Who Review: "The Pyramid at the End of the World" (Series 10, Episode 7)

WARNING: SPOILERS, sweetie.

And the award for longest episode title goes to…

Continuing from last week’s “To Be Continued”, a 5,000-year-old pyramid has shown up in a disputed area between the Chinese, Russian, and American armies. The Monks’ invasion plan has begun, but they need humanity’s consent in order to take over. The end of the world looms dangerously close overhead, and the Monks appear to be Earth’s only hope for survival. Oh, and the Doctor is still blind.

The Monks’ invasion plan is a fascinating concept to me. It’s not often where you see an alien invasion relying on welcoming the invaders as potential saviors. Very vampire-esque. But, as the episode points out, ruling with love is much more effective than ruling with fear.

Needless to say, the Monks continue to be scarily competent antagonists, specifically in their calm demeanor and confidence in their plan. Plus, they successfully predicted the end of the world based on humanity’s own ignorance. There’s nothing scarier than an enemy who knows your planet better than you. Double-plus, they apparently hold the ability to warp reality to their will. How much power do these guys really have? And we now know that they specifically chose their human-like appearance for this plan. So why do they look like corpses? According to them, humans are corpses in their eyes. Brr.

The Monks stay at a 3.5 on the Moffat Monster Scare-o-meter™.

The show also continues to throw us for a loop regarding predicting plot twists. Last week was Missy being in the vault. This week, after much speculation that the Doctor would regenerate to fix his blindness, Bill makes a deal with the Monks to fix the Doctor’s sight – thus saving his life – in exchange for the Earth’s freedom. I always like whenever the Doctor’s companions show how far they would go for the Doctor in return for how far he goes for the world. It really demonstrates just how important and impactful the Doctor is on everyone. Also, it’s a nice parallel from last season, where we saw how far the Doctor would go for his companions.

The B-plot with the disease lab I didn’t find particularly interesting, but I like how it tied all together into the Monks’ plan. But the most important thing I took from it was the casting of the main scientist, Erica, as a little person. I could be wrong, but I don’t remember there being that many little people actors on Doctor Who that aren’t just playing tiny aliens, with the exception of Warwick Davis back in Series 7. Last season had a deaf actress and a transgender actor, and this season continues to show why Doctor Who is one of the most inclusive shows out there.

Triangles: The evilest of shapes.

I like how it was revealed to Bill that the Doctor is blind: he finally needs his physical eyes for something, and confesses to Bill. I was really hoping this was how the Doctor would reveal his ailment, and I’m glad the show didn’t disappoint. Also, had the Doctor told Bill about his blindness from the get-go, the Monks wouldn’t have taken over the Earth. Whoops.

I do, however, have problems with the lead-up to the ending, specifically the rules of the killer disease that will end the world. When the Doctor and Nardole arrive in the disease lab, the Doctor tells Nardole to go back into the TARDIS so he won't be exposed to the virus. But then the Doctor goes running around by himself - in areas where Erica is in need of a hazmat suit, mind you - and seems perfectly fine. Shouldn't he be affected by the disease? And then, Nardole gets infected within the TARDIS, so does that mean that the Doctor was at risk even by landing? And if Nardole is infected now, why didn't he turn into gunk like the other guy did?

Also, a little nitpick: Where is UNIT? They'll get involved when corpses are being turned into Cybermen and shape-shifting squid monsters are rebelling, but not when the sudden appearance of a pyramid nearly triggers World War III? Or do they not have jurisdiction when the armies of China, Russia, and America are already involved?

No new stuff involving Missy or the vault in this episode. After last week, I was kind of expecting a follow-up of some kind, especially since the ending implied that the Doctor would release Missy to help against the Monks. But it looks like they’re saving that for next week’s episode. Also, looks like I’m to be proven wrong from my statement last week regarding one last rug-pulling moment from the vault storyline. Missy is definitely the one in the vault, and that’s final.

Speaking of the Master, somehow I was led to believe that the “Two Masters” story would happen within the Monks Trilogy, but apparently this meeting won’t happen until the season finale. Considering all the heavy stuff going on with the Monks’ plan and the Doctor’s blindness, I’m very grateful that they’re not trying to cram more stuff in. And with a Master/Missy team-up partnered with the return of the original Mondassian Cybermen after fifty-plus years, this is going to be one hell of a season finale.

Overall, "The Pyramid at the End of the World" is an okay episode. Nothing great, nothing spectacular, but good. The ending is without question the best part of the episode. If you ask me, the previous episode in the trilogy was better. But on the whole, I am greatly enjoying the Monks Trilogy for its compelling villains and interesting concepts. I truly hope that all of this hype lives up to the trilogy’s finale.

"Oh my god, THAT'S the poster for Spider-Man: Homecoming?!"

 Final verdict: 7/10.

NEXT WEEK: The final part of the Monks Trilogy! The Monks have taken over Earth and brainwashed everyone into thinking they’ve always been their rulers, and Bill is the only one who sees the truth.

Who Review: "Extremis" (Series 10, Episode 6)

WARNING: SPOILERS, sweetie.

So Missy’s in the vault. Yeah, big surprise, right? And if it feels like I’m revealing this kind of anticlimactically at the beginning of this review, that’s kind of how it happens in the episode.

The Doctor is still blind after the events of the previous episode, and only Nardole knows the truth. The Vatican comes for the Doctor’s aid with a pressing issue. In their library of heresy, there is an ancient book called the Veritas. Anyone who reads it soon after takes their own lives. And someone has just released a new translation. The Pope begs the Doctor to read the Veritas to learn how to stop these mass suicides, but the Time Lord’s blindness proves to be his biggest adversary in this mystery.

This is one of the darkest Doctor Who episodes I’ve seen in a while. There aren’t a whole lot of comedic moments here, and there are plenty more suicides presented in this episode than in any DW episodes in recent memory. The part where Bill and Nardole encounter the CERN scientists – cheerful and nonchalant about their own demises as a clock counts down to an explosion – is eerily disturbing, as is the image of the fictional President of the United States slumped in a chair after intentionally overdosing on pills. And then his body is just there in the background for the rest of the scene. Haunting stuff.

The big reveal in the episode both lessens and increases on the scare factor. On the one hand, the majority of the episode – barring the framing device and flashbacks – are all in an advanced holographic simulation created by the Monks in an attempt to practice taking over the Earth before they go forth with their big plan. First of all, I love this idea, because it makes sense for an army to practice different tactics before they try for an invasion. A simulation like this allows for trial and error so they can see what exactly would be the best way to go about conquering Earth, and it sets up just how cunning an adversary the Monks are.

"It's nothing but bloody fanfiction!"

But on the other hand, this is technically a cop-out since none of the tragedies and deaths we witness in the episode amount to anything, so that decreases the nightmare fuel dished out by them. But the fact that there are no consequences to the real world means that they can go more all-out with the brutality. It’s kind of like that episode of Young Justice where everyone’s trapped in a telepathic battle simulation and everyone winds up dying. None of it really matters in the end, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still terrify us with death after death.

(Also, spoilers for Young Justice.)

However, the fact that it is a scarily, near-perfect recreation of our world makes it even more terrifying on a psychological field. How would you know if you were in a simulation of the real world? What would you do if a book told you the world was fake and gave you several tests to prove it? And with how detailed the simulation is with peoples’ memories, personalities, and finite details (like the girl Bill has a crush on), it really begs the question of how much the Monks really know about us. It has a real “Matrix-meets-Inception” vibe to it, and this reveal really amps up the paranoia factor of the episode.

As mentioned before, the main villains/monsters of this episode – as well as the whole three-parter this episode begins – are the Monks, these red-garbed, corpse-like beings apparently bent on taking over Earth. This episode doesn’t really give us a whole lot of information on them apart from their desire to conquer Earth and the fact that they have the technological capacity to create a highly sophisticated computer program to practice their tactics. But from what we’ve seen of their design and what they’ve done so far, they’re suitably creepy.

So far on the Moffat Monster Scare-o-meter™, the Monks score 3.5 Moffs out of 5.

A behind-the-scenes photo gives Game of Thrones fans
a glimpse at Melinsandre's new look.

Alright so let’s go back to the thrilling conclusion of “What’s in the Vault?” shall we? Like I said before, it’s Missy. What it boils down to is sometime after “The Husband of River Song”, Missy found herself in the imprisonment of a planet of executioners. The Doctor was called in to carry out her execution, and he would have to look after her body for a thousand years. But the Doctor cheated, kept her alive, but still kept his promise. And now she’s in a vault.

It’s a bit of an anticlimactic reveal, especially since Missy was one of the most obvious candidates. I know I was among those guessing that one of the Masters – either Missy or John Simm – was going to be in the vault, but there’s a part of me that’s disappointed the show didn’t pull the rug out from under us. And the way they casually reveal it at the beginning of the episode is kind of like the show saying, “We know you already figured this out, so let’s just get this out of the way real quick.” Then again, this reveal also leaves me intrigued as to how they’ll bring the John Simm Master into the plot, considering he’s not the one in the vault as predicted.

But I still smell trickery going on. We never actually SAW Missy in the vault in the present day. Hell, we didn’t even see the Doctor physically put her in the vault. We just see him sitting outside the vault talking to her like he’s going to sing “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” So for all we know, there could still be a reveal within the reveal. Until I actually see Michelle Gomez inside, I’ll be skeptical.

But the episode still doesn’t answer WHAT THE HELL MISSY’S BEEN DOING SINCE HER LAST APPEARANCE. Seriously, the last we saw of her was in the second episode of the last season, where she was stranded on the Daleks’ homeworld and announcing that she had an idea. Naturally, I thought that this would return for the season finale, but nope. She’s nowhere to be seen. And then this episode just starts with her incarcerated and awaiting her execution. It’s like…what happened? What was her plan? Was that the reason she was about to be executed? If I don’t get answers by the end of the season, the BBC’s gonna get a lot of angry, illegibly-written letters.

Also, can I just say how much I love the relationship between Twelve and Missy? I’ve always been fascinated by the hero-villain dynamic where they kind of compliment each other and are kind of soul mates, even if it’s mostly one-sided like with Batman and the Joker. Ten and the John Simm Master had a similar relationship, but it felt more like the friendship was more on the Doctor’s side as he tried to save the Master from his own sins. With Twelve and Missy, the friendship absolutely goes both ways. Missy is evil, yes, and she’s the Doctor’s archenemy, but paradoxically, she’s also his best friend, and he would do anything to save her despite all the wrongs she’s done. That is a fascinating dynamic you don’t see much between heroes and villains. And Capaldi and Gomez just play off of each other so freaking well. I don’t know if they’ve been friends for years or not, but they definitely act like it.

"Pie Jesu Domine"
*THUNK*
"Dona eis requiem"
*THUNK*

“Extremis” is a very dark episode with a lot of disturbing themes and interesting concepts. Doctor Who doesn’t often delve into religion, but whenever it does, it’s always super ominous. For the first part of a three-part storyline, “Extremis” manages to set an intriguing foundation and makes me interested for the episodes to come.

Final verdict: 8/10.

NEXT WEEK: Part two of three! A five thousand year old pyramid shows up overnight, and somehow this plays into the Monks’ plan.