An Hour of Who a Day: 09/01/20

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.