This episode of Doctor Who was one of the best thus far this series, yeah don't agree with me, aside from the fact there was some 'borrowing' from other films and the like. The skeleton hand was reminiscent of The Beast With Five Fingers (1946) where the severed hand of a pianist returned to cause havoc. As well as the rooms folding in on themselves and ending up in the same place going round in circles, reminded me of the Winchester Mystery House, not the movie, but the actual house.
Anyhoo as Byron (Jacob Collins-Levy) plans to read a horror story to the gathered company at Shelley's house at Lake Geneva, June 19816, there happens to be a knock at the door, revealing none other than the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) et al.
Aside from the fact Byron was a complete coward and the Doctor made reference to Ada, his daughter, as we knew her from before. The revelation that Shelly had anything to do with the lone Cyberman wasn't much of a revelation. As for ghosts being real or not real, I would've thought that after having encounters with Charles Dickens, much of this wouldn't' be a mystery for the Doctor after her comment of ghosts not being real. Okay she didn't actually come across any per se, but surely his works said otherwise.
Elise leaves the baby in the nursery unattended and by the window when there's a storm outside, yeah that was clever and finds a vase crashes against the wall, along with several ghostly appearances. As the skeletal hand comes out of the painting and goes on a murderous rampage. Well only murderous when it hurls itself at Ryan's (Tosin Cole) neck and especially when he's challenged to a duel by Dr John Polidori (Maxim Baldry). Saved by the hand! Well Graham (Bradley Walsh) wasn't going to be his second but only cos there wasn't going to be any duel.
Well the Doctor too, as she Sonic's the hand away and the valet, Fletcher hits it to the ground with the tray where it becomes dust. Which the Doctor then proceeds to taste and concludes it's nothing more than a human hand. Byron admitting he has a skeleton in his room, was going to say in his closet, well... He's collected artifacts from wars and the Doctor takes a fancy to a helmet which she's going to come back for. The skull and two hands are missing from the case.
Yaz (Mandip Gill) has a conversation with Claire (Nadia Parkes) who was breaking into his room to see if Byron had any letters that may show his feelings towards her. As Yaz sees a ghostly apparition for an instance. Though she sat next to the painting on the floor but doesn't notice the hole in it. As Graham couldn't find the little boy's room, he sure did hold it for the entire ep, ha. He also goes round in circles and ends up where he started. Missing being watched by another apparition. Yaz is irritating me from way back as she really tries to be so clever and the way she confronted Claire at the door, I mean it's not your house is it and she's not even a guest here, more an interloper! The Doctor surmizing there's something inherently evil at work here in the house.
As Mary (Lili Miller) mentions Shelley (Lewis Rainer) seeing a spectral image at the lake and as they rush to the window they see this again. As Elise sees this too but she doesn't do anything about the baby until she hides with William, but then she doesn't stop him from crying, thus there wasn't any point in hiding. Graham is charged with looking after Polidori, his "you only had one job" comment from the Doctor when he goes sleepwalking and walks through walls after Graham loses him. A clue for her to tell them to close their eyes and they find the door leading them out to the rest of the house. Then there was Graham seeing a woman and girl ghost and his sandwiches, but it doesn't click that they may not be real as they don't acknowledge him.
They see the spectral image again and the Doctor realizes it's a traveller in time trying to get through. He gets through into the house and it's a Cyberman. The Doctor coming across them before, obviously and she goes after him alone as he is searchign for something, "the guardian." She doesn't want the others to follow since she doesn't want to see them losing their free will and humanity and becoming mindless AI hellbent on war. The Cyberman getting Fletcher and Elise but taking William. Whom the Doctor finds covered on teh floor later on. So why did the Cyberman cover him if later on he tells them he didn't kill William since he was a worthless baby. His intention was he'd eventually suffocate or die of neglect and hunger when he killed everyone. Yaz then comes up with the idea that the Doctor technically said not to follow her so they split up and search the house. Graham, Claire and Polidori coming across Shelley in the basement.
He has been channelling the Cyberman and he is the guardian which explained all the symbols and writings on the walls of his room. The Cyberman's name is Ashad and he answers Mary's questions more so than he did the Doctor's but then revealing his true nature. That like Frankenstein's monster, he wasn't kind or even remotely human, devoid of all feelings. Harnessing his power from the storm, the energy making him stronger, just as Frankenstein's monster was created during a storm. He is actually after the Cyberium (and not one where fish reside either). This one's able to teleport and at first as the Doctor feigns Shelley's death to release it, the Cyberium comes to her and she can feel it inside of her. Taunting Ashad by saying it came to her and not him. Prompting Ashad to reveal his ship in the clouds and destroying the planet. Leaving the Doctor with no choice but to return it.
The Doctor now having to chase it so that the future isn't destroyed, wasn't exactly her leashing of it onto the world. It was Ashad who arrived here as a traveller, though how did Shelley end up with the Cyberium, aside from his walk by the lake. It appears to have entered his body just as it did the Doctor.
This famous get together on a dark, dank, stormy night of course was the inspiration for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and here the allusion was to her meeting the lone. almost Cyberman and appealing to what maybe left of its humanity. Obviously he doesn't have any and no soul either, no matter how hard she tried to reconcile it to its own humanity. As well as the Doctor getting her own exposition on sacrifice again and taking life unnecessarily, I mean how many times has she said how dangerous it is to change even a tiny snippet of history and the lasting implications for humans and the future. Yet she still has to say it here. By now they should know she's not one for killing so when they chance upon killing Shelley as a solution, they don't think of the bigger picture. She has never advocated killing for the sake of it, or per se.
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