Peter Capaldi’s 12th Doctor regeneration was everything he deserved. Twelve was the most tormented Doctor, the most haunted by his past, so full of secret pains we would never know about. He really felt like he was hiding back so much, and was putting on a mask so much of the time. Seeing the Doctor find peace in himself, and the optimism in himself (herself!!!) for the future, was absolutely incredible. I honestly can’t think of a more suiting end for Twelve. It was bittersweet, but I feel like I can comfortably and peacefully say goodbye.
After last week’s episode, I joked on Facebook that Chris Chibnall must have read my letters. I said this because it seemed as though “War of the Sontarans,” was a concerted effort to address a lot of the problems people like myself have been writing about for the past three years. You wouldn’t know it by reading the reviews, but a lot of fans had a positive reaction to the episode, which, in my circle at least, was the predominant response. One friend of mine asked where this Chris Chibnall had been hiding for the last two series. Most of us were in agreement that despite any reservations or Wish.com masks, the story felt like a proper episode of Doctor Who. So how did “Once, Upon Time,” fare with the same audience? Not great, friends. Not great.
It may be slightly ironic for me to imply that I go by the reactions of my friends over those of a critic as I write a review of Doctor Who. You and your friend group may have a positive reaction, and that’s fine. In my friend group, I have at least three friends whom I can talk to about Doctor Who on the same level as I think about Doctor Who. My pal Taryn and I joke that there is no one else in our lives with whom we could have a conversation about “…ish,” the Big Finish audio with a funny title. But it’s not just about people who know the show, it’s people who know the show, and aren’t also shitty about it. I started this blog to talk about Doctor Who in a positive manner. So many videos on YouTube just look like a cesspool of gatekeeping reactionaries that I often don’t find the good ones because I dare not go there. Understand then, that three years of writing about disappointment is not fun. I don’t relish this.
Reading this introduction may lead you to believe that I’m about to lay into the episode, but I’m not disappointed. I’m frustrated. I stayed up until 4 a.m. last night watching YouTube videos or talking to Taryn on the phone. My mind gets a lot of cross-chatter because I have ADHD, which is also a source of hyper focus in my life. My fixation last night that left my mind overclocked was “Once, Upon Time.” I find the episode absolutely perplexing, but not at all for the right reasons. For starters, that title? Woof. I thought I was having a stroke. It’s like one of those memes where they write “the the,” and you don’t pick up on it because your monkey brains aren’t reliable. I get that it’s a very Moffaty pun, and Chibnall loves him some puns, but it hit the part of my monkey brain that senses a typo more than the part of me that groans at puns. And to think, I thought Chibnall was getting better at naming stuff.
Puns aren’t the only things on which Chris Chibnall seems fixated. If you watch any showrunner’s era long enough you’ll start to see recurrences of their proclivities. Moffat is to women dressed like a Mary Poppins dominatrix as Tarantino is to women’s feet. But after last night, I believe I’ve pinpointed one of Chibnall’s own hyper fixations- swarms. It’s like when Bender said, “You guys like swarms of things, right?” So far in Flux, I’ve counted four different swarms. There are the weird little blue things that turn people into little purple things, there’s the Flux itself, there’s the time storm, and there’s even a dude named Swarm. If that fourth one doesn’t count enough for you, then perhaps consider the way in which he and his sister kill by turning people into little swarms of dust. Maybe Chibnall thinks swarms are cool. Maybe swarms are easier to animate on a COVID-19 budget. Maybe Chris Chibnall has a bee beard fetish. We’ll never know the true reason.
As you recall, last week ended on a cliffhanger. In wack ass fashion, it picks up just in time for the Doctor to do something. Instead of rendering Yaz into a sexy swarm of dust, Chibnall reigns in his base instincts and has the Doctor fall into a big ol’ time storm, complete with giant stompy gold ladies. Chibnall is the man who introduced both furries and vore into Doctor Who, so of course, he gave the giantess fans something to glom onto. For a guy who doesn’t understand youth culture much, Chibbers is all about that fursona. Clearly, I’m joking but it does amuse the hell out of me. Speaking of furries though, we’re given a bit of a Beauty and the Beast story in the form of Bel and Vinder. The whole thing plays out like a fairy tale, which is most likely the influence behind the episode’s title. Think about it. Vinder is exiled in a prison of his own making, represented metaphorically as a rose. Bel’s name is like Belle, and she spends the majority of her story talking to an anthropomorphic appliance. That works, I guess. Bit of a stretch?
It’s been an itching sensation at the back of my mind for the past three weeks that Chibnall wasn’t writing two companions, but rather three including Vinder. Perhaps Vinder’s role was originally supposed to go to John Barrowman before all of that sex pest business. That would require the audience to fall in love with a new guy right away. I can’t think of a single character who could maybe have benefitted from a bit of that screen time. Nope. Nobody at all. We get about 20 minutes of Vinder’s backstory that tells us more about him than Yaz has gotten in three seasons. If Chibnall really has read my letters, then he definitely heard me say “Show, don’t tell.” I’m big on that concept. But did we really need an entire backstory devoted to learning about why Vinder was exiled to the Rose space station? Does anyone even really care? This is one of the few times I would have thought to say “Tell, don’t show.” The payoff for Vinder had better be worth it because the introduction of Bel throws out Yaz’s hopes of shagging. Or maybe it doesn’t. You, and Yaz, and baby, and me makes four. That’s how it goes, right?
Vinder’s whole deal is that he’s part of some freakishly loyal military on his home planet. He holds allegiance to a guy who goes by the Serpent. The Serpent’s whole deal is looking like David S Pumpkins if he went through an Ed Hardy phase. He hangs out with a couple of people who look like Sun Ra but don’t get any dialogue. During a meeting, the Serpent orders Vinder to turn off a recording device so that he may speak candidly about murder. Vinder carries a lot of guilt for having turned off the recorder, thus aiding in destroying evidence of murder. This is part of his and the other companions’ greatest hits being played out in the time storm. The Doctor protects her friends by hiding them from the Ravagers within their own lives. During this, she keeps popping into their realities to scream exposition at them while she fixes things. Seeing her floating there like a disembodied ghost made me laugh because she reminded me of Stuey Gluck from “Freaked.”
There’s a weird cartoonishness about the Doctor in this episode. At times it’s amusing, such as seeing her as a policewoman talking to Yaz. Seeing Jodie’s Doctor in a uniform of authority is like a Vincent Adultman “two kids in a trenchcoat,” vibe. And while she does momentarily, if not metaphorically, don a cool darker coat, a lot of the intensity from last week gets undercut. For starters, we lose a bit of her enigmatic nature when we hear her inner thoughts as a voiceover. The thoughts that did leave her mouth, with equal amounts of intensity were mostly exposition. You could easily have turned this story into a Big Finish audio based on how the Doctor is constantly explaining what’s in front of us. But why so much explanation when you are simultaneously showing it? It all leads back to the writing. There are too many ideas going on at the moment that none of them has any time to breathe. We need to be told what we’re seeing because it doesn’t make any sense otherwise. The best way I can think to describe it is an absolute clusterfuck.
Already we’ve seen people on social media defending the episode by attacking people’s intelligence. There’s a flippant implication that if anyone left this episode feeling confused, that it is some sort of failing on their behalf. It reeks of “Was Poop Dragon supposed to be hard? I beat him on the first try.” And like ProZD also said- “Siri, how do I delete all of Twitter?” You see, sometimes stuff is confusing on purpose, like a David Lynch movie. Or Ingmar Bergman. Or Andrei Tarkovsky. Maya Deren. Derek Jarman. Alejandro Jodorowsky. Chris Chibnall. Wait, how did he get in here? Because other times, it’s confusing on a structural level. I was able to give a decent plot synopsis above. I’m not confused by the story. It’s the pacing, the editing, the directing, and, of course, the writing.
One of the points I made in my review for “The Halloween Apocalypse,” is that Chris Chibnall seems to never know when to divulge information and to what degree. He keeps long-running plot threads looming over his entire run as showrunner which do more to frustrate than tantalise. He likes to stop the action dead in its tracks so that characters can sit and talk about their feelings. There’s a herky-jerky start-stop rhythm to his work as if he is never quite sure how far he wants to take a concept. Take the Ruth Doctor, or “Fugitive Doctor,” for instance. We really needed to see more of her at the end of “The Timeless Children,” so last night was the perfect opportunity to showcase her more. We could have finally gotten some much needed screentime from Jo Martin. While we get some decent dialogue between her and the Doctor, we missed a great opportunity to give a Doctory speech to the Ravagers. What should have happened is we see the speech start as Jodie and end as Jo. Instead, the bulk of the monologue is delivered by Jodie with flashes of Jo to remind us this is one of her memories. What should have been the best scene in the episode is undercut by the fact that they gave the bulk of the dialogue to the wrong actor.
You could argue that this is the Thirteenth Doctor’s era and that she takes precedent. But she’s not really is she? It’s a symptom of the Doctor being saddled with another Doctor. Hell, she doesn’t even get her own comics. She shares that honour with the Tenth Doctor. What’s worse is the Fugitive Doctor is currently the more compelling of the two, due to her air of mystery. She embodies the Who of Doctor Who far more than Whittaker. The sad part is that it’s all leading toward solving that mystery. Leaving no question left unanswered. No room to dream. No room to wonder. The Timeless Child. If Chibnall wanted to show some real swagger, he would never fully explain her. Let us bunch of nerds argue about it as he walks away, not looking back at the explosion.
One thing we learn about the Ravagers is that they have a rather blasé attitude toward genocide. While killing one person and killing one person full of millions of people is exactly the same, visually, it does up the ante a bit. Learning that those big beefy Wish mask dudes weren’t actually security muscle, but rather walking prisons, was actually pretty cool. I joked last week that Chibnall was ripping off Faction Paradox stories, but now we’ve got people who are bigger on the inside. The reason I like this is that it was a fun idea. It’s a quick and easy way to demonstrate the cruelty of the Ravagers. Swarm and Azure get described as a sort of virus of existence. Sadly, explaining them has also defanged them a bit. As they left defeated, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had hissed and swatted like kitty cats as they backed away. But that’s fine. That egg had to crack sooner or later.
After talking the gold ladies into joining up to defeat the Ravagers, the Doctor is able to repair the triangle’s little machine that… I dunno, tempers the time storm? Is the time storm the same thing as the time vortex? Is it the same thing as the Flux? It’s hard to say. These questions have yet to be answered. Or maybe they have and audio mixing has been that bad. Seriously, I have missed at least 30% of the dialogue this season due to muddy sound design. The Doctor saves time and her companions. She very reliably pilots her unreliable TARDIS to drop Vinder off on his homeworld which was also hit by the flux. This explains why Bel experienced time fluctuations in her story, and why she was running away from Cybermen and bad CGI Daleks. What it doesn’t explain is why they tried to sell this episode as a Cyberman story. The Cybermen are so inconsequential to the story that I forgot them as I forgot about Joseph Williamson or the weird floating house. Remember the lady watering plants? She’s new! There’s just too much going on.
Mr Williamson’s addition is a rambling incoherent mess, which tracks with the rest of this story. What wasn’t drowned out by the poor sound mixing was nonsense as far as I was concerned. Also mostly forgotten are the companions. We get a bit of interest as Dan’s relationship with Diane gets explored, but it’s all a bit of a smokescreen as it’s all happening within the time storm. Even the scene we get with Yaz isn’t real, which explains why her sister claims nobody calls video games “video games.” What the hell else would you call them, Chris? Televised interactive computer programs? Or is it just “games,” now? Did you learn that from your kids, Chris? Did you come in like “Are you winning son?” while your kid is into hour 800 of Roblox and they looked at you and said “They’re called games, dad. Jeez!” He then did a kickflip and skated away. As I said, this episode is perplexing for all of the wrong reasons.
Not to go unforgotten is the TARDIS, which has mostly gone forgotten. I get that due to the cliffhangery nature of this series, the Doctor hasn’t really had the time to tend to her time machine, but yeah, it’s due. The reason for this probably has something to do with the fact that Chibnall probably wants to save this for episode six. Judging by the preview of next week’s episode, it’s going to be a monster of the week story like last week. I’m sensing a pattern. One episode is a sort of bridge episode to a normal episode. You go from a mess, to a story, to a mess, to a story. I get it, really I do. Some episodes are setups for the next episode. While “Dune,” is a great book, its follow-up “Dune Messiah,” acts as more of a bridge to get to the third book “Children of Dune.” Perhaps the Weeping Angels are to blame for what’s happening to the TARDIS. They seem to have infected Yaz’s life, why not the TARDIS as well?
These are small questions I have leading into chapter four. But unlike last week, where my interest in the story stemmed from investment, my interest now stems from confusion. I’m now watching on autopilot. I’ve lost interest in the overarching storyline and am only really interested in the possibility of the spooky Halloween episode I originally wanted from the actual Halloween episode. An episode with the Weeping Angels in a big creepy house sounds a damn sight more interesting than watching the Doctor float around and scream at everyone. The scary thought is that the Weeping Angels may have as much to do with that story as the Cybermen did with this one. I no longer trust Chris Chibnall to deliver any kind of closure in any kind of timely manner. We’re either going to learn about the Fugitive Doctor in chapter six, or we’re going to have to wait until Jodie Whittaker’s final episode. Neither would surprise me at this point.
With just three episodes left, it’s easy to think we’re in the homestretch with Chibnall, but then you remember the holiday specials and that we’re only a third of the way there. I’m assuming the BBC ordered an episode of Doctor Who for their 100 year anniversary, which means we might not even see an ending to this era until October of next year. Ideally, I would like to see “Flux,” resolve not just the Ravagers storyline, but also the Fugitive Doctor. It would be really nice to be able to put a lid on this Timeless Child malarky. To borrow from John Mulaney, having Chris Chibnall in charge of Doctor Who is a lot like having a horse in the hospital. It’s hard to rest or feel confident when there’s a horse in the hospital! While it’s still ongoing, every new episode is a potentially ruinous story that could undermine the integrity of Doctor Who. Last week I would have been a little more generous. But after watching Chris Chibnall backslide into bad habits so spectacularly, I’m no longer cautiously optimistic. I’m just cautious.
Thinking of the two-parter “World Enough and Time,” and “The Doctor Falls,” I am struck with a question- why now? Why in this moment of the Doctor’s life has he decided it’s time to help the Master? Is it simply because he has a captive audience? Missy is unable to leave and so they’ve got nothing but time. Or maybe it’s the first time she’s even pretended to care. It’s as good an answer as any. But apply the same question to Missy’s motivations and you won’t get such a straight answer. She knows she has no place to go, and we all know she could go if she really wanted to. Right? Perhaps what started as a bit of a lark to fool the old man one more time turned out to feel a bit more complicated. During the process of conjuring fake tears, real emotions bubbled up. Or perhaps these emotions, which had always driven madness, now drive regret.
The Doctor and the Master are complicated friends. Both of them run away from the consequences of their actions, for better or worse. You could make an argument that both are as potentially ruinous as the other. We see the downside of the Doctor’s meddling in “Bad Wolf,” when the Doctor returns to Satellite 5 one hundred years after removing the Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe from power, only to find it taken over by Daleks. Who is to say that the Master’s meddling never united a people against a common evil?
The Doctor and Missy are more alike than either of them would like to admit. So I return to the question- why now? The answer may be found within Andrew Marvell’s poem “To His Coy Mistress,” from which “World Enough and Time,” derives its title.
“ But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.”
While poetry isn’t my thing, I can see there is a definite emphasis on the concept of taking action now, before it’s too late. When I say “too late,” I don’t mean death, which is a small threat to a Time Lord, but rather the looming threat of a missed opportunity. The most important moment is now because now can change the future if one remains present. But it’s hard to remain focused on change when you have reminders of your past trying to drag you down, belittling the progress you’ve made. And you will see this theme of missed opportunities again in Bill’s storyline, but more on that later.
As a character study, this story works brilliantly. As a plot-driven narrative, it’s about as bare-bones as most of this series. It’s good then that the character study stuff is stellar. That being said, there are some incredibly strong science fiction elements at work. I’ve often commented to my friends that Doctor Who writers usually only have a handful of good stories in them. If you write enough Doctor Who, you would eventually write this week’s “worst episode ever.” It’s impressive then, that Steven Moffat still has heady ideas to explore, such as a satellite that is slowly pulling away from a black hole. With gravity affecting time, time moves faster at the bottom than at the top. It’s like a story from a pulp magazine, and I genuinely find that fun. It’s a great premise. Sadly, this strong premise has its issues, which I will delve into as we move forward.
As you may have noticed, I like to write. I’ve even got my own Doctor Who story I’ve been working on for far too long. However, one of the stories I always wanted to write was a sort of “Genesis of the Cybermen,” of my own. And believe it, or not, my story was going to revolve around the Twelfth Doctor and the Mondasian Cybermen. I shit you not. The key difference is that my take on it was going to be a bit more of a commentary on consumerism and FOMO. The Mondasian people were taking the upgrades willingly because it was what everyone else was doing. But try and imagine, if you will, both my dismay and elation in discovering they were going to do my idea, sort of. It felt deflating and validating all in one go. The idea was good, dammit.
Another thing I had always wanted to see was a Missy Who episode, which we sort of got. While it’s not the entire episode highjacked by Missy that a lot of us wanted, it was nice to see them at least visit the idea before Missy and Moffat both bowed out forever. Michelle Gomez traipses out of the TARDIS in such a way that you almost believe she was actually a Time Lord who influenced men to invent the word “traipse.” It’s delightful to watch her mimic the Doctor, referring to herself as “Doctor Who,” and to Bill and Nardole as her disposables- “Exposition and Comic Relief.” While I love that she calls the Doctor out on his Edward Cullen-esque cradle robbing friendship with his companions, the Doctor Who joke felt a bit laboured. It’s not that the joke was bad, but they really took a lot of their sweet time on it. This is both the blessing and the curse of multi-part stories. They almost have too much time to explore ideas.
This isn’t to say that I dislike how Moffat plays with his toys. He generally knows well enough not to write his name on these toys. These are communal toys, and when he’s done, they go back in the box for the next kid to play with. Moffat never reveals the name of the Doctor, because it’s not his place to do so. It’s a bit of a balancing act for any showrunner- leaving your mark on Doctor Who while also leaving it mostly unscathed. Some writers, whose names shall go unmentioned, have no issue taking out a big fat Sharpie and writing “Andy” on the Buzz Lightyear foot that is Doctor Who. This is why I love this Missy storyline so much. It changes the character in a way that doesn’t also do lasting harm. Missy can always find a reason to be angry again, or you know, the next writer could just ignore that character development completely. But only a hack would do that.
Miraculously, when “World Enough and Time,” aired, I had completely forgotten that John Simm was returning to his role as the Master. Actually, I tell a bit of a lie, I remembered, but I think I was expecting him to show up in “The Doctor Falls.” I’ve heard many people say that they knew right away that Mr Razor was the Master, but I was lucky enough to be blissfully ignorant. The return of the Master was one of those reveals I’m honestly shocked they didn’t try and hide. They managed to hide the Eighth Doctor’s regeneration, would it have been so difficult to hold John Simm’s reveal for the episode? It seems a bit of a misstep, especially when you consider they had also revealed the return of the Mondasian Cybermen. It’s as if the people at the BBC decided this would be a zero surprises finale. Leave your shock and awe at the door, because we’re revealing everything up front! Maybe the news was going to leak and they wanted to get ahead of it. Personally, I’d have rather not known.
Bill ends up under the care of Mr Razor after an unfortunate run-in with the last remaining member of the Blue Man Group, who shoots a giant hole through her. It’s easily one of the most cartoon deaths in Doctor Who history. There’s a big wide hole that looks like the result of a visit from Elmer Fudd, followed by Bill looking down at the smouldering site where her heart used to be. Perhaps this was to undercut how very dead Bill or anyone would be in this situation. What’s even weirder is the fact that this blue man, Jorj, shoots Bill at all. You see, Bill is a human, which has drawn the attention of the Cybermen who have sensed a human aboard the satellite. Jorj fears that Bill will draw the attention of the Cybermen who will in turn upgrade Bill and Bill only. The only person in this situation who is under threat is Bill, so he’d better kill her before someone comes and kills her. It’s supposed to seem like Jorj reacted in a panic, but his panic makes very little sense.
Speaking of not making a lot of sense, the lift leading to the bottom of the satellite is a mystery box that puts the TARDIS to shame. My boyfriend and I tried to work it out earlier and were left scratching our heads. You see, if the lift is going down to a place where time moves faster and therefore feels longer, the lift would appear to slow down right? Or rather, the lift would travel at the same speed, it would just take longer. So why does the Cyberman take Bill to convert her when the lift trip could conceivably take months, if not years? By the time they got Bill’s body to the bottom of the satellite, it would be a pile of bones. This is the problem with Moffat’s heady ideas sometimes. They’re neat until you need to actually explore them, and then they kind of fall apart. What’s worse is that this could have been explained by a little trick of the sonic screwdriver. The Doctor could maybe link the lift to the TARDIS and give some line about how it’s wrapped in a time bubble or some such nonsense. The problem with that is that then the characters could use the lift as needed, and that would shorten the story to at least a one-parter.
While Bill is living with a new Cyberman chest piece in place of her heart, the Doctor, Nardole, and Missy toil away in what looks like frozen images. Seconds for the Doctor count as weeks for Bill. As the Doctor forms his plans, Bill settles into the hospital with the Master as Mr Razor and his terrible terrible tea. Mr Razor is a small comfort amidst the horrors of the hospital, which we the viewer will recognise as a Cyberman conversion point far sooner than Bill. A sticking point I had with this episode originally was the concept of the Cybermen existing in constant pain. That alone wasn’t what bothered me, it was how they solved the issue by removing the patient’s ability to care about the pain via the classic Cyberman head handles. It seemed like a tactical disadvantage to me that the Cybermen should be in constant pain. However, it also feels just as weird to me that they would use drugs or a numbing agent which would need to be sourced. It‘s a clever way to imagine the process through which the Cybermen would lose their feelings by making it about a physical feeling. What’s worse is that these choices were not made by cold indifferent robots, but cold indifferent scientists. First, they tune out their cries with volume control, and then they remove their feelings completely.
Rumour has it that Peter Capaldi is the genius who wanted to see the return of the Mondasian Cybermen. Considering I had the same idea, maybe genius feels a bit self-congratulatory. He’s a genius regardless. Obviously, I love the idea. I think sometimes you need someone to remind you that Doctor Who can afford these kinds of moments. The default Type-40 TARDIS console room looks incredible on modern hi-def television. The Doctor is a time traveller, he’s gonna run into some old faces from time to time. I’ve always found it weird that new Doctors should only ever meet new versions of the monsters. Having the Doctor meet older versions of his enemies just feels correct for the character.
The updates to the Cybermen are sleek and subtle. I rather like how their chest pieces are a slimmed-down version of the ones we see in “The Tenth Planet.” You could even make the argument that when we see them there, they’ve since augmented the unit, thus adding bulk. Why not? I’m also a big fan of the peach skin-toned gloves they were given. In their original appearance against the First Doctor, they had human hands. I always liked to think of these of the last vestiges of their humanity. Perhaps they hadn’t quite mastered hands yet. The gloves give the suit a more complete look that feels a bit more practical than bare hands. They also do a good job of obscuring Bill’s skin tone, which allows us room to wonder if she’s a full Cyberman or not.
Once Mr Razor is revealed to be the Master, I feel the story loses a bit of its intensity. Where the first half of the story is presented as a type of zombie horror story, “The Doctor Falls,” feels more madcap. John Simm’s Master adds a certain devilish glee, of which he is known for in the Davies era. It’s a far more subtle performance this time around, an opportunity of which I am sure Simm appreciated. Also, he wears guyliner now, and I’m here for it. The most interesting interactions are between the Master and Missy. But it’s more than just the fact that it’s our first multiple Masters story. The Master’s effect on Missy’s relationship with the Doctor is akin to your childhood friends’ effect on you with your mum. You might shrug off your mum saying “I love you,” so you look cool in front of your friends. We all deny parts of ourselves to others at times. On this occasion, Missy is denying parts of herself to herself.
Of all of the Masters to bring back to meet his future female self, John Simm is a great choice. Historically, he has always been the more misogynistic of Masters. He beat his faithful wife, talked down to women and seemed to loathe femininity in its many forms. I get that misogyny was just one more element that made the Master evil. Obviously, he hates women. It’s not like he particularly likes anyone other than himself, and even that is debatable. It’s like a kind of fitting punishment that it should be him that sees himself become a woman. Something about who he is now is going to regenerate into who she is now. That has to eat him up inside.
The beautiful thing about the Master and Missy’s regeneration order being somewhat obscured is that you could make the argument that Missy is actually the final Master. It would fit with the Master telling her not to bother regenerating this time. Honestly, I like this a lot more than Sacha Dhawan’s Spy Master just up and deciding that being related to the Doctor is enough to kill a race of people. Frankly, this is my new headcanon and I am sticking with it. As I said, this is how a showrunner can leave a mark on the show without it limiting the scope. Hell, Moffat doesn’t even make this the definitive “Genesis of the Cybermen.” The Doctor mentions several versions of Cybermen such as the ones from Mondas, Telos, or even Marinus, which is such a deep cut that it acts as a proof of concept. These little stories all matter to someone, and if you write well enough, they don’t have to suffer. We can still allow for stories like “Spare Parts,” or even the one I had knocking around in my head. The opposite would be something like the Doctor meeting Mary Shelley on the same night the Eighth Doctor also met her and took her on adventures. Seriously, how hard is it to use the TARDIS Datacore?
It’s nice to see the Masters interacting onscreen. The conversation in which they ask the Doctor if he has any requests for how he would like to die is delightful. Watching the two of them flirt had me quoting Community’s Dean Pelton when he said “This better not awaken anything in me.” Because damn is it saucy. As much as I liked Bill and Mr Razor’s chemistry, the Master is always going to be more compelling to watch. I do wonder how the hell he managed to stand wearing a rubber mask for several years. I also wonder if he didn’t time the Doctor’s movements to make sure that the Doctor just misses the opportunity to save Bill from full Cyber conversion. It’s conceivable that a Time Lord would be able to watch the footage and time it accurately, which if he did, makes him an even bigger bastard than before. As I mentioned earlier, Bill also feels the effects of missed opportunities.
True to form, the Master is once again using the Cybermen as a weapon. Missy does it in “Dark Water” and “Death in Heaven,” the Master does it again in this story, and even into the Chibnall era with the Cybermasters. The Master has a long history of letting other species fight his battles while they softened up the Doctor. The first time we meet the Master, he’s using Autons to spread chaos. He also endangers the human race with the Axons at one point. However, the Doctor has widened the scope of the Cybermen to go from looking for people with one heart to people with two hearts, namely them. Sadly, this is one more thing that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Were the Cybermen originally hunting out humans exclusively or people with one heart? How many hearts do Nardole and Blue Man Group have? Also, if we get to the point when the Cybermen are upgrading faster than the people on the floors above would ever be able to counter, you would think they might widen their scope to some of the many non-humans aboard the satellite.
One element I haven’t talked a lot about is the humans living on a fake outdoors floor of the satellite. The setting must have been a win-win for the production crew. They don’t have to build a futuristic set when all they need is a farm. Plus it’s weird science fiction, so it’s fun. But honestly, you couldn’t pay me to give a shit about these people. Their whole storyline feels tacked on. Maybe it was a place to have a little human drama, maybe Nardole just needs somewhere to get left behind. After all, we’ve gotta wrap everything up for the new showrunner. God forbid something carries over, lending a sense of continuity. What’s worse is I don’t even really follow a lot of what’s going on with these people. They somehow managed to slip the grasp of the Cybermen even though they could sense Bill’s humanity from the top floor. Furthermore, their evacuation makes very little sense to me.
The humans work best when reacting to Cyber Bill. It’s an interesting contrast to go from how Bill sees herself to how the common folk see her. To them, she is the stuff of nightmares. Every legend of the cruel Cybermen is displayed on the blank and lifeless death shroud that is the Cyberman suit. It’s equal parts burn victim and old-timey camera. The Doctor tells Bill that it was probably her mental exercises from her time with the Monks that have enabled her to resist the Cyberman programming. But even still, Bill has to concentrate not to devolve into a mechanical murderer. I don’t understand this as the Cybermen aren’t usually known for their anger, but somehow it causes Bill’s headpiece to blast a hole in a wall after she gets emotional. I mean, call me crazy, but if my friend was about to lose her mind to the Cyberman collective, I might encourage just about any emotion she can feel. This isn’t Amy succumbing to Dalek anger. We literally just watched a scene where the Cybermen’s emotions are taken away. Why is the Doctor asking Bill to calm down?
Seeing as this is the final time we’ll have real Nardole on the show, it might be good for me to reflect on his character for a bit. Throughout series ten, I found myself slowly warming to Nardole. His characterisation could feel a bit scattered, and I feel this was due to his being what Missy referred to as comic relief. Without a dramatic character arc, as Bill had, Nardole’s personality is a little more fluid. We see him oscillate between Mother Hen and secret badass. These things need not be mutually exclusive, but there are definite moments when the two aspects oppose one another. Regardless, I’m going to miss him. Matt Lucas’ portrayal as Nardole is always charming and never irritating. In a lot of ways, I feel as though Lucas elevates what is on the page. I just wish they’d have given him a better send-off.
In one way, Nardole’s goodbye is a lot like that of a classic companion. Oftentimes companions would leave the show after finding a cause they feel compelled to follow. I always found these moments to feel a bit hollow because they always seemed to spring from convenience. What about this one instance feels different from the others? Sometimes there is a clear need for someone to stick around and help. Nyssa leaves to tend to the ill. Jo joins a revolution with her new freedom fighting beau. Romana stays behind to help out in E-Space. Nardole finds his place among the people of the satellite. It’s a slightly dull goodbye, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sense. I mentioned he’s both the secret badass and the Mother Hen, and here he gets to be both. On the farm, Nardole is a family man, able to use his skills to protect his new family. He even draws the attention of a woman who seems to like the way he blows shit up with apples. Yeah, I don’t understand how he did that either. They attempt to explain it, but it’s a pretty bad explanation. The best explanation I could come up with is that the farm is written in computer code, and you could alter that code to alter the physical properties of an apple. Whatever.
The Cybermen work their way up through the floors of the satellite simply by flying upward through the ceilings. It’s kind of awesome, but also very confusing. As I said earlier, the physics of this episode are very muddy. My boyfriend and I were trying to work out how the time dilation worked. Seeing as time is moving faster toward the bottom of the satellite, the Cybermen’s journey upward is going to take them longer than it would to go down, or it would at least feel longer. Presumably, these Cybermen’s journey could take years. And as the Eleventh Doctor asked in “Asylum of the Daleks”- “Where do you get the eggs?” Or in this case, rocket fuel. Cybermen must have a serious reserve of power available if they can make that journey. Perhaps they figured the lift was broken because it’s older than the top of the satellite. There’s only so much good faith “wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey,” can afford.
The battle with the Cybermen rages on, while the Doctor and his two Time Lord friends are still squashing ancient beefs. I was slightly deflated by the outcome, but I think it may have been Steven Moffat pulling back on the reins. Having Missy become fully good in the Doctor’s eyes would have been gratifying, but ironically her redemption occurs “without witness,” and therefore within the theme of her character arc. After the Doctor spills his guts to Missy and the Master, we’re left with a pregnant pause before the Master flippantly throws the Doctor’s sincerity back in his face. But the lingering shot on Missy implies the Doctor’s words didn’t fall on deaf ears. I like to think that the Master secretly heard every word, it just took where he is as Missy in the future to finally see it for what it is- a plea from her best friend to show compassion. The Doctor’s reaction to Missy and the Master walking away at that moment is tragic. He’ll continue not to know his words ever had an impact.
The Master and Missy’s betrayal of one another is an obvious one. The Master can’t abide Missy’s compassion any more than Missy can abide his sneering cruelty. After stabbing the Master with a poisoned blade, the Master shoots Missy in the back with his laser screwdriver. He gave her the full blast, which I guess stops regenerations. The Master did a lot of strange things with his screwdriver, so it’s possible he could kill a Time Lord with it. Time Lord soldiers carried stasers that allowed them to kill a Time Lord permanently. Would that make this a staser screwdriver? Missy and the Master both share a final laugh as they both settle down to die. Missy in the grass, and the Master on his way to the bowels of the satellite to retrieve his TARDIS and regenerate into maybe Missy, but hopefully the Spy Master. If you can’t tell, I’m really enjoying this new headcanon.
From the very beginning of this story, we see the Doctor refusing to regenerate. The Doctor takes so much damage in this story that it’s hard to know what exactly is killing him. Was it when he was electrocuted? Or perhaps it was when he took several blasts from a Cyberman’s head laser. It’s hard to know. Regardless, he’s refusing to regenerate, except unlike the Tenth Doctor who didn’t want to stop being himself, you get the impression that the Doctor just wants to stop changing. This endless cycle of death and rebirth is weighing on him. Personally, this works more for me than “I don’t want to go,” which left a bad taste in my mouth (though he does quote the line and several others from previous regenerations). Of course the Doctor would rather roll over and die, his best friend just rejected him twice over. The Doctor has never looked more defeated.
Still battling her own personal demons, Cyber Bill comes and gathers the Doctor in her arms like the Pietà. And like the religious iconography would imply, miracles and resurrections are about to occur. Not only was Bill able to maintain her humanity, but she was also capable of crying. We’ve only seen one other Cyberman cry before, and it looked more like green goo. These tears are more like water. The emergence of Heather from Bill’s tears was one I think most of us did not see coming. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you completely forgot about Heather by this point. The only callback we get is a brief flash of Bill mentioning that she wasn’t sure if the tears in her eyes were her own. Now, I love a good surprise story arc. In season four, Russell T Davies surprised the lot of us when we discovered that the planets disappearing wasn’t just some science fiction trope, but a major plot point. It was surprising in a good way. This Heather reveal feels a little too surprising. Instead of saying “Oh wow,” I found myself saying “Oh yeah.”
If you recall, Heather is very OP. She restores Bill to her old self, sort of. Bill is now a fellow drippy lass. Heather seems to have that effect I suppose. Though she does intimate that she could restore Bill to completely human. You’re welcome, Big Finish. Before Bill and Heather go off to become a cuddle puddle amongst the stars, they bring the Doctor back to his TARDIS where a tear from Bill upon his brow kickstarts the regeneration process. I love the fact that Bill has gone from a thirsty fry cook to a confident explorer. Moister than an oyster, the two blast off into space and I gotta say, I love new Bill. It’s nice to see her and Heather holding hands. I only wish they had maybe done more callbacks to Heather, because it does come out of nowhere.
The Doctor finds himself aboard his TARDIS, once again refusing to regenerate. You can hear a real speech boiling up inside him. He’s really going to give the universe a great what for, but just as he’s building momentum, the TARDIS lands. What’s interesting is that it was following the course entered by Heather. How she knows this is where the Doctor needs to be is just one more drop in the enigmatic ocean that is Heather. Seriously, the more I think about her, the more I want to know. She’s actually a pretty great character. The Doctor opens the TARDIS doors to find himself in the middle of a hard arctic snowstorm. Off in the distance, he hears his younger self, the First Doctor, also refusing to regenerate. We end with the two Doctors standing face to face, both men wearing a bit thin now.
We’re left to presume that these two versions of the Doctor will help one another accept regeneration. It’s a nice final surprise in an episode of big stakes. Seeing David Bradley as the First Doctor in an official capacity is both odd and comforting. It’s odd in that he’s not William Hartnell but has played him and the Doctor in a noncanonical fashion, but it’s comforting in that he already feels like the First Doctor. Besides, it’s not the first time Hartnell has been recast, and I don’t mean Patrick Troughton. I’ll save my impressions on David Bradley’s performance for my next review. With that being said, we’re very close to finishing this rewatch of series ten.
As you’re well aware by now, I decided to roll these two episodes into one review. In the past, I treated multi-part episodes from modern Doctor Who as singular episodes. It felt right to treat these as one big story, and I’m glad I did. I was able to explore the themes better, and I didn’t have to hold off on exploring ideas for the next episode. In truth, I could have even rolled “Twice Upon a Time,” in as a three-parter, but I feel these two episodes have a definite end. What’s weird is that for a farewell episode, the only two people we actually said farewell to are Missy and the Master. In a way only Doctor Who can really do, we’ll actually get to see Bill and Nardole again. With this being my second viewing, I think it’s worth saying that I did find myself enjoying this story more than I had before. But along with increased enjoyment, I also had an increased awareness of the things that didn’t sit right with me the first time. The weakest part of this story is its action and science fiction. While unique in concept, the execution is clumsy and vague. You would be better served thinking of the setting as a catalyst for Steven Moffat to do what he truly wants to do- write Doctor, Missy, and Master slashfic. And I love it.
So I just finished the newest season of Doctor Who and I can’t help but feel that the Master is not only insane, bloodthirsty, and reckless, but also completely suicidal. He wants to die. He craves death. The way he eggs the Doctor on, begging her to detonate the Death Particle. The way his face falls when she doesn’t. He always seems to come back, every time we think he’s gone. I bet every time he faces death he desperately wishes that it will actually be permanent this time. Every time he comes back he gets angrier, he goes a little more mad, he gets even more desperate for death. Because whatever force is controlling everything just won’t let him die. And he resents it. All that resentment just builds and builds. So he takes it out on the Doctor’s Earth, the Doctor’s friends, the Doctor’s own planet. He pushes her and pushes her in hopes that one day she’ll snap. That she’ll finally finish the job and end his misery.
