"Yes, you're quite the mess of chemicals, aren't you."

[locker_monster]

Ah hell. That Next Time trailer from last week had footage from both episodes. I really hate it when they do that. But anyway...

Might as well as talk about the big thing from the episode.

So... Missy is the Master. Jeez, I think Moffat is losing his touch. Everyone was throwing that theory around. I was really hoping it wouldn't turn out to be true because: a) it seemed so obvious and b) why bring him back? Bring back other villains we haven't seen in a while. I kind of had my heart set on Missy being Rani. Hell, I would have even settled for Romana (though maybe that's not the best character development in the world, turning evil and crazy). We'll see how this turns out next week. So I guess the Master made it back to Gallifrey on the last day of the Time War and got out somehow? One assumes he got a new body or regenerated into a woman. Oh my gosh, Moffat has been watching Elementary! He totally swiped what they did with a certain male character.

And blargh, they totally did a fake out with Clara. Grr... Here we are, thinking she's evil and it's just a dream state. While I'm glad Clara isn't a plant from Missy (I think), it totally cheapens the moment. And did Clara totally forget that the Doctor can open the TARDIS by snapping his fingers? Her threat was totally not threatening at all. The whole time that scene was going on, all I could think was, "Yeah, the Doctor is just going to snap his fingers." Argh. And it's not like the TARDIS can't open her own doors. So while it's very dramatic and we've never seen a Companion do this before, threatening the Doctor, it was poorly executed in the writing. Now, if Clara had threatened to throw the TARDIS off the volcano, then maybe it might have been more tense, but the key thing was just dumb. I suppose there is still room for Clara to be part of Missy's plan. It all comes back to the line about how Missy chose well with Clara and the fact that she gave Clara the Doctor's number.

As for what Clara did... I guess the whole season has been testing Clara's relationship with Danny. Seems like she's been thinking about their relationship since "In the Forest of the Night", hence the babbling conversation at the beginning. So is this the ultimate proof that Clara really, truly loves Danny? That she would risk breaking time for him? I don't know. The whole story thread with Clara and Danny has become kind of muddled. When it just seemed like Clara was trying to balance normal life with her time travelling, that was interesting to me, but her lying and Danny's very mellow reaction has pushed it into another direction that kind of feels odd.

Though, I wonder if Danny dying is all part of Missy's plan. The lady who finds Danny's mobile says the car just came out of nowhere. At the same time, it could be just an accident. I'm sure Clara does blame herself since she's the one who called Danny and couldn't wait for him to show up to have her conversation.

But moving on. I love Twelve. Even after Clara betrays him, he still offers to help him. "Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference." Awww..... I seriously just wanted to hug him. He puts on the tough, rude guy act, but really, he does care. Even when he tells Clara to buck up, he's just trying to help her. She needs to stay focused to find Danny, so if by pissing her off the Doctor manages that, then he will do it. I'm surprised Clara didn't try to hug the Doctor. Not a big, friendly squish like in "Listen", but just a comforting embrace. The Doctor does take her hand in the middle of the episode, which isn't very typical for this incarnation, so it's just another sign that he's really trying to help Clara. It doesn't matter if he doesn't like Danny. Clara is sad and he's going to fix that.

So Missy's grand plan is to take the consciousness of dead people, upgrade their dead bodies in Cybermen, and then reload those consciousnesses into the body. But why was she taking people from the past and the future as well as the present? She took Half Face Man and Gretchen. Is she grabbing every dead person from history to make her army? But cool that they worked in the Matrix from the Capitol. The Master was able to infiltrate it once back in "The Deadly Assassin", so it would make sense that Missy could make another one. God, what do we call her? Him? Is Missy still the Master?

The second part is obviously going to be the more interesting part. You've got millions of Cybermen invading, looks like modern day London. Though, why modern day London? The Doctor and Clara clearly turn to UNIT for help (thank you very much Next Time trailer for spoiling that). Will they get Danny back? The presence of Orson Pink makes me want to say yes, but who knows.

Random: So, it seems like the Doctor figured out that Rupert was actually Danny. Because when Clara mentions they ended up travelling along Danny's timeline the Doctor doesn't seem surprised. Why does one of Clara's stickies say "Jenny"? When did we meet a Jenny? Is my memory totally failing me right now? ETA: Duh, Jenny as in Vastra and Jenny; it's been a long day for me. Was that The Time Traveller's Wife on the bookshelf? Clara pulls out a book to find one of the TARDIS keys. It would totally be awesome if that was the book. So, Missy kissing the Doctor? That was just the Master playing with the Doctor? Or a deep-seated desire? ;-) Actually, it might be kind of neat seeing Missy in the future because of course she'll survive whatever happens to her in the finale. Why did they have to kill the cute Asian guy? Totally didn't notice the Nethersphere logo was a Cyberman's eye until they did the big, honking, in your face shot. And look, they kind of recreated the iconic shot from "The Invasion". I was on those steps last November. And a lady director. Yes! Maybe this will lead to female writers for the show?

I'm all over the place with this one. That's the problem with two parters. I'll reserve judgement until next week.

Comments

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

For a brief moment I thought they were going Romana, that they were going to flash back to a time in 4's era where he called her Missy in a dismissive way (I don't know if that every happened, but I was willing to consider the possibility) and, aside from the 'good female character goes evil/crazy' trope, it almost would have been brilliant. Instead, they went with what everybody guessed: Missy=Mistress=Master.

God, Moffat, there's more to Doctor Who history than The Master, the Daleks, and the Cybermen: when you ONLY use those elements of the old series for big events, you pretty much can NEVER surprise people with it.

The episode was okay, but kind of muddled, plotwise. There's that whole thing with the TARDIS keys, when the Doctor doesn't really need one. There's also that the Doc says, "Okay, let's go to Hell and find Danny!" and then when they're in the 3W facility, dismisses the possibility of it really being an afterlife... if you think the afterlife's impossible, why are you even going on the mission? I mean, if you don't actually think there's any hope, it's kind of a douchey move to get Clara's hopes up just to teach her some kind of lesson about moving on. And the "water that makes everything invisible except organic matter" is just... well, it made for a decent REVEAL, but it's the kind of dumb science I hate: it's clear they thought "how about they just see skeletons and later it's revealed they're Cybermen?" and then said "Okay, how?" ".... how about they use a special water that makes anything non-biological invisible." "How would that work?" "Doesn't matter? It gets the plot point done. We'll throw the word 'refractive index' around, that sounds sciencey!"

But it wasn't the worst ep of the season, at least, and it's better than I thought it was going to be from the first few minutes (I was cringing at the idea that they were literally going to make an afterlife canon, but it looks like they've avoided it and made it a special-case use of technology. I assume the "don't cremate me" story is propaganda to get UNIT to turn all bodies into Cybermen-fodder)

[locker-monster.livejournal.com]

Well, K9 always called Romana "Mistress", so briefly I thought that's where Missy came from. And while turning a beloved character into a villain isn't always the greatest thing ever, it would have been interesting to see. Like, why would Romana go crazy and evil and go after the Doctor? I would have been more intrigued by that instead of "Oh, the Master is a woman now."

There's that whole thing with the TARDIS keys, when the Doctor doesn't really need one.

And Moffat is the one who introduced the concept that the Doctor could open the TARDIS by snapping his fingers!

I wasn't bothered by the science. I try not to think about it ever, since it rarely has a basis in reality. There are still things I don't quite understand, but hopefully some of it gets explained in the second part.

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

It's not so much that the science is bad... I can go with wonky science (or at least I'm much less bothered by it), if they're basing a whole important premise on it, or if they do a good job of covering it up (I prefer "we have no idea how this works" to an obviously wrong explanation, though)... like, for example, Flatline... I don't know for sure, but there was probably little basis in science for a lot that happened. But the episode hinges on it, so we can go with it. Similarly in why the mummy can't be seen by anyone by the victim, pretty well just technobabble, but it was a key feature of the Mummy, so, okay, we'll give it a pass. Or if it's done quickly in the service of a plot: like, say, if a ship crashes at a speed that would turn humanity to jelly but instead most people are okay but injured. Even just plain mistakes I can forgive.

My objection is LAZY bad science, where it's clear that they don't even care about it,or respect their audience, where with the slightest bit of rewriting they could do it better, and for the lowest of stakes. That ticks me off. I mean, rather than inventing a type of water that makes everything except biological stuff invisible, wouldn't it be much easier to have some kind of holographic image projected on the fluid that matches the bodies? You could even have it be a trick: they see a ghostly image of the real people projected over the bones, and the doctor doesn't realize that the bones are just as much an illusion. It's not like their secret facility is open for visiting from the regular public anyway.

[locker-monster.livejournal.com]

I do have some sympathy for the writers, having to come up with scientific gobbledygook. It's not easy. But yeah, if it's lazy and kind of nonsensical, it does become a little distracting.

I think part of the problem is that the entire plot and reveal rides on this dark water stuff. If it was a minor thing, you could get away with it, but when it's doing all of the heavy lifting, or supporting, then it's got to be more thought out.

[ladymercury-10.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was confused about the key thing, too. I was like, is there really no other way to get back inside? Can they not just make more keys if they're that important?

Was that The Time Traveller's Wife on the bookshelf?
I think it was!

[locker-monster.livejournal.com]

As a way to show how desperate Clara was to get Danny back, it worked in that regard, but the logic is still weird. It's like Moffat had a particular shot in mind that he really, really wanted and he worked his way backwards from that.

I would love to see a fic explaining why the Doctor has a copy of The Time Traveller's Wife in his library. Did one of his Companions buy it? Or did he buy it? Maybe it was a gift for River. ;-)

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

Missy is the Master

Yeah, no big surprise there, although there was a moment, when she said she was the Time Lady he left for dead, that I wondered if she was Romana, or Susan even. Or the Rani (I was hoping for the Rani). But then I figured she would probably turn out to be the Master. Which she did.

I do like the fact that we now have incontrovertible, on-screen evidence that a male Time Lord can regenerate into a female Time Lord (Lady). We got it in dialogue before, but now it's very clear that we could some day get a female Doctor. That's nice. But aside from that addition to canon, I'm disappointed with the revelation. I'm very tired of the Master, especially the crazy!Master of New Who. If we have to get the Master back, can't she at least be a little less insane this time? The Master used to be evil without also being batshit bonkers, you know.

And yeah, the key thing. There was no tenseness there at all, because of course the Doctor can just snap his fingers instead. Doesn't Clara know that? Why would she think taking the keys would keep him out of the TARDIS? And while we're on that subject, why would she bother to take all the keys that are inexplicably (why?) hidden around the console room? If Clara wants to lock the Doctor out of the TARDIS, isn't the only key that matters the one that's outside with the two of them? Or if there's something mystical about melting every TARDIS key in existence, then she'd better get going on rounding up all those keys from all those past companions who never gave theirs back. Rose at least must have one, and Amy, and most likely River, and Jack, and Martha, and Rory. Actually, the way the Doctor's been handing keys out these days, Courtney probably has one.

The Cyberman reveal was cool, and the uploading / Matrix thing was interesting, but I did get squicked by the heavy afterlife emphasis, and I'm very upset at the "don't get cremated" body horror element that was needlessly thrown in. I can't help thinking of the poor child -- and odds say there's at least one out there -- whose beloved family member recently died and was cremated. That child innocently sat down to watch Doctor Who for some needed escape, and instead got this. Now they're going to bed tonight thinking about how Mummy/Daddy/Uncle Harold experienced getting burned to ash. That's pretty irresponsible.

[locker-monster.livejournal.com]

Yeah, when the "the Time Lady you abandoned" line happened, I immediately thought Romana, followed by Susan, too. Could it be plausible for them to turn on the Doctor? Well, it would have depended on the bonkers back story Moffat would have concocted.

Yes, they have now embraced the regeneration gender change, so that's nice. Now maybe, somewhere down the line, we will have a female Doctor. I also agree with you about crazy!Master. Delgado did the best portrayal and I wish we could get back to that. John Simm's manic Master made sense when he was going up against Ten, but Twelve's a very different beast. Oh sure, Twelve is really thrown by Missy's crazy antics, but cool and calculating and suave approach is infinitely more appealing.

And can't Clara open and close the doors with the snap of her fingers, too? I guess that was going to be how she got the Doctor back into the TARDIS if she got him to follow her threat.

Man, I never thought about the cremation thing from a kid's point of view. It would be horrifying for them, and not in a scary movie kind of way.