'Doctor Who' | 'World Enough and Time' S10E11
In the first half of the two-part series finale, outgoing show-runner and this episode’s writer, Steven Moffat, is at perhaps his most Timey-Wimey yet. A spaceship is being pulled into a black hole, and we have the return of old friends and enemies.
SPOILER ALERT!
After Missy’s (Michelle Gomez) help in the last few episodes, the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) wants to continue helping her to shift towards the ‘good’ side. He sends Nardole (Matt Lucas) and Bill (Pearl Mackie) with Missy on a mission, to see how she behaves when there are lives to be saved. They end up answering a distress call from a human colony ship trying to escape a black hole.
The gang are confronted by a pilot who demands to know who is human among them. Bill admits it is her, and the pilot, Jorj (Oliver Lansley), says that the creatures are on their way up to the top of the ship to collect her. He has to kill her so that they won’t come, so he shoots her. The creatures still arrive in the lifts and pick up Bill’s body, saying that they can fix her.
The creatures take Bill down to the ‘bottom’ of the ship, where she is fitted with a new cybernetic heart. She befriends a hospital worker there, Razor, and waits for the doctor to come find her, but due to the concept of time dilation, time moves faster at the top of the ship, relative to the bottom. Time dilation theory states that time runs faster the closer to an object with gravitational pull you are, in this case, the black hole. Years pass for Bill, while up at the top of the ship, it has only been a matter of seconds.
Once Bill realises that the Doctor, Bill and Missy are on their way down, Razor agrees to take her to where the lifts are on their level, but in reality tricks her into a full upgrade. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Nardole head into the hospital to check things out, while Missy searches for information about the ship. She discovers that the ship is from the planet Mondas, a twin to Earth that the Doctor first visited in his very first adventure, ‘The Tenth Planet’, way back in 1966.
Razor confronts her and reveals that he is, in fact, the Master (John Simm) - her previous incarnation. The return of Simm, while unexpected, has been welcomed by fans. He played the Master as such a brilliant psychopath in Series 3 and 4, and he has stepped back into the role seamlessly in this episode, converting Missy to his cause.
The Master, Missy and the Mondasian Cybermen - a match made in hell, perhaps. Is Bill beyond saving, as the first successful cybernetic conversion? And can the Doctor and Nardole prevent the colonists from Mondas from all becoming Cybermen?
The doctor dropped hints a few times now that he has been a woman before, and of course we’ve now seen the Master with his female counterpart. Could this be a big finger pointing towards a female Doctor, come Christmas? There’s still no date set for a big reveal of the thirteenth Doctor, but there can’t be long to wait.
With an incredibly creepy settings and music to match, this episode shows off Steven Moffat’s speciality - scaring the pants of the viewers. While in the past he has confused viewers with too many story threads, or skipping ahead years and years of time, this story was simple enough to retain its tension all the way through, and had some amazing reveals, even if they were a little predictable.
Next week - the season finale! Obviously the Doctor won’t be able to halt the advance of the Cybermen or the Master, but can he at least save the people in the colony ship from disaster?
