The Lie of the Land (TV story)

The Lie of the Land

Key crew

Writer:

Toby Whithouse

Director:

Wayne Yip

Producer:

Peter Bennett

Release details

Story number:

272

Premiere broadcast:

3 June 2017

Premiere network:

BBC One

Format:

1x45 minute episode

Official trailer

Another official trailer

Memorable moment

Behind the scenes video

More behind the scenes stuff

A Scene in Analysis

*Doctor Who* television stories
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The Lie of the Land was the eighth episode of series 10 of Doctor Who.

The conclusion of a loose story arc that began with Oxygen, it was the third part of a trilogy that pitted the Twelfth Doctor against the Monks. It also saw him enter the Vault to consult Missy, revealing his endeavour to turn her from her destructive past to a path of "good".

The episode was notable before it even aired for having one scene shown from it in the preview for all of Series 10 at the end of The Pilot: that being the Doctor starting to regenerate. Much like David Tennant after The Stolen Earth had aired, there were rumours and speculations that Peter Capaldi was actually leaving Doctor Who much earlier than he had previously announced.^[1] However, the Doctor doesn't actually regenerate, as it's shown that Time Lords can actually fake a regeneration by making the usual effects appear, but with no actual change in appearance happening.

Synopsis[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Monks have ruled the world since humanity took its very first baby steps towards the Sun. One problem... they haven't always been there. And only Bill Potts sees the truth. But where is the Doctor? And how can Bill make the rest of the world see?

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

A montage of images of events in human evolution is shown, as the Doctor does a voiceover, saying that the Monks have guided humanity and helped them evolve while praising them, as a shot of the world on Earth shows that the Monks have erected giant statues of them.

Inside a house, a family is watching it, as a symbol is shown with the words "truth" underneath. Suddenly, armed men break into the house and arrest the mother for spreading information that denies the "true history" as she yells that the Monks have only been there a few months. She is sentenced to ten years in a labour camp. Bill watches them in horror, as a shot of the cities on Earth show that the statues are erected everywhere. The camera cuts to the Doctor telling everyone to relax and be obedient, assuring them that their future is being taken care of with a sinister smile.

In her flat, Bill sets down two mugs on a table, then concentrates. Another woman appears across the table. Bill greets her, saying, "Hello, Mum," revealing her to be her mother. She tells her that she did not know how the Monks had invaded. The scene changes to a flashback- Bill walking in the streets, among multiple representations of the Monks, and watching as bystanders cheer at images in a television of the Monks implementing "A swift and painless death". She remarks that it's like the population has been brainwashed. She says that she used to travel with the Doctor and Nardole, telling her mum that every day it's harder for her to remember. However, she's sure that he has a plan and "one day soon, he's going to come back and save us all".

Bill hears someone opening her door. She grabs a stool to use as a weapon but finds that the intruder is Nardole. They scream at each other in fright. She angrily asks him where he had been, who says that he had been laid up with the bacteria for 6 weeks, having been poisoned. Nardole asks Bill who she had been talking to, and she tells him that she imagined a version of her mother who she talks to "all the time". Bill notices that she knows the Monks haven't been on Earth that long, but part of her is beginning to think that it's real.

Nardole reveals that in the time after his recovery, he's done some research—he's traced the broadcasts made by the Doctor with a device he found in a drawer in the TARDIS and has thus surmised that he's being held in a prison ship. Luckily, the ships stop for supply every six weeks, and the next time the Doctor's ship does is in two days. They obtain the aid of a supply boat's captain, who isn't exactly the greatest fan of the Monks—his son got ten years in a labour camp for possessing illegal comics. After getting on the prison ship, they are stopped for a spot check (Nardole doesn't have any identity papers, and Bill is university kitchen staff) but are luckily interrupted by a Monk, who enters the room and leaves again, visibly putting off the guards and letting them go without checking Bill and Nardole's papers.

The pair quickly head into the main part of the ship, and after a while, they detect the sound of the Doctor's speech; he appears to be doing another broadcast. They find him in a room, surrounded by what appears to be speeches. The Doctor, upon noticing them bursting into the room, calls for guards and then makes a telephone call to the Monks. After inquiring as to what they were doing there, the Doctor explains that the Monks are helping human society, which is, in fact, regressing, and any extra fatalities due to them are for the greater good; the Romans did things like that as well, and saved billions more from disease, war, famine, and barbarism. Bill protests: "What about free will?" She recalls him having made her write a three thousand word essay on free will. He replies that humans had free will, and they did terrible things with it. He needed to stop them, or at least not stand in the way of someone who wanted to. Besides, she never delivered the essay. When Bill objects that it was because the world was invaded by zombie monks, the Doctor smiles dryly. "And whose fault was that?" he questions. He didn't ask for his sight back, but she had taken it upon herself to ignore him, to do what she thought best. At least they were lucky that it was a benevolent race, nothing like the Daleks.

Bill nods, seemingly agreeing; she replies that it was like that "big fish creature under the Seine in Paris". The Doctor answers that it was a coded message—it was the Thames, not the Seine. If he had played along, she would have known he was tricking them. Bill appears incensed; she takes a guard's gun and points it at the Doctor, explaining angrily that she's spent so much time looking for him, and if he really joined the Monks, they've lost. When the Doctor tells her that she really has, she shoots him. The Doctor appears to regenerate, then stands up and congratulates Bill. He and his group had to make sure that she wasn't being controlled like the rest of the population. He just needs to make sure she isn't testing him, as he needs the Monks' trust. The last six months have been spent deprogramming all the guards, talking sense into them. The plan, the Doctor explains, for testing Bill was exchanging all their ammunition for blanks, save one person who forgot. Fortunately, the person who forgot wasn't the one whose gun Bill took. He sends someone to explain to the kitchen staff, who he called instead of the Monks—they were going to be really confused. It turns out the person who asked for their ID is Nardole's friend and resistance fighter Richard playing a prank on them. Nardole was in on the plot, as well, and the Doctor separates Bill from Nardole after she claims that she's going to beat him up. Now, he has a job for them—they are to retrieve the only person almost as smart as the Doctor, or so he claims. "Blimey, has it really come to that?" Nardole wonders.

Bill voices they should have sneaked in, Bill thinks, but the Doctor appears to drive a giant ship up toward the school. By the time they reach the university, the Monks had already arrived. Luckily, the Doctor and Bill were not heading for the office, but the vault instead, which is free of Monk surveillance. Bill noticed that by the way he and Nardole have been acting, it seemed as if they had a monster locked up in there. "I do," the Doctor replies heavily. He opens the vault, revealing Missy.

Missy tries "haggling over the fate of [the Earth]" before playing "Hot or Cold" with the Doctor and giving him hints as to how the Monks maintain their lie to the population. He eventually deduces that the Monks, through a psychic link, use Bill as the "linchpin" to keep themselves in power, and the Monk statues transmit the signal all over the globe. Missy tells him that now all he has to do is find the linchpin and kill them to prevent the link from being passed on. Bill tells Missy she's the linchpin, to which Missy replies, "Awkward." Missy adds that it would be better if Bill's brain was simply transmitting nothing, rather than her actually dying. The Doctor confronts Missy and tells her she has not changed despite her time under his care, to which Missy replies that she will be in the Vault for a long time before she becomes good then.

In the resistance group's headquarters, the Doctor and Bill explain to Nardole that Missy told Bill she has to die, and Nardole suggests they think of something else. The Doctor explains they have to break into the Cathedral, where the Monks are powering the transmitters, so the Doctor can replace Bill's brainwaves with his and cancel out the signal. Nardole expresses doubt to the plan, but the Doctor dismisses him.

In a boarded-up building, the resistance group hides while Nardole spies on the Cathedral. There are no Monks outside, which Nardole says as such, but when he turns away he tells them there were twelve. The Doctor uses this as an example of the signal beam being stronger here, and as a precaution gives them a tape with headphones to play a recording telling them why they are there and why they are fighting the Monks.

As they enter the pyramid, two of the men are killed by the Monks. One of the guard's tapes is damaged in the struggle, resulting in the Monk's programming brainwashing him to their side. As such, he turns against the Doctor, holding him at gun point. However, Nardole knocks the man out by pinching his neck, saving the Doctor. The group enter the broadcasting chamber, which the Doctor dubs "Fake News Central". They find a Monk wired into it using Bill's brainwaves to transmit lies to the population. The Doctor attempts to override the transmission by linking into the Monk's mind. However, the Monk manages to resist him, blasting the Doctor back with a surge of electricity, knocking him out.

When the Doctor later wakes up, he is tied to a pillar in the pyramid with Bill in front of him. She tells him about her plan to override the transmission herself and the Doctor protests profusely and struggles to get free. Bill walks over to the Monk and puts her hands on it just as the Doctor frees himself from his bonds.

As she links in the Monk's mind, Bill starts transmitting her memories through the psychic link to the populace. However, the Monks begin to hijack her memories and rewrite them to bring the transmission back under their control. Just before they completely rewrite her memories, the Doctor notices that there is one memory they cannot alter: Bill's mum. The Doctor encourages Bill to think about her mum, and as she does that, the image of her mum begins to transmit to everyone else on Earth, overriding the Monk's broadcast.

As they exit the Cathedral, the Doctor, Bill, and Nardole see the populace, now free of the Monk's lies, turning against them. The Monks quickly flee and take off into space. Sometime later, the Doctor and Bill find that most of humanity have no recollection of the Monks (one student, dubbed "Appalling Hair' by the Doctor, thinks that the abandoned statue was being filmed for something). In the Vault, Missy expresses remorse for those she has killed.

Cast[[edit] | [edit source]]

Crew[[edit] | [edit source]]

Executive Producers Steven Moffat and Brian Minchin


Written by Toby Whithouse	Produced by Peter Bennett	Directed by Wayne Yip	Director of Photography Stuart Biddlecombe	Production Designer Michael Pickwoad	Visual Effects Milk BBC Wales VFX

Make-up Designer Barbara Southcott	Casting Director Andy Pryor CDG	Music Murray Gold	Costume Designer Hayley Nebauer	Edited by Edel McDonnell	Special Effects Real SFX
Original theme music by Ron Grainer • Titles by BBC Wales Graphics • With thanks to the BBC National Orchestra of Wales Music conducted & orchestrated by Alastair King • Music score assistant - Jack Sugden • Music mixed by Jake Jackson • Music recorded by Gerry O'Riordan

General production staff

Script department

Camera and lighting department

Art department

Costume department

Make-up and prosthetics

Movement

Casting

General post-production staff

Special and visual effects

VFX Editor - Dan Rawlings
Special Creature Effects & Prosthetics - Millennium FX
Colourist - Chris Rogers
Model Makers - Alan Hardy, Jamie Thomas

Sound


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.

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

Culture[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Monks propagate falsehoods and Fake News through Bill, and have injected themselves into all of human history, taking credit for humanity's achievements.
The Doctor suggests he'd make some modifications to history, like ending racism, and people who talk in cinemas.
Jane broke the Memory Crimes Act of 1975. She is sentenced to 10 years in labour camp.
The Doctor mentions to Bill that the Romans saved people from disease, war, famine and barbarism.
The Doctor mentions fascism and fundamentalism.
Missy plays "Hot or Cold" with the Doctor.
Missy mentions Celebrity Love Island.
The Monks' Truth posters have been plastered all over other posters, including Kikiro: One Last Time, "socialist sports car", one that mentions Carl Payne and Paul Moloneux and one that mentions Bristol.
Missy briefly speaks both Spanish and French.

Science[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Doctor explains that Bill is unaffected in "Fake News Central" because they are at the eye of the storm, as all the lies are being broadcast from there.

Biology[[edit] | [edit source]]

A montage shows a cell splitting.

Weapons[[edit] | [edit source]]

Missy claims she "once built a gun out of leaves".

Technology[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Doctor mentions the light bulb, the telephone and the Internet.
The Bishop family owns a Sharp TV.
The Monks use a signal scrambler to blur the signal of the broadcasts.
Nardole found a signal GPS in the TARDIS to trace the broadcasts.
The Vault is dimensionally transcendental, like some other Time Lord technology.
Quantum Fold Chambers have containment fields.
Missy asks for "toys" like a particle accelerator, a 3D printer and a pony, in return for her help.
The Monk statues around the world act as beacons for false propaganda.
An A-Z map highlights the Regalis and the HMS Belfast.

Martial arts[[edit] | [edit source]]

Nardole performs a Tarovian neck pinch to knock out Alan. He's reached the level of Brown Tabard in Tarovian martial arts.

Philosophy[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Doctor had Bill write a 3000-word essay on free will, which she never completed due to the Monk invasion.
The Doctor says Missy is going cold turkey from being bad.

Business[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Memory Police are roaming the cities enforcing the Truth.
A Magpie Electricals shop is broadcasting the Doctor's Monk Truth on window-televisions.
The shop Spencer Skuse & Potter is seen.
A Fiction Factory shop is seen.

Currency[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Doctor has 50 Danish kroners in a drawer in the TARDIS.

Food and beverages[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Doctor has takeaway menus in a drawer in the TARDIS.
The Doctor says that after spending six months of talking sense into the guards, he could use a Strepsil.
Missy says Nardole looks like an egg.

Locations[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Monks have erected statues in cities including Bristol, New York City, Paris, Forbidden City, Sydney and Toronto, among others. Statues have also been erected by landmarks, including St Basil's Cathedral, Mount Rushmore, Niagara Falls and Stonehenge.
Breaking News reports of Memory Criminal investigations going on in Tokyo.
Nardole mentions Australia.
Locations on Nardole's map include Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen; all located in the United Kingdom. Locations around the UK include the Hebrides, Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands. The Faroe Islands, highlighted as being part of Denmark, are also located north of the UK. To the north-east of the UK is Norway which includes the locations Stavange, Bergen and Oslo.
Some locations on the map appear only partially. "Belfa" (Belfast) is located in Northern Ireland, "lin" (Dublin) is on the east coast of Ireland and "Trondhe" (Trondheim) is located in Norway. Across the border in Sweden are "Stockh" (Stockholm) and "Gothenbur" (Gothenburg).
The Doctor is located on an old Hulk prison boat off the coast of Scotland.
The Doctor mentions Goodnight, Vienna in his anti-war rant to Bill.
Bill mentions the river Seine, in Paris.
The Cathedral has relocated to central London. It is now located west of St Paul's Cathedral, south of London Wall, east of St Martin Le Grand and north of Cannon Street.
An A-Z highlights locations such as Bermondsey, Cannon Street, River Thames, Southwark Bridge, London Bridge, Blackfriars, Millennium Bridge, Tooley Street, Queen Victoria Street, Newgate Street, Farmingdon Street, Shoe Lane, St Bride Street, London Wall, Mansion House St, Holborn Viaduct, King's Reach, St. Mary's Overie's Dock, Byward Street, Clerkenwell, Houndsditch, Tower Hill, Minories, East Smithfield, The Tower of London, Mansell Street and Aldersgate Street.
Portland House, City of London School, Southwark Crown Court and City Hall are also seen.

Species[[edit] | [edit source]]

A montage shows a mudskipper crawling towards a welcoming Monk.
The Doctor mentions the Daleks, the Cybermen and the Weeping Angels in his broadcast.
Time Lords can "fake" a regeneration, seemingly by starting the process only to abort it before any actual healing, if needed. The Doctor fakes a regeneration when Bill shoots him with a gun loaded with blanks that she thinks has live ammunition.

People[[edit] | [edit source]]

Bill references Heather.
Nardole once had an imaginary friend.
Nardole won his current left hand gambling.
The boat captain has an identity card for the Sea Ranger IV which includes his fingerprint and the Truth logo.
Richard, Alan and Dave are all part of the resistance group.
Missy had previously defeated the Monks by pushing the girl, who was the lynchpin back then, into a volcano.
The Doctor talks to a student.
The Doctor introduces Missy to Bill as "the other last of the Time Lords".

Music[[edit] | [edit source]]

Missy plays the Gnossienne No. 1 by Erik Satie and "The Entertainer" by Scott Joplin.

Story notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

This episode's Aftershow on Doctor Who: The Fan Show.

McNeice's Churchill in review copies

Archive material from TV: Blink, Nightmare in Silver, Into the Dalek, and The Pilot is shown. By extension, Weeping Angels, Cybermen, Daleks and photos of Bill Potts' birth mother are shown in this capacity.
This is one of eleven television stories in which the TARDIS does not appear at all. The others are: Mission to the Unknown, Doctor Who and the Silurians, The Mind of Evil, The Dæmons, The Sea Devils, The Sontaran Experiment, Genesis of the Daleks, Midnight, The Woman Who Fell to Earth and Ascension of the Cybermen.
The desk the Doctor is seen using while on the prison boat is the same one Ms Delphox has in TV: Time Heist.
Screens inside the pyramid show images of a "votes for women" sign, the Truth logo, Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Emmeline Pankhurst, Mother Teresa, Neil Armstrong, Nelson Mandela, the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer, Martin Luther King, Mount Everest, Big Bang, Big Ben and the London Eye at New Year's Eve, Concorde, Elizabeth II with Prince Philip and Bobby Moore, the Berlin Wall, and Donald Trump.
Ian McNeice's version of Winston Churchill was to appear at one of the screens in The Cathedral, seen as the Doctor is walking in. This was changed in the broadcast episode, as an image of the real Churchill was instead used.

Ratings[[edit] | [edit source]]

3.01 million (UK overnight figures)
4.82 million (UK final)

The episode also notably had the lowest audience share of any episode since the series revived in 2005, with only 20.3%.^[2]

Filming locations[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

Production errors[[edit] | [edit source]]

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.