Doctor Who Series 12 Spoilers – “Spyfall: Parts 1 & 2”

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.