"Every empire has its time, and every empire falls, but that which is dead can live again, in the hands of a believer."
TECHNICAL SPECS: First aired Feb.23 2020.
IN THIS ONE... The Lone Cyberman enacts his plan at the tail end of the Cyber Wars.
REVIEW: We start in an asteroid field - COLD OPEN! - eventually one of the rocks comes right at the camera - IT'S A CYBERMAN'S HEAD - and we realize we're in field of Cyber bodies, and the camera goes right into the Cyberman's eye and we're in the vortex and the opening sequence. Brilliant! This really is a beautiful, atmospheric episode (if at times a little "flary"), a war story, with our heroes trying their best to save the last of humanity in the far future after the Cyber Wars have killed most of us, and most Cybermen too. This is the losing stalemate that will allow us to rebuild, while hopefully, the Cybs will not. Unless the Lone Cyberman has something to say about it. I wonder, was this always the history, or does the Cyberium's knowledge go beyond this point, i.e. is it being used to change things for the worse? One of many mysteries this episode teases as we head towards the season finale.
As a Cyberman story, it's quite good. We get different styles of Cyberman, including "warriors" that look like the ones from Attack of the Cybermen, no Cybermats but Cyber Drones that are just flying heads (I have questions about Handles now), and new designs for Cyber ships. Things are desperate indeed on the planet, the heroes are cut off from the TARDIS, and though they pay lip service to the Cybermen's varied weaknesses, the Doctor's countermeasures don't work (did the Lone Cyberman fix them based on Cyberium data?). And then the team is divided, with Yaz and Graham making a pretty good team with the escape party, saving lives, but also getting themselves in a bad situation, a giant awakening army at their doorstep. I agree with the survivors that Graham can be a bit trying, reminding them he was right to keep the faith at least once too many, but there are some good balloon-bursting moments of levity, and he gets a fun line about Eeyore. The Doctor and Ryan get some good stuff too, though the latter takes a bit of a back seat to guest-star Ethan, cuz dude can hijack and fly a Cyber ship. The Lone Cyberman tells his story, about having actually volunteered for conversion, then been rejected. How he got at least partly cybernized isn't clear, but it's informed his whole mission as self-proclaimed "chosen one". And this alone would have been a strong hook for a pure Cyberman story. That it will dovetail into Master/Gallifrey stuff will perhaps turn out to be a shame, but we don't know yet. It may in fact be that as a two-parter, the story will be structurally unsound, something I've said about The Haunting of Villa Diodati and Fugitive of the Judoon, which were both undercut by The Big Arc(TM).
Humanity's last hope is a wormhole not in space, but on a planet, guarded by an old man who's almost stopped believing any more refugees will come. To the Doctor's surprise, when it opens for her, it opens on destroyed Gallifrey and the Master pops out. See you next week.
But while we wonder what the hell will happen and how all of this can be resolved inside of an hour, the episode also serves up a sustained mystery - that of Brandan the foundling. We see his whole life in what seems like rural Ireland and we wonder why. And then he survives a shooting and a fall and we wonder why. He gets old, retires, and is met by people from his life who haven't aged and we wonder how. And they put a contraption on his head and wipe his memory and we wonder still. Is he, in fact, one of these Timeless Children? Are his adoptive parents and the guard who also found him unaging Time Lords? The doors of the room they take him to have windows much like the TARDIS. Is Brandan himself a Time Lord using a chameleon arch (note the clock he carries out of the station and the headset they put on him)? Or is this idyllic Ireland a simulation, perhaps connecting Brandan to a warrior being tortuously awakened by the Lone Cyberman, here the headset meant to evoke the Cybermen's "handles"? Unknown. Despite all the cliffhangers on show, THIS is what fans are most curious about.
REWATCHABILITY: High - An exciting penultimate episode, dark but not without its moments of levity. Mostly, it asks questions that will ensure the audience returns for the second part.
IN THIS ONE... The Lone Cyberman enacts his plan at the tail end of the Cyber Wars.
REVIEW: We start in an asteroid field - COLD OPEN! - eventually one of the rocks comes right at the camera - IT'S A CYBERMAN'S HEAD - and we realize we're in field of Cyber bodies, and the camera goes right into the Cyberman's eye and we're in the vortex and the opening sequence. Brilliant! This really is a beautiful, atmospheric episode (if at times a little "flary"), a war story, with our heroes trying their best to save the last of humanity in the far future after the Cyber Wars have killed most of us, and most Cybermen too. This is the losing stalemate that will allow us to rebuild, while hopefully, the Cybs will not. Unless the Lone Cyberman has something to say about it. I wonder, was this always the history, or does the Cyberium's knowledge go beyond this point, i.e. is it being used to change things for the worse? One of many mysteries this episode teases as we head towards the season finale.
As a Cyberman story, it's quite good. We get different styles of Cyberman, including "warriors" that look like the ones from Attack of the Cybermen, no Cybermats but Cyber Drones that are just flying heads (I have questions about Handles now), and new designs for Cyber ships. Things are desperate indeed on the planet, the heroes are cut off from the TARDIS, and though they pay lip service to the Cybermen's varied weaknesses, the Doctor's countermeasures don't work (did the Lone Cyberman fix them based on Cyberium data?). And then the team is divided, with Yaz and Graham making a pretty good team with the escape party, saving lives, but also getting themselves in a bad situation, a giant awakening army at their doorstep. I agree with the survivors that Graham can be a bit trying, reminding them he was right to keep the faith at least once too many, but there are some good balloon-bursting moments of levity, and he gets a fun line about Eeyore. The Doctor and Ryan get some good stuff too, though the latter takes a bit of a back seat to guest-star Ethan, cuz dude can hijack and fly a Cyber ship. The Lone Cyberman tells his story, about having actually volunteered for conversion, then been rejected. How he got at least partly cybernized isn't clear, but it's informed his whole mission as self-proclaimed "chosen one". And this alone would have been a strong hook for a pure Cyberman story. That it will dovetail into Master/Gallifrey stuff will perhaps turn out to be a shame, but we don't know yet. It may in fact be that as a two-parter, the story will be structurally unsound, something I've said about The Haunting of Villa Diodati and Fugitive of the Judoon, which were both undercut by The Big Arc(TM).
Humanity's last hope is a wormhole not in space, but on a planet, guarded by an old man who's almost stopped believing any more refugees will come. To the Doctor's surprise, when it opens for her, it opens on destroyed Gallifrey and the Master pops out. See you next week.
But while we wonder what the hell will happen and how all of this can be resolved inside of an hour, the episode also serves up a sustained mystery - that of Brandan the foundling. We see his whole life in what seems like rural Ireland and we wonder why. And then he survives a shooting and a fall and we wonder why. He gets old, retires, and is met by people from his life who haven't aged and we wonder how. And they put a contraption on his head and wipe his memory and we wonder still. Is he, in fact, one of these Timeless Children? Are his adoptive parents and the guard who also found him unaging Time Lords? The doors of the room they take him to have windows much like the TARDIS. Is Brandan himself a Time Lord using a chameleon arch (note the clock he carries out of the station and the headset they put on him)? Or is this idyllic Ireland a simulation, perhaps connecting Brandan to a warrior being tortuously awakened by the Lone Cyberman, here the headset meant to evoke the Cybermen's "handles"? Unknown. Despite all the cliffhangers on show, THIS is what fans are most curious about.
REWATCHABILITY: High - An exciting penultimate episode, dark but not without its moments of levity. Mostly, it asks questions that will ensure the audience returns for the second part.
Comments
The more interesting point to me is Chibnall really going to mess with established cannon, or is it just another in the long line in Nu-Hu teases, the doctor's death and name come readily to mind - always teased, but inevitably rolled back. One would at first suspect that Chibnall's just another in the line of classic who acolytes too in love with the established cannon to make any bold moves, but I'd suggest it's not quite that cut and dry. Having listened to a podcast where he talked at length about the second series of Broadchurch, where he realised early on that his desire to follow the trial resultant from the first series would likely test the patience of the target audience, he forewarned the channel, whilst asserting his creative right to explore it.
It's kind of irrelevant to me what change does/doesn't actually occur, it's science fiction anything can be retconned later, just whether he does so or not.
I can't help but amuse myself though with the notion that given the 3rd doctor-like Master already established that the grand reveal is that the Timelords locked both Gallifreyan renegades safely away in the Matrix for safekeeping, the best way to stop their errant, interventionist ways. ;D
Also a lot of stuff this season seems to have been "we have Shock Revelations coming" and as times it seems to be "write for the Wiki articles". Compare that to "You are not alone". That was a twist because even if you guessed it might be The Master, he hadn't been seen in over a decade, he turned up an episode BEFORE the big finale in an unexpected way, he immediately regenerated and then stole the TARDIS. Shocking things happened. Here though it's "The Master is back as he said he would be to explain the thing that he said he was going to explain a few episodes ago."