The Doctor (Peter Capaldi) Nardole (Matt Lucas) Missy (Michelle Gomez) and Bill (Pearl Mackie) end up on a ship which appears to be abandoned and the Doctor lets Missy 'investigate' it with Nardole and Bill. Sure there'd be plenty of objections about that from Nardole, I mean she can't be trusted and he doesn't trust her. The Doctor remains inside the TARDIS eating some crisps and she doesn't like him doing that; and they find a blue inhabitant (as seen int he episode Oxygen) on the screen and he's coming for them. He is Jorj (Oliver Lansley)and he states one of them is human. Nardole comments he's blue and he used to be blue once. As in colour or just plain, blue, sorry! He asks which one is human since the lift is moving and they're coming to get whoever is human. The Doctor comes out and he doesn't reply. But Bill admits it's her. Yet again Bill Potts bumbling her way into more crisis and trouble for the Doctor.
But before all this, Missy talks about the Doctor and how they grew up together. How the Doctor's name is Doctor Who. People ask him his name and he says, "Doctor" and they ask "Who?" They ask if that's really his name. It's a name that the Doctor took cos he liked it. It's just Doctor. Getting back to current events, Jorj shoots Bill and she finds a gaping hole straight through her heart. As the Doctor and Bill have a flashback to Bill cooking and cutting chips. With Nardole teasing her. She and the doctor eat chips on the roof of the building and speak about his name and his home. How Missy could be a man, used to be a man and how they're more advanced than humans when it comes to gender acceptance. Accepting both men and women. Bill adding that he won't let her die, even just a little bit. Which echoes into the events on the ship.
Life form without faces come out of the lift with a gurney saying they can repair her and take her away. The Doctor communicates with Bill telepathically telling her to, "wait for me" through the lift doors. Jorj explains they're not the colony, it's a colony ship but no one was on board yet. There was a crew of 50 who were making the ship habitable and were sent down to the planet to survey it. About 20 didn't come back. Nardole pulls up the data and says there are many life forms on the ship. The Doctor also mentions they're in a black hole. The bottom of the ship is moving quicker in time than the top which is being slowed down due to the black hole and gravitational pull, he also explains about gravity, which Jorj doesn't understand, he's just a janitor.
Bill wakes up on the operating table with a large box in place of her heart. She must recover. She sees the Doctor telling her to wait for him. As another man comes in and tells her she needs to recover. Bill leaves the room and finds two doors, one saying 'in' the other 'out.' As she walks in the door, she can hear a faceless figure saying "pain" over and over. He's in pain. A nurse comes in to help him and Bill hides. But the long haired man spots her behind the curtain. He leaves with the nurse and Bill turns down the volume on the faceless man. The man takes her to his rooms and asks her to tea, does she want good tea or bad tea. His name is Mr Razor. He then shows her the others on the TV monitor and she says they're frozen. He tells her this is happening now. She's been here two weeks, months even but for them time has barely passed. Hence the Doctor's references to time.
She says the Doctor's got a sarcastic face there and also he's raising an eyebrow later on, which means he's saying something funny. The man tells her he'll be doing that for a long while yet, a week. The nurse takes her to mop the floors cos it's her job. She can't leave the hospital or her heart will stop functioning. Razor takes her outside to explore and she can't even open the window without the faceless men getting agitated or menacing. Razor shows her the last surviving humans, who will soon be dead and the masked ones are their children, the best of the lot. They will all be converted soon and when he said that of course you'd have to think of , "you will be assimilated." As we all know they're Cybermen and that Razor is actually disguised,
The Doctor seizes the chance to take out Jorj, being frozen for a while before he falls to the floor and waits for the lift to arrive. As Razor takes Bill by tricking her back to the doctor who operated on her and tells her she will become one of them too, since sooner or later her heart will eventually cease. The Doctor and the others come across a computer and he tells Missy to access it. Of course Nardole wanted to do it but the Doctor tells him she's better at it. He takes Nardole with him to find Bill. Razor comes across Missy and she tells him to stay three feet away or she will kill him, not liking people to sneak up on her. She can be evil. Like accosting Jorj with her umbrella. Nardole and the Doctor come across the newly formed Cyberman as the Doctor realizes who it is, a Mondasian Cyberman, the same time Missy finds that the ship was on the planet Mondas. The Doctor asks about the location of Bill since he's newly formed and they have one consciousness. The Cyberman replies, "I waited for you." As we see inside the eye socket to Bill's eye, as she cries.
Razor losing his disguise and revealing himself to be the former PM, the Master (John Simm) ...and the regeneration begins next episode...
Spoilers aside with everyone knowing that the Cybermen were on their way as was the Master, this penultimate episode as Peter's stint as the Doctor sets up not only his most feared enemies, but also the Master too. Seems they won't be getting the TARDIS to turn back time for Bill to be saved and for the Doctor to change what has happened, since we know he will have to get regenerated. But as he asks for help from Missy in the next episode, was a touching scene, or will be when we get to see it. Also how Nardole in this episode comments how the Doctor is showing motion and wants to take a selfie with him.
Will the Doctor kick himself for giving Bill the chance to help him test Missy on a colony ship which is sending out a distress call (don't they always) or rather it appeared to be more of a lure didn't it. Since Bill doesn't want to get killed, but no sooner did she utter those words the inevitable happened and fate stepped in to mar what was meant to be Missy's test of loyalty, ultimate test, who knows (no pun!) Mr Razor the so-called orderly did appear rather Lord of the Rings like didn't he. Coincidentally he just happened to be around. That colony ship was so blooming long though and was also bullet-shaped too.
This was a little Clara-esque when she was stuck inside the Dalek, 'the Impossible Girl.' Now Bill as a 'Cyberman' or should that be 'Cyberchick,' it's all relative. Those faceless men remained me of Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound, when Dr Edwardes (Gregory Peck) tells the dream he's been having to Ingrid Bergman's Dr Constance Peters. Razor aka The Master must have been enjoying taking Bill in and manipulating her to finally becoming one of the Cybermen, knowing how that would affect the Doctor. The Mondasian Cybermen appeared in William Hartnell's First Doctor story, The Tenth Planet. The Master called it Genesis, as they were converted from their flesh to their metallic state to get to the top and take over the ship and were meant to have evolved. Evolution taking an eternity practically. The head gear would not only stop them feeling pain, but only not being bothered about it.
Missy was on top form as usual as she referred to Nardole as Comic Relief and to Bill as Exposition. Referring to Jorj as a Smurf and allusions to spanking, as well as replying "don't be a bitch" when he asks if she's human.
This episode had it all, humour or should I say Comic Relief to coin Missy, as well as the darkness overshadowing Bill's fate and the Doctor wanting her to wait for him. She waited as long as she could and eventually fell prey to the Master and his dirty, evil tricks.
The title alludes to Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress, "had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime..."
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