In which the Doctor and her companions are separately enjoying a short stay in Sheffield when they are brought together again by a mysterious individual, who insists that they accompany him by car to London.
On route, their vehicle comes under attack and the driver is killed, whilst the vehicle is taken over by remote control. The Doctor manages to stop it before they crash.
Determined to find out what's going on, they continue the journey to the capital and meet 'C', head of MI6. He had brought them here to get the Doctor's help. In recent weeks a number of his agents have been incapacitated, all over the globe. Other national security services have experienced the same issue.
All were investigating IT mogul Daniel Barton, inventor of the VOR system.
When the Doctor examines one of the agents, she discovers that her genetic code has been totally rewritten.
Realising that only alien technology could achieve this, the Doctor admonishes 'C' for allowing an operative known as 'O' to leave the service, as he was an expert on extra-terrestrial matters. She has never met him but knows of his reputation and has communicated with him for several years.
'C' gives them some useful gadgets to help with their investigation. Second later, he is killed by an assassin's bullet. The TARDIS had been brought to London and they rush inside - only to discover that an unknown bipedal creature has the ability to breach the ship's defences, pushing its way inside.
The Doctor dematerialises the ship and heads for a remote part of the Australian Outback, where 'O' lives in self-imposed exile.
Ryan and Yaz are sent to San Francisco to inveigle their way into Barton's organisation. They pose as a journalist and photographer who have come to interview him. They have a device which can rapidly download his personal files.
Breaking into his office that evening, they witness Barton communicating with one of the alien creatures, which appears to be generating a brilliant white light.
At 'O's home, armed guards have been posted to protect him. The house comes under attack by a group of the creatures. The guards are killed but 'O' is able to capture one of the aliens. Paranoid, his home is covered in elaborate technological traps.
Yaz is attacked by one of the creatures in San Francisco, and finds herself transported to a strange nocturnal forest-like environment.
The captured alien proves to come not from another planet but from another dimension. Examining Barton's files, the Doctor and 'O' have discovered a whole data set hidden beneath, which shows that these creatures have infiltrated the entire planet. They also learn that the mogul has an augmented gene sequence in his DNA.
Their captive vanishes - leaving Yaz in its place. A frantic Ryan is brought back from the USA.
It is decided that Barton needs to be investigated further. He had earlier invited Yaz and Ryan to a party at his home. 'O' accompanies them to California to attend. After challenging him about his contact with hostile aliens he departs and they are forced to give chase. He goes to an airfield and they find that he is about to fly to the UK in his private aircraft. They manage to get onboard - only to discover that it is fully automated.
'O' mentions how unfit he has always been - which intrigues the Doctor as she knows he was an accomplished runner. Realising that his story has been seen through, 'O' reveals his true identity - that of the regenerated Master.
He killed the real 'O' years ago and assumed his identity, and has befriended the Doctor remotely all this time - biding his time.
His TARDIS was disguised as his Outback home, and it is now travelling alongside the 'plane. The alien creatures - the Kasaavin - appear and transport the Doctor away to the strange realm where Yaz had been sent, leaving Graham, Ryan and Yaz on a crashing aircraft after the controls are sabotaged...
The Doctor finds she is not alone, as a woman in Victorian garb is also here. Her name is Ada and she says she comes here often. The Doctor will wait until she is returned home and travel with her.
Her companions, meanwhile, find instructions from the Doctor on how to land the crashing 'plane safely - left for them by the Doctor at some point in the near future.
In Victorian London, the Doctor learns that her new friend is Ada Lovelace, the noted mathematician who was the daughter of notorious poet Lord Byron. She meets her friend Charles Babbage - the computer pioneer.
The Master arrives but the Doctor and Ada are able to escape by harnessing powers of a Kasaavin. Instead of returning her to the 21st Century, the Doctor and Ada find themselves in Nazi occupied Paris.
The Master follows once again, using a perception filter to make himself look suitably Aryan as he has taken on the persona of an SS officer.
The Doctor and Ada are helped by an Englishwoman, whom the Doctor recognises as Noor Inayat Khan. She was a member of the Special Operations Executive, who supported the French Resistance. She shelters them.
In the 21st Century, Barton uses the internet to turn Graham, Ryan and Yaz into fugitives and they are forced to go into hiding - hunted also by the Kasaavin.
The Doctor arranges a meeting with the Master atop the Eiffel Tower, but lures him into a trap - disabling his perception filter as his men come to capture her. It is he who is arrested.
Earlier, he had told her that he recently visited Gallifrey, and burned it to the ground...
The Doctor, Ada and Noor steal the Master's TARDIS and travel to the 21st Century.
The scheme hatched by the Master and Barton soon becomes clear. The Kasaavin intend to use the human population of Earth as organic computer memory - a process enabled through VOR technology.
Barton uses a global broadcast to initiate this.
The Master turns up, having had to live through the second half of the 20th Century. The Doctor has sabotaged Barton's scheme, however, and has also recorded the Master plotting to double-cross the aliens at the first opportunity. Barton flees, whilst the Kasaavin transport the Master to their realm.
The Doctor wipes the memories of Noor and Ada before returning them to their proper times.
Intrigued by what the Master had said in Paris. She travels to her home and is horrified to see the Capitol a lifeless ruin.
On returning to the TARDIS, the Doctor finds an automated holographic message from the Master. He claims he destroyed Gallifrey and the Time Lords because their entire existence had been built on a lie - that of the "Timeless Child"...
Spyfall was written by Chris Chibnall, and first broadcast on 1st and 5th January 2020. 2019 had been a gap year for the series. Unusually, it has different directors for each half.
In other ways, it is only the second "proper" two-parter after The End of Time, in that both instalments have the same title, simply numbered Parts One and Two.
Coincidentally, both stories had episodes airing on the first day of a new decade, and featured Gallifrey and the Master.
Part One, as well as launching Chibnall's second season, acted as the latest New Year Special, with Part Two falling on the Sunday as the series had settled on this day for its regular first broadcasts.
(This was the first time since The Twin Dilemma that two episodes of a story had been shown in the same week).
After deliberately eschewing established elements of the series in his first year to concentrate on introducing his own original characters - something which led to a considerable amount of criticism from some quarters of fandom - Chibnall elects to bring back the Master and return the Doctor to Gallifrey.
Whilst two and a half years had past since we had last seen Missy and the Harold Saxon Master, this had been only 12 episodes ago - the length of a season these days.
Not only were be given an interesting new Master, played by Sacha Dhawan, but there had been a significant development on the Doctor's homeworld.
Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat had bent over backwards to preserve the Time Lords - and Chibnall, only just arrived, has seemingly destroyed them.
Once unleashed, he tends to be childishly malicious but he's by no means a one-note Master. His relationship to the Doctor veers between downright hatred to almost seeking friendship.
The Tissue Compression Eliminator is back - not seen since the Ainley incarnation - and he is once again resorting to disguises.
Something which leaves a bad taste in the mouth is the Doctor using his new outward ethnicity against him. She undoes his perception filter to break his Aryan image to reveal the Indian subcontinental one, leading to him being arrested by Nazi soldiers, and all that that obviously entails.
To use someone's race against them, and to condemn anyone - irrespective of who they are - to the Nazis does not sit well with any incarnation of the Doctor, but especially this one.
The sequence is especially noxious when you consider that the Doctor is currently being assisted by Noor Inayat Khan - an Asian who perished in a concentration camp.
The principal inspiration for the story is the James Bond franchise. We get the globe-trotting adventure, certain brassy John Barry-like musical cues courtesy of Segun Akinola, and the Doctor and company donning tuxedos to visit a Bond-like villain his lair. We have 'C' and 'O', like 'M' and 'Q' in Bond, and there's a casino scene at Barton's home, prior to a vehicle chase. The title also plays on Skyfall.
We actually get two principal villains, but once the Master makes his presence known Daniel Barton (Lenny Henry) is rather side-lined in the story.
He simply runs off at the end. Was the plan to revisit him in the next series? Series 13 was pretty much scrapped and replaced with Flux due to the pandemic after all. had an episodic format been followed perhaps we might have seen him again.
One of the problems with the "crowded TARDIS" this time round - even worse than Davison's - is Chibnall's insistence on having additional companion figures in most episodes. The full-time "Fam" members have very little to do at the best of times, without the Doctor running off with Ada Lovelace (Sylvie Briggs).
And then he adds Noor (Aurora Marion). The companions really are woefully underused.
Another big guest star, though only really gaining a cameo appearance in the first episode, is Stephen Fry, playing 'C'.
Computer pioneer Charles Babbage is played by Mark Dexter.
Overall, the new series gets off to a very promising start, with an impressive pair of episodes, a great new Master and a massive revelation about Gallifrey. The story was dedicated to the memory of Terrance Dicks - apt, as he helped create the Master.
Things you might like to know:
- The story began life as a single episode story, sans the Master. 'O' would have been a double agent, in league with Barton.
- Once expanded to two episodes, the second half was going to see Barton abduct Yaz's family.
- The Kasaavin are voiced by Struan Rodger - previously the voice of the Face of Boe. He had also appeared in the series in person, as Lady Me's servant Clayton in The Woman Who Lived.
- Stephen Fry had been due to write a story for RTD, possibly with an Arthurian theme. This was due to feature in Series 2 but got held back, until eventually scrapped as Fry was too busy.
- Interestingly, Fry used to play a spymaster known only as "Control" in his sketch show with Hugh Laurie.
- Meanwhile, Lenny Henry had played the Doctor in his sketch show, back in 1985. His costume was not unlike some of the costume choices we've seen for Ncuti Gatwa. The principal villain was a Cyberman named Thatchos, based on Mrs Thatcher.
- Barton's biography has him coming from Bromsgrove. This lies just south of Birmingham, whilst Henry was brought up in Dudley, to the NE of the city.
- Ryan adopts the spy name "Logan" after the X-Men character.
- The flying house - the Master's disguised TARDIS - is described as a bit "Wicked Witch of the West", a reference to The Wizard of Oz, one of the inspirations for The Three Doctors and for the character of Ace.
- The Doctor is seen at an MOT garage, where she claims to be draining certain water features in the TARDIS - water slides, a boating lake, and rainforest floor.
- She also claims to have once lived in the Australian Outback for 123 years.
- She may well be talking nonsense...
- 'O' has a complete set of Fortean Times. This magazine of the odd and often unexplained recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. I buy it myself, and it has sometimes featured the series - as well as covering many of the inspirations for Doctor Who stories - Yeti, Loch Ness Monster, UFO's etc. You'll find some "Fortean Who" posts on this blog back in 2020.
- The Master keeps the shrunken corpse of the real 'O' in a matchbox - branded "Newman, Lambert & Hussein". Of course, this is a nod to three of the founding figures of Doctor Who.
- There's a reference to the events of Logopolis, when the Doctor and Master talk about Jodrell Bank whilst atop the Tour Eiffel. However, whilst it had been hoped to film at the Cheshire radio telescope, the end of Tom Baker's reign took place at the Pharos Project which was in Cambridgeshire (though oddly served by an ambulance service from East Sussex...).
No comments:
Post a Comment