It’s
become my habit to end each new season of Doctor
Who with a few Sunday Who Reviews worth of spoilery posts, getting into the
big stuff I couldn’t talk about as the season was coming to a close. This time
around, though, I knew pretty much from the start that just doing a breakdown
of the finale episodes wasn’t going to cut it. Series 12 has seen some major
surprises and game-changing moments come at various points in the season, and
what’s more, you need to get into most of them before you can start to address
the finale. So today, we’re backing up to the season premiere and making our
way through the most spoiler-ific episodes before coming back around to
“Ascension of the Cybermen” / “The Timeless Children.” Maybe by then, I’ll have
wrapped my head around the finale a little better! Last warning: full and
complete spoilage ahead for both parts of “Spyfall” (also: references to major
moments from series 10’s “World Enough and Time.”)
For me,
the hardest part about my initial non-spoiler reviews for the “Spyfall”
two-parter was the simple fact that the biggest spoiler was far and away my
favorite part of the story. I thought 95% of “Spyfall” was pretty good but
still lacking the spark that can really make for a great Who episode, but those last few minutes had me nerd-flailing and
counting down the days until the following week’s episode. And it’s all thanks
to one big reveal: the character played by Sacha Dhawan, former MI-6 agent O
and old friend of the Doctor, is actually the latest incarnation of the Master.
In those
few minutes, everything turns awesome. There’s a new Master, he’s played by
Sacha Dhawan, he’s got the Tissue
Compression Eliminator with him (going old school!), and he’s just tricked
the Doctor and her companion onto a plane with him, one where he’s replaced the
pilot with a bomb (also, he refers to himself as the Doctor’s “best enemy,”
which remains one of my favorite parts from “The Five Doctors.”) The palpable
combination of twist and tension reminded me of the end of “Utopia,” but while
I thought that story didn’t really live up to its promise, the Master’s
exploits in “Spyfall” just keep getting better and better.
I’m
enamored with Dhawan’s portrayal of the Master. While John Simm and Michelle
Gomez’s versions never quite clicked for me (although I thought Simm’s last
appearance was a major improvement on his earlier stories,) I’m all about this
one. He has the unhinged energy, but he knows when to reel it back in just before it goes too over-the-top.
He’s volatile and dangerous, bristling with this loose-cannon mania where you
never know when he’s going to kill someone just because he wants to, but then
he can also go so intense, so scary-quiet, so still. His complex relationship
with the Doctor endures because, although the Master keeps trying to kill the
Doctor and she keeps trying to thwart his evil plans, they’re still tangled up
in one another in a way that no one else in their lives really are. I love the
Doctor finding the Master in occupied Paris by sending him the Time Lord hearts
four-beat over the telegraph, and I love how much familiarity and intimacy you
feel in their interactions. Jodie Whittaker is a terrific actress, but she
brings something extra-special this season whenever she shares the screen with
Dhawan.
Also, the
Master’s alliance with the Kasaavin hearkens back to another old-school Master
trait: aligning himself with another baddie and then beginning an arms race to
see which will double-cross the other first. Brought back memories, that one
did (even if the Kasaavins’ whole plan still seems kind of iffy to me.) And of
course, we continue the “master of disguise” theme with us initially meeting
him as O. This is a great move because, for the majority of “Spyfall: Part 1,”
I really like O. He’s a fun
character, a paranoid former intelligence researcher living in the middle of
nowhere who’s been maintaining a long-distance texting friendship with the
Doctor over at least two of the Doctor’s lifetimes. It’s neat for the
companions to meet someone who’s known the Doctor a long time, and there’s a
moment during the party scene that made me retroactively go back and think,
“Wait a second, was Yaz unknowingly kind of vibing
with the Master?” And then, out of the blue, the disguise drops away.
Which is
just one more thing to appreciate on top of the overflowing well of awesomeness
that is the new Master: I love that I
had no idea it was coming. It wasn’t announced beforehand, or teased or
speculated. It was just, wham, bomb
drop! Watching it, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Twelve’s “World Enough and Time,” where both the Mondasian
Cybermen and John Simm’s Master were spoiled in the preview for the episode. It
was so much more satisfying here to find out in the moment, and kudos to the
show for keeping this under wraps.
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