World Enough and Time (TV story)

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World Enough and Time, written by Steven Moffat, was the eleventh episode of the tenth series of Doctor Who produced by BBC Wales.

The episode continued the ongoing vault story arc, the Doctor, notably, takes Missy on her first adventure, and entrusts her with his two companions, in his attempt at making her good. The episode also featured Bill being converted into a Cyberman and displayed what appeared to be the beginning of the Twelfth Doctor's regeneration.

It also notably marked the return of John Simm as the Saxon Master, seven years after his last appearance in The End of Time. The episode also notably showed John Simm's Master acting alongside Michelle Gomez's Missy, marking the first onscreen appearance of more than one incarnation of the Master, making this episode the first multi-Master story in the show's history.

It even marked the return of the Cybermen in their very first design for the first time in over 50 years since they were first 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 0 (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 turning off 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.

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 nurse) 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 for 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

Crew

to be added

References

Locations

Cybermen

Science

Technology

TARDIS

Species

People

Nicknames and aliases

  • Missy uses the alias "Doctor Who" and gives Bill and Nardole the nicknames "Thing One" and "the Other One" respectively.
    • Missy says 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

Foods and beverages

Story notes

File:Brian Minchin Talks World Enough And Time - The Aftershow - Doctor Who The Fan Show

Ratings

  • 3.37m (UK Overnight figures)

Filming locations

Production errors

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.

to be added

Continuity

Home video releases

DVD releases

to be added

Blu-ray releases

to be added

Digital releases

to be added

External links