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Spyfall was the two-part opening story to series 12 of Doctor Who. It saw the Thirteenth Doctor and company team up with MI6, and re-introduced the Master, now in a new incarnation played by Sacha Dhawan.
The Doctor's home planet Gallifrey also made a return, having not been seen since the Twelfth Doctor ran away once more in Hell Bent, with the Capitol now in ruins and the Time Lords implied dead at the Master's hand. In an ongoing story arc, the Master reveals that he has uncovered a secret about the Time Lords' history, connected to the Timeless Child. Additionally, the Doctor is shown a flashback of the Remnants on Desolation and a vision of a young girl by a tall structure on a planet with a purple sky.
The two-parter also saw three classic series features making a return: the Master's Tissue Compression Eliminator, The Master's TARDIS, and Time Lord telepathic contact, which the Doctor and the Master once again use to communicate via psychic link.
The story further introduced a new wall-breaking aspect to the Time Vortex. Now, when the TARDIS breaks into Gallifrey's "time bubble", the vortex changes from its normal appearance in purple to resemble an orange ball of flaming fire.
Synopsis
The security of the entire world is at stake, so the head of MI6, C, enlists the Thirteenth Doctor and her team to investigate former agent spy Daniel Barton to see if he's been turned against them. Meanwhile, an alien threat that can pass through walls, even those of the TARDIS, known as the Kasaavin is wiping out spy organisations all over the planet. Can former MI6 agent "O" help them, or is he not who he claims to be?
Having been separated from her friends, the Doctor must figure out a way of stopping the Kasaavin and a familiar foe before their plan is put into action. Can she reach her friends and save the world with only a sonic screwdriver to help her?
Plot
Part One
In various locations around the world, a sniper, a spy on a plane, and an American operative are attacked by unknown creatures appearing out of the walls. In Sheffield, Yorkshire, Ryan Sinclair plays basketball with his friends. After a missed shot, Ryan and his friend Tibo have a chat, talking about his absence due to his TARDIS travels - all of which have been blamed on different illnesses. They stop talking as they see a car parked in front of them and men in black suits standing by.
At their flat, Sonya pesters Yasmin Khan for Ryan's phone number while Yaz is packing. Najia is annoyed at that this is the third secondment Yaz been selected for during her probation period, although Yaz feigns being proud. Outside the Hallamshire Police station, Ramesh Sunder, Yaz's superior officer, does not approve either. He asks if she is on undercover work but is interrupted by two men in suits requesting Yaz.
At his doctor's office, Graham O'Brien rolls up his sleeve. His doctor notes how the time has flown since his procedure four years ago. He asks some routine questions then offers condolences on his wife. Graham mentions that he is travelling, then leaves the office and sees a parked car with two men in black suits.
At a garage, the Thirteenth Doctor has her TARDIS upon a car lift, performing engineering works on its underside. She leaves a group voice message to her "fam" on her mobile phone, saying they are late. She hangs up and turns to see three parked cars and six men in dark grey suits, one of them approaching her. She greets them, noting they are "rocking the ominous look". The man says her friends are in the car, so the Doctor goes with them.
With the companions in the back seat and the Doctor in the passenger seat, the man drives them somewhere, guided by SatNav. Suddenly, the SatNav starts to corrupt, then a red beam shoots from it, vapourising the driver. The car stops in the middle of the road and the doors lock by themselves. The Doctor tries to use her sonic screwdriver but the SatNav starts up again, noting that in five seconds, they will die. The car then starts up again, driving in reverse while the Doctor tries to stop it. The Doctor eventually grabs the rearview mirror and uses it to reflect a beam to the SatNav, destroying it. The car stops just before falling off the end of the road. A man that is known only as "C" starts talking over the car's speaker and convinces the Doctor to come to MI6 in London.
The team arrives at MI6 with the TARDIS in tow. C greets them at the top of the stairs but mistakenly addresses Graham as the Doctor. When his assistant Franklin corrects him, he notes "I read the files, the Doctor is a man." The Doctor replies that she has "had an upgrade". C announces that he is authorised by "every security agency around the globe" to ask for the Doctor's help.
C tells the team that intelligence officers of all nationalities around the globe have been attacked, potentially by aliens. Leading the team into a room, the passenger attacked from the Tokyo flight is present, alone on a hospital bed. C reveals that the passenger's DNA has been rewritten to no longer be human. The Doctor states that this is beyond any human technology. Hearing so, C formally recruits the Doctor to help save the planet.
In his office, C provides Team TARDIS with briefcases of spy equipment. He reveals that all of the assassinated agents were working leads related to Daniel Barton, the founder of VOR, a modern tech company that is more powerful than most nations. The Doctor says she will need C's best man, but he replies that he fired him, as alien issues are not MI6's area. Irritated, the Doctor sends the former agent who she is acquainted with a voicemail to reveal his location, receiving an image of a fish in reply. C warns that Barton used to work for him but is likely now a double or triple agent. Before he can explain further, an unseen sniper kills C and starts shooting at the team. They flee to the TARDIS as the alien figures start phasing through the office walls.
In the TARDIS, the Doctor analyses the steganography of the fish picture and determines the agent's location is the Australian Outback. A figure starts to phase through the TARDIS doors but fails when the Doctor engages the engines. Unable to get a reading, the Doctor decides the team should split up. She and Graham go to Australia to meet the former agent, while Yaz and Ryan go to VOR. Along with the spy equipment they got from C, the Doctor also gives Yaz and Ryan a bioscanner disguised as a digital audio recorder and sends them off, telling them to trust no-one.
In San Francisco, Ryan hacks Barton's diary to arrange a meeting with him. Yaz and Ryan enter VOR headquarters, pretending to be a journalist called Sofia and her photographer Logan Jackson, and are greeted inside by Barton and his assistant. The group heads to Barton's office.
Meanwhile, the TARDIS materialises in the Great Victoria Desert. Former MI6 agent "O" and two Australian Secret Service agents, Seesay and Browning, greet the Doctor and Graham. Inside O's house, he and the Doctor discuss the situation, and Graham reveals O's security setup. O states he is cautious, believing the threat will follow the Doctor to him.
In Barton's office, he confesses he only granted Yaz the interview because they are Brits and his mum reads their paper. Yaz uses the bioscanner discreetly while Barton electronically verifies Yaz and Ryan's false identities. With Barton's approval, Yaz proceeds with the interview, while Ryan photographs Barton and duplicates his security badge. However, Barton's phone buzzes and he cuts the interview short; before leaving, he invites Yaz and Ryan to his house for his birthday party the next day as an apology. Despite Ryan's insistence on snooping around, Yaz is worried because her scan indicates Barton has only 93% human DNA.
At O's house that night, something starts tripping the movement sensors. Seesay and Browning insist on staying outside to protect them as a luminescent figure appears. Suddenly, a large group materialises and they attack the two secret service agents, leaving nothing left. They begin surrounding the house, only for O's security field to take out all but one. As the last one enters the house, a glass cage lands upon it and the creature is electrocuted, keeping it inside. It finally speaks to the Doctor, revealing itself to be from "far beyond your understanding" and is ready to take over the universe.
That night at VOR HQ, Yaz and Ryan wait until Barton has left and they use his copied security pass to access his office. As Yaz copies all his computer's files, Barton re-enters the building and the two are forced to hide behind a sofa. Although Barton only enters for his bag, he tells them to "show yourselves", only for two more of the glowing figures to arrive. They discuss continuing their project before Barton leaves. Just as Yaz and Ryan prepare to depart as well, another glowing figure attacks Yaz, making her disappear. Ryan has no choice but to flee.
Yaz wakes up in an alien landscape, surrounded by giant stalks, finding herself entirely alone. As the Doctor notices the aliens are fighting back, more appear inside VOR HQ as Ryan leaves. Yaz is attacked by a bright light and suddenly appears inside the creature's cage at O's house, just as Ryan phones the Doctor. She goes to pick him up and they regroup.
The next morning, Ryan comforts a shaken Yaz. Meanwhile, O quizzes Graham over what little he knows of the Doctor. O offers to share his findings before the Doctor orders them to discuss the situation. The Doctor discovers some alien code hidden the deepest recess of Barton's system and finds it is in an almost unknown language. Inside, the Doctor attempts to decrypt the image, eventually revealing itself as the creatures' locations across the Earth. However, the image of Earth replicates and O suggests tracking down the spymaster - in this case, Barton. The Doctor decides to hack his party's guest list and head there with O in the TARDIS.
Joined by O, the group lands in a vineyard in dinner jackets to investigate Barton. However, as they enter, Barton receives footage of Yaz and Ryan's spy work. The group attempt to mingle. After being confronted by the Doctor, Barton denies all accusations put to him and angrily leaves in his car.
The Doctor, Graham, and Yaz pursue Barton on motorbikes, with Ryan and O as passengers. Driving through the vineyard, Barton shoots at them, but they miss as Barton escapes to his private jet. The group hides in the hangar and plan to jump on with him.
Leaping aboard the jet, O admits he was never a good runner. The Doctor knows he's lying, as he was a champion sprinter at school. Dropping the act, O admits he isn't who he is claiming to be while the Doctor and her companions find his house flying parallel to the plane. O admits he has been the spymaster all along - specifically, "the spy... Master" revealing himself to have been the Doctor's old friend and enemy all along having been in control of Barton and the aliens the whole time. Gleefully the Master tells the Doctor that he ambushed and killed the real O on his first day at MI6 using tissue compression and stole his identity to hide on Earth and infiltrate the organisation. Barton disappears from the pilot seat, leaving a bomb in his place that is immune to the sonic.
Before leaving, the Master summons two of the aliens just as the device detonates, shattering the nose of the plane and sending it into a nosedive. The Master says to the Doctor that "everything that you think you know is a lie", grins at her saying “gotcha”, then the aliens teleport him away. Suddenly, two of them do the same to the Doctor, with her reappearing in the same environment Yaz was in earlier. The others are left helpless in the falling plane, hurtling towards the ground.
Part Two
The Doctor wakes up to find herself in the alien's dimension, where she reminds herself to not panic. On the crashing plane, Graham, Yaz, and Ryan are panicking, but Ryan spots a series of plaques underneath the seats with his name on and arrows to grab his attention. They lead him to a seat containing a sheet titled "How to Land a Plane Without a Cockpit" and he decides to try it out. Meanwhile, the Doctor discovers a young woman wearing early 19th-century clothes in the alien realm with her, but she appears calm about the situation.
In the plane, the instructions lead to Ryan plugging his phone into an under-floor cable, at which point the Doctor appears on the overhead screens. She tells them that they are not going to die and an app titled "Piloting Made Easy" has been installed on Ryan's phone. With the simple controls, they use it to successfully level out the plane.
The woman in the alien dimension names herself as Ada and reveals that she believes to be inside her imagination while she is paralysed in real life, and has visited the location many times before. Eventually, light gathers around her and one of the glowing aliens appears and Ada uses it to offer a way out to the Doctor. The two hold hands and they vanish. Meanwhile, the plane automatically returns to its programmed flight pattern and the group wait to see where it will land.
In the Master's TARDIS (still in the form of his Australian hut) the Master video calls Barton about the success of their plan. However, Barton is notified of the plane returning to normal. Frustrated, the Master promises to find the Doctor while Barton works on her friends.
The Doctor and Ava land back in Ava's time - a science convention 1834 London. The Doctor brushes off her appearance as "the Marvellous Apparating Man", before correcting herself. She promises to find her fam any way she can. The rest of the group have landed in Essex and decide, via Barton's hacked diary, to visit his keynote speech in London the next night, but without him realising they are still alive. Barton starts trying to track them down.
The Doctor attempts to explain herself and her situation to Ava, before the Master arrives in Victorian clothes, using his Tissue Compression Eliminator to kill innocent bystanders. The Doctor makes herself known to stop the chaos and he forces her to kneel before him. The Master inadvertently reveals that he knows almost nothing of the creatures except their general interests and their name - the Kasaavin. The Master attempts to bring the Doctor "news from home" but Ada shoots him in the arm with a steam machine gun and the two escape, although with no TARDIS to help them.
In 2020, the Doctor's friends attempt to formulate a plan as Barton phones all of them at once. He reveals he has tracked down all their personal information and has revoked their freedom of movement, just as their faces appear on an advertising screen, marking them as wanted for hijacking. Barton dares them to go off-grid, so Ryan stomps on all their phones and they run.
Ada leads the Doctor to a colleague's house who the Doctor realises is famous polymath Charles Babbage, and therefore, Ada is Ada Lovelace, one of the first-ever computer scientists, although she is calling herself Ada Gordon at this time. Babbage points them to a statue called the Silver Lady that Barton and the Master later owned and the Doctor realises it has projected the Kasaavin to Ada since she was young as part of their plan to place spies, not on multiple Earths, but multiple periods of Earth. She sonics the statue and a Kasaavin appears, hoping to use it to return to the 21st century, but Ada grabs her hand and they disappear together.
That night, Graham, Yaz, and Ryan rest in a disused building site as they try to do what the Doctor would do in this situation. Although they admit they do not know as much about the Doctor as they wish, they also realise they still own some spy gadgets to defend themselves with, just as a group of Kasaavin appear. The Doctor and Ada appear in the middle of a bombing raid, and a nearby woman reveals they have landed in 1943 Paris at night during the German occupation in World War II. The group hide together as the Master arrives in German army uniform. Back on the building site, the three become surrounded by Kasaavin, though Graham attempts to fend them off with his laser shoe.
Somewhere else, in an empty hangar, Barton appears with the Silver Lady in front of an older woman tied to a chair. She is revealed to be his mother and that he wanted to see her on "the last day." As the statue activates, the Kasaavin surround her, filling her with energy as she screams. In Paris, German soldiers enter the woman's apartment as the Doctor and Ada hide under the floorboards. Finding nothing, the Master leaves and the Doctor realises the other woman is Noor Inayat Khan, the first female radio operator to be placed behind enemy lines. The Doctor realises she has been placed here due to Ada coming through the teleport with her and sighs at the enormity of the task at hand.
In 2020, Yaz uses a phone box to call home and convince them she is OK. However, the call is being tracked by VOR and they are quickly surrounded by armed men. Despite this, Graham threatens them with his shoe, revealing it all to be a plan, and they steal the men's phones and escape in their car. Elsewhere, the Doctor taps out a four-beat Morse code signal to the Master and the two make telepathic contact. They promise to meet up alone.
At the top of the Eiffel Tower, the Doctor and the Master talk. The Master explains he is using a perception filter to fit the Nazis' Aryan stereotype, and that it was he who hijacked the MI6 car and killed C. The Master reveals that he did not bring the Kasaavin to Earth, but were already there as spies. He just "suggested a better plan." Yaz discovers Barton's mother, dead in the hangar, and Barton relays a video message to the trio, calling them "two steps behind" as he has been tested on by the Kasaavin and is about to roll out his plan worldwide.
Noor sends a Morse message back to London before her and Ada take a mobile phone the Doctor has given them to find something out of place. They eventually stumble upon the Master's TARDIS, still in its hut form, and phone the Doctor. She does not answer but instead activates her sonic screwdriver. The Master reveals he is simply using Barton and the Kasaavin as part of his plan to destroy the human race before dispensing of his allies. He also states he recently visited Gallifrey and it has been burned to the ground, but he is interrupted by the arrival of Nazi troops, with Noor having outed him as a double agent and the Doctor jamming his perception filter. She leaves as he is turned upon by the soldiers and enters his TARDIS with Ada and Noor, realising the Kasaavin have been tracking people who worked in the development of computers, starting with Ada.
In an auditorium, Barton gives his speech, thanking the public for giving all their details to him. He sends them all a text - "Humanity is over. You have three minutes to prepare." He explains that humans are no longer the most efficient things on Earth, but they do make perfect hard drives. As the Silver Lady starts moving and summoning dozens of Kasaavin, everyone's phones activate and Barton prepares to wipe most of humanity's DNA for use as data storage. Graham and Ryan's spy gadgets do not affect the Silver Lady and the Master arrives, having had to live through 77 years of Earth history as his TARDIS was stolen. However, the Silver Lady suddenly stops and Barton storms off into hiding.
Suddenly, the Doctor enters the hangar with Ada and Noor, revealing she knew Barton would go on to own the statue and re-engineered it so it would shut down upon a mass Kasaavin gathering. The Doctor tells the Kasaavin to leave and plays them her sonic's audio recording of the Master's plan to double-cross them. Furious, the aliens hound upon the Master and he is teleported to their dimension, screaming the Doctor's name. Meanwhile, the Doctor promises to explain everything to her friends and drop Ada and Noor back home but first has to create the materials on the plane that saved the gang's lives. She uses the Master's TARDIS to place everything in the plane as it is being built then gets her ship back from the vineyard.
First, the Doctor drops off Noor. After promising her the fascists will never win as long as people like her are there, the Doctor wipes her memory and bids her "bonne chance" as she passes out. Next, it is Ada's turn, although she is desperate to keep travelling. Despite begging to not have her memory wiped, the Doctor goes through with it and she wishes her sweet dreams as she leaves.
Alone, the Doctor travels to Gallifrey. The entire Capital is destroyed and still burning. Mortified, the Doctor can barely move. Back inside the TARDIS, a geo-activated holographic message from the Master plays, revealing that he did the damage, furious that "the whole existence of our species [was] built on the lie of the Timeless Child." The Doctor remembers the Remnants telling her that name and sees a brief vision of a young girl stood by a tower. The Master says the vision is hidden in all Gallifreyans but refuses to say more.
Five adventures later and the Doctor is still deep in thought about the Master's words. The group round on her for not being open about her life and she quickly tells them about where she came from, why she travels, and her relationship with the Master. When Yaz asks if they can visit Gallifrey, she sombrely replies, "another time."
Trivia
- its likely this episode was named after SkyFall
Cast
- The Doctor - Jodie Whittaker
- Graham O'Brien - Bradley Walsh
- Yasmin Khan - Mandip Gill
- Ryan Sinclair - Tosin Cole
- O / The Master[1] - Sacha Dhawan
- Daniel Barton - Lenny Henry
- C - Stephen Fry
- Ada Lovelace - Sylvie Briggs
- Noor Inayat Khan - Aurora Marion
- Charles Babbage - Mark Dexter
- Najia Khan - Shobna Gulati
- Hakim Khan - Ravin J Ganatra
- Sonya Khan - Bhavnisha Parmar
- Sniper - Melissa De Vries
- Passenger - Sacharissa Claxton
- Older Passenger - William Ely
- Operative (US) - Brian Law
- Tibo - Buom Tihngang
- Sergeant Ramesh Sunder - Asif Khan
- Mr Collins - Andrew Bone
- Rendition Man - Ronan Summers
- Ethan - Christopher McArthur
- Seesay - Darron Meyer
- Browning - Dominique Maher
- Inventor - Andrew Piper
- Airport Worker - Tom Ashley
- Perkins - Kenneth Jay
- Barton's Mother - Blanche Williams
- Voice of Kasaavin - Struan Rodger
Crew
| Executive Producers Matt Strevens and Chris Chibnall | ||||||||||||
| Series Producer Nikki Wilson | ||||||||||||
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| General production staff Art department |
Camera and lighting department
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| Not every person who worked on this adventure was credited. The absence of a credit for a position doesn't necessarily mean the job wasn't required. The information above is based solely on observations of the actual end credits of the episodes as broadcast, and does not relay information from IMDB or other sources. |
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Because this site places both episodes of Spyfall into one single article, it is slightly more difficult to properly represent the crew in the above framework. Episodes 1 and 2 did not share the same credits.
Most notably, Part One was directed by Jamie Magnus Stone, while Part Two was instead directed by Lee Haven Jones. As a result, these episodes belonged to two different production blocks. Rebecca Trotman edited both episodes, but was joined by Tom Chapman, who shared the credit with her for Part Two. Catherine Goldschmidt was the director of photography on Part One, and Ed Moore continued this work in Part Two. |
Worldbuilding
Locations
- Kasaavin are seen attacking a Sniper in Ivory Coast in West Africa, a Passenger on a plane over the Pacific Ocean towards Tokyo and a US Operative in Moscow in Russia.
- The US Operative reaches a safehouse.
- Yaz and her boss Ramesh Sunder talk about her leaving her job at Hallamshire Hallamshire Police Station while still on duty.
- Graham is a patient at Sheffield City Hospital.
- The Doctor is making repairs on her TARDIS at M.O.T. testing bay.
- The MI6 car, while possessed, stops in the middle of the motorway, south-east of Little Earlham.
- The Doctor and her team are going to MI6 in London.
- Daniel Barton was born in Bromsgrove, England, but moved to live just north of San Francisco, USA.
- Daniel Barton's file at MI6 mentions New York, Japan, China, the Far East as well as Austin, Texas.
- The Doctor and team go to the Great Victoria Desert in Australia.
- The Kasaavin have their own reality that looks like an underwater location, without water, filled with electricity-charged kelp. Yaz likens it to nothingness and nowhere.
- The Doctor parks the TARDIS in the Vallis Estate vineyard.
- The TARDIS Team once took a trip to the Great Kalisperon Bike-Off.
- Barton has an airport.
- The Master says that MI6 has a "surprisingly good" staff canteen.
- The Doctor says the Kasaavin realm cannot be a planet nor a void and wonders if it is a separate dimension beyond her universe.
- Ada's Kasaavin takes the Doctor and her to the Royal Gallery of Practical Science at the Royal Adelaide Gallery in the 19th century in the middle of an auction of inventions.
- The Doctor's companions land in Essex, Britain.
- The Doctor tells Ada she's a traveller in Space and Time.
- An advertising screen shows an ad with mountains.
- The Doctor, Ada and Charles go to his house.
- The Doctor discovers the concept Multiple Earths are actually different time periods.
- Graham, Ryan and Yaz hide at a building site.
- The Doctor and Ada travel to a bombsite in Paris in 1943 during the World War II.
- Noor takes the Doctor and Ada to her house.
- The Master has his base in an underground bunker.
- The Doctor and the Master meet atop the Tour Eiffel.
- The Doctor and the Master talk about Jodrell Bank.
- The Master likens the Kasaavin to Russia, but bigger.
- Daniel Barton holds a presentation in an auditorium.
- The Doctor travelled to mid-2019 to put a fail-safe into the Silver Lady.
- Gallifrey has been burned and ravaged inside its bubble universe.
- The Master kept O in a matchbox manufactured and trademarked in London in 1963.
TARDIS
- The Doctor says her repairs are "draining the water slides, the boating lakes and the rainforest floor".
- The TARDIS has a lower substrata, wardrobe hall and karaoke buses.
- The Master disguised his TARDIS as "O"'s house.
- The Doctor says she and Yaz are fizzing with artron energy.
Individuals
- An older passenger talks to another passenger who mentions her sister.
- The US Operative calls for an extraction team.
- Ryan misses a basketball-shot due to his dyspraxia.
- Yaz has been chosen for secondment at her job.
- Yaz is a probationer at her job.
- Mr. Collins is Graham's doctor.
- Mr. Collins offers his condolences on Grace O'Brien's death.
- Franklin informs C about the Doctor's new change.
- The Doctor has a file at MI6.
- The Doctor once lived in the Outback for 123 years.
- An agent approaches the Doctor and asks her to come with them.
- The plane passenger spy managed to make contact with her informant.
- Barton has a handler in New York.
- Nick Murry once wrote an article on Daniel Barton.
- C's office has the Flag of General Davis hanging in it.
- The Doctor once took a correspondence class.
- Ethan greets "Logan" and "Sofia".
- Barton fired "half" (actually just two) of the VOR PR-team due to a mix-up.
- "O" has his own security agents, Seesay and Browning.
- Barton finds Ben Davis, Billie, M Porter and Ellie Simmons among Sofia Afzal and Logan Jackson.
- Yaz mentions her title of PC Khan.
- "O" likens the Kasaavin's light intensity to it taking a suicide pill.
- "O" has exiled himself away from everything.
- "O" briefly met the Doctor once when she was a man.
- "O" has a whole shelf of information about the Doctor, however with a lot of inconsistencies.
- "O" says they should be asking who the spymaster is.
- Barton's birthday party has a receptionist and security guards. One of them is named Anya.
- "O" worked as an analyst in MI6.
- The Vallis Estate roulette croupier informs Ryan that he won a round.
- Daniel Barton has his own personal driver.
- The real "O" was shrunk by the Master via tissue compression and placed in a matchbox that was trademarked by Newman, Lambert & Hussein.
- The Doctor wonders what the energy bolts in the Kasaavin realm are and suggests pathways, signals and synapses.
- The Doctor meets Ada Lovelace from 1834.
- Ryan mentions he can't ride a bike but can fly a plane.
- The Doctor, when questioned about her apparition out of nowhere, claims herself to be "The Marvelous Apparating Man/Lady".
- The Doctor meets Charles Babbage.
- The airport worker at the Essex airport tells Barton that he would have to do a lot of explaining to the Civil Aviation Authority.
- The Master mentions his two hearts.
- The Doctor mentions Lord Byron and Annabella Milbanke and tells Ada she might meet a nice Earl.
- The Doctor and Ada meet Noor Inayat Khan.
- The Doctor, Ada and Noor hide from German soldiers.
- Barton kills his mother.
- Noor says she doesn't have any guns or cyanide pills and that she's a pacifist.
- Graham threatens to perform the soft-shoe shuffle.
- Daniel Barton's goons are rendered useless.
- The Doctor and the Master use a psychic link.
- The Doctor mentions that the Master is not Aryan and he, in turn, says he uses a tiny Teutonic psychic perception filter.
- The Master says the Kasaavin were sleeper agents that had always been present on Earth.
- The Master says his plan is maximum carnage.
- The Doctor says Noor is Blighty's best radio operator.
- The Doctor lock-picks the Master's TARDIS.
- The Kasaavin place agents on everyone important to the development of computers through history starting with Ada Lovelace. Several others are seen pictured on the Master's temporal map, including Alan Turing, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Grace Hopper and Steve Wozniak. However, they are not identified in the episode.
- The Doctor assures Noor that fascists never win.
- The Master mentions the Timeless Child in a hologram message.
- The Doctor mentions she was born on the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous, that she's a Time Lord, that she can regenerate her body, that she stole her TARDIS and ran away and been travelling ever since, and that the Master was one of her oldest friends and they went very different ways.
Illness and injuries
- Ryan excuses his absence with appendicitis.
- Ryan excuses his absence with hernia.
- Ryan excuses his absence with detached retina.
- Mr. Collins asks Graham about weight fluctuations, tiredness, muscular aches and pains.
- Yaz asks if the plane spy is in a coma.
- When the Doctor exposes Daniel Barton, he tells her to take her medication and seek psychiatric help.
- Ada's body is paralysed while she is in the Kasaavin's realm.
Foods and beverages
- The secret spy plane-passenger has secret encrypted code hidden in the cap of a tube of Pearl & Diamond toothpaste.
- "O" makes a cup of tea.
- The Doctor thinks she made iced tea.
- Barton knows how many stamps the companions need for a free coffee.
- Charles Babbage drinks a glass of brandy.
- Graham calls Ryan and Yasmin doughnuts.
Technology
- A woman spy is using a sniper against an enemy-line Jeep.
- An aeroplane is flying towards its destination as the tannoy informs the passengers to get ready.
- The spy passenger wears spy glasses with in-built camera lenses.
- Hakim tries and fails to use Alexa.
- The Doctor calls her team via a group message.
- Graham calls the MI6 cars the "worst Uber ever".
- The MI6 SatNav attacks the Doctor and her team.
- MI6 uses hand scanners to enter rooms at the building.
- The plane spy has had her DNA rewritten.
- The spy equipment C offers team TARDIS includes anaesthetic darts, laser shoe guns, an infrared ID duplicator, a calendar hacker, lock-breakers, rocket-launcher cufflinks, a retinal ID decoder, tongue-immobiliser chewing gum and a bio-scanner disguised as a digital recorder.
- VOR is a search engine with web apps, social, global mapping, advertising, scientific and medical research, robotics, data polling and human analytics.
- The Doctor contacts "O" using an iPhone, through WhatsApp.
- "O" encrypted his location using steganography.
- MI6's spy camera has a Pentax flash.
- In "O"'s house there's an excerpt saying that a droning alarm sparks UFO fears.
- "O"'s house has movement sensors.
- "O"'s house has an energy barrier around it which can be re-routed to specific areas inside it.
- VOR has CCTV all over the company.
- VOR seeps into every corner of modern technology: Leisure, commercial, military, face-tagging, biodata, robotics.
- The Doctor uses a projector.
- Daniel Barton leaves his party in a blue Bentley.
- Barton has a Desert Eagle gun.
- Barton talks with Air Traffic Control in Lonsdale tower to request clearance for plane take off. Air traffic control then "cleared to Hawkston radar vectors to Skaggs Island, then as filed. Squawk 4634."
- The Master has installed a cock-pit bomb in the VOR plane.
- The Master teleports off the plane.
- The Doctor has installed a plane pamphlet in Barton's plane entitled How To Land A Plane Without A Cockpit.
- Ryan's phone gains an app called Piloting Made Easy.
- Barton's plane experience a power surge.
- At the 19th-century auction a variety of items are being shown:
- Jacob Perkins is showing off his steam gun.
- A man is showing off a mouse inside his diving bell.
- Joseph Saxton is showing off his magneto.
- A man is showing off his grenade.
- Barton has Graham, Ryan and Yaz's telephone numbers, Emails and GPS.
- The Doctor takes a look at Charles Babbage's Difference engine and the Silver Lady.
- Noor has a wireless radio transmitter issued by the British Special Operations Executive.
- Yaz talks to Sonya Khan about her and their mom and dad from a telephone box via the number 01632 960470.
- The Master used a Mandraffian laser rifle to assassinate C.
- The Doctor uses a laminator to create the plane pamphlet.
- The Master has put a geo-activated hologram message in the Doctor's TARDIS.
Games and sports
- Ryan, Tibo and their friends play basketball.
- Daniel Barton's birthday party has roulette, Poker, Blackjack, dice etc.
- Barton says his birthday party is Casino-theme and not Whodunnit.
- "O" was a champion sprinter. The Master is not good at sprinting.
Companies and organisations
- The spy chewing gum is disguised as Bingleys Fresh Mint.
- Daniel Barton owns VOR.
- Barton's file mentions the CIA.
- The Doctor mentions GCHQ.
- C mentions UNIT and Torchwood.
- "O" is protected by the Australian Secret Service.
- Ryan's ID duplicator is disguised as an Olympus camera.
- Ryan, Graham and Yaz pass a W H Smith store.
- Ryan, Graham and Yaz pass a NatWest bank.
- Ryan has a Samsung phone.
- Ryan, Graham and Yaz are classified as "Wanted", with anyone knowing about their whereabouts encouraged to contact local police or call Crime Prevention on 0800 999 999.
- Barton doesn't like using Facebook.
- The Master kept O in a "safety matches" matchbox from Berylets Matches.
Popular culture
- Hakim asks Alexa to play Rubber Soul.
- Ryan decides that his spy name will be "Logan", but starts panicking upon realising he looks "nothing like Hugh Jackman".
- When describing his collection, "O" says that it includes a "complete set of Fortean Times in mint condition".
- "O" asks if Graham is there just for the "running commentary".
- During the lead-up to his real identity, "O" states that his house flying outside the plane is "[a] bit Wicked Witch of the West".
Notes
- This was the first multi-part television story to be given one overarching title since 2009-10's The End of Time, and only the second such story in the BBC Wales era. Interestingly, both stories aired in part on New Year's Day, and both featured the Master; in fact, Part One of Spyfall was broadcast on the 10th anniversary of 1 January 2010's The End of Time: Part Two. Each aired on the first day of their respective decade, according to one outlook on the bounds of such a measurement, which this wiki follows.
- This is the first story in the show's history to have its parts air four days apart rather than a whole week. 1 January and 5 January 2020, respectively. It is also the first time two Doctor Who episodes have been shown the same week since The Twin Dilemma Parts Three and Four in March 1985.
- The first part of this story was dedicated to the memory of the "Masterful" Terrance Dicks. Dicks was script editor for the Master's debut story, Terror of the Autons.
- This story's title is a play on the 2012 James Bond film Skyfall. According to one news source, the story also pays homage to Casino Royale, the first novel in the James Bond series, which was centred on gambling and aristocracy.[2] The concept of MI6 members being known by a single letter, namely "C" and "O", is similar to "M" and "Q" from the James Bond franchise, introduced in the original novels by Ian Fleming. Additionally, the car-bound attack on the Doctor en route to MI6, with a dead driver and a hostile vehicle, echoes a similar set piece from the film, Live and Let Die.
- Part One marks the first episode since Twice Upon a Time to include a "cold opening". Part Two, however, used a re-cap of Part One rather than a new scene. "Cold openings" would be a fluctuating on/off feature in Series 12.
- Part Two is the first "follow-up" episode of Doctor Who to feature a re-cap with an opening voiceover: "Previously on Doctor Who...", read by Thirteenth Doctor actor Jodie Whittaker, similarly to how Broadchurch, which was also written by Chibnall, would use a voiceover to re-cap the previous episode. The prior norm for televised Doctor Who, and indeed its televised spin-offs, was the use of an on-screen caption which typically read "Previously", which would be the norm from the series finale, The Timeless Children, onwards. This formula was, however, previously used by Big Finish Productions in the recap to Neverland which opened Zagreus. In that case, the voiceover was provided by Don Warrington, who voiced Rassilon in both stories.
- Similar to The Return of Doctor Mysterio and its predecessor, Part One of this story aired exactly one year after the preceding episode.
- This story marked the first time a villain has been capable of physically breaking through the sealed TARDIS doors.
- This is the first multi-part television story to have more than one credited director since Planet of Giants in 1964.
- This story was originally going to be a single episode. In this version, the opening would have featured Yaz getting her appraisal, Ryan passing his NVQ, and Graham performing a duet with a young Elvis Presley. Additionally, O would not have been the Master and the unnamed aliens would have been mining human DNA, eventually turning against Barton by the Doctor's convincing, who in turn tells her about the Timeless Child. (DWM 570 supplement)
- Part Two was originally planned to include Barton having half of his DNA rewritten and escaping to Switzerland. Barton would have held Yaz's family hostage, the Doctor and Ada would have visited war-torn Paris through a séance, and the Doctor's friends would have tried to evade Barton by getting a lift from an old woman who vigorously stuck to the speed limit. (DWM 570 supplement)
- Part Two was originally going to feature a scene in which Noor Inayat Khan is captured as an enemy spy and executed by the Nazis. It ended up being cut.[3]
- This story features Stephen Fry as the benign-tempered head of MI6, referred to as simply "C". Fry had portrayed previously a head of the British secret services always referred to as "Control" in a notorious series of sketches from the anthology comedy series A Bit of Fry and Laurie, making Spyfall a near-crossover between these sketches and the Doctor Who universe.
- Spyfall is the third consecutive time in which the second season opener for its respective Doctor is a two-part story, following The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon and The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar.
- Part Two aired on Mandip Gill's birthday.
Myths and rumours
- Daniel Barton was speculated to be a new incarnation of the Master. This was proven false, though O was revealed be the Master.
Ratings
- Part One - 4.88 million (BBC overnight)[4]
- Part Two - 4.65 million (BBC overnight)[5]
- Part One - 6.89 million (BBC overall)[6]
- Part Two - 6.07 million (BBC overall)[6]
Filming locations
- Afrikaans Language Monument, Paarl, South Africa - Ivory Coast and Timeless Child vision
- Lourensford Wine Estate, Somerset West, Cape Town, South Africa - vineyard
- Signature Flight Support CPT, Cape Town International Airport, South Africa - airport
- The Apex, Cape Town, South Africa - VOR headquarters
- Delavia Estate, Stellenbosch, South Africa - Daniel Barton's house
- Kersefontein Guest Farm, Hopefield, South Africa - O's hut, the Outback
- A4232 Cardiff Link Road - M1 motorway
- Swansea Guildhall - C's office, MI6
- Bay Studios, Swansea - basketball court
- J&P Autos, Cardiff - garage
- Cardiff and Vale College - Sheffield Hospital
- Cardiff Central police station - Hallamshire Police
- Custom House, Cardiff - Moscow, code chamber, and Paris
- BBC Hoddinott Hall, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff - lecture theatre
- Waterside @ The Quays, Barry - housing development
- Kings Square, Barry - Essex
- Glamorgan Building, Cardiff University - Paris
- Porthkerry Country Park, Barry - phone box area
- Horizon Aircraft Services, MOD St Athan - landing strip
- Hangar 858, MOD St Athan - warehouse
- Teide National Park, Tenerife, Spain - Gallifrey
- Howell's School, Llandaff, Cardiff - Adelaide Gallery
- Old Western Mill Printworks, Pacific Business Park, Cardiff - Noor Inayat Khan's house
- Tredegar House, Newport - Charles Babbage's house
(All DWM 570 supplement)
Production errors
- Andrew Piper, who plays an inventor in Part Two, is credited as "Andrew Pipe" in the episode's end credits.
- While hiding under the floorboards, Ada recognises the Master from his voice, but in that scene he did not speak.
Continuity
- A doctor offers Graham his condolences regarding Grace O'Brien's death. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth)
- It has been four years since Graham's operation. Previously, in September 2018, he told the Doctor that he had been in remission for cancer for the past three years. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth)
- The Doctor's life is once again threatened by a SatNav device controlled by a power intent on killing target passengers. In her tenth incarnation, the Doctor narrowly escaped from an ATMOS-controlled UNIT vehicle which was about to plunge him and Jenkins to their "final destination". (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem)
- When C dismisses the possibility of alien life, the Doctor tells him to ask GCHQ, referring to the Dalek attack of New Year's Day 2019. (TV: Resolution)
- The Doctor remarks in surprise at an entity's ability to enter the TARDIS given its high security. (TV: Rose, The Parting of the Ways, Journey's End, The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe)
- The Doctor notes that both UNIT (TV: Resolution, PROSE: Lucy Wilson and the Bledoe Cadets) and Torchwood (TV: Doomsday, Children of Earth: Day One, AUDIO: Thoughts and Prayers) are "gone", unaware that there are still active Torchwood agents, Andy Davidson and Tania Bell observing her concurrently stranded eighth incarnation. (AUDIO: Must-See TV)
- The Master, while still under the guise of O, refers to the Doctor as having once been a man. (TV: An Unearthly Child, Twice Upon a Time, et al.) Graham recalls the Doctor has made this claim, which he believed to be a joke. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth)
- Ada's involvement with the Star Chamber and Faction Paradox in the Clockwork Ouroboros affair were detailed in The Book of the War. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
- Graham is mistaken as the Doctor, (PROSE: The Good Doctor) and the Doctor herself is immediately dismissed, in favour of Graham, on account of her gender. (TV: The Witchfinders)
- The Doctor refers to her regeneration to female form as an "upgrade", much as Missy once did. (TV: The Witch's Familiar)
- The Master once again spends an extensive amount of time masquerading as someone else to carry out a long-term plan. (TV: The Sound of Drums, World Enough and Time)
- The Master uses his Tissue Compression Eliminator. (TV: Terror of the Autons, The Deadly Assassin, Logopolis, Time Flight, et al.)
- The Master claims to be the Doctor's "best enemy". Within the Death Zone, the Third Doctor previously identified the Tremas Master as such to Sarah Jane Smith. (TV: The Five Doctors)
- The Master mentions how the Time Lords view him and the Doctor as renegades. (TV: The War Games, Terror of the Autons, The Deadly Assassin, The Five Doctors, The End of Time, Heaven Sent, Hell Bent)
- Ryan says he is still unable to ride a bicycle. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth)
- The Doctor once again forgets to alter her language to account for her new gender. (TV: The Ghost Monument)
- The Fourth Doctor previously met Ada Lovelace at a later point in her life. (AUDIO: The Enchantress of Numbers)
- Graham recalls the Doctor mentioning regeneration on the day they first met. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth)
- The Doctor taps a morse code of four beats, the heartbeat of a Time Lord, which she notes she and the Master have a personal connection to. (TV: Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords, The End of Time)
- The Doctor steals the Master's TARDIS, mirroring how the Master once did likewise with the Doctor's TARDIS. (TV: Utopia)
- The Doctor and the Master use Time Lord telepathic contact (TV: The Three Doctors, The Five Doctors et al.) once again to communicate with one another. (AUDIO: The Missing Link)
- The Master alludes to his part in the Fourth Doctor's regeneration asking if he had ever apologised for the Doctor falling from the Pharos Project radio telescope. (TV: Logopolis)
- The Master refers to Gallifrey "hiding in its little bubble universe". (TV: The Day of the Doctor, The Time of the Doctor)
- The Master remembers visiting Gallifrey after the Last Great Time War. (TV: The Doctor Falls)
- Hakim confidently asserts that he was right all along about a conspiracy theory. (TV: Arachnids in the UK)
- The Doctor wipes Noor and Ada's memories of everything they witnessed since meeting her. (TV: Journey's End)
- The Master has left a hologram message for the Doctor, which plays in the TARDIS after he is gone. The Ninth Doctor once did something similar, recording such a message for Rose Tyler as part of Emergency Program One. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)
- In the hologram, the Master references the Founding Fathers of Gallifrey. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell, The Infinity Doctors)
- The Doctor recalls hearing about the Timeless Child from the Remnants. (TV: The Ghost Monument)
- The Doctor tells her companions that she comes from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. (TV: Pyramids of Mars, Attack of the Cybermen, Voyage of the Damned, The Day of the Doctor)
- The Doctor states that she stole her TARDIS and ran away from Gallifrey. (TV: The War Games, Logopolis, The Five Doctors, Remembrance of the Daleks, The Sound of Drums, The Doctor's Wife, The Name of the Doctor, Heaven Sent; AUDIO: The Beginning)
- The Doctor has a conversation with Graham through a video recording. The Tenth Doctor did much the same with Sally Sparrow. (TV: Blink)
- Previously, the Doctor spoke of Missy, who she described as a friend and enemy, to Team TARDIS while tracking a Time Lady who turned out to be the Corsair. However, she does not disclose that Missy and the Master are the same. (COMIC: Old Friends)
Home video releases
DVD and Blu-ray releases
- This story was released as part of the Complete Twelfth Series boxset on DVD and Blu-ray in region 1/A on 9 June 2020, in region 2/B on 4 May 2020 and in region 4/B on 3 June 2020.
Digital releases
- In the United Kingdom, this story is available on BBC iPlayer in two parts as broadcast.
External links
- Official Spyfall: Part One page on the Doctor Who website
- Official Spyfall: Part Two page on the Doctor Who website
Footnotes
- ↑ Dhawan is credited in Part One as "O", and in Part Two, as "The Master".
- ↑ Laford, Andrea (27 December 2018). Doctor Who Spyfall: new images and information. CultBox. Retrieved on 1 January 2020.
- ↑ https://cultbox.co.uk/news/spyfall-part-2-behind-the-scenes
- ↑ Ratings - Radio Times
- ↑ Ratings - Doctor Who News
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Spyfall - Official Ratings