Fiction Break: A Still Point In Time 5

Stark Expo, 13 June, 1942

Clara strolled into the Modern Marvels Pavilion, arm-in-arm with the handsome young man she thought would one day become Captain America. She took in the sights, gasping appreciatively as the dark-haired man in uniform pointed at the displays. The Doctor was doing his best to ignore the scrawny young man that Barnes had brought along with him, surreptitiously scanning with his sonic screwdriver when no one was looking. Clara wasn't sure why they needed the disguises, let alone why the Doctor was holographically disguised as a young woman, but she was playing along for now.

They had passed a display that claimed to be a robot of some kind, but looked like a man in a red suit, when the Doctor's face lit up and he pulled Clara and Barnes towards a stage where a red car was parked.


via Gfycat

"Ladies and gentlemen, Mister Howard Stark!" came a disembodied voice as a dapper man with a moustache and top hat joined several showgirls in front of the car. He gave one a kiss before trading his top hat for a microphone and addressed the crowd, "Ladies and gentlemen: What if I told you that in just a few short years, your automobile won't even have to touch the ground at all?" The showgirls removed the tires, and then the man flipped a switch.

The car began to hum and lift slowly off the ground. Clara gasped a little, and then giggled when she heard the Doctor scoff slightly, the sound of which was amusingly strange coming out of his now-feminine mouth.

He tilted his hand towards the stage as the sonic screwdriver pitched up and whined in sync with the hum of the car. Suddenly, sparks flew from the gadgets in the wheel well and the car dropped gracelessly.

"I did say it'd be a few years, didn't I?" The dapper man said, still smiling, and the crowd applauded.


The Time Vortex

After she'd had her fill of dancing with her new friend Bucky, Clara and the Doctor returned to the TARDIS. "Do you plan on staying that way?" she asked.

"Hm? Stay what way?" he answered distractedly, already working the control console.

Clara gave him an arch look and gestured at the Doctor's red dress and platinum curls.

"Oh, right, that." He cleared his throat and flicked a switch, the hologram vanishing and his vulture-like features returning.

Clara breathed a sigh of relief. "So what was all that back there? I don't recall flying cars in my own time, let alone the 1940s."

"Exactly right." He adjusteda few controls to bring up a diagram of lines extrapolated from the scalpel. "The man you just saw on stage was Howard Stark. In your universe, he was killed by a corporate rival of his family as a teenager. In this universe, he lived to adulthood and was a prolific inventor. What we saw was the tipping point of this timeline. In one version, the car levitates successfully, he gets a government contract, flying cars in World War II, Nazis copy them, chaos ensues. In another timeline, the car failed catastrophically, killing Stark." The Doctor turned the dial again, revealing another timeline. "According to the TARDIS databanks, this was the best possible outcome. Stark lives, Captain America is born, and a golden age of super heroes is ushered in decades later."

"But, Doctor, that's three."

"Ehm?"

Clara's brow furrowed, "That's three. You said earlier there were two timelines, but you just listed off three."

"Well, there was a war on, Clara," the Doctor grumbled, "It's possible I miscounted."

Clara giggled at his irritation, and as the Doctor noticed he decided to change the subject, "What say we go give the good news to our friend in Lagos?"


Lagos, Nigeria 2018

It had been several years since he had last seen them, but Isaiah still remembered the excitable old man and his pretty young companion when they returned. He was grateful to hear that he'd no longer be seeing things that weren't there, even if he didn't quite understand what the old man was saying. (Isaiah's grasp of English was quite strong, but he wasn't so sure of the Doctor's.) He waved to them as they left, smiling and laughing and enjoying a job well done.

snap

But… something wasn't quite right. Isaiah looked down at his hand. Flecks of dust were coming off of it. The more he shook it, the more dust fell. As the Doctor and Clara stepped into their box, Isaiah tried calling out to them, tried to let them know something was wrong, but by the time he could, he'd already blown away in the hot, dry air of Lagos.

Fiction Break: A Still Point In Time 4

Stark Expo, 13 June, 1942

Strains of Glenn Miller's In The Mood wafted over the warm summer evening air punctuated by fireworks, masking the groaning sound of the TARDIS landing behind a cotton candy stand. The door opened, and Clara stepped out wearing a cushy beige cardigan and matching dress. She stopped and admired the fireworks bursting in the sky behind the giant globe that sat in the center square of the Expo. The Doctor stepped out behind her and noticed Clara glaring at him.

"What?" he said innocently.

"You insisted that I dress period-appropriate, reasoning that we were guests in this timeline, but here you are in a hoodie and jumper that look like they were attacked by a ravenous pack of moths."

"Oh, that's fine. Here, problem solved," Clara's eyes widened as the wizened visage of the Doctor melted away into that of a woman no older than her, blonde hair in a style fashionable for the 1940s and wearing a red floral-print dress.

"What... wait, what exactly did you just..." Clara was having trouble finding the words to describe what she'd just seen. The Doctor smiled through the young woman's face, and his voice came in a soft American accent as he held up a small device that looked like a pager.

"Image inducer. The TARDIS databanks found it in the aborted timeline and replicated the technology. Because it keeps trying to reassert itself, little parts of the other timeline bleed through. This little gadget is amazing, it's like a cross between the holographic clothes we wore to see the Papal Mainframe and the TARDIS's own perception filter. You probably haven't noticed, but you're speaking in American accent now, too."

Clara clutched at her throat momentarily, but the Doctor strode off in his patent leather pumps, continuing to talk, "Now then, the information I was able to pull out of our rodent friend's temporal dissection says that Captain America himself is witness to the focal point in time that caused the straw to go all bendy. We just have to follow him there and make sure it's fixed."

"And how do we do that? Wouldn't he be off punching Nazis? We are in the thick of World War II," Clara asked, following towards a pair of large statues.

"Easy. I had the TARDIS send him a psychic message. He thinks he's set up a double date with a friend of his and a couple of pretty young girls. Now, the image inducer has me covered, but do you think you can manage to pretend to be a pretty young girl for a few minutes at least?"

Clara bristled for a moment, "Doctor, I am a..." she started, before trailing off as her eye caught a handsome young dark-haired man in a dress uniform. "That must be him, yeah? He's cute. I can't just call him Captain America, though, can I? I mean that's not him yet."

"I think he goes by Bucky now," The Doctor said, fiddling with his screwdriver while Clara flagged down the soldier. He smiled, and approached with his short, slight blonde friend in tow. As they met, the soldier draped his arm around Clara and the Doctor ignored his friend. They all strolled together into the Modern Marvels Pavilion.


To be Concluded

Fiction Break: A Still Point In Time 3

Back on board the TARDIS (now thankfully free of whatever potentially toxic fumes had exploded from the console), Clara changed into a less dusty and soot-covered outfit. She'd spent a surprisingly small amount of time crawling through burned-out buildings, but a hot shower to get the dust out of her hair felt good. Nigeria's weather was very different to the cool, damp shores of England.

Having teased the last of the water from her hair, she joined the Doctor on the TARDIS's upper level where he was standing with his hands on his hips and a look of consternation on his face. Surrounding him were a pair of chalkboards with what looked like crude drawings of professional wrestlers; what looked like a film projector with the silver scalpel where the film should be; and an old-fashioned boxy console screen on a long mechanical arm dropping from an indeterminate point in the ceiling.

She studied the crude chalk drawings. "I knew a girl growing up whose whole family was in wrestling. She was quite a bit younger than me, but I bet she went into it."

"What does any of this have to do with wrestling?" The Doctor frowned. "Oh, you mean these?" He pointed at the chalk sketches. "I've been pulling information from the tracking knife and correlating it with what the TARDIS has been soaking up from local media and historical records. It's really quite fascinating."

Clara braced herself for a storm of nonsensical words and long-winded explanations when the Doctor rounded on her with what appeared to be a little plastic man. "Meet Captain America!" Clara stared at the little plastic man, dressed in blues and whites with touches of reds and carrying a tiny disc of red and white.

"Captain what now?"

"America! He was a sickly, underfed boy whose parents were Irish immigrants. He signed up for the Army during World War 2 and fought a secret division of the Nazis called Hydra!" The Doctor's eyes were sparkling with the child-like gleam that Clara adored.

"I think I remember hearing about him, but Doctor, he was a comic book. He wasn't real." Clara immediately regretted saying that, as if she were telling a child that Father Christmas wasn't real.

"Then explain this," he said, pulling the console screen down by the knob. It held what looked like news footage of a man in a more modern and sleek version of the toy's uniform leaping over a car and flinging his metal disc. It ricocheted off three aliens that looked halfway related to Silurians before returning to the man's hand. As he fought through a larger group of the aliens, Clara caught a glimpse of what looked like a gold and red Cyberman, a woman in all black with startlingly red hair, and an absolute giant of a man with green skin.

The projector hissed and sparked and the picture suddenly changed, throwing the image of a large purple man with ceremonial robes being surrounded by people throwing lightning, shooting lasers from their eyes, and other fantastical things. Another hiss, another spark, and the projector now showed the building in Lagos, but complete and surrounded by a small army who were failing to hold off a man with what looked like knives protruding from his knuckles.

"They're all real, Clara!" She looked back to the Doctor, who had the most excited look on his face. A spark flew from the projector and a bell on the console clanged loudly, silencing any further questions she might have. The Doctor nearly flew over the railing, dashing down to the console in a blur and shouting "We have a destination! The still point we're looking for. The point where the straw goes all bendy!"

He looked at her, grinning like a madman. "The Stark Expo. June 13, 1942."

Fiction Break: A Still Point In Time 2

Clara followed as the Doctor stalked the wreckage of the building. For the most part, the TARDIS's telepathic field was doing its job and no one was giving them any funny looks as they clambered over charred walls and ducked under caution tape, but Clara could swear she'd periodically see people staring at them out of the corner of her eye only for them to be gone when she turned to look at them. Sure it wasn't her imagination, she decided to interrupt the Doctor's grumbling search.

"So... I'm sure it's just my imagination, but I keep seeing people... I don't know, noticing us? And then when I look again they're gone. What's up with that?" she asked, only half-expecting a reply from him.

"You're right, it's your imagination. But they really are there. Well, only they aren't." His explanation was only leaving her more confused, which must have been apparent on her face, so with a great sigh, he stopped, dropping the piece of rubble he'd surely not been about to lick, and gave her his full attention.

"You remember when I said this was the wrong Lagos?" he asked, pulling a straw from his pocket, "Well, imagine this straw is your Earth. Your 2016, with your Lagos and your Nigeria. Now this," he pulled another straw from his pocket, "is where we are now. A parallel universe. Now, see the bendy part in this straw? At some point, the history of this world went all bendy. Right now, we're bent off to one side, but for some reason our new friend back there, Isaiah, can still see the other bendy bit. So can we, to a certain extent, because we're not even from this straw. We're so far not from this straw that the bendy bit is actually confusing the TARDIS computers to the point where she can't find the hole she came in through."

Clara pondered this for a moment. "Okay. I think I get it. I'm not asking where you're pulling all these straws from, but we jumped from one to the other, and you're trying to figure out where the straw went all bendy and straighten it, right? That way we can get back to the right straw?" When he nodded, she pressed him, "So what are you looking for?"

"Organic matter," he said, pulling the box out of his pocket again, "so I can use this."

"You're gonna make me ask what's in the box, aren't you? It's not a head, is it? Awful small head if it is."

The Doctor knelt, apparently finding what he was looking for. He shoved his arm into a hole near the bottom of a burnt-out wall and pulled it back holding a half-crushed, lightly singed, and certainly very dead rat. Clara cleared her throat uncomfortably as the Doctor knelt, opening the box and placing the rat on the ground next to it. From the box he pulled a large silver scalpel that seemed to have some arcane, indecipherable writing on it.

"It's called a tracking knife. I nicked it from some particularly nasty characters living in a pocket of looped time. They'd use it to dissect living things, garner secrets from their timelines. It harvests biodata. I need an organic connection to this universe so I can track its timeline back to see where the divergence happened. We're looking for a still point in time, something that can be easily manipulated."

"And once we find that, we can go back and fix it? The knife is going to tell you all that by cutting up a dead rat?" Clara was still clearly uncomfortable with the dissection, but understood the reasoning behind it and looked on in interest as little lines of blue light began to appear in the air over the rat's now bisected body.

"I don't particularly feel like walking up to one of these nice people here and asking for a volunteer for a live temporal vivisection. It would be more effective, but it's more Missy's style than mine." The Doctor plucked at several of the strands, and they vibrated curiously. He manipulated the knife with suspicious skill, and several more intersecting strands appeared. "The knife should be able to get enough information for me to compare to the TARDIS databanks. I left the computer collating information from local sources, so we should be able to more accurately track down the bendy bits."

The strands began to coalesce into a single line, small symbols appearing at various points along it. The Doctor made a further cut and a fork appeared in them. "Gotcha," he said, standing and placing the knife gingerly back in the small box, "June 1943. Western Hemisphere, likely East Coast of the United States."

"Well, what are we waiting for then?" Clara asked, turning on her heel. "Let's go save a universe!"

Fiction Break: A Still Point In Time

In the spirit of Infinity War's crossovers...

The man shifted uneasily in his chair, scratching at his grayed temples. Across from him sat, to his eyes, a walking scarecrow and a very pretty (if out of place) girl. She looked annoyed, but the scarecrow man looked impatient, perhaps expectant.

The man's hand shook as he reached for the small tumbler of whiskey. He sipped, choked back a grimace, and took a deep breath.

"I know you are going to think I am crazy, but I believe very much so that I am not. Everybody in Lagos remembers the day the heroes came crashing through and 'accidentally' blew up the Wakandans," his voice catching on the word 'accidentally' like it held a bitter taste to it, "but no one remembers when the mutants came to Lagos. No one but me."

The scarecrow man's eyebrows furrowed together, and for a moment the man was afraid they would leap off of his forehead and assault him. There was a moment of quiet, then he continued.

"And that's not all. I remember both of these events, and I remember the great Apocalypse. I read in the news about the robots in Europe, but no one else remembers entire cities disintegrating. What's wrong with me, Mister Doctor?"


One Hour Earlier...

Clara stumbled out of the TARDIS, choking on the smoke that followed her through the doors. Whatever was burning in there, she decided, could not be anything but hazardous to her health, and she sometimes worried she'd breathed in far too much of it over the years she'd traveled with the Doctor. She took in a lungful of dusty air and looked around. Hot, dry sun beat down on her, and she was surrounded by the noises and smells of a bustling marketplace of a dusty, dry city. The Doctor came charging out of the doors, dispelling the cloud of smoke that had followed her, his coat covered in soot and his face crossed with more lines than she'd remembered before the explosion. He was muttering something to himself about time tracks, dimensional boundaries, and crossed realities until she interrupted him.

"Doctor? Doctor! Where are we?"

He stopped and looked around for a long second before sticking his finger in his mouth and holding it up in the air and pronouncing, "Lagos. Nigeria. Earth. 2016. But the wrong one." He glanced up at the side of a building that looked like it had seen better days. Several of the upper floors of the North side of it had suffered structural damage and had clearly been on fire recently. He frowned, digging in his pocket until he found a small wooden box, tilted the lid open, then shut it firmly and shoved it back in his pocket.

"How can it be the wrong one?" Clara asked, "Isn't there only the one Lagos?"

The Doctor looked supremely annoyed, "Clara, do you remember that awful bingy-bingy noise before the cloister bells started ringing? That was the TARDIS jumping off course. And then when the walls started closing in? Something went wrong with the dimensional stabilizer, and we got pushed through a weak point between universes. Wherever we are, it's not the right Lagos. For one thing, that building," he said, pointing up at the burned out husk, "isn't supposed to be all exploded. I should know, I had tea there just next week and it was still in one piece."

Clara, trying to keep up with the shifting tenses in his explanation, suddenly noticed an elderly Nigerian man staring at them in disbelief. She tugged at his coat and whispered under her breath at the Doctor.

"Doctor, I think that man there just noticed us."

"Well of course he noticed us. We just stepped out of a smoking blue box that probably made an awful racket landing and... hold on, that man just noticed us. The TARDIS telepathic fields must have malfunctioned and -"

Clara cut him off, "Then why hasn't anyone else noticed us?"

"Ah," The Doctor patted the pocket he'd stowed the box in, before starting off towards the man. Clara shook her head and followed.


...Now

His name was Isaiah, and the Doctor was drinking in every detail of his story. Every fantastical detail. In this world, it seemed, there'd been a swell of enhanced individuals -- soldiers and inventors, robots and aliens -- appearing through history and operating quite publicly. But Isaiah's story fell apart in several places as he tried to reconcile two very different versions of history that were living in his head. This was very distressing to him, especially as it seemed no one else remembered one set of events. The Doctor and Clara sat with him for a very long time, listening to all he had to share.

When Isaiah had finished his stories, one accounting of bizarre events from two perspectives throughout his remembered history, the Doctor leaned back in his chair, his eyebrows finally leaving attack position. He pulled a slender tool from his coat pocket, shoved it rudely in Isaiah's face, and pressed the button. Isaiah flinched at the green light on the tip and the whine it let loose. The Doctor snatched it away from him, popped open the tip, and stared intently at the shifting metal on the inside.

"Well then. It's little wonder you're so perturbed. Your consciousness is split between two versions of reality, one that doesn't exist anymore and the one that exists around you, and you can't reconcile the two. Part of that little human pea-brain is quite literally stuck in the wrong universe. But why? What makes you of all people special?"

Clara sunk her elbow into the Doctor's ribs, handing him a notecard that he studied intensely for a moment before grudginly bringing his gaze back to Isaiah.

"By which I mean 'I am terribly sorry to hear about your distress. I can only imagine how I would feel in your place, and I will do everything I can to resolve this situation for you. Shake hands and smile politely.' "

Clara rolled her eyes and looked apologetically at Isaiah as the Doctor took off towards the ruined building.


To be continued...

A Time to Live, a Time to Die... a Time to Regenerate

Man, I was *not* looking forward to this.. 

Has it really been six months? Spoilers...

So begins the final reprieve of Peter Capaldi, he who is too pure for this world, good enough to transcend any writing problems and turn any bad episode watchable, any decent episode memorable, and any great episode an absolute masterpiece. Sylvester McCoy may always remain my Doctor, but Capaldi is unequivocally the best Doctor. Which is why, even after two excellent seasons, two fun Christmas specials, and one hit or miss season, I wasn't at all looking forward to this episode. To paraphrase the Tenth Doctor, I didn't want him to go. To paraphrase the Twelfth Doctor, I did not want him to change.

But as he's taught me over many years, all things do change. We have to let go of things, let go of people. They won't always be around but we can always remember them. So how will we remember him, based on his farewell?

In a word: Gorgeous.

I am such a nerd. 

This may well be Moffat's best episode since taking over the show (let's face it, nothing's going to beat The Girl In The Fireplace), and definitely in the top 3 for director Rachel Talala who, for the record, is no slouch herself, having not only directed rather good episodes of Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Supernatural, Haven, and Continuum (all... or most, at least, excellent sci-fi shows) but also Tank Girl and one of the better Nightmare On Elm Streets. Talalay seems to be Moffat's directorial big gun, as he's put her in charge of all of Capaldi's finale episodes, most notably the masterpiece that is Heaven Sent. She's got a real gift for Capaldi's style.

Let's get one thing out of the way first, as it's the only real complaint that I have about this episode and I need to be very clear about why I have a problem with it: the First Doctor was not a raging sexist, and the lines about Polly or Bill cleaning the TARDIS or a man being a nurse are horribly out of place. One was not discriminatory in being a grumpy old asshole. Unless your name was Susan, you were fair game. Just ask Ian Chesterton. I'm trying to pretend that most of those comments were for the Captain's behalf.

OK, you get a pass for one of the most beautiful moments in human history.

Getting that out of the way, though, David Bradley's performance as the First Doctor is absolutely spot-on. While his face my be different, his performance is eerily reminiscent of William Hartnell's original portrayal. He hit all of his marks perfectly, catching the nuances of being a man both younger and older than Capaldi's Twelve, and the chemistry between himself and Capaldi's Doctor's is brilliant. Possibly the best I've seen, even better than Smith and Tennant's interactions. The disapproving looks Bradley shoots Capaldi, and the uncomfortable embarrassment of twelve extremely long lives between them on Capaldi's behalf speak volumes more than could be expected.

One thing I thought I'd have a problem with, but didn't, was Bill Potts. I'm on record as saying that Bill turned out much better than I'd hoped and expected, and her ending was just that: an ending. A clean break, with a satisfying end that had been telegraphed properly and tied up all the loose ends. So when I heard she was coming back, it felt wrong, but tying it into the main story gave us an opportunity not to continue her story, but to give a proper coda, an epilogue. "The post-script of Bill Potts", so to speak, and it was handled unexpectedly well. What was really unexpected, and handled even better, was the gift given to Twelve: his memory of Clara. By this point in the episode I was already tearing up (especially after the Captain identified himself), and when she appeared to him by way of the glass constructs, I audibly sobbed.

The most important takeaway, though, is that this episode was small and quiet. Very little actually happened, the vast majority of the episode being character-based moments: a final bit of growth for some, and a proper farewell for others. And I bring this up because it's what Christmas specials mostly aren't. From The Christmas Invasion all the way through The Return of Doctor Mysterio, Christmas specials have been all about giant spectacle and high-level emotional moments, with a healthy side dish of absolute silliness. Twice Upon A Time bucks that trend, and for its own benefit, as the big action-packed scene lasts maybe 30 seconds and is over halfway through the episode, leaving us time to become involved with the characters and invested in them.

Have you ever had to say goodbye to yourself?

Which brings us to the regeneration. What are we able to glean from that short moment?

• There's the obvious: Jodie Whittaker is the Thirteenth Doctor now. 
• She's kept her accent, from what I can tell from the one phrase we've gotten: "Aww, brilliant!" 
• She can pull some great facial expressions so far. 
• Most importantly, they let her crash the TARDIS. This genuinely had me worried, as every modern Doctor so far has done so in their regenerations, save maybe War-to-Nine, and Thirteen has managed to crash the TARDIS in spectacular fashion, perhaps only second to Eight-to-War (which I'm barely counting, considering that he only parked inside a crashing ship). 

This was very important to me, considering the highly-charged gender politics of the Current Year™, as I was afraid that Thirteen would be treated with inappropriate kid gloves and land the TARDIS safely or leave it parked during her regeneration. Turns out they went balls out (no pun intended) and not only did she blow out the console with her regeneration, but she managed to detonate the central column and get unceremoniously ejected out the front doors mid-flight to fall to her apparent death. Good show, Thirteen. I can't wait to see what happens next.

I'll have you know I made it through this entire review
without a single woman driver joke.

This is absolutely a cannot-miss of an episode. It's emotional, quiet, intense, and touching. The only negative points are the blatant and out-of-character sexism of the First Doctor, and so many things that simply shouldn't work actually end up working really well.

The Exponential Outrage Theorem

I'd like to propose a thought experiment. (Bear with me here, I've always been rubbish at maths.)

Something big, something monumental is announced. This thing that is announced is a change. Let's say, just for the example, the casting choices in a major science fiction franchise.

One hundred idiots get mad about this change and over-react. From the reaction of these one hundred idiots, a far Left or far Right blog whips up an article containing six tweets from people who are literal nobodies with an insignificant amount of followers (I don't use my Twitter, so let's say 24. 24 sounds like a nice insignificant number.)

Ladies, gentlemen, and multi-forms, your Twitter nobody.

One thousand people read this article, and become outraged by the "huge backlash" of the one hundred over-reacting idiots. They, in turn, overreact. Ten more extreme-end blogs write articles, including the six tweets and six more attacking the original. Ten thousand people read these articles and are now annoyed. They start a hashtag movement which catches the attention of a few mainstream news sites, which write about the massive outrage over the initial decision, more than likely using words like "manbabies", "piss babies", or "garbage humans." One hundred thousand people read this article and are now annoyed. The reaction is no longer the story -- the outrage is -- and it continues well into the millions.

So, then. On a completely unrelated note. What do I think?

Nice coat.

I think she's not Peter Capaldi. But then, as much as I adore Peter Capaldi's Doctor, I knew it wouldn't be forever. Like the man himself said, nothing is sad until it's over, then everything is. Everything ends, and it's always sad, but everything begins again and that's always happy. So I'll let the Doctor handle everything else. To me, he's been the best thing about the show since it came back, and I pity anyone who has to follow in his footsteps.

Capaldi's final episode hasn't even aired yet (spoilers!) so we're a little premature on pronouncing judgement on her ability. Do I like the choice? I have no idea yet. But she shows promise, and I maintain there has never been a bad actor in the role. Strange choices, maybe, but never bad ones. Here's what I think:

• I remember her from Attack the Block and Broadchurch, and looked up a series she'd starred in on Netflix called The Assets. 
• I think she's a talented actor. Does a surprisingly good American accent. 
• I think she's very distinctive-looking, which is far more important than attractive for the role. Prominent nose, high cheekbones, slightly strange-looking (Erin's informed me that saying someone "looks a bit like a ferret" isn't a flattering thing that normal people do, even after I assured her that I think ferrets are adorable), I think she looks distinctive enough for the role. Smith and Tennant both looked a bit weird, with Tennant being very thin and goofy but exuding confidence, and Smith looking like a literal alien with vaguely unformed facial features and an enormous chin. 
• I think she has enough intensity and range to play the role, and the outfit they chose for her looks decent, if a bit unremarkable, but no Doctor keeps the same outfit forever - even Eccleston changed his jumper periodically. 
• I was hoping for Emma Thompson if we were going female Doctor, but then I doubt the BBC could afford her.

So as far as Jodie Whittaker goes, I'm definitely going to give her a shot. This isn't the first time I've lost a beloved Doctor and I'm not about to quit watching because I'm not 100% sure on the 'new guy.' If I were type to do that, I'd never have seen Paul McGann be tremendously let down by his TV movie or Eccleston shine for a year. But as I said, there's never been a "bad Doctor."

There has, however, been bad writing. One thing we need to keep in mind is that all the groundwork that's been laid for this change to happen is due to the allegedly EVOL MISOGYNERD that is Stephan Moffat. The Corsair, the General's regeneration, Missy, River changing from white to black and back to white, and even Eleven's throw-away line wondering if he was a girl because of his hair all happened under his watch. Now Moffat's leaving the show, and the incoming show-runner, Chris Chibnall, wrote one very good and several very bad episodes of Torchwood, and was the show-runner for the two series it was on BBC.  He wrote several episodes of Doctor Who that... varied in quality. And while it's true that Broadchurch was his show, it was equal parts good and very, very slow and grim.

Moreover, Chibnall is a fan. As a friend and I recently discussed, fans should be kept well away from the reigns of the show, and Chibnall once appeared on the BBC in his capacity as a fan bemoaning the state of the writing during Colin Baker's tenure. While he wasn't wrong, this would be like a modern fan (say myself or my friend) publicly decrying the state of the writing under Stephen Moffat, then decades later running the show ourselves, and that would be very, very bad. I'm more worried that, in a year or two, we'll be begging Moffat to come back than we will be wishing Jodie hadn't come on board.

I have a final thought here: If you're celebrating something based on the negative reaction that you feel a demographic will have, then you're celebrating it for the wrong reason. The legions of "screaming manbabies" have not manifested. The outrage against Jodie Whittaker is as overblown as "black stormtrooper" or the "Fury Road boycott.' In fact, the demographics of the outrage are so wrong that even The Mary Sue has had to address it (albeit in their condescending and short-sighted way), admitting that there are a substantial number of women that aren't satisfied with the decision (the words "internalized misogyny" were thrown around).

Don't mistake this for me saying you're not a "real fan" or a "fake nerd." I'm saying that if you're salivating at the thought of "evil white men", you might be valuing message over entertainment. You may be a fan for the wrong reasons. And it's supremely annoying to someone who considered the Doctor a role model not because he was a man, but because he was clever and cared and helped people while trying not to resort to violence. As Twelve would really like to hear, he was, all in all, a good man. And I hope he can be a good woman, too.

I just hope it doesn't get lost in causes and messages.

Doctor Who: A Final Reprieve

Spoilers.

So here we come at last, the mysteries having been unraveled. The Doctor Falls, for the first 42 minutes or so (the average length of an episode) is, no doubt, very good. The clever flashbacks of the Doctor outsmarting both Masters while tied to a wheelchair and the house under siege were all very serviceable, with the stand-out moments being the cognitive dissonance of Bill barely holding her personality intact inside of a Cyberman body to the point which she still only sees herself while everyone else is skittish and fearful around her, and the Doctor showing shame for the first time since choosing to not save Davros in last year's premiere episode.

But I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about the extra innings. The last 20 minutes or so.

From the moment Missy and the Master approach the elevator onwards, the episode ramps up to full speed and delivers one blindsiding knockout blow after another. The unanswered question of why Simm's Master regenerated; Missy's change of heart and loyaties; the mutual backstabbing -- Missy with an Assassin's Creed style wrist knife, Simm's Master with a laser screwdriver blast and the implication that she won't regenerate from it.

Make no mistake, though: I completely believe that Missy is not dead, and the trick she pulled earlier in the episode proves it. That woman who told him a long time ago to always carry a spare regeneration circuit,? That was Missy telling him that then. But when did she actually tell him? She'd have to have gone back earlier, as obviously wasn't carrying one then.  No, Missy made it off that forest floor somehow, I firmly believe that. Besides, The Master's been far more dead than just a body on a forest floor. 

Master, Rule Thyself

And in that vein, I'd also like to take note that Michelle Gomez and John Simm have downright astounding chemistry. Capaldi and Gomez have chemistry, but I'd like to think that Ainley and Delgado,  if they could see Simm and Gomez, would have been proud of how well they chewed the scenery together. It was simply amazing watching them work side by side in what I believe to be the first multi-Master story. The hints of Ten's sad motifs were a nice touch in the opening scenes as well. contrasting neatly with Missy's motif of eerie chanting just before the assassination.

Also, Missy's umbrella is sonic. I adore that.

Bill's story is also neatly wrapped up with a season-long Chekhov's gun (something that Moffat is getting progressively better at) as her grief summons Heather, aka The Pilot from the first episode of the series, and turns what could have been a throwaway line into a completely justified Deus Ex Machina and giving her a properly modern outfit for once.

I've been dreading this season for one reason and one reason alone: Peter Capaldi quickly became my favourite Doctor, rivaling even my childhood hero of Sylvester McCoy's Seventh Doctor. The Pilot's final act of compassion allows him to begin the regeneration process as he staggers about, flashing through his previous lives, before Twelve's innate stubbornness kicks in and he refuses to regenerate. His words echo in my heart as he proclaims he never wants to change again. I, too, would keep Capaldi for as long as he's physically capable of playing the role. But I know that isn't possible. 

"When the Doctor was me..."

It was at that point that I was granted the most wonderful gift I could possibly imagine. Twelve manages to stop his regeneration and is confronted by a familiar face: himself.

His first self, the cantankerous white-haired visage of the First Doctor, played by none other than the man who portrayed William Hartnell in An Adventure in Time and Space, an excellent docu-drama the BBC made about the creation and filming of the beginning of Doctor Who. With this being the last episode of the series, it can only mean one thing: the regeneration won't happen until the Christmas special, and it's going to be special indeed.

The parallels are perfect. The First Doctor fell, "wearing a bit thin" as both he and the War Doctor said, after turning back a Mondasian Cyberman invasion in The Tenth Planet. The implications of this absolute cracker of a blindside means that One is going to be there to ease Twelve through his regeneration, and it'll mark the first time the First Doctor's properly been in a story since his final one. His previous appearances have all been stock footage, filmed separately (due to illness in The Three Doctors), and played by Richard Hurndall who, while decent, is blown away by David Bradley's portrayal. I wonder if this has anything to do with the Caretaker's remark about re-visiting familiar faces... 

I *did* warn you about spoilers.

You absolutely, positively, cannot miss this episode. The episode alone is on par with my previous favourite of the series, The Lie of The Land, but the addition of Missy and The Master and the surprise appearance of the First Doctor tip the scales heavily. I have never so much been left on edge waiting for an episode that's still six months away.  

Doctor Who: The Cruelest Downgrade

The day's wearing a bit thin. I spent most of it drinking and watching NXT Women's matches. If you haven't seen Asuka in action, you really should.

Spoilers beyond here.

"Spoilers!"

This week's episode, World Enough and Time, which shares a title with a fan-produced episode of Star Trek famous enough to have its own Rifftrax commentary, certainly started with a hell of a teaser cold-opening, which was enough of a tease that it hardly needed the cliffhanger it gave us. A cliff-hanger which certainly didn't fail to deliver, but was still hardly on the level of the opener.

Seriously, how do you follow that opener? 

I have not been looking forward to these last few episodes. I've made no secret that Peter Capaldi has been an absolute revelation for me since Doctor Who relaunched in 2005. A cranky, grouchy old Scottish man who is completely out of touch and alien to the niceties of human society, a sort of "House in space" that sounds progressively more indecipherable the angrier he gets, he's been my hands-down favourite of the new series.

So last week's trailer definitely gave the impression we'd get a Missy solo/hero episode while the Doctor kicked back, much like the Doctor-Lite episodes of the RTD era, but it seems that wasn't the case, because as soon as things went pear-shaped in the 400-mile colony ship Twelve came bounding out of the TARDIS to save the day... only for Bill to die again. I swear, she's aiming to take down Rory's record for "Most times dying in a series". I did get serious shades of Red Dwarf from those beauty shots of the colony ship, though.

"Nardole, do something non-irritating." It's like Capaldi's reading my mind. 

The establishing scene was quite good, though, giving Missy a lot of time to show off. I was rather tickled by her early-series shout-out calling herself "Doctor Who" and referring to Bill and Nardole as "Thing One and the Other One" and "Exposition and Comic Relief." Missy seems as apt at breaking the third wall as Deadpool in this episode. 

Nice to see a familiar face. 

Science is pretty hard in this episode, what with the time dilation effect of the black hole the ship is trying to escape. I loved the little detail of the clocks telling two different times, one being only two days into the journey, the other being years, and the implication of the crew that went down to a lower floor never having reported back. For all we know, they're almost finished with their mission, but the bridge won't know for quite some time.

Erin says:  "Hard." Sure. Look, I like the nod to time dilation, but:

1) The clock said 365,200-something. 365,000 days is ONE THOUSAND YEARS. You expect me to believe that in a thousand years, the ship's engines kept going without breaking or running out of fuel? 

2) The engines are clearly spewing reaction mass OUTWARD with the nose of the ship pointing TOWARDS the black hole, and yet we're supposed to believe they're "reversing". 

Sorry, no. I'm not buying it. 

I know Erin had a problem with Missy not remembering the events of the episode, but I recall back to the ending of the 50th anniversary episode, where the War Doctor realized that, even though he'd tried to save Gallifrey, he wouldn't remember it, and would continue on to the PTSD-ridden Ninth Doctor when he regenerated, thinking he'd burned the planet in an attempt to stop the war. This is, of course, in reference the finale of the episode, where John Simm makes his return, sporting a glorious Master-goatee after his unmasking as Mr. Razor.

I readily admit that I was fooled throughout the entire episode, not realizing it was John Simm playing both parts. This was shocking, considering I'm a classic Who fan and should be used to the Master donning disguises for no real reason. The (Simm) Master is apparently unhinged from his own timeline (probably his own doing), leading to the meeting between him and Missy. My only question is where in his timeline is he? He mentions being Prime Minister, but his body was burned after the events of The Last of the Time Lords, and he didn't have the goatee when he returned in the specials. This must be after he forced Gallifrey back through the breach but before regenerating to Missy.

I think this qualifies The Master as a cosmic horror, as he is a thing that truly should not be, given that he's exhausted at least two regeneration cycles now: One during the classic series, transferring his conscious to another body in The Keeper of Traken, and again in the TV Movie, and then being resurrected by human ingenuity later on after refusing to regenerate. Keeping track of his deaths and timeline is something that's sadly even outside of my realm of ability. 

More sinister than you can pack in one picture.

The episode did a very good job of lulling us into a sense of false security with Bill, having her form a relationship with Mr Razor. Making us think she could be repaired after the prosthetics on her chest replaced her heart and lungs and then shocking us with the revelation that she was one of the first Mondasian Cybermen. For the uninitiated, Mondas was the planet the Cybermen were originally from. The majority of Cybermen that we've seen in the new series were offshoots of the Cybus Corporation from Pete's World. This may be the first actual confirmed appearance of the classic series Cybermen in the new series, and tying Bill into it makes it heart-wrenching, considering the telepathic "Wait for me" message the Doctor left in her sub-conscious. 

All in all, an excellent episode after last week's lull. A definite must-see. I am totally not looking forward to next week, as I don't want to lose Capaldi, but at the same time I can't wait to see what happens next. This is the first episode of the season that had me verbally going "No no no!" when the credits rolled. You cannot afford to miss this one.

Next week: "Will you stand with me?" 

Doctor Who: Death By Scotland

Well, that episode certainly happened, didn't it?

In all seriousness, The Eaters of Light isn't a bad episode. It's just a very small episode in which nothing of any great importance happens in the main story. There's a cave, a house, a field, a dodgy CGI monster that we barely see, and about a dozen young actors, one of whom screams very loudly, and half of whom are painfully Scottish.

Oh, and Bill falls down a hole again. I can't help but feel there's some sort of symbolism there, with Bill continuing to fall into holes.

But getting back on track: while this was a decently written episode, and well-filmed (especially the spacious open field shots), the lack of scale and obvious low budget makes it clearly apparent this is a filler episode where they saved money for the upcoming finale episodes. The trade-off for any actual content, unfortunately, means that this episode has enough Noggin scenes to make up for the entire series. He's on-screen probably as much in this episode as he is in every previous episode combined.

There were some good parts:

• The Doctor mentioning being a vestal virgin (second class) in Roman Britain (that's almost certainly the Eighth Doctor. Or maybe the Fifth. One of the pretty ones). 
• The conversation about humans no longer having intelligent conversations with crows, so they're all in a huff and no longer speaking to us. 
• The Doctor's brilliant popcorn maneuver. 
• Kudos to Bill for not only figuring out the TARDIS translation circuit on her own, but also being the first person to notice that it tricks your brain into seeing lip-synching as well. 
• The guest cast is serviceable enough for what they are: two groups of inexperienced kids. 
• The monster is an interesting design, but I'm not sure the CGI really does it any favours.

What else can I say about this episode, though? It's an obvious budget-saver episode, either because the BBC isn't giving the show as much money as it used to, or because they're saving up for a huge finale. There's exactly one thing memorable about this episode: the ending.

What will you do, how will you feel, when your sins catch up to you?

Missy's out of the vault and waiting for them in the TARDIS. The Doctor is extending a measure of trust to her, possibly hoping that trust will rehabilitate her. Surprisingly, the most poignant part isn't where she actually cries after taking his advice; it's when he isn't sure whether it's an act or not, and which might be worse. The implication here is that if someone who has done the things that she's done - committed the most vile and evil acts that she has - actually grows a conscience, she will be utterly crushed by the weight of all of that catching up to her.

"It's hard to resist."

"That's the trouble with hope. It's hard to resist." That's a line that'll stay with me for a very long time, given certain directions my life has taken recently.

Next week: The most retro-classic Cybermen in decades, and Missy gets her own adventure, with the last frames being the startling and terrifying appearance of John Simm with the one Master-esque thing he was missing from his previous appearances: the trademark evil goatee.

Doctor Who: Space 1889!

The Doctor breaking into NASA is starting to become a habit. He really does play the best pranks on them.

You may be wondering about the title of the review, given that the episode's name is actually Empress of Mars. Or you may not, given the audience. Space: 1889 was a tabletop RPG that had a Victorian Era English Empire exploring and colonizing various planets, but since I'm really not one for tabletop RPGs, I found it through an audio drama series produced by Noise Monster (run by an associate of Big Finish, who do the officially licensed Doctor Who audio dramas). So when I saw, in last week's preview, Victorian Era British uniforms and Ice Warriors, I was pumped. Does the episode live up to my hype?

I approached it with some trepidation, as the writer Mark Gatiss wrote one of the best episodes of the first season, the worst of the second, one of the better of season 5 and the lesser of season 6, two good ones in season 7, and two bad ones in seasons 8 and 9 (including one of my absolute worst, the eye-booger monster episode).

NASA really should have seen this coming by now.

So after using the same baggy orange spacesuits for the last 8 seasons, the Doctor has finally raided the wardrobe for some flattering sleek black suits for he and Bill, which I must say accentuate his trim figure while still being functional and giving a much more imposing presence. (They don't look so bad on Bill, either.)

I have very few problems with this episode -- chief among them being Bill surviving a fall early on that looks as if it really should have shattered her face -- but I can forgive that given it forces Nibble to exit the episode around this point in order to fetch Missy for a rescue, thus ensuring Michelle Gomez gets precious more screen-time. It's also odd that the TARDIS exited when it did; the last time the HADS went off was in Cold War, also in the proximity of an Ice Warrior. You'd think that the Doctor would have remembered to turn it off at some point.

There are already websites reviewing this episode as "Socially Conscious" (which I guess is a fancy way of saying "woke" now that "woke" is quickly falling out of favour amongst their crowd). I will rebut this: It is no more "woke" than any other episode.

• The British Empire was very imperialistic, thus statements like "We're British, Mars is part of the Empire now" wouldn't have been out of place had this happened. 
• Bill's response to the Colonel's disbelief that a woman would serve in the police is the exact opposite that a "woke" episode would have had. A "woke" episode would have had her give a lecture on woman power and equity and privilege imbalances etc, etc, but Bill simply says "I'll make allowances for your Victorian attitude... well, because you are Victorian" and leaves it at that. 
• Couple that with Twelve's poetic words about how vicious and yet how sensitive the Ice Warriors are, and Bill's comparison to Vikings, and you simply have an episode that is recognizing the differences and similarities between different people,  allwhile portraying historically-based characters accurately.

Finally! After 5000 years I'm free! It's time to conquer Earth!

Speaking of the Ice Warriors, it's good to see them again. They frequently top the "best classic bad guys" lists, despite not actually being that adversarial to the Doctor. The last time we met them was just a single soldier (albeit a very dangerous one). This time we see much more, even if they do their best to trick us visually by rarely if ever showing more than three on-screen at a time (a classic series budget-saving technique).

The exception to this, of course, being Empress Iraxxa, the titular Empress of Mars, who has a very striking visual design and a very imposing presence. When she first spoke, I could swear I'd heard her voice before, but the IMDB page for the actress, Adele Lynch, shows only this and a few episodes of The Bill. Quite an impressive performance on her part for someone with such a short CV! I have a feeling she's done her time on stage prior to this.

I would also like to mention that Ice Warrior weaponry, despite being completely bloodless, is horrifyingly brutal. That looks like an extremely unpleasant way to die.

If you know your Who history, and are paying attention, this episode loops back to a Third Doctor episode, with the Ice Warriors making contact with a familiar face... or eye, at least. Alpha Centauri of the Galactic Federation appears in two classic serials alongside the Ice Warriors (presumably taking place after this episode) and is voiced by none other than the original voice actor, Ysanne Churchman (who is now 92 years old!).

All in all, a very good episode. Not quite as good as Extremis, but as good as The Lie of the Land, I would say, and the second best this year. This season seems to be providing a lot of historical episodes: The Frost Fair, The British Empire, and next week we seem to be visiting the Romans and possibly dabbling in explaining some mythology (with aliens, I hope). But don't miss Empress of Mars. It's definitely worth a watch.

Doctor Who: History Is Written By The Victors

You may have noticed there was no review last week. This was because I felt that episode was on the uneventful side and was spending too much time setting up to something much bigger. This week, we'll be looking at both episodes, The Pyramid At The End Of The World and The Lie Of The Land, as they're both tightly interconnected with each other, and Pyramid works much better as the first half of the episode than it does as a stand-alone.

That said, for any sci-fi junkies out there, this is for you.

Dr Daniel Jackson is furious that he's not allowed in Turmezistan.

Pyramid is an interesting little mystery story with a very large threat looming in the background. We're privy to the events that are foretold by the Monks as they unfold while the Doctor, Bill, and the rapidly dwindling leaders of the world try to figure out what kind of threat would be so great as to make the Monks appear, offering to save us.

There's essentially two stories going on here, side by side, completely unconnected until the end of the episode. The A-story is serviceable: Nardy is tolerable, having toned down his more annoying tendencies; Bill is still dressed in 1990's finest; The Doctor is still pretending not to be blind, and has apparently been fumbling around the wardrobe, now wearing quite a flattering loose-fitting red shirt under his coat; and the Monks finally get some proper screen time, and they are superbly creepy. Like telepathic zombies wearing fine silk robes, they create a great visual dissonance between pristine and rotten. Even the Doomsday clock has a relevance, being something that most people are aware of already and having only recently been set again in our world.

The real star of the episode: this amazing outfit.

The B-story is a very Michael Crichton-esque outbreak story which, while also serviceable, suffers from one very, very glaring flaw: a super bacteria is created which could wipe out all life on Earth by misplacing a decimal point without a single automated alert that would either stop the process or notify the scientists. (Editor's Note: I was quite put off by the WTFery of a bio lab which automatically and irreversibly vented to the outdoors even during quarantine lockdown.)

I quite liked Erica, though. Although we're never quite sure what happened to her, I think we can be pretty sure she's dead. Single-episode companions that the Doctor likes, asks their name, and makes an offer to usually end up dead. See Kylie Minogue's character, Lynda with a Y, and several other examples.

Between that laugh and this smile? Capaldi can be terrifying.

Moving into Lie of the Land: this episode was much better, but suffered in a few places as well. It's a well-constructed episode, but it's a little too evocative of previous episodes, almost as if they took concepts that worked well enough as individual episodes and mashed them into a single episode:

• The Doctor losing and the bad guys using him (or his technology) to rule the world hearkens back to The Sound Of Drums/Last Of The Time Lords where The Master held The Doctor prisoner and used his TARDIS to hold back a paradox, while his (coincidentally, I'm sure) black, female companion was one of a few that knew the truth and participated in a resistance. 
• The resolution of the episode - using Bill's emotional connection to her mother to overcome the Monk's signal - was a "power of love" resolution like Closing Time's, where Eleven convinced a father to overcome a Cyberconversion to save his son. 

Still, despite the copied elements, there were a lot of themes at work in this episode that were really great, and I feel it's objectively better if only for Peter Capaldi's presence. Twelve played a long game with Bill that would have made Seven proud, giving her the photographs of her mother (that he took after she told him she didn't have any), as well as de-converting his own guards and giving Bill a test that rivaled Seven forcing Ace to question her faith in him in Ghost Light. His speech to her, touching on fascism and fundamentalism, free will and peace and order, was harsh, cold, and very, very believable, given how alien and detached Twelve gets at times.

The Doctor's place: Between Humanity and danger.

Episode Eight of the season takes us inside the vault (after a raucous scene of the Doctor crashing his prison ship into the coast with such maniacal laughter that, Erin and I agree, suggest Capaldi could play an excellent Joker), and we get an extended sequence with Missy. She's allegedly, in her words, going "cold turkey" from being evil, and Michelle Gomez does what she does best: doing her damnedest to steal every scene from Peter Capaldi. It's a huge credit to her that she's capable of playing so well against his intensity. I feel like they both get progressively more Scottish in every scene they share together, as Gomez's emphatic pronunciations of certain words ("gud") would be completely over the top coming from anyone else.

Twelve pays Bill an amazing compliment with "In amongst 7 billion, there's someone like you. That's why I put up with the rest of them." After her determination and bravery, I really feel she deserved it, too.

I would normally say Pyramid  wouldn't be a required watch, but it sets up Lie of the Land in such a way that you'd really be missing out a lot by skipping it. Lie, on the other hand, does not have the strongest story, and there are so many questionable moments of science that I can only recommend it on the performances of the cast alone, as well as another of the now-infamous trademark Capaldi monologues. If you enjoyed his scene-stealing moments in the Zygon two-parter or the masterpiece that was Heaven Sent, you'll enjoy several parts of this episode.

NEXT WEEK: SPACE 1899 AND I AM HYPED

Doctor Who: Down The Rabbit Hole

There is seriously no way I can discuss this episode without going into spoiler territory. This is the only warning you get. Anything past here and you risk spoilers. If you want the non-spoiler version, here it is: This episode is good. Very good. And you should go watch it, right now.

Elon Musk has posited before that there's a very good chance that we're all living in a highly sophisticated simulation during a talk. I've included an embedded link to a relevant video below, as the themes of this episode tie very closely into that theory. The misdirection and slight visual cues this episode uses to link that theory and give us clues begin with the opening title and continue at strategic points throughout the episode, until the moment where (with some great deal of satisfaction on my part) Narwhal is literally removed from existence. I suppose you could say that this is the first episode in which he doesn't appear at all, technically speaking. Which also explains why he was so much less annoying than usual.



Also, a tip of the hat to Stephen Moffat, who has finally justified the Sonic Sunglasses in my mind. In the Doctor's current blind state, the sunglasses provide him some form of mobility and sense, not quite on par with, say, Daredevil, but definitely in the same vein, as well as the perfect Chekhov's gun in the form of an electronic recording to send to himself. Well, his real self. Which we see happen in the beginning, but the interruption of the title sequence acts as a misdirection to pull our attention away from the giant EXTREMIS display.

Being a gamer myself, I was fascinated by this episode, and the usage of Grand Theft Auto and Super Mario Bros as analogy to explain to Bill what's going on was quite apt. Subroutines advanced enough to realize that they are in fact subroutines and not flesh and blood rebel against the simulation and "glitch." Having played quite a few games in my lifetime, I've seen a number of instances where an artificial intelligence for an non-player character will act in a manner seemingly outside of its programming. One can't help but wonder if it's some crude version of this happening. As for the Veritas itself, can this be the explanation of game-breaking bugs? An NPC realizing during the coding process that it's not real and sabotaging the code to the point that the game cannot be completed?

Harry Potter is blasphemy. Twelve said so.

This episode was very clever. It's full of little callbacks, references, visual cues, red herrings, and other such things that are meant to lead you to the conclusion while at the same time leading you away from it. It was the first time this year I wasn't just watching and was actively trying to figure out what was going on. There's occasionally digital artifacting that happens after the Doctor activates the Extremis file. The Pope traveling in person, which the Doctor remarks upon. Bill's outfit, as seen above, actually being modern and tasteful. Someone in the wardrobe department really hates her, as she's back in an ugly sweater by the end of the episode. The "portals" which are not unlike the windows Madame Kovarian uses to spy on Amy's flesh avatar. CERN somehow having a stockpile of Looney Toons dynamite on hand. The resolution also was quite satisfying, as even a copy of the Doctor ends up being clever enough to overcome his programming and sabotage the simulation enough to send a warning to his real-world counterpart, even if it's more evidence of how stultifyingly arrogant and confident in himself that he is.

Additionally, the monsters revealed in this episode may be alien, but they look like proper zombies, which is refreshing after the disappointment of the zombies in space of last week's episode, and they're promising as a series arc villain. Anyone else noticing that Bill is making quite the habit of dying, though? She's going to give Rory a run for his money if she keeps this up.

The vault's secret has been revealed. Missy, under guard for one thousand years, as per the Doctor's oath to the executioners, as shown in the flashbacks. How long has he been guarding it? That's what we're unsure of at this point. We know who is in the vault, and why she's there. What we don't know is how much longer she'll be there, and what will happen when she's out. The appearance of John Simm's Master will surely tie into that.

We all have that one friend we can't help but forgive. 

This one is a definite must-watch. The first definite must-watch of the season. I am outright impressed, and I urge you to watch this episode, and if you already have, watch it again with a more critical eye and foreknowledge. You'll see the clues that are leading you both on and off the path and just how well-crafted this one was.

Also, for the record, Penny is most certainly *not* out of Bill's league. If anything, it's the other way around.