| 1 | [[WMG:[[center:[-''[[Series/DoctorWho Doctor Who]]'' [[Recap/DoctorWho recap index]]\ |
| 2 | '''Twelfth Doctor Era'''\ |
| 3 | '''Series 10:''' [[Recap/DoctorWho2016CSTheReturnOfDoctorMysterio CS]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E1ThePilot 1]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E2Smile 2]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E3ThinIce 3]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E4KnockKnock 4]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E5Oxygen 5]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E6Extremis 6]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E7ThePyramidAtTheEndOfTheWorld 7]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E8TheLieOfTheLand 8]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E9EmpressOfMars 9]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E10TheEatersOfLight 10]] | '''11''' | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E12TheDoctorFalls 12]] | [[Recap/DoctorWho2017CSTwiceUponATime CS]]\ |
| 4 | '''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E1TheMagiciansApprentice <<< Series 9]]''' | '''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E1TheWomanWhoFellToEarth Series 11 >>>]]''']]-]]] |
| 5 | !World Enough and Time |
| 6 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dw_1012_world_enough_and_time_part_1.jpg]] |
| 7 | [[caption-width-right:350:[[CallBack The Day of]] [[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor the Master.]]]] |
| 8 | ->Written by Creator/StevenMoffat\ |
| 9 | Directed by Creator/RachelTalalay\ |
| 10 | '''Air date:''' 24 June 2017\ |
| 11 | '''Part 1 of 2''' |
| 12 | |
| 13 | ->'''Jorj:''' Who are you?\ |
| 14 | '''Missy:''' Well, I'm that mysterious adventurer in time and space, known only as Doctor Who, and these are my disposables -- Exposition and Comic Relief.\ |
| 15 | '''Nardole:''' We're not functions.\ |
| 16 | '''Missy:''' Darling, those were genders. |
| 17 | |
| 18 | JustForFun/{{The one w|ith}}here the genesis of the Cybermen and the undoing of a companion are revealed. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | This is the first half of the two-part Series 10 SeasonFinale of ''Series/DoctorWho''. Its denouement also continues into [[Recap/DoctorWho2017CSTwiceUponATime the 2017]] ChristmasEpisode to form, in total, a three-part GrandFinale for Creator/PeterCapaldi's tenure as the Twelfth Doctor. |
| 21 | ---- |
| 22 | |
| 23 | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E13Doomsday This is the story of how the Twelfth Doctor died...]] |
| 24 | |
| 25 | The Doctor and Missy (the Master)'s relationship has evolved [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E6Extremis since he chose not to execute her]]. After decades of imprisonment in the Vault under his watchful eye as he kept to his 1,000-year vow, she seems to be on the verge of a HeelFaceTurn. Few things would please these two Time Lords more than to be friends again, as they were before madness of others' making sent her down an evil path. But the Doctor knows that he must be careful -- HopeIsScary, and seductive. |
| 26 | |
| 27 | To Bill and Nardole's anxiety, the Doctor decides he will test Missy's sincerity and capacity for good, inspired by a long-ago promise they made to each other to see the universe together. He brings the TARDIS to a gigantic spaceship in need of aid: It is caught in the gravitational pull of a black hole. But Missy will be filling his role -- down to his name -- while he hangs back in the TARDIS to observe her actions and interactions with both Bill and Nardole and the crew of the ship, coaching the trio by earpiece as required. [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E5Oxygen After all, the universe shows its true face when it asks for help, and those who are asked show their true faces in how they respond.]] |
| 28 | |
| 29 | As you can probably guess, ''lots of trouble occurs''. The true Doctor joins the fray, but too late to save Bill from being shot -- ''through and through'' -- by an anxious alien technician. From there, her body ends up transported to the other end of the ship, which is 400 miles away and unreachable via TARDIS because the ship, ever since it became trapped in the black hole, has been suffering TimeDilation caused by gravitational pull. Luckily, she is in a hospital and soon up and about again! Unluckily, time is flowing much, much faster at Bill's end than at the Doctor's: '''ten minutes''' for him, Missy, and Nardole is '''2.84 years''' for her. Moreover, this hospital is ministering not-so-tenderly to the humans of the planet [[Recap/DoctorWhoS4E2TheTenthPlanet Mondas]] -- Earth's long-lost twin. This DyingRace of humans is "evolving" to survive the physical effects of dilation via artificial limbs and organs. And since her heart was vaporized, Bill has already been forced to take the first steps toward a full "[[{{Catchphrase}} upgrade]]". |
| 30 | |
| 31 | When, not if, the Doctor, Missy, and Nardole reach Bill by travelling through the ship itself -- the Doctor will not let his beloved companion pay the price for his decision to test Missy if he can help it -- they will also find both the first generation of Cybermen and '''another''' version of the Master waiting for them. It's Missy's previous self. You know, [[Creator/JohnSimm the one]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E11Utopia who can't]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E12TheSoundOfDrums decide whether you]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E13LastOfTheTimeLords should live]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime or die]]. |
| 32 | |
| 33 | And with this, the story continues in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E12TheDoctorFalls The Doctor Falls]]"... |
| 34 | ---- |
| 35 | !!Tropes: |
| 36 | * AcCENTUponTheWrongSylLABle: In keeping with [[Recap/DoctorWhoS4E2TheTenthPlanet the Mondasian Cybermen's first appearance]], the Cyber-converted Bill speaks like this: |
| 37 | -->[[AC:[=I-iii WAITed forrrrr yoUUUUuuuuu.=]]] |
| 38 | * AnachronicOrder: |
| 39 | ** A Moffat favourite, this pops up in this episode seemingly showing the Doctor regenerating, then in the adventure itself, and then flashing back to the Doctor trying to convince Bill and Nardole to come with Missy. |
| 40 | ** Then there's the whole angle of the previous incarnation of the Master finally turning up for the party, hopefully to resolve the burning question of how we went from him to Missy. |
| 41 | * AndIMustScream: The nurse appears to treat the patient who's calling out in pain by adjusting his dosage. Bill discovers that she only turned down his volume control ''and he's still crying out in agony''. |
| 42 | * ApologeticAttacker: As Jorj aims a gun at Bill, he says "I'm sorry, but you're the reason they're coming." Why? She's the one human in the group. |
| 43 | * ArtisticLicenceBiology: The thousands of people living on the lower decks are supposedly descended from an original population of just 20 individuals (from a race who are supposed to be more-or-less genetically identical to Earth humans). While not ''quite'' an AdamAndEvePlot, this still doesn't represent anything like a big enough gene pool to produce a healthy population; after a thousand years, they should have inbred themselves into near-extinction. |
| 44 | * TheAtoner: Missy '''seems''' ready to become this, and the Doctor sets her on a RedemptionQuest with his SwappedRoles gambit to test her. Then her ''other'' self, who is leagues away from her present CharacterDevelopment, shows up and is prepared to convince her not to cross that bridge. |
| 45 | * BackgroundHalo: In an inversion(?), the nurse's hat gives her background ''horns''. |
| 46 | * {{Backstory}}: The Mondasian Cybermen's tragic backstory is depicted and explored at length in this episode. Or at least one branch of them. |
| 47 | * BaitAndSwitchCompassion: Bill finds a patient at the hospital who is unable to speak, but has been given a mechanical voice box which they use to constantly emote the word "pain". A nurse approaches the patient and offers to help them, and is seen adjusting some of the machines the patient is connected to. When Bill gets a closer look at the patient, she realises that all the nurse did was set the voice box to mute. |
| 48 | * BaitAndSwitchComment: Mr Razor does this all the time. |
| 49 | -->'''Razor:''' You are dear to me. You are my dearest person. You are like...\ |
| 50 | '''Bill:''' I know.\ |
| 51 | '''Razor:''' A mother to me.\ |
| 52 | '''Bill:''' ''[{{beat}}]'' Definitely not a mother. |
| 53 | * BattleaxeNurse: The formidable nurse in the hospital where Bill ends up. When patients complain about pain, she just turns their volume off. |
| 54 | * BeardOfEvil: The Saxon Master now has a [[CallBack Delgado/Ainley-era]] goatee. |
| 55 | * BeingGoodSucks: Missy is genuinely trying to be good as the Doctor tests her, and later as she aids the Doctor and Nardole in rescuing Bill. Unfortunately, her ''previous'' self turns out to have been behind Bill's terrible fate specifically because she wants to be good, and he taunts her that the Doctor will not forgive either of them for this foul deed. Rather than stand up to her previous self, hope that the Doctor will understand the situation, accept any consequences he might lay down, and use this tragic development as another thing she MustMakeAmends for via RedemptionQuest, she seems ready to give up on goodness altogether as of the {{Cliffhanger}}. |
| 56 | * BestServedCold: The Saxon Master was willing to spend ten years befriending Bill just to stymie the Doctor's plans to reconcile with his future self. |
| 57 | * BigBad: The Harold Saxon incarnation of the Master. Surprisingly, Missy is not in on his plot -- she doesn't remember her time in this ship as Saxon at all -- and seems to have potential for a HeelFaceTurn until he reveals what he's done to the companion of the Doctor who has been trying to redeem her. Indeed, part of the point of his EvilPlan is to make sure she never makes one. |
| 58 | * BigNo: The episodes starts off (in AnachronicOrder) with the Doctor seemingly about to regenerate on a desolate [[SingleBiomePlanet ice planet]] shouting this. |
| 59 | * BitchInSheepsClothing: In the creepy hospital, Bill makes friends with "Mr. Razor", a strange, dishevelled man who works as a janitor. And then he leads her right to the conversion theatre. And ''then'' he turns out to be the Master. |
| 60 | * BloodlessCarnage: Bill gets a huge hole blown in her chest, yet no blood or organs are shown, probably because it was an energy weapon that cauterized it. Mr. Razor later comments her heart was "broken". |
| 61 | * BodyHorror: Being a Cyberman. They're created in a pure MedicalHorror setting, and every last one is in constant agony. The machinery doesn't ''stop'' the pain so much as ''program you to not care.'' |
| 62 | * BookEnds: |
| 63 | ** Twelve's first series finale, "Dark Water", also involved a shady institution secretly harvesting people to become Cybermen, and ended with a seemingly-minor character working for this institution revealing themselves as an incarnation of the Master while a companion/major recurring character reveals they've been forcibly cyberized. |
| 64 | ** Steven Moffat is leaving the series on an epic multi-part story that concludes in the holiday season featuring John Simm's incarnation of the Master and the Doctor reluctant to regenerate, nearly identical to circumstances in which Creator/RussellTDavies had passed the torch on to him. |
| 65 | * BreakTheCutie: Putting her trust in the Doctor and going along with his risky plan to redeem Missy, sweet, plucky Bill Potts is shot through the chest and ends up alone and trapped in a hospital where she's saved, yes, but then first ConditionedToAcceptHorror and later forced to undergo UnwillingRoboticization. This is because, where minutes are passing for the Doctor as he tries to rescue her, years are passing for her as she waits... and waits. To make matters even more heartbreaking, the one friend she has for all these years has just been waiting to betray her all along, waiting until the last possible moment to do so. While she is a Cyberman, she is ''still'' capable of feeling emotions along with pain, the last shot of the episode being a tear emerging from her eye. |
| 66 | * BritsLoveTea: Mr. Razor and Bill "enjoy" this regularly. As far as he's concerned it's the ''real'' horror of the hospital. And this is the "good" tea. |
| 67 | * BrutalHonesty: When Bill asks the Doctor to promise her he won't let her get killed if she agrees to help him test Missy, he replies "I can't promise you that." He does say he will protect her ("Within reason."). |
| 68 | * TheBusCameBack: The Harold Saxon incarnation of the Master ''finally'' returns, making this storyline both his first appearance since the Tenth Doctor's GrandFinale "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime The End of Time]]" and the first multi-Master story in the televised continuity. And, of course, the very first breed of Cybermen from "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS4E2TheTenthPlanet The Tenth Planet]]" appear for the first time since them. In fact, Bill becomes the very ''first'' of them. |
| 69 | * CallBack: |
| 70 | ** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E6Extremis Extremis]]", the about-to-be-executed Missy begged for her life, saying she could change, asking the Doctor to teach her to be good. She has since spent decades in the Vault, forced to go "cold turkey" from doing evil, as revealed in "The Lie of the Land". In that episode's ending and the two that followed, she showed the potential for a HeelFaceTurn, and now he will test her sincerity. |
| 71 | ** The Doctor promised Bill he would be able to save her in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E5Oxygen Oxygen]]" and he did (''twice''), and her hope that he had a plan to defeat the Monks all along helped sustain her for six lonely months in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E8TheLieOfTheLand The Lie of the Land]]". Now she is trapped in a hospital and faces being converted into a Cyberman, as years pass for her thanks to TimeDilation as she waits for the Doctor to arrive. He turns out to be too late this time. |
| 72 | ** The Master disguises himself with a LatexPerfection mask, something the Creator/RogerDelgado and Creator/AnthonyAinley incarnations frequently did. |
| 73 | ** The Master has to disguise himself so Bill won't recognise the former Prime Minister of Britain, Harold Saxon. Although to be fair, when "Harold Saxon" was the Prime Minister, Bill was probably about 10 years old at most, and likely paid very little real attention to national politics. |
| 74 | * CharacterFocus: After the opening ten minutes or so, this episode focuses on Bill's side of the story as she endures TheSlowPath in the hospital waiting for the Doctor, Missy, and Nardole. |
| 75 | * {{Cliffhanger}}: The Harold Saxon Master has had a hand in the creation of the original generation of Cybermen, poor Bill has been completely Cyber-converted, Missy appears to have given up her HeelFaceTurn upon learning that her earlier self has done this to Bill, the Doctor's TARDIS is on the other end of the ship and only accessible via the lifts, and the story will end when TheHeroDies. |
| 76 | * ComicallyMissingThePoint: Missy playing TheHero. |
| 77 | -->'''Missy:''' Well, I am that mysterious adventurer in all of time and space, known only as Doctor Who. And these are my disposables, Exposition and Comic Relief. |
| 78 | * ConditionedToAcceptHorror: |
| 79 | ** Bill becomes this with regards to the hospital. She is initially horrified by what goes on around her, but since she's stuck there, she has no choice but to learn and understand why things are the way they are. Once she does, she accepts them as just a sad reality and even becomes a janitor alongside Mr. Razor. |
| 80 | ** For that matter, none of the Mondasians in the city seem to care about what is being done to their fellow citizens in the hospital; no LaResistance is forming. This is because the breakthroughs going on in the hospital are what will make it possible for everyone to leave this miserable, polluted world for greener pastures on the other floors, which are (supposedly) teeming with enemies they will have to battle. |
| 81 | * ContinuityNod: |
| 82 | ** For the third time in series history, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS4E2TheTenthPlanet just as a Doctor's]] [[Recap/DoctorWho2013CSTheTimeOfTheDoctor tenure is about to end]], he encounters the Mondasian Cybermen. |
| 83 | ** It's the second time a Doctor has fought the Harold Saxon incarnation of TheMaster [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime as their tenure came to an end.]] |
| 84 | ** The episode begins in an Arctic-like environment, where The Doctor begins regenerating, not the first time this has happened both in the Arctic and in an episode with Mondasian Cybermen. It later turns out that it is in fact the ''same'' place and time as the original example, to within a few minutes at most. |
| 85 | ** Saxon-Master is armed with his laser screwdriver, as in the Series 3 finale three-parter. In addition, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E12TheSoundOfDrums once again he decides to align himself with a dying race of people who are desperate to survive, even if it means becoming inhuman]]... |
| 86 | ** The intruder alert alarm on the spaceship is [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E12TheSoundOfDrums a four-beat rhythm that Missy rather likes...]] (also {{Foreshadowing}}). |
| 87 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E11DarkWater Once]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E12DeathInHeaven again]], the Twelfth Doctor has to deal with Missy and the Cybermen in a SeasonFinale two-parter. And Bill undergoes piece-by-piece Cyber-conversion, a slower take on the fate of Danny Pink. |
| 88 | ** The Twelfth Doctor [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E10FaceTheRaven once again finds himself helpless to save a beloved companion from suffering a terrible fate]] -- death in Clara's case, near-death and Cyber-conversion in Bill's -- and seems to blame himself for the tragedy. In Clara's case, it's because he didn't rein in her more reckless impulses; in Bill's case, he convinced her to help him test Missy, knowing that she trusted him to keep her safe. |
| 89 | ** Jorj, the technician on the spaceship, appears to be of the same blue-skinned species as Dahn-Ren from "Oxygen", which also involved the TARDIS crew responding to a distress call with devastating personal consequences. |
| 90 | ** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E10TheEatersOfLight The Eaters of Light]]", the episode immediately preceding this one, a major plot point was that the portal to the Eaters' dimension was subject to YearInsideHourOutside. In this story, TimeDilation is central to the plot -- 2 days pass at the front of the ship, 1,000 years in the back. |
| 91 | ** Missy at one point calls the Doctor an idiot, and he replies with "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E12DeathInHeaven Always]]." [[note]]"I'm an idiot! An idiot with a box!"[[/note]] |
| 92 | ** Missy derides the idea that the Doctor's companions are his real friends, as [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E1TheMagiciansApprentice she did with Clara Oswald]]. |
| 93 | ** Bill's Cyber-conversion is not unlike Peri Brown having another consciousness overwriting hers in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E2Mindwarp Mindwarp]]". Notably, while Peri was originally KilledOffForReal in that story, her fate was given a {{Retcon}} at the eleventh hour as it came off as far too brutal. |
| 94 | ** The Twelfth Doctor is trying to rescue Bill, but it's complicated by the fact that TimeDilation affects the ship they're on opposite ends of, so long before he gets there she is Cyber-converted. This is similar to the crisis at the heart of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E10TheGirlWhoWaited The Girl Who Waited]]", in which Amy Pond was trapped in an accelerated time stream intended for terminally ill people and aged decades into an old, bitter woman while only minutes passed for Rory and the Eleventh Doctor, leaving them to puzzle out a way to save her younger self. |
| 95 | ** With Missy playing at being the Doctor, the issue of the latter's real/original name is brought up again, albeit PlayedForLaughs. They were childhood friends, after all. If anyone knows what it is then it would be her. |
| 96 | ** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E1AsylumOfTheDaleks Oswin Oswald]] would surely sympathize with Bill Potts's plight, too -- trapped and helpless in a hospital in deep space, UnwillingRoboticization threatened. |
| 97 | ** The Twelfth Doctor wanting Missy to see the true beauty of the universe, believing it will induce a HeelFaceTurn in her, recalls his gambit to remind Rusty of what it was that made his radiation-damaged mind turn against the Daleks in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E2IntoTheDalek Into the Dalek]]". |
| 98 | ** Missy takes on the Doctor's role ''and name'' in the early going, much the same way Clara Oswald did in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E9Flatline Flatline]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E12DeathInHeaven Death in Heaven]]" -- the latter of which also featured Missy and the Cybermen. As in "Flatline", he is able to coach his "student" from afar (via an earpiece this time). |
| 99 | ** Heather made ThePromise back in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E1ThePilot The Pilot]]" not to leave without Bill and then she became possessed by living spaceship fuel and tried to hold herself to it in the worst way. The Doctor convinced Bill not to accept her offer to see the universe as a passenger and to free Heather from the promise. But now, the Doctor effectively wants Missy to become his passenger, remembering his old pact with her that was never fulfilled. Also counts as BookEnds for Series 10. |
| 100 | ** The Doctor and Bill Potts previously encountered human colonists of the future in "Smile". |
| 101 | ** The determination of the Mondasians to survive by any means necessary, even if it means innocent lives are sacrificed in the process and the survivors end up with horribly altered bodies, is akin to the Landlord's desperation to keep his mother alive via the Dryads in "Knock Knock". |
| 102 | ** Moffat actually went out of his way to avoid contradicting Marc Platt's "[[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho034SpareParts Spare Parts]]", [[SacredCow one of the most well-regarded and beloved Big Finish episodes ever]]. The Mondasian Cybermen's {{Backstory}} here is a variation on the one presented for them in "Spare Parts" (with added TimeDilation) and includes homages to both the pseudo-1950s setting of Marc Platt's story and the scene with the partially converted Yvonne Hartley, but doesn't retcon that story's direct link to [[Recap/DoctorWhoS4E2TheTenthPlanet "The Tenth Planet"]], instead featuring a colony ship of Mondasians who presumably fled the planet Mondas long before "Spare Parts" happened. |
| 103 | ** The Doctor subdues Jorj by breaking out the Venusian Aikido, for the first time in a very long while. The Third Doctor (whom the Twelfth Doctor quite resembles, especially in his first outfit) was a proficient user of the martial art. |
| 104 | ** The Master adopting an alias, this time as "Mr. Razor". He's also gone back to his long-lost habit of [[MasterOfDisguise assuming elaborate disguises]], last seen in the classic series, and is back to sporting an [[BeardOfEvil evil goatee]] while male, as he's done in every male incarnation while in the prime of life -- the exceptions being his degenerated form and his engineered personality as Professor Yana, who forgot he was the Master. |
| 105 | ** Mr. Razor tells Bill his line about the patients not feeling pain was "A clever lie", much like the Eleventh Doctor said in "Let's Kill Hitler". |
| 106 | ** The Master having revealed himself, he says he doesn't think of the Cyber-conversion as "Project Exodus", but instead as a "Genesis", specifically, the "Genesis of the Cybermen". This references the title of the Fourth Doctor story, "Genesis of the Daleks". |
| 107 | ** Due to TimeyWimeyBall, this is both the first and second times that a version of The Master has created a version of Cybermen. The first, from audience perspective being the "Dark Water"/"Death in Heaven" two-parter, while this is the first chronologically, as these are the original Cybermen. |
| 108 | ** We've seen the Doctor return to but ultimately prove unable to stop the genesis of a very old foe before, twice ("Genesis of the Daleks" for the Daleks, "The Snowmen" for the Great Intelligence). |
| 109 | ** Missy not being able to remember her past self's role in events is a nod to how when previous Doctors interact the older regenerations lose their memory of events, lest it cause too much of a paradox. |
| 110 | ** Bill's single tear at the end of the episode echoes [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E13Doomsday Yvonne Hartman]] doing the same. |
| 111 | ** Long after "The Lie of the Land," Bill finds herself living in another gloomy dystopia. |
| 112 | ** When Bill protests helping Missy because she's a murderer, the Doctor points out that Bill herself [[WhatMeasureIsANonhuman is eating a bacon sandwich]], almost scornfully telling her "Go tell a pig about your moral high ground." The Sixth Doctor had decided to become a vegetarian in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS22E4TheTwoDoctors The Two Doctors]]" and going by Twelve suggesting Bill eat a vegan wrap in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E1ThePilot The Pilot]]", apparently he's back on it[[note]]Creator/RussellTDavies deliberately wrote the Ninth Doctor as eating meat to establish he was no longer vegetarian[[/note]]. |
| 113 | ** The Doctor recognises the converted Bill specifically as a Mondasian Cybermen on sight. Several expanded universe sources had identified the original variant from "The Tenth Planet" as [=CyberMondasian=] (or [=CyberMondan=]) to distinguish them from later Cyberman models. |
| 114 | * ConversationCut: It takes a while to convince Bill to go along with the Doctor's plan, so their conversation cuts to different parts of the university (as well as being a HowWeGotHere flashback). |
| 115 | * CostumeEvolution: The designs of the proto-Cybermen in the hospital slowly change over the ten years Bill spends in there. The first ones look like patients in surgical gowns with their faces covered by bags, reliant on IV drips they have to drag around everywhere. After a while, the IV stands are phased out, and the bags gain eye holes (albeit black ones that cover up the actual eyes) and visible noses. The last ones before Bill gets her upgrade include a metallic skull cap, which Mr. Razor approves of. |
| 116 | * CouldSayItBut: Razor begs Bill not to ask where the lift entrance is hidden because he would tell her. Bill promptly glomps him. "You know what I'm going to ask you." |
| 117 | * CreepyMonotone: "[[BrokenRecord Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain.]]" |
| 118 | * CurtainCamouflage: Bill attempts to hide behind a curtain in the hospital. Not very well, as her IV stand is still outside the curtain. |
| 119 | * CutHisHeartOutWithASpoon: Missy threatens "Mr. Razor" with numerous colourful references to what she'd do to his internal fluids, organs and other parts if he keeps annoying her. |
| 120 | * CyberneticsEatYourSoul: The Cybermen's handles are revealed to be what inhibits their emotions, specifically so that they do not care that they are in constant pain. However, Bill Potts still seems capable of emotional distress as of the {{Cliffhanger}}, shedding a single tear as she reaches out to the Doctor she waited for so, so long. |
| 121 | * DamselInDistress: Bill ends up trapped, isolated, and facing Cyber-conversion, and the Doctor and his colleagues are desperate to save her. |
| 122 | * DarkestHour: As the first half of the SeasonFinale, this episode serves as this for the Twelfth Doctor, Bill, and Nardole as two of the Doctor's three mightiest enemies team up -- in more ways than one, at that. |
| 123 | * DashedPlotLine: The next episode confirms that Bill's scenes once she gets to the other end of the ship unfold over ten years total, though how much time passes from scene to scene is not specified. In any case, it's enough time for the design of the first generation of Cybermen to be perfected and for Bill to become ConditionedToAcceptHorror as she waits for the Doctor to get there. Saxon will claim in the next episode that the Doctor arrived twenty minutes after Bill was converted into a Cyberman. |
| 124 | * DeathByIrony: Bill is scared of and distrusts Missy, the present-day version of the Master who appears to honestly intend on turning over a new leaf and helps the Doctor in his attempt to rescue Bill, but ultimately gets tricked and lead to her fate of cyberconversion by Missy's previous and still-evil past self, whom Bill had befriended. |
| 125 | * DistressCall: How the Doctor finds out about the crippled spaceship and chooses it as the place to test Missy. |
| 126 | * DramaticIrony: Even fans who somehow managed to miss the worst-kept secret of the season or just don't recognize the very first incarnation of the Cybermen ''will'' recognize what's been one of the Cybermen’s {{Catch Phrase}}s for the entire new series. However, poor Bill is too new a companion to know enough to say OhCrap like we do when people being "upgraded" is mentioned. |
| 127 | * DramaticUnmask: As you do when you're an ArchEnemy wearing a LatexPerfection disguise. |
| 128 | * DrivenToSuicide: Bill makes the mistake of turning up the volume on a second incomplete Cyberman who is a BrokenRecord like the first. It's ''not'' saying "Pain." It's saying ''"Kill... me..."'' |
| 129 | * DyingAlone: The fate of the Twelfth Doctor, who is alone as he begins to regenerate in the pre-credits scene. And to make matters worse, he's not even regenerating inside the TARDIS this time, who could ostensibly be considered sentient, and has his back turned to the police box, so he really ''is'' dying alone. |
| 130 | * DyingRace: The Mondasians descended from the crew can no longer survive in the tail end of the ship, having nearly exhausted the resources available to them. Everything is rusting and the air filtration system is being choked by engine fumes. To survive, they are "evolving" into the first generation of Cybermen. On the other hand, the Master is there, so who knows what could have been. |
| 131 | * EmergingFromTheShadows: Used for TheReveal when the Doctor sees a pair of boots standing in a dark alcove, from which steps a Mondasian Cyberman. |
| 132 | * EscapeFromTheCrazyPlace: Bill would ''really'' love to, she just can't because Razor won't tell her where the lifts are, and even if he did, her artificial heart won't work long outside the hospital. |
| 133 | * EvilCounterpart: |
| 134 | ** As Mr. Razor, the Master is an evil counterpart to the Twelfth Doctor where their relationships with Bill are concerned. (Each one even has their own office.) The Doctor is a Time Lord who doesn't have the most amiable personality, but he's lifting up a human woman supposedly "beneath" his station and encouraging her to be curious, outraged, compassionate, brave, and wise by teaching her all about the universe. The Master disguises himself as a poor nobody (reflecting how he sees her) and ''discourages'' all these things so that she may be ConditionedToAcceptHorror and never try to find her own way out of the hospital. He only teaches her enough to convince her that the only hope the Mondasians have is what turns out to be Cyber-conversion, and to accept her similarly gloomy fate and never hope/want more. He lets her know the Doctor is coming via the TV solely to make his betrayal that much crueller; because she wasn't curious and brave enough to seek out the lifts herself, she has to ask the Master for help when the Doctor finally arrives. He is kindly and amiable as Mr. Razor in a way Twelve wasn't, but he's the one who ultimately strips her of her agency altogether and transforms her into a cyborg slave. |
| 135 | ** For that matter, Saxon Master effectively turns Bill into a twisted variation on Nardole, the Twelfth Doctor's cyborg companion. Thanks to the Doctor's efforts, Nardole retains his agency and a humanoid appearance, serving as a MoralityChain who isn't afraid to call the Doctor out. The Master "gives" Bill an ugly Mondasian Cyberman body and leaves her with dampened emotions and little free will, a perfect "companion" for someone like him: obedient, unquestioning, and disposable. Which is also important -- the Doctor is always ready to lay down his life for companions, but the Master prefers to save his own skin. |
| 136 | ** It also makes the past Master his future self's evil-er counterpart: both play a not-so-nice version of the Doctor role, but Missy's is humorous; Mr. Saxon's is very twisted. |
| 137 | * EvilIsPetty: The Harold Saxon Master has Bill turned into a Cyberman not only to hurt the Doctor, but also to keep his future self from turning good. |
| 138 | * EvilPlan: The Master spends ten years scheming with the Mondasian Cybermen creators to prevent his next regeneration's redemption. |
| 139 | * EvilutionaryBiologist: The staff of the hospital is made up of these as they work to keep their fellow Mondasians alive and thriving by any means necessary. |
| 140 | * ExactWords: The Proto-Cybermen who take Bill state they'll "repair" her. They never specify how. |
| 141 | * ExpositoryHairstyleChange: |
| 142 | ** John Simm's Master now has a mustache and goatee, as per the Roger Delgado and Anthony Ainley incarnations of the character. His hair is noticeably greyer too, suggesting that this story takes place well after the events of "The End of Time". |
| 143 | ** The Doctor's hair is noticeably longer and wilder in the ForegoneConclusion pre-credits scene than it is in the main action, suggesting that a significant amount of time will pass between his coming up with his plan for Missy and his regeneration. This is especially interesting in that the main action on the ship unfolds over an ExtremelyShortTimespan for him. (The cold opening was shot after most of the rest of the episode was, just two weeks before the episode premiered, possibly overlapping with production of the 2017 ChristmasEpisode. The earliest preview screeners did not include the scene at all, both because the special effects weren't finished and to avoid spoilers.) |
| 144 | ** Weirdly averted with Bill, whose hairstyle doesn't change a bit in several years! |
| 145 | * ExtremelyShortTimespan: The main action of this episode unfolds in less than an hour or so -- for the Doctor, Nardole, Missy, and Jorj, that is. Once Bill is separated from them and stuck in the hospital on the end of the ship where time is running much faster, years elapse for her. |
| 146 | * EyeMotifs: |
| 147 | ** The Doctor believes that if Missy could truly ''see'' the beauty of the universe, she would stop trying to destroy it. |
| 148 | ** The camera zooms in on the cloth eye of the Mondasian Cyberman whom the Doctor discovers in the hospital to the eye of Bill Potts within it. And a single tear of hers seeps through the Cyberman eye to close out the episode. |
| 149 | * FalseFriend: Mr. Razor -- really the Harold Saxon Master -- is one to Bill, playing her like a fiddle the whole time. |
| 150 | * FalseReassurance: Bill's final words as a human. |
| 151 | -->'''Bill:''' But look at them! They're screaming every second they're alive!\ |
| 152 | '''Surgeon:''' But we've got something for that now! ''[holds up Cybermen handlebars]'' This won't stop you feeling pain, but it will stop you caring about it. It fits over your head. |
| 153 | * TheFarmerAndTheViper: The Doctor is testing whether Missy fits this trope or not with regards to her capacity for good and their relationship, finding that she does when she (apparently) becomes part of the VillainTeamUp. |
| 154 | * FascinatingEyebrow: The Doctor in SarcasmMode. Bill and Razor have to watch a whole week of it. |
| 155 | * FateWorseThanDeath: Jorj doesn't know what happens to the humans that the Proto-Cybermen take; he just knows that it'd be better for them if they die rather than be taken -- and he does have a point. Poor Bill ends up suffering this as a Mondasian Cyberman. |
| 156 | * FiveSecondForeshadowing: Missy threatens to turn Mr Razor's organs into soup if he doesn't tell her what's going on. Razor replies by saying she would "never be so self-destructive. But then, neither would I." Seconds later, he removes his mask, revealing himself to be Missy's former self. |
| 157 | * FoeRomanceSubtext: |
| 158 | ** From the Doctor when he admits the Master was his first "man crush" (which could be HomoeroticSubtext, depending on which gender the Doctor was at the time). |
| 159 | ** Missy lampshades the trope (and she's not even referring to the Doctor). |
| 160 | --->'''Missy:''' Deary me, I thought you were handsome, and now you've gone all cross and you're pointing a gun at me. [[WhatIsThisThingYouCallLove Is this the emotion you humans call spanking?]] |
| 161 | * {{Foreshadowing}}: |
| 162 | ** Bill's back in her denim jacket from "The Pilot", but alongside its "Wow!" patch there is now a skull patch, foreshadowing her being KilledOffForReal -- not unlike Clara's raven necklace ended up doing for her. |
| 163 | ** The creepy surgeon tells Bill "the full conversion wasn't necessary" right after she arrives, "though it will be in time". |
| 164 | ** When Mr. Razor is thanked by the Surgeon for tricking Bill in to the Operation Theater, he comments (while wearing a burglar mask) "You saw through my disguise..." It turns out that he is actually the Harold Saxon Master wearing a LatexPerfection disguise. |
| 165 | ** Mr. Razor tells Bill that the patients aren't in any pain, which Bill quickly contests, at which point he concedes that it was "A clever lie." The last time we heard those words, they were spoken by the Eleventh Doctor in "Let's Kill Hitler", hinting that Mr. Razor has a connection to the Doctor. |
| 166 | ** In telling Bill that the proto-Cybermen are (or were) human, Mr. Razor gets stuck on the word "people", repeating it in a rapid-fire manner that's ''very'' similar to how the HorrorHunger-ridden Saxon Master ranted about food in "The End of Time". |
| 167 | ** When we first see the lift approaching the flight deck, the numbers on the indicator are moving really fast, but start to slow considerably as they near the top of the ship. It isn't decelerating, at least not in the conventional sense. It's a hint of the TimeDilation. |
| 168 | ** The first time we hear the modified voices of a "converted" patient calling out about pain, the voice, though unlike modern Cybermen, harkens back to how they sounded in "Tomb of the Cybermen". |
| 169 | ** Bill's fellow "patients" have cloth covering their faces and speak in a robotic tone, an early indicator of what is in store for her. |
| 170 | ** Razor mentions an expedition to the solar farms on Floor 507 that never returned. We find out what happened to them in the next episode. |
| 171 | ** Both Missy's going incognito as "Doctor Who" and the Doctor's comment to Bill about Time Lords being billions of years past our limited ideas of gender prefigure the Doctor's actual GenderFlip in a few episodes' time. |
| 172 | * ForegoneConclusion: The pre-title sequence depicts the Doctor, looking dishevelled and anguished, stumbling out of his TARDIS onto a snowscape, falling to his knees, and ''beginning to regenerate''. |
| 173 | * ForYourOwnGood: The terrified Bill is told that her Cyber-conversion is the only way to permanently cure her fatal injury. If she disagrees, too bad. |
| 174 | * FromBadToWorse: Again and again! Missy's attempt to be the Doctor and get the spaceship out of the black hole goes awry, and Bill ends up ''shot'' and trapped on the other end of the ship, having to wait years for rescue by the desperate Doctor thanks to TimeDilation. Then it turns out she's specifically trapped with people who are busy becoming what will eventually be the first generation of Mondasian Cybermen.''She's'' going to be "upgraded" too. Oh dear, turns out Missy's previous incarnation has something to do with all this. Oh no, Bill's become a Cyberman! Missy and the Master end up posed on either side of what used to be Bill, and she refers to him as "the ex" as if they might be teaming up! |
| 175 | * FutureMeScaresMe: The Master is ''very'' worried about his future self because she's trying to make a HeelFaceTurn, and this is the AxCrazy version of him. He then throws a monkey-wrench into those plans by turning Bill into a Cyberman, certain that the Doctor will always hate him -- and Missy -- for that. He's also trying to tempt his future self into a relapse back into evil because of how good it feels to be bad, and there's an insinuation that he's a bit taken aback at the thought of becoming female for the first time. |
| 176 | * TheGadfly: Missy riffing the Doctor's [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E8TheLieOfTheLand vain, arrogant and sentimental]] performance as TheHero. The companions are just there as replaceable amusements or someone he can explain things to, and Missy even claims that the Doctor used to call himself "[[MysteriousProtector Doctor Who]]" before realising it was a bit too much (the Doctor says she's making that up). |
| 177 | * GenerationShips: The MileLongShip is large enough to contain cities and forests, and many, many people... namely, the dying Mondasians. The twist is that ''none'' of the residents of the lower decks are the intended colonists! They're actually all descendants of the 20 crew members who went downstairs over 1000 years ago (from their perspective) just to put the engines in full reverse in order to try and escape the black hole. Meanwhile, due to TimeDilation, only two days have passed on the bridge deck, leaving the sole remaining crew member very confused as to the sudden population growth. |
| 178 | * GenderIsNoObject: When reminiscing about his youth on Galifrey, the Doctor wonders what genders he and the Master were back then but thinks both are irrelevant. He says that humans have a "petty obsession" with fixed genders. |
| 179 | * TheGlomp |
| 180 | -->'''Razor:''' When you hug me, it hurts my heart.\ |
| 181 | '''Bill:''' Ah, sweet.\ |
| 182 | '''Razor:''' No. Your chest unit. It digs right in. |
| 183 | * GoneHorriblyWrong: The Doctor's effort to redeem Missy quickly takes a bad turn, and it's Bill who pays the most for it. |
| 184 | * GrandFinale: This episode is the beginning of this for the Twelfth Doctor and the Steven Moffat era, continuing directly into the SeasonFinale "The Doctor Falls" and from there -- albeit after a gap of nearly six months -- the ChristmasEpisode that serves as his regeneration adventure. |
| 185 | * HeelFaceTurn: After showing signs of this since "Extremis"; Missy seems ready to fully make one of these. The Doctor decides to test her sincerity, but John Simm's version of the Master is around and wants to prevent her from reforming. |
| 186 | * TheHeroDies: The ForegoneConclusion -- the Twelfth Doctor regenerates for some reason thanks to the events of this story. |
| 187 | * HistoryRepeats: |
| 188 | ** As in the Series 9 finale storyline ("[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E10FaceTheRaven Face the Raven]]"/"[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E11HeavenSent Heaven Sent]]"/"[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent Hell Bent]]"), the Twelfth Doctor seems to have no hope of saving his companion from being KilledOffForReal, if only to save them from a FateWorseThanDeath. Or does he? Tune in next week... |
| 189 | ** Also, as in the Series 8 finale storyline, the Doctor has no hope of saving a character from being KilledOffForReal (or does he?)[[note]]As he never travelled with the Doctor, only helping in present-day stories, Danny's companion status is debatable and he certainly wasn't the ''main'' companion like Clara and Bill.[[/note]] and a new character is revealed to be an incarnation of the Master, and then... enter the Cybermen! |
| 190 | ** Like Rose in the Series 1 episode "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E6Dalek Dalek]]", Bill is not familiar enough with a recurring enemy to realize the danger she's in until it's too late, with [[DramaticIrony the audience catching on long before she does.]] |
| 191 | * HopeSpot: |
| 192 | ** The Doctor gives a reassuring speech to Jorj, similar to the one he gave the survivors of ''Chasm Forge'' in "Oxygen", telling him he will solve the crisis of the ship and asking him to stand the gun he's aimed at Bill down. Jorj wavers a bit, and Bill even starts lowering her raised hands... then the lifts arrive and he plugs her in the chest. |
| 193 | ** As the Doctor and friends board the lift at last, Mr. Razor offers to show Bill where they'll be getting off. But it's a trick to lead her into the conversion theatre, where she is to be completely Cyber-converted. |
| 194 | ** The Doctor has one when he questions the Cyberman as to where Bill is. It accesses its memory banks... and then says a WhamLine revealing it to actually ''be'' Bill Potts. |
| 195 | * HostageMacGuffin: Bill Potts. The Doctor and company are trying to get the spaceship out of the black hole, but once she's shot and hauled off to the other end of the spaceship by the Proto-Cybermen their concern becomes getting there to rescue her since they know she won't be returned. Notably, at the end of "The Doctor Falls" the ship is ''still'' stuck as far as the audience knows. |
| 196 | * HowWeGotHere: |
| 197 | ** The cold opening begins with the Doctor staggering out of the TARDIS onto a frozen planet, but before he can get anywhere, his hands start glowing orange, and he begins to regenerate... cue a ''two episode-long'' flashback. |
| 198 | ** The episode proper begins with Missy and her "disposables" arriving on the ship in response to the distress call, before a flashback explaining why the Doctor brought Missy along and allowed her to do his job. |
| 199 | * HypocriticalHumour |
| 200 | -->'''The Doctor:''' We're the most civilised civilisation in the universe. We're billions of years beyond your petty human obsession with gender and its associated stereotypes.\ |
| 201 | '''Bill:''' But you still call yourselves Time ''Lords?''\ |
| 202 | '''The Doctor:''' Yeah... Shut up. |
| 203 | * TheIgor: Mr. Razor has overtones of this before his true identity is revealed; the stump, the forehead, the speech patterns and servile position in a MadScience project -- all of it. |
| 204 | * InternalReveal: Bill learns Missy used to be male. |
| 205 | * ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime: To the Doctor, anyway. To test Missy's sincerity with regards to her apparent HeelFaceTurn the Doctor, having previously ensured she cannot tamper with the TARDIS controls, brings her to a place in need of help and tasks her to take his place and solve the crisis. He entrusts his wary companions, who both tell him this is an awful idea, to her care. He watches and coaches them from within the TARDIS, which is in the same room with them in case worst comes to worst and he needs to join the fray. But it turns out the first person Missy encounters is ''terrified'' of Bill Potts's presence, Missy doesn't handle it well, the Doctor can't de-escalate things -- and everyone's on the road to catastrophe. (In his defence, it's hard to imagine any way to prove Missy's sincerity that ''wouldn't'' run some kind of risk, and blindly trusting her is not an option. He can't just keep her locked up forever as per his original vow -- it hasn't been good for him or her -- and killing her would violate his morals.) |
| 206 | * IWarnedYou: As Jorj points a gun at Bill she tells the Doctor "I told you this was a bad idea", referring to his ploy to test Missy's sincerity by having her take his place. Barring a miracle, these are the last words she will ever speak to him as a human. |
| 207 | * IWillFindYou: Bill has visions of the Doctor telling her "Wait for me", and indeed he is doing everything he can to reach her end of the ship and rescue her. |
| 208 | * KickTheDog: Razor/The Master betrays Bill in the cruellest manner possible, befriending her for years, only to betray her when Bill [[HopeSpot thinks she's finally on the verge of rescue]]. |
| 209 | * LackOfEmpathy: The hospital staff simply doesn't care about the agony the Proto-Cybermen are in; to them it is enough that they are alive. The Nurse's response to one of them begging for help is to turn down the volume on their voice unit. |
| 210 | * {{Lampshading}}: |
| 211 | ** Missy calls herself "Doctor Who" to save time with the whole TitleDrop RunningGag. |
| 212 | ** Missy labels her "[[PluckyGirl plucky]] [[SideKick assistants]]" as [[TheWatson "Exposition"]], [[PluckyComicRelief "Comic Relief"]], or [[MauveShirt "Disposable"]]. |
| 213 | ** Missy's "Darling, those were genders" lampshades the fact that, once Dashing Leading Man was occupied by the Doctor himself, the roles of Exposition and Comic Relief were attached to the female and (when present) male companions respectively. |
| 214 | * LargeHam: Missy as "Doctor Who", [[IncomingHam starting from the moment she leaves the TARDIS]]. |
| 215 | * LateToTheTragedy: By the time the Doctor and his friends arrive at the spacecraft, the Mondasians at the rear end of the ship where time moves faster have been suffering the effects of TimeDilation for thousands of years, starting their journey to becoming the Cybermen. |
| 216 | * LatexPerfection: Like Delgado and Ainley's Masters, Simm's makes use of a realistic rubber mask to disguise himself. |
| 217 | * {{Leitmotif}}: |
| 218 | ** Just as the man talking to Missy reveals who he ''really'' is, the four-beat theme associated with the Master in RTD's era starts playing alongside, and again in the final scene. |
| 219 | ** The swelling buildup to the ''first'' time we hear it in "Utopia" (when Jacobi's version of the Master regenerates into John Simm's version) is heard in Mr Razor's office, and when Mr Razor says "Ah, so you don't know." |
| 220 | ** The Master's actual leitmotif, a six-note melody that spells out his name in musical form ("The Mah-ster! The MAH-STER!") is heard as a short, playful variation as Mr Razor first leads Bill through the hospital corridors. |
| 221 | * LikeAnOldMarriedCouple: Before it all goes wrong, Missy and the Doctor have got to this stage from both sides, him bugging his friends to be her pretend companions, and her snarking at him to not test her eating crisps (which he quickly puts aside). |
| 222 | * LiteraryAllusionTitle: It comes from Creator/AndrewMarvell's "To His Coy Mistress", a romantic poem about seizing love while one can, which has such lines as "Nor, in thy marble vault shall sound/My echoing song". The Doctor's ArchEnemy Missy (whose name is short for "The ''Mistress''") has been key to this season's StoryArc, and she's been imprisoned in a ''vault''. The poem also refers to mortality (the Cybermen were created to prevent death), while the poet talks of how if he was immortal the [[PlayingHardToGet coy]] refusal of the poet's affections would not matter as he could take forever to woo her, which seems to fit Missy's view of her relationship with the Doctor. |
| 223 | * LittleNo: Followed by a [[BigNo Big NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!]] as the Doctor tries to hold back his regeneration. |
| 224 | * LongBusTrip: It has been nearly ''seven'' years since we last saw the Simm Master. It's been ''considerably more'' since we've seen the original "Tenth Planet" version of the Cybermen. |
| 225 | * LookBehindYou: The Doctor points and shouts, "Look!" then aikido-flips Jorj when he does so. |
| 226 | * MadnessMantra: Anything said by those undergoing Cyberconversion, whether screaming in pain in a CreepyMonotone or calling for someone to MercyKill them. |
| 227 | %%* MasterOfDisguise: Lampshaded by the Master himself. |
| 228 | * MedicalHorror: The hospital embodies this concept -- most of the patients awaiting their surgeries are identically masked, the staff is sinister, the noises from afar are chilling, the lighting is low... |
| 229 | -->'''Patient:''' [via keypad] '''pain pain pain pain pain pain''' |
| 230 | * MetaGirl: Missy takes on this role when she dissects (and lampoons) the typical formula of the Doctor and his companions in a nutshell. |
| 231 | * MileLongShip: The ship is 400 miles long and 100 wide, which is a lot of mass to be trying to drag out of a black hole. |
| 232 | * MoodWhiplash: Twice over in less than ten minutes. |
| 233 | ** Missy's attempt at being the Doctor is blackly comic fluff before matters escalate and Jorj aims his gun at Bill. |
| 234 | ** Things are finally calming down from that moment before Jorj fires and we see a gaping hole in Bill's chest. |
| 235 | ** In the wake of the horror of Bill's shooting, there's a flashback that begins with a humorous montage of the Doctor pestering Bill and Nardole with his idea for testing Missy over the course of several days. This is especially pronounced in BBC America airings, which put the first commercial break right between these two sequences. |
| 236 | * {{Motifs}}: Series 10-specific: |
| 237 | ** Promises: The Doctor never did fulfil a pact he made with Missy to visit every star in the universe together, but sees such a journey now as holding the potential for redeeming her. Bill asks him to promise her that, as Missy's companion, she won't be killed. He cannot do that, although he says he'll protect her "Within reason." Unfortunately, his efforts turn out to be for naught; while she does survive being shot, she ends up undergoing a FateWorseThanDeath. |
| 238 | ** Imprisonment/Release: Missy is released from the TARDIS at last to see if she can be the Doctor in a given situation. Bill ends up stuck in a hospital that is, ultimately, busy converting Mondasians into Cybermen, and finally is turned into one herself, a prisoner of what keeps her alive. |
| 239 | ** The value of individual lives: Bill is important enough to the Doctor that he is desperate to save her even with everything else going on. |
| 240 | ** Hidden threats: The Doctor and company are trying to get a spaceship out of a black hole, but it turns out the Mondasian Cybermen are in the making on the other end of the ship. And Mr. Razor, Bill's only friend in the hospital, is actually the Harold Saxon Master. |
| 241 | ** "Villains" that aren't actually evil: Jorj is fearful of humans (and shoots Bill Potts) because of the horrors the Mondasians are up to on the other end. Bill comes to understand that the Mondasians just want to survive; it's just that they're gradually becoming the first generation of Cybermen, not knowing what their kind will eventually "evolve" into. And Bill, the Doctor's dear, pure-hearted companion, ends up upgraded herself. |
| 242 | ** Exploitation: Many, many desperate Mondasians serve as guinea pigs for the {{Evilutionary Biologist}}s who ultimately create the first Cybermen, one of whom is Bill Potts. |
| 243 | ** Mothers: Mr. Razor claims that Bill is like a mother to him... or an aunt. She's rather creeped out by this. |
| 244 | * MrExposition: |
| 245 | ** The Doctor explains the concept of TimeDilation to his colleagues and the viewers, while Mr. Razor explains the {{Backstory}} of the Mondasians and why they're doing what they're doing now. Interestingly, despite TheReveal that Mr. Razor is actually the Master there is no reason to think (at this point) that he ''lies'' to Bill about anything aside from who he is. |
| 246 | ** Lampshaded by Bill (regarding the [[YouTalkTooMuch Doctor]]) and Missy (regarding [[TheWatson companions]]). |
| 247 | * MustMakeAmends: The Doctor is desperate to save Bill by way of making up for his testing of Missy unintentionally imperiling Bill's life. Alas, she has been turned into a Cyberman by the time he reaches her... and a much bigger crisis is looming for him. Now what? |
| 248 | * MyFutureSelfAndMe: For the Master, as Harold Saxon meets Missy. |
| 249 | * MyGodWhatHaveIDone: When Bill is imperiled thanks to his plan to test Missy's sincerity going awry, the Doctor feels he MustMakeAmends. |
| 250 | * MythologyGag: |
| 251 | ** Missy calling herself "Doctor Who" is reminiscent of how, in the Classic Series, from "An Unearthly Child" until "Logopolis", and in the New Series, from "Rose" until "The Christmas Invasion," each Doctor's actor was listed as "Doctor Who" in the credits. |
| 252 | ** The Master calls this the "Genesis of the Cybermen", echoing "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E4GenesisOfTheDaleks Genesis of the Daleks]]". |
| 253 | ** The Cyber-converted Bill's single tear at the end echoes the teardrop-like eye adornment that is a feature of several later Cyberman face designs, and it also recalls Yvonne Hartigan, the first Cyberman to retain her human self and survive. |
| 254 | ** Missy refers to Bill and Nardole as her "assistants," and when they object, she wonders if the right word is "companions," along with other less flattering options. The "assistant" vs. "companion" debate arose amongst the fandom when the revival series started. The debate was [[CallBack previously]] addressed in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E3SchoolReunion "School Reunion,"]] when Classic Who companion Sarah Jane met then-current companion Rose. |
| 255 | * TheNicknamer: Missy, who is claiming to be the Doctor, calls Bill and Nardole "my disposables, [[TheWatson Exposition]] and Comic Relief." When Nardole objects to their being referred to by their functions, Missy explains she was referring to their ''genders''. Prior to this, she also refers to them as "[[Literature/TheCatInTheHat Thing 1]] and the other one." Oh, the Doctor calls them something else doesn't he -- "snacks", is that it? |
| 256 | * NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Bill comes to understand why the Doctor is so desperate to redeem Missy and agrees to aid him in his risky test for her, despite her fears. For this, she ends up shot, stranded for years, and ultimately converted into a Cyberman. |
| 257 | * NoNameGiven: The surgeon and nurse Bill encounters in the hospital have no given names. |
| 258 | * NoodleIncident: Apparently, Nardole used to be blue, or decided to become blue, then underwent a [[RaceLift skin color operation]] where he changed/returned to being Caucasian. |
| 259 | * NothingIsScarier: |
| 260 | ** The Mondasians aren't just "evolving" themselves because they're dying. They're also doing it to prepare for a fight with ''something'' several hundred floors above them, which we don't get to see. |
| 261 | ** The Mondasian Cybermen live in constant agony, and the earliest forms can't help but [[MadnessMantra incessantly beg for death]] with their voice synthesizers. However, their whole bodies are covered, so all we can do is imagine what's been done to them underneath. |
| 262 | ** Bill never works up the courage to look at her artificial heart. |
| 263 | * NothingIsTheSameAnymore: Bill Potts's conversion into a Cyberman means that even if she can retain her identity and the Doctor can get her to safety, she can't return to Earth and her old life -- or go ''anywhere'', really, owing to the reputation of Cybermen -- unless he can find a way to restore her human form, and he's never been shown as capable of doing so before. This dilemma is explored further in the next episode. |
| 264 | * NotSoDifferentRemark: The Doctor freely acknowledges that he and the Master aren't that different; in fact it's the reason why they became friends in the first place. It's also a reason why he wants to redeem Missy now -- if he can find and unlock the goodness in her, then it will prove he has goodness in himself as well. |
| 265 | * OhCrap: |
| 266 | ** Bill, after having a giant hole blasted through her torso, understandably has a look of total shock before she falls. |
| 267 | ** The Doctor, on realizing just where Bill is and what's become of her, followed mere seconds later by Missy entering the room with the old Master. |
| 268 | ** Missy gets '''''a very large and horrified one''''' when her past incarnation reveals himself in front of her. |
| 269 | * TheOnlyOneAllowedToKillYou: Missy doesn't want the Doctor to rush into saving Bill, because if anyone kills him and it isn't her, "we'll ''both'' be disappointed." |
| 270 | * OohMeAccentsSlipping: Right before Mr. Razor reveals himself to be John Simm's Master, shades of Simm's normal, unaffected voice start to seep through. |
| 271 | * OriginsEpisode: The origin of the main universe's Cybermen is revealed. Saxon even calls it the [[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E4GenesisOfTheDaleks Genesis of the Cybermen]]. |
| 272 | * PaperThinDisguise: Razor wears a domino mask when sneaking Bill into the surgery. It's subverted with TheReveal that he's wearing a far more effective disguise. |
| 273 | * ParasolOfPain: Missy's umbrella is revealed to be a sonic device! |
| 274 | * PlayingPossum: The Cybermen lying slumped in the conversion room (allegedly failed experiments) are actually waiting to grab Bill. |
| 275 | * PlayingWithSyringes: The first steps to creating a cyborg race involve a lot of... trial and error on the part of the hospital staff. |
| 276 | * PlotParallel: With this episode, Bill effectively undergoes the same experience Nardole did back in "The Husbands of River Song" and afterward: Volunteering to help with a risky plan, she ends up mortally maimed and to stay alive will need a new body. The Doctor ultimately managed to give Nardole a body that looks much like he originally did, and Nardole has retained his agency and independence. But because Bill fell into the Master's hands, she ends up trapped in a pain-wracked, hideous Cyberman body and has next-to-no agency left. |
| 277 | * PollutedWasteland: The Mondasian city has become one, and once its residents have been "upgraded", Operation Exodus is going to see them ascend to the higher floors of the ship to ultimately take back control of it. |
| 278 | * PowerfulAndHelpless: The Doctor is the {{Determinator}} when it comes to keeping Bill safe, but even a Time Lord cannot do anything about TimeDilation and thus it takes years to reach her from her perspective... and he is too late. She has become a Mondasian Cyberman, and as of the {{Cliffhanger}} he doesn't give any indication that he knows what to do to reverse her transformation. |
| 279 | * ThePowerOfFriendship: The Doctor believes that his friendship could turn Missy to the side of good at last. They've been friends for ages. |
| 280 | * PrimalFear: Bill's situation. Trapped in a hospital far, far from home for days, months, years on end, she is surrounded by all the MedicalHorror one could imagine, her only hope of rescue is far, far away (temporally more than physically), and she has to go under the scalpel to keep on living... |
| 281 | * ThePromise: The pact the Doctor and the Master made to see every star in the universe was never seen through... but he believes the spirit of that promise might help redeem Missy. Bill is scared that she'll end up dead serving as Missy's companion for a day and asks the Doctor to promise that she won't be killed; he can't do that but he does agree to keep her safe "Within reason." And he tries to hold to that, but ultimately isn't able to save her from a FateWorseThanDeath. |
| 282 | * PsychoStrings: The John Simm version of the Master removing his disguise and revealing his identity to Missy features a series of these as background music. They're fairly quiet, but very ominous. Fittingly for a Cybermen episode, they're somewhat electronic-sounding. |
| 283 | * RaceAgainstTheClock: The Doctor is desperate to rescue Bill, but thanks to TimeDilation (as Steven Moffat's synopsis puts it) "For once, Time is the Time Lord's enemy..." because time is moving far faster on her end of the ship. How long can she hold out? Not long enough. |
| 284 | * {{Reconstruction}}: The NightmareRetardant Mondasian Cybermen with their silly sing-song voices, faces like carnival laughing clowns, overly bulky chest packs and headunits like handlebars are made to look creepy by showing the full horror of the cyberconversion process, with designs that reasonably evolved from a MedicalHorror aesthetic. |
| 285 | * RedAndBlackAndEvilAllOver: The Harold Saxon version of the Master now wears a black overcoat and pants, with red lining to the coat for what's both a sort of evil counterpart to the Twelfth Doctor's standard look ''and'' a throwback to Classic Who Masters. |
| 286 | * RedemptionQuest: The Doctor sets Missy upon one of his typical heroing missions, "go to a distress call and resolve the problem", but when it goes horribly wrong, he MustMakeAmends, and she is encouraged to leave the quest by her previous self. |
| 287 | * {{Retcon}}: "The Tenth Planet"'s Mondasian Cybermen retained human hands that were ungloved, but this origin story implies that they are artificial limbs with their uniformly masculine, surgical-gloved appearance. Creator/PeterCapaldi [[http://io9.gizmodo.com/peter-capaldi-had-one-fanboy-complaint-about-his-last-d-1801820166 actually noticed and objected to this]], but accepted the justification that if they didn't have gloved, masculine hands TheReveal (especially in-universe) that the first one is a converted Bill -- a black woman -- wouldn't work. |
| 288 | * TheReveal: |
| 289 | ** The humans of the colony ship were from Mondas, and are becoming the Cybermen. |
| 290 | ** Those "handles" that come standard with Cybermen are actually ''[[CyberneticsWillEatYourSoul emotion suppressors]]''. By extension, that means they are to blame for the way Cybermen are so unfeeling and quick to destroy life that won't submit to upgrading in the present day, and this is the part of the Cybermen the Doctor has shorted out in the past to make Cybermen recognize their buried emotions. |
| 291 | ** Mr. Razor is actually the Harold Saxon Master. And Missy apparently forgot the events she experienced back then, which is why she failed to connect the dots. |
| 292 | ** Bill Potts has been turned into the ''first'' proper Cyberman. |
| 293 | * SadisticChoice: The Doctor is faced with either letting Bill die from her grave injury or placing his trust in the creepy strangers who arrive via the lifts to save her but not ''return'' her. Due to the nature of her injury he can't TakeAThirdOption by returning to the TARDIS and seeking out help elsewhere, and he cannot bear to let her die, so he chooses the second option. Unfortunately, he apparently doesn't think to board the lifts with them and learns all too late that their idea of saving her is a FateWorseThanDeath. |
| 294 | * SkewedPriorities: Even after he realises that the top of the ship is moving exponentially slower than the floor Bill is on, the Doctor stops to give a lecture on the subject, instead of racing the lift. The next episode reveals that Bill spent 10 years waiting for him to get her while he was showing off. |
| 295 | * SheWillComeForMe: Bill realizes that the Doctor will reach her in the hospital... ''eventually''. Subverted in that by the time this happens, she's already been fully Cyber-converted. As this is something he's never been shown as able to undo, it leaves the question of what the two of them will do now in the {{Cliffhanger}}. |
| 296 | * ShoutOut: Many viewers found "Mr. Razor", Saxon's alter-ego, reminiscent of ''Series/BabylonFive'''s Zathras. |
| 297 | * SingleTear: Cyberman Bill Potts sheds a tear from within her mask as the Doctor makes her realize who she once was. |
| 298 | * TheSlowPath: Thanks to TimeDilation, Bill ends up stuck on this waiting for the Doctor to come to the hospital. |
| 299 | * SlowTransformation: Bill gets her artificial heart as soon as she is admitted into the hospital, which turns out to be the first step towards complete UnwillingRoboticization. Due to TimeDilation, it's possible that her final offscreen "upgrade" into a Cyberman took a while to finish, given that it takes a few minutes from the Doctor perspective to reach her once she's under the knife yet when he finds her the emotion suppressor and HiveMind of the Cybermen has not already erased her personality. |
| 300 | * TheSnackIsMoreInteresting: Missy calls the Doctor on his eating chips while he's supposed to be instructing her on how to be him. |
| 301 | * SpaceOpera: This two-part SeasonFinale is a rare example of ''Doctor Who'' indulging in this trope. It features our hero waging war against his arch-nemesis and his army of cyborgs in an absurdly massive spaceship with little focus on history, mystery, or ordinary time travel present in your average episode. This one is all about a big battle between good and evil in space. |
| 302 | * StrappedToAnOperatingTable: Bill ends up undergoing this when Mr. Razor delivers her to the surgeons in the conversion theatre. |
| 303 | * StunnedSilence: Upon realizing that Bill's been turned into a Cyberman, the Doctor is reduced to this, and nothing is able to break it as this is followed up by the two Masters revealing themselves. |
| 304 | * SwappedRoles: The Doctor lets Missy play his role in the belief that it will improve her. Her calling her companions "disposables" shows she's got some work ahead of her, and when Bill is imperiled he has to join the fray. |
| 305 | * SympathyForTheDevil: The Doctor knows that Missy/The Master was once a good person, the only person he ever knew who was exactly like him, and her evil and insanity were not entirely of her own making. He also knows that this particular incarnation truly wants to be his friend again, but is so mentally broken that she doesn't know ''how'' to win back his favour aside from trying to drag him down to her level via horrifying schemes (fulfilling the Hybrid prophecy by bringing him and Clara Oswald together, creating a Cyberman army of the dead ''and'' living to conquer the universe with...). He decides to try to raise her up to his instead, hoping that in finding and proving the good in her, he can find and prove the good in himself. |
| 306 | * SympatheticVillainDespicableVillain: A rare case where the irredeemable and sympathetic villains are technically the same character. [[Characters/DoctorWhoMissy Missy]], the latest incarnation of [[Characters/DoctorWhoMasters The Master]] whom the Doctor has been trying to teach to be good, [[spoiler:is convinced by her [[Characters/DoctorWhoJohnSimmsMaster previous "Harold Saxon" incarnation]] to make companion Bill undergo UnwillingRoboticization right before the Doctor can rescue her, just to stick it to him. But since Missy has shown remorse before and was not privy to Saxon's plan the whole time, the story frames it that there is still hope for her in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E12TheDoctorFalls "The Doctor Falls"]], proven true when Missy decides to stand with the Doctor after all, stabbing her previous incarnation. The Saxon Master kills Missy (and supposedly all future Masters) permanently for her HeelFaceTurn, hating the idea that he ever turns good in the future.]] |
| 307 | * TakeThatAudience: While playing the role of the Doctor, Missy calls herself "Doctor Who" and insists that it's actually his real name. ''Doctor Who'' fans are well known for how seriously they take the Doctor's moniker, with outsiders referring to the character as "Doctor Who" being a huge BerserkButton. Therefore, this scene was likely Moffat's way of trolling the fandom. |
| 308 | * TargetedToHurtTheHero: Bill Potts may not be ''technically'' dead, but she has been turned into a Cyberman by Saxon and the hospital staff, and both he and Missy gloat as the Doctor stares in horror upon the friend he was so desperate to save. Saxon did this not only to break the Doctor's hearts, but to encourage Missy to give up her HeelFaceTurn, since how could the Doctor ''ever'' forgive her for this? And he succeeds on both counts, it would seem. |
| 309 | * ThenLetMeBeEvil: In the {{Cliffhanger}}, it ''appears'' Missy makes this choice upon learning that her previous self was responsible for Bill Potts becoming a Cyberman, apparently believing what Saxon suggests -- that the Doctor cannot forgive her for this and will never see her as worthy of friendship again, leaving her no reason to be good. |
| 310 | * ThisIsThePartWhere: Bill [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall watching the Doctor on television]]. |
| 311 | * ThisIsUnforgivable: Saxon suggests to Missy that the Doctor will not be able to forgive her once he realizes what ''they'' did to Bill Potts. |
| 312 | * TimeDilation: The plot pivots upon this concept. As the spaceship the Doctor and his companions are on is caught in the gravitational pull of a black hole and is trying to reverse its way out, time dilation affects it. Where 10 minutes pass at the Doctor's end, several years pass at Bill and the Mondasians' end. |
| 313 | * TitleDrop: In the first proper series' title drop (lack of question mark included) since "The War Machines" in 1966, Missy impersonates the Doctor while calling herself "Doctor Who", revealing that it was his first choice for a name in the Academy before he eventually dropped the "Who" and became known only as "The Doctor". |
| 314 | * TonightSomeoneDies: According to Creator/StevenMoffat's ''Radio Time'' synopsis, "the Doctor witnesses the death of someone he has pledged to protect." It's Bill Potts, who ends up with a hole in her chest. But as it turns out [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E11DarkWater death is not the end...]] |
| 315 | * TorsoWithAView: Jori's blaster puts a very large hole in Bill's chest, as a WhamShot to show the audience that ''this'' particular shooting is not going to be easily resolved. The Cyber-converted from below deck show up to retrieve her and fit her with an artificial heart to save her life. |
| 316 | * ATragedyOfImpulsiveness: The Doctor decides to test Missy's sincerity by swapping roles with her for a day. As Steven Moffat puts it in his video introduction, "The Doctor and Missy have been friends for an incredibly long time, and he wants more than anything else for her to be a good person, like him. And she’s starting to want that too. The consequences for that are going to destroy a lot of lives." |
| 317 | * TrailersAlwaysSpoil: To extremes, with many reviewers complaining about ''how much'' was spoiled, as most of these details are only slowly revealed. About the only twist not spoiled to some extent was the Doctor beginning his regeneration at the end of the story's events, which was shot just two weeks before the episode's airing and not included in the earliest preview screeners. |
| 318 | ** The return of the Mondasian Cybermen was one of the first official announcements made regarding Series 10 storylines. |
| 319 | ** The second Series 10 trailer (which appeared at the end of "The Pilot") and ALL episode-specific trailers gave away the return of the Harold Saxon Master. Granted, the U.K. tabloid ''The Sun'' leaked the news that Creator/JohnSimm was returning to the show, but Steven Moffat was '''not''' happy about this. And no wonder, as it gave informed viewers a big reason to be suspicious about Mr. Razor... |
| 320 | ** While the Next Time trailer avoided this by merely implying Bill would be shot (and not revealing how devastating the wound was), all other promos revealed Bill coming to in the hospital with machinery visible beneath her robe. Between this and the Cybermen's presence having already been revealed, not only did this spoil she would undergo UnwillingRoboticization to ''some'' extent, but also that the Doctor loses his RaceAgainstTheClock to spare her from any kind of NothingIsTheSameAnymore fate and he thus MustMakeAmends in another way. Worse, some people put this and the promo photos together and figured out how just far the conversion would get. |
| 321 | ** On the off-chance you managed to miss ''all'' of the spoilers about the return of the Cybermen, [=BBC=] America is more than happy to spoil it for you ''while the episode is airing''. An interstitial intended to drum up interest for the next segment during the commercial break blatantly revealed both that the ship was from Mondas and that the Cybermen were appearing less than ten minutes before the reveal itself. |
| 322 | * TwoLinesNoWaiting: Initially the Doctor, Missy, Bill, and Nardole are all together, but once Bill is separated from them the story alternates between her experiences in the hospital and the Doctor, Missy, and Nardole trying to reach her before she comes to (more) harm. |
| 323 | * UnrealisticBlackHole: Whilst you certainly would experience relative time dilation at different distances from a black hole, the extreme levels shown here are actually totally unrealistic whilst being so far from the hole itself. (Even a supermassive black hole, like the ones at the centre of galaxies, isn't massive enough to cause this kind of dilation whilst still at "just about able to escape" distance.) |
| 324 | * TheUnreveal: Missy claims that "Doctor Who" is in fact the Doctor's real name, having chosen it at the academy only to later drop the "Who" part. Bill asks the Doctor whether or not this is true; the group is interrupted before he can answer. |
| 325 | * UnspokenPlanGuarantee: Just like Clara did in "Face the Raven" by explaining her plan to take on the chronolock to Rigsy, the Doctor fully explains his plan to test Missy to his companions... and thus it winds up completely failing. |
| 326 | * UnwillingRoboticization: Bill undergoes this in the hospital, starting with her very own Cyberman prototype heart. It's safe to say she didn't agree to the full package, either, not that it stopped them. The degree to which the Mondasians are volunteering for this procedure is unclear, but the fact that some of them are begging for death suggests the scientists have stopped considering their wishes. |
| 327 | * UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Jorj accidentally shot Bill, who ended up becoming the first Cyberman. |
| 328 | * VillainTeamUp: The Mondasian Cybermen are now allied with '''two''' incarnations of the Master (Harold Saxon and Missy), the former of which helped bring them into being. |
| 329 | * WeAreAsMayflies: The Doctor is frustrated by Bill's reluctance to help him test Missy. When Bill suggests that Missy might just start mowing people down as soon as she steps outside of the TARDIS, he notes that humans "pop like balloons" compared to Time Lords. |
| 330 | * WeUsedToBeFriends: The Doctor explains his relationship with Missy/The Master to Bill this way: "We had a pact. Every star in the universe, we were going to see them all -- but he was so busy burning them, I don't think she ever saw anything." |
| 331 | * WhamEpisode: The poor Doctor loses Bill to Cyber-conversion and looks to lose his last chance at redeeming Missy to the allure of evil, on top of having to confront the Harold Saxon Master and the first generation of Cybermen... and all this is the beginning of the story of why he must regenerate into this thirteenth numbered self. |
| 332 | * WhamLine: Take your pick! |
| 333 | -->'''Computer:''' Scanning. Result Found. '''Mondas'''\ |
| 334 | '''The Doctor:''' It's a Cyberman... a ''Mondasian'' Cyberman!\ |
| 335 | '''Cyberman:''' [[AC:[=ACCessiiiIIIiiing: Bill POTts. LOCAtiiiIIIiiing: Bill POTts. I-iiiiAM Bill POTts.=]]]\ |
| 336 | '''Mr. Razor:''' Do you still like disguises? Of course, they are rather necessary when you happen to be [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E11Utopia someone's]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E12TheSoundOfDrums former]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E13LastOfTheTimeLords Prime Minister!]]\ |
| 337 | '''Cyberman:''' [[AC:[=I-iii WAITed. I-iii WAITed forrrrr yoUUUUuuuuu.=]]] |
| 338 | * WhamShot: |
| 339 | ** The hole blown through Bill's chest is this in the most literal way. |
| 340 | ** The surgeon showing Bill that lovely little device they have for making the process she's about to go through so much less ''painful'', unfolding it to show the distinctive shape of a Cyberman's handlebars. |
| 341 | ** The name of the ship's planet-of-origin appears on a video screen, overlaying an image of that world. And it's ''Mondas''. |
| 342 | * WhatTheHellHero: |
| 343 | ** Bill and Nardole are not confident about the Doctor's plans for Missy, in part because they will have to serve as her companions for a day. |
| 344 | ** Bill gives one to Doctor after he finally makes it down to where she is, only to find out it's too late. |
| 345 | --->'''Cyber-Bill:''' [[AC:[=I-iii WAITed forrrrr yoUUUUuuuuu.=]]] |
| 346 | * TheWorldIsJustAwesome: The Doctor and the Master made a promise to see every star in the universe and the Doctor hopes this promise will help redeem Missy. |
| 347 | * YouAreTooLate: After thousands of years of the Doctor barging into a strange situation and talking down nervous gun-toting men [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy who can't shoot straight]], a companion gets shot dead. But still, the Doctor will save her JustInTime as always, right? Nope -- thanks to circumstances beyond his control (TimeDilation and Saxon's cruelty), he ends up a few hours too late. To the Doctor's horror, Bill has become a Mondasian Cyberman by the time he reaches her. The real twist of the knife is that despite the time-dilation, despite ''years'' of waiting on her end, the Doctor arrived mere ''hours'' too late to save her from the conversion. Doing the math, that amounts to no more than a few ''seconds'' of wasted time on the bridge... |
| 348 | * YouCantThwartStageOne: The Doctor is too late to stop Bill from being converted into a Cyberman, and the beginning of the Mondasian Cybermen as a whole. Saxon also seems to triumph in his efforts to lead Missy away from her RedemptionQuest. |
| 349 | * {{Zeerust}}: The Mondasian Cybermen show up in all their shitty, low-budget 60's era glory. Justified in that they're being developed bit by bit across the years in a failing environment, jerry-rigged from scraps. Also, they're a bit better looking than the originals, and have an extra dose of MedicalHorror to go along with it. |
| 350 | ---- |
| 351 | ->''[[Creator/JohnSimm "Give us a kiss."]]'' |
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