Review of Spyfall: Part 2
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.
I really hate it when something I’m enjoying trips at the finish line. If I could just ignore those last few minutes, I think Spyfall would have ended up firmly in my “win” column. As it is, I’m left with an unpleasant taste in my mouth.
Much like Part 1, this episode was full of callbacks to earlier eras. Many of them left me grinning in glee, like the nods to Blink (“Don’t talk back to the screens. Obviously, I’m a recording and I can’t hear you.”), The Three Doctors (“Contact.” “Contact.” “Old school.” “You’re not the only one who can do classic.”), Logopolis (“It’s cold up here. It’s worse that Jodrell Bank.” “Did I ever apologize for that?” “No.” “Good.”), and even “The Curse of Fatal Death” (“I’ve just had the most infuriating 77 years of my life.”).
Other callbacks were gut-wrenching in all the wrong ways. Though I didn’t recognize it as such at the time, the way RTD chose to write Donna out of the Doctor’s life with a violation of Donna’s personal autonomy by altering her mind without her consent (in fact, as she begs him not to) was extremely problematic. To see a Doctor who has (one would hope) grown and evolved since then, one who occupies a female-presenting body, pull the exact same shit soured me on the entire story.
The Doctor asks neither Noor nor Ada before removing herself from their minds. Noor, at least, doesn’t seem overly concerned in that last second that she has to react. Ada’s protests, however, sound all too familiar. The Doctor may think Ada doesn’t need any outside help to become the amazing part of history she is (that sentiment, at least, is one with which I heartily agree), but taking unilateral action without even trying to bring her around to the Doctor’s point of view is contemptible.
And while we’re talking about the parts I didn’t like, let’s discuss the fate of Gallifrey. While I don’t disbelieve the Master would do something like that in a fit of pique, and I know every showrunner has to put their mark on the mythos of the show somehow, I’m extremely disappointed that Chibnall decided to go this particular direction. One of the things that I have so loved about the Thirteenth Doctor is that she didn’t have all that heavy crap hanging over her head; she could just breathe and experience a little joy again.
But it looks like Chibnall has done an about-face this series, embracing the history he eschewed last time and hinting at a larger arc involving “the timeless child” and the Doctor’s survivor’s guilt—again. And we’d be fools to think that either the Kasaavin (I’d be surprised if they were really a completely new enemy, too; they still look very much like Mondasian Cybermen to me) or the Master are out of the picture for the rest of the year.
Yet if those last eight minutes had never made it to our screens, I’d probably be singing the praises of the Spyfall saga. There was a suitably sinister (and all-too-believable) plot to end the human race through the use of our technology; a classically creepy, megalomaniacal Master (though getting the Doctor to kneel and call him by name has some really disturbing overtones when the Master presents male and the Doctor presents female); amazing, real-life women who step out of history onto our screens to kick ass with the Doctor; and some excellent pep talks from the Doctor (“Darkness never sustains” may need to be my new mantra).
For over fifty minutes, I was all in. But unlike all of us with our various devices, the Doctor’s fleeting friends never had a chance to click “Agree” or sign their name to the boilerplate explaining that “some terms and conditions apply” to their interactions with the Doctor. So I’m going to have to sit with this one for a while before I figure out exactly how I feel about it. Here’s hoping it improves with age.
Agreed on all of that. Although, I thought the most egregious thing was the Doctor explicitly removing the Master’s perception filter with the intent that his physical racial appearance would be held against him by Nazis of all people. That seems the polar opposite of what I expect from the Doctor.
I also think that if you are going to involve a historical figure like Noor Inayat Khan, you’d better actually justify their inclusion and this story really didn’t. August Ada Byron came off better – although I got the strong impression that Chibnall hasn’t got a clue of what she actually did at all and just knows her as “mother of computing”. Both are very interesting individuals who were utterly wasted here. You would think that at the very least there would be some kind of comment on why the Doctor is leaving Noor to be captured and executed by Nazi forces. We all know about how history cannot be rewritten, except for the many times when it now can be…
I am fully agreed with you about the violation of wiping memories. With Donna there was a narrative pressing reason. Here it is just for convenience – and there have been many more pressing times in the Doctor’s history when it would have been useful to leave no memories where it didn’t happen, so why here?
I think this 2 parter is one that looks good at first glance, but the more you think about it the more deeply problematic – and at times out and out sickening – it becomes.
Also, up until now, it was never clear that the Pharos Project was at Jodrell Bank.
I think that bringing up Gallifrey at all was a mistake and destroying it was an even bigger one. Since 2005, Gallifrey has been destroyed in a Time War, restored from that Time War and then destroyed again by the Master. It would seem far more sensible just to leave it be.
I can’t quite see them being brought back, but I through that the Kasaavin actually looked a lot more like the Voord than Cyber-Mondasians in silhouette. Lenny Henry’s character’s company also being called VOR seemed to add to that. I suspect that is just a weird coincidence, simply because the Voord are from so long ago and so forgotten that they would be a really weird choice of classic series alien to bring back.
On the positive side, I did really enjoy Gatiss and Moffat’s take on Dracula.
You’re right about the facial perception filter. I’m ashamed that I didn’t think about how horrific that was myself (institutional racism is insidious), and you’re not the first person I’ve talked with who’s brought it up. It’s a shame that so many stories are so great at first blush, but so problematic (yes, even sickening, I agree) when one really takes a look.
Here’s hoping things improve soon…
No need to feel ashamed – without it being racism and nazis, it does fit the general standard of the Master falling out with his allies.
But it was *really explicitly* stated as *racism* and *nazis*. What the hell was Chibnall smoking? And how did that make it past the BBC?
I find myself thinking that what Chibnall and his team really need is for a teenage Doctor Who fan to ask him on broadcast television to justify what he has done with the series.
Chibnall had the rare opportunity to do that himself. I’d really like to see him on the opposite end of that equation now.
That would be poetic justice, wouldn’t it? 😀
I don’t feel it was wrong to “out” the Master to the Nazis. The Master was trying to destroy humanity (again) and had a huge advantage over the The Doctor. Leaving him in hot water with the Nazis (which shouldn’t have been too hard for him to escape) bought The Doctor time. And it WAS The Master who brought Nazis into it in the first place. If you lie down with dogs…
I agree that it wasn’t wrong to get the Master in trouble with the Nazis (any more than to do so with the Daleks, the ultimate Nazi stand-ins). It was the manner in which it was done—by using the color of his skin—that troubled me.