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Wacky Reviews: Doctor Who

Hell Bent - It's clever how the opening scene makes it look like Clara has forgotten the Doctor when it's really the other way around.

So is Maester Luwin playing Timothy Dalton as an older man or is he playing Timothy Dalton's next regeneration? He's fine as the villain but not nearly as much fun as the scenery-chewing, spitting Timothy Dalton was. But few things in life are.

The Doctor going back to Gallifrey for the first time in ages is a big thing and needs to be dealt with before we can get to the Clara part. I like how the Doctor turns everyone against Not Timothy Dalton pretty quickly and with hardly saying a word. I don't know how they knew the Doctor had information on the Hybrid though (since that's the reason they trapped him in his confession dial)? Like before this episode all we really knew about the Hybrid was that it was an old legend the Doctor and Davros both knew about. Did they hear the Doctor and Davros talking about it? (I guess their "prophecy matrix" told them it was time to find out about it.) And I don't really get how the confession dial's use here fits in with the Doctor sending it to Missy at the start of the series. But anyway, like I said it's entertaining watching Rassilon so easily overthrown.

Gallifrey is a fun setting, but the story isn't really about Gallifrey, it's about Clara. I like that it's not one of those epic finales where a million things happen. Once the Gallifrey story is settled it's all about the Doctor going to extreme lengths to keep Clara alive. It's the right choice! It's a more personal story than those crazy all over the place stories like 'The Wedding of River Song' which alienated me because they were more about crazy plot twists than the characters. The best parts of the episode are when it's just the Doctor and Clara on their own, talking. Having said that, it would be good to have a proper episode all about Gallifrey soon. There's a lot that could be done there! And people have been waiting to see it for a long time.

Me shows up and Maisie Williams does a great job as usual (and just to be shallow, looks really great too.) But man I really want to know more about how she survived for billions of years, how she out-lived everyone else in the universe. If the Mire's technology was that strong, why aren't there loads of Mire still alive too? It feels pretty weird that she's waited billions of years just to ask who the Hybrid is. Like nothing else has happaned in her life in the last four billion years.

It's good that they kind of reference what happened to Donna and how she didn't get a choice in it and Clara should. (There's quite a few cheeky references here, with Me even coming close to suggesting the Doctor could be half human.) Capaldi and Coleman are great toghether in the memory erasing debate scene. I think it's a better companion exit than most.

So Clara ends up travelling in her own TARDIS with Me and has to go back and die eventually. But she could live for literally billions of years before dying if she wanted to, so that's a pretty happy ending really. I've mentioned before that Clara feels like a different character every sereis, which stops her from being one of the best companions, but Jenna was always great in the role. And I liked her theme music.



So yeah, I think this is actually one of Moffat's best finales. I can understand people being disappointed it wasn't more focused on Gallifrey's return, but the story it told was a strong one.

SCORE: 9/10
 
The Husbands of River Song - Okay, this is an episode I don't really remember. It was Christmas day, I was drunk and fell asleep. Like the start where Matt Lucas goes to get the Doctor in one of those space Christmas towns, and there's a flying saucer and River's dressed up as Santa? I don't remember any of that! The opening sequence has snow! I don't remember that! River's married to Greg Davies with a robot body. I vaguely remember that. He's the king of somewhere and millions of people are watching on tv as River tries to heal him with help from the Doctor who she believes is a surgeon for some reason? River wants to murder the king (who to be fair, is evil) to steal a diamond that's inside him? Yeah, don't really remember that. Is any of this any good? It's okay, but it's hard to judge it when it's obviously designed to be watched on Christmas day when drunk (but not so drunk that you fall asleep.)

This is the first time Capaldi's Doctor and River have met and they work fairly well together, though River's in full wacky fast talking "sexy!" theatrical mode. River and the Doctor go on the run with the King's head in a back and laugh at it and River says "WHO are you?" a lot because Moffat loved doing that. She's got another husband but she erased his memory of their marriage because "he was being annoying" haha that zany River. Nordol's head ends up on the robot body. River continues to refuse to believe Capaldi could be the Doctor even though he acts exactly like the Doctor and reveals that she frequently steals the TARDIS from him without him noticing. It turns out the King has a blackhole inside his robot body and can destroy the solar system. And River's other husband's head ends up on the robot body and River and Doctor hide out at a fancy party on a spaceship full of murders. The usual stuff.

I'm not really a big fan of this out and out craziness. It's just all goes by really fast and none of it is particuarly memorable or funny. Again I know it's because it's Christmas and after people got confused by the actual good Christmas episode (the one with Katherine Jenkins) Moffat decided to just do fluff you don't have to pay attention to on Christmas day. Maybe this is why they did the special episode on New Year's Day rather than Christmas day this year, so they could actually do a proper episode (not that it didn't have problems.)

Anyway, there's more zany stuff with bad guys trying to get the King's head back before the robot body shows up again. It blows up the King's head for some reason and an evil guy starts reading River's Diary. The robot body wants the Doctor's head for its new head and things get a bit more serious with River saying she doesn't believe the Doctor loves her. She finally realises Capaldi is him and it's nicely played by both. River then catches a diamond between her tits, the Doctor defeats the robot somehow and they end up on the planet with the Singing Tower's mentioned in River's first appearance. (The spaceship crashed and I geuss everyone died but they were all murderers anyway.)

The episode ditches the zaniness and gets fairly serious for the last ten minutes. The Doctor has a restaurant built in front of the towers so he can take River out to dinner there. River's husband and Nardol survived in the robot body so that's nice. The episode slows down enough for the Doctor and River to listen to the singing towers. It's a good moment. I prefer this River to the zany murdering "sexy" River of the first forty minutes of the episodes. River realises their time together is over and they have a good serious conversation. It turns out a night on this planet lasts twenty four years which means they actually spend twenty four years together before she goes off to die. I don't think this really fits the spirit of the scene in the library episode where she said they had a last night together and clearly meant it was just one night, but it's a cute Moffat-style end (that'll annoy some people.)

It's a really weird episode because the last ten minutes nearly redeem it but I can't ignore the fact that I didn't much care for the first forty minutes or so. They weren't terrible or anything, just so forgettable that I'm having a hard time remembering them even at the end of the episode (what was that bit where millions of people were watching them live on tv?) But the ending is really strong and Capaldi and Kingston (who is good, despite River's character not really working as a character for much of her episodes) act the hell out of it. Weirdly this was almost Moffat's last episode as he wans't originally going to come back for the final Capaldi series. I wonder why he'd want three quarters of his last episode to be so forgettable? But at least the ending leaves you with a good impression of it! Imagine how much that ending must have confused the drunken, sleepy Christmas viewers who just wanted a bit of fluff but were then asked to remember story points from a David Tennant episode (without even a "previously on" recap at the start!) Like I said, weird.

SCORE: 6/10


The Return of Doctor Mysterio - Super hero movies are a big thing now. It's a fine idea for Doctor Who to do its own version of one. Rather than referencing the recent Marvel movies or the Nolan Batman movies or Raimi's Spider-Man or X-Men or anything from this century, this episode references 1978's Superman. I mean I know Superman's been on tv a lot, but I imagine where are a lot of younger viewers who've never seen it. And even for someone like me who's watched it many times, I've heard all the "Clark Kent and Superman look exactly the same!" jokes before and this one doesn't really have anything new to say about Superman.

The Doctor accidentally gives a kid superpowers in an overly long pre-titles scene. As an adult the superhero is nanny to the baby of a woman he's in love with, a woman he calls Mrs Marriedname at all times even though he's known her since they were at school together (oh, and she married his BEST FRIEND.) ((We find that out later but it's worth mentioning now because wow.)) The woman is a reporter inverstigating a supervillain who has a room full of brains. The Doctor and Nardol (who has a human body again and it's later explained in one line that the Doctor gave him it because he was scared he'd get lonely) are investigating too. And the brains have eyes. The brains are evil and some have been swapped with the brains of humans as part of some plot. A guy is murdered and an alien brain placed in his body while the Doctor watches and does nothing. It's all a decent enough set-up though like the pre-credits scene it's pretty slow-paced. The superhero shows up and saves them and recognises the Doctor.

It turns out that nanny leaves the baby on its own when he's out doing his superhero thing, which is a bit disturbing. We get the nanny's stalkerish backstory. There's a bit where the reporter questions the Doctor while torturing a squeaky toy that's also kind of disturbing but actually probably the best scene in the episode and at least gives her a bit of character. There's scenes with the nanny running off to be a superhero and running back when the baby cries and stuff and at least the Doctor points out how silly the whole situation is. Reporter gets a date with superhero (not knowing he's her nanny.) Oh and the evil brains with eyes that are put in human bodies (why do they have eyes? How do they get the first brain into a body?) continue with their evil plot and the Doctor tries to warn them off.

Superhero and reporter (okay their names are Grant and Lucy) go on their date on a rooftop. There's a topical Pokemon Go reference as the Doctor and Nardol investigate the evil plan. Lucy realises on the date that she has feelings for Grant (this wasn't foreshadowed at all.) 46 minutes into the episode the Doctor realises that the brain people are going to destroy all of Earth's major cities as part of a plot to replace all of the world's leaders with brain people. The brain people show up on the date and stuff happens. Grant ends up catching a spaceship that's going to crash into New York (which I think is the Doctor's fault but I lost interest.) Grant's identity is revealed and Lucy kisses him without really having any questions about the whole thing of him stalking her for twenty four years. Lucy gives him the squeaky toy and Nardol tells them about River.

We waited a year for this episode! It was the only one in 2016! Moffat had a year to write something special (I mean I'm sure he was writing Sherlock or something too, but he had more time than usual is the point) and he came up with...this? A really generic tribute to a forty year old movie with no real unexpected twists or anything special. I know the whole "well, it's Christmas so it has to be a complete nothing episode!) excuse but that doesn't hold up really. 'The Husbands of River Song' might have been mostly forgettable but it managed to be a proper, memorable episdoe for the last ten minutes and this doesn't even have that. It's also really slow and didn't need to last a full hour. It's not even the worst Christmas episode ever or anything, it's not like it's insultingly bad, it's just...an episode. That exists. I did like the actress playing Lucy (despite her and Grant being English actors cast as Americans and not being great at the accents) and as I said she was very good in that scene she had with the Doctor and squeaky toy. But yeah this is not very good!

SCORE: 4/10
 
I kind of love Husbands of River Song for some of the reasons you didn't (although if it was any other actress playing River it wouldn't have worked). It's actually the episode that I think of as my entrance to becoming a regular-watching fan, so I have an unnatural fondness for it.

But agreed on Mysterio. It was a mess. But they cast a hot af actor as Grant so all is forgiven.
 
The Pilot - It's kind of weird how we know this is Capaldi's last series, yet this episode feels like a new beginning (look at the title!) as it has to introduce a new companion. Wisely it doesn't really hint that it's the end of Capaldi (not every regeneration needs a "YOUR SONG IS NEARLY OVER DOCTOR" thing) and just focuses on establishing the new status quo. Before we get to Bill, I have to mention that Nardole is a companion now too. And he's a robot. Okay, was Nardole always a robot? He didn't seem to be in 'The Husbands of River Song'. Yes his head ended up on a robot body, but the same thing happened to Ramone (River's husband) and he wasn't a robot (I assume.) So is the idea that the Doctor built a robot body for Nardole's head, or was he always a robot and it just wasn't mentioned in his first episode? It doesn't really matter and we're never going to get much backstory for him anyay so I'm not sure why I asked. He's just comic relief and Matt Lucas is good at that.

The introduction to Bill, with the Doctor basically interviewing her for the role of a new companion over a period of months, is done very well. She's treated like an actual character rather than a mystery to be solved like early Clara and doesn't have a backstory with the Doctor like Amy did. Okay she notices the Doctor in the photo of her mother but it's not like her whole life was shaped by the Doctor like Amy. She's just a normal person and that's good! (Clara was a normal person too but we didn't know that at first.) She's gay but it's treatd the exact same way as if she was straight (just as a fact of the character) and that's the right way to do it (rather than like being a lizard woman who says "did you know my WIFE is a WOMAN?" ever ten minutes.) Her scenes with Heather f maybe a bit brief.

The actual plot with the puddle is pretty standard stuff but just about good enough for a companion introduction episode. I doubt it left anyone scared of puddles but the stuff with Puddle Heather echoing Bill is nicely creepy. We get a very good TARDIS interior reveal scene that doesn't feel tired and definitely has the feeling of introudcing new viewers to the concept in a memorable way (like it's a pilot episode or something!) Then we get some travelling in time and space which makes a decent amount of sense and again lets viewers know what the TARDIS can do. Putting a Dalek in was unnecessary and is the kind of Dalek appearance that makes you think there's some truth to the rumour that the BBC have to use them once a year or they'll lose the rights (except there can't be since the one episode in 2016 had no Daleks and there were none in 2018 either.)

The resolution to the puddle plot would have been better if Bill and Heather had had more scenes together. They probably only had a dozen lines together when Heather was human so Bill being so tempted to go with her doesn't quite ring true (though I guess the vision of the wonders of space is why she so tempted rather than the short-lived crush.) Having Bill refuse to let the Doctor wipe her memory is a good character moment. Capaldi's Doctor himself has lost most of the harshness of his early episode and gets to show more humour than before (and it's humour that works rather than riding a tank about for some reason.)

So yeah it's a good start of a new era episode! It's not going to be a very long era but I don't think that hurts the episode much. It's a bit thin on plot but it works for what it sets out to do.

SCORE: 8/10


Smile - This episode gets off to a good start with another fine scene of Bill getting used to the TARDIS and the Doctor and a good scene with robots killing people for not smiling (one is played by Rani's mum from Sarah Jane Adeventures, fact fans!) The Doctor and Bill travel to the future and it looks really cool! This is because the episode was filmed at Valencia's Cits of Arts and Sciences and boy does it look futuristic. It really helps to have a real location to film at that looks exactly like a sci-fi future city. We get a lot of stuff with the Doctor and Bill trying to figure out what happened to the people and maybe it was a mistake to show the robots killing people at the start of the episode? It means the viewer is ahead of the Doctor for a while and the scene with the Doctor finding the bones in the garden would have worked better without it.

We get to the running around portion of the episode. I didn't find the emoji robots as scary as the episode wanted me to. The part where the Doctor and Bill have to keep smiling to stop the robots killing them is pretty good. The interplay between the Doctor and Bill continues to be good while the actual plot continues to be not that compelling. It's just walking about with the Doctor explaining the plot and I guess you could say that about a lot of Doctor Who episodes but I think others manage to do it in a more exciting way. It's watchable enough anyway, just uninspired.

Then finally the Doctor finds the colonists and the plot kicks in with just about ten minutes runtime remaining. The Doctor realises that by taking the colonists out of stasis he's possibly condemned them to death by emoji robot which is a good moment. He figures out that the robots are killing people to mainain happiness (whoever programmed them did a really bad job.) Then the episode takes a turn and the Doctor starts talking about slavery. With like six minutes to go. Look I'm definitely not oppposed to doing a story about robot slavery but this hasn't been one for most of its runtime. Maybe we'd actually scene the robots being mistreated by the humans it would work, but the humans are barely in the episode and we don't really get the sense that they've enslaved the robots, the humans don't know the robots are sentient and really I'm not entirely convince they are either. The Doctor realises they're sentient because they defend themselves when attacked and it seems like quite a logic leap (couldn't they have been programmed to say that.)

Then there's a weird voiceover about a magic haddock which I think is supposed to sound profoud (the music makes it seem that way) but really isn't. The Doctor has just wiped the memories of the robots, right after establishing that they're sentient, and isn't that kind of evil? He then expects the humans and robots to live together in peace and I have a lot of sympathy for the humans here because how do they know the robots aren't just going to decide to kill them all again? It's all a bit weird. There's no ideas here: the Doctor failing to realise the robots were sentient before and wanting to negoitiate a peace between them and the humans. But the it's just ideas being thrown out there without being full developed throughout the episode. If you want to do a story about a war between humans and enslaved robots where both sides are equally to blame (or the humans are actually more to blame, it seems) then you have to actually make the whole episode about that. But Capaldi and Mackie do just about manage to convince you that it all made sense, even though it didn't.

SCORE: 6.5/10
 
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Thin Ice - The Doctor and Bill visit the Frost Fair in London 1814 in the "first time travel to the past" story every companion gets in their third episode. Bill asks all the time travel rules questions. It's a fun setting and the questions are handled with good humour by the Doctor. They tackle Bill's race early by saying London 1814 was blacker than we though, kind of the same thing 'The Shakespeare Code' did. They used colourblind casting after that, having one of the street kids being black and the other white and they're still friends and I don't know how accurate that was to the real 1814 but it works fine and at least the episode addresses it.

A kid dies early on and it gives us a look at the more serious side of time travel, with a good scene with Bill asking the Doctor if he's ever killed before. It's a good scene to show the "darkness" of the Doctor without making the darkness look cool like some episodes do.

The actual plot involves fish monsters under the ice that are making people disappear. It's pretty familiar stuff but that's fine.

The villain of the episode (played by the guy who played Nathan Barley! Peace and fucking yeah?) shows up pretty late in the episode, which I don't think is ideal. It turns out he's an out and out racist (just when we've forgotten about Bill's race after the early mention) and the Doctor punches him right away in a funny bit. Again he works fine as a villain but there's nothing all that interesting about him. He's just completely evil: racist, murderous and exploiting the fish monsters. And barely in the episode.

The Doctor makes a nice speech to Bill about how she has to decide what they do because it's her planet (probably the best part of the episode) and she recruits the street kids to help save the day.

There's not too much to say about this, really. It feels like a mash-up of previous episodes, but it's fine. It's pretty good. There's nothing bad about it, really, but nothing too memorable outside of some strong Doctor/companion interactions. There's some decent humour and it's all watchable, just not all that memorable.

(It occurs to me that the previous episode has creepy smiling robots like 'The Beast Below' and this one has, well, a beast below.)

SCORE: 7.5/10


Knock Knock - Bill and a load of other students move into a creepy old house with a creepy old man (David Suchet, a good guest actor kind of wasted on this episode.) The Doctor is intrigued by the house and comes to check it out, even though Bill doesn't want him meeting her cool new friends. Standard creepy stuff starts to happen in the house. David Suchet continues to be really obviously a bad guy but is very fun to watch and doesn't want anyone coming into his mysterious tower.

It's fine but all a bit slow. Bill keeps trying to get rid of the Doctor (wouldn't you want him around when the house is being scary?), the house keeps creaking and stuff. One of the students has been missing for days but nobody much cares. Things pick up about twenty minutes in with the house trapping them inside. The students are eaten by the house one by one. The Doctor discovers that the house has been making six students disappear every twenty years (two times before this.) The landlord explains that the creatures in the house are keeping his daughter alive somehow. Another student is eaten by insects right on camera and it sure seems like something it would be hard to come back to life from (spoiler: he comes back to life.)

Bill finds the daughter and she's a tree woman now. Then it turns out she's not his daughter, she's his mother! This is the big twist and it's a fairly good twist but also I'm not totally sure what the point is. What difference does it really make to the story that he's a son looking after his mother rather than a father looking after his daughter? Again Suchet does very good acting here, but they could have foreshadowed this earlier in the episode when he was standing around being creepy. The mother eventually talks her son into letting go because it's their time to go. This is a fine ending, actually, but it feels like an ending to a different episode than the first half.

Somehow the mother makes the students come back to life. This is weird because we saw them being eaten. I didn't actually want the to stay dead because it would be a bit harsh to kill off five students and leave Bill having to explain what happened to them to their parents. But it's very convenient and unearned. And what about the other twelve (or more) students killed over the years? Would have been kind of interesting if they'd all shown up alive again, up to forty years out of their own time.

It just feels like two episodes stuck togethr. On the plus side, the stuff wih the mother talking her son into letting go is really quite moving and well acted by Suchet and the woman playing the tree. But why didn't the use the first half of the episode to set this up rather than just doing generic horror stuff? There's hardly any time at all between us thinking she's his daughter and us finding out she's his mother. Maybe if we'd thought she was his daughter since the start of the episode the twist would have had more impact. There's also a lack of the good Doctor/Bill interaction here that's been the highlight of the previous three. So yeah this wasn't actually as bad as I remembered it being but it's still the weakest of the series so far.

SCORE: 6/10
 
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Oxygen - I haven't mentioned yet that the last five episodes have all featured scenes of Nardole guarding a mysterious vault and warning the Doctor not to go off world. I haven't mentioned it because there hasn't been much reason too: it's the kind of Doctor Who "arc" where they just keep reminding you of something ever week until the show is ready to tell you what it's about. And it's really obviously Missy in the vault. I think what happened is that Matt Lucas wasn't going to be a series regular originally, but Moffat liked him so much he decided to make him one and filmed a bunch of scenes on the TARDIS and Vault set with Nardole to add to the already filmed episodes. This is the first one since the opener where Nardole actually goes along with the Doctor and Bill as a companion. And he's fine! We still don't know much about him but he works as a secondary companion, one who isn't there for the fun of travel and provides some fun cynicism.

This is the one on the space station with the automatic suits where oxygen costs money. It's good. Nothing super memorable but a solid story and I think better paced than episodes like 'Smile' and 'Knock Knock' where all the plot happens in the last ten minutes. Having said that it does take quite a while for the guest characters to show up, but they're not super interesting anyway (there's a token blue guy!) Evil spacesuits that contain dead bodies are a pretty good one-off Doctor Who villain.

There's a nice sequence where Bill is exposed to the vacuum of space and slips in and out of consciousness during the spacewalk action sequence, which we view from her point of view (this probably saved them some money too.) The Doctor ends up blind but that's the kind of thing that's always fixed by the end of the episode, right? It's the episode that puts Bill at the most risk so far, as there's also a bit where she's turned into a spacesuit zombie (but one that isn't really dead.) Capaldi continues to do very strong acting even while pretending to be blind. He works out that capitalism is the REAL evil and it's @SAUSAGEMAN's favourite episode.

The episode ends with the Doctor revealing he's still blind by saying "I can't look at anything ever again!" Then it cuts to black and he says "I'm still blind!" because I guess they thought "I can't look at anything ever again!" was too subtle for some viewers. Good episode though.

SCORE: 8/10


Extremis - This episode has two plots. The B-plot is a flashback showing how Missy ended up in the Vault (we find out it's her right at the start.) She's going to be executed, seemingly by the Doctor, but she (and a letter from River) manage to convince the Doctor to give her another chance. So rather than kill her he vows to look after her in the Vault for a thousand years. Capaldi and Gomez are great together and all their scenes sparkle. It also explains that Nardole was sent to the Doctor by River (I think? Didn't the Superman episode say the Doctor rebuilt Nardole so he wouldn't get lonely?)

It's the main plot where things get complicated! The Doctor receives an email titled "Extremis" in his magic glasses that let him kind of see and the freakin' Pope shows up asking for his help with, you guessed it, someting named "Extremis". I'm a sucker for Pope-based comedy and there's funny lines about him driving around the world in his Popemobile and stuff! Bill's on a date with a girl (and her foster mother(?) still doen't know she's gay, somehow) when the Doctor shows up. With the Pope. That freaks her date out and again I'm all for this Pope content.

The Doctor gets to visit the Vatican's secret library where there's aliens hanging about and priests killing themselves after reading a weird book. Bill and Nardole find a room of portals that lead them to The Pentagon and CERN. Some aliens show up and steal the forbidden book from the Doctor, but he manages to make a copy and escape them. The real good stuff happens in CERN where all the scientists are getting drunk and counting down to their own mass suicide. The scientist tells them the world isn't real and demonstrates it by havng everyone say random numbers: they all say the same number. This doesn't actually make any sense (SPOILER: the world is a simulation but why would that mean random numbers can't be generated? We can generate random numbers with any computer, surely aliens can do it with their advanced technology?) but I really like the stuff with the scientists blowing themselves up because they've found scientific proof that the world isn't real.

The real twist here is that the Doctor, Bill and Nardole are all simulations too, which is shown in a good scene where Nardole ceases to exist. The Doctor reveals to Bill that the forbidden Vatican book describes a demon who creates a shadow world that you can figure out is fake due to its unlikely inability to generate random numbers. So this book existed in the real world and just happened to describe the tactic used by the aliens in this episode? Or did the author of the book somehow discover the simulation hundreds of years ago and descrbie it in the book? It's not clear. It's also not clear why the aliens have to enter the simulation to manually remove the book rather than just deleting it from the outside (it's a hologram, so why can't they do that?) Even though the simulated version of the Doctor is doomed to die he has managed to record imformation about the aliens and email it to his real self. It's a clever ending.

I like this episode but also it doesn't make much sense? Like, why would the aliens have put easily accessible portals to other parts of the world inside thier simulation? How does that help them simulate how the humans are going to react to them? The real world doesn't have an easily accessible portal room! And why did they leave that book in the simulation if it gave the game away? It's almost as if their running a simulation to see how humans would react to a simulation! But that would be one twist too many. Anyway, I actually still like it! The stuff with the Doctor and Missy is very good and very well acted. The main plot is compelling even though it doesn't exactly hold together. There's great moments like the CERN scene and simulated Doctor explaining things to simulated Bill. It's the first part of a three episode arc, so we'll see if the next two can live up for this and how they use the knowledge the Doctor learned in this episode...

SCORE: 8.5/10
 
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The Pyramid at the End of the World - This time it's the Secretary General of the U.N. who interrupts Bill's date and that's not as funny as the Pope. That thing about the Doctor being the President of the World that only ever comes up in two parters comes up again. Or three parters, as this is supposed to be. Except this totally has the feel of the first part of a two parter. It starts with a five thousand year old pyramid being found (in a fictional country, for some reason), something that didn't happen in the simulation the aliens ran in part one...meaning nothing the Doctor learned there actually helps, making that whole episode pretty much pointless to the arc. The Doctor is still REALLY OBVIOUSLY BLIND (he's wearing dark glasses and Nardole is describing everything to him) and Bill somehow doesn't notice which makes Bill look a lot stupided than she's been portrayed to be so far. Otherwise the stuff with the Doctor and companions investigating the pyramid and talking to world leaders is really standard stuff. Perfectly watchable but nothing special.

There's also a subplot about scientists which plays out like the first act of Casualty (I haven't watched Casualty in twenty five years but I assume it still starts like that) where you're just waiting for the accident to happen. It goes on FOREVER. Finally they create a bacteria that improbably makes people melt and their security measures are terrible (all the potentially deadly material in their lab is vented to the outside world every thirty minutes!) so the world is fucked.

The interesting part here is that the monks don't cause the accident that's going to wipe out all life on Earth, they merely came to Earth at this time because their simulation predicted it was going to happen. They're here to offer help but of course their help comes with a catch because they're creepy aliens. They need humanity to consent so they'll have power over us, but when the UN Secretary General tries to consent they say his consent is "unpure" because it's out of fear and turn him to dust. But surely anyone consenting to their help will be doing so out of fear that humanity's about to end?

The Doctor nearly reveals his blindness to Bill a couple of times but stops himself and she just stands there looking stupid instead of figuruing it out and this isn't a good episode for Bill. There's stuff with the Doctor and the scientist trying to destroy the bacteria which should be good in theory but is only just "oka I guess." Three leaders of armies try to consent to the monks but they get melted because their consent doesn't come "out of love". Where did that come from? They never mentioned it last time. The Doctor's blindness finally comes out (why did he keep it a secret anyway?) when he can't put in the combination to open the door and get to the TARDIS. Bill gives consent to the monks to save the Doctor and because she did it out of love the monks accept it. So the four people they killed didn't have anyone who they loved and were trying to save from the end of the world?

It's just dull and not very good. Not terrible or anything (though I'm sure I could nitpick the lab set-up a lot if I wanted to) but there's not much to recommend. Yes I think the idea that the monks want our consent to save humanity is interesting but the way it's executed is weird (why is the consent only pure when the Doctor's life is threatened?) So yeah is all "watchable" but I don't think it's really worth watching.

SCORE: 5.5/10
 
The Lie of the Land - It's an alternative universe one! A universe where the Monks rule the Earth and humanity loves them. It starts with a fun scene of the Doctor narrating the new history. The idea that the Doctor has been mind-altered by the Monks is definitely the most interesting thing about the first part of the episode. All the labour camp stuff is pretty standard for the alternate universe format and has been done countless times in other shows and Doctor Who itself. But the Doctor being a bad guy is interesting, at least! Bill and Nardole team up to rescue him and it's fairly good fun. Pearl Mackie does some strong acting when she confronts the Doctor, disgusted by the fact that he seemingly has turned to the Monks' side. Bill goes so far as to shoot the Doctor(!) and he starts to regenerate(!!) Oh shit, it's all just a trick, isn't it? Yep! The first half of the episode was just the Doctor testing Bill! He went to all the effort to fake a regeneration to do so, even though Bill doesn't know what a regeneration is.

It's pretty dumb! Wouldn't it have been better if the Doctor really had been turned and Bill and Nardole had to turn him good again? Instead it's all just a big hilarious jape (with really bad comedy music once the truth is revealed.) There's a bit with the Doctor laughing like a maniac on on a boat that's really weird and I dare I say it but Capaldi's acting doesn't seem as good as usual here. Maybe he thinks it's kdnd of crap too?

Things improve a bit when they go inside the vault to get help from Missy. Michelle Gomez is fun as always, but sadly she has to give exposition on the monks and their nonsensical means of control. Apparently the control will pass down the genetic line of the person who gave consent? But the Monks don't even know that! They run super sophisticated simulations but don't actually know how their control works. What!? What the fuck! It looks like the episode is going to come down to the Doctor having to sacrifice Bill to save the human race, except he comes up with another plan and doesn't have to deal with that. And all that stuff about the control passing down the genetic line was irrelevant too.

There's some dull action stuff as the Doctor, his friends and some disposable soldiers break into the pyramid. The Doctor's plan doesn't work but Bill doesn't have to sacrifice because she manages to save the day by transmitting her love for her deceased mother to the world. Yep, just like when Clara beat some bad guys by thinking about her parents meeting due to a leaf or James Corden beating some Cybermen by playing a recording of his baby crying (or something): love saves the day! Poor Peter Capaldi has to explain to the audience what's happening, including the terrible line "Bill's mum, you just went viral!" Everything goes back to normal and humanity doesn't know what's happened despite spending six months in monkverse. What about all the people who died in the labour camps? Did they just come back to life?

It's bad, sorry. I don't want to be mean to Doctor Who but this episode (and the whole arc really) is a failure. The alternative universe stuff is really half-arsed (it pretty much just consists of labour camps) and the one interesting part, the Doctor being a bad guy, turns out to be a lie. So outside of a few funny lines from Missy and very good acting from Pearl Mackie it really isn't very good. Toby Whithouse is usually a solid writer so I'm surprised he managed to write one even worse than the previous episode (by the fucking Kill The Moon guy.) And yes I have to again point out that these three stories doesn't work as an arc. The simulations in the first part have no resemblence to anything that actually happens in the next two. I guess they were just really inaccuarte simulations! The whole "consent from love" thing never really works. The last episode is a really weak alternate history followed by a standard "power of love" ending.

Fuck the monks.

SCORE: 4.5/10


The Empress of Mars - After a really quick opening at NASA, The Doctor, Bill and Nardole (who quickly disappears with the TARDIS) go to Mars and find some Victorian spacemen (in cool steampunk spacesuits.) They have an ice warrior working with them. They're trying to colonise Mars for Queen Victoria so they're kind of bad guys but they talk all funny and old fashoned so I think we're supposed to kind of like them. Bill's doing a thing this episode which she's never done before where she keeps talking about movies. It's fine.

It turns out that the ice warrior (Friday) was using the Victorians all along to uncover his Queen, but the Victorians are too arrogant to see it. The Doctor points out that the humans are the invading army so he shouldn't take sides, but the ice warriros have superior firepower so it's not a fair fight. A greedy human named "Jackdaw" for some reaon (we know this because a black Victorian calls him it fifty times) wakes up the Queen and the killing begins. The ice warrirors have a cool weapon that folds up the humans when they're shot by it. The Doctor manages to stop the fighting by telling the Queen they must co-operate with the humans to survive (not really sure how the primative humans could help them, to be honest) but a human stupidly shoots her and the fighting begins. The humans continue to be arrogant and stupid (apart from one who's just a deserter who wasn't hung properly, but even he's a comedy sexist) and it's hard to care what happens to them. But we're not really on the side of the ice warriros either because they're just hisising space lizards.

More humans are killed but Friday helps the Doctor and Bill escape because he's conflicted and thinks they should work together (again not sure what the ice warriors get out of working together.) The Doctor nearly saves the day (by threatening to kill everyone) but the bad guy human ruins things by threatening to kill the Queen (which is worse, I guess.) The deserter kills the bad guy and the Queen is impressed that he "sacrificed one of his own without tactical advantage!" even though I'm not sure that's what just happened. He ends up pledging his service to the ice warrior queen because I guess she's better than Queen Victoria. This ending all feels a bit muddled. I guess all the other non-speaking Victorians decide to join her too. Then a character from a forty year old episode conctacts them and I remember everyone on the internet being excited about this at the time but I havne't seen that forty year old episode, sorry. Missy and Nardole show up and there's a weird bit where Missy asks the Doctor if he's alright and he doesn't answer and it seems to be hinting at something but nothing comes of it?

It's the last ever Mark Gatiss episode and it's pretty appropriate in that it's an episode with a good idea that just isn't executed very well. I feel like that's the case for most of his episodes (other than his first ice warrior one, which was good.) He just isn't very good at writing stories? I'm not saying I could do any better, but what I can do is judge his stories against actual good Doctor Who stories and conclude that his aren't as good. And he's written enough episodes over the years that I think it's a fair conclusion to reach. This isn't as bad as his worst (there's no eye booger monsters) but it never gets better than "fine." There's some potentially interesting stuff there (like the Doctor not knowing what side he shoudl be on) but nothing is really done with it. It does have some decent sci-fi details like the steampunk spacesuits and the cool ice warrior guns. It's better than the last two episodes. But man this whole final Capaldi series has been mostly disappointingly average so far.

SCORE: 6/10
 
The Eaters of Light - It's the time travel to ancient Scotland to find out what happened to the missing Roman legion episode. I don't have much to say. It's a standard episode, not bad but not special. None of the guest characters stand out but none of them ruin the episode. Capaldi's good and gets some funny lines making fun of a young girl but doesn't have any scenes where he can really excel for most of the episode. The usual level of quality for this series. It's decent.

There's a bit near the start where Bill finds out that the TARDIS translates for her and it reminds you that Bill is still a new companion, learning things about how the TARDIS works...then you remember she's only got two more episodes after this. This does result in a nice a bit where Bill realises the TARDIS lets the Picts and the Romans talk the same language for the first time and allows them to learn they're not so different. This works a lot better than the Doctor's please for the Ice Warriros and Victorians to work together in the previous episode.

The monster's a bit rubbish. The CGI is a bit rubbish (but hey it's Doctor Who) and it "eats light"...but also hangs around in the dark eating people. Why? Why not just go and hang around in the sun light and grow stronger? Apparently the sun will kill it...even though it eats light? It doesn't make much sense.

The Romans and the picts all end up in a portal thing fighting the monster forever and can still be heard singing in the present day for weird time reasons. There's also a thing about crows deciding to say "Kar" because that was the name of the pict girl, which is bonkers but in a fun way!

There's a bit at the end where it turns out Missy's just been hanging around in the TARDIS the whole time (wouldn't it have been more fun to let her come on the adventure with them?) which feels tacked on but is a very good scene thanks to Capaldi and Gomez (and the writing, to be fair!)

So yeah it's not great but it's not bad. I'd say it's one of the better standalone episodes this series, certainly better than last week's and probably up about the level of 'Thin Ice' and just below 'Oxygen'.

SCORE: 7.5/10
 
TBH, I think people would have been SO much more enamored of the 13th being female if they had turned the wrench a little farther and had Michelle Gomez playing the 13th Doctor.

We know from the 12th taking a face the 10th had seen that the Doctor's regenerations follow a pattern of remembrance and emulation. So if they'd made Michelle Gomez the Doctor's 13th incarnation it would not just have made the transition to female make sense but would have made it quite poignant as well.
 
World Enough and Time - Yes! This is more like it! This is an episode with some life! This is a big episode that feels big but also it's really good and full of good character stuff and has an actual story and everything!

We've got a giant spaceship reversing away from a black hole. That's already a better set up than any episode this series. The start with Missy taking on the Doctor's role is a lot of fun, with a typically great performance from Gomez. I even don't mind the "Doctor Who" thing this time because it's actually funny! A big fucking hole gets shot in Bill ten minutes in and this is anything but routine.

It's an episode that uses real science but in a Doctor Who way. I'm sure it doesn't make actual scientific sense, but time moving slower near to a black hole is a real thing and it's used as a tool to tell a compelling story. And it's explained in a way that I think would make sense to any viewer, rather than being rushed through like some of Moffat's finales that seemed to throw a hundred things at you really fast to distract you from the fact they didn't make much sense ('The Wedding of River Song' I'm talking about you.)

I'm sure we all remember that the BBC spoiled the fact that the (original) Cybermen and the John Simm Master were going to be in this episode. It was annooying at the time and I still found it a bit annoying when I saw the "next time" preview at the end of the previus episode. But I think the Cybermen stuff works fine without it being a big mystery. We can firgure out quite early on that we're seeing the birth of the Cybermen but it's so well done that it doesn't matter. There's actual body horror here, something we haven't really had enough of regarding the Cybermen in New Who. We see every step along the way of the creatiion of the Cybermen and it's terrifying. Really this is the kind of thing that should have been done to introduce the Cybermen to the new audience back in 2006 instead of that silly stuff with Trigger from Only Fools and Horses.

The Simm spoiler is more annoying because I think they could have actually fooled people. The crazy janitor does look like a man in weird make-up doing a silly accent, yes, but if you didn't know John Simm was in the episode would you really think it was him? So it's a shame they didn't get to pull off a "gotcha!" moment when he's revealed. With that said, Simm is really good in the episode. I found him annoying back in the RTD days, but that was probably because he didn't get much to do other than stand around laughing evily and jump around murdering homeless people and stealing their turkeys. Playing a ten year practical joke on Bill is a lot more interesting.

The big revealations are done perfectly, with Missy finding out the crazy guy is her past self and the Doctor finding out the that Bill has been turned into a Cyberman. They might not be the biggest shocks but for the characters they're a huge deal. And good character work is always more important than shocks.

It's a great first part of a two parter and it makes me more annoyed that most of this series has been so average. No it's not been as bad as the worst of the RTD days (remember when we had 'Love and Monsters' directly followed by 'Fear Her'?) but it's just been so...ordinary. Like nearly every episode has just been standard "The Doctor and companions go somewhere and there'a monster they win the end" stories with no real twists or anything to make them feel special. No you can't have a huge hole shot in Bill every week but you can be more creative with the strorytelling. Anyway this is very strong and surely the best Cybermen episode of the century.

SCORE: 9.5/10
 
The Doctor Falls - Not the most imaginative episode title.

It is notoriously hard for the second part of a two parter to be as good as the first. The first has the advantage of being able to set up an amazing cliffhanger, whereas the second has to actually follow it up with a story worithy of that set up. And it's true that I don't like this part quite as much as part one, but in terms of following up a great episode it manages to hold its own. To get what I don't like out of the way: the scene between the Master and Bill. After spending TEN YEARS together they get one scene here to address his betrayal...and we see Bill as a Cyberman during it. So Pearl Mackie doesn't even get to act during the scene (except for one shot of her as a human at the end.) I know there's a lot going on in the episode but they could have done better than that.

Otherwise though it's mostly very strong stuff and the second best episode of the series. It focuses on character than action, which is good, but there's still some nice slow motion shots of Cybermen exploding. Simm and Gomez have great chemistry together (including in a creepy sexual way) but it's Capaldi who delivers the strongest performance with his "be kind" speech to the both of them. Having his Doctor willingly give up his life to save some farmers is a good ending to go aong with the theme of the speech.

It's a really smart move showing how Missy has changed by contrasting her with her past self and I like the tragedy of the Doctor actually getting through to her and never knowing it. Their ending is perfect for them (and it doesn't really matter that the Master will inevitably return one day.)

Nardole gets a nice ending though I'm still not sure what he actually is?

Let's talk about Bill's ending! Her story here is very sad, with her seeing herself as human but everyone else seeing her as a Cyberman. I understand why they didn't leave her cyberfied and wondering around a field of the dead and I wouldn't have wanted them to. But is Puddle Girl (who can now speak like a normal person so I guess she learned how to control her puddle powers) showing her up and turning her into a puddle too really an appropriate ending to her story? I guess the problem is that Bill still feels like a new companion. Two episdoes ago she was still discovering things about the TARDIS! And really her ending is too similar to Clara's: she kind of dies but becomes something more than human and flies off with an immortal girl. For Clara it made sense since her whole arc was that she was becoming similar to the Doctor, so she gets her own companion and spaceship. With Bill it's just like they needed a way to write her out. It's still fine within the episode and she's been a strong companion. It's just a shame her story seems cut short.

The ending with the Doctor refusing to regenerate and the First Doctor showing up is all very interesting but the Christmas episode isn't on Netflix yet so I can't say much more about it!

SCORE: 9/10
 
I know Bill had to go because Capaldi was going, but it's a shame we couldn't have had one more season with the two of them. And occasionally Nardole.
 
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