her on the Tardis to help with the maintenance. She is once again pretending to be turned good. I still find this difficult to believe as it feels so rushed. I think the writers should have threaded this redemption story across a few more episodes in order to make it feel convincing. It still feels as though she is going to betray him any second. More interesting is the Doctor’s reaction as he desperately wants Missy to be good even if she was to. If he is going to be disappointed then it will be interesting to see.

The Eaters of Light was a solid episode. It was not a game-changing episode but it had a good location, decent characterisation and some great dialogue. Once again, the Doctor, Bill and Nardole prove themselves to be the best Tardis team. Next week’s episode looks like it will shape things up.

8/10

Big Finish: Derek Jacobi to return as the Master

Derek Jacobi first played the Master in the sadly unsuccessful relaunch cartoon,  Scream of the Shalka. Then he got to play the Master for real in the TV Series. Now his version of the Master is set to return in the Big Finish Audios.

It will be interesting to see how the chaacter is integrated with first appearance as Professor Yana. The Doctor didn't recognize Professor Yana so we can assume the earlier Doctors never met this incarnation in person.  In Utopia we are told that the Master was found on the coast of the silver devastation as a child. I'd always assumed he'd regenerated and become a child again, but perhaps he'd always been an adult and was simply de-aged himself.

Doctor Who 10x09: Empress of Mars

A story featuring the Ice Warriors on their home planet of Mars seems like an obvious idea for a Doctor Who story yet the television series has never attempted it before now. A story was briefly in line for the Patrick Troughton years but was never made as the budget couldn't match up with the ideas. When the Doctor finally did land on the red planet in Waters of Mars, the martians themselves were only mentioned in dialogue. Finally, in 2017, Mark Gatiss has given the fans what he wanted, but on top of this he's added a a group of Victorian soldiers.

The reason for the  Victorians being on Mars is that they were brought in a space ship by a surviving Ice Warrior who they nicknamed Faraday. The Ice Warrior has given the Victorians access to a large cannon which the they think they are using to dig away for rocks, but the Ice Warriors has been using them to open up the entrance to an Ice Warrior Hive and awaken the Empress.  It's a similar setup to Tomb of the Cybermen. Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat are such big fans of those old episodes that it's no surprise that this kind of reference was in it.

Fortunately, unlike in Tomb, the aliens don't just go back to sleep again.  With the Ice Warriors' freedom, tensions mount between the two races and escalate into a battle with the Doctor and Bill  trying to broker peace but just getting caught up in the middle of things. Eventually two peacemakers on both sides, the Captain and Faraday, make themselves known.

The Victorians themselves are decent enough characters. Catchlove is the war-maker of the team and is a bit snooty. The Colonel, Godsacre, is a character burdened with the guilt of having survived a hanging. With a backstory like that, you just know he is going to redeem himself by the end of the story. The rest soldiers are straightforward so we do not feel too bad when they are being killed off by the Ice Warriors.

The Ice Warriors themselves are impressive. The design from Cold War was already pretty good and here there are more of them. The Doctor says they are bonded to their armour which contradicts the idea that they could get out of the suit in Cold War, but I like this better. I didn't so much like the way their armaments kill people by compressing them into tiny footballs. It looked a bit odd.

The Ice Empress is also a pretty good addition to the Ice Warrior lore. Her voice is somewhat reminiscent of the Racnoss from The Runaway Bride and her armour is a really good design. It is disappointing that she is easily taken hostage by Catchlove and has to be rescued by Godsacre. You would think that with her bulky armour and her strength she might have overpowered a thin skinned human.

The story concludes with the surviving Victorians soldiers pledging themselves to serve the Ice Warriors which seems like an odd  decision, given the number of their friends that had been killed. The Doctor then helps the Ice Warriors by making them establish contact with another alien species, hinting that this is a prequel to the events of The Curse of Peladon. It was great to see that the alien they contacted was Alpha Centauri. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that they got Ysanne Churchman to do the voice. It wasn't an entirely necessary cameo but it was a nice treat for the fans.

The characterization of the Doctor was much better this week. There was no weird scene of him mocking his companion or grinning or laughing like a lunatic when he crashes a a vehicle. Unusually the Doctor is more more on the sidelines this week with Godacre getting to the heroic character who saves the day. This isn't actually a problem since Capaldi still manages to make the Doctor stand out. Besides, it's actually nice that the supporting characters get to be more important. Most recently the Modern Series has swung too far in the other direction.

Bill is also well characterized but like the Doctor, she is a bit sidelined this week. Although she does get to talk to the Ice Empress, she doesn't really contribute anything lasting. It is odd that her race was not an issue given that the humans in this story were Victorian, but she was at least disgusted by the Victorian attitude . Nevertheless, Pearl Mackie remains a joy to watch in this episode.

Sadly, Nardole is only at the beginning of the episode and at the very end. Matt Lucas is still enjoyable in the role though. The reason for his absence is because the Tardis was inexplicably drawn off course from Mars by some external force. He is forced to recruit Missy and they both go back. The final scene of the Doctor surprised that Missy came back was interesting. It is not clear whether Missy was the one who sent the Tardis off course in the first place, but it would not surprise me.

Wayne Yip's direction is quite decent. The colour and photography of the episode is good with the green of the ice warriors contrasted with the reds and oranges of Mars. Yip also does a good job in making there look like there are more Ice Warriors than there probably were on set. Murray Gold did a decent job with the soundtrack even if it didn't stand out.

By the end of the episode we have been left with interesting questions. What was responsible for drawing the Tardis from Mars back to Earth? Will Missy stay free of the vault? Hopefully the former will be answered but I imagine that the second definitely will.

Empress of Mars is less ambitious than the Monk trilogy but unlike those episodes, this one does at least succeed at what it is trying to accomplish. If  Mark Gatiss does come back then he will hopefully continue in this vein, otherwise this would be a script to finish on.

8/10

RIP Adam West

Another day and we have another sad passing of a much loved actor. Adam West's Batman was the first version I ever saw. Channel 4 was rerunning the 1966 series in the early 90s and it was the first superhero show I ever really saw and the one that first got me interested in the genre. Tastes change a as you get older. Some fans give the impression that you are not supposed to like the 'camp' Batman. In the late 2000s I revisited the series and found that it was really good. The show was absurd but the people making it were aware of that. Adam West was great because played the role utterly serious which just made the absurd situations funnier. As a child, you took the show seriously like the characters did. When you were older, you could see the funnier side. Adam West did make a welcome return to the Batman universe in my other favourite version of the character, the 1992 animated series. There he played a character called the Gray Ghost, a superhero loved by the current Bruce Wayne. It was a great tribute to this actor and Adam was brilliant in it.  His Family Guy appearance was also great. So long, Adam West, you were brilliant. 

RIP Peter Sallis

Peter Sallis has passed away at the age of 96. I first knew about him as the voice of Wallace in the Wallace and Gromit clay animation series. He gave a very distinctive vocal performance and those films were a highlight of my childhood. As I grew older and became a Doctor Who fan I recognized that same voice when I saw Peter playing Scientist Penley  in The Ice Warriors. The character itself was probably not that special but Peter Sallis gave him some charisma. He is probably better known for his on-screen appearance as Norman Clegg in Last of the Summer Wines from 1973 to the series' conclusion in 2010. His contributions will be missed.

Doctor Who 10x08: The Lie of the Land

The first 'act' of The Lie of the Land presented a very interesting scenario of the Doctor turning evil and the companions having to stop him.  It takes place six months since Bill consented to the Monks. The Monks now rule the world and the Doctor has apparently become their Minister of Propaganda. Bill Potts is back in the UK, living the life of just another citizen in this dystopian world. She alone can see the changes and has invented an imagined version of her real mum to speak to and remind herself of the truth. When Nardole finds her they both team up to find the Doctor on board a boat. This is a very new situation for these companions.

All this potential is ruined the moment that the Bill and Nardole are reunited with the Doctor.  It turns out the Doctor was just pretending to be evil to test Bill and has been gathering a resistance. He even throws in a fake regeneration which would have no meaning to Bill and felt like it was included just to boost the trailers. These fake regenerations have become standard now. The Doctor and his friends laughing at Bill also seemed unnecessary cruel. When a similar test of faith happened in The Curse of Fenric, the Doctor appeared regretful. Here is he is every too gleeful. You'd almost think he actually was being controlled by the monks.

After the promising first act,  the episode devolves into a standard adventure where Doctor and his companions work with a resistance to overthrow evil authorities. With the Doctor now good, everything feels much easier for our heroes than it should. The Doctor opening the vault to try and get Missy’s help and Missy suggests killing Bill which is something that the Doctor could probably have worked out for himself.  It was nice to see the inside of the vault but a bit disappointing that it was only Missy inside of it. I was hoping there was going to be an extra twist with something else in there.

As the  Doctor and his allies attempt to find the Monks control centre, the plot slowly becomes ever more ridiculous.  In the previous episodes we saw that the Monks were able to meticulously planning the invasion of Earth but now we find out that they have given no thought to protecting their own base, allowing the Doctor and his team of rebels to get to the control system with very mild resistance. This is where having the Doctor on the good guys side causes problems.  It all felt too easy for our heroes. Bill uses her emotional link to her mum to overpower the Monks which is very similar to the way that Craig’s love conquered the
space ship in The Lodger. 

The Monks were very easily dispatched. They simply run away when the going gets tough. It could have been more interesting if we had seen the humans pursuing and fighting them. They've been shown to have the power to teleport into peoples' places and use gravity beams to control military craft but they now flee and we don't get to see how. Like many of the big events of this episode, the Monks' defeat is explained in a voice over by Bill, which feels like it was just done just to save the money and time to be spent on scenes.

At the conclusion everyone has forgotten about the alien invasion and put it down to a film which doesn’t explain how they were all wearing black clothes or what they think happened to all the people that were killed in a six months since the Monks took over. The Doctor gets a funny and true line about humanity never learns to resist dictatorships. That is true but it is still hard to think people wouldn't notice the physical changes in the world. The time paradox resolution of The Last of the Time Lords worked way better than this. The conclusion also sees Missy confessing her guilt to her past crimes but it is almost impossible to believe that she won't turn evil again by the time of the finale. Michelle Gomez puts on another good performance nad does her best to sell the concept, but it is hard to believe, especially when Missy seemed to relish the idea of killing Bill earlier on.

If Bill is so important to the Monks then why did they let her wander around with the rest of the public? Would it not be better for her to have been their prisoner? The one point where a Monk came face to face with her it apparently did not recognize her. It feels as if the writer, Toby Whithouse, had no knowledge of what had gone on in Peter Harness' script. If that was the case then it was a sloppily planned arc.

The Doctor is on and off for the episode. It seemed strange enough  when he and his new soldier pals laugh at Bill for thinking he turned evil. He also laughs when he crashes the boat into the shore. Peter Capaldi turns in a decent performance but there is something a bit off about the Doctor this week.

At the end of tree episodes we still didn't really know enough about the Monks. Why did the Monks want to take over the Earth? Did they specifically want control of this planet? What was their end game? They felt a little bit too nebulous.

This episode had the opposite problem to the previous two parts of the Monk trilogy. Extremis and Pyramid had thin plots which were stretched across 45-50 minutes. Lie of the Land had a lot of plot but a lot of the narrative had to be covered in voice overs.

The Lie of the Land was a bit of a dud. It actually made me reevaluate Extremis because that episode had interesting things to say about coping in a crisis. At least we have the Ice Warriors in next week although you’d be forgiven for thinking it was the Cybermen coming back since the production team accidentally put the Cybermen theme over the Next time trailer. Let's hope that the romp will be mor entertaining

5/10