12.38: World Enough and Time
In which Bill waits. And waits. And waits.
Broadcast: June 2017
Watched: May 2022
“I am that mysterious adventurer in all of time and space, known only as Doctor Who. And these are my disposables, Exposition and Comic Relief.”
Alternatively: “Excellent, positive attitude. Will help with the horror to come.”
I’d almost been sort of dreading this, as for all its brilliance it’s completely and utterly horrible. But it does that thing of somehow being better than I remembered that, I dunno, Human Nature does. Everything in it is turned up to 11.
For one thing, beginning with the Doctor falling out of the TARDIS, starting to regenerate and screaming “NOOOO” is A Mood (it was only at that point that I realised that his MASSIVE HAIR belongs to this story alone). Then there are the opening tracking shots of the ship, with the glimpses of the worlds inside, and the black hole.
And then, 8 and a bit minutes in, we get the Doctor doing his triumphant “One day you will look back, wonder who I was-” speech and getting interrupted by the blue man blowing a hole in Bill’s chest. That ups the ante even further, and also tells us we’re in a story in which everything is going to fail.
Much of what follows is about terror, obviously. The entire concept, obviously, the spooky hospital, the creepiest incidental music in years. “Pain. Pain. Pain.” The horrifying moment when you realise that all the nurse has done is *turned him down*. The most terrifying thing I spotted on this viewing, though, was the surgeon’s under-stated line, “Full conversion wasn’t necessary – though it will be in time”.
Mixed in with that, though, you’ve got a whole load of the “deconstructing the Doctor Who M.O.” stuff that we got in season 9 but which Moffat has parked in this season: the conversation about Doctor’s real name, his relationship with the Master, plus the fankwank stuff of Genesis of the Cybermen and, at Christmas, going back to the first Doctor.
Then there are both Michelle Gomez and, especially, John Simm clearly having the time of their lives. (In 2017, I first realised Rasor was Simm once I wondered why such a major character hadn’t even been in the trailer, and then immediately realised that he had.) His betrayal is also a truly horrible thing: the lovely Doctor-ish character (deliberately so, given the lead’s stated reasons for wanting Missy back), with his silly voice and messy office and conspiratorial attitude and tea, handing her over for conversion. It must be a deliberate mirroring of the Doctor letting her down (“Just promise you won’t get me killed”): only where the Doctor screws up, the Master does it deliberately.
And finally, just to round things off, one of the most horrifying cliffhangers in all of Doctor Who. “It’s a cyberman – a Mondasian cyberman!” The two masters. “I waited for you.”
There are about six different reasons why you couldn’t do this every week, or even every season. But as the last finale in a long-serving run, it’s absolutely incredible. It’s good enough that even Moffat thinks it’s good.
Other things:
The title is taken from Andrew Marvell’s poem To His Coy Mistress, and fits the sci fi story so well that surely it must have come first?
“Is this the emotion you humans call... spanking?”
Why do they send the patients up to get Bill? Other than it being creepy I’m not sure it makes sense. Come to that, why did the team sent to repair the engine not come back and decide to start breeding instead? Is it the master’s fault? Anyway, Oliver Lansley does a terrific job of intense dramatic acting while blue, before disappearing from the narrative. We never do find out what happens to him.
“Ah, you see through my clever disguise”
I was thinking how it’s funny that Bill worries that the Doctor’s willingness to trust Missy will get her killed, and while she *does* get killed Missy has nothing to do with it. Except... obviously she does, because her earlier self tricked her into conversion. But still, it’s weird, doesn’t quite join up.
There’s something interesting going on with the word “strong” in these episodes. The “special patients” are strong. Bill is not strong enough to leave the hospital. In the next one, there’s the exchange where the Doctor asks Nardole which of them is stronger and it’s slightly ambiguous what it means. I think maybe there’s a moral vs physical strength thing going on? Or maybe, three and a bit years into this project, I’m just seeing things, who knows.
Two out of three Capaldi finales involve the cybermen and the Master. I wonder why.