World Enough and Time (TV story)
- You may be looking for the River Song audio story.
World Enough and Time was the eleventh episode of the tenth series of Doctor Who produced by BBC Wales.
The episode continued the ongoing vault story arc. Notably, the Doctor takes Missy on her first adventure, and entrusts her with his two companions in his attempt at testing how good she has become. The episode also showed Bill Potts being converted into a Cyberman and displayed what appeared to be the beginning of the Twelfth Doctor's regeneration.
It also notably featured the return of John Simm as the Saxon Master, seven years after his last appearance in The End of Time. The episode showed John Simm's Master acting alongside Michelle Gomez's Missy, marking the first onscreen appearance of more than one incarnation of the Master.
It also marked the return of the Cybermen in their original design for the first time since they were introduced in 1966 and their first formal appearance since Death in Heaven. The episode depicted a fourth alternative account of the genesis of the Mondasian Cybermen - different origins have been shown in the comics The World Shapers and The Cybermen, and the audio story Spare Parts.
Synopsis
The Doctor decides to test how good Missy has become by sending her on a trial run with Bill and Nardole. However, when things go wrong, the Doctor takes over. With Bill trapped in a different time zone, can the Doctor make it to her before it is too late, and who are all those people getting cured?
Plot
The Doctor stumbles from his TARDIS onto a snow-filled landscape, repeatedly chanting no as he falls to his knees. He begins to regenerate.
Sometime prior, while walking through the courtyard at St Luke's University, the Doctor decides to test if Missy can turn good, despite Bill's objections. They discuss it further in St Luke's kitchen, Bill claims even Nardole will resist, but the Doctor assures he won't as he agreed "in his head", Nardole sheepishly agreeing. Their short dispute causes the Doctor to become emotional, due to Missy being the closest thing he has to someone else like him, something that amuses Nardole, who takes a selfie with him to chronicle the moment. Later that day, Bill and the Doctor eat together, the latter convincing her it is a good thing to let Missy try to prove herself as she was once his "man crush". After a brief discussion about the Time Lords and gender stereotypes, Bill confesses that Missy truly scares her. The Doctor tries to promise he can ensure Bill won't die, but admits it can't be guaranteed. Regardless, he assures her that he will be there should things get out of hand.
The plan set, the Doctor drops Missy, Bill and Nardole off on a colony spaceship facing a black hole in the hopes of saving it. Missy introduces herself as 'Doctor Who' to the cameras, which she claims is the Doctor's real name despite the Doctor denying such. He soon becomes impatient with their progress, walking around the TARDIS eating crisps. Missy finally follows suit by deducing why a distress call was made. She also mocks Nardole and Bill's roles as "comic relief" and "exposition" given their genders. They are soon met by a blue skinned humanoid named Jorj who demands to know which one of them is a human. Bill confesses, the Doctor exiting the TARDIS, taking charge as Jorj prepares to shoot Bill as creatures at the bottom of the ship begin to come up in the elevators. Despite the Doctor's pleas, Jorj shoots Bill in the chest, mortally wounding her. Figures with bandaged faces in hospital gowns collect her body, and, using a voice synthesiser, claim that they will fix her but shall not return. The Doctor trusts them, leaving a psychic message for Bill to wait for him when she awakes.
Jorj threatens the Doctor when he attempts to scan the elevators but is threatened by Missy with her umbrella, who states only she is allowed to kill the Doctor and that it will only make the Doctor cross. Once things settle down, the Doctor explains that, due to the lower part of the ship being further away from black hole, time moves faster than the one they are in (the top floor) noting how lifts slowed down when they neared the top due to the difference in gravitational pull, using a red pen in his sonic screwdriver to illustrate. He also states that the creatures on board the ship are the descendants of the crew who went to the lower part of the ship when it got dragged towards a black hole and needed to be reversed, as decades have passed for them even though it has only been two days for Jorj. Jorj admits his confusion; the Doctor mocks him for his lack of knowledge despite supposedly going to "space school", causing the man to reveal he is only a janitor. The Doctor then knocks out Jorj using Venusian aikido so that he and the others can follow Bill. Nardole, stating it has been ten minutes for them, wonders how long Bill has been living below, to which the Doctor replies he hopes they aren't too late.
Meanwhile, at the base of the ship, Bill awakes in a hospital ward with a cybernetic heart fused in to her chest, too shocked to look at it. A feral caretaker looks at her before running off. Coming to her senses, she briefly sees a vision of the Doctor telling her to wait for him only for him to vision. She observes the room, noticing two clocks on the wall, one for floor 1056 (which registers 365030 days) and another for floor 0000 (which indicates 2 days).
Bill eventually clambers to her feet and begins to follow the noise of someone chanting "pain", soon finding it be another patient on the ward. She goes to fiddle with its voice synthesise but has to hide as the feral man and a nurse enter the ward, the nurse mutes the synthesiser. The caretaker, revealed to be called Mr. Razor, takes a liking to Bill and brings her to his room. He explains how time passes faster for them compared to the top, using a tin can to illustrate, and offers Bill tea. He explains how Bill was hurt on the upper levels so had to have her heart replaced with a "shiny" cyber heart and that she has been at the hospital for a few months. He also shows her a live feed of the upstairs, which Bill then spends her time watching despite its extremely slow pace. Months go by, Bill witnessing how the Doctor raised his eye brow for a week and braced to explain the situation to his associates. While waiting, Bill recovers enough that she is eventually put to work cleaning the hospital by the nurse while plagued by the Doctor's message to keep waiting.
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On one particular day, she contemplates leaving the hospital only for it to alarm the other patients on the ward, unnerving her enough to stay. After being there just over a year, she eventually convinces Razor to take her out of the hospital, where he reveals to her that the patients are being converted in preparation for "Operation Exodus" as the humans' finite lifespan cannot survive the journey back up to the top. They witness how the dying residents are guided to the hospital by the upgraded partially. After a while, Bill's cyber heart fails, forcing them back to the hospital.
More years pass, Bill eventually convincing Razor to take her to the elevators so she can be transferred back upstairs. They sneak in, Razor revealing he has a key to the conversion theatre, wearing a mask in skit attempt to disguise himself. However, once inside, it was revealed to have been a scheme to condemn Bill to a full conversion, as (according to the surgeon) people usually scream if alerted to the real reason why they are taken into the theatre. The prototype patients in the room restrain her as the surgeon remarks how the headpiece he will fit on her head will inhibit emotion so she won't care about the pain of the process.
Meanwhile, the Doctor, Missy and Nardole make it to the bottom floor, the Doctor having Missy delve into the ship's computer history to find out what has occurred below, annoying Nardole as that tends to be his job. He and the Doctor explore deeper into the hospital, finding a surgery room. The Doctor uses his sonic to activate the light above the bed, Nardole jumping in surprise at there being partially converted patients in the room. Elsewhere, Razor approaches Missy as she researches, the Time Lady threatening to kill him if he comes closer than three feet.
The others eventually learn of "Operation Exodus", while Missy simultaneously learns the ship came from the planet Mondas, twin planet of Earth. Razor teases her again, drawing a pistol, agitating Missy enough to confront him directly, but he discards the weapon. Razor states that he is "worried about his future" and is surprised Missy can't remember being on the ship beforehand. He talks to Missy about his love of disguises, wondering if she still likes them, revealing "Mr. Razor" was an invention so that Bill did not recognise him as a former prime minister of Britain. He removes his mask, revealing himself as the Saxon Master, in his "Harold Saxon" incarnation, now sporting a beard and grey hair. He greets his future self, smiles and says "give us a kiss".
In the surgery room, the Doctor opens a door, revealing a complete Mondasian Cyberman. Backing away, he confirms he means no harm and asks for Bill's location. To his horror, the Cyberman asserts that it is Bill. Missy and her predecessor enter, the latter surprising the Doctor as they profess they have made "the genesis of the Cybermen". Bill begins to cry beneath the mask, as the episode ends.
Cast
- The Doctor - Peter Capaldi
- Bill - Pearl Mackie
- Nardole - Matt Lucas
- Missy - Michelle Gomez
- The Saxon Master - John Simm
- Jorj - Oliver Lansley
- Surgeon - Paul Brightwell
- Nurse - Alison Lintott
- Voice of the Cybermen - Nicholas Briggs
Crew
to be added
References
Locations
- After being taken by a group of Patients, Bill is moved from Floor 0000 to Floor 1056.
- Bill is taken to the Conversion Theatre to be fully converted.
- Razor says that once there was an expedition to Floor 0507, the largest of the solar farms, that didn't survive the trip.
Cybermen
- The Patients are partially-converted Cybermen.
- The headpiece is revealed to be the Mondasian Cybermen's emotional inhibitor.
- The Patients use speech synthesizer computers to talk.
- The Cybermen are part of a neural net.
Science
- The ship is reversing away from the gravitational pull of a black hole.
- Due to time dilation, time is slower on one side of the ship than on the other.
- Basically the closer one is to the gravity source, the slower time will pass.
- The Doctor calls it Superman-gravity.
Biology
- The Doctor calls the heart the "most important [human] organ".
- The Doctor complains that humans only have one heart.
- The Doctor says he has hidden arms.
Technology
- Missy reveals she has a sonic umbrella.
- The sonic screwdriver can be used as a marker pen.
- The ship is fitted with inertia lifts.
- The ship is 400 miles long and a hundred miles wide.
- The ship has CCTV cameras.
- Missy, Nardole and Bill wear earpieces to communicate with the Doctor inside the TARDIS.
- The ship's thrusters are on reverse.
- Razor says that on most people, the Cyber heart looks like a vending machine.
- The surgeon uses a machine called Medi-Ject 08 to operate on the Patients.
TARDIS
- The individual panels on the console can be taken off and moved around the entire control room, having a long cable connected to it.
Species
- It's offensive to mistake Time Lords for humans. At least according to Missy.
People
- The Twelfth Doctor is shown regenerating.
- In his first incarnation, the Doctor had a crush on the Master, while at the Academy.
- Missy comes up with other words to describe her companions, including "assistants", "pets", "snacks" and "disposables".
- Nardole was once blue.
- Missy thinks "fear" is the emotion called spanking.
- Jorj is the colony ship janitor.
Nicknames and aliases
- Missy uses the alias "Doctor Who" and gives Bill and Nardole the nicknames "Thing One" and "the Other One" respectively.
- Missy claims that the Doctor's real name is Doctor Who.
- Missy calls Bill "exposition" and Nardole "comic relief", referring to two types of stock characters typically found in story writing. She calls them their genders.
- Missy calls Jorj her stallion.
- Missy calls Jorj "Smurf".
Culture
- Missy briefly dabs.
- According to the Doctor, Time Lords don't have fixation on gender and gender roles that humans do.
- Nardole takes a selfie with the Doctor.
- The creation of the Cybermen is called "Operation Exodus".
Foods and beverages
- The Doctor eats a packet of crisps labelled Bamon crisps.
- Attempting to mimic human flirting, Missy says to Jorj "if I'm in the shower, just bring me some beans on toast".
- Bill puts chipped potatoes in a fryer.
- Peppers and cabbages are seen in the University kitchen.
- The Doctor and Bill eat chips.
- Bill eats a bacon sandwich. The Doctor tells her to "go and tell a pig about [her] moral high ground".
- Nardole eats a Jaffa Cake.
- "Razor" makes tea for Bill.
- "Razor" uses a can of baked beans to illustrate the ship.
- "Razor" is cooking bacon.
- Missy suggests to make a soup out of "Razor"'s vital organs.
Music
- Opera music cab be heard from Conversion Theatre.
Story notes
File:Brian Minchin Talks World Enough And Time - The Aftershow - Doctor Who The Fan Show
- The read-through for World Enough and Time took place on 21 February 2017, and filming took place between 24 February and 28 March.
- This episode marks the first on-screen appearance of the original design of the Mondasian Cybermen since the First Doctor television story, The Tenth Planet in 1966.
- This episode marks the return of John Simm's Master, who last appeared in The End of Time in 2010.
- This episode marks the first time that more than one incarnation of the Master has appeared on-screen.
- One of the solar farms look like the outside areas on Gliese 581 D from TV: Smile.
- The Master's line comparing the scenario to being more like a "Genesis of the Cybermen" is a reference to the 1975 Doctor Who story Genesis of the Daleks, which showed the Fourth Doctor being sent to the creation of the Daleks. Following the success of Genesis of the Daleks, a story entitled Genesis of the Cybermen was planned, but never produced.
- For the first time in the show's history, the Doctor actually self-identifies using the name "Doctor Who". However, it does seem like a bit of an in-joke. He has previously been referred to as such: in The War Machines, WOTAN says "Doctor Who is required" (due to a script mistake); in The Highlanders, the Second Doctor introduces himself as "Doktor von Wer" (German for "Doctor [of] Who"); in The Underwater Menace, the Second Doctor signs a note with "Dr. W."; in The Dæmons, the Third Doctor introduces himself as "the great wizard Qui Quae Quod" (Latin variations of "Who"); from Doctor Who and the Silurians to The Five Doctors and in What He Wants..., the Doctor's car Bessie's plate read WHO 1, in Battlefield it read WHO 7, and in The Dying Days it read WHO 8; in The Kingmaker, the Fourth Doctor wrote a series of children's books accidentally published as Doctor Who Discovers; in Rose, a website called whoisdoctorwho.co.uk asks "Who is Doctor Who?"; and in Fogbound, the Master addresses a postcard to the Third Doctor as "Dr. Who". Although Missy claims that "Doctor Who" is the Doctor's real name, she also explicitly says she calls herself Doctor Who to head off the usual response heard when the Doctor introduces himself and people reply, "Doctor who?"
- "Operation Exodus" was a continual concern for the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha in the 1970s TV series Space: 1999. There, it was an evacuation plan for an orderly transfer of the Moon's inhabitants to another location--originally back to Earth, but eventually adapted to any habitable body.
- The episode is one of few instances of the use of profanity, with Missy saying the word "bitch".
- When the Master unmasks himself, an alarm bell in the background sounds in time with a drumbeat. The drumbeat is also heard when he enters the operating theatre alongside Missy. The Master has had an association with drums before in TV: Utopia, The Sound of Drums, Last of the Time Lords and The End of Time.
- According to the clocks shown in the various rooms of the hospital, time on the bottom floor of the ship is approximately 149283.44 times faster than on the top of the ship.
Ratings
- 3.37m (UK Overnight figures)
- 5.01m (UK final)
Filming locations
- Scenes outside the hospital were shot in Cardiff Bay.
Production errors
to be added
Continuity
- Missy again wears a hat and is carrying an umbrella. (TV: Deep Breath et al.)
- Missy dances to the alarm sound. She previously danced to the continued "EXTERMINATE" chant from the Supreme Dalek. (TV: The Witch's Familiar)
- The Doctor notes Missy's use of the TARDIS to retrieve him along with Bill and Nardole from Mars. (TV: Empress of Mars)
- Blue-skinned humanoids are seen again. (TV: The End of the World, The Pandorica Opens, Oxygen)
- Bill is working in the kitchen at St Luke's University. (TV: The Pilot)
- The Doctor again complains about humans only having one heart. (TV: The Shakespeare Code, The Power of Three)
- The Doctor has previously left a message in a companion's subconscious. (TV: The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang)
- The Doctor has previously arrived at a location where the "skeleton crew" had disappeared. (TV: Smile)
- The Doctor and Bill eat chips together. The Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler previously did this. (TV: The End of the World
- The original Mondasian Cybermen appear again, and Mondas is shown on a screen. Missy notes that it's a twin to Earth. (TV: The Tenth Planet)
- In his fifth incarnation, the Doctor saw the Mondasians who remained on Mondas convert themselves into Cybermen for a similar reason. (AUDIO: Spare Parts)
- This is at least the fourth time the Doctor has witnessed the "genesis" of some form of Cybermen. (AUDIO: Spare Parts, COMIC: The World Shapers, TV: Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel)
- Nardole screams due to being surprised. (TV: Extremis)
- Missy previously encountered the "Harold Saxon" Master. (COMIC: The Abominable Showmen / The Five Masters)
- The Doctor has been on another space colony that orbited a black hole. (TV: The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit)
- The Doctor has to travel to a different time zone of the same location to rescue his companion, who waits for him, but he arrives too late. (TV: The Girl Who Waited)
- The topic of the Doctor's "real name" is discussed. (TV: The Name of the Doctor) The Doctor again states how he actually likes being asked "Doctor Who". (TV: The Bells of Saint John) Missy also claims to know the Doctor's real name; previously, River Song possessed this knowledge (TV: Forest of the Dead, et al.) and Clara Oswald briefly did so before a time reset. (TV: Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS)
- The Doctor is shown regenerating. (TV: The Tenth Planet et. al)
- The Doctor says going on an adventure is something he and Bill do on Saturdays, just as Wednesday used to be his day for adventures with Clara Oswald. (TV: The Bells of Saint John, et al.)
- The Doctor has previously said he likes Saturdays. (TV: The Stolen Earth)
- The Doctor refers to him and the Master meeting at the Time Lord Academy. (PROSE: Divided Loyalties, TV: The Sound of Drums, Terror of the Autons)
- The Doctor and Missy each mention how they met at the Academy on Gallifrey and how they chose their names that day, among other promises. (TV: The Sound of Drums, The End of Time)
- The Doctor mentions the Master's desire to destroy the universe rather than explore it, as they had initially promised. (TV: Last of the Time Lords, The End of Time)
- The Cybermen are shown to be able to cry and feel pain. (TV: Doomsday, Rise of the Cybermen)
- Bill calls the Doctor an idiot, mirroring how Nardole did likewise. (TV: Extremis)
- The Doctor knocks out Jorj using Venusian aikido. The fighting style was prominently used by his third incarnation. (TV: Inferno, Colony in Space, The Mutants, The Green Death, The Time Warrior, COMIC: The Celluloid Midas)
- The surgeon explains that the headpiece of the cyber-suit acts as an emotional inhibitor so Bill won't care about the pain. (TV: The Age of Steel)
- Once again, the Doctor witnesses a companion suffer a mortal injury, (TV: Face the Raven) only for technology to be used to arrange for them to stay alive; in all cases, their hearts no longer function. (TV: Hell Bent)
- Other associates of the Doctor have previously been converted into Cybermen, such as Jackie Tyler (TV: Rise of the Cybermen), Yvonne Hartman (TV: Doomsday), and Danny Pink (TV: Death in Heaven). It similarly occurred when Oswin Oswald was converted into a Dalek. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks) In particular, Bill's fate closely resembles that of the Jackie Tyler of Pete's World, in that both were converted into Cybermen before being found by their attempted rescuers. (TV: The Age of Steel)
- The Master has allied with Cybermen before. (TV: The Five Doctors, Dark Water / Death in Heaven, PROSE: Birth of a Renegade)
- The Master adopted the guise of "Razor" so Bill would not recognise him from his time as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. (TV: The Sound of Drums / The Last of the Time Lords)
- The Master is sporting a beard, similar in style to his previous incarnations. (TV: Terror of the Autons - Frontier in Space, The Keeper of Traken-Survival) He also mentions and displays a love of disguises, as, again, in past incarnations. (TV: Time-Flight, et al.)
- Missy not remembering being on the ship in her previous incarnation echoes how the Eleventh Doctor didn't remember meeting his other selves until "time caught up". (TV: The Day of the Doctor) Back then, the War and Tenth Doctors, along with all other incarnations involved, did not retain memories of saving Gallifrey until the Eleventh Doctor went through that adventure himself.
- Missy comedically remarks on the age gap between the Doctor and his companions. The Dream Lord made a similar remark. (TV: Amy's Choice)
- Razor says the residents of floor 1056 must upgrade, typical of Cybermen. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen, Age of Steel, Nightmare in Silver)
- The Doctor criticises Bill for eating a bacon sandwich when arguing about Missy's morality. This echoes an earlier conservation between the two. “Hardly anything’s evil. Most things are hungry. Hungry can look a lot like evil from the wrong end of the cutlery. Do you think your bacon sandwich loves you back?” (TV: The Pilot)
Home video releases
DVD releases
to be added
Blu-ray releases
to be added
Digital releases
to be added
External links
- Official World Enough and Time page on the Doctor Who website
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