History Recap / DoctorWhoS34E5TimeHeist

** Saibra's powers are strongly reminiscent of those of both Mystique and Rogue from ''Franchise/XMen''. Said powers share the same ArtisticLicenceBiology genetic origin, and she even describes herself as a "mutant human".

-->'''Saibra:''' "That's your plan? A thing will happen?"

-->'''The Doctor:''' "OK, well I'm no expert but fuses, timer... I'm going to stick my neck out and say ''bomb''."

-->'''Psi:''' "It's very obvious that you've been with him for a while. Because you are ''really'' good at the excuses."

* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: The Doctor tries to convince Clara out of her date and mentions the places they could go, like the Satanic Nebula, the Lagoon of Lost Stars... or Brighton.
* ArtisticLicenseBiology: The Teller's ability to reduce its victims' brains to soup somehow also caves in their skulls, the bone going from a nice convex dome to a concave section where the forehead and front half of the top should be. It makes the victims actually ''look'' like their heads are empty, and is all the more horrifying for it; ''much'' better advertisements for the bank's security measures.

* BatmanGambit: The Architect (aka the Doctor in the future) deliberately makes the teleport devices identical in design to atomic shredders, not to confuse the bank staff, but because of what he knows about himself. The only thing that would get the Doctor to the vault, and keep his spirit up despite all the danger, is to give him something to run from. The one thing the Doctor runs from more often than anything else: [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd death]].
* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: The theory behind the Shredders is to die quickly rather than having one's mind devoured by the Teller, before they're revealed to be teleporters.

* BlackDudeDiesFirst: The Teller's first onscreen victim is black.
* BlessedWithSuck: Saibra's powers can't be shut off, which keeps her from ever touching people without assuming their form. Which means in her case, simple handshakes and sadly, intimacy, are to be avoided.

** The Teller makes soup out of people's brains. It wouldn't be so nauseating if their brain fluids didn't leak out through their tear ducts afterward, or their heads didn't cave in. (The caving-in part is one of the more unsettling visual effects the show has ever displayed on screen. Especially when it's later revealed that the people ''continue to live afterwards''.)

-->'''Saibra:''' That's your plan? A thing will happen?

** Also from "Deep Breath", the Doctor still isn't a hugger.
** When the Teller is going through the Doctor's mind, he tells him to dig deep and see everything, mentioning [[Creator/TomBaker scarf]], [[Creator/MattSmith bowtie]] and right now, which he claims was meant to be minimalist but turned out [[SelfDeprecation magician]]. (Much like how the florid Third Doctor was once [[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E2CarnivalOfMonsters mistaken for a carnie]].)
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E12BadWolf A character is presumed dead]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E3TheCurseOfTheBlackSpot but they’ve actually been teleported away]].

* CrazyJealousGuy: Despite ShipSinking the possibility of a relationship at the start of the season, and apparently ignorant of human courtship rituals at the start of the episode, it turns out the Doctor is NotSoAboveItAll. He woos Clara with another exciting adventure, stuffs her with food just before her dinner date, then brags about it after she's left.

* ExposedExtraterrestrials: While the Teller walks around in a full-body straightjacket for most of the episode, he and his mate are released wearing nothing at all.

* FootPopping: The Doctor is so pleased with himself for exhausting Clara right before her dinner with Danny Pink ("Robbing a whole bank. Beat ''that'' for a date!") that he does this in the last shot.

* GreenEyedMonster: The Doctor's "Beat ''that'' for a date". Keep in mind that at this point in the series, he has yet to (officially) meet Danny.
* HeistEpisode: The plot of the episode. The Twelfth Doctor, Clara, and other subjects are forced by [[TheFaceless the Architect]] to rob the Bank of Karabraxos, a whole banking planet for the sort of people who can buy their own star systems in AnOfferYouCantRefuse (along the lines of "rob the bank or you're dead"). The bank holds something of great value to each member, which is why they took the job despite having to erase their memories of ever taking it.

* HilariousOuttakes: In contrast to the Creator/DavidTennant and Creator/MattSmith eras, gag reels have not been released for Capaldi's episodes. One of the only publicly released bloopers from Series 8, from the epilogue scene in which Capaldi begins speaking the wrong line of dialogue, can be found in the ''Doctor Who Extra'' featurette for this episode released online and later on DVD.

-->'''The Doctor:''' OK, well I'm no expert but fuses, timer... I'm going to stick my neck out and say ''bomb''.

* LastOfItsKind: The bank claims The Teller is the last of its species, which forms the basis for the special terms of its contract. There's a second one chained up and kept prisoner in the bank's most secure vault, and it works for them in exchange for the imprisoned one's safety.

* MeaningfulAppearance: Clara dons a pair of particularly high heels for a date with Danny, which confuses the Doctor who thinks she needs to them to reach a high shelf. Later, the Doctor recommends she change her shoes.

* MishmashMuseum: Karabraxos's personal vault is a disorganised collection of shiny but slightly kitschy items.

* MyLifeFlashedBeforeMyEyes: Psi lampshades the trope before his HeroicSacrifice, but says he has no memories of loved ones to remember.

* NotADate: "Beat ''that'' for a date!"

* SeenItAll: Averted; the Doctor can't recognise the Teller's species, which he hates as he doesn't know how to stop the Teller once it's locked onto you.

* ShipTease: "Beat ''that'' for a date!" caught fans by surprise who assumed that the series had executed ShipSinking with the Doctor and Clara.

** Subverted with the shady and ruthless Architect, who's no more than a set of cryptic instructions from The Twelfth Doctor being his own, scary self.
* TheTriple: The Doctor offers to take Clara to the Satanic Nebula, the Lagoon of Lost Stars, or Brighton.
* {{Troll}}: The Doctor lets Clara stuff herself with Chinese food before her dinner date with Danny.
* VerbalTic: Psi's brain augmentations cause him to repeat repeat repeat himself when he's stressed.

* WhamLine: "Beat ''that'' for a date." A wham because it implies the Doctor was deliberately trying to sabotage Clara's dinner date (including feeding her just before she's to have dinner with Danny) and that his feelings for her might not be all that platonic. So much for "Clara, I'm not your boyfriend."

-->'''Psi:''' It's very obvious that you've been with him for a while. Because you are ''really'' good at the excuses.

* YouSeeImDying: When Madame Karabaxos from the far flung future sends the Doctor on the job that he would later predict that she in the present day would need to, she's already dying ''of old age''.

** The Doctor says that the Architect must be a time traveller because he could [[Film/BackToTheFuture find out exactly when a rare solar storm would hit]].

* PowerWalk: As you'd expect in TheCaper episode, though different in that the characters are somewhat strung out, only visible when they turn a corner.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[labelnote:Click here to see the RadioTimes magazine poster for this episode:]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/time_heist_poster_9729.jpg The Doctor meets a vixen: cunning like a fox. [[AddedAlliterativeAppeal Colder than frostbite. Casually calculative.]] Cutthroat to the core. [[/labelnote]]]]

The one with the hologram-projecting USB plug.

* ShesGotLegs: Lampshaded. Clara is wearing heels and a fancy pantsuit, but the Doctor just thinks she needs the heels to reach a high shelf.

* NiceShoes: Clara dons a pair of particularly high heels for a date with Danny, which confuses the Doctor who thinks she needs to them to reach a high shelf. Later, the Doctor recommends she change her shoes.

* BatmanGambit: The Architect(aka the Doctor in the future) deliberately makes the teleport devices identical in design to atomic shredders, not to confuse the bank staff, but because of what he knows about himself. The only thing that would get the Doctor to the vault, and keep his spirit up despite all the danger, is to give him something to run from. The one thing the Doctor runs from more often than anything else: [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd death]].

* EurekaMoment: In Karabraxos' vault, the Doctor figures out who the Architect is: Himself.

* MishmashMuseum: Karabraxos' personal vault is a disorganised collection of shiny but slightly kitschy items.

* CreatorInJoke: One of the treasure items in Karabraxos' private vault, visible in the background of several important shots, is a child's cardboard model of a rocket ship. In the making-of documentary, director Douglas [=McKinnon=] explains that it belongs to him, was a gift from his daughter, and is one of his own most treasured possessions.

[[SmashCut The Doctor hastily drops the worm he's holding, disgusted,]] and looks around to see Clara and two other interesting people. One of them, Psi, appears to be a cyborg, and the other one's Saibra, a woman in vaguely-Gothic looking dress [[BodyHorror starting to sprout the face of a worm herself.]] A [[TheFaceless deep voice]] crackles through a speaker on the table: they've all agreed to rob the Bank of Karabraxos, a whole [[PlanetOfHats banking planet]] for the sort of people who can buy their own star systems. And they've definitely agreed - he's got their pre-recorded consent to prove it. Of course, the Bank of Karabraxos does this nasty thing where they kill anyone who so much as sets foot there without notice, and there's a rather insistent man with a blowtorch trying to get in and incinerate them right about now, so it looks like they're going to ''have'' to rob the bank [[AnOfferYouCantRefuse if they want to get out alive.]]

The one with the bank heist.

And the backs of people's heads turning to soup.

Written by Steve Thompson and Steven Moffat.

Clara, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E4Listen once again,]] has a date! Things with Danny Pink seem to be going swimmingly, which is nice, and she's even bought a brand new suit and heels for the occasion. The Doctor [[ObliviousToLove doesn't really get it]], but on the bright side, he ''does'' point out those heels'd be great if she ever needs to grab something from a shelf. Clara's just about to leave, when the phone rings. The ''TARDIS'' phone rings.

* TheCaper: The plot of the episode. The bank holds something of great value to each member, which is why they took the job despite having to erase their memories of ever taking it.

* ComputerVoice: The bank's system.

* {{Cyborg}}: Psi. The Doctor describes him as having a mainframe in his head, it lets him wipe his own memory, interface with other systems and upload imprints of close to all the greatest criminals in existence, making him guilty enough to distract the Teller from Clara.

* GreenEyedMonster: The Doctor's "Beat ''that'' for a date". Keep in mind that that this point in the series, he has yet to (officially) meet Danny.

* LastOfItsKind: The Teller is claimed by the bank it works for to be the last of its species, which forms the basis for the special terms of its contract. There's a second one chained up and kept prisoner in the bank's most secure vault, and it works for them in exchange for the imprisoned one's safety.

* WickedCultured: Karabraxos, who has classical music playing in the private vault.

* TitleDrop: Close. "It's not a bank heist; it's a time travel heist."

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: The Teller's ability to reduce its victims' brains to soup somehow also caves in their skulls, the bone going from a nice convex dome to a concave section where the forehead and front half of the top should be. It makes the victims actually ''look'' like their heads are empty, and is all the more horrifying for it.

* AndIMustScream: Having your mind erased until you're just an empty husk. This was why the Doctor chose to give Saibra a mercy kill, or at least he thought he did.

[[quoteright:349:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_teller_restrained_6638.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:349:Having guilty thoughts while reading this article? Better scroll down or your brain will turn to soup.]]

[[caption-width-right:375:[[labelnote:Click here to see the RadioTimes magazine poster for this episode:]]http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/time_heist_poster_9729.jpg The Doctor meets a vixen: cunning like a fox. [[AddedAlliterativeAppeal Colder than frostbite. Casually calculative.]] Cutthroat to the core. [[/labelnote]]]]

* WasntThatFun: Psi invites the Doctor to call him next time he wants to rob a bank. Clara says it's not really the Doctor's thing, only for him to give Psi the wink once her back is turn. Then Clara turns out to be NotSoAboveItAll when she tells the Doctor not to rob any more banks without her.