ANDREW'S
DOCTOR WHO REVIEWS 
This story feels like the ultimate expression of Steven Moffat’s
desire to put the Doctor through an emotional wringer. It was apparent as Matt
Smith’s years progressed, but for some reason he seems to like to make the
Twelfth Doctor suffer and here he loses pretty much everything, including Bill
Potts whose fate is brutal in the extreme. Plus, we get two Masters – or rather
one Master and one Missy – for the price of one.
The story begins intriguingly with the Doctor in a snowy
wasteland about to regenerate.
We then go back in time to when the Doctor, Nardole, Bill
and Missy were on a spaceship moving away from a black hole. The only survivor
on the ship, Jorj (Oliver Lansley) demands to know who is human and when Bill
says she is, Jorj shoots her. Two masked figures come to take her away.
They discover that the depths of the ship contain hundreds
of life signals and, after incapacitating Jorj, they head down in the elevator
to the lower levels. Meanwhile, Bill wakes up with an artificial heart attached
to her that is keeping her alive. One of the hospital’s employees, Razor,
explains that patients are waiting to be upgraded and as he sees the Doctor and
company descending in the lift he tricks Bill into being the next to be
upgraded.
When they arrive at the hospital they discover that the ship
is from Mondas, Earth’s former twin planet. Razor tells Missy that the Doctor
will never forgive her for what she has done to Bill and when she denies having
been here before Razor reveals himself to be the Master (John Simm).
A Mondasian Cyberman confronts the Doctor and Nardole and
identifies itself as formerly being Bill Potts, who has now been converted into
a Cyberman.
The Doctor is electrocuted by a Cyberman but the Bill
Cyberman saves him and they make their way back to the upper levels. The Doctor
suppresses the early signs of regeneration. As they travel they encounter other
Mondasian humans and they try to rescue them. The Doctor instructs Nardole to
take them to another part of the ship and protect them. The Bill Cyberman
remains to fight alongside the Doctor and Missy and the Master decide to
abandon them and leave.
Just before they depart Missy changes her mind and goes to
return to the Doctor she stabs her former self, giving him time to return to
the TARDIS to regenerate, but the Master shoots her, supposedly stopping her
regeneration cycle. The Doctor and Bill fight off an army of Cybermen for as
long as they can, but eventually the Doctor is forced to detonate fuel pipes
which destroys the Cybermen in a fireball. Bill is rescued by the waterform of
Heather (from The Pilot) and she is transformed to a similar waterform to keep
her alive, Heather returns the Doctor to the TARDIS.
The Doctor wakes up in the snowy landscape of Antarctica
refusing to regenerate and out of the swirling snow his first incarnation
(David Bradley) approaches him.
In typical Steven Moffat style, there is a heck of a lot to
take in here. Right the way through you expect the Doctor to rescue Bill
somehow, but it becomes increasingly obvious that this isn’t going to happen.
Bill is effectively killed and – like Clara before her – only really survives
by cheating death (the third time the Moffat era “kills” companions without
actually letting them die). Poor old Nardole just gets shuffled off with some
surviving Mondasians and never seen again, although the expectation is they
will eventually get caught by the Cybermen.
This is by far the best outing for the John Simm version of
the Master, here he is more subdued, more realistic, responding perhaps to the
sombre mood of the story and he’s very good as Razor when he’s still in
disguise. It’s interesting that when the Doctor meets his other selves they
argue, but when the Master does they form a bond but then betray each other and
murder themselves!
Missy completes her journey from evil to sympathetic here
and even though she appears to die, you know that the Master or Missy will
return some time. Michelle Gomez has been fantastic throughout as Missy and you
can’t help wanting more.
The one thing this story isn’t is lightweight and fun. Like
Logopolis all those years before it feels sombre and doom-laden, which doesn’t
make it a joyful story to watch. In fact, the misery is ratcheted up so high
that it is at times almost a chore to get through the mass of bleakness – Bill dies,
Missy dies, the Master dies, the Doctor is defeated and is going to regenerate,
Nardole is abandoned on a doomed spaceship – boy is this dark. I’m glad really that this doesn’t form the end
for Capaldi’s Doctor because although some bits are really effective and the
whole thing is well acted it isn’t a story I’d watch out of choice too often.
It’s good, but man is it grim.
NEXT UP: TWICE UPON A TIME
© Text copyright - Raving Loony
Productions and
Andrew J. Müller,
Roy Barton
and Shaun Runham
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2022
