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World Enough and Time (DW S10.11)
Meta café is... open. (Can it be? This has taken me most of the day/week!) So make sure you have a nice cup of tea and some refreshments as this is about 7000 words long. (Everything is connected...) With endless thanks to Promethia, as always. ♥
Poem here, in case you are not familiar:
To His Coy Mistress
becoming the master
I may have spent a great deal of this episode measuring up revelations against![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
aria’s the naming of things, which is THE Doctor/Master origin story and everyone should read it. For example:
MISSY: Also it's his real name.
BILL: It's what?
BILL: Sorry, what do you mean, it's his real name? Nobody knows the Doctor's real name.
MISSY: I do, because I grew up with him, and his real name is Doctor Who. Chose it himself, you know, trying to sound mysterious. And then he dropped the Who when he realised it was a tiny bit on the nose.
In my head, I have this scene between the very young Theta and Koschei stored:
You see?
But even moreso, there is a moment in the story when the Doctor chooses to ignore something he shouldn’t. It seems small, but it creates a crack which widens and widens until the two of them are too far apart to reach across the chasm.
And it seems like their whole history since has consisted of the two of them trying to bridge it - the Doctor trying to reach across, the Master mostly unable to reciprocate, despite wishing to. Except now - now it’s actually happening. And they might succeed.
It’s time for everyone to hold their breath, to see if the story can change.
The Promised Land
Here, at the end of Twelve’s story, it makes sense to go revisit the start. Because there are some very very interesting parallels. (Pardon all the lengthy quotes throughout the post.)
(The balloon and its gondola float over Saint Paul's Cathedral.)
DOCTOR: What do you think of the view?
HALF-FACE MAN: I do not think of it.
DOCTOR: I don't think of it. I don't. Droids and apostrophes, I could write a book. Except you are barely a droid any more. There's more human in you than machine. So tell me, what do you think of the view?
(The Half-Face Man gets up and draws back the net curtain. They are heading towards Westminster.)
HALF-FACE MAN: It is beautiful.
DOCTOR: No, it isn't. It's just far away. Everything looks too small. I prefer it down there. Everything is huge. Everything is so important. Every detail, every moment, every life clung to.
See the top of the ship, - and the bottom. One slow and measured, empty, the other teeming with life. Above and below. What do you see?
Interesting that in this episode it's the Master 'down there' where everything is so big and important - though, surely, never leaving behind the perspective from up above.
HALF-FACE MAN: How could you kill me?
DOCTOR: For the same reason that you're asking me that question, because you don't really want to carry on. What'll happen to the other droids when you die? You're the control node, aren't you? Presumably they'll deactivate.
HALF-FACE MAN: I will not die. I will reach the promised land.
DOCTOR: There isn't any promised land. This is just. It's a superstition that you have picked up from all the humanity you've stuffed inside yourself.
HALF-FACE MAN: I am not dead.
DOCTOR: You are a broom. Question. You take a broom, you replace the handle, and then later you replace the brush, and you do that over and over again. Is it still the same broom? Answer? No, of course it isn't. But you can still sweep the floor. Which is not strictly relevant, skip that last part. You have replaced every piece of yourself, mechanical and organic, time and time again. There's not a trace of the original you left. You probably can't even remember where you got that face from.
The droids; half human, half mechanoid, patched up with anything to hand, desperately trying to save themselves and escape, hoping for the Promised Land (the Top of the ship, Exodus), but becoming monsters in the process, forgetting who they were…
(The Doctor holds up a silver plate between himself and the Half-Face Man. The droid takes it, looks carefully, then drops it. From our perspective we see the Doctor’s face reflected)
HALF-FACE MAN: It cannot end.
DOCTOR: It has to. You know it does. And there's only one way out.
(The Doctor opens the doors.)
HALF-FACE MAN: Self-destruction is against my basic programme.
DOCTOR: And murder is against mine.
(They struggle in the doorway.)
Beautiful mirroring of monstrosity of the Doctor's own lifespan, as well as the Doctor debating perspectives on life and death with a dark mirror of himself. I have a feeling we should be remembering this conversation, going forwards.
HALF-FACE MAN: You are stronger than you look.
DOCTOR: And I'm hoping you are too. This is over. Are you capable of admitting that?
HALF-FACE MAN: Do you have it in you to murder me?
DOCTOR: Those people down there. They're never small to me. Don't make assumptions about how far I will go to protect them, because I've already come a very long way. And unlike you, I don't expect to reach the promised land.
(The Half-Face Man turns off his flame thrower. They release each other.)
DOCTOR: You realise, of course, one of us is lying about our basic programming.
HALF-FACE MAN: Yes.
DOCTOR: And I think we both know who that is.
At the end of S8, Promethia made this summary of the season, the imagery and the main story:
There was lot of talk of killing. And dying. What people are capable of, what they are willing to do to save others. But there is also a different dimension to the Doctor. From the S9 opener:
DAVROS: Compassion then.
DOCTOR: Always.
DAVROS: It grows strong and fierce in you, like a cancer.
DOCTOR: I hope so.
DAVROS: It will kill you in the end.
DOCTOR: I wouldn't die of anything else.
DAVROS: You may rely on it.
Prepare for your heart to be broken...
Fast Bottom
Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
The concept of this episode is an old one. In Moffat terms, he used it in his 2nd episode ever (Girl in the Fireplace) and again in Blink and the Library episodes. Not to mention The Girl Who Waited (possibly the best parallel to our current story). And of course, The Eaters of Light used this trope too. (For those wondering how Kar and the Romans fared, basically the cairn was on the top, and the rest of the world at the bottom.)
This narrative (humans on the slow path) was reversed in Time of the Doctor, when it was Clara on the swift path, the Doctor spending centuries guarding Trenzalore, highlighting how he could absorb that kind of time differential and quite simply carry on.
‘Wait for me’ the Doctor says, and Bill does as she is told (although not entirely voluntarily); years disappearing behind her as she is stuck in the hospital. Worlds away…
Because the spaceship contains actual worlds. We see a cross section as the camera pans past it - pastoral scenes of green, farmers’ fields - but all of it moving at different speeds, like a model of the universe almost:
The far end of it has been stuck there so long it is literally decaying and the people dying. From a crew of fifty, a whole population has been born and is now slowly dying. Had we but world enough, and time. It's like there's body horror happening here both on a personal level, with the cyber conversions, and on a macro level with time and earth and civilizations. The ship is like a cyber conversion of life itself.
Added to that, there's also something in the fact that the end of the ship that is closest to the black hole is the one with the least sense of dread to it? There is a dead star, a yawning pit from which nothing can escape, not even light, looming over that bridge, with its circular ceiling like an eye, and yet the bridge is there, suspended in time, unchanging, while at the other end of the ship an entire civilization has sprung up and died and the lone guy on the bridge doesn't even realize it's happened.
If that's not a metaphor for how alienating the Doctor's perspective can be, I don't know what is.
Which I think ties in with this:
DOCTOR: She's the only person that I've ever met who's even remotely like me.
You could argue that he is always finding friends like him - companions for his journeying around the universe. But no one else has his perspective. His life span. His understanding.
Except Missy.
We see it in Missy's lecture to Clara in ‘The Witch’s Familiar’ about how the Doctor’s mind works.
In how they almost play tag across the universe, living and dying, always assured that the other can keep up. But time is never an issue.
Except suddenly it is. But I will get back to that. But remember that the title of the poem is ‘To His Coy Mistress’...
For now, I will point out that the Doctor’s line about Missy being like him, is echoed in Missy’s line about Time Lords only being friends with each other (‘Everything else is just cradle snatching’), but we know that even amongst Time Lords they are the odd ones out. Renegades. ‘The Enmity of Ages’.
And in the midst of them, this time… Bill.
BFF of the Enmity of Ages
Bill had a very interesting role this week.
In S8, Clara, Missy and the Doctor were part of a three-way mirror. In S9, Missy helped Clara to see the world from the Doctor’s perspective.
But Bill - Bill becomes the Master’s friend.
I wonder how many people can claim to have been the friend of both the Doctor AND the Master? For years.
But! I can hear you protest. The Master was only using her. That is very true, but I also think he genuinely liked her. The two are not mutually exclusive. Here, have a quote fromowlboy about sociopaths:
We saw the same thing with Missy and Dr Chang:
MISSY: Doctorr Chang, I really liked working with you. I've enjoyed every day of it.
CHANG: I'm sorry?
MISSY: You know, I've even got a little photograph of you looking so sweet. I'm always going to keep it. Always!
CHANG: Are you going to kill me?
MISSY: Now, come on. Let's not dwell on horrid things. This is going to be our last conversation, and I'm the one who's going to have to live with that.
CHANG: Please don't kill me.
MISSY: Say something nice.
CHANG: Please, please. I don't, I don't want to die. You're going to kill me, aren't you?
MISSY: Say something nice.
CHANG: Please!
MISSY: Doctor Chang, I've got all day. And I'm not going to kill you until you say something nice.
CHANG: It has been an absolute pleasure working with you, and I truly believe that you'll never be able to find it in your heart to murder me.
(Missy holds up a device that fires a heat ray, which incinerates Chang instantly. The Doctor backs away.)
She has no reason to lie in that moment, no reason to reassure a man she is about to murder that she cares about him, except for that being the truth. Similarly I think ‘Razor’ genuinely liked Bill and enjoyed spending time with her, until it was time for him to make his move… However, he doesn’t quite get the whole friendship thing right:
RAZOR: You are dear to me. You are my dearest person. You are like
BILL: I know.
RAZOR: A mother to me.
BILL: Definitely not a mother.
RAZOR: Or an aunt.
BILL: No.
It’s a bit like Missy trying and failing to get the hang of human interactions:
JORJ [on screen]: I'm coming through.
MISSY: Hurry, my stallion. And if I'm in the shower, just bring me some beans on toast. That's
NARDOLE: Urgh.
MISSY: That's roughly human flirting, isn't it?
They key to this partly lies with the fact that they’re alien and partly with this world view:
BILL: Yeah, and he calls us friends.
MISSY: Ew, Doctor. But think of the age gap. Time Lords are friends with each other, dear. Everything else is cradle-snatching.
And in that line, we can also see the reasoning behind the behaviour -- humans are just not quite as ‘real’ as Time Lords. (Not that this stopped the Master from wanting to take over the whole of his people in EoT.)
However, the Bill/Razor friendship is delightful, but odd. The Master walks a wobbly line between truth and lies:
RAZOR: Excellent, positive attitude. Will help with the horror to come.
BILL: What horror?
RAZOR: Mainly the tea.
And generally comes off as peculiar and eccentric and a bit dotty. And everything he says can be seen two ways:
RAZOR: When you hug me, it hurts my heart.
BILL: Ah, sweet.
RAZOR: No. Your chest unit. It digs right in.
He’s good company, chatty, funny, sarcastic. But - as far as we are shown - never reveals anything about himself or his history. And cover horrors with glib lies, so transparent they’re almost laughable (even as he conceals himself perfectly):
BILL: What about him?
RAZOR: It's all right. They don't feel pain.
BILL: Oh, I think they do.
RAZOR: Yes, they do.
BILL: So why did you say they don't?
RAZOR: It was a clever lie, but you see straight through me.
Compare and contrast with the Doctor. Who (thanks be to Clara, blessed be her memory!) is now capable of being honest - about who he is, what he wants, what he can and cannot do:
Explaining what Missy means to him, their history, why she’s so important. Bill asks, AND HE ANSWERS. This is huge. He confides in her:
DOCTOR: She's different.
BILL: Different how?
DOCTOR: I don't know.
BILL: Yes, you do.
DOCTOR: She's the only person that I've ever met who's even remotely like me.
BILL: So more than anything you want her to be good?
~~~~
DOCTOR: She was my first friend, always so brilliant, from the first day at the Academy. So fast, so funny. She was my man crush.
And this, I think, is what Missy doesn’t understand about friendship. Here is Missy’s take on their friendship:
CLARA: Since when do you care about the Doctor?
MISSY: Since always. Since the Cloister Wars. Since the night he stole the moon and the President's wife. Since he was a little girl. One of those was a lie. Can you guess which one?
CLARA: He's not your friend. You keep trying to kill him.
MISSY: He keeps trying to kill me. It's sort of our texting. We've been at it for ages.
CLARA: Mmm. Must be love.
MISSY: Oh, don't be disgusting. We're Time Lords, not animals. Try, nano-brain, to rise above the reproductive frenzy of your noisy little food chain, and contemplate friendship. A friendship older than your civilisation, and infinitely more complex.
The Magician’s Apprentice
Against this, here is C.S. Lewis talking about friendship (from The Four Loves):
When it comes to non-Time Lords, Missy cannot divorce herself from the background, the race, of the people she meets. But the Doctor can. Is capable of finding kindred spirits amongst people with completely different races, backgrounds, history to himself. And so he can confide in the young woman who works in a university canteen, serving chips. And she in turn will listen to why he cares so much for a woman she finds terrifying, and will try to understand. Friendship is give and take, opening yourself up, trusting the other.
However, the quote also fits beautifully with the way the Doctor and Missy can still claim to be ‘friends’ even as they are mostly at opposites sides, fighting each other. Let me briefly pull out a quote about Buffy & Spike that I have in the past used for the Doctor and River:
At this point, you should go read this post on Bill.
Money quote that I am pulling out:
So Bill is like, the kid in the center of a relationship between two parents trying to patch up a divorce or something, yes? Who can’t get their shit together long enough to properly notice her, the Doctor and Missy standing in for that, as representations for that.
It’s always about family for Moffat. And now the child (Bill) has been sacrificed in the ongoing war between our ‘Enmity of Ages’. And I more than suspect that the key to everything lies in how Bill fares. Her body has become their warring ground, going one step further than Danny in S8, the Master’s destructiveness turning her into a weapon, a hybrid.
Can she be saved, and how? Her fate will show how far Missy has come. Will she celebrate or recoil from what the Master has done?
Because there is another side to this… Here is how the Doctor describes the Master, and their [childhood] pact:
DOCTOR: We had a pact, me and him. Every star in the universe, we were going to see them all. But he was too busy burning them. I don't think she ever saw anything.
BILL: And you think that if she did, she'd change?
DOCTOR: I know she would. I know it.
And so he tries to get Missy to see. And to hear the music. Because it’s a struggle he knows himself - and another reason he keeps finding new companions:
AMY: Then why am l here?
DOCTOR: Because... Because I can't see it any more.
AMY: See what?
DOCTOR: I’m 907 - after a while, you just can't see it.
AMY: See what?
DOCTOR: Everything. I look at a star and it's just a big ball of burning gas. And I know how it began and I know how it ends, and I was probably there both times. Now, after a while, everything is just stuff. That's the problem. You make all of space and time your backyard and what do you have? A backyard. But you, you can see it. And when you see it, *l* see it.
There is an argument to be made that all the Companions are Susan-substitutes, but here the Doctor puts a new (and older) spin on it: He is living his dream, but one that was supposed to be a shared one: Him and his best friend, travelling the stars together.
And so the Doctor is now trying to do for Missy what the Companions do for him - help her appreciate the wonder and the marvels, that seeing is enough. Which is a point which goes back to The End of Time:
DOCTOR: You're a genius. You're stone cold brilliant, you are. I swear, you really are. But you could be so much more. You could be beautiful. With a mind like that, we could travel the stars. It would be my honour. Because you don't need to own the universe, just see it. To have the privilege of seeing the whole of time and space. That's ownership enough.
Back then they didn’t have the time to see it through (just another lost opportunity), but this season took that simple concept and has been carefully trying to work out if it could ever happen.
Can Missy and the Doctor be friends again? Can Missy learn to see with eyes of wonder? Or will she fall back into old habits with a sneer?
She has been watching the Doctor all her life, after all, but there is more to it than just observing and understanding a story and a role...
Watching Doctor Who
Last episode, Missy was watching our intrepid heroes. This time, she, Bill and Nardole are being watched by the Doctor. Then, Bill and Razor are watching the Doctor, Missy and Nardole...
And the viewers assess what they see:
DOCTOR: So what have you been up to? Did you watch us?
MISSY: Some of it. A little bit.
DOCTOR: What did you think?
NARDOLE: Oh, is she reviewing us now?
DOCTOR [OC]: Anything else?
NARDOLE: Er. (looks up through the observation dome at the black hole) Oh, look at that.
DOCTOR [OC]: Finally! It's like watching plants grow.
BILL: See he's raising that eyebrow? That's his sarcasm face. He's making a joke.
[...]
(Sitting with Razor on a settee, looking at the Doctor flipping his screwdriver.)
BILL: He's going to do an explanation. That always takes a while.
Missy also does a nice little performance, playing the part she has been assigned:
MISSY: Hello. I'm Doctor Who. And these are my plucky assistants, Thing One and the Other One. We picked up your distress call, (big wink) and here we are to help, like awesome heroes.
It’s a clever way to play with the format, and to analyse the show from within.
The comments on the Doctor’s name (MISSY: He says, I'm the Doctor, and they say, Doctor who? See, I'm cutting to the chase, baby. I'm streamlining. I'm saving us actual minutes.), the Companion’s roles (MISSY: And these are my disposables, Exposition and Comic Relief.) and also characters assessing their other selves (RAZOR: I love disguises. Do you still like disguises?) make for interesting meta commentary.
They are all very aware of the roles they play, how they are perceived.
But at the end of the day it’s not a game. We see the Doctor do his usual spiel as soon as Bill is threatened:
DOCTOR: You don't know it yet, but in a short time, you will trust me with your life. And when I save you and everyone on your ship, one day you will look back, and wonder who I was and why I did.
But it doesn’t work (brilliant post here delving into it in more detail), Bill is shot through the chest, and it feels almost unreal. That is not how the story goes. The Doctor has lost control of the narrative.
He tries to get it back (see him leaving a message for Bill in her subconscious), and it is also evident in the way he analyses the whole situation before delving down to save her.
Meanwhile, Bill watches the Doctor (in extreme slow-motion), by now knowing all his little quirks. Yet she is sitting next to someone who has far deeper motives than just watching, and who is playing a different game to everyone else.
Sidebar: I wonder about his name. Razor is an interesting choice? It's a functional object, but one that can easily kill you if you are not careful. And we never learn if he has a first name. I wonder if it would be Occam.
However, ‘Razor’ is also analysing the performance above - calculating when to make his move, and trying to get a grip on Missy, wondering about the role she seems to be playing…
Not at all oblivious to the pain he himself is causing; just indifferent, and rather pleased.
Pain, pain, pain, pain...
Thy beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song
We first had Missy and Cybermen back in S8 - the evil nanny, rearing the dead. Playing on people’s fears - and now we realise it’s not her first time.
We still don’t know why the Master is on board the ship - did he come for the Doctor’s sake, because of the Cybermen, or a different reason again? But he is obviously watching and abetting the humans in their ‘Operation Exodus’.
Although (again) Owls said it best:
What I realised - so very belatedly, I’m still headdesking - is that the Toclafane are very very close Cybermen parallels: Humanity cannibalising themselves in order to survive the end of the world. The Master watching and 'saving' them, using them for his own ends.
The difference lies in the focus.
The Toclafane were monsters, Tom killing the one they’ve captured out of disgust. We saw the humans at the end of the universe that Professor Yana tried to help, but we never saw how the people became monsters.
This time, the monstering is the whole point. The origin of the Cybermen is horrific, and horrific because it’s painfully real. You can tell they are people, twisted and in pain for ‘their own good’. They are being turned into monsters before our very eyes.
(And if you’re wanting political commentary, it doesn’t come much better or more pointed than the nurse turning down the volume on the patient crying out in agony.)
But it’s not just faceless patients - Bill is hurt too, and quite horrifically so. Can she come back from this? And if so, how?
There are precedents - look at Torchwood’s Cyberwoman (where Lisa, Ianto’s girlfriend, was only part converted, and felt both pain and loss), as well as Yvonne Hartman in the S2 finale (who fought against the other Cybermen, so obviously kept some kind of agency). The prime example is of course Danny - who kept his promise to Clara, even after being ‘activated’.
(And remember how it was an ‘isolated subroutine’ which undid the Monks? The Doctor ‘Left a message in [Bill’s] subconscious.’ Will this play a role?)
A more recent example of re-claimed agency is Heather - no longer human, yet driven by the promises she made.
Bill stepped up and claimed her agency several times from ‘Lie of the Land’ onwards - it’ll be interesting to see how she fares now.
Converting Bill gives a whole new level of investment, but what’s almost equally important is the conversation that precedes it:
BILL: So promise me one thing, yeah? Just promise you won't get me killed.
DOCTOR: I can't promise you that.
BILL: Thanks.
DOCTOR: I mean, look, you're human. And humans are so mortal.
BILL: You'll try and keep me alive?
DOCTOR: Within reason.
I wanted to clap and cheer, even as it is intercut with Bill being shot and falling to the ground, dying. Because finally the Doctor isn’t making promises he can’t keep. No ‘duty of care’. No ‘I will keep you safe’. He will do his best, but he can’t perform miracles and it’s possibly the most important step he has taken so far to show that he has dealt with the fallout and aftermath of the Time War. Maybe Bill’s mum saved him too, just a bit. And Kar and the Roman soldiers. Hammered home that everything is not his responsibility.
What he will do now that Bill has been converted is of course a whole new matter...
RAZOR: He'll never forgive you, you know, He'll never set you free. Not when he discovers what you did to his little friend.
MISSY: I haven't done anything to his silly little friend.
RAZOR: Oh, but I'm afraid you did. But a long time ago.
It's like a many-pronged test of the Doctor's growth: will he manage not to go Victorious over his companion again and how strong is his forgiveness when the harm truly is personal?
Compare what he was ready to do to the Time Lords and Ashildr over them getting Clara killed, to his blistering threats to Ashildr. And Clara’s death wasn’t even their fault - whereas the Master was personally responsible for handing Bill over to the evil doctor….
Now it’s not a perfect parallel, but the surgeon reaching out for Bill’s head, mirrored the Doctor’s actions in The Pilot:
DOCTOR: I just want to fix something.
(He reaches for her head.)
BILL: Whoa! What are you doing?
DOCTOR: Don't worry. This won't hurt at all.
No, there will be no physical pain. But he would have robbed her of her memories, and losing something precious is painful, no matter the method of the loss.
Of course, the question of pain is the one that runs through the whole episode...
BILL: Don't you touch me. Don't you lay a finger on me.
SURGEON: This unit of yours won't last forever, you know. You need the full upgrade.
BILL: You're not going to turn me into one of those things.
SURGEON: I'm rebuilding you to survive in a world not made for flesh.
BILL: But look at them. They're screaming in pain every second they're alive.
SURGEON: But we've got something for that now.
(He picks up a handle-like piece. The final visual clue for anyone who didn't already know.)
SURGEON: This won't stop you feeling pain, but it will stop you caring about it. It fits over your head.
But pain, and caring about it, leads me perfectly to the main point - something I have touched on several times already (everything is connected), but that very much deserves it’s own segment, as it lies at the heart of everything.
The Day of the Master
This season has done something quite extraordinary. It has tried to redeem the Master - and it has made it work.
We see it in the way Missy closes her eyes as she realises that she is faced with a previous regeneration. The way she almost backs away in shock when she sees who it is.
She actually cares. She wants her friend back, and she might actually succeed. She’s on the right path, is not sure if she can see it through or what it all means, but she is trying.
And here is her past, flesh and blood, ready to wreak havoc, and not comprehending what she is trying to do.
And she doesn’t remember…
The promo image above highlights the parallels to The Day of the Doctor (image here), which are quite profound.
Day of the Doctor involved the Doctor delving into his past, confronting himself on his worst day, and what he did. And he had to do that, in order to resolve the conflict which had been eating away at him for 400 years. To be able to move forward.
I don’t think there will be a reset button for Missy in the same way, as her whole life story is full of atrocities. No, this is very much a test, just a much more comprehensive one than the Doctor was envisaging at the start.
Missy has been locked up for 70 years (at least, it could well be more). The world has been protected from her, but vice versa she has been protected from it. Has had the luxury to only observe and remember.
Like the Doctor had to live with his memories of what he did during the Time War, attempting to come to terms with the guilt and self-loathing, so Missy has been trying to re-adjust her world view, and learning new things:
MISSY: I keep remembering all the people I've killed. Every day I think of more. Being bad, being bad drowned that out. I didn't know I even knew their names. You didn't tell me about this bit.
DOCTOR: I'm sorry, but this is good.
(She turns her face away, to hide her tears.)
MISSY: Okay.
But redemption isn’t just about feeling bad about you did. It’s about making real changes. But you can’t change without properly dealing with the past.
So now, Missy is confronted with her history in ways impossible to ignore. Both in the Master and his plans, ready to pull her back, and in her handiwork - the converted Bill, destroyed by her past, manifested in the present.
Not a long-forgotten name, brought to the fore, but someone she was making fun of ten minutes previously.
How will she cope when the pain might threaten to overwhelm her? Because she can feel it, that we know, and this is the lesson the Doctor has been imparting:
DOCTOR (to cyber!Danny): Pain is a gift. Without the capacity for pain, we can't feel the hurt we inflict.
Death in Heaven
Being good is hard, and it is difficult.... Here, have another C.S. Lewis quote, this time from Mere Christanity:
I can't quite believe that my favourite show actually has THIS VERY CONCEPT as its main story line. It's a rather sophisticated concept for 8 year olds/family viewing. And yet - it's universal. I can't imagine a single viewer being confused by Missy's arc.
Now, in many ways the Doctor is also on trial here. Is his belief in Missy’s ability to change justified?
DOCTOR: I don't think she ever saw anything.
BILL: And you think that if she did, she'd change?
DOCTOR: I know she would. I know it.
BILL: You're a bloody idiot. You know that, yeah?
DOCTOR: Of course.
He might sound like he’s foolishly optimistic, and we see exactly the same mindset (but in shorthand) playing out in this back-and-forth with Missy (regarding whether Bill can survive):
MISSY: Assumption.
DOCTOR: Deduction.
MISSY: Hope.
DOCTOR: Faith.
MISSY: Idiot.
DOCTOR: Always!
If it was down to his faith alone, Missy would be safe as houses. And don't forget, it isn't faith and hope alone he is counting on. After all, he once changed how a Dalek saw the world, although not in the way he was hoping…
DOCTOR: Let me show you the truth. I've opened your mind and now I'm coming in. I'm part of you. My mind is in your mind.
RUSTY: I see your mind, Doctor. I see your universe.
DOCTOR: And isn't the universe beautiful?
RUSTY [OC]: I see beauty.
DOCTOR: Yes, that's good. That is good. Hold on to that.
RUSTY [OC]: I see endless, divine perfection.
DOCTOR: Make it a part of you. Remember how you feel right now. Put it inside you and live by it.
RUSTY [OC]: I see into your soul, Doctor. I see beauty. I see divinity. I see hatred.
DOCTOR: Hatred?
RUSTY: I see your hatred of the Daleks and it is good.
RUSTY [OC]: Death to the Daleks. Death to the Daleks.
DOCTOR: No, there must be more than that. There must be more than that. Please.
RUSTY: Daleks are evil. Daleks must be exterminated. Daleks are evil.
[goes off to kill Daleks]
RUSTY: Victory is yours, but it does not please you.
DOCTOR: You looked inside me and you saw hatred. That's not victory. Victory would have been a good Dalek.
RUSTY: I am not a good Dalek. You are a good Dalek.
This is a slight tangent, but I think it’s very useful considering that we know The Master will come out of this and regenerate into Missy - S8 Missy who creates a cyberarmy for the Doctor, and gives it to him with these words:
DOCTOR: I don't want an army!
MISSY: Well, that's the trouble! Yes, you do! You've always wanted one! All those people suffering in the Dalek camps? Now you can save them. All those bad guys winning all the wars? Go and get the good guys back.
[...]
DOCTOR: Why are you doing this?
MISSY: I need you to know we're not so different. I need my friend back.
(Essentially: I am not a good Dalek. You are a good Dalek.)
These episodes are what will send the Master down the path of seeking to repair their friendship, the beginning of Missy’s redemption arc, and they are also the end point; the moment when she will have to make up her mind which way to go; because now - now there is no more time. At the beginning I said, remember that the title is ‘To His Coy Mistress’:
Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
The whole season (the Master’s whole story and future) turns on what happens in the next episode. What will his Mistress’s choice be?
The last scene in particular is fascinating in the light of this. She stands side-by-side with the Master, but she speaks very carefully, and she watches the Doctor's reactions with eyes that practically beg for him to realise that she didn't really have a part in this. So, so cautious. Smile fixed.
I think she is feeling split down the middle - the pull to everything familiar on one side, and the pull towards the Doctor and a new future on the other. Exodus or Genesis? Does she leave, does she become something new? I could absolutely see her playing both sides in order to make up her mind. How forgiving is the Doctor going to be? How much faith does he have in her? Can she break the cycle? Can the Doctor?
They have trying to undo her own work, habits and reflexes and mind patterns that she has followed almost blindly. And the next steps are as unknown to her as they are to us. Will she ever be able to hear the music…
With thanks toenevarim, the dilemma is literally Shakespearean:
From The Merchant of Venice, V.i, Lorenzo to Jessica:
Poem here, in case you are not familiar:
To His Coy Mistress
I may have spent a great deal of this episode measuring up revelations against
aria’s the naming of things, which is THE Doctor/Master origin story and everyone should read it. For example:MISSY: Also it's his real name.
BILL: It's what?
BILL: Sorry, what do you mean, it's his real name? Nobody knows the Doctor's real name.
MISSY: I do, because I grew up with him, and his real name is Doctor Who. Chose it himself, you know, trying to sound mysterious. And then he dropped the Who when he realised it was a tiny bit on the nose.
In my head, I have this scene between the very young Theta and Koschei stored:
Koschei is absurdly relieved to see that up close, Theta Sigma looks nearly as ridiculous in the vivid Prydonian robes as he does. Theta Sigma looks up. For a moment his eyes remain faraway and unfocused; then he smiles, a beam that lights up his small face and makes little crinkles at the corners of his eyes. "Koschei, isn't it?"
They've only talked the once. Theta Sigma will have heard anyone else call him Psi Epsilon. And yet.
"That's right," Koschei says, sitting down with all the grace he's learned so far. "And you're Theta Sigma."
"The only other theta is Omicron, and he prefers that," the other boy replies. "I think," he adds, leaning forward conspiratorially, "Omicron believes a name like that is dignified. Sounds a little bit like Omega, doesn't it?"
Koschei doesn't know the boy in question, but he feels safe in saying, "Only if you're half-deaf and have a death wish."
This prompts a burst of laughter. "Exactly! So it's just Theta, please." Theta's face becomes serious. "No one else calls you Koschei. Am I overstepping ...?"
Koschei feels again that peculiar sensation of his chest expanding. "No, not at all," he says. "Theta." Worries his lip a little. "I don't suppose you'll keep it."
He says things like this -- thoughts fully-formed inside his mind and only half-stated -- and is given blank looks. Theta's isn't; it's thoughtful. "I suppose I'll want a name that's not dignified unless it needs to be, which Theta never is. Maybe a title. Like the Castellan."
You see?
But even moreso, there is a moment in the story when the Doctor chooses to ignore something he shouldn’t. It seems small, but it creates a crack which widens and widens until the two of them are too far apart to reach across the chasm.
And it seems like their whole history since has consisted of the two of them trying to bridge it - the Doctor trying to reach across, the Master mostly unable to reciprocate, despite wishing to. Except now - now it’s actually happening. And they might succeed.
It’s time for everyone to hold their breath, to see if the story can change.
Here, at the end of Twelve’s story, it makes sense to go revisit the start. Because there are some very very interesting parallels. (Pardon all the lengthy quotes throughout the post.)
(The balloon and its gondola float over Saint Paul's Cathedral.)
DOCTOR: What do you think of the view?
HALF-FACE MAN: I do not think of it.
DOCTOR: I don't think of it. I don't. Droids and apostrophes, I could write a book. Except you are barely a droid any more. There's more human in you than machine. So tell me, what do you think of the view?
(The Half-Face Man gets up and draws back the net curtain. They are heading towards Westminster.)
HALF-FACE MAN: It is beautiful.
DOCTOR: No, it isn't. It's just far away. Everything looks too small. I prefer it down there. Everything is huge. Everything is so important. Every detail, every moment, every life clung to.
See the top of the ship, - and the bottom. One slow and measured, empty, the other teeming with life. Above and below. What do you see?
Interesting that in this episode it's the Master 'down there' where everything is so big and important - though, surely, never leaving behind the perspective from up above.
HALF-FACE MAN: How could you kill me?
DOCTOR: For the same reason that you're asking me that question, because you don't really want to carry on. What'll happen to the other droids when you die? You're the control node, aren't you? Presumably they'll deactivate.
HALF-FACE MAN: I will not die. I will reach the promised land.
DOCTOR: There isn't any promised land. This is just. It's a superstition that you have picked up from all the humanity you've stuffed inside yourself.
HALF-FACE MAN: I am not dead.
DOCTOR: You are a broom. Question. You take a broom, you replace the handle, and then later you replace the brush, and you do that over and over again. Is it still the same broom? Answer? No, of course it isn't. But you can still sweep the floor. Which is not strictly relevant, skip that last part. You have replaced every piece of yourself, mechanical and organic, time and time again. There's not a trace of the original you left. You probably can't even remember where you got that face from.
The droids; half human, half mechanoid, patched up with anything to hand, desperately trying to save themselves and escape, hoping for the Promised Land (the Top of the ship, Exodus), but becoming monsters in the process, forgetting who they were…
(The Doctor holds up a silver plate between himself and the Half-Face Man. The droid takes it, looks carefully, then drops it. From our perspective we see the Doctor’s face reflected)
HALF-FACE MAN: It cannot end.
DOCTOR: It has to. You know it does. And there's only one way out.
(The Doctor opens the doors.)
HALF-FACE MAN: Self-destruction is against my basic programme.
DOCTOR: And murder is against mine.
(They struggle in the doorway.)
Beautiful mirroring of monstrosity of the Doctor's own lifespan, as well as the Doctor debating perspectives on life and death with a dark mirror of himself. I have a feeling we should be remembering this conversation, going forwards.
HALF-FACE MAN: You are stronger than you look.
DOCTOR: And I'm hoping you are too. This is over. Are you capable of admitting that?
HALF-FACE MAN: Do you have it in you to murder me?
DOCTOR: Those people down there. They're never small to me. Don't make assumptions about how far I will go to protect them, because I've already come a very long way. And unlike you, I don't expect to reach the promised land.
(The Half-Face Man turns off his flame thrower. They release each other.)
DOCTOR: You realise, of course, one of us is lying about our basic programming.
HALF-FACE MAN: Yes.
DOCTOR: And I think we both know who that is.
At the end of S8, Promethia made this summary of the season, the imagery and the main story:
There was lot of talk of killing. And dying. What people are capable of, what they are willing to do to save others. But there is also a different dimension to the Doctor. From the S9 opener:
DAVROS: Compassion then.
DOCTOR: Always.
DAVROS: It grows strong and fierce in you, like a cancer.
DOCTOR: I hope so.
DAVROS: It will kill you in the end.
DOCTOR: I wouldn't die of anything else.
DAVROS: You may rely on it.
Prepare for your heart to be broken...
Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
The concept of this episode is an old one. In Moffat terms, he used it in his 2nd episode ever (Girl in the Fireplace) and again in Blink and the Library episodes. Not to mention The Girl Who Waited (possibly the best parallel to our current story). And of course, The Eaters of Light used this trope too. (For those wondering how Kar and the Romans fared, basically the cairn was on the top, and the rest of the world at the bottom.)
This narrative (humans on the slow path) was reversed in Time of the Doctor, when it was Clara on the swift path, the Doctor spending centuries guarding Trenzalore, highlighting how he could absorb that kind of time differential and quite simply carry on.
‘Wait for me’ the Doctor says, and Bill does as she is told (although not entirely voluntarily); years disappearing behind her as she is stuck in the hospital. Worlds away…
Because the spaceship contains actual worlds. We see a cross section as the camera pans past it - pastoral scenes of green, farmers’ fields - but all of it moving at different speeds, like a model of the universe almost:
The far end of it has been stuck there so long it is literally decaying and the people dying. From a crew of fifty, a whole population has been born and is now slowly dying. Had we but world enough, and time. It's like there's body horror happening here both on a personal level, with the cyber conversions, and on a macro level with time and earth and civilizations. The ship is like a cyber conversion of life itself.
Added to that, there's also something in the fact that the end of the ship that is closest to the black hole is the one with the least sense of dread to it? There is a dead star, a yawning pit from which nothing can escape, not even light, looming over that bridge, with its circular ceiling like an eye, and yet the bridge is there, suspended in time, unchanging, while at the other end of the ship an entire civilization has sprung up and died and the lone guy on the bridge doesn't even realize it's happened.
If that's not a metaphor for how alienating the Doctor's perspective can be, I don't know what is.
Which I think ties in with this:
DOCTOR: She's the only person that I've ever met who's even remotely like me.
You could argue that he is always finding friends like him - companions for his journeying around the universe. But no one else has his perspective. His life span. His understanding.
Except Missy.
We see it in Missy's lecture to Clara in ‘The Witch’s Familiar’ about how the Doctor’s mind works.
In how they almost play tag across the universe, living and dying, always assured that the other can keep up. But time is never an issue.
Except suddenly it is. But I will get back to that. But remember that the title of the poem is ‘To His Coy Mistress’...
For now, I will point out that the Doctor’s line about Missy being like him, is echoed in Missy’s line about Time Lords only being friends with each other (‘Everything else is just cradle snatching’), but we know that even amongst Time Lords they are the odd ones out. Renegades. ‘The Enmity of Ages’.
And in the midst of them, this time… Bill.
Bill had a very interesting role this week.
In S8, Clara, Missy and the Doctor were part of a three-way mirror. In S9, Missy helped Clara to see the world from the Doctor’s perspective.
But Bill - Bill becomes the Master’s friend.
I wonder how many people can claim to have been the friend of both the Doctor AND the Master? For years.
But! I can hear you protest. The Master was only using her. That is very true, but I also think he genuinely liked her. The two are not mutually exclusive. Here, have a quote from
owlboy about sociopaths:So the thing I always found intriguing about the classic Master, since I was a kid, is that he was perfectly capable of being good natured and even caring to the Doctor's companions. And not only that, but there was a level of genuine sincerity and fondness to it sometimes. Then he would of course turn around and use them as bait as soon as it became convenient.
That's how sociopaths actually work. What makes them really properly dangerous, is *not* the fact they lack empathy, and not that they go around doing ostentatiously destructive things [early Simm!Master]. They do, in fact, understand empathy very well, and are very very capable of convincing you that they're harmless and kind and sincere and normal right up until the point they decide you're just more useful dead.
Which is wonderfully/horribly realized here when he commits to this buddy act for years before flipping the switch.
THAT is how you do the Master. He's not some troppo wife beating git, okay. He's your buddy, until he's not.
(x)
We saw the same thing with Missy and Dr Chang:
MISSY: Doctorr Chang, I really liked working with you. I've enjoyed every day of it.
CHANG: I'm sorry?
MISSY: You know, I've even got a little photograph of you looking so sweet. I'm always going to keep it. Always!
CHANG: Are you going to kill me?
MISSY: Now, come on. Let's not dwell on horrid things. This is going to be our last conversation, and I'm the one who's going to have to live with that.
CHANG: Please don't kill me.
MISSY: Say something nice.
CHANG: Please, please. I don't, I don't want to die. You're going to kill me, aren't you?
MISSY: Say something nice.
CHANG: Please!
MISSY: Doctor Chang, I've got all day. And I'm not going to kill you until you say something nice.
CHANG: It has been an absolute pleasure working with you, and I truly believe that you'll never be able to find it in your heart to murder me.
(Missy holds up a device that fires a heat ray, which incinerates Chang instantly. The Doctor backs away.)
She has no reason to lie in that moment, no reason to reassure a man she is about to murder that she cares about him, except for that being the truth. Similarly I think ‘Razor’ genuinely liked Bill and enjoyed spending time with her, until it was time for him to make his move… However, he doesn’t quite get the whole friendship thing right:
RAZOR: You are dear to me. You are my dearest person. You are like
BILL: I know.
RAZOR: A mother to me.
BILL: Definitely not a mother.
RAZOR: Or an aunt.
BILL: No.
It’s a bit like Missy trying and failing to get the hang of human interactions:
JORJ [on screen]: I'm coming through.
MISSY: Hurry, my stallion. And if I'm in the shower, just bring me some beans on toast. That's
NARDOLE: Urgh.
MISSY: That's roughly human flirting, isn't it?
They key to this partly lies with the fact that they’re alien and partly with this world view:
BILL: Yeah, and he calls us friends.
MISSY: Ew, Doctor. But think of the age gap. Time Lords are friends with each other, dear. Everything else is cradle-snatching.
And in that line, we can also see the reasoning behind the behaviour -- humans are just not quite as ‘real’ as Time Lords. (Not that this stopped the Master from wanting to take over the whole of his people in EoT.)
However, the Bill/Razor friendship is delightful, but odd. The Master walks a wobbly line between truth and lies:
RAZOR: Excellent, positive attitude. Will help with the horror to come.
BILL: What horror?
RAZOR: Mainly the tea.
And generally comes off as peculiar and eccentric and a bit dotty. And everything he says can be seen two ways:
RAZOR: When you hug me, it hurts my heart.
BILL: Ah, sweet.
RAZOR: No. Your chest unit. It digs right in.
He’s good company, chatty, funny, sarcastic. But - as far as we are shown - never reveals anything about himself or his history. And cover horrors with glib lies, so transparent they’re almost laughable (even as he conceals himself perfectly):
BILL: What about him?
RAZOR: It's all right. They don't feel pain.
BILL: Oh, I think they do.
RAZOR: Yes, they do.
BILL: So why did you say they don't?
RAZOR: It was a clever lie, but you see straight through me.
Compare and contrast with the Doctor. Who (thanks be to Clara, blessed be her memory!) is now capable of being honest - about who he is, what he wants, what he can and cannot do:
Explaining what Missy means to him, their history, why she’s so important. Bill asks, AND HE ANSWERS. This is huge. He confides in her:
DOCTOR: She's different.
BILL: Different how?
DOCTOR: I don't know.
BILL: Yes, you do.
DOCTOR: She's the only person that I've ever met who's even remotely like me.
BILL: So more than anything you want her to be good?
~~~~
DOCTOR: She was my first friend, always so brilliant, from the first day at the Academy. So fast, so funny. She was my man crush.
And this, I think, is what Missy doesn’t understand about friendship. Here is Missy’s take on their friendship:
CLARA: Since when do you care about the Doctor?
MISSY: Since always. Since the Cloister Wars. Since the night he stole the moon and the President's wife. Since he was a little girl. One of those was a lie. Can you guess which one?
CLARA: He's not your friend. You keep trying to kill him.
MISSY: He keeps trying to kill me. It's sort of our texting. We've been at it for ages.
CLARA: Mmm. Must be love.
MISSY: Oh, don't be disgusting. We're Time Lords, not animals. Try, nano-brain, to rise above the reproductive frenzy of your noisy little food chain, and contemplate friendship. A friendship older than your civilisation, and infinitely more complex.
The Magician’s Apprentice
Against this, here is C.S. Lewis talking about friendship (from The Four Loves):
“In a circle of true Friends each man is simply what he is: stands for nothing but himself. No one cares two-pence about anyone else’s family, profession, class, income, race, or previous history… That is the kingliness of Friendship. We meet like sovereign princes of independent states, abroad, on neutral ground, freed from our contexts. This love (essentially) ignores not only our physical bodies but that whole embodiment which consists of our family, job, past and connections. At home, besides being Peter or Jane, we also bear a general character; husband or wife, brother or sister, chief, colleague, or subordinate. Not among our Friends. It is an affair of disentangled, or stripped, minds. Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.
Hence (if you will not misunderstand me) the exquisite arbitrariness and irresponsibility of this love. I have no duty to be anyone’s Friend and no man in the world has a duty to be mine. No claims, no shadow of necessity. Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which gave value to survival.”
When it comes to non-Time Lords, Missy cannot divorce herself from the background, the race, of the people she meets. But the Doctor can. Is capable of finding kindred spirits amongst people with completely different races, backgrounds, history to himself. And so he can confide in the young woman who works in a university canteen, serving chips. And she in turn will listen to why he cares so much for a woman she finds terrifying, and will try to understand. Friendship is give and take, opening yourself up, trusting the other.
However, the quote also fits beautifully with the way the Doctor and Missy can still claim to be ‘friends’ even as they are mostly at opposites sides, fighting each other. Let me briefly pull out a quote about Buffy & Spike that I have in the past used for the Doctor and River:
And, goodness, such a history it is, but the relationship is never defined by that history. If anything, it is defined by the mutual acknowledgement that their history establishes the basis for the relationship, but the relationship exists always and only in the here and now. They never stoop under the weight of their history. Buffy taking Dawn to Spike in Villains is one of many examples that illustrates that. There's always a back doorstep, if you like – always a place the two of them can find where they can sit, side-by-side, and put everything else behind them.
At this point, you should go read this post on Bill.
Money quote that I am pulling out:
So Bill is like, the kid in the center of a relationship between two parents trying to patch up a divorce or something, yes? Who can’t get their shit together long enough to properly notice her, the Doctor and Missy standing in for that, as representations for that.
It’s always about family for Moffat. And now the child (Bill) has been sacrificed in the ongoing war between our ‘Enmity of Ages’. And I more than suspect that the key to everything lies in how Bill fares. Her body has become their warring ground, going one step further than Danny in S8, the Master’s destructiveness turning her into a weapon, a hybrid.
Can she be saved, and how? Her fate will show how far Missy has come. Will she celebrate or recoil from what the Master has done?
Because there is another side to this… Here is how the Doctor describes the Master, and their [childhood] pact:
DOCTOR: We had a pact, me and him. Every star in the universe, we were going to see them all. But he was too busy burning them. I don't think she ever saw anything.
BILL: And you think that if she did, she'd change?
DOCTOR: I know she would. I know it.
And so he tries to get Missy to see. And to hear the music. Because it’s a struggle he knows himself - and another reason he keeps finding new companions:
AMY: Then why am l here?
DOCTOR: Because... Because I can't see it any more.
AMY: See what?
DOCTOR: I’m 907 - after a while, you just can't see it.
AMY: See what?
DOCTOR: Everything. I look at a star and it's just a big ball of burning gas. And I know how it began and I know how it ends, and I was probably there both times. Now, after a while, everything is just stuff. That's the problem. You make all of space and time your backyard and what do you have? A backyard. But you, you can see it. And when you see it, *l* see it.
There is an argument to be made that all the Companions are Susan-substitutes, but here the Doctor puts a new (and older) spin on it: He is living his dream, but one that was supposed to be a shared one: Him and his best friend, travelling the stars together.
And so the Doctor is now trying to do for Missy what the Companions do for him - help her appreciate the wonder and the marvels, that seeing is enough. Which is a point which goes back to The End of Time:
DOCTOR: You're a genius. You're stone cold brilliant, you are. I swear, you really are. But you could be so much more. You could be beautiful. With a mind like that, we could travel the stars. It would be my honour. Because you don't need to own the universe, just see it. To have the privilege of seeing the whole of time and space. That's ownership enough.
Back then they didn’t have the time to see it through (just another lost opportunity), but this season took that simple concept and has been carefully trying to work out if it could ever happen.
Can Missy and the Doctor be friends again? Can Missy learn to see with eyes of wonder? Or will she fall back into old habits with a sneer?
She has been watching the Doctor all her life, after all, but there is more to it than just observing and understanding a story and a role...
Last episode, Missy was watching our intrepid heroes. This time, she, Bill and Nardole are being watched by the Doctor. Then, Bill and Razor are watching the Doctor, Missy and Nardole...
And the viewers assess what they see:
DOCTOR: So what have you been up to? Did you watch us?
MISSY: Some of it. A little bit.
DOCTOR: What did you think?
NARDOLE: Oh, is she reviewing us now?
DOCTOR [OC]: Anything else?
NARDOLE: Er. (looks up through the observation dome at the black hole) Oh, look at that.
DOCTOR [OC]: Finally! It's like watching plants grow.
BILL: See he's raising that eyebrow? That's his sarcasm face. He's making a joke.
[...]
(Sitting with Razor on a settee, looking at the Doctor flipping his screwdriver.)
BILL: He's going to do an explanation. That always takes a while.
Missy also does a nice little performance, playing the part she has been assigned:
MISSY: Hello. I'm Doctor Who. And these are my plucky assistants, Thing One and the Other One. We picked up your distress call, (big wink) and here we are to help, like awesome heroes.
It’s a clever way to play with the format, and to analyse the show from within.
The comments on the Doctor’s name (MISSY: He says, I'm the Doctor, and they say, Doctor who? See, I'm cutting to the chase, baby. I'm streamlining. I'm saving us actual minutes.), the Companion’s roles (MISSY: And these are my disposables, Exposition and Comic Relief.) and also characters assessing their other selves (RAZOR: I love disguises. Do you still like disguises?) make for interesting meta commentary.
They are all very aware of the roles they play, how they are perceived.
But at the end of the day it’s not a game. We see the Doctor do his usual spiel as soon as Bill is threatened:
DOCTOR: You don't know it yet, but in a short time, you will trust me with your life. And when I save you and everyone on your ship, one day you will look back, and wonder who I was and why I did.
But it doesn’t work (brilliant post here delving into it in more detail), Bill is shot through the chest, and it feels almost unreal. That is not how the story goes. The Doctor has lost control of the narrative.
He tries to get it back (see him leaving a message for Bill in her subconscious), and it is also evident in the way he analyses the whole situation before delving down to save her.
Meanwhile, Bill watches the Doctor (in extreme slow-motion), by now knowing all his little quirks. Yet she is sitting next to someone who has far deeper motives than just watching, and who is playing a different game to everyone else.
Sidebar: I wonder about his name. Razor is an interesting choice? It's a functional object, but one that can easily kill you if you are not careful. And we never learn if he has a first name. I wonder if it would be Occam.
However, ‘Razor’ is also analysing the performance above - calculating when to make his move, and trying to get a grip on Missy, wondering about the role she seems to be playing…
Not at all oblivious to the pain he himself is causing; just indifferent, and rather pleased.
Thy beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song
We first had Missy and Cybermen back in S8 - the evil nanny, rearing the dead. Playing on people’s fears - and now we realise it’s not her first time.
We still don’t know why the Master is on board the ship - did he come for the Doctor’s sake, because of the Cybermen, or a different reason again? But he is obviously watching and abetting the humans in their ‘Operation Exodus’.
Although (again) Owls said it best:
I seen all the Cyberman stories and tbh like, 95% of them are pointless. After their first appearance they quickly become generic, cartoony, evil robots and the body horror aspect is almost completely lost. So here we have Steven Moffat, I imagine, attempting to make up for ~50 years of wasted potential all in one hit, because JESUS. FUCK.
Another thing the Classic series missed entirely is how well the Master and the Cybermen work together, like, conceptually. It's so odd they never teamed up before, and I don't get why people are bitching about the fact he is now a significant factor in their existence. If you want to say something about the Master, a brutal institution filled with twisted nurses and undead things that disfigured themselves in terror of death is... the only real way to go about it...
(x)
What I realised - so very belatedly, I’m still headdesking - is that the Toclafane are very very close Cybermen parallels: Humanity cannibalising themselves in order to survive the end of the world. The Master watching and 'saving' them, using them for his own ends.
The difference lies in the focus.
The Toclafane were monsters, Tom killing the one they’ve captured out of disgust. We saw the humans at the end of the universe that Professor Yana tried to help, but we never saw how the people became monsters.
This time, the monstering is the whole point. The origin of the Cybermen is horrific, and horrific because it’s painfully real. You can tell they are people, twisted and in pain for ‘their own good’. They are being turned into monsters before our very eyes.
(And if you’re wanting political commentary, it doesn’t come much better or more pointed than the nurse turning down the volume on the patient crying out in agony.)
But it’s not just faceless patients - Bill is hurt too, and quite horrifically so. Can she come back from this? And if so, how?
There are precedents - look at Torchwood’s Cyberwoman (where Lisa, Ianto’s girlfriend, was only part converted, and felt both pain and loss), as well as Yvonne Hartman in the S2 finale (who fought against the other Cybermen, so obviously kept some kind of agency). The prime example is of course Danny - who kept his promise to Clara, even after being ‘activated’.
(And remember how it was an ‘isolated subroutine’ which undid the Monks? The Doctor ‘Left a message in [Bill’s] subconscious.’ Will this play a role?)
A more recent example of re-claimed agency is Heather - no longer human, yet driven by the promises she made.
Bill stepped up and claimed her agency several times from ‘Lie of the Land’ onwards - it’ll be interesting to see how she fares now.
Converting Bill gives a whole new level of investment, but what’s almost equally important is the conversation that precedes it:
BILL: So promise me one thing, yeah? Just promise you won't get me killed.
DOCTOR: I can't promise you that.
BILL: Thanks.
DOCTOR: I mean, look, you're human. And humans are so mortal.
BILL: You'll try and keep me alive?
DOCTOR: Within reason.
I wanted to clap and cheer, even as it is intercut with Bill being shot and falling to the ground, dying. Because finally the Doctor isn’t making promises he can’t keep. No ‘duty of care’. No ‘I will keep you safe’. He will do his best, but he can’t perform miracles and it’s possibly the most important step he has taken so far to show that he has dealt with the fallout and aftermath of the Time War. Maybe Bill’s mum saved him too, just a bit. And Kar and the Roman soldiers. Hammered home that everything is not his responsibility.
What he will do now that Bill has been converted is of course a whole new matter...
RAZOR: He'll never forgive you, you know, He'll never set you free. Not when he discovers what you did to his little friend.
MISSY: I haven't done anything to his silly little friend.
RAZOR: Oh, but I'm afraid you did. But a long time ago.
It's like a many-pronged test of the Doctor's growth: will he manage not to go Victorious over his companion again and how strong is his forgiveness when the harm truly is personal?
Compare what he was ready to do to the Time Lords and Ashildr over them getting Clara killed, to his blistering threats to Ashildr. And Clara’s death wasn’t even their fault - whereas the Master was personally responsible for handing Bill over to the evil doctor….
Now it’s not a perfect parallel, but the surgeon reaching out for Bill’s head, mirrored the Doctor’s actions in The Pilot:
DOCTOR: I just want to fix something.
(He reaches for her head.)
BILL: Whoa! What are you doing?
DOCTOR: Don't worry. This won't hurt at all.
No, there will be no physical pain. But he would have robbed her of her memories, and losing something precious is painful, no matter the method of the loss.
Of course, the question of pain is the one that runs through the whole episode...
BILL: Don't you touch me. Don't you lay a finger on me.
SURGEON: This unit of yours won't last forever, you know. You need the full upgrade.
BILL: You're not going to turn me into one of those things.
SURGEON: I'm rebuilding you to survive in a world not made for flesh.
BILL: But look at them. They're screaming in pain every second they're alive.
SURGEON: But we've got something for that now.
(He picks up a handle-like piece. The final visual clue for anyone who didn't already know.)
SURGEON: This won't stop you feeling pain, but it will stop you caring about it. It fits over your head.
But pain, and caring about it, leads me perfectly to the main point - something I have touched on several times already (everything is connected), but that very much deserves it’s own segment, as it lies at the heart of everything.
This season has done something quite extraordinary. It has tried to redeem the Master - and it has made it work.
We see it in the way Missy closes her eyes as she realises that she is faced with a previous regeneration. The way she almost backs away in shock when she sees who it is.
She actually cares. She wants her friend back, and she might actually succeed. She’s on the right path, is not sure if she can see it through or what it all means, but she is trying.
And here is her past, flesh and blood, ready to wreak havoc, and not comprehending what she is trying to do.
And she doesn’t remember…
The promo image above highlights the parallels to The Day of the Doctor (image here), which are quite profound.
Day of the Doctor involved the Doctor delving into his past, confronting himself on his worst day, and what he did. And he had to do that, in order to resolve the conflict which had been eating away at him for 400 years. To be able to move forward.
I don’t think there will be a reset button for Missy in the same way, as her whole life story is full of atrocities. No, this is very much a test, just a much more comprehensive one than the Doctor was envisaging at the start.
Missy has been locked up for 70 years (at least, it could well be more). The world has been protected from her, but vice versa she has been protected from it. Has had the luxury to only observe and remember.
Like the Doctor had to live with his memories of what he did during the Time War, attempting to come to terms with the guilt and self-loathing, so Missy has been trying to re-adjust her world view, and learning new things:
MISSY: I keep remembering all the people I've killed. Every day I think of more. Being bad, being bad drowned that out. I didn't know I even knew their names. You didn't tell me about this bit.
DOCTOR: I'm sorry, but this is good.
(She turns her face away, to hide her tears.)
MISSY: Okay.
But redemption isn’t just about feeling bad about you did. It’s about making real changes. But you can’t change without properly dealing with the past.
So now, Missy is confronted with her history in ways impossible to ignore. Both in the Master and his plans, ready to pull her back, and in her handiwork - the converted Bill, destroyed by her past, manifested in the present.
Not a long-forgotten name, brought to the fore, but someone she was making fun of ten minutes previously.
How will she cope when the pain might threaten to overwhelm her? Because she can feel it, that we know, and this is the lesson the Doctor has been imparting:
DOCTOR (to cyber!Danny): Pain is a gift. Without the capacity for pain, we can't feel the hurt we inflict.
Death in Heaven
Being good is hard, and it is difficult.... Here, have another C.S. Lewis quote, this time from Mere Christanity:
No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness — they have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it.
I can't quite believe that my favourite show actually has THIS VERY CONCEPT as its main story line. It's a rather sophisticated concept for 8 year olds/family viewing. And yet - it's universal. I can't imagine a single viewer being confused by Missy's arc.
Now, in many ways the Doctor is also on trial here. Is his belief in Missy’s ability to change justified?
DOCTOR: I don't think she ever saw anything.
BILL: And you think that if she did, she'd change?
DOCTOR: I know she would. I know it.
BILL: You're a bloody idiot. You know that, yeah?
DOCTOR: Of course.
He might sound like he’s foolishly optimistic, and we see exactly the same mindset (but in shorthand) playing out in this back-and-forth with Missy (regarding whether Bill can survive):
MISSY: Assumption.
DOCTOR: Deduction.
MISSY: Hope.
DOCTOR: Faith.
MISSY: Idiot.
DOCTOR: Always!
If it was down to his faith alone, Missy would be safe as houses. And don't forget, it isn't faith and hope alone he is counting on. After all, he once changed how a Dalek saw the world, although not in the way he was hoping…
DOCTOR: Let me show you the truth. I've opened your mind and now I'm coming in. I'm part of you. My mind is in your mind.
RUSTY: I see your mind, Doctor. I see your universe.
DOCTOR: And isn't the universe beautiful?
RUSTY [OC]: I see beauty.
DOCTOR: Yes, that's good. That is good. Hold on to that.
RUSTY [OC]: I see endless, divine perfection.
DOCTOR: Make it a part of you. Remember how you feel right now. Put it inside you and live by it.
RUSTY [OC]: I see into your soul, Doctor. I see beauty. I see divinity. I see hatred.
DOCTOR: Hatred?
RUSTY: I see your hatred of the Daleks and it is good.
RUSTY [OC]: Death to the Daleks. Death to the Daleks.
DOCTOR: No, there must be more than that. There must be more than that. Please.
RUSTY: Daleks are evil. Daleks must be exterminated. Daleks are evil.
[goes off to kill Daleks]
RUSTY: Victory is yours, but it does not please you.
DOCTOR: You looked inside me and you saw hatred. That's not victory. Victory would have been a good Dalek.
RUSTY: I am not a good Dalek. You are a good Dalek.
This is a slight tangent, but I think it’s very useful considering that we know The Master will come out of this and regenerate into Missy - S8 Missy who creates a cyberarmy for the Doctor, and gives it to him with these words:
DOCTOR: I don't want an army!
MISSY: Well, that's the trouble! Yes, you do! You've always wanted one! All those people suffering in the Dalek camps? Now you can save them. All those bad guys winning all the wars? Go and get the good guys back.
[...]
DOCTOR: Why are you doing this?
MISSY: I need you to know we're not so different. I need my friend back.
(Essentially: I am not a good Dalek. You are a good Dalek.)
These episodes are what will send the Master down the path of seeking to repair their friendship, the beginning of Missy’s redemption arc, and they are also the end point; the moment when she will have to make up her mind which way to go; because now - now there is no more time. At the beginning I said, remember that the title is ‘To His Coy Mistress’:
Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
The whole season (the Master’s whole story and future) turns on what happens in the next episode. What will his Mistress’s choice be?
The last scene in particular is fascinating in the light of this. She stands side-by-side with the Master, but she speaks very carefully, and she watches the Doctor's reactions with eyes that practically beg for him to realise that she didn't really have a part in this. So, so cautious. Smile fixed.
I think she is feeling split down the middle - the pull to everything familiar on one side, and the pull towards the Doctor and a new future on the other. Exodus or Genesis? Does she leave, does she become something new? I could absolutely see her playing both sides in order to make up her mind. How forgiving is the Doctor going to be? How much faith does he have in her? Can she break the cycle? Can the Doctor?
They have trying to undo her own work, habits and reflexes and mind patterns that she has followed almost blindly. And the next steps are as unknown to her as they are to us. Will she ever be able to hear the music…
With thanks to
enevarim, the dilemma is literally Shakespearean:From The Merchant of Venice, V.i, Lorenzo to Jessica:
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
…
therefore the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods;
Since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.
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And thank you Santa Moff.
♥
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oh god I am not ready for tomorrowno subject
Figured I should probably know WHEN...
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https://youtu.be/477QeNoJnAs
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ETA: OMG, that was DELIGHTFUL. ♥
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I love Moff talking about needing to stand up to write the exciting parts.
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Because I'm sure your latest post (which I haven't read yet) will shatter mine.
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Beautiful meta, as always.
One thing, though:
DOCTOR: She's the only person that I've ever met who's even remotely like me.
You could argue that he is always finding friends like him - companions for his journeying around the universe. But no one else has his perspective. His life span. His understanding.
I don't think it's perspective or lifespan or understanding; other Time Lords have those. I think it's the Trickster archetype. Both the Doctor and the Master are archetypal Tricksters. Tricksters are always morally ambiguous, but the Doctor is an unusual Trickster because he needs to believe that he himself is good. But how can he believe in his own goodness if the Other Trickster is evil? He can't.
The Doctor will never be able to truly believe that he is good until he can truly believe that the Other Trickster is good, too.
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I know. All I wanted to do this week was to watch it on repeat, and RL was very unaccommodating. Beautiful and terrible. One of my favourite episodes, no question.
Beautiful meta, as always.
Thank you. <3 And at first all I could do was flail. And then it... grew.
I think it's the Trickster archetype. Both the Doctor and the Master are archetypal Tricksters. Tricksters are always morally ambiguous, but the Doctor is an unusual Trickster because he needs to believe that he himself is good. But how can he believe in his own goodness if the Other Trickster is evil? He can't.
Now that's an interesting thought. Have you read 'the naming of things'?
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Eleven: That was a clever lie to save our lives!
Razor: It was a clever lie but you see straight through me.
From "Pain is a gift. Without the capacity for pain, we can't feel the hurt we inflict."
to
"I keep remembering all the people I've killed... Being bad, being bad drowned that out. I didn't know I even knew their names. You didn't tell me about this bit."
Here's Ray Bradbury on being good:
"Since when did you think being good meant being happy?"
"Since always."
"Since now, learn different."
Being good is hard and painful... so what is Missy going to do when her old self literally stares her in the face and says "I can stop this pain because I can stop you caring"? Is being good worth it? Because I don't think she wants to be good for the sake of being good, I think she is being good for the Doctor. Being good is a role she's playing, just as she plays at being the Doctor for the first 10-15 minutes of the episode. But being good is more than a role. Virtue is only virtue in extremis, as River put it. Without hope, without witness, without reward (emphasis mine). Is there any point in her being good if there's nobody there to witness it or reward her? Who does she love more, the Doctor or herself?
Her body has become their warring ground, going one step further than Danny in S8, the Master’s destructiveness turning her into a weapon, a hybrid.
This was even more horrific because Danny wasn't in his body when the upgrade happened. Danny went through pain, of course, but it was emotional and moral pain. His soul was not affected, even when downloaded back into his 'upgraded' body. That was what Missy underestimated and what enabled him to turn her own plan against her. Plus, Danny's upgrade happened in a very short amount of time. Bill was not so lucky. She had to wait years for the Doctor and then she was forcibly put under and operated on and SHE WAS FULLY CONSCIOUS OF WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN TO HER DEAR GOD-
I wonder how many people can claim to have been the friend of both the Doctor AND the Master? For years.
Ashildr/Me? Possibly? The Brig knew them both but would be very insulted if someone had called him a 'friend' of the Master. I mean, Missy doesn't really have many friends (possibly because she keeps killing them off) so Bill does occupy a unique place.
I completely agree and believe that Razor was very fond of Bill, because HOW COULD YOU NOT BE? She's an actual ray of sunshine. He's evil, not heartless. :P
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It was fine on the Dreamwidth side, which is why I didn't bother to check LJ. Bloody html.
Eleven: That was a clever lie to save our lives!
Razor: It was a clever lie but you see straight through me.
SUCH a good use of that line.
I think she is being good for the Doctor. Being good is a role she's playing, just as she plays at being the Doctor for the first 10-15 minutes of the episode. But being good is more than a role.
Hmm. Well she is (initially certainly) doing it for him. Anything to stay alive. And she wants her friend back. But even if that was her initial approach, I think it has developed far beyond that...
MISSY: I don't even know why I'm crying. Why? Why do I keep doing that now?
DOCTOR: I don't know. Maybe you're trying to impress me.
MISSY: Yes. Probably some devious plan. That sounds about right.
DOCTOR: The alternative would be much worse.
MISSY: Really?
DOCTOR: The alternative is that this is for real, and it's time for us to become friends again.
I don't think she understands it. But I think it's real. The cure is working.
Virtue is only virtue in extremis, as River put it. Without hope, without witness, without reward (emphasis mine). Is there any point in her being good if there's nobody there to witness it or reward her? Who does she love more, the Doctor or herself?
Here, I think, lies the crux of the matter. The Master has always - always - valued self-preservation above everything else. Which is why I would not be at all surprised if Missy ends up sacrificing herself (presumably to save Bill, it would be the most fitting thing ever, since she was the one who doomed her). Because you can't do a story like this, and then just go 'HAHA SHE WAS EVIL ALL ALONG!' Where would you go from there? I mean, she might do something horrific in order to save people (shades of the War Doctor), but I think we will see a significant change, and that the plot will hinge on HER decision. She will be tempted to go back, but I don't think it's possible anymore.
It's all VERY VERY EXCITING. Moffat has taken the Doctor's 'arc-enemy' and CHANGED HER. Anything is possible. Except going back.
Danny went through pain, of course, but it was emotional and moral pain. His soul was not affected, even when downloaded back into his 'upgraded' body.
Good points about Danny, but I don't think Bill's soul was affected either. Souls are, by their very nature, not thus afflicted.
Bill was not so lucky. She had to wait years for the Doctor and then she was forcibly put under and operated on and SHE WAS FULLY CONSCIOUS OF WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN TO HER DEAR GOD-
SHE BETTER END UP WITH A LOVELY GIRLFRIEND AND PUPPIES AND SUNSHINE!!
Ashildr/Me? Possibly? The Brig knew them both but would be very insulted if someone had called him a 'friend' of the Master. I mean, Missy doesn't really have many friends (possibly because she keeps killing them off) so Bill does occupy a unique place.
I suppose it's possible that Me met the Master, I hadn't even thought of that. But I doubt she'd want to hang out with him. And The Brig would, as you say, be thoroughly offended at the very suggestion of friendship. ;) So yeah, Bill it is. <3
I completely agree and believe that Razor was very fond of Bill, because HOW COULD YOU NOT BE? She's an actual ray of sunshine. He's evil, not heartless. :P
Perfectly put! :D
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Good point. You don't necessarily have to understand how your medicine works OR like it for the medicine to work. <3
I would not be at all surprised if Missy ends up sacrificing herself (presumably to save Bill, it would be the most fitting thing ever, since she was the one who doomed her).
I would LOVE IT if that happened.
Because you can't do a story like this, and then just go 'HAHA SHE WAS EVIL ALL ALONG!' Where would you go from there?
I really hope you're right.
It's all VERY VERY EXCITING. Moffat has taken the Doctor's 'arc-enemy' and CHANGED HER. Anything is possible. Except going back.
Fingers crossed.
I don't think Bill's soul was affected either. Souls are, by their very nature, not thus afflicted.
Yes, didn't express myself very well there. I meant that Danny wasn't forced to consciously undergo the harrowing procedure of upgrading and Bill was. However, Bill is still Bill.
I suppose it's possible that Me met the Master, I hadn't even thought of that. But I doubt she'd want to hang out with him.
The way she says "Missy, the lover of chaos" makes me think that they did indeed bump into each other, though 'friend' might be stretching it.
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I love that 'Probably just a devious plan' exchange, because she doesn't understand...
I would LOVE IT if that happened.
Lots of things I feel I can't really reply to now. ;) (By which I mean - late reply is late)
I really hope you're right.
*steeples fingers and raises eyebrow*
Yes, didn't express myself very well there. I meant that Danny wasn't forced to consciously undergo the harrowing procedure of upgrading and Bill was. However, Bill is still Bill.
Oh I see. Yes, we agree then. :)
The way she says "Missy, the lover of chaos" makes me think that they did indeed bump into each other, though 'friend' might be stretching it.
Missy probably wouldn't appreciate someone [immortal] with zero time for her bullshit.
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Pain... Pain... Pain... all asking for their pain to be acknowledged and having it muted instead :(
This episode broke my heart and gave me hope and broke my heart in all the best ways.
Since I only got into Who with 2005's Nine, would you recommend any Classic!Who eps that deal with The Master? I want to get a feel for the character away from Saxon and Missy.
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It was incredibly done. :(
Pain... Pain... Pain... all asking for their pain to be acknowledged and having it muted instead :(
I think that was the worst part? Pain is one thing, but to have it dismissed like that. *shudders*
This episode broke my heart and gave me hope and broke my heart in all the best ways.
Same here. ♥
Since I only got into Who with 2005's Nine, would you recommend any Classic!Who eps that deal with The Master? I want to get a feel for the character away from Saxon and Missy.
I'm not really an expert at Classic Who, since my knowledge is hugely eclectic and I've only seen a handful of episodes. However, anything with the Third Doctor and Delgado!Master is worth checking out as far as I know.
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*hugs*
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And I even left stuff out, because OH MY GOD IT TOOK ME ALL OF YESTERDAY AFTERNOON TO WRITE!
And that was with having spent the whole week writing notes.
So yeah, ALL THE THINGS. AND MORE COMING!!!
(Am torn on which icon to use, as I have a 'Vote Saxon' icon, but also one with THAT smile. So THAT SMILE it is.)
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You must be in a state of kind-of-terrified overexcitement about the finale ;)
Nothing beats that smile :D
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Well, I had taken Friday afternoon off work...
You must be in a state of kind-of-terrified overexcitement about the finale ;)
Yes and no. It's too much, I can't really process that it's actually here.
Nothing beats that smile :D
Well, you get the other one now. And also, I love your Bill/Heather icon. <3
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I guess that helped :) But still!
Yes and no. It's too much, I can't really process that it's actually here.
Getting you!
And also, I love your Bill/Heather icon. <3
Thanks! Sourced here for extra Bill goodness: http://m-in-wonderland.livejournal.com/26558.html
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Thanks for the fic rec!! I know what I'll be doing tonight...
I don't expect to reach the promised land.
NOT SORRY ABOUT HIS NARRATIVE
I was NOT ready for the Girl Who Waited parallels. The disrespect... Continued from our discussion last week about how the whole season has been "um no" at Twelve's self-aggrandisement, I do "enjoy" that he completely fails to save Bill. (You could argue this two-parter is TGWW in reverse... Eleven did save Amy but also erased her, while Bill wasn't saved by the Doctor but her identity COULD NOT be erased.)
Master!Razor threatened to dethrone Nardole as the secret fave, ngl...
Last episode, Missy was watching our intrepid heroes. This time, she, Bill and Nardole are being watched by the Doctor. Then, Bill and Razor are watching the Doctor, Missy and Nardole...
THAT POSTMODERN SHIT I LIKE. And then it's capped off by Bill's "perception filter" -- her will BLOCKED her own self-image!!! Ultimately, the world's perception of her was irrelevant. The Doctor could never, trolol.
Bill stepped up and claimed her agency several times from ‘Lie of the Land’ onwards - it’ll be interesting to see how she fares now.
I love everything. That is all.
Re: Missy - I don't want to talk about it.
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And so say all of us...
NOT SORRY ABOUT HIS NARRATIVE
I LOVE THAT IT HAS BEEN CARRIED THROUGH.
I do "enjoy" that he completely fails to save Bill.
"Missed her by two hours..." Damn Simm!Master knows how to twist the knife.
Master!Razor threatened to dethrone Nardole as the secret fave, ngl...
Our cup floweth over...
THAT POSTMODERN SHIT I LIKE.
Good, isn't it? One step away from stepping out of the story a la Sophie's World.
I love everything. That is all.
Same here.
Re: Missy - I don't want to talk about it.
Sh. It was poetry.