Well, looks like the Doctor is getting ready to regenerate again. I knew it was coming, but man, I feel like I was just starting to get used to the guy.
And poor Bill…
I suppose the problem is the Doctor let Missy run the mission. It’s a test. She can run a simple distress call, backed up by Nardole and Bill, and see where it goes. There’s some flashbacks to show the Doctor promise Bill that he will keep her alive, and then things go very wrong in the present.
See, there’s a 400 mile long colony ship that is being held in place as it tries to get away from a black hole. Gravity being what it is, the end of the ship closest to the black hole has time moving much quicker than the front end where the TARDIS lands. And out comes some blue guy, worried that the mysterious figures from the bottom will come up to attack if there’s a human up there. Missy isn’t human. Neither is the Doctor or Nardole. Just Bill. And despite the Doctor’s best efforts to calm the guy down, he still shoots his gun and blows a big hole through Bill’s chest.
And then these masked men with IV drips of this bright blue fluid show up to take Bill away and fix her. The Doctor stops to explain time and gravity to the others, saying he can’t just take the TARDIS down there before taking the elevator about ten minutes later to go get Bill.
A lot more time passed for her. She woke up with an artificial heart that won’t let her travel too far, and the closest she has to a friend is an older janitor with a Pottsylvanian accent named Razor. He seems a little weird, and the make-up isn’t as good as it usually is, but whatever. He’s friendly, showing Bill around, occasionally checking on the Doctor on the closed circuit system that seems to show he’s barely moved at all, and even taking Bill out to see the other humans down there, the descendants of a repair crew that left the top maybe a couple weeks ago but have had a lot of kids since then. Sure, some of them are in some kind of hospital area begging to be put down, but there’re all there.
But then it’s Bill’s turn to be finished off, and she doesn’t want that to happen just yet.
Man, if the Doctor had just left immediately…
Never mind. He gets down there, sends Missy off one way while he goes off somewhere else. Missy learns the ship didn’t come from Earth. It came from an Earth-like planet called Mondas. And that Razor guy knows her. She doesn’t know him right away, but then they get to talking, and that silly accent and bad make-up come off to reveal…John Simm’s the Master.
You know, an earlier incarnation of Missy.
Huh. If the Doctor can’t get along with himself, and he’s one of the good guys…what happens when the Master hangs out with himself? Or herself? I am confused.
Oh, and it turns out the Doctor does find Bill. He doesn’t recognize her at first. Not until she says she waited.
See, Bill is now a Cyberman…
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