Hello and welcome to another Doctor Who review, where today we're going to taking a look at the second part of the Series 12 two part series opener "Spyfall".
Though fun and enjoyable to watch, this second half doesn't stick its landing. What is interesting however, is the story arc in which is seeded for the rest of the series.
Doctor Who's grand return on New Year's Day was a James Bond inspired romp that ended in a shocking cliffhanger. The return of the Master, Jaz, Graham, and Ryan trapped on a crashing plane, and the Doctor teleported and left stranded within another dimension.
Spyfall Part Two made quick work of these. The companions were saved thanks to some timey-wimey intervention from a future Doctor and the Doctor herself found a way out of her prison through the inexplicable appearance of renowned mathematician Ada Lovelace, who managed to bring her back to her time of 1834... Nothing resolves a cliffhanger quite like Doctor Who.
Still, this episode is fragmented, with lots of plot strands fighting for attention across different times and places.
Take the Doctor, who initially found herself marooned in the 19th century. She was hounded by Sacha Dhawan’s Master, and perplexed by the connection between Lovelace (Sylvie Briggs) and last week’s glowing aliens, who seemed to function as gateways to travel through time.
From here, she and Lovelace found their way to 1943 Paris, where they came across Noor Inayat Khan (Aurora Marion), the first female wireless operator to be dropped behind enemy lines.
In the words of the Doctor herself: “Two pacifists, and a 19th century descendent of Byron, against the Nazis in Paris and an alien invasion across multiple dimensions. That’s a big to-do list.”
She’s not wrong, but thankfully there were enough ideas, enough fun and momentum, to prevent the whole thing from falling apart.
The scenes between the Doctor and the Master, for example, hit home how sorely Whittaker’s Doctor has been lacking a proper villain to bounce off.
As The Master, Dhawan I felt was a bit too cartoonish, but there were flashes of something unhinged in the way he snarled like a rabid dog. And it was difficult not to get swept up in the mania of scenes of him shrinking poor Victorians, telling the Doctor to “kneel” like a Satanic Fleabag priest, or turning up in 1940s Paris masquerading as a Nazi officer. This touched upon interesting ideas but didn’t quite stick its landing.
The glowing aliens, it transpired wanted to utilise the storage capacity of human DNA in order to use us as hard drives - Barton could connect them with every human being via his company’s monopoly on electronic devices. There was a particularly good scene where Henry delivered a menacing monologue on how naively we entrust big corporations with access to our data, with how willingly we allow cameras and microphones into our homes. Beyond that, though, the monsters themselves felt like a listless anticlimax.
What was more intriguing was the arc this episode seeded for the rest of the series. Whittaker’s first run of Doctor Who riskily eschewed serialisation in favour of accessible standalone episodes. But this time, things have changed. The Doctor’s home planet of Gallifrey lies in ruins, having been destroyed by the Master, who did it because he discovered a terrible secret about the Time Lords. It ostensibly has something to do with the “timeless child”, first mentioned in Whittaker’s second episode “The Ghost Monument”, but left unexplored - until now. “Everything we’ve been told is a lie,” the Master said, “we are not who we think”. It seems that this year, Doctor Who is going big.
I hope to see The Master return to Doctor Who and there is every chance he could come back to battle the Doctor once again.
The TARDIS crew in this episode play their parts effectively and work together well as a team of three to keep themselves and the episode going in the moments where the Doctor is not on the screen.
Lenny Henry is delightful as Daniel Barton, and probably the best thing in the episode for me.
As for the plot devices Ada and Noor, I sensed their sole purpose in the episode was drive the story forward and get the Doctor from point A to point B.
All in all, if I had to round this up, I am pleased that the new series of Doctor Who has got off to a good start, however, Spyfall Part Two gets a 4/5, giving the whole story 8/10.
Thank you for taking the time to read this review. I look forward to next week, until then I'm signing off for another week, join me next time for another Doctor Who review.
