I've wanted for a long time now a epic three-part adventure. One that can expand the story into lots of different directions and give us classic villains and brilliantly built-up plot devices. This arc begins with Extremis, in my opinion, one of Steven Moffat's best scripts in years.
Last week's Oxygen ended with the Doctor left blind by his adventure in outer-space, relying on his trusty yet controversial Sonic Sunglasses for help with navigating his way around. I'm really glad this concept was continued beyond Oxygen, it's a brilliant idea and it makes for a great story in Extremis.
The episode starts off with a flashback to the Doctor arriving on a planet to kill his nemesis Missy. I'm not sure why she's been sentenced to death by these... people, but any excuse to have her back is fine by me! It's great having Michelle Gomez back as Missy again, and she gives another brilliant performance as the best incarnation of the Master by far!
This flashback reveals that it was in fact Missy in the Doctor's secret vault, which was a reveal that was not exactly grand or explosive, more like it just pops up during a conversation.
It's also not as surprising as I would've liked. With the way it was being built up, I was expecting something totally new and dangerous to be revealed in a tense, exciting scenario, but instead it goes with the twist that pretty much everyone saw coming a mile off.
It's weird seeing Missy begging the Doctor not to kill her though. This cold, genius character, who has tried on more than one occasion to turn the Doctor over to her sadistic villainous ways, kneels in front of him and appeals to his sense of mercy. To give her one last chance to turn 'good'.
It's surreal and a great direction for the character, even if it's been done before. Steven Moffat seems to enjoy taking long standing villains and showing us their human side. He did it with Davros in The Witch's Familiar, and he's doing it again with Missy. This is something that makes for thrilling and deep drama, but also limits their future as a recurring character in my eyes. Davros could only really go in one direction in The Witch's Familiar. He had to turn bad again at the end to make for a workable climax. I feel like Missy will probably go down the same road later on in the series but I could be wrong.
Anyway, the rest of the episode revolves around a book called the 'Veritas', which is an ancient book that has only recently been translated, which begins causing problems when everyone who reads the book commits suicide. I was gripped by this plot right from the off as it felt like a very interesting idea, and I was excited to see how this would pan out.
The Doctor, Bill and Nardole head to the Vatican's secret library which features some fantastic direction and set design by the way.
Inside, they find a man who has email a copy of the Veritas to different organisations. After finding him, the man runs and shoots himself. Bill and Nardole head off the look for him, and they find a portal which leads to several different places on Earth such as the Pentagon. Meanwhile the Doctor tries to get his sight back temporarily by using a... device to borrow it from his future, but before he can read the Veritas he is interrupted by the menacing Monks.
These creatures look absolutely amazing by the way. The costume designers did a fantastic job bringing these creatures to life as they genuinely scary, and very well designed.
The doctor takes the man's laptop and tries to read the Veritas but his sight begins to fail just as he starts reading, leading to him being chases through the library with his failing sight in one of my of my favourite scenes in this episode. It's scenes like that make me really glad they didn't drop this concept after Oxygen because it makes for a very tense and exciting chase that doesn't just come down to running around again, but has some very serious stakes this time.
Bill and Nardole step through a portal when they find themselves in CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). They find a team of scientists who are preparing to blow themselves up. When asking one of the scientists why they are doing this, the scientist demonstrates the Shadow test to Bill, when he asks her and Nardole to quickly say a number, they both reply the same number at the same time. He keeps repeating this test until eventually the whole room is saying the same number together. I love this scene, it's so harrowing and creepy and it's definitely my favourite scene of the episode.
Bill and Nardole run back into the portal where Nardole works out that those worlds are just simulations. He also works out that he is a simulation which causes him to disappear. Bill finds the Doctor who, having listened to the Veritas through a computer, explains to Bill that the book explains about a computer simulation that an alien race are using to learn about Earth, in order to invade it.
If you want to know whether you're real or not, do the shadow test. This confirms to Bill that they are all just simulations.
Bill disappears at the hands of a monk and the Doctor uses the memory that has been recorded though his Sunglasses and sends it to the real Doctor to warn him of invasion.
Once I'd wrapped my head around this, I felt this twist was a brilliant. I really enjoyed the build-up of this episode. It's classic Moffat style, before he forgot what made his stories so compelling. This episode kicks off the Monk trilogy in fine style.
Last week's Oxygen ended with the Doctor left blind by his adventure in outer-space, relying on his trusty yet controversial Sonic Sunglasses for help with navigating his way around. I'm really glad this concept was continued beyond Oxygen, it's a brilliant idea and it makes for a great story in Extremis.
The episode starts off with a flashback to the Doctor arriving on a planet to kill his nemesis Missy. I'm not sure why she's been sentenced to death by these... people, but any excuse to have her back is fine by me! It's great having Michelle Gomez back as Missy again, and she gives another brilliant performance as the best incarnation of the Master by far!
This flashback reveals that it was in fact Missy in the Doctor's secret vault, which was a reveal that was not exactly grand or explosive, more like it just pops up during a conversation.
It's also not as surprising as I would've liked. With the way it was being built up, I was expecting something totally new and dangerous to be revealed in a tense, exciting scenario, but instead it goes with the twist that pretty much everyone saw coming a mile off.
It's weird seeing Missy begging the Doctor not to kill her though. This cold, genius character, who has tried on more than one occasion to turn the Doctor over to her sadistic villainous ways, kneels in front of him and appeals to his sense of mercy. To give her one last chance to turn 'good'.
It's surreal and a great direction for the character, even if it's been done before. Steven Moffat seems to enjoy taking long standing villains and showing us their human side. He did it with Davros in The Witch's Familiar, and he's doing it again with Missy. This is something that makes for thrilling and deep drama, but also limits their future as a recurring character in my eyes. Davros could only really go in one direction in The Witch's Familiar. He had to turn bad again at the end to make for a workable climax. I feel like Missy will probably go down the same road later on in the series but I could be wrong.
Anyway, the rest of the episode revolves around a book called the 'Veritas', which is an ancient book that has only recently been translated, which begins causing problems when everyone who reads the book commits suicide. I was gripped by this plot right from the off as it felt like a very interesting idea, and I was excited to see how this would pan out.
The Doctor, Bill and Nardole head to the Vatican's secret library which features some fantastic direction and set design by the way.
Inside, they find a man who has email a copy of the Veritas to different organisations. After finding him, the man runs and shoots himself. Bill and Nardole head off the look for him, and they find a portal which leads to several different places on Earth such as the Pentagon. Meanwhile the Doctor tries to get his sight back temporarily by using a... device to borrow it from his future, but before he can read the Veritas he is interrupted by the menacing Monks.
These creatures look absolutely amazing by the way. The costume designers did a fantastic job bringing these creatures to life as they genuinely scary, and very well designed.
The doctor takes the man's laptop and tries to read the Veritas but his sight begins to fail just as he starts reading, leading to him being chases through the library with his failing sight in one of my of my favourite scenes in this episode. It's scenes like that make me really glad they didn't drop this concept after Oxygen because it makes for a very tense and exciting chase that doesn't just come down to running around again, but has some very serious stakes this time.
Bill and Nardole step through a portal when they find themselves in CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). They find a team of scientists who are preparing to blow themselves up. When asking one of the scientists why they are doing this, the scientist demonstrates the Shadow test to Bill, when he asks her and Nardole to quickly say a number, they both reply the same number at the same time. He keeps repeating this test until eventually the whole room is saying the same number together. I love this scene, it's so harrowing and creepy and it's definitely my favourite scene of the episode.
Bill and Nardole run back into the portal where Nardole works out that those worlds are just simulations. He also works out that he is a simulation which causes him to disappear. Bill finds the Doctor who, having listened to the Veritas through a computer, explains to Bill that the book explains about a computer simulation that an alien race are using to learn about Earth, in order to invade it.
If you want to know whether you're real or not, do the shadow test. This confirms to Bill that they are all just simulations.
Bill disappears at the hands of a monk and the Doctor uses the memory that has been recorded though his Sunglasses and sends it to the real Doctor to warn him of invasion.
Once I'd wrapped my head around this, I felt this twist was a brilliant. I really enjoyed the build-up of this episode. It's classic Moffat style, before he forgot what made his stories so compelling. This episode kicks off the Monk trilogy in fine style.