Spoilers Spyfall, Part One grade and discussion thread

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Well. Basically, this is a good-looking bore. Which is pretty much how I'd describe most of series 11 too, so that's not good.

Letting aside the awesome but ultimately wasted opportunity to have a female Master oppose a female Doctor at the same time, this one is doing well at his best John Simm/Anthony Ainley impression. The aliens look interesting, but all they do is really remind me of the Sontarans from The Invasion of Time. Not a good thing, too.

As for the Doctor and his companions... I like that Jodie seemingly toned down her Tennant-isms, but I'm still not feeling her as the Doctor. She still looks like someone trying really hard to play the Doctor. And I want to like her, I REALLY do, but its hard.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. I guess I should mention now that I watched both of the episodes in the same day, for what's worth.

Given how things went with the Vault storyline, I was hoping the Doctor would react a bit more specifically to the Master returning to evil than just general shock at seeing him. “Missy, what the hell? Things were going so good between us! Remember, ‘I’m Doctor Who!’ ‘I was on your side all along!’ What happened?” Oh, well, maybe next week.

I really missed this. It didn't even have to be plot specific, but what the heck?

However, I agree that she should have a more nuanced conversation with him next time they meet up in the next episode.

Hopefully!

I really enjoyed The Rise of Skywalker

Me too!

I will admit that part of my ambivalence is because I haven't quite yet bought into Jodie Whittaker as The Doctor. She gets close a few times, but I'm still waiting for that moment of "ah, now there's The Doctor!" Just to be clear though, it took about a season and change for me to get there with Capaldi too.
Indeed a lot of this feels similar to Capaldi's early days as that also had a good cast doing their best with not very strong writing and a kind of listless, meandering feel to the show as a whole.

The thing was, though, that Moffat had a fairly sketchy arc for the Twelfth in series 8, which was the main source for me of not getting behind his Doctor at the time. The Doctor-doesn't-like-or-respect-officers aspect which MIGHT have had derived from his experienced in the Of The Doctor trilogy, but really is only there to cause friction between him and Danny (an underwhelming character, underwhelmingly played) with Clara cought in the middle. This, and the inane, out-of-nowhere "am I a good man" question that pops up but not sure why and is indeed answered by the Doctor himself, underwhelmingly.

... but even then, Capaldi commanded the screen, compellingly. He still had episodes like Listen and Flatline, where his presence unequivocally present him as THE main driving force of the show. And of course, series 9 and 10 did cement him as the Doctor, right from the start. Not so for Jodie, I'm afraid.

If they (Moffat) can invalidate the Masters redemption ("get out of the way"), then Chibnill can return the favor and invalidate Missy's. I said from day one that TEoT was just as much about the Master's redemption as it was a farewell for 10 (and an intro for 11).

Yeah, that's an excellent point. Simm's Master sacrificed himself for Ten, then is opposed to Missy doing the same for the Twelfth. Surely the same thing happened here, only Missy lived long enough to regenerate.

As to how she regenerated, well, maybe a future incarnation came back to ensure she survived this? Not the most impossible thing to happen.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Hey guys, there's a separate thread for part 2, which I haven't seen yet.

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[jaime]

Hey guys, there's a separate thread for part 2, which I haven't seen yet.

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Yeah. Sorry about that.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

And since I am being picky, was it Jodrell Bank in Logopolis? Because The Pharos Project rings a bell.

Maybe Cardiff was where Doctor Who has been set for years.

Yes it's mentioned in the episode and that was the actual filming location

 

[jaime]

Yes it's mentioned in the episode and that was the actual filming location

I thought it was just ‘based on’ Jodrell Bank, and they did new scenes for the blu-Ray? Wasn’t it The Pharos Project?
I have only ever read the target book xD

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I thought it was just ‘based on’ Jodrell Bank, and they did new scenes for the blu-Ray? Wasn’t it The Pharos Project?
I have only ever read the target book xD

In the show it's called The Pharos Project but the actual location is Jodrell Bank, Pharos was the name of the project using the equipment at that location.

 

[jaime]

In the show it's called The Pharos Project but the actual location is Jodrell Bank, Pharos was the name of the project using the equipment at that location.

I am not sure the original was shot there. And ‘in the show’ means the line was wrong really then. Otherwise, the Master May as well have said ‘remember when I tried to take your body in Vancouver?’

 

[Starkers]

Yeah, that's an excellent point. Simm's Master sacrificed himself for Ten, then is opposed to Missy doing the same for the Twelfth. Surely the same thing happened here, only Missy lived long enough to regenerate.

I still think that was less about the Master saving the Doctor as it was about the Master exacting revenge on the Timelords for using him!

 

[DS9Continuing]

Letting aside the awesome but ultimately wasted opportunity to have a female Master oppose a female Doctor at the same time, this one is doing well at his best John Simm/Anthony Ainley impression.

That would have been nice, but also consider that they had a female Master, then the next Doctor was female. Now they've got a man of colour as the Master, so does that imply that's where they might go with the next Doctor after Whittaker? (Not that I'm eager for her to go, not at all.) That would feel a bit clinical and box-ticky if they were to do that, but who knows?

Given how things went with the Vault storyline, I was hoping the Doctor would react a bit more specifically to the Master returning to evil than just general shock at seeing him. “Missy, what the hell? Things were going so good between us! Remember, ‘I’m Doctor Who!’ ‘I was on your side all along!’ What happened?” Oh, well, maybe next week.

I really missed this. It didn't even have to be plot specific, but what the heck?

Well, remember that the Doctor doesn't know that Missy turned good at the end. The last thing he saw was Missy and Saxon strolling off together, and Missy telling him "Thanks for trying, but nah." He doesn't even know that Missy and Saxon ended up "killing" each other, he wasn't there for that. So for now, the Doctor has no reason to question the Master being still alive or being evil again, because as far as she knows, it was never any other way. The audience may, but the Doctor herself doesn't.

(Aside: Although, I do note that odd moment after Missy seemingly rejects his impassioned pleas, where she grabs his hand and shakes it in a strange way. That's the same hand she later uses to stab Saxon in the back - was she quietly telling the Doctor what she planned to do? Could he feel the knife at her wrist?)

Plus, part 2 does offer some additional context to the Master's actions (spoiler-coded because somebody asked for it to be so)

Spoiler: Part 2

He's doing all this just to get her attention, so that they can talk about the Gallifrey situation. Which honestly is the exact same thing Missy did in Season 8 - her whole plot there was purely with the goal of calling the Doctor out so she could give him his birthday present.

The thing was, though, that Moffat had a fairly sketchy arc for the Twelfth in series 8, which was the main source for me of not getting behind his Doctor at the time. The Doctor-doesn't-like-or-respect-officers aspect which MIGHT have had derived from his experienced in the Of The Doctor trilogy, but really is only there to cause friction between him and Danny (an underwhelming character, underwhelmingly played) with Clara caught in the middle. This, and the inane, out-of-nowhere "am I a good man" question that pops up but not sure why and is indeed answered by the Doctor himself, underwhelmingly.

I can't agree with this at all, though. I felt that the Doctor and Clara's character arcs were the real driving force of Season 8, more so than any season before or since. The "I hate soldiers" arc did come out of nowhere a bit, sure, but metatextually at least, it was there to serve the building Master plot, when Missy gave him an army with which to right the universe's wrongs, plus the season finale in which the Doctor accepts that sometimes armies can be necessary came in November 2014, the centenary of WW1.

"Am I a good man?', on the other hand, is the defining question of Twelve's era, paralleled with Missy for all three seasons, and which he doesn't truly let go of until "Twice Upon a Time". In season 8, her entire plan was to get the Doctor to be her friend again by bringing him down to her level. In season 9 she did the same - emphasising 'the good within the evil, the evil within the good' in an attempt to erase the lines between the two. Even Davros asked him, "Did I do good, Doctor?" Finally in season 10 we get the same question, but flipped. Now the Master is wondering, can she be a good 'man'? Even TUAT brings back Rusty, the "good Dalek" who Twelve tried to define himself against.

And that all makes sense to me from a character continuity perspective. Nine, Ten and most of Eleven were all consumed with the Time War - Nine by the guilt of what he did, Ten by what it turned him into, Eleven by how to move on when others don't want you to. Eleven was the one who learned he didn't actually do what he thought he had done, but he didn't have much time to enjoy it – he only had one ep left before regenerating into Twelve.

So then Twelve - even though he was supposed to be a fresh start with a new set of regenerations and the knowledge that he didn't kill his own people - was consumed with the question Eleven didn't have time to answer - okay then, so if I'm not the mass murderer I thought I was, what am I?

It's not until Thirteen that the Doctor gets to be the "new start" that Twelve was supposed to be. Twelve had finally answered his question and before regenerating specifically gave himself permission to "let it go" - which leaves Thirteen free to live without guilt and just have fun again, plus to not worry about mixed messages and shades of grey, but just to be purely empathetic and moral. It all tracks to me.

Yeah, that's an excellent point. Simm's Master sacrificed himself for Ten, then is opposed to Missy doing the same for the Twelfth. Surely the same thing happened here, only Missy lived long enough to regenerate.

I still think that was less about the Master saving the Doctor as it was about the Master exacting revenge on the Timelords for using him!

Yeah, that's my interpretation too. Saxon was the incarnation who was the most hateful towards the Doctor, who refused to even admit they were ever friends. It was just that in that moment, he was even more hateful towards Rassilon than he was towards the Doctor.

.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I still think that was less about the Master saving the Doctor as it was about the Master exacting revenge on the Timelords for using him!

But it was just one guy who stuck the heart beats in his head.

Rassilon.

 

[jaime]

That would have been nice, but also consider that they had a female Master, then the next Doctor was female. Now they've got a man of colour as the Master, so does that imply that's where they might go with the next Doctor after Whittaker? (Not that I'm eager for her to go, not at all.) That would feel a bit clinical and box-ticky if they were to do that, but who knows?




Well, remember that the Doctor doesn't know that Missy even turned good at the end. The last thing he saw was Missy and Saxon strolling off together, and Missy telling him "Thanks for trying, but nah." He doesn't even know that Missy and Saxon ended up "killing" each other, he wasn't there for that. So for now, the Doctor has no reason to question the Master being still alive or being evil again, because as far as she knows, it was never any other way. The audience may, but the Doctor herself doesn't.

(Aside: Although, I do note that odd moment after Missy seemingly rejects his impassioned pleas, where she grabs his hand and shakes it in a strange way. That's the same hand she later uses to stab Saxon in the back - was she quietly telling the Doctor what she planned to do? Could he feel the knife at her wrist?)

Plus, part 2 does offer some additional context to the Master's actions (spoiler-coded because somebody asked for it to be so)

Spoiler: Part 2

He's doing all this just to get her attention, so that they can talk about the Gallfrey situation. Which honestly is the exact same thing Missy did in Season 8 - her whole plot there was purely with the goal of calling the Doctor out so she could give him his birthday present.

I can't agree with this at all, though. I felt that the Doctor and Clara's character arcs were the real driving force of Season 8, more so than any season before or since. The "I hate soldiers" arc did come out of nowhere a bit, sure, but metatextually at least, it was there to serve the building Master plot, when Missy gave him an army with which to right the universe's wrongs, plus the season finale in which the Doctor accepts that sometimes armies can be necessary came in November 2014, the centenary of WW1.

"Am I a good man?', on the other hand, is the defining question of Twelve's era, paralleled with Missy for all three seasons, and which he doesn't truly let go of until "Twice Upon a Time". In season 8, her entire plan was to get the Doctor to be her friend again by bringing him down to her level. In season 9 she did the same - emphasising 'the good within the evil, the evil within the good' in an attempt to erase the lines between the two. Even Davros asked him, "Did I do good, Doctor?" Finally in season 10 we get the same question, but flipped. Now the Master is wondering, can she be a good 'man'? Even TUAT brings back Rusty, the "good Dalek" who Twelve tried to define himself against.

And that all makes sense to me from a character continuity perspective. Nine, Ten and most of Eleven were all consumed with the Time War - Nine by the guilt of what he did, Ten by what it turned him into, Eleven by how to move on when others don't want you to. Eleven was the one who learned he didn't actually do what he thought he had done, but he didn't have much time to enjoy it – he only had one ep left before regenerating into Twelve.

So then Twelve - even though he was supposed to be a fresh start with a new set of regenerations and the knowledge that he didn't kill his own people - was consumed with the question Eleven didn't have time to answer - okay then, so if I'm not the mass murderer I thought I was, what am I?

It's not until Thirteen that the Doctor gets to be the "new start" that Twelve was supposed to be. Twelve had finally answered his question and before regenerating specifically gave himself permission to "let it go" - which leaves Thirteen free to live without guilt and just have fun again, plus to not worry about mixed messages and shades of grey, but just to be purely empathetic and moral. It all tracks to me.




Yeah, that's my interpretation too. Saxon was the incarnation who was the most hateful towards the Doctor, who refused to even admit they were ever friends. It was just that in that moment, he was even more hateful towards Rassilon than he was towards the Doctor.

.

The Doctor was an officer who hated being one (sending people to die) and a soldier who hated being one. It’s sort of a long reaching thing in his ‘war on evil’ that goes back to him being authority but hating authority. We see it in the relationship with the brigadier, but it really comes to a head when the Time War starts kicking off (somewhere between Genesis and Resurrection of the Daleks) and the Doctor as officer is a spin on the Seventh Doctor (in which he goes around with stolen Time Lord tech wiping out belligerent species, and manipulates or orders people into fighting.) It’s the question at the heart of a pacifist scientist who believes ‘there are things that must be fought’. It was interesting.
The Danny Pink thing was an obvious follow on from Eleven realising ‘Doctor’ meant ‘Warrior’ because of his actions. Even Strax and Rory are riffs on that theme.
The Time War was *his* war, whether he destroyed Gallifrey or not. The Doctor wants the universe to be a better place and takes down all sorts of despots...the difference between him and the Master, to an extent, is what shape the ‘order’ should be after the ‘chaos’ has been dealt with. The Doctor leaves a vacuum, trusting in the inherent good to fill the void, the Master flows between wanting to rule it, and wanting to burn the whole thing down. He also doesn’t much care who dies on the way, as long as he wins...the Doctor, well, they used to care. Not so much these days.

The Rani doesn’t give a shit, so long as she finds out something interesting on the way.
The Monk is basically the Doctor, but got around to interfering much faster.

 

[jaime]

But it was just one guy who stuck the heart beats in his head.

Rassilon.

Yup.
And I genuinely think it was an act of self-realisation and friendship that he told the doctor to move, because otherwise he would have simply blasted him out of the way and killed two birds with one stone.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

That would have been nice, but also consider that they had a female Master, then the next Doctor was female. Now they've got a man of colour as the Master, so does that imply that's where they might go with the next Doctor after Whittaker? (Not that I'm eager for her to go, not at all.) That would feel a bit clinical and box-ticky if they were to do that, but who knows?

.

You know if they did do that I'd be very unhappy. It would be like ticking off a checklist.

 

[jaime]

You know if they did do that I'd be very unhappy. It would be like ticking off a checklist.

And yet, some corner of everyone wonders if that is indeed chibnall’s approach to things. A dark corner.

 

[Starkers]

The +7 day figures are in and apparently Spyfall Pt 1 added almost 2 million, up to 6.7 million viewers. Not sure if that covers all devices but assuming it does then the final +28 day figure should exceed 7 million going on past performance.

 

[matthunter]

Not too surprising - I'd wager given New Year partying/drunkenness a lot of folks chose to binge parts 1 and 2 together, or decided to watch once they heard the Master was back.

 

[Starkers]

If it just shades the 7 million mark overall that puts it in pretty much the same ballpark as Resolution (which I think got around 7.15 million) it might even be higher. Still far higher than Capaldi's Season 9 and 10 figures but still lower than the first 7 episodes of Jodie's tenure. Interesting to note that the AI figure for the episode was 82, which is the best its been since Arachnids. Not sure anyone cares too much about AI, or if it's even calculated in the same way anymore, but this is consistently down on the Tennant/Smith era when it was almost always 85+

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

OK I watched both parts again and I'm a bit annoyed at how casual the Doctor is about wiping people's minds. She did it to both Noor and Ada and yet in Ada's time the word computer did exist. It just annoyed me how casual she was about it. Did she not remember all the others she did it to like Donna and Bill, to name two.

 

[jaime]

OK I watched both parts again and I'm a bit annoyed at how casual the Doctor is about wiping people's minds. She did it to both Noor and Ada and yet in Ada's time the word computer did exist. It just annoyed me how casual she was about it. Did she not remember all the others she did it to like Donna and Bill, to name two.

Did Bill get that? Thought he played mind wipe roulette with Clara.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Did Bill get that? Thought he played mind wipe roulette with Clara.

I think Bill did and Clara