YMMV / Doctor Who S36 E7 "The Pyramid at the End of the World"

• Arc Fatigue: A short-term example: Although the Monks Trilogy is just three episodes long, a lot of viewers became bored with it. The villains were unoriginal, getting a lot of comparisons to The Silence, and didn't have compelling personalities or even much point to their Evil Plan in the end, while the quality of the writing dipped severely after "Extremis" with a Cliché Storm in "The Lie of the Land". There was also very little Character Development for the regulars, it didn't advance the larger Half-Arc Season much, and They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot kicked in with the Doctor's blindness and Missy being enlisted to help.
• Base-Breaking Character: Bill Potts was becoming one of the most popular companions of the revival when she sells out humanity just to save the Twelfth Doctor's life, against his wishes, in the Cliffhanger of this episode. Although she does this believing that he will be able to free humanity from the Monks and the events of the next episode prove her right (albeit after she endures a painful Secret Test of Character suggesting it was All for Nothing), viewers see her choice as either a heartbreaking act of love for and faith in the Doctor, proof she'd learned the importance of saving every life possible from him, and the best of two bad choices, or as a monstrously selfish Deal with the Devil and Senseless Sacrifice of her and humanity's freedom that allowed the villains to win. She managed to live this down and regain respect from fans thanks in part to her efforts to put things to right in "The Lie of the Land", and — sadly — in part because her fate at the end of the season was much more memorable: she was converted into a Cyberman and saved only by the barely-foreshadowed return of Heather, her lover.
• Broken Base: As with the previous episode in the Monks Trilogy arc, "Extremis", viewers seem split into two camps: either it's an exciting, compelling story of both all that can go wrong and the Doctor's hubris and fear leading to tragedy and a Cliffhanger for the ages... or it's idiotic with bad science, derivative villains with poorly-defined motivations and rules, a lot of Padding involving Red Herrings, and one of the most ridiculously contrived cliffhangers ever.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Erica quickly became very popular due to her intelligence and competence (especially compared to Bill as seen in the other entries here), quickly falling into cooperating with the Doctor despite the surprise of his arrival, and a dwarf actress being cast in the role despite nothing in the script necessitating it.
• Mis-blamed: Peter Harness has a rough reputation in the Who fandom stemming from his first script being Series 8's "Kill the Moon", which is still ranked by many as one of the worst Twelfth Doctor stories. He managed to Win Back the Crowd for the most part with the Zygon 2-parter in Series 9, the second part of which had Steven Moffat as a credited co-writer. When this episode premiered, again crediting both writers, Harness got most of the blame for its plot and startlingly bad science as the latter was a major issue with "Kill the Moon", and some viewers assumed that whatever worked about it and the Zygon storyline was attributable to Moffat. A few days later, a Doctor Who Magazine article featuring an interview with Moffat had him reveal that the illness and death of his mother meant that he could not properly revise/rewrite the script with Harness, noting "Peter deserved better from me, frankly" — effectively shouldering the blame for its shortcomings.
• Padding: This episode was promoted as being about an Alien Invasion of Earth, picking up from the Prolonged Prologue of "Extremis", but is just about the aliens arriving to convince humanity to allow them to invade, which does not happen until the Cliffhanger. The path to that turns out to involve Red Herrings about what will cause The End of the World as We Know It, flat one-off characters (most of whom are dead by the end), and good guys passing the Idiot Ball back and forth. The actual invasion is never shown as "The Lie of the Land" is set some time After the End (though that episode reveals that the Monks used Mass Hypnosis to make people think they'd always been there, which would mean the invasion was pretty much instantaneous). This was particularly hard on viewers who didn't realize until the Cliffhanger of this episode that this storyline was going to be three parts, not two. Save for that last blunder on the Doctor's part, the story could have been done and dusted once the lab was blown up — provided that the Monks decided to give up, granted.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Bill Potts. Yes, she didn't have much going for her in life until she became the Doctor's pupil and he began helping her unlock her potential. Yes, she never did have a "real" family until she met her "grandfather". Yes, she owes him her life several times over. But none of that justifies allowing Earth to be conquered by Reality Warpers just to save him from his own mistakes, especially when he doesn't want to be saved if that's the price. The Doctor would likely have reminded her that sometimes he can't save everyone without causing bigger problems, had he more time. Even with her justification that he'll be able to save her and humanity, that's a mighty big chance to take given what she's seen of the Monks, and she takes no one else's desires into account. Her act is presented as noble, well-meant, tragic and born of pure love for the Doctor, but it can be argued as no more noble than River Song refusing to kill the Eleventh Doctor in "The Wedding of River Song" or the Twelfth Doctor risking the space-time continuum to bring Clara Oswald back from the dead in "Hell Bent", acts regarded as ones of monstrous selfishness — and born of utter desperation — in-universe. That said, given the very determined nature of the Monks, this probably was the best choice to make under the circumstances and the Doctor does call her out for disregarding his wishes in the next episode, albeit as part of his Secret Test of Character.

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