Doctor Who 10x11 "World Enough and Time" Review

SPOILERS

“World Enough and Time” kept my attention through the whole thing and all of a sudden it’s the end. One more episode left, then Christmas, then someone new. But let’s just say for as much as we knew about this episode, there was a twist none of us could have predicted. Right? (Actually, reviewing my notes I predicted that twist in the second act, but it still caught me a little off guard).

So for most of the episode it seems rather normal. We have a quirky Missy put to the test and she ambles about an almost-doomed spaceship pretending to be The Doctor. She calls Bill and Nardole “Exposition” and “Comic Relief”, which was a nice little light-hearted meta-moment before the sole inhabitant of the upper part of the ship finds them, demands to know who the human is, and accidentally shoots Bill as the Doctor is pleading with him to not. All this is told against a small backdrop of Bill and the Doctor acting all student-professor at the university and he is telling Bill about the Master/Missy and Bill is saying “promise you won’t get me killed” as she falls to the ground in the present with a spectacular hole in her chest. But…she’s not dead yet. She was taken to a lower deck and fixed up. She wasn’t damaged enough to turn into what the audience knows to be a Cyberman, so she has to live in the hospital and work there, rooming with an odd guy named Mr. Razor.

"Hello, I'm Doctor Who!" says Missy in the only happy part of the episode.

It turns out the black hole the ship has been circling is causing a bit of wibbly-wobbly, and the lower levels where Bill is has time moving so much faster than where the Doctor, Missy, and Nardole are. It is implied many months or even years pass by the time the three at the top get over to the elevator and get down to her. (Maybe the time jump in the last episode was a foreshadowing of this?) By the time they get down there, Mr. Razor had already tricked Bill into thinking she was going to meet the Doctor at the elevator, but instead was lead into the Operating Theater and, well, turned into a Cyberman. While the Doctor is approached by a confused and saddened Cyber-Bill, Missy is approached by Razor. As soon as he started talking, I figured out who he was. I did appreciate the continuity of acknowledging Simm’s Master was Prime Minister and Bill would have remembered him, hence his disguise as Razor. Did anyone else get chills when the music has those dissonant four beats?

So the Doctor now has to deal with the two versions of his best frenemy, a companion who thinks he abandoned her, and the Genesis of the Cybermen (which even I know is a reference to the “Genesis of the Daleks”, one of the more popular Classic Who stories). I’m oddly excited for next week. I want to see whose side the Master and Missy will end up on, how they will end up beating the Cybermen, and of course how it will end and where the story will leave off to set up the Christmas episode.

My only complaint about the episode, and the only reason it’s getting a 9.5/10, is “killing off” Bill. First of all, this seems like a repeat of last season, having the Doctor face off his enemies without his companion, newly killed. If they bring her back, I will be a little upset just because again it would seem like a retread of last season. Also, I’m not sure if that would even work. Her death seemed rushed and cheap, though I guess more beloved the character, the harsher the death? Thanks Moffat. At least we had an inkling she wasn’t signed on for more than one season. If only Who companions could get a happy ending.

9.5/10

Doctor Who 10x10 "The Eaters of Light" Review

SPOILERS

“The Eaters of Light” was okay. There were times when I was really on board and times when I couldn’t wait for it to end.

We get a mysterious teaser with two kids playing around some cairns in Scotland and the little girl hears music. A crow seems to be saying “doc-tor” and the camera pans down to the carving of a TARDIS on one of the rocks. So he did something there, in the past. When we jump back to the past, Bill is determined to find the lost Ninth Legion of Rome, and the Doctor is determined to prove her wrong. They split up, Bill finds what is left of the Ninth Legion and the Doctor and Nardole find a group of people called the Picts. Both are terrified of some kind of monster. In a clever time jump writing trick, two days pass in a minute. The Doctor finds the gateway to the monster/alien/light eater’s world and works with the leader of the Picts, a young girl named Kar, to figure out how to send it back. Bill becomes friendly with the “extremely modern” Romans and they find their way to where the Picts, the Doctor, and Nardole (plus popcorn) are hiding.

The Doctor and Nardole reason with Kar.

The penultimate act was the most troublesome for me. They had to get the alien back in its dimension, using music to attract it and sunlight and filters to force it away, but they still had to guard it. Kar and the remaining Ninth Legion solders volunteer to fight it. Since so many went through, the cave collapses and it is assumed the light eaters won’t be able to get out anymore. And why did the little girl hear the music in the present? Because music is funny like that. It seemed almost…rushed. I don’t know how I would have done it differently.

What I did like about the episode was how the Doctor was willing to once again put himself in the line of fire for the human race, trapping himself into combat with the light eaters indefinitely since he can regenerate. I also liked the little bookends with the crows speaking, how they used to speak with humans, and now all they do is say “caw” (hear: Kar).

Of course I loved the ending. It was a great setup for the next episode, and I can’t wait to see what Missy gets herself into. It will be satisfying to see whether or not she is actually trying to redeem herself or if it is all a big scheme, and of course how The Master plays into all of this. Does she degenerate? Is there a rift somewhere and a “Day of the Doctor” situation happens (the poster sure looks like that)? As excited as I am for this finale to get going, it is a little bittersweet as we are two episodes and a Christmas special away from the end of Capaldi.

8/10

Doctor Who 10x09 "Empress of Mars" Review

SPOILERS

“Empress of Mars” was not as bad as I thought it was going to be, but I think I would have appreciated it more if I knew more about Classic Who lore or experienced it; I’ve heard of the Ice Warriors, but I wasn’t any more excited than I would be for any other creature.

In this universe, NASA is a big CGI building with lots of fancy equipment like probes digging around Mars. They find the message “God Save the Queen” written on the surface, placed there hundreds of years before. The Doctor shows up and he of course wants to find out how it got there. Off Team TARDIS goes to Mars in the 1800’s. Bill makes a few movie references and manages to fall down a hole. Nardole goes to get rope from the TARDIS to help her but the TARDIS has a mind of her own and takes him back to Earth. He can’t figure out how to get it to work, so he goes to Missy for help, and has to let her out of the vault.

The Doctor and Bill find some Victorian soldiers and their “pet” Ice Warrior, one who had landed on Earth and they brought back, promised a reward of treasure. However, the treasure turns out to be the tomb of an Ice Queen (the real Empress of Mars and not Queen Victoria, a nice little double meaning title) and one greedy soldier later, the tomb/hibernation chamber wakes up its inhabitant and things go a little downhill from there.

The Doctor meets the Ice Warrior, nicknamed "Friday".

There’s a bit of a standoff and a lot of talking, especially between Bill and the Ice Queen. The mutineers decide to attack all the Ice Warriors but their imprisoned leader ends up finding a little bit of courage and kills the mutineer leader. In order to save the rest of his men, he allows himself to stay behind and be a prisoner, helping them rebuild their world. The Doctor sends out a universal email asking for help, and a response comes from something called Alpha Centauri (apparently a big Pertwee creature, and they had the same actress do the voice). They create the message “God Save the Queen” to give the aid something to aim for. The TARDIS shows up and then it gets really interesting.

Now we have another ending with The Doctor and Missy, and Missy is giving him a weird look. Through a little bit of comment-digging, some people are speculating that the Doctor is actually regenerating and has been dying for a while, maybe even before he lost his sight, and since Missy is a Time Lady she can see it. It’s starting to take its toll on him and he’ll have to try even harder to keep up the façade if Missy is onto him. I still can’t tell if she is being genuine with her niceness, and wanting to reform. If she is, Simm!Master is going to be a very interesting difference, whenever he shows up. 

8/10

Doctor Who 10x08 "The Lie of the Land" Review

SPOILERS

“The Lie of the Land” was an interesting conclusion to this little mid-season trilogy…and there’s only four more episodes left until the Christmas special and the real regeneration!

It’s always interesting when different shows portray a glimpse of the future or alternate universe that is definitely not quite right. I was reminded of many other Doctor Who stories, but this one was its own horror because humanity at large was under the Monks’ influence and only a select few could see through them…only with disastrous consequences if they are caught. Bill uses a mental image of her mother to help separate the false memories from the true ones. All seems saved once Nardole shows up, completely healed from the last episode. Convenient TARDIS gadget is convenient and they find the Doctor.

The whole scene between Bill and the Doctor was really interesting to see play out. The way the trailer showed it, I really believed the Doctor was working for the Monks and Bill would have to figure out how to save humanity. What I didn’t imagine was how much it would escalate, to the point of Bill thinking shooting the Doctor would be the only way to fix everything. However, the whole show there was a big scheme to confirm for the Doctor that Bill was “awake”. The bullets were blanks and he has the ability to put on a little regeneration lightshow on cue. Thanks, trailer. Nice twist. But despite Team TARDIS together again, he still thinks he needs more help, and he turns to the only person who is as smart as he is: Missy.

Missy in her vault with some interesting insights.

Missy has seen the Monks before and knows the only way to stop them is to stop the brainwaves of the person who made the decision in the first place, which is Bill. The Doctor thinks he is mentally strong enough to take on the Monks’ broadcasting technology, but he isn’t. The only one who can fight is Bill. It’s all a game of minds and memories, the true versus the false. It seems like the Monks are winning until they come across Bill’s memory of her mum. It was created by the pictures the Doctor sent her in the first episode, untouched by a world under Monk control, and is the only thing strong enough to stop them. They leave and the world goes back to normal…and of course doesn’t remember a thing.

And wow, that ending with Missy. If she’s not faking, this is going to be a very interesting little arc for her. I can’t wait to see how her character ends up.

9/10