Spoilers World Enough and Time (Grade & Discussion Thread)

[Orac Zen]

Having found the episode pretty boring for the most part (the fact I detest Missy really didn't help), the last 10 or so minutes really picked up. And then pseudo-Zathras turned out to be Simm's pseudo-Master and it all went down the gurgler again. Too bad. It was building into something worthwhile until then.

Still, seeing proper Cybermen - rather than the pathetic lockstep-marching things new Who has "featured" to date - was great. Hearing them was probably even better. A pity Bill's been turned into one; ditching Nardole would have been better.

This episode has proven to me that the old cloth faced Cybermen (and tbh any of the 60s Cybermen) are much scarier than the modern armoured ones.

That's because

The NuCybermen suck. Period.

I've never found new Who's Cybermen even remotely interesting, never mind creepy or scary. Seeing the real ones again, however briefly, was fabulous.

A decent episode in parts, but as a non-fan of Simm's Master and of the execrable Missy I can't get too enthusiastic about most of it.

 

[tomalak301]

Erm, they did the Master reveal at more or less 45 minute mark as the episode only runs around 45 minutes. That isn't to say at times it didn't feel like they weren't padding the episode but te Master reveal was always likely to be the cliffhanger. Just have to wait and see what part 2 brings and if the story could have worked as a 60-7 minute special instead of a 90minute two-parter.

You do know BBC America runs commercials right?

 

[φ of π]

I also wondered this, and asked that question myself in this thread.

But then now thinking about it, right now, what if Missy is someone else that has say gone mad for whatever reason with the life, and the Doctor, maybe she's someone we all know, like Susan.

So perhaps the reason she couldn't call herself "The Master" isn't because she's now female, but because someone else already has that name...

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

So perhaps the reason she couldn't call herself "The Master" isn't because she's now female, but because someone else already has that name...

Quite possibly........

Would people hate it if she's Susan?

 

[TommyR01D]

Quite possibly........

Would people hate it if she's Susan?

Yes.

 

[StCoop]

So according to Moffat the pre-credits sequence was only shot in the past couple of weeks, hence Capaldi having finally gone the full Pertwee hairwise and they still haven't finished some shooting left fot "The Doctor Falls" a week before transmission. Waiting for certain actors/actresses to be available?

 

[Lonemagpie]

Well, he said it isn't "finished" but he didn't specify "shooting" - but I suspect it's entirely likely the want to stick David Bradley/Richard Myal/whoever in there for a cliffhanger to Xmas.

I wonder which scene from last night is the one they left out of the preview discs? (Apparently it wasn't the last scene)

 

[Australis]

I've been watching some reaction vids on YT. The common reaction?

"Nonononononononononoooo!"

 

[StCoop]

I wonder which scene from last night is the one they left out of the preview discs? (Apparently it wasn't the last scene)

According to the Radio Times some (but oddly not all) of the review copies had the opening scene omitted.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

So.... Someone at TV Tropes has listed in the recap page under Freeze Frame Bonus that there's a momentary shot of a girl standing at one of the city windows who looks a lot like Heather from "The Pilot"... Bill's possible "happy" ending?

Do you know when exactly? I actually looked at the windows to see if anyone was looking down but I didn't spot anyone, although I didn't pause the episode to look more closely.

Thinking about this more, Bill's shooting would have to be part of the Master's plan all along. The proto-Cybes who come up to the bridge to take her must have been gone for a considerable period of time as far as the bottom of the ship is concerned (over a year if Bill's relative time watching the Doctor is to be believed), yet they must have been some of the earlier experiments as the conversion process isn't much further along. So why waste resources on what is likely a multi-year mission to capture and convert one human? Unless the Master had planned to lure the Doctor in and grab whatever companions he had with him...

That makes a lot of sense and I think it's pretty safe to say it was his plan all along. Why else put on a disguise? And don't mention Time-Flight.

Yeah, the AGMGTW and TPO versions were meant to be our universe Cybes, likely having encountered remnants of the Cybus versions and incorporated the design.

As mentioned upthread, the Mondasians were only seen in The Tenth Planet and were all destroyed when Mondas went bye-bye. The versions from the rest of the classic series (and the AGMGTW onwards versions) are Telosian or other offshoots of Mondas. The guy who used to play the Cyber-Leader in the classic series wrote a book trying to create a timeline for how these versions came about, and thus why appearances change over time.

He posited that some Mondasians used their limited spaceflight to hop off Mondas to "Planet 14" as it was hurtling out of the solar system. These split into several groups - those who favoured only enough Cyber-implants to survive, and those who went gung-ho for full upgrades, though over time it mattered little - some went off to try and explore space (eventually colonising Telos) and others tried to attack Earth (explaining why there could be a Cyber-invasion in the UNIT era whilst Tenth Planet was set later on) - one of the ships from the attack in The Invasion survived on the moon, leading to The Moonbase (which was earlier in the Doctor's timeline but later in Earth's...).

Ah, that's interesting, I didn't realize that actor wrote a timeline to make sense of it all. Those conjectures make a lot of sense and would make it a lot easier to believe that Spare Parts can still exist alongside this episode.

Having found the episode pretty boring for the most part (the fact I detest Missy really didn't help), the last 10 or so minutes really picked up. And then pseudo-Zathras turned out to be Simm's pseudo-Master and it all went down the gurgler again. Too bad. It was building into something worthwhile until then.

Still, seeing proper Cybermen - rather than the pathetic lockstep-marching things new Who has "featured" to date - was great. Hearing them was probably even better. A pity Bill's been turned into one; ditching Nardole would have been better.

That's because I've never found new Who's Cybermen even remotely interesting, never mind creepy or scary. Seeing the real ones again, however briefly, was fabulous.

A decent episode in parts, but as a non-fan of Simm's Master and of the execrable Missy I can't get too enthusiastic about most of it.

While I disagree with you () about the episode as a whole, I absolutely agree on your take about the Cybermen. We haven't had a great, let alone good, Cyberman story since The Invasion (although Earthshock has some good things going for it). Well, not counting the number of great stories Big Finish has produced and not just Spare Parts.

So according to Moffat the pre-credits sequence was only shot in the past couple of weeks, hence Capaldi having finally gone the full Pertwee hairwise and they still haven't finished some shooting left fot "The Doctor Falls" a week before transmission. Waiting for certain actors/actresses to be available?

Oh, that's an interesting notion indeed. Where did Moffat say that?

 

[Lonemagpie]

Oh, that's an interesting notion indeed. Where did Moffat say that?

He mentioned it "not being finished" when asked about the transmission time in the Q&A last night.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Ah, okay. I haven't watched the Q&A's. Are those available online?

 

[captainkirk]

I hope Chibnall is smart enough to know that saying "Doctor Who" in an episode is not clever in any way. And that saying it repeatedly is downright stupid. The opening was painful for me because like @Orac Zen I cannot stand Missy, but the creepy atmosphere was cool, and count me as one of those who fell for Zathras Master. I figured it out a while before he took off his mask, but if it hadn't been spoiled before hand it would have been a big surprise.

 

[Redfern]

Somehow, I got it in my head months ago this was to a three part story. But I probably got that confused with the "monks" narrative. Obviously, I lost count somewhere. Last night's was the 12th of the season? Hmm...

Speaking of homages, anyone catch the musical "sting" when Nardole and the Doctor enter the surgical theater? The portly companion sees one of the "patients", gasps and then we hear a deep pitched, double "chime". Possibly just my imagination, but to me, it sounded like a nod to the music from "Earthshock".

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Master invented the Cybermen (unless he was just taking advantage of a situation) so he is therefore responsible for the death of Adric and the Dinosaurs.

 

[kirk55555]

The Master invented the Cybermen (unless he was just taking advantage of a situation) so he is therefore responsible for the death of Adric and the Dinosaurs.

That logic would make The Master the greatest hero in the franchise

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Somehow, I got it in my head months ago this was to a three part story. But I probably got that confused with the "monks" narrative. Obviously, I lost count somewhere. Last night's was the 12th of the season? Hmm...

Last night's was episode 11 of the season. Only 12 episodes this season plus the Christmas special.

The Master invented the Cybermen (unless he was just taking advantage of a situation) so he is therefore responsible for the death of Adric and the Dinosaurs.

Not necessarily. He's only responsible for one of the iterations of the Cybermen.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Yeah, I'd say he "speeded" the process of their creation up.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Harold Saxon must have been cutting his teeth in government during the battle of Canary Wharf.

You know how Cyberwoman is the worst?

Last nights new episode really recontextualized how bad Cyberwoman was.

 

[The Wormhole]

I'm surprised so many are asking why Missy seems to have forgotten experiencing this as the Simm Master. We know from Day of the Doctor that the War and Tenth Doctors forgot those events after going their separate ways. Okay, it is a legitimate question why Missy forgot her time living on the ship as the Simm Master, but again in Day of the Doctor the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors thought the War Doctor was from after detonating the Moment, despite the fact that according to their memories that's what caused him to regenerate. Granted, that was the result of Moffat lifting dialogue written with Eccleston in mind without adjusting it, but it still works as a canonical precedent.

I hope Chibnall is smart enough to know that saying "Doctor Who" in an episode is not clever in any way.

Don't worry, Moffat's the only writer who seems to get a thrill out of doing that, he even did it in the RTD era, although RTD himself did that three times.

Sadly, one time Moffat actually did come up with a good "Doctor Who" line RTD asked him to remove it. In The Empty Child when the Doctor gets after Rose for telling Jack his name is "Dr. Spock" and Rose defends that she needed to say something before Jack asked "Doctor Who?" The Doctor would have then responded "I prefer Doctor Who over Star Trek."