Dr Who — Series 10: Episode 11 — World Enough and Time

25th June, 2017

*Spoilers*

It’s late …

At least, it’s late … for an ageing blogger with poor health, worse dental hygiene, and a tendency to fart.

And who’s got back home from work to a Marmite sandwich, and a bag of crisps.

You’d think that maybe heading for bed would be a sensible idea, wouldn’t you?

You might think so.

I couldn’t possibly comment.

Actually?

Yes, I could.

It would make sense: if I wasn’t a Dr Who fan who missed this weeks episode when it was originally broadcast, last night.

From where I’m sitting?

I’ve just seen World Enough and Time.

And?

I’m thinking it’s an absolutely delicious nightmare of an episode.

~≈Ê≈~

Episode 10 — World Enough and Time — opens with the TARDIS materialising in the middle of an unnamed arctic waste: with the Doctor emerging from the ship, falling to his knees … 

And apparently starting to regenerate.

The story flashes back.

To a time when he, Bill and Nardole agree to test Missy.

The Time lady wants to become a better person.

And to prove this?   The Doctor wants to see if she can be trusted to lead Nardole and Bill onto a ship emitting a distress signal: to see what the psychopathic villain will do.

The ship itself?   Is four hundred miles long: with one end being near a black hole, it means that end sees time going several thousand times more slowly than at the other.

Sarcasm is definitely on the menu.

As is a loaded discussion between Missy and Bill, about the nature of friendship.

A discussion only ended when Bill?   Is shot by a desperate member of the ship’s crew.

Fatally: through the heart.

And is carted off by mysterious others: with the promise of restoration.

It’s only then — worried sick — that the Doctor manages to insert a telepathic message into Bill’s mind: “Wait for me”.

~≈Ê≈~

When Bill get’s to that other end?

She awakens to find that the colonists there are … slowly … trying to improve themselves: by adding parts to themselves.

And that, in order to save her life?

A surgeon had upgraded her heart.

Whilst recovering?

She makes friends with the mysterious Razor: who explains about the Ship.

It seems members of the Ship’s crew are saving themselves from on-coming death by turning themselves into the special patients who’d recovered Bill.

So that, eventually?

They can take part in Operation Exodus.

And go elsewhere.

Just like the Doctor, Missy and Nardole.

Whilst spending time with Razor?   Bill sees — on a screen Razor is using to monitor the ship’s top end — that the trio are heading from the Ship’s top … 

To its ever so fast bottom.

When the trio get there?

They set to exploring.

With Missy staying at a terminal: finding out that the ship is a Mondasian colony ship.

And that Razor?   Is her earlier self, the Master.

The Doctor and Nardole heading off to explore the hospital: little knowing that Bill has been …

Upgraded.

~≈Ê≈~

Now … 

Nightmare?

Oh, gods, yes!

I think, in Dark Water and Death In Heaven that the mix of Steven Moffat’s writing and Rachel Talalay’s direction give us both dark stuff: and established the Cybermen as zombie horrors, ready to over-run the universe.   And, in the process, become far more frightening.

And?

And seriously adding to the nasty factor: by showing us a sympathetic recurring character can be killed.

With World Enough and Time?

They’ve done so upped the scare factor.

They’ve given the episode a very Banksian feel: by setting it on a ship where time is going at different rates.

They’ve put Bill in serious jeopardy: by converting her into the very first Cyberman.

And by impliing her death from the opening pre-title teaser.

By showing us a Doctor who’s regenerating — only for the second time in the new series — without a companion present.

Nightmare?

A very dark one, yes.

Delicious?

Absolutely.

Episode 12, The Doctor Falls, had better be good.

Episode 11, World Enough and Time is superb!