The Doctor gets an email telling him about an enemy.
...
What?
Seriously, this is the only substantive content in the entire episode. You know that one episode of Family Guy where Stewie actually kills Lois, then it turns out to have been a dream? Brian says at the end that making it an unreal dream is a "complete fuck you" to the fans, and this episode smacks of the same. Worse, it's unambitious for being so, refusing to do anything truly interesting with the characters given complete freedom to use and destroy the main characters.
But let's humour ourselves. Our episode begins with another one of those Moffat hallmarks: a planet of people devoted for millennia to whatever the plot specifically requires. This time it's a planet of creepy executioners,
who've made it their business to kill people. Presumably they do so on request from foreign judicial systems,
hope they're all on the level, otherwise these guys are about as bad as the Daleks. But leaving aside the plot hole of having a planet where everything in existence has been charted and methods to kill it devised (why not ask them every time something new pops up???) the Doctor is there. It's uncertain whether or not he's blind, and why he's there. The way they explain it to him, only one Time Lord can carry out the sentence on another one (for...some reason) and Missy is brought out.
At this point, I'm unsure what the episode is trying to do. We're obviously being led to believe that the Doctor,
blinded on Chasm Forge, is now attempting to commit permanent suicide. This is so far out of character for the Doctor that it rings wrong, and we're almost immediately contradicted in this by the situation being reversed and Missy being the prisoner, and the Doctor having been recruited to act as her executioner. Which is also...weird.
What did she do that got her banged up? Her taunting discussion indicates she's been in the position to learn intel from the Daleks, which apparently is just a thing she does because evil I guess. None of them care that she's also a Time Lord and probably also their enemy. Whatever, it sounds cool so throw it in and who cares about the logic,
right?
But we also get a time stamp on this, we're right after the events of the last Christmas Special, where the Doctor lived for a long time with River Song. Okay so flashback, then I guess this is where Missy gets shoved into the vault they're guarding. Lo and behold, said vault emerges from the water and Missy begs for her life, the Doctor's hand on the lever.
Boom we wake up to the Doctor sat in a darkened room. Because when you're blind you don't waste money on the lecce bill. He's wearing his sonic fucking sunglasses again, and they allow him to cheat basically all of the ill effects of blindness by allowing him to see. Now if that's possible why hasn't he gotten some more permanent solution?
Who knows. But there's people filing into his lecture theatre, and they're Catholic Cardinals. Then suddenly Pope!
He asks why the Pope himself is doing this, because casually disrespecting the Pope is totally okay, and also pointing out stupid plot devices in your own media is in vogue at the moment apparently. He replies...
extremis.
Roll credits.
I do find it weird that the Pope speaks what seems to be (and pardon me if I'm incorrect) some version of Italian.
Last I checked, the current Pope is from Argentina, the one before that German, and the one before that Polish.
They also often speak many languages in order to preach in native languages to different people. Also the TARDIS automatically translates the speech of gargling aliens, but can't handle the Supreme Pontiff. I think it's to make the episode seem more cultured, but it just falls flat. They also claim that the Doctor was recommended by Pope Benedict the Ninth, in 1045, we then get our first SocJus yuk yuk when the Doctor claims that Benedict IX was a woman.
As an aside, basic research will tell you that this is not the case. It's so weird to me that Moffat would use the name of a Pope who was singularly poorly regarded and then fabricate details which are less interesting than the reality.Either way, we discern that the Vatican is very concerned about a specific book in their library. Called Veritas (no,
not the short-lived political party of UKIP defector and BBC talk show host, Robert Kilroy-Silk) it kills everyone who reads it. But they don't die, they commit suicide. Everyone who has ever read the book has killed themselves.
Oh dear, and the Doctor is blind and can't read. Why he doesn't just tell them this directly is a mystery, but it seems tied to the nebulous concept of his enemies not finding out he's blind. As a reason it's broadly plausible,
but doesn't really compel as part of the episode.
Then we skip to
recurring mook Bill's house. She's on a date, because this is important for us to know. Wouldn't you know it, she's brought a girl home. I would never have guessed. But apparently her adopted mother doesn't know that, because she turns up and acts mad Bill (a 20ish year old University student) brought someone home, she says she has "strict rules about men in the house". What the fuck is her beef with men and why does only Moffat write her like that? When she discovers (yes, discovers as though she didn't already know) Bill is gay,
she just fucks off to the pub. Why any of that was necessary is baffling to me. But then SUDDENLY POPE. Bill's date is scared off by the appearance of the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church and a group of senior Cardinals,
who, if you didn't know, take a dim view of what historian David Starkey refers to as "homousexuelles".
I just can't even. Move on.
Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor is fiddling blindly with a device he refers to as "deadly". On more suicide themes yay.
This show is
definitely for kids. While he does so, Bill rants at him and Nardole tries to tell her he's still blind.
The Doctor turns to Nardole and shakes his head in the least subtle "don't do that" ever, and he instead tells her about the Veritas. I have no idea why the Doctor tries to hide his blindness from Bill, but it's probably to manufacture tension. He had no problem telling Bill that he was blind before, so why it's a problem now is confusing.
As another aside, the blurb for the next episode has him openly admitting, presumably to Bill who is the only person beside Nardole and Doctor who knows what Chasm Forge is, that he's blind. So why the manufactured tension? I suppose it is it's own reward...So to the Vatican Batman! Da nana da nananananaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
No wait, not the Vatican, to a flashback. At this point I just wish they'd fucking get to the Vatican already. But we're back to the strange Missy execution flashback. A priest turns up. After some wrangling, the Doctor, not Missy gets to consult about his mortal soul. Er, don't they usually offer pastoral care to the soon to be deceased, not the executioner? It speaks a lot to the attitude of the people writing this show that they seem to care more about the moral fortitude of the executioner than the needs of the person
about to be killed. But in this case it's neither, because it's Nardole in disguise who's been told he has full permission to "kick the Doctor's arse". Ha. I will say that despite the crappy writing and ultimately pointless plot, Matt Lucas is turning Nardole into the most enjoyable part of this series. We need more irate companions telling the Doctor they're going to kick his arse and being totally weird in a kind of lovable way. I think if the series had more guts, they would simply write Bill out and have Nardole as the proper "companion". Reading from River Song's diary, he delivers the line "virtue is only virtue in extremis".
Roll credits.
But to the Vatican!!!!
Finally we're here. But when the
silent and unresponsive mobile set dressing Cardinals leave, Nardole challenges the Doctor about hiding his blindness. The Doctor gives some shit excuse about not wanting to be worried about and Nardole doesn't buy it for a second and calls him an idiot. He says that that's definitely not a secret. The Pope then wanders off, because we can't actually do anything besides insult and disrespect the Pope. Actually harming him would be off limits. The Doctor and Cardinal Redrobes head off to the secret heretical library of the Vatican, protected as it is by a...sigh...image of Pope Benedict IX openly depicted as a woman. Sure, whatever. Bill exclaims "Harry Potter" to which the Doctor admonishes her with the word "language" as one might a child being rude. Redrobes tells us that the layout is designed to confuse the uninitiated, to which the Doctor then retorts "sort of like religion, eh?" Which...wait...what? I get that the Doctor is supposed to be this atheist hero who insults the religious as a matter of course, but why tell Bill off for comparing the library to a piece of fiction it
does look like, then straight up insult their entire faith directly afterwards?
We then jump back to the execution. Nardole finishes whatever he was saying by telling the Doctor that "in darkness, we are revealed". He walks back to the block, where Missy is full on begging for her life. She promises to be good in future, and he challenges her with the same words from River Song's book, "without hope, without witness, without reward". It's clear that he's pointing out that yeah she'll be good when it suits her, but will she be good when there's nothing in it for her, when it costs her everything and she won't even be seen doing it. It's reasonable to suspect she won't.
We then jump back to the Vat. There's already someone in this library. Why do so many Moffat stories center on evil libraries? It's almost like he thinks the presence of so much writing is evil??? But this time it's a light pouring from a side passage, which we learn has a spoopy portal to another dimensjon in it. Redrobes goes to have a look, and dies.
Nobody notices. Requiescat In Pace, Cardinal Redrobes.
Ignoring this, they manage to come, unaided because it was always a straight walk to it, to the cage that the Veritas is in. Apparently someone else has been there, because there's stuff all over the desk. Oh wait no, some random Cardinal got in, shut the door behind him, and sent a copy of the Veritas to CERN (what? Why?). He then runs off with a pistol in hand to probably play with kittens or give alms to the poor or something. The Doctor makes an utterly contrived excuse to send Bill and Nardole away to follow the armed man who fled from them, into a library designed to get you lost. Clever guy. He commits offscreen suicide (kids show!) and the Doctor still sends them.
We then have one of the more enjoyable scenes between Bill and Nardole. She's petulantly objecting to Nardole placing himself in between her and potential threats, and he turns around and straight up threatens to kick her arse if she doesn't listen to him. She agrees and he shouts "goodo" and carries on. Matt Lucas is genuinely the funniest and most interesting part of this one. Bill then asks him if he's "secretly a badass" and has says (as did the Doctor) that there's nothing secret about it, then whimpers like a child at the sight of the gun held by the dead hand of the priest who died. Then they spot another portal and wander through it, because when you're not sure what's going on, walking unthinkingly into the light is the best plan.
We skip back to the Doctor using his magic device to "borrow" some eyesight from his future. Then a monk walks towards him. The Doctor can't see him properly because he's still half-blind. Yay.
We skip right back to the execution scene, where Missy tells him that without hope, without witness, she is his friend. So he pulls the lever and makes his oath to guard the body for a thousand years. That's dim, but the thousand years thing is supposed to be a preventative to stop a Time Lord coming back. So yeah. Great oath there Doctor.
We skip back to the Pentagon, because we've not had enough locations yet. Where Nardole and Bill have popped out of the portal. The Pentagon here being one single office, and an exterior footage shot. They're quickly accosted by someone who never calls security and just watches as two clearly unauthorised persons flee into the Pentagon. Back through the portal, they emerge into a room filled with projectors, and portals. Each portal apparently takes them into a different important place in the world. The next one they choose is the one that takes them to CERN. Convenient.
So we skip to CERN, where a drunken scientist tells them they're all going to die in the cafeteria. Remember that CERN got sent the details of the Veritas by email? Right?
Back to the Doctor! He's still half blinded, remember? He bullshits us for a while that this will have any one of many utterly irrelevant consequences, and the monks strap him into the chair (it has restraints because apparently the Vatican has been forcing people to read it, or continue to read it, against their will?) and he finally realises he's not with Bill or Nardole any more. They take away the Veritas, disappointing both me and the Doctor. The Doctor criticises them asking why they're playing a game, and they retort that it is a game. He uses the Sonic Screwdriver to...put out a fire...and escapes in the dark with the laptop that was used to send the message to CERN. The aliens demonstrate the ability to start a fire with their mind, and light it again. He's gone.
Back to CERN! Everyone's in the cafeteria drinking heavily and looking sad. Shit, this Veritas must be some heavy downer. Bill and Nardole look confused and the lead drunk tells them they have five minutes before they all die. Under the tables are...bright red ACME, fucking Wile E Coyote style TNT tubes??? Really? I've never seen something so cartoonish in a live action TV show. Notwithstanding that, how and why does a facility including a particle accelerator have vast amounts of TNT on site???
Back to Il Dottore. He's running through the library and opens the computer in order to read the Veritas, because when you're being chased by aliens, suicidal tendencies are a must. He reads
literally just the first line; A Test of Shadows, before his eyes pack in again. Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuullshit fakeout. Then the baddies chase him again. Wooo.
Back to CERN. We're treated to an explanation of the Veritas without having to read it. Bill and Nardole are asked to pick numbers, and they pick the same ones. They all do, every person. This proves that they are not real people, and therefore they're committing suicide because they've realised that they're unreal. I don't know how the book adequately communicated the number 103 million (remember the book is supposed the predate the Catholic Church), but whatever.
Bill and Nardole escape the explosion by running back into the hub room they came from. At this point they start really freaking out, comparing their world to Grand Theft Auto. Yes Moffat, you are indeed positioned in a lower angled degree alongside the adolescent members of your species. Nardole points out that the center of it looks like projectors, and puts his hand into the middle. It, and he, promptly disintegrates leaving Bill on her own. She heads into the White House, where everyone's learned of the Veritas and killed themselves, including a not-very-Trumplike President. The Doctor is behind the desk in the Oval Office, and he convinces Bill that it is indeed correct: there's an alien trying to conquer the Earth, and this is a simulation designed to test things. Bill is convinced of her unreality to the point where she spontaneously dissolves and is notionally replaced by a monk.
The Doctor speaks with the monk again, remembering the words of River Song about virtue without hope or witness etc. He also does that thing about not being "The Doctor" unless he's being good or something too. So he threatens the aliens, and then uses his fake sonic sunglasses to record and transmit an email of the discussion he had with the aliens to the REAL Doctor, who's been sat on his ass the whole time.
His first act when he finds out about all of this? To call Bill and tell her she can totally score a date with that girl Penny from the beginning of the episode, whom Bill considers out of her league. We know it's possible because simulation Bill managed it. Yay. Just the dramatic and interesting response we needed. He then returns to the vault, and refers to "said you were my friend" and that the denizen of the vault is all he has left.
At this point we snap back, yet again, to the execution, where it turns out the Doctor can't kill Missy and won't. He will however, imprison her for a thousand years for the lulz and she'll go along with it for no reason other than plot. He intimidates the executions by having them bring up a record of how many people he's murdered.
We snap back, for a final time, to the vault. The Doctor then deliberately identifies the occupant as Missy and then
tells her he's blind. What. He was scared of BILL knowing before, but now it's fine for his most dangerous frenemy to know? I seriously don't get how this makes any sense. He's relying on THE MASTER to defeat his enemies for him, and he can rely on nobody else all of a sudden. Did everyone forget that he's still kind of President of Earth, and also possibly still Lord President of Gallifrey? Why is the Master the only Time Lord left again? For this plot to make any sense at all, the events of Heaven Sent and Hell Bent have to not happen.
Look, overall, this plot is bloated, over complicated, and ends on a middle finger to anyone who got remotely invested in the events of the episode. Despite having absolute ability to injure, kill or destroy everyone, the episode fails to do anything interesting with that potential. It fails to explain anything about the enemy they're facing other than they're evil and do their research. We have no idea why they're powerful, who they are, what they want other than the obvious, and what their potential weaknesses might be. The Veritas is just a bullshit mcguffin that doesn't make any sense, why exactly would
everyone kill themselves when they read it? It's not like the concept of being deceived by an evil demon isn't something real people haven't thought; it's simple Cartesian Doubt. The projectors are just a reinvention of Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Nothing about it puts a new twist on it, and the story doesn't have time to use either of these interesting concepts in a way that compels. I spent the first half of the episode waiting for anything to make sense, and when it did I was disappointed. I was then annoyed by the final fuck you of making it all fake. This was not, strictly, a full stand-alone episode to me.