Doctor Who - World Enough and Time Review

I really hope that Bill survives.

This post will have some spoilers, if you wanted to watch this episode completely fresh then read the review after you’ve seen it.

I think Bill Potts has probably been the most universally popular companion since Rose Tyler, surely they can’t kill her off. Pearl Mackie once again shone in this episode and Bill has been an incredibly likeable character. After they’ve done pretty well on showing her sexuality and yet still making Bill feel like a well-rounded character it would be massively frustrating and problematic if Doctor Who fell into the tired trope of killing off the lesbian.

I’ve mentioned before that I don’t like Missy. In my review from last week I talked about how I was a bit unconvinced by the Missy redemption arc from this series. She wasn’t as irritating as she has been previously this week and some of her one-liners actually got a little chuckle from me. I’m still not sure if she’s actually going to get her redemption – I possibly suspect that she might sacrifice herself during next week’s epic battle.  

The Cybermen are back. In my opinion the Cybermen can be some of the scariest Doctor Who monsters around, however so often they’re not very well written which has led to lots of mediocre Cybermen stories over the years. This episode certainly gave us some very sinister, eerie and tense moments. It also showed just enough but left enough to the imagination which is always a good tactic for making things scary.

Bringing back the original Mondasian Cybermen as they first appeared back in 1966’s The Tenth Planet was an interesting idea however it could have been little more than fan service. I think it remains to be seen with next week’s episode if it was more than just fan service. However I am not really sure if we needed to see another origin story for the Cybermen. 2006’s Age of Steel did a good job at modernising the origin of the Cybermen in what is in my opinion one of the best stories from that series. The Big Finish audio drama Spare Parts already told an emotionally moving origin story for the Mondasian Cybermen. Also that line about the ‘genesis of the Cybermen’ just felt far too self-indulgent.

The Master is also back this week. I am not a fan of John Simm as the Master, in my opinion 2007’s The Sound of Drums and 2009’s The End Of Time are two of the very worse stories from the entire 10^th Doctor era. So as you might imagine I was very disappointed when I found out that the Master was back. Despite most of the promotion for this week making it seem like the Master was going to be a very significant part of this week’s episode he actually wasn’t in it very much. However that reveal at the end of the episode felt exactly like something out of the 3^rd Doctor era.

Overall I feel that this episode was mainly focused on setting up part two next week. There were definitely some moments during the middle which felt like the plot was sagging slightly. I suppose it would have been too much to cram into a single episode however I think this week parts of the story were stretched a little bit too thin.

I both eagerly await next week’s episode to find out what happens next but at the same time I don’t want to see what has overall been a good series of Doctor Who come to an end!

Please don’t kill off Bill!