World Enough And Time/The Doctor Falls (2017) Review

Peter Capaldi, John Simm and a Mondasian Cyberman in one place.
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World Enough And Time/The Doctor Falls is baffling... did Steven Moffat really write a satisfying climax that pays off years of confused story arcs in a neat bow-tie, wrapped inside a heartwrenching, creepy and even educational tale?

WRITTEN BY

Steven bloody Moffat.

PLOT

To test Missy's resolve, the Doctor has her fill his role in a usual adventure that quickly turns out to be not so usual when Bill is shot and taken by the Cybermen to the depths of a trapped Mondasian colony ship, where her only friend is a grinning loon with a special interest in Missy...

ANALYSIS

Okay, so the episodes aren't perfect. But it must be pointed out just how damn good they are. You have the concept of a gigantic spaceship that's gradually time-dilated by increasing gravity from the black hole(how sci-fi is that?), you have the Mondasian Cybermen at their best, we get Missy's backstory(even the flying Cybermen and their ability to convert Time Lords gets filled in!), and we actually see all of our leads go through hell, not just wander around Gallifrey's basement like last season.

It's a gripping pay-off to years of misguided plotting and lackluster characterisation. And dear lord, the fan service! Too much fan service, but so incredibly well done fan service that I can barely complain.

Not only did it exceed my expectations a hundred times over, I'd actually call it one of the best Doctor Who stories since the show's return.

CHARACTERS

I felt a little let down by the Twelfth Doctor in this episode(not Peter Capaldi, he acted his socks off). He's still too passive for my liking: letting Bill get shot, fighting against regeneration for no clearly defined reason(there's a throwaway line about not wanting to be somebody different all the time) and worst of all, getting pretty much ignored by the Masters(comparing it to the fiery conflict between Tennant's Doctor and Simm's Master was hard).
His speech about kindness, battle against the Cybermen and relationships with Nardole and Bill kept me going, but I just wish he was that much more proactive and one step ahead like the Doctor is in the best stories. Or if he's not, it should be more of a big deal a la Caves Of Androzani.

Pearl Mackie was incredible as Bill Potts. She's of course naturally funny and charming, but there's none of that one tear "aww" face you got with Clara. When she bawls, she really goes at it. It tore my heart out when she thought the Doctor was dead.
As for her departure with Heather, I can't really complain because I like Bill, and it's a neat callback to the first episode anyway. Clara was a much darker and untouchable character, therefore she should've had a depressing ending, but this fitted Bill's optimistic persona well, I think.

I have always adored John Simm's incarnation of the Master. I don't think it's quite his best showing just because he wears Delgado-style clothes now as some seem to, but then again, the story isn't really about him this time around. His role is to validate Missy's redemption, which he does brilliantly.
We get a big time reminder that the Master wasn't always flowers and sunshine like he/she has been throughout the Capaldi era, and the arc ends ever so appropriately with the character essentially euthanising himself to remove any chance of him turning good.

Michelle Gomez has had a truly bizarre run as Missy, hasn't she? From the dreadful(Series 8) to flippant(Series 9) to... meh(Series 10). Apart from the s8 finale, she's hardly been a villain and that story was a steaming pile of dung anyway, so... I guess not counting the multi-Master story, her best appereance was in the s9 premiere? Now that's weird.
Retroactively, it makes sense considering she represents the Master's desire to resume her original friendship with the Doctor, but
A) Why her incarnation is obsessed with it is never explained.
B) Simm's Master also displayed this desire in The End Of Time, more appropriately mixed in with his usual pride and insanity.
It just about works thanks to the actors, but there's no ignoring the gaping hole in character progression.

We must also discuss Matt Lucas as the future hacker/martial artist/cyborg/black marketeer/valet/Emperor of Constantinople Nardole, this presumably being his final story. It's pretty obvious that nobody had a clue what to do with him, and anyone hardly did. I liked him, but he always was a spare part.

I am still unsure on how I feel about David Bradley.

NOTES

*The opening "Doctor who?" gag is one is one of the most gratuitous and drawn-out things you will ever see.

*So we got 60s Cybermen, the 2006 Cybermen and the current ones. But where was David Banks?

*Considering that Bill spent a decade in the hospital with mr. Razor, it's kind of odd that she didn't have a bigger reaction to finding out it was the Master all along.

*Speaking of mr. Razor, I loved it. I didn't even notice it was Simm until my mum pointed it out when they were together(damn her perception). The performance reminded me a lot of Bela Lugosi's Igor in the Universal Frankenstein sequels.

*So if the Cybermen are created from parallel evolution(explaining how they got to Telos after dying out in the early Troughton era), what was the point of having the colony ship come from Mondas? The ship's crew seem to have invented the Cybermen over the course of hundreds of years completely on their own.

*Laser screwdriver!! Ah, it's the little things in life that keep you going.

*Peter Davison and John Simm go through the exact same hair colors in the exact same order during their run on Doctor Who. At the end of Logopolis, Davison has brown hair, then for the rest of his era, he's blond. And finally in Time Crash, grey.

*I guess I should mention that Bill's imagining he is not a Cyberman has already been done in Asylum Of The Daleks by Moffat. But it's a good, creepy idea that works equally well here, and also comes through Bill's strength rather than her terror as it did with Clara.

*Simm putting on eyeliner and his hard-on for Missy were a bit much.

*Rather endearingly, Simm's Master ties the Doctor onto a wheelchair again. What's that about?

*I think I've seen Capaldi begin to regenerate more times than I've seen him use the sonic at this point.

*The plot of the second episode was similar to Matt Smith's final story... except much better.

*Maybe the secret to Doctor Who's success is hiring John Simm as much as possible, because all three of his stories have hit the nail on the head in my opinion.

*I will accept Heather being able to travel anywhere she wants. At a stretch, she can pilot the TARDIS. But the offer to make Bill human again if she wanted seemed a step too far.

*If the Cybermen are on a mercy mission, why do they send in all the versions intermixed instead of the Mondasians followed by the tougher ones once their plans change?

*I kinda miss seeing the human eyes on the Mondasian Cybermen.

*Also, they look too clean for my liking. The 1966 Cybermen had a dirty, unsanitary, uncaring look.

*I was slightly miffed that we didn't get to see Simm's Master regenerate, but his departure scene was superb.

CONTINUITY ADVISOR

*breathes in*

1) John Simm's Master returns, and we get a follow-up to what happened to him after The End Of Time, which does raise the question of what exactly happened on Gallifrey to get him booted and Rassilon regenerated?

2) The original type of Cybermen return along with the 2006 versions, last seen in The Tenth Planet and Closing Time respectively. Lovely(and my mum did cheer for the Tennant versions, so I guess something for everyone).

3) Whilst fighting the Cybermen, the Doctor recounts many of his previous victories over them, including Mondas, Telos, "Planet 14"(mentioned in The Invasion), Canary Wharf and Voga. It's not 100% percent necessary, but it does feel catharctic, so I'll give it a pass.

4) What does not feel catharctic is the Doctor inexplicably quoting his other selves nonstop in the last episode. That got old fast, particularly in the last TARDIS scene("Sontarans perverting the course of human history!!... I don't want to go... when the Doctor was me...").

5) The TARDIS returns to 1966 Antarctica(presumably) to allow the Twelfth Doctor to meet his distant predecessor.

6) It's quite likely that the events of this story lead to Nightmare In Silver and Death In Heaven, where the Cybermen have developed the ability to fly, convert Time Lords and are led by Missy. Very clever, I think, and retroactively gives those stories more of a purpose.

7) The Doctor offers Alit a jelly baby. Point-less.

8) The spare dematerialisation circuit that Missy had looked exactly as it did in the Pertwee era(except smaller). I like it.

9) The Doctor performs Venusian aikido on the blue guy at the start. Pffft.

10) The flashback where all the companions are saying the Doctor's name is obviously inspired by Logopolis(whereas the camera shot of the Doctor lying down is based on The Tenth Planet), although why the 12th Doctor sees the RTD-era companions, I have no clue. And where was Rory? You can't tell me Madame Vastra was more of a companion than Rory or even Mickey. Or Wilf, for goodness' sake!

BEST QUOTE

"Who I am is where I stand. Where I stand is where I fall." - The Doctor explaining his morality to the Masters.

CONCLUSION

Without hope, without witness and with the occasional reward, I am Moffat's fan.