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