C+Q - Extremis (2017)
Amazing. Simply amazing.
Extremis was well worth the wait. It's taken a while, but I'm finally invested in Doctor Who in a way I haven't been since Clara left. The first few episodes of Series 10 are good but they feel restrained and slightly hollow due to how rigidly they adhere to the standard Doctor Who formula. Standard Doctor Who is fine, but for a show that's over 50 years old, 'standard' isn't really good enough anymore. By contrast, Extremis, like a lot of Steven Moffat episodes, feels fresh and exciting because it deliberately rejects the standard. Moffat has constantly experimented with the structure of the show, giving us a split series or a year of single-parters or a year of two-parters and so on. I'm not saying all of his experiments always work, and there are some episodes he's written that I think are absolute failures, but you can't accuse the Moffat era of being boring. Instead of relying on tried and tested methods, Moffat takes nothing for granted and is always trying to push the boundaries of storytelling in Who.
I'd put this episode up there with the height of Series 9 in the way it actively questions how far the boundaries of Doctor Who's comfort zone can be stretched before they break. Can we have an episode of Doctor Who where the Doctor spends the entire run time watching an episode of Doctor Who? Can we depict the mass suicide of a room full of scientists?? Can we depict the suicide of the fucking US President??? Extremis is yet another attempt to ask 'what sort of stories is Doctor Who capable of telling?', and, holy shit, I'm glad this question is still being asked after all this time. It might be over 50 years old, but Doctor Who is and always has been a show that takes risks and pushes the boundaries of sci-fi storytelling, and that's why I still watch it. This show need strong creative minds in charge who will continually ask questions that challenge what we think we know to stop it getting stale. I just hope Chibnall is up to the task.
Once again, Steven Moffat gives us an amazing puzzle box episode where the main thrust of the drama is 'What sort of story am I watching?'. Even the opening title sequence tries to trick us into believing it's the Doctor being executed instead of Missy. Similarly, the question of 'Who's in the vault?' is answered very quickly but it's immediately replaced with the follow-up question 'Okay, but how did she get in there?' To quote the episode itself: "The layout is designed to confuse the uninitiated." I can totally see why some people hate these sorts of episodes and think that Moffat is just throwing out twists and turns for the sake of seeming clever. It doesn't help that the Doctor Who fan community are much more aware of writers than other fandoms are, so the idea of a power-mad auteur who's trying to confuse the shit out of you deliberately because he gets some sort of elitist intellectual kick out of making other people feel artificially stupid can seem like an appealing and easy caricature to project onto him. The thing is, I personally love Moffat episodes like this because they have a complicated structure while the actual content of the episode itself is completely straightforward.
Extremis is an episode where the Doctor discovers that an alien species is running simulations of life on Earth to figure out how best to invade. Boom. Done. Simple. On paper, this episode has nothing to it. The Doctor finds out that an invasion is coming. What makes the episode memorable and engaging is the way this simple story is told. It's often said that really interesting people can make reading the phonebook sound appealing, and in a way that's what a good Steven Moffat episode does. He takes easy to grasp concepts we've all seen before, like The Matrix or being stuck in a repeating time loop, and tells those stories to us in a way that maximises the surprises and twists and emotions. Take for example the scene I already mentioned where the Doctor shows up on the island to execute Missy. It's a simple scene; the Doctor is executing Missy. But if Moffat can squeeze a fun twist out of tricking you into thinking the Doctor is the one getting executed, he absolutely will. Although I fully sympathise with how frustrating he is to some viewers, I personally think he's a master storyteller.
Speaking of master storytelling, the story told about the Master is brilliant. Michelle Gomez is simply perfect as Missy. We saw less of her in this episode than I expected to but she absolutely owned every second of her limited screen time. She's a lot more subdued in this appearance, demonstrating Gomez's incredible range and genuine acting ability beyond her usual comedic outbursts. Every episode Missy is in adds new layers to her take on the character and her relationship with the Doctor, and it's an absolute pleasure to watch her portrayal grow and evolve, particularly for someone like me for whom the Master is one of their all-time favourite villains. I'm hoping that the multi-Master story at the end of Series 10 delivers a Missy scheme where she gets to be truly evil and in-charge because her last few appearances have sort of relegated her to the role of side character, but either way it's just great fun to have her back.
Peter Capaldi as the Doctor and Pearl Mackie as Bill Potts continue to be amazing and I'm glad we're getting to see more glimpses into Bill's home life. Nardole has grown on me a lot and I do like him more now than I thought I would, but I feel like he's fallen victim to the same problem that Clara had in Series 7. In the same way that Clara's early characterisation was overshadowed by the Impossible Girl arc, Nardole's character relies too heavily on the business with the Vault. Because of that, Matt Lucas isn't being given a fully-formed character to work with and instead has to rely on his default setting as a bumbling comedy sidekick, which he admittedly does well. The look he gives Bill when he puts his glasses back on after scolding her got a proper laugh out of me. I want to really love Nardole but the writers are giving him no depth outside of his connection to the Vault mystery, and once the Vault is out of the way Nardole probably isn't going to be a companion any more. It's a huge missed opportunity to finally have a memorable companion who isn't from modern-day Earth.
What makes this episode particularly memorable for me is the amazing aesthetic it has. Creepy zombie monks in red robes sneaking around in a secret library underneath the Vatican is such a specific look and tone but it really works. Similarly, I loved the look of the execution planet, from the costumes to the location to the Five Doctors-esque podium Missy had to kneel on. I just really loved the set and costume design of this episode. It evoked a tone that managed to press all of my fantasy buttons as well as my sci-fi buttons. I love crazy conspiracies and secret books of forbidden knowledge and monsters that look more organic than mechanical. I know that's about as subjective as a subjective opinion can be, but a big technological plot gimmick like a world inside a computer simulation being illustrated through medieval Christian imagery really works for some reason.
Extremis was exactly what Series 10 needed to wake itself up and break away from the standard RTD formula. I'm looking forward to seeing how everything set up in this episode pays off next week, and given that it's a Peter Harness script it'll obviously deliver. I hope we see Missy more over the coming weeks in a slightly bigger role leading up to the multi-Master story with Simm (but regardless, Missy is now the New Who Master with the most episodes and stories, fact fans). The second half of Series 10 looks incredible. We've got two more episodes with the monks, more appearances from Missy, the return of a Classic Who writer, Mark Gatiss writing an episode that sounds on paper to be perfectly suited to his talents, and the first ever televised multi-Master adventure. Here we fuckin go.
SPOILERY SPOILER TALK ABOUT MASTER-RELATED SPOILERS
So Michelle Gomez isn't coming back after Series 10. Fuck. If Bill is also confirmed to be leaving, I will have literally nothing to look forward to about post-Moffat Doctor Who. Capaldi is leaving, Gomez is leaving, Moffat is leaving, and a recent Jamie Mathieson interview confirmed our suspicions that Chris Chibnall is bringing back no, as in ZERO, previous writers. Of course, I understand that part of the charm of Doctor Who is that it's basically a massive patchwork quilt of different status quos and everyone has a different preference. Everyone has differing opinions in terms of what makes a good Doctor, Master, Companion, writer, director, TARDIS interior, opening title sequence, or Dalek colour scheme. Many people hate the Moffat era and to them the Chibnall era might be their golden age. I hope those people have great fun and get to feel the joy that RTD and Moffat have brought me. I'll always watch Doctor Who of course and I'm sure the Chibnall era will be amazing on its own terms. That being said, it's very hard for me to be optimistic about what's coming after Christmas. Really, now that Missy is leaving, whether or not I stay invested in the show depends on the identity of the Thirteenth Doctor.
When Peter Capaldi was revealed on that cringe-worthy live show, stepping out of the smoke like he was on Stars in Their Eyes, he wasn't just a new actor. Right away I knew that this meant a radical new direction for the character, away from the quirky boyfriend-esque figures of Tennant and Smith and back towards the unknowable cosmic mystery of Hartnell and the Bakers. It was exciting, because I wanted to see how this new casting decision would influence the storytelling of the series. That's exactly what the announcement of the Thirteenth Doctor has to do. It has to be a statement of intent. It has to let me know that this is still a show worth watching and that it's not about to become a bland shadow of its former self. As for the next Master, well, if it were up to me I'd just hold off on using the character until Michelle Gomez could be tempted back. Otherwise, my top choice would be Thandie Newton. Sadly though, I suspect that in the same way 'the Chibnall Doctor' is likely to be a young white bloke with entertaining hair and a focus-tested, market-researched, catchphrase-friendly version of British eccentricism, 'the Chibnall Master' is likely to be a middle-aged white bloke with a goatee. Neither of these are bad archetypes but they're both archetypes these two Time Lords have had before. I'll go into Series 11 with an open mind but still...fuck.