the master

Wood and Puzzles

Martin McCallion, , , Leave a comment

Well, I suppose they couldnā€™t sustain the excellence forever. I mean, thereā€™s bound to be the odd weaker episode, right? ā€œKnock Knockā€, Doctor Who season 10 episode 3 is certainly that. I have to say itā€™s the weakest episode weā€™ve seen so far this season.

This is largely because it doesnā€™t make much sense. Alien bugs turning people to wood? And back again? Well, I guess itā€™s no more preposterous than many things weā€™ve seen, but you need to have some semblance of a rationale, and this had none.

Plus it had less of what has really been making this season great: the Doctor/Bill interaction.

Still, it had an interesting season-arc-related ending, with the Doctor taking Mexican food into the Mysterious Vault to share with whoever is in there. And we now it is a ā€œwho:ā€ they were playing the piano. And they eat, presumably.

I think there are two possibilities:

  1. Since The Doctor mentioned regeneration, and we know heā€™s going to regenerate this season, itā€™s something to with that. Like a future version of himself, for reasons to be explained.
  2. As I said before, itā€™s The Master, or Missy, since we saw both the latter and the John Simm version of the former in the season trailer. That would be plausible but weird.
  3. Or, and this occurred to me just tonight: what if it’s Susan? His granddaughter from right back at the beginning? Her photograph was on his desk in the first episode… but that’s just fanciful, and why would he have her in a vault?
Wood and Puzzles

The Luxury of Outrage

Martin McCallion, , , , , , , 1 Comment

The Doctor is a burning sun of outrage, but claims never to have had time for it. Season 10, episode 3, “Thin Ice,” sends him and Bill into London’s past, to 1814, and the last great frost fair on the frozen Thames.

There is a beast below the ice1 There is a racist lord. There are cute dirty-faced urchins, and acrobats, and a fleeting glimpse of an elephant.

I loved almost everything about this episode. In fact the only negative point to me was the use of the old diving suits. You need someone onshore, operating an air pump, to use those, and there was no evidence of such a thing. It’s one of those things that Doctor Who is prone to. Not a big deal in this case, but it wouldn’t have hard to have included a few words about The Doctor modifying them with a compact air supply, or something.

No matter, as I say, it was an almost perfect episode. And we got back to The Doctor’s office at the end, where Nardole was making the tea (with added coffee for flavour).

And who or what is in the mysterious vault? The knocking of course echo’s “He will knock four times,” at the end of Tennant’s run, and that was The Master. And we know that The Master — or at least John Simm — as well as Missy, is gong to be in this season.

But it would be very strange if it were him in the vault.

  1. I’m sure you saw what I did there. [↩]
The Luxury of Outrage