Last workweek ’s doc Who season premier washeaving with promise — in bringing back an iconic enemy , and retweaking a equilibrium between moralistic sci - fi social comment andmonster - ladenadventure thislatest iteration of the serieshas been struggling to find , it do the groundwork for some compelling threads . Last night ’s follow - up delivered , if only because it had the time to do so .
Much of the strength of “ Spyfall , Part Two ” comes from that wide-eyed fact of time . Unlike much of season 11 , where single - trial episodes felt like they either only had the meter to focus on one particular train of thought or radical of characters to the disbursal of everything else a show like Doctor Who could do , or found themselves rushing to awkward finis because of that simpleness , start up this season off with a two - parter gave the show a chance to breathe . With its extended runtime , “ Spyfall ” did n’t just deliver an dangerous undertaking for the Doctor and her friends that had clock time to balance both monster horror with well-timed societal commentary — in this case , the Kasaavin and Vor , an awkwardly named Riffian on technical school giants like Google . But it did so fascinatingly by burst the Doctor up from her “ fam , ” and return space for both side of Team TARDIS to have compelling arcs of their own — ones that will have hover ramifications over the trend of this total season .
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The 13th Doctor’s entire life has been turned upside down.Photo: BBC
Let ’s embark on with the non - Time Lord side of thing . Ryan , Graham , and Yaz rule themselves conveniently guided out of certain doomsday on a ram plane thanks to a piffling help from a pre - recorded content from the Doctor and … an app ? A piffling featherbrained , for indisputable , but given it was eventually let on as a turn of foresight from the Doctor ’s own time - hopping journey this instalment — a concept this looping of the serial has n’t really run with , quite unlike its predecessor ’s penchant for clock time - twisting narratives . And it was a dependable enough alibi to lay out a very interesting scenario for our threesome of companions . Being hunted by vengeful tech guru Daniel Barton in lodge to stop them from interfering with his plans with the Kasaavin , Ryan , Graham , and Yaz regain themselves track by their phones ( thanks to the proliferation of Barton ’s data - tracking technical school ) , slandered by the spiritualist ( thanks to Barton ’s vast wealthiness and influence driven off of the back of that tech ) , and without the Doctor or her TARDIS to plough to as safe harbor .
There are shade of a prior Master tale here — Jack , Martha , and the Doctor being hunted down by British PM “ Harold Saxon ” in “ The Sound of Drums ” to force them off the control grid — but above all , this amour propre , as nightmarish is for the trio to go on , allows them all a import to sit back and really total to grips with what their life has become . Hiding out in an bare housing land , the trauma of everything that ’s been happening really start off our companions — especially Yaz , for whom this adventure has brought with it a brush with death unlike anything she ’s encountered so far — and it ’s a trauma amplify by the realization that they really have no musical theme who the Doctor really is . The jokes about her prior life sentence are more than jokes , that she would look at a mankind so dangerously cruel as the Master both a greatest foe and one of her oldest booster , the fact that they do n’t even know where she ’s from — and yet that the Doctor has so wholly come into their life regardless of that , no matter the admiration they ’ve realize , is a moment of crisis for our trio .
While they ultimately amount to the conclusion that they have to hope — hope the Doctor can return to them , hope that all this horror can be stopped , go for that their concern about their alien best champion can be laid to balance — it creates a Doctor / companion dynamic coming into this season , as we move into the more distinctive “ Monster of the Week ” menses of Doctor Who , that is fraught with compelling machination . Graham and the others may have put their concerns aside momently by the episode ’s end — improve by the tiniest slight detail about her past that the Doctor divulge — but will that be enough to truly trust her the next time they ’re isolated and in peril ?
Ryan, Graham, and Yaz come to terms with the mystery of the Doctor.Image: BBC
While the companions are left to dish out with the real mechanism of trying to disrupt Barton and the Kasaavin ’s plans to wrench humanity into a race of living backbreaking drive to power the Kasaavin ’s invasion of reality , the Doctor is leave jump through metre on an risky venture of her own — albeit one similarly filled with crises of authority . From 19th century London to World War II Paris , her pursuit to forecast out what the Master is up to is less about oppugn the machinist of his return , and more like one , similarly to Graham , Yaz , and Ryan ’s plight , push back by a desire to learn .
Masterfully ( sorry not sorry ) pull along by the teases and jibes , the Master needle her with of “ news from home ” and mocks her grasp on her preceding lives — and the Doctor is coerce to utilise the Kasaavin as secular gateway to run after him and his own TARDIS . But not before hooking up with a few notable faces from history — Ada Lovelace , one of the foremost former architects of reckoner scientific discipline , and Noor Khan , a prominent British spy roll in the hay for being the first female operative formally broadcast behind enemy lineage during World War II — because this is Doctor Who , and where would we be without some time - traveling mischief-making . But as isolated as it is from the forward-looking - day side of the fellow ’ arc , for the Doctor herself , there ’s some fascinating thematic mirror .
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Ryan, Graham, and Yaz come to terms with the mystery of the Doctor.Image: BBC
Although the companions ’ like spark conclude with them putting their religion in the Doctor , the Doctor ’s seeking for cognition ultimately put her on a much more self - destructive path . In track down down and foiling the Master — after a truly foul squad - up he has with the Nazis , for seemingly footling grounds other than he ’s the Master and that ’s the sort of noisome thing he ’d do to really get at the Doctor — the Doctor is n’t honor with Leslie Townes Hope or organized religion , in either her former booster or herself . She ’s reach a nightmare scenario , the revelation of a new mystery for her to chase after after cut through with a horrifying premise : Gallifrey , think safely preserve in its own air hole of Time and Space since her anterior incarnations banded together to undo its death in “ The Day of the Doctor , ” lies burn .
The Time Lords are idle . And it ’s the Master that put it to the torch , so enraged by his own divine revelation that everything Time Lord society teach itself has been predicated on some unseen lie that he has been completely unwrap , pull up stakes unhinged and push back to racial extermination .
The jounce of the reveal is twofold . Not only do we have a major untying of a trauma Steven Moffat ’s era of the show had itself sought to undo — giving the Doctor a prospect to heal and ruminate on the loss of their masses , a specter that had linger over several incarnations of the character since Who returned in 2005 — itself an interesting “ takeback ” on a premise that the show had n’t really done much with since Gallifrey return in the first place ( outside ofthe unbelievable “ Heaven ’s Sent,”that is ) . But we have this reveal being catapult at an incarnation of the Doctor who , so far , has been pit by a sort of innocence and naiveté — comparatively untethered to her retiring lives , on the face of it call back trivial of them or the sacrifice made by her prompt predecessor to take about her embodiment in the first place .
Meanwhile: Timey wimey fun with Noor and Ada!Photo: BBC
And what does it do ? straightaway sets her on a sorry and dangerous path .
After pin down the Master in the Kasaavin ’s elevation - reality and being goad by one final message from him , the Doctor bring her young friends Noor and Ada and quickly , almost unfeelingly , gazump them of their memory of their clock time together in guild to preserve the timeline . The Doctor does this without second thought and with no rue — and while there ’s an obvious repulsion to Ada ’s wiping ( given that , just like Donna Noble before her , it befall as she begs the Doctor not to take her memory ) , there ’s something even more shuddery about the fact that she robs Noor of her memory board after telling her the Nazis wo n’t advance the war , and thatfascism , no matter how and when it arises , will always misplace .
The Doctor incur herself marooned and cut off from her stuffy friends after sound to Gallifrey and confirming the Master ’s account , keep herself in cold blood distant and already beginning to lie in to Graham , Yaz , and Ryan , even with half - truth , as she lets slip the lilliputian details about her past and her home as they press her for details . There is on the spur of the moment now a trauma to this Doctor that has otherwise not been there , and its impact on her persona is felt immediately . If Dhawan ’s Master truly is a post - Missy incarnation ( it ’s not confirmed here , despite it being an ongoing inquiry wreak about by his restitution ) , it create a unco enthralling transparency : a Master of cruel vengefulness born from the death of a redeemed avatar , played against an incarnation born from the redemption of her preceding self , both drive to their own darknesses by the revelation that their existences have been built on a falsehood .
Gallifrey falls once more.Image: BBC
So with the day hold open from aGoogle go wrong , we come into this new age for Doctor Who with down shades of the yesteryear — Gallifrey is once again no more , work a calamity and dark to the 13th Doctor that has otherwise been absentminded since her regeneration . In Dhawan ’s Master , trapped as he is for now , she has a compellingly personable foe to resist against , a foil for us to really research just what this incarnation of the Doctor is unfeignedly capable of with her back against the wall . And with the thread of the Timeless Child being set up as an ongoing business organization , we once again have a mystery for the show to chase , one that asks us to dispute and reconsider the multitudinous mysteries thrown at us and on the face of it solved in Steven Moffat ’s tenure of overexplaining theWho in Doctor Who .
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After spend a season in trying to recover itself , the Chibnall era of Doctor Who has a mission affirmation of its own : What will the toll be of study the truth , whether it ’s for the Doctor or her friend who really have no theme of who they ’re involved with ? We ca n’t expect to see how this serial go about do it . It may have taken some fourth dimension , but Doctor Who feels truly back in military action once more .
How far will the Doctor go to discover the truth, and could she lose her friends in the process?Image: BBC
So , speaking of the Doctor now moving toward deeply messed up actions upon learning of Gallifrey ’s portion , we should probably consider the wildly grim optics of the Doctor not only exposing her frenemy to his young Nazi allies as a traitor , but removing his psychic perception filter so that said Nazis will see that this incarnation of the Master is a person of color on top of that . It ’s not only passing overboard — the Nazis were already travel to turn on him thanks to the Doctor ’s scheme with Noor ’s communiqué — but what in the factual fuck ? The generous read is that this is the Doctor telling the Master he made his Hakenkreuz - covered bed by working with Nazis in the first place , and now has to consist in it , but also ! subject a person of color to immurement at the hands of the final solution ’s architect as a “ haha , gotcha ! ” second while the Doctor escapes down the Eiffel Tower is … quite a matter for the show to just brush past ! It ’s horrifyingly cruel , no matter how compromised the Doctor was in the moment .
For further reading on Noor Inayat Khan , by the way — perhaps the lesser - known of the two public figure of history the Doctor picked up this episode — theNew York Times ’ “ Overlooked ” Obituary series did a nice breakdown of her life sentence and history in and out of British Intelligence in 2018 .
As someone who apparently work for a technical school internet site , perhaps the most unrealistic aspect of this piece of goggle box about time - journey , treble - hearted aliens contend each other over other aliens was that it was only when Barton sent his sinister school text message about the end of mankind that every journalist in attendance whipped out their telephone or laptop computer . We knowpeople live - web log the shit out of Apple Events , Doctor Who !
He did Nazi this coming.Photo: BBC
The Master seems earnest enough — well , for the Master — that he ’s responsible for the bloodshed on Gallifrey in his parting message to the Dr. . And yet , I do n’t screw if I entrust him enough to wholly accept that he ’s creditworthy for the race murder of his own multitude . A leave stab at the Doctor to attempt and say he ’s truly past his days of salvation as Missy ? Or has the Master really been drive so far by learning the truth of the Timeless Child ?
After an entire season without callbacks to retiring Doctor Who elements , bringing back Time Lords ’ power to telepathically contact each other as seen in “ The Three Doctors ” and “ The Five Doctors ” was a gleefully fun little second .
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