An Hour of Who a Day: 2020

September 10: "The Timeless Children"

Promotional photo for "The Timeless Children" (from BBC One - Doctor
Who, The Timeless Children gallery) ©BBC

And now we've arrived at the explosive finale of series 12! And what we get is... um. Hmm.

It's kind of weird, this one. Essentially, "The Timeless Children" is a game of two halves: one half is pretty thrilling and exciting and a nice conclusion of what we saw last time, while the other half seems exposition-heavy and largely divorced from the proceedings.

To be fair, the Cybermen/companions under siege half of this episode is really good indeed. It's not quite as bleak as "Ascension of the Cybermen" was: our heroes are still in pretty dangerous situations (with one of Yaz and Graham's party, Bescot, killed by the Cybermen in the opening minutes to underline that point), but it's a bit calmer overall: Graham and Yaz, for instance, can take the time to have a touching conversation while their fellows Ravio and Yedlarmi remove the organic components from some Cyber-Warrior suits so that the four of them can disguise themselves long enough to get off the ship. It's a really sweet conversation ("I'm going to sound like a... like a proper old man, but you're doing your family proud, Yaz, you really are") which just reinforces how much of a treasure Bradley Walsh is and how wonderful a character Graham is. I also like the idea of having the companions dress up as Cybermen in the first place -- maybe because it makes me think of Ian in the Dalek back in The Daleks.

The other group down on the planet (Ryan, Ko Sharmus, and Ethan) are also a bit calmer, but that's because they're preparing for an attack by the Cybermen, so they're in preparation mode. There's something lovely about Ian McElhinney's kindly grizzled old general Ko Sharmus, as he's both nice but also practical. "I'm not too sure about weapons," Ryan says (having learned something from the Doctor, it seems). "Yeah, well, I'm sure about Cybermen," Ko Sharmus replies. "Now, you fight them or you die. ... You can be a pacifist tomorrow. Today, you have to survive." It's handled very well, and watching these two groups (the one on the Carrier trying to sneak off as Cybermen and the one on the planet fending off the "execution units" that Ashad has sent down) is very entertaining, and the guerrilla attacks are good fun too -- plus, I like how the two plotlines combine by having the disguised group take out the Cybermen who are about to execute Ethan; it may be a bit obvious and cheesy, but I find I don't mind.

And the Master's participation in all this is also great, at least at the beginning. His interactions with Ashad are loads of fun; I especially like how he takes the piss out of Ashad's plan to wipe out all organic life:

MASTER: Now, I hate to point out the flaw in your plan. Cybermen are part organic, but you more than most.
ASHAD: My new Cyber-Warriors are purged of organic components.²⁹⁴ We shall rise towards full automation, driven by the intelligence of the Cyberium. And when that work is done, I shall join my warriors and make the final ascension to full mechanisation.
MASTER: Oh, you mean robots. You'll be robots.
ASHAD: We shall be dominant.
MASTER: But robots. Oof. I'm a bit disappointed. I see how you got there - an AI wanting to create more things in its own image - but it lacks vision. Right, what if we, er, workshop this? You know, kick it around a bit? I have notes.
ASHAD: You question the strategy of the Cyberium?
MASTER: I do. I mean, it's good! But it's not great. There's loads of robots. Throw a stick in this universe, you'll hit a robot. I used to do that. Any idiot can make themselves into a robot. It's not special.
(Ashad takes the Master by the throat.)
MASTER: But if you want to be the dominant force in the universe, I can facilitate that.

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - The Timeless Children)

Sacha Dhawan is clearly having loads of fun as the Master, which makes him thoroughly enjoyable to watch. I also like the way he casually kills Ashad in order to gain control of the Cyberium, while the little conversation he has with himself afterwards about not knowing if he was going to activate the Death Particle inside and being OK if it had killed him is an interesting look into the mindset of this Master. It's really well done, and I kind of wish there had been a little more in this vein.

Because unfortunately, the Master is also the one who introduces the other half of this story. And while the chemistry between the Master and the Doctor is truly amazing, the story that the Master is telling is not. For one, it's very exposition-heavy. It's literally a long explanation about how the Time Lords gained their regenerative abilities -- with pretty pictures to go along with, but still just a very long infodump (and one that assumes you're interested in the backstory of the Time Lords at all -- obviously I am, but one wonders what any casual viewers made of all this). It seems a woman named Tecteun from the Shobogan people of Gallifrey travelled the universe and found a young girl who regenerated every time she died, so Tecteun ran tests and studied this "timeless child" until she discovered the secret of regeneration, after which she provided the secret to her fellow Shobogans. One gets the sneaking suspicion that this is supposed to be some massive revelation, but it lands with a bit of a dull thud: "Ok, and? So what?" was my initial reaction when I saw this, and I don't know that that's changed with repeated viewings. I guess it's nice to know, but it doesn't change much.

But that may be because that's followed by the Big Reveal: the Timeless Child is in fact the Doctor, which does change a lot, but it doesn't feel quite right. Part of the issue is that one of the nice things about the Doctor was that among her own people, she wasn't anything special: she was an undistinguished student, only scraping by on her second attempt at graduating from the Academy, and the only thing that made her different was a desire to go and explore and then a willingness to help out where she could. Obviously being an alien made her different from you and me, but the point was that anyone could be the Doctor if they were willing to step up; it's not about a birthright or being special in some way, it's just about standing up and making a difference. But now we're told, no, actually the Doctor is special in some way, it does matter who she is and where she came from, and by the way she's indirectly responsible for regenerative abilities in her entire people.

And it's not really clear what the show gains from this. What's the advantage of learning the Doctor had some secret past working for a shady Division? Much like Chibnall destroying Gallifrey again, it's not obvious why this was done. Are there lots of storytelling opportunities now available that weren't before? I guess you could do lots of stunt casting of past Doctors, since they'd only have to show up for an episode or two, but is that really worth jettisoning everyone's understanding of the character for? (Well, the other potential reason is that this would explain the Morbius Doctors (see The Brain of Morbius in season 13 for more info), which most everyone else has decided to ignore but Chibnall is a big enough fan to possibly want to explain (and if you need proof of his fandom, I again direct you to the "Open Air" special feature on the Trial of a Time Lord DVD (and now Blu-ray as well!) set).) It doesn't help that this episode, after blowing up everything we thought we knew, explicitly tells us it doesn't matter anyway: "Have you ever been limited by who you were before?" the Ruth Doctor asks our Doctor. And besides, this was the information the Master was willing to commit genocide over, the fact that there's a bit of Doctor in him? Even by the Master's standards this seems like a gross overreaction, if he'd even care in the first place. I'm a little worried I sound like one of those fans who complained about The Deadly Assassin back when it first aired for misrepresenting Gallifrey, but I have to confess that on the face of it I just don't see the point.

(As many, many people have pointed out, it would make far more sense for the Master to actually be the Timeless Child; this would provide a better reason for his rage and genocide -- the fact that they had used him for their own ends, both with the regeneration science and the Division missions -- as well as provide an explanation for how he constantly seems to survive encounters where he otherwise should have died, including the end of Missy, which seemed pretty definitive. You'd still have to explain the Ruth Doctor, of course, but that could been handwaved away as some future Doctor (say, the 43rd Doctor) -- or possibly, the fourteenth Doctor: now that would be a hell of a reveal. I still have enough faith in Chris Chibnall to wonder if possibly this is actually the ultimate plan -- after all, he knows he and Jodie will be around for at least series 13, and we've seen he has enough faith to seed things in earlier series and then let them lay fallow (remember, the first mention of the Timeless Child was back in "The Ghost Monument", where it was then ignored for the rest of series 11) -- so I wouldn't completely put it past him. And if something like this turns out to be what actually happens then I'll be both happy and impressed.)

The Master with his new race of Cybermen. ("The Timeless Children")
©BBC

The other, more self-contained problem with "The Timeless Children" has to do with the Time Lord bodies that get converted into Cybermen (the Cyber-Masters, if we want to take the Master's name seriously). They definitely look cool, and the idea of Cybermen who can regenerate is a powerful and terrifying one. But...they just stand there. One shoots another so that we see they can regenerate and then they do nothing. No stalking our heroes through the corridors of the ruined Citadel, no efforts to see them start to swarm throughout the galaxy or something. They literally stand there and do nothing until they all shoot Ko Sharmus -- not that that stops him from pressing the Death Particle Bomb trigger and wiping them all out. It's a powerful idea with no followthrough, and so it feels squandered.

So I dunno. Half of this story, the Cyberman half, is really exciting and fun to watch, at least until it all falls apart with the Cyber-Masters -- but even there at least that idea is a good one with crummy execution. The other half is a dull infodump that seems to break a lot of things just for the sake of doing something Big. It's a weird feeling when the bits of the story involving the Doctor are the least engaging bits, but that's the feat that "The Timeless Children" manages. Ultimately, this is a pretty schizophrenic episode, and it's not one that leaves a great taste in your mind.

It's a bit unfortunate that this series ends the way it does, because it has the effect of weakening the previous run. Because overall, I generally enjoyed series 12; after the more traditional approach of series 11, it was nice to see the show start using some of its newer tools again. And while there are some low spots this series and perhaps not quite as many highs as last series, I didn't feel particularly unhappy with things. Jodie Whittaker seems very comfortable as the Doctor, while her three companions all seem happy and generally get things to do. If there's a complaint to made, it's that we've gotten generally less characterization this time around than last time, which means occasionally Yaz, Ryan, and Graham feel a bit underdeveloped. But this is a minor complaint.

But because series 12 ends on such an ambivalent note, I find that my enthusiasm is correspondingly lessened for this run, and I'm not sure why. It might be because it felt like a lot of series 12 was building up to a big finale that they fail to deliver on, or because the misfires of "The Timeless Children" overshadow the rest of the series because of how Important they're meant to feel. I'm hoping this feeling will go away with time, and honestly to some extent it has; rewatching this run for this blog made it clearer just how many good moments there really were that I'd sort of forgotten about. So perhaps that will be the legacy of series 12: a bunch of generally good stories with only a couple rough spots along the way, with the caveat that the rough spots are pretty big. But if they can be ignored, there's definitely fun to be had here, and definitely enough positives to be encouraged for the future of the show.

And so that does it for this year's run of entries. Obviously the advent of the novel coronavirus (which this run of stories only just avoided; "The Timeless Children" aired on 1 March 2020, while the United Kingdom and the United States didn't start truly taking things seriously until mid-March) has potentially thrown future production schedules into disarray, but it's been reported that the upcoming holiday special, "Revolution of the Daleks", was largely completed by the time restrictions began being put into place (having been filmed as part of series 12), so we have that at least to look forward to for next year. And maybe I'll cover some of the "Lockdown" web stories as well. (Or this animated Dalek show that was announced yesterday as part of the BBC's cross-media tale Time Lord Victorious. (A single tale across multiple platforms! Books! Audios! Comics! Games! YouTube! Probably not TV! etc.)) So in any event, I hope to see you all again on 11 September 2021, and in the meantime be safe and be well.

²⁹⁴ Ohhhhhhh, that must be what Ashad was doing last time that caused the Cybermen to scream. Hmm, that wasn't made very obvious at all, was it?

September 9: "Ascension of the Cybermen"

Promotional photo for "Ascension of the Cybermen" (from BBC One -
Doctor Who, Ascension Of The Cybermen gallery) ©BBC

"Ascension of the Cybermen": because "Rise of the Cybermen" was already taken.

So here we are at the start of the big two-part finale of series 12. It starts out with something of a non sequitur, though, with an abandoned baby in (apparently) early 20th century Ireland being adopted by a couple, and then watching him growing up. It's an opening reminiscent of something Steven Moffat would do, except (might as well address this now, since we're here) we're never given much of any clue in this episode as to why we're being shown this. None of the other characters are named Brendan, and other than the strange moment where Brendan survives being shot and then having a long fall seemingly unscathed, there's nothing to indicate anything's wrong until the very end, when an aged Brendan gets his memory wiped by his father and his superior in the Irish police. Are these the memories of Ashad the Lone Cyberman? Of someone else? Is this meant to be an origin for the Cybermen? Could this be where the Boundary at the end usually leads, to the Earth of the past? Moffat would have provided some clues as to why we were being shown this, but Chibnall elects not to. Maybe that means Chibnall trusts the audience more, but it also means that there are a decent number of scenes in "Ascension of the Cybermen" that don't seem to connect to anything else on screen, which is a bit...not exactly frustrating, but more like a "so what?" feeling. In other words, I'm not sure this part lands the way they intended.

Fortunately, the rest of the episode more than makes up for this. They've gotten better at it in recent years, but all too often the appearance of the Cybermen is a bit of a letdown: we're told they're this powerful, unstoppable force but rarely does that seem to be born out on screen. The last time they showed up ("World Enough and Time"/"The Doctor Falls") is probably the closest they've gotten just because there's this sense of futility throughout the whole thing (the happy ending is Nardole leading the people off to a different floor to fight some other day, rather than because the Cybermen were defeated, remember), but usually we get a handful of Cybermen, talk of their glory days, and then we watch them get easily defeated by the Doctor. But here Chibnall has managed to really dig into the idea of the Cybermen as truly dangerous foes, partly just by setting it at the end of (one of) the Cyber Wars -- probably the same ones referenced in "Nightmare in Silver" -- and showing humanity reduced to a handful of people fleeing from the remnants of the Cyber Army. It's a simple move but one that gives this episode a shot in the arm; we really feel the tension, especially as that handful of humans gets whittled down over the course of the story, while the devices the Doctor has lashed together to help stop the Cybermen (neural inhibitor system, gold particles projector) do literally nothing to stop them. These Cybermen are therefore much more dangerous than many of the ones we've seen before. (That said, the flying Cyber Drones are pretty silly-looking.)

In some ways there's not much more to the episode than that; this is pretty much all set-up for the big conclusion at the end. We see the group of humans split up (along with the TARDIS fam), and the group with Graham and Yaz on the dilapidated escape ship go crash onto a Cybercarrier while the Doctor, Ryan, and their new friend Ethan hijack a Cybershuttle to take to Ko Sharmus, a semi-mythical place where humans can escape the Cybermen. This part also allows us a nice confrontation between the Doctor and Ashad, as he explains his goal to resurrect the Cybermen, as well as confirming (after hinting last time) that he wanted to be a Cyberman: he was a "willing recruit". And now he wants to restore the Cybermen (well, he keeps using the word "ascension", presumably to justify the title) and wipe out all other life. (So, only a bit like the Dalek plan in "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End", then.)

A Cyber-Warrior in hibernation. ("Ascension of the Cybermen") ©BBC

The Graham/Yaz thread is a lot more tense, just because they keep getting lots of stuff thrown at them: a failing ship, a desperate maneuver to an abandoned Cybercarrier, the realization that the Carrier was carrying troops, the arrival of Ashad and his group of Cybus-style Cybermen to revive the sleeping Cyber-troops (although they do something to these Cybermen that causes them to scream, though we never find out what or why)... It's very tense, although Graham does a nice job of keeping everyone going. "It's so cold in here," Ravio, one of the last humans, complains. "Ah, see?" Graham replies. "That is 'cos you're alive and breathing, 'cos of us." "Are you going to keep going on about that?" Ravio asks. "Yes, every hour on the hour," Graham replies. It helps lighten the tension so that things don't get too dark, even when Ashad starts waking up the troops. And by the way, I really like the somewhat retro design of the new Cyber-Warrior helmets, with the return of the flatter face and the larger "earmuffs" on the side.

But yes, it's part one of two, so Yaz and Graham are in the thick of it, while the Doctor's party, having found Ko Sharmus (a person, it turns out, not a place) and the Boundary, learn that the Boundary seems to lead to Gallifrey (although Ko Sharmus remarks that "I've never seen it look like that before", indicating that it doesn't normally lead to Gallifrey), followed by the Master popping out: "Wow! Oh! Ah! That's a good entrance, right?" he exclaims, before redirecting his attention. "Be afraid, Doctor. Because everything is about to change. Forever." It's a good cliffhanger, and the direction this episode has been going so far suggests a promising conclusion next time around. So the question is, will "The Timeless Children" deliver on that promise? We'll find out soon...

September 8: "The Haunting of Villa Diodati"

Promotional photo for "The Haunting of Villa Diodati" (from BBC One -
Doctor Who, The Haunting of Villa Diodati gallery) ©BBC

Oh hey, another pre-titles sequence!

"The Haunting of Villa Diodati" is cowritten by new Doctor Who writer Maxine Alderton, known mostly for her work on the soap Emmerdale. This story takes us to Switzerland 1816, on the night when Mary Shelley first came up with the idea for Frankenstein²⁹³ -- except it seems things aren't going quite as history claimed, even before the arrival of Team TARDIS...

I have to say, the first couple times I watched this I don't think I gave it the credit it deserves; part of the issue is that for a while it's four or five people (famous people!) standing around talking, and while they're saying interesting things and being generally enjoyable company, it can take a bit to really get into -- at which point the appearance of the Lone Cyberman throws everything off-kilter. Suddenly we've shifted from a story concerning just this episode to the larger story arc first hinted at in "Fugitive of the Judoon", which thus lends an air of "OK, then what happens?", especially when this story thread ends on something of a cliffhanger.

But that does a disservice to what we get here. Because the four main guests are all delightful indeed, and their interactions with the TARDIS crew are really wonderful, from the silly little gossip fest during the quadrille, to the more serious conversation between Yaz and Claire Clairmont, to Polidori (himself no literary slouch, by the way, having written the first modern vampire story with The Vampyre, also as a result of the nights of ghost stories at Villa Diodati) challenging Ryan to a duel. Byron also is a delight, trying his charms on the Doctor (and largely failing). "I'm fully aware of what you want," Byron says. "Please, reveal all," the Doctor replies. "My third canto," he says smugly. "Of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, my work in progress." "Nah, it goes on a bit, that one," the Doctor says dismissively. "No offence. Nice mention of Ada, though. Big fan of hers," she adds, in a callback to meeting Ada Lovelace (née Byron) in Spyfall. "You know of my daughter?" Byron asks, understandably confused, given that she'd be about six months old at this point. "Will do," the Doctor says. "Gorgeous brain."

And then we get the puzzle with the house, where everyone seems to be travelling in circles, unable to escape the rooms they're in. Not only does it provide an effective, creepy visual, but it also provides a bit of an SF twist to an "evil house" narrative, with the reveal that it's ultimately a perception filter. Because one of the things this episode does really well is provide a lot of the trappings of a ghost story (apparitions, poltergeists, moving skeletons, etc.) but shift them to that SF context instead of pure horror/fantasy; in other words, it places them inside a Doctor Who context and lets the lead character distort events beyond their traditional shapes. And once you realize that's what's happening, the arrival of the Lone Cyberman makes much more sense: it's also a distortion of a number of these tropes (the stranger stalking people, the revived, possibly murderous corpse (y'know, the thing Mary Shelley (kind of) introduced in Frankenstein)) into a Doctor Who shape. It also gives the Doctor something to dread, instead of just be fascinated by: "Humans like all of you changed into empty, soulless shells," she says. "No feeling, no control, no way back. I will not lose anyone else to that," she vows, in a clear reference to Bill Potts. It's a clever move.

Full props on the design of the Lone Cyberman, by the way; I like the way they've taken the most recent redesign (the "Nightmare in Silver" et al. one), grafted a Mondasian-style arm onto it, and then just generally roughed it up. It looks great, and it gives Patrick O'Kane, inside the suit, something to really work with; they've left the left half of his face exposed, which means he can emote inside the costume, and he takes full advantage of letting his pain, hatred, and rage show on his face. It also gives the other actors something to react to, which is also welcome -- Lili Miller's conversation with him (as Mary Shelley) just wouldn't have the same impact if we couldn't see the sadness briefly chase across his face. It also makes the realization that Mary is getting her inspiration for Frankenstein's monster from Ashad the Lone Cyberman -- not just the idea of a person built from several others but also the emotional pain associated with the Creature -- much more effective.

The Doctor gives up the Cyberium to the Lone Cyberman. ("The
Haunting of Villa Diodati") ©BBC

But because we're specifically picking up on the warning Captain Jack left in "Fugitive of the Judoon", the presence of the Lone Cyberman does distort the narrative: now we're accelerating toward the end of series 12, rather than focusing on this particular episode. In some ways that's not a bad thing -- Ashad is a great character and I'm happy to see more of him -- but in other ways it makes this episode feel a bit unresolved, as the focus moves off the Villa Diodati guests to things about the Cyberium and Cyber Wars in the far future (presumably Captain Jack is one of the people who arranged to send the Cyberium back in time). And that's something of a shame, because the story here deserves a lot of credit. Alderton and Chibnall do a great job with these characters and with the story as a whole, providing clever uses of SF concepts within a ghost story, and it's only because it ends on the cliffhanger of the Lone Cyberman's victory and disappearance that it feels a trifle unfinished. Although the story has the sense to end not on that but on Claire deciding to no longer pine after Byron, followed by Byron reading a poem ("Darkness") to a small audience -- indicating that, for them at least, a resolution has indeed been reached. This is a good one; I just wish I'd recognized it a little more easily.

(And what's up with the maid and kid that Graham sees? Is that foreshadowing for something down the line or just a weird "maybe ghosts are real" thing?)

²⁹³ Thus complicating the efforts of anyone who wants to make the Big Finish audios canon, given that not only was the eighth Doctor also present that night (in the audio The Company of Friends), but Mary went on to become a travelling companion of the Doctor. A possible fig leaf: history records that it actually took Mary a number of nights before she came up with the idea, so perhaps we're simply dealing with different nights here.

September 7: "Can You Hear Me?"

Promotional photo for "Can You Hear Me?" (from BBC One - Doctor
Who, Can You Hear Me? gallery) ©BBC

Oh look, another pre-titles sequence! And (somewhat surprisingly, given the name of the show) our first question mark in an episode title! (If only they'd let episode 3 of The Myth Makers go out under the title "Is There a Doctor in the Horse?"...)

"Can You Hear Me?" is cowritten by Chibnall and Charlene James (a playwright and new writer to the show who's the second black writer ever on Doctor Who), and this is probably the closest episode to the "weird" one in series 12 -- the episode that pushes the boundaries or does something different in some way. But whereas previous episodes have experimented with the structure or point-of-view, this one (a lot like the last one, "It Takes You Away", in some regards) is more just a bizarre story, with strange imagery and an almost dream logic at times.

It starts out normally enough, with the Doctor dropping the others off in Sheffield for a day so that Yaz can observe some anniversary. It gives us a nice little look into what the others are like when they're in their natural habitat, so to speak: we get some more overdue character development for Yaz, with her conversation with her sister about some event that we learn about later; we get to see a bit what it's like for Ryan's best friend Tibo, who seems a bit lost now that Ryan's been off travelling; and Graham is enjoying a game of poker with two of his friends. It's good to be reminded that the Doctor's companions do have a life without her, that they have something to return to should they desire.

But then it starts getting strange, with a bald man with a tattooed head watching people sleep and then having his fingers detach from his hand so that they can fly around the room, lodging themselves in people's ears so they can activate and store people's nightmares. (Like I said, this episode is weird.) Meanwhile, the Doctor is in 1380 Aleppo, also dealing with strange nightmare creatures. And it turns out that somehow these events are linked: the bald man is named Zellin (a name the Doctor recognizes as the mythical name of a god), who has lured the Doctor to a space station in the future. Zellin is immortal and is stealing nightmares as a way to amuse himself: "The Eternals have their games, the Guardians have their power struggles," Zellin remarks, namedropping some classic Who characters along the way. "For me, this dimension is a beautiful board for a game. The Toymaker would approve. And I do like this form. It's so small. To exist within molecules and atoms is fascinating. I can shape them, regrow, mould my form to provoke fear from humans as I extract nightmares from the scared and vulnerable. Now, that is a good game." And while the Doctor believes he's been torturing someone trapped in a prison caught between two colliding planets, Zellin has in fact tricked her into releasing his companion Rakaya, who explains (in a really nifty animation sequence) how she came to be imprisoned in the first place.

Zellin and Rakaya aboard the prison station. ("Can You Hear Me?")
©BBC

Maybe it's because it's the Doctor facing off against ancient, immortal beings, but this story has a real seventh Doctor vibe to it at times -- a feeling no doubt helped by the fact that the main locations that Zellin and Rakaya show up in are a single space station set and a deserted English street at night, which gives it a bit of a low-budget feel in keeping with the McCoy era. We also get Zellin making speeches while the Doctor tries to outwit him, only to have been played by Zellin, which also feels rather like late 80s Who. This isn't necessarily a bad thing (as you might recall, I like the McCoy era), but it does mean the story feels a bit vintage at times -- pleasingly vintage to my tastes, but vintage nonetheless.

Really, the main genuine complaint I have is that it's a bit difficult to follow the timeline aspects of the story. We're in 14th-century Syria, 21st-century England, and far-future Space Station Past the Geskon Straits, but it's never completely clear why. Why are we in the far future, instead of just 21st-century Space Station? If Zellin and Rakaya can travel the "time waves", why does it matter when we are? Why do we go to Aleppo at all in this story? (It doesn't seem to add anything beyond a scary monster that doesn't seem particularly relevant to medieval Aleppo.) It occasionally feels like things were done just because they seemed like they'd be fun, rather than because careful thought was put into it, and you get the sense that the whole thing might collapse if you think about it too hard. But because this story is about dreams, they juuuust about get away with this by making it seem like dream logic.

But in some respects the best parts of this story have to do with characterization: learning that Yaz ran away from home at one point because she was being bullied, only to be talked out of it by a police officer, is interesting (and may provide insight into why Yaz decided to join the police?), while Ryan's interactions with Tibo feel real and enjoyable. I also really enjoy how the Doctor talks to herself because she forgets/doesn't realize no one is around to hear her, which feels like an appropriately thirteenth Doctor trait. But the dreams of Ryan and Graham in particular -- Ryan coming back to a world on fire (in a callback to "Orphan 55") while Tibo grew old waiting for him, Graham learning his cancer is back from Grace who then asks why he didn't save her -- also provide some insights into the two of them; Ryan in particular seems somewhat shaken by this, if his conversation with Yaz at the end ("Is this our lives? Going from one place to the next, ignoring home? We're getting older, but without them. Missing out bits of their lives") is anything to go by. Graham is also worried about his cancer returning, which he attempts to confide in the Doctor about but leads to a bit of a duff note as the Doctor doesn't know what to say and sort of awkwardly does something at the TARDIS console to cover it. I can see what they were going for, suggesting that even the Doctor doesn't know how to handle these sorts of conversations all the time, and it doesn't look like Graham is particularly offended by it, but it does feel slightly off -- partly because they've spent a fair amount of time (in the last series in particular) establishing that Thirteen is a Doctor who's actually better at these sorts of human interactions than some of her predecessors, so having her declare herself to be "socially awkward" (which we've seen when it comes to small talk, but not so much regarding things that matter) feels wrong for the character. It's not a huge concern, but it is there.

So overall, "Can You Hear Me?" is generally quite good, albeit in a slightly retro way, but if you're OK with that, as I am, then there's plenty to enjoy here. It's more mid-tier Who than anything else, and I can understand why one wouldn't particularly like this episode, but I find I rather do. It hits enough buttons for me to keep me entertained, and sometimes that's enough.

September 6: "Praxeus"

Promotional photo for "Praxeus" (from BBC One - Doctor Who, Praxeus
gallery) ©BBC

All around the world, birds are falling out of the sky, while people in Madagascar and Peru are dying of a strange disease that causes them to spontaneously explode. What's going on? And what does all this have to do with a kidnapped British astronaut being held in Hong Kong?

It's interesting; in many ways this episode feels like a sister piece to "Orphan 55", but while that often seemed like it went out of its way to make the guest characters as irritating as possible while hammering home its climate change message, "Praxeus" is much more content to let the drama to arise naturally from the situation that's predicated on the spread of plastics throughout the entire planet, and to let us actually like its cast. Even Jake, the cop on sabbatical who starts the episode out as abrasive and reckless, has us firmly on his side by the end of things -- due in no small part, it should be noted, to Warren Brown's performance, which provides a sympathetic component for us to latch on to. And the relationship between him and his husband, the astronaut Adam Lang (Hooray! Finally, another goodie named Adam!), is handled very well, being realistic and touching without being overbearing or maudlin. I also love how the story doesn't go for the emotional heartbreak of having Jake sacrifice himself to save the planet but instead goes for the last-millisecond rescue at the end, allowing them to have their cake and eat it too: "What can I say? I'm a romantic," the Doctor says.

There's also Gabriela, who's constantly (and amusingly) annoyed that no one's heard of her travel vlog, while even Suki, who turns out to be part of the people who brought the Praxeus pathogen to Earth in the first place, engenders sympathy by ultimately trying to save her race rather than just destroying Earth for fun. "Look at us, Suki," the Doctor says. "Two brilliant scientists. We can fix this. Work together, find a cure for you, and then we can stop Earth from being taken over by Praxeus." The Doctor doesn't condemn Suki for the accidents and mistakes that were made, and so neither do we -- although she does end up succumbing to Praxeus in the end, so there is a modicum of poetic justice there if you're looking for it.

Gabriela and Yaz examine an alien device. ("Praxeus") ©BBC

In fact, the only real thing worth noting regarding the characters is actually how Yaz behaves. We've gotten some hints that Yaz is behaving a little more recklessly (such as her eagerness to be a spy in Spyfall, even after she's been transported into the Kasaavian realm), but that seems to be cranked up a notch here, with her wanting to go back into the warehouse to recover the alien tech and to follow the alien through the transport pad. She feels a bit more forceful than before, and not necessarily in a good way. Maybe she's looking to be considered as more of a leader, or more independent? But regardless, she seems a bit more argumentative and a bit more upset about things than she has in the past. I'm curious to see if that's deliberate (perhaps they're preparing the ground for Yaz to leave the TARDIS?) or just something of a coincidence.

But as I said, the main issue here involves the spread of plastics all over Earth -- but while it brings it up and makes it the focus of the alien pathogen, it doesn't get overly preachy about it. "Praxeus breeds in plastic, and this planet is saturated in it," Suki tells the others. "We travelled across three galaxies to find the perfect living laboratory." It brings up the point, makes it the focus of the SF problem they've created, but it doesn't beat us over the head with it. It's a more subtle approach that benefits the episode, and so that also helps put us on its side.

I also like how expansive the setting feels. We're in Madagascar, Hong Kong, England, Peru, and somewhere in the Indian Ocean all in the same episode, without feeling rushed or superfluous. In fact, it gives the proceedings a more urgent feel, because Praxeus is an issue that affects the entire globe, not just one particular region with the possibility of its spreading. It's the sort of thing that the production teams don't tend to use that often, which is why it's really neat to see it put to good use here, with the wide distribution of the locations reinforcing that feeling of a global pandemic about to break out -- a subject which has a much greater resonance just a few months after this episode first aired, with the COVID-19 pandemic still (here in the United States, at least) showing no signs of being controlled. (Although the original airdate -- 2 February 2020 -- was late enough for some to note the similarities between Praxeus and COVID, even if COVID hadn't been declared a pandemic at that point (that would happen on 11 March) and had only just been declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the WHO a couple days earlier.) It kind of makes you wish the Doctor could cook up a cure for us that could be dispersed throughout the atmosphere the way the Praxeus antidote particles are done here. But either way, an unintentional byproduct of the global pandemic is that it helps that aspect of "Praxeus" connect with the audience even more than it did before.

I don't know that this is the most brilliant or flashy episode of the show, or even of series 12, but "Praxeus" does what it sets out to do with a minimum of fuss and a lot of sophistication. The lack of a "proper" monster or villain means that this might not rate as highly as some other stories in fandom, and maybe that does hurt it a little bit (after all, how would kids act this story out on the playground?), and maybe the situation feels a bit slight compared to other episodes (although again, I think the 2020 pandemic has made that part of the story age better than anyone would have perhaps realized). But none of that is the worst of sins. "Praxeus" may therefore not be the most impressive story ever, but nevertheless it's still quietly wonderful.

September 5: "Fugitive of the Judoon"

Promotional photo for "Fugitive of the Judoon" (from BBC One - Doctor
Who, Fugitive of the Judoon gallery) ©BBC

The TARDIS intercepts a Judoon warning transmission regarding 2020 Gloucester, so the TARDIS fam heads down to investigate and stop the Judoon from wreaking havoc on the planet. But why do the Judoon seem interested in two seemingly normal people? Who really are Ruth and Lee Clayton?

Well. I think it's a measure of the kind of episode "Fugitive of the Judoon" is that the surprise return of John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness (for the first time since Torchwood: Miracle Day in 2011 -- or "The End of Time Part Two" in 2010 if you don't count the spinoffs) isn't even the most exciting part of the proceedings here. (And it was a surprise: like Sacha Dhawan being the Master in the series opener, this was a secret that they managed to keep under wraps.) This episode, written by Chibnall and Vinay Patel (who, you no doubt recall, wrote one of last series's standout stories, "Demons of the Punjab"), is full of surprises.

I like the way it starts relatively small; we're introduced to a married couple, Ruth and Lee, who don't seem particularly out-of-the-ordinary, while in the TARDIS the Doctor is brooding about the Master and Gallifrey. "Is that where you go, when you leave us to explore and you say you'll be back in an hour but you never are? Are you out looking for him? Where do you go?" Yaz asks. But rather than dwell on that, that Judoon signal comes through and it's off to the main storyline. And it does feel like this will probably be a smaller episode at first: it's not the fate of the planet at stake but just a couple people, while the Doctor tries to stop the Judoon from going too nuts. And it's fun to see the Judoon back for the first time since "Face the Raven" (where they had a small cameo), looking more or less the same save for the addition of the short mohawk on the top of their heads. Oh! And they've brought back Nicholas Briggs for the voice, and Paul Kasey to play the lead Judoon (returning to the show for the first time since "Deep Breath"), which is really quite lovely. But yes, the Judoon are here, looking for their fugitive, who may be Lee Clayton; at least, the owner of the bar/café Allan seems to think so -- although he's creepily pining after Ruth (a married woman, don't forget), so it's hard to get worked up about what he thinks. And I like the way that Graham unknowingly takes the piss out of Allan, after he sees the cake that Allan has ruined for Lee on behalf of Ruth's birthday with the message "You Can Do Better": "Look at the state of that! That's the worst cake I've ever seen!" And then suddenly Graham vanishes, to be joined with Captain Jack.

"Ha! You missed me, right?" ("Fugitive of the Judoon") ©BBC

And make no mistake, the return of Jack is genuinely thrilling. Hearing his voice, especially if you didn't know he was returning, is an exciting moment, even if it ultimately ends up being little more than a cameo and a tease for an upcoming episode. Jack's a little older-looking but it's still the same old Jack, ebullient and loving life even as it's going to pot around him: "Ship's security is fighting back. You gotta be kidding me! Anti-theft attack system? Well, now I'm offended." And the way he gives Graham a big ol' kiss, mistaking him for the Doctor, is also great -- although Graham's "Ah" after he realizes the mistake Jack has made may be even better. And I love the little interaction with Ryan, after Jack scoops him and Yaz up as well ("Seriously? Three of you?"): "Listen, kid, working with some low-rent equipment here," Jack says. "Why doesn't that surprise me?" Ryan replies. "Oh, she likes them mouthy, then, huh?" Jack snarks. "Yeah, one up from cheesy," Ryan fires back, taking in Jack's whole shtick. "Okay, he's my favourite," Jack says. Really, it makes you wish there were more Jack, either in this episode or later on in series 12, but regrettably this is all we get. But a little Jack Harkness is better than nothing, especially when it's unexpected, and so I'll still take it.

But as I said at the top, the return of Jack isn't even the biggest surprise of the episode. That, by far, is the introduction of Jo Martin as Ruth Clayton. Because it turns out Ruth isn't as human as she first appears. The initial fake-out with Lee, with all the suspicion falling on him, is well played, but no, it seems Ruth is the one the Judoon are really after -- and the scene in the cathedral, where Ruth turns into a fighting machine, is also orchestrated really well. The first time around I'd guessed that she was a Time Lord who'd been altered by a Chameleon Arch (as seen previously in "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood" and also "Utopia"), but I definitely didn't guess who she really was. "Let me take it from the top," 'Ruth' says to the thirteenth Doctor. "Hello, I'm the Doctor." And given that she has a TARDIS that looks like a police box, it seems likely that she's telling the truth -- something that's confirmed when Thirteen scans them both with her sonic screwdriver. But the mystery still deepens, as neither remembers being the other:

RUTH: And how did I end up like... that? All rainbows and trousers that don't reach?
DOCTOR: What? No. How did I end up like you?
RUTH: You don't. You're in my future, not the other way round.
DOCTOR: I've never been anything like you. Trust me, I'd remember. Especially that shirt.
RUTH: So would I, if I'd ever been you, which I haven't. ...
DOCTOR: No, this doesn't make any sense. Either I should know you or you should know me.
RUTH: Agreed.
DOCTOR: So why don't we?

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - Fugitive of the Judoon)

And while there are clues that suggest that Ruth is indeed from our Doctor's past (the look of the TARDIS console room (although, possibly significantly, it's a little different from the classic look), the fact that the Ruth Doctor doesn't recognize the sonic screwdriver, and the fact that Gat, the one pursuing Ruth, is a Gallifreyan -- which should be impossible given the Master's actions at the start of this run), there's nothing definitive to place her somewhere in the Doctor's timeline. "She said she was my past, but I know my past, and she's never been me," Thirteen later says. It's certainly an interesting and unexpected hook for the episode, even if it doesn't get resolved here.

Promotional photo for "Fugitive of the Judoon" (from BBC One - Doctor
Who, Fugitive of the Judoon gallery) ©BBC

Really, if there's a complaint to made about this episode it's that this is an episode designed to fit into a larger storyline, rather than being a largely self-contained episode. There's no resolution to events here of any sort, which means this is all pure setup for something else. Consequently, it feels like it would be a bit difficult to enjoy on its own, in the way you could with, say, the Capaldi episode "Oxygen" (which has larger ramifications for later on in series 10 but still manages to tell its own independent tale). That's definitely a departure for how Chibnall has been doing things so far, and really even for the show as a whole -- I can't think of an ostensibly standalone episode, other than maybe "Mission to the Unknown", that exists purely to set up another story down the line (acknowledging things like "Face the Raven" or "Utopia" that are kind of sort of standalone but in many ways feel like the first part of a multi-part story that immediately follows said episode). So that does weaken the overall effect a little bit. (There's also the potential concern that you need to be a fairly dedicated follower of the show to understand or care about what's happening here -- note the way the Chameleon Arch isn't really explained at all, or the way it's assumed we should just automatically care about the mystery of where the Ruth Doctor "fits".)

But if you're a fan of the show and you don't mind the occasional unresolved moment, this episode is a real winner. It's built up well from something seemingly minor to something major (again, the structure is really well done), the reveals that we get are handled and spaced out well, and everyone does their very best -- Jo Martin in particular is fabulous both as the kind, slightly confused Ruth and the less cuddly, firmer, slightly more dangerous Doctor (oh, and we should also note that this makes Martin our first black Doctor (and therefore first black female Doctor as well), which is pretty damn cool). Overall, "Fugitive of the Judoon" is an excellent example of what this show can do when it's firing on all cylinders.

Oh, and I really like the little pick-me-up speech at the end too:

RYAN: We do know who you are. You're the woman that brought us together, the woman that saved us and loads of other people. You're the Doctor. Whoever you were in the past or are in the future, we know who you are right now. Right?
YASMIN: Right.
GRAHAM: The best person we know.
YASMIN: And whatever is coming for you, we'll be here, 'cos we're your mates.
GRAHAM: Well, not just mates. Family.

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - Fugitive of the Judoon)

September 4: "Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror"

Promotional photo from "Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror" (from BBC One -
Doctor Who, Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror gallery) ©BBC

The Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla is looking for funding to complete his Wardenclyffe Tower project, but it seems no one is particularly interested in the idea while also having concerns regarding the safety of the project. But it seems someone from another world might be interested in Tesla himself...

"Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror" is the first Doctor Who episode from writer Nina Metivier (although she script-edited a couple of episodes last series), and it feels a lot closer to the style of series 11 in terms of providing educational content within an entertaining story. This is a good thing, by the way; one of the nice things about series 11 was how it tried to provide more of an educational grounding a lot of the time rather than just relying solely on action-adventure content, and while I'm not saying that's a bad thing it's good to see that the show is still pulling on that thread rather than jettisoning it in the new series. And so here we learn all sorts of stuff about Nikola Tesla and who he was, as well as some stuff about Thomas Edison and how the two of them were rivals. Goran Višnjić, playing Tesla, does a great job of making Tesla likeable and engaging, while Robert Glenister (who you might remember as Salateen from The Caves of Androzani) excels as the more testy, prototypical capitalist Edison. And while it's been fashionable in recent years to make Edison the villain of the Tesla-Edison feud (not completely without reason, it should be noted), Glenister and the script both do a good job of making Edison more than a simple caricature -- note, for instance, his reaction after seeing that all his employees have been killed. Edison in this version is more someone who has a much better grasp of how the world works practically and how to speak to people: the way he gets people to clear the streets after Yaz's unsuccessful attempt being one such example.

Tesla and Edison inside the TARDIS. ("Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror")
©BBC

Really, I could happily watch Tesla and Edison interact for the whole episode, but because it's Doctor Who we get an alien element as well. This time around it's a race of alien scorpions, led by none other than Anjli Mohindra, The Sarah Jane Adventures' very own Rani. She certainly seems like she's having fun, and the makeup is pretty good (although it seems weird how human she looks, especially compared to the other Skithra -- and is she meant to look so much like a Racnoss from "The Runaway Bride"?). I also like the idea of how the Skithra are essentially a scavenger race, with no understanding of how things work, and so they're going to kidnap Tesla to be their engineer. It's a nice change from wanting to conquer the planet or wipe out all life -- although we get some of that too, with the Skithra threatening to overrun Earth as revenge for being thwarted by the Doctor. Plus, the presence of the Skithra in their stolen Venusian spaceship provides a reason for Wardenclyffe Tower to start firing off energy bolts (a real-life event that Tesla never explained), which is quite nice.

But it's Tesla and Edison who are the highlights of this episode. They're just so much fun, and the episode is nicely informative about them, but the script never comes off as preachy or condescending. It's a great peek into an area of history that (somewhat surprisingly) hasn't been explored on the show before. (And another trip to the United States, as well!) It's just about the perfect balance of history and SF, and that's why it's probably my favorite story of series 12.

September 3: "Orphan 55"

Graham finds enough cards to earn an all-expenses-paid two-week holiday to a place called Tranquility Spa, which the TARDIS fam is instantly transported to. (Pro tip: don't make a cube out of the cards until you're ready to go.) But things aren't quite as tranquil (sorry not sorry) as they seem...

"Orphan 55" is the second script from Ed Hime, after last series's "It Takes You Away" -- a generally solid and imaginative story let down a bit by some padding and a couple questionable characterizations. So you'd hopefully expect that the sophomore effort would be along an upward trajectory, with some of the rough edges smoothed away. Unfortunately, that isn't the case here.

To be fair, it starts out reasonably well; there are some nice jokes in the TARDIS ("I've got to go and fetch my Speedos!" Graham exclaims, after the Doctor tells them they're about to be transported. "Only joking. Already got 'em on," he says, to the slight horror of his companions), and the way the place is set up is quite nice, with the discussion of the Hopper virus, while Ryan starts to flail, being quite delightful ("Now suck your thumb until the hallucinations stop. And remember, they're not real bats," the Doctor tells him). And most of the characters are reasonably likeable, which helps. The only exception at the beginning is the person running the place, Kane, who's played by Laura Fraser (who you might recognize from A Knight's Tale or Breaking Bad, but who I actually recognize as Door from the 1996 Neil Gaiman show Neverwhere). I think she's meant to be no-nonsense, but Fraser chooses to play her as more pig-headed -- and honestly, that would probably be a reasonable reaction to the Doctor's presence, and if it were just her things would likely be fine. But unfortunately she's just the start of the rot.

Because in order to get his characters to move to the places he needs them to be, Ed Hime makes literally every single one of them (with the possible exceptions of the regulars, and even they don't escape completely unscathed) behave like idiots from time to time just to keep the plot moving. Benni going to get Vilma's hat isn't perhaps the worst of sins (other than from the horror movie cliché point of view), but this means that we're subjected to his girlfriend's endless wailing about "Benni!" I'm sure Julia Foster is a lovely, wonderful person in real life, but if I have to hear her call out "Benni!" one more time I think I'll have to punch someone. And none of the other guest characters are safe: Bella seems like she'll be nice but sassy, but then she undergoes a massive heel turn to start threatening everyone else's lives because she's mad at her mommy Kane, even after it's abundantly clear she'll be condemning everyone to death; Nevi keeps putting his son down for comic relief, just so they can share a supposedly touching "I need you" moment at the end; even the son in question, Sylas, who seems initially to be the most level-headed among them, storms off in a fit of pique while he knows the Dregs are attacking the place because the script needs him to be separated from his dad for a bit. I guess Hyph3n and Vorm aren't too frustrating, but that's more because they're turned into cannon fodder before they can undergo their own transformations into idiots. And even the Doctor to an extent isn't spared: it's her suggestion that they go get Benni in the first place, even though it doesn't seem like there's any way an old man like him could be moving around outside the Spa at high speed and this is very clearly a trap. Yes, it speaks well to her moral code about not leaving anyone behind if she can help it, but the minute it becomes clear this is a trap she should be more on the ball.

This is already a lot, but then comes the Big Twist: Orphan 55, the uninhabitable, lifeless planet that Tranquility Spa is on (although if it's as dead as they claim, why are there very much alive trees in some of the background shots?), is in fact the future Earth! It's Earth after climate change has rendered the place uninhabitable, save by the last vestiges of humanity, who've adapted to become the not-bad-but-not-the-greatest-monsters the Dregs.²⁹² Look, I'm incredibly sympathetic to the viewpoint that climate change is a massive problem that we as a species haven't done remotely enough to address, and I recognize that in that regard "Orphan 55"'s heart is in the right place, but by the time we learn this I found I was so completely done with the episode and the people in it that my reaction was a profanity and an eyeroll.

Because the thing is, "Orphan 55" hasn't remotely earned that payoff. It's so intent on manhandling its characters into annoying and frustrating situations that all attempts at believability have long since left, and so this is yet one more thing we're being asked to accept in an episode full of unnatural situations. (My brother suggested that maybe the characters are meant to be metaphorical, acting that way because they represent the various ways humanity chooses to ignore the dangers of climate change in favor of their own petty squabbles. This may in fact actually be the point, but if it really is then Hime hasn't done a very good job at successfully conveying the metaphorical side of things.) Which is perhaps why the final moments at the Spa, where Kane suddenly reappears out of nowhere after being apparently killed in order to rescue the daughter, are so aggravating: because they are completely unearned. Bella's supposed to be all hunky-dory with the mom she's spent most of her life despising just because of a deus ex machina rescue? Come on. The TARDIS fam teleports back to the Ship before we see Bella and Kane's final fate, so at least we can hope the Dregs got them in the end.

As I said, "Orphan 55"'s heart is in the right place, and the final speech makes that perfectly clear and direct (and it's a message worth hearing!). But Ed Hime has to work so hard to force his pieces into the positions he wants them in that the whole thing simply collapses under the stress. Maybe another draft would have helped. Maybe giving it to someone else to work on might have helped. But as it is, "Orphan 55" is easily the worst thirteenth Doctor episode to date, and possibly the worst episode the show has ever done: worse than "Boom Town", than episode 4 of The Time Monster, than part 2 of The Horns of Nimon. It might even be worse than "The Lazarus Experiment" -- honestly, its main competition at this point is "Kill the Moon", and right now that would be a tough call for me to decide which was worse. "Orphan 55" has the right general idea, but the complete wrong way of going about it.

Still, at least it looks pretty; the location filming on the island of Tenerife clearly paid off.

²⁹² And knowing that, part of me wishes they could have been the Haemovores from the dying future in The Curse of Fenric instead. But maybe that would have given the game away too soon.

September 2: Spyfall Part Two

Having laid into the Bond theme pretty heavily last time, this episode shifts gears somewhat; it's as if the presence of the revealed Master changes the direction of the story. And while the Doctor has been pulled into the realm of the aliens (the Kasaavin, we subsequently learn), Ryan, Yaz, and Graham are stuck on the crashing airplane. The way out of it for them is fun though, with the instructions ready for Ryan scattered throughout the plane. It's also a relatively clever way to get our heroes out of their jam. (And it made me think of the seventh Doctor story Battlefield and the Doctor's instructions to himself, although "Blink" might be a more likely antecedent.)

But honestly, although the companions' plotline helps advance the story in certain ways (even if it's a bit reminiscent at times of "The Sound of Drums"), it's the Doctor's side of things that's the more engaging half. Having the Doctor meet Ada Lovelace in the weird realm and then appear in 1834 is really interesting, and it helps give the episode a shot of energy -- especially when the Master shows up, his TARDIS having detected that the Doctor has moved from 2020.²⁹¹ Sacha Dhawan excels at being a gleefully murderous, insane Master -- Missy is probably closest in terms of previous Master characterizations, but even she didn't go as far as the Master does here, essentially killing out of spite. "When I kill them, Doctor, it gives me a little buzz. Right here, in the hearts," he says. The sparks between him and the Doctor just fly -- especially the moment where the Master orders her to kneel and call him "Master"; there's such a charge of energy between the two of them (and I love how Jodie Whittaker gives a little eyeroll before both kneeling and saying "Master").

But it's also nice to see that, while Spyfall has been leaning a bit more RTD/Moffat than anything really in series 11, we still get some of the educational moments that were peppered throughout that season. Here it's information on Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, a bit (although the episode seems to just assume the audience either already knows about the Difference Engine or will be inclined to look it up), as well as about Noor Inayat Khan, the first female wireless operator to be sent into occupied France during World War II (though they don't mention the part where she's later captured by the Germans and executed at Dachau -- but I suppose there's not time to cover everything). The Doctor's interactions with both Ada and Noor are simply wonderful; you get a sense of the respect and awe the Doctor has for the two of them. There's also the nice little speech the Doctor gives, as Ada looks upon war-ravaged Paris: "These are the dark times. But they don't sustain. Darkness never sustains, even though sometimes it feels like it might." (Good advice for our current times as well.) Really, if there's any complaint, it's that meeting Noor actually continues the spy theme established in Part One, but there's a curious lack of emphasis that makes it a bit difficult to realize this is in fact the case. But that's just a minor quibble in a generally excellent part of the episode.

But it's still ultimately the interactions between the Doctor and the Master in 1943 Paris that basically steal the show. I also personally like the little nods to 20th-century Who, such as the four beats in sequence ("The Sound of Drums", although here it's described as the heartbeat of a Time Lord), "Contact" (The Three Doctors), and the little exchange about the events of Logopolis:

DOCTOR: It's cold up here! It's worse than Jodrell Bank.
MASTER: Did I ever apologise for that?
DOCTOR: No.
MASTER: Good.

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - Spyfall part 2)

Watching them spar is so entertaining, and listening to the Master explain his convoluted plan (although I can't decide if there's more or less effort and planning involved than in, say, The Mind of Evil or The Time Monster) is great fun. The way the Doctor escapes from the Master (turning off the perception filter that let him pass as a member of the SS, thus revealing he doesn't look like an Aryan archetype) is perhaps a touch cruel, given the actions of the Nazis, but given he'd thrown his lot in with them and we've seen him murdering lots of people, it feels justified.

Really, the only place this episode falls down is the resolution of the villains' plot. Individually, the pieces all make sense: the Kasaavin are interested in computers, so that's why they're tracking them through Earth's history; they're also being used as spies by the Master to help set up his fiendish trap; Daniel Barton is also a computer person and perhaps one who's tired of humanity (as he says in part one, "We did something great, and it got hijacked. I get to see both sides of humanity in this job")... as I said, the pieces make sense on their own, and you can see the thought processes involving computers. It's only when you try to piece it all together that things start to fall apart. Ok, so human DNA can be used to store computer information instead of "how to be human" information -- fine, I guess (although something still feels slightly unworkable about that that I can't quite put my finger on), but why would the Kassavin care about this in the first place? Why are they interested in computers at all? What do they gain from this? Do they really need hard disk space that badly? It doesn't really make sense. (Potential get-out: the Master hints that this was ultimately his plan and that the Kassavin are just happy to go along with it; if that's the case we can probably file this under the same category of plan that required the Master to stand in a field pretending to be a scarecrow until the Doctor happened to walk by (The Mark of the Rani, if you need to be reminded), or to place an elaborate fictional trap location in the TARDIS databanks even though he expects them all to be killed in Event One (Castrovalva).) The ultimate problem is that it's a very unsatisfying resolution, and the fact that all these events have been hinging on something so mundane means that it all feels rather hollow at the end. (And we don't even see Barton get his comeuppance! Last we see he's leaving out the side door, and that's it.)

(Oh, and long as I'm griping a bit: what's with destroying Gallifrey again? Steven Moffat went to such pains to bring it back (successfully, I thought) that it seems a bit churlish to get rid of it again barely a season after he's left, and it also risks creating a yo-yo effect about the place where it's constantly gone and then back and then gone again. But I'll discuss this further when I get to "The Timeless Children".)

But Spyfall isn't the first overall satisfying Doctor Who story to have a wet squib of an ending, and it probably won't be the last. Overall, this is a great ride, with lots of action and fun and one of the most exciting Doctor/Master pairings we've seen yet. Only at the end does it disappoint, and then only a little.

²⁹¹ Contra to the previous footnote under the last entry, this (and the later reveal about Gallifrey) would seem to be evidence that there actually is a Gallifreyan Mean Time, since these events don't really make sense (or at least are much harder to explain) without the idea of a shared personal "present".

September 1, 2020: Spyfall Part One

And we're back! It's been a full year since the last time Doctor Who has been on our TV screens, but the show is back -- not for a Christmas special, but once again for a special New Year's Day premiere. But this isn't just a one-off: instead, we're kicking off the start of series 12 proper, with Part One of Spyfall.

Now, one of the things that marked series 11 was its seeming push toward an older-school approach, and while we get that a bit here (after all, it's our first explicit Part One since 2009!), in some ways this feels like Chibnall loosening up a bit, as if to say, "Now that I've demonstrated that there are other ways to do Doctor Who, here's something more like what you were used to." Because this feels a lot closer to a Steven Moffat season-opener (complete with a pre-titles sequence, Chibnall's first), with lots of globe-trotting and energetic rushing around.

Of course, part of that might be because what Chibnall's really doing (in case the title didn't clue you in) is a take on James Bond, and that necessarily leads to lots of globe-trotting and rushing around. So we get spies around the world being attacked by strange creatures that come out of the walls, while the head of MI6, C (instead of M, but close enough), brings the Doctor and her companions in to brief them on what's going on. C is played by almost-Doctor-Who-writer Stephen Fry, who fills them in just enough before he too is assassinated -- and so it's off to Australia (in reality South Africa again, filling in for all the exotic locales in this two-parter) to meet former MI6 employee O (instead of Q, perhaps?), who was the only MI6 employee to seriously consider the possibility of aliens -- and as agencies such as UNIT and Torchwood are gone (as the Doctor points out), O is the best option that Earth has.

It's nice how Chibnall really goes all-in on the Bond pastiche (and I really enjoy how Segun Akinola matches the pastiche with the music) while distorting it just enough with aliens such that it goes off in a different direction. We're still sent all over the world, only now it's in service of figuring out what's up with the aliens. This not only splits up the TARDIS fam, giving them more to do, but it also allows them to hit more of the Bond tropes, with Yaz and Ryan going undercover while the Doctor and Graham coordinate with the agent in the field (the aforementioned O), without feeling too jumbled or convoluted. Ryan's kind of cute while pretending to be a photojournalist, and Yaz feels like she's loving every minute of it. They're investigating Daniel Barton (played by Sir Lenny Henry!), a sort of Jeff Bezos character in charge of a company called Vor, who's only 93% human and who seems to know more about the aliens than he's letting on. Henry is great as Barton, giving the character the right amount of charm and malice -- perfectly fitting for a Bond-style mastermind.

The Doctor/Graham/O plot strand is more typical Doctor Who than it is Bond, with aliens attacking O's remote homestead, but it's still handled well, with more hints that these aliens are up to no good. "We are ready," the alien they've managed to capture tells them. "...To take this." "To take this what?" the Doctor wonders. "Hut? Country? Planet?" "Universe," the alien replies. And then it disappears, replacing itself with Yaz, who the aliens captured while Yaz and Ryan were snooping around Daniel Barton's office (and there's something rather wonderfully old-school about how the bizarre, completely alien place that Yaz is transported to in the meantime is made up of what's pretty clearly lots of distressed ducting hanging around). This, of course, brings the two plotlines back together, so that it's clear they have to go investigate Barton more closely -- especially since his servers contain alien code with steganographic images of multiple Earths. "They're alien spies embedded here on Earth!" the Doctor realizes. "OK. If you really think they're spies," O muses, "we should be asking who's the spymaster? Who's running the alien spies? Because that's the person who holds the answers." And that, of course, leads them back to Daniel Barton, which means everyone gets to dress up in tuxedos, just like in a Bond film. (And I like how the Doctor's tux is just a black version of her regular outfit -- although is that flash of red on the inside meant to evoke Peter Capaldi?)

I've neglected, by the way, to mention how Sacha Dhawan delights as O, with his happy wonder at the Doctor and his curiosity about the aliens. My wife and I noted while we were watching how it was nice to see him playing a goodie role after having been the villain in Iron Fist (though, of course, he was also Doctor Who's very first director, Waris Hussein, in the Adventure in Space and Time docudrama). He seems so happy and fun that it's a tiny bit sad that we don't get to see more of O. Because, of course, the big twist at the end (that, impressively, they somehow managed to keep secret) is that O isn't O at all; he is, in fact, the Master, returned with no explanation after the events of "World Enough and Time"/"The Doctor Falls". Dhawan is definitely having a blast as the Master, playing him with so much evil giddiness mixed with outbursts of sudden rage. It's great to see, even if it's only at the very end here. "I met O," the Doctor says, confused. "I know," the Master replies. "Years ago," she says, still confused. "I know!" he exclaims with glee. "Ambushed him on his way to work for his first day. Shrunk him, took his identity and set myself up in MI6."²⁹⁰ It was an impressively shocking twist at the time, and even with repeated viewings it still holds up -- plus you get to see how the Master pretends to be impressed by things like the TARDIS when he's playing at being O. And if that weren't enough of a cliffhanger, we also get the Master blowing up the cockpit of the plane they're all flying through the air on, while he leaves the Doctor with a cryptic parting shot, one that sets up the rest of series 12: "One last thing. Something you should know in the seconds before you die. Everything that you think you know... is a lie." And then he teleports away, and then the Doctor gets absorbed by the alien creatures, and things look really bleak for the rest of the TARDIS fam...

It's certainly one hell of a cliffhanger, and it's an impressive series opener as well. The main thing to know about this episode is how fun it is. Spyfall Part One is pretty much a blast from start to finish, with lots of great setpieces and mysteries being raised. And bring on Part Two! (Which, because this was a New Year's special, fans only had to wait four days for instead of a whole week.)

(And it's rather sweet how the episode is dedicated to the memory of Master co-creator and prolific Doctor Who writer and author Terrance Dicks, who passed away on 29 August 2019.)

²⁹⁰ Of course, the fact that the Doctor met this incarnation of the Master back when the Doctor was a man (assuming O/the Master is telling the truth at that point) means that this is the first real evidence contradicting the idea of Gallifreyan Mean Time (roughly, that all Time Lords meet each other at the same points in their respective time streams). Maybe it doesn't apply if one of the Time Lords chooses to live on another planet and stay within that time zone? This might also explain the concern with Shada that we've largely glossed over.