Doctor Who Review: World Enough and Time (Season 10 Episode 11)

Bill takes the slow road as the Doctor and Missy come across a familiar face on Doctor Who Season 10 Episode 11, “World Enough and Time.”

Can you hear the drums?

There’s quite a bit to unpack on “World Enough and Time,” but let’s start with the elephant in the room: Missy needs to brush her hair.

Oh, and the Master is back. But seriously, Missy, I know the TARDIS has at least one brush. I guess reformed (?) mass murderers don’t have much time for their hair when they’ve been locked up by their best friend and ordered to “become good.”

(I’m just kidding, guys. The Queen of Evil can wear her hair however she wants, I’m totally on board. #TeamMissy)

In one of the finest episodes of the season, The Master seems to be disturbed by his future self’s fate. Who knows how exactly he found time to concoct an entire plan to lure a future Doctor to a Cyberman conversion facility, but the fact of the matter is that his reappearance can’t be anything but catastrophic to whatever progress Missy has made during her captivity.

THE MASTER: I’m the Master. I’m very worried about my future. Give us a kiss.

(Is it cringe-worthy that the Doctor has basically kept her prisoner, even though she is absolutely a murderer and super once tried to kill all of humanity? Short answer: yes. Long answer: man, it’s complicated.)

Whatever happens next, nothing can erase the fact that Missy was making some sort of change within herself. Given the fact that we don’t know where in the Master’s timeline this event falls, perhaps the erasure of it from Missy’s memory is her own doing (or, knowing this show, the Doctor’s).

Then again…knowing Doctor Who, this Master could be an alternate universe counterpart of Missy’s. That’s the fun thing about this show. No one ever knows what’s going on, but we’re all having a ball trying to figure it out.

The true shame of the Master’s return is that it was spoiled by the BBC before Season 10 began. John Simm appearing alongside Michelle Gomez as the Master and the Mistress respectively would have been a plot twist that set the internet on fire.

Luckily, we get to see Missy dab, so that kind of makes up for it.

BILL! BILL! BILL!

You’re welcome for getting the Bill Nye theme song stuck in your head.

On a serious note, Pearl Mackie has blossomed so entirely into the role of Bill Potts that it’s hard to imagine the show without her. While many believe Bill’s conversion into a Cyberman to be the end of her, I remain as skeptical as resident Queen of Skeptics, Dana Scully, in regards to Bill’s fate.

It’s the penultimate episode, guys. There’s no way in hell she’s going out this early.

Bill’s fate gives us insight into both Bill and the Doctor. For Bill, it comes with the revelation that she is very, very good at playing the long con. Bill has a well of patience inside her that she draws on to keep herself alive.

She not only has incredible survival instincts (and even compassion for her “friend,” The Master, who essentially keeps her with him for years, though Bill clearly doesn’t see it that way), but absolute faith in the Doctor. He will come for her. All she has to do is keep herself alive.

We also get a look at the absolute purity of Bill’s compassion for anyone in pain. Even though she can’t see or talk to the tortured conversion victims, she empathizes with their plight. However, she’s smart enough to pick her battles — there’s nothing she can do to help them. Her mission is to wait for the Doctor.

However, it can’t go unmentioned that everything that happens to Bill has an epicentre, and its name is the Doctor. Yes, it is true that Bill chose to go along, and yes it is true that the Doctor persuaded her to play along with his “rehabilitate Missy” plan. Those things are circumstantial.

BILL: I waited. I waited. I waited.

The biggest fault of the Doctor’s is this: in the face of Bill’s death, he lets his ego get in the way. All season, the Doctor has been struggling with the idea that other people can do what he does (namely, save the world).

Now here, with a gun to Bill’s chest, the Doctor chooses to talk about himself. He will save them all. He will be thanked for his cleverness and his incredible wit. He will save the day.

Is he wrong? No. But he chooses that moment to plead not for Bill’s life and what she means, but for the person holding the gun to recognize that an unarmed man who just appeared out of thin air is somehow more qualified to stop an invasion than anyone else in the universe.

Timing, Doctor. Timing.

STRAY THOUGHTS:

• Everyone’s acting was superb in this episode, especially Pearl Mackie. Her face is so wonderfully open and expressive, giving us an unfiltered look into everything Bill’s feeling. She is spectacular.
• Michelle Gomez is always doing the absolute most as Missy, and I love her for it. She can snap between irritated, vengeful, diabolical, amused, and truly emotional all within one scene. I don’t know how she does it.
• Peter Capaldi…how does one even begin to give Peter Capaldi compliments for how incredible he is? The Doctor’s horror at Bill’s face has to be one of his finest moments to date.
• I still don’t know why Matt Lucas continues to hang around this show, but he’s entertaining, at least.

What did you think of this episode of Doctor Who? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

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Doctor Who airs Saturdays at 9/8c on BBC/BBC America.

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