2nd Opinion: Spyfall, Part One

This post contains full spoilers for episode 1 of Series 12.

JC’s View – Promising

Part One of Spyfall is a promising start to Series 12, and arguably Chris Chibnall’s best solo written Doctor Who episode yet. But considering where his prior episodes rank in most fan’s lists, it wasn’t terribly hard to achieve that.

Despite being annoyed with how brazenly UNIT and Torchwood have been written out of the show, I quite liked the set-up of the Doctor and co. being summoned to MI6. Stephen Fry immediately added a large element of class in his role as “C”. Killing him off mere minutes later though, I felt was an utter waste of his talents. Lenny Henry was at least decent as the other main guest actor, CEO baddie Daniel Barton. I particularly liked his latter confrontation with the Doctor.

The main monster was effective. Unlike the vast majority of Series 11’s offerings, I was immediately more intrigued by these phase-shifting entities (although if they turn out to be Cybermen like in “Army of Ghosts”, then RTD should have a word). I thought the scene where the Doctor, “O” and Graham were surrounded was particularly tense, followed up by Jodie attempting to communicate with the captive (even if it aped Torchwood: Children of Earth).

I was glad that Chibnall tried to give each companion something more to do. Too many episodes last time around had the companions just standing around, not really adding much. Pairing up Ryan and Yaz and allowing them to pose as journalist and photographer was fun. Graham, the most well-realised character of Series 11, ironically felt the most peripheral.

The episode still contains some of Chibnall’s trademark flaws. Pacing is inconsistent – some things move along way too quickly, some scenes really lag. The dialogue is noticeably clunky in spots – characters have a habit of stating the obvious, as to constantly remind the audience what’s going on. They can feel less like well-rounded characters, and more like exposition/info dumpers. The action scenes also could have been better, but they tried at least.

Now, as much as the fan in me loves having the Master back, I’m somewhat conflicted at the moment. My biggest worry is, I wonder if it’s probably a bit too soon for a return. “The Doctor Falls” still feels quite fresh in the memory. I also feel that the work that Moffat put into making the character much more complex risks being tarnished.

Sacha Dhawan seems to be imitating an early John Simm version of the character. It comes across as a rather one-dimensional throwback in contrast to Michelle Gomez’s layered Missy at this point. Granted, this is based on minutes from the big reveal and I will reserve final judgment until I’ve seen more of him, but right now I preferred it when he was playing things straighter as “O”.

Jodie Whittaker had a couple of good moments, but I’m personally still left wanting for a defining scene that makes me really go “yes, that’s the Doctor!” Scenes like: where Nine tells Rose he can feel “the turn of the earth”, Ten tells the Sycorax “No second chances”, Eleven warns the Atraxi to “run”. All of which occurred in the respective Doctor’s first episodes. I hope with the Master back on the scene now, they’ll be some bigger moments for Jodie to spar and shine in episode 2.

Gustaff’s View – Damage Control

…Doctor Who does Tuxedo and Martini Spy Fiction

Series 12 certainly kicked off with a bang. As it should…another episode reduction. Really Doctor Who? We’re down from 11 (including a special) to 10 (including a special) per year now. On the other hand, the visual style and cinematography continues to be an improvement over the previous series…barring the strange font bridging different locations.

Going into Series 12 it is crystal clear that Chibnall is hell-bent on doing damage control for a lot of his Series 11 decisions. No classic monsters – we get the Master in episode one! No pre-credit scenes – whoops they’re back! No long arcs – keep watching Series 12! No two-parters – here is our season two-part extravaganza! While the above speaks volumes about Series 11, it should be acknowledged that Chibnall is at least trying to listen to fan complaints. It’s just a pity it took two years and one season for him to learn what everyone else already knew.

Spyfall serves as a massive improvement over the last episode. One of these improvements is the monster of the week. Virtually nothing of importance is learned about them, other than they are extremely powerful and very dangerous. But their inclusion makes me want to invest my time in the episode and learn what is really going on.

Moving onto format, this episode either successfully mimics a James Bond spy thriller, or suffers from an overwhelmingly large influx spy clichés. They are everywhere and blatant and if you’re a fan of spy movies, chances are you’ll appreciate the effort on the part of the production team. If not, it’ll mostly come across as uninteresting.

The episode tries to give all its characters something to do, a battle it mostly wins. Yaz’s reaction to her two-minute entrapment implies that she has never been captured whilst travelling with the Doctor. It doesn’t help that Chibnall is still trying to ‘tell’ rather than ‘show’. Yaz is called the ‘best’ her CO has on staff despite the fact that she, a trained police officer, did nothing after being held at gunpoint in Series 11. Not only that she uses those skills of hers to encourage two people NOT to involve the police because they made an accident even though most insurance companies require a filed report if you want to claim and also compels you to report accidents as part of the requirements for having insurance even if you don’t claim. Sorry Chibnall, Yaz is a terrible police officer.

Graham mostly sticks to all the comedic moments he’s given. The story of a man grieving for his wife wrapped up last series so it’ll be interesting to see what the character goes from here.

I am enormously grateful at the toning down of Thirteen’s more cosplaying antics. Aiming the sonic screwdriver like she’s pitching in a baseball game, and those scrounge faces she makes every other scene seem to be toned down a lot. Good. Keep it that way.

It was a good trick on the Master reveal. For fans like myself who put two and two together the moment Doctor and company visited a sacked MI6 employee in the middle of an alien-on-spy-attack, making the spymaster the actual Master is a great way of subverting expectations. Right now I don’t have an opinion on the new Master yet. Unlike John Simm who made an immediate impression as a blatant evil version of the Tenth Doctor, the O-Master comes across as a little all over the place and not quite sure how to present himself yet. However, Sacha Dhawan gives a great performance as O, so I’m very interested to see where he takes the Master.

Extra credit should be given to Chris Chibnall if you didn’t manage to put together that O was really the Master. The foreshadowing is almost giving you the middle finger by the end of it:

• Right before he is shot, C mentions that Barton may be a double or triple agent for someone. His surprised reaction? “Oh.”
• O’s technology manages to hold off the glowing creatures while the Doctor still can’t even get a reading off them.
• O mentions how unlikely it would be for Barton’s identity to be fake given how many pictures there are of him at various ages on the Internet. Anyone who has seen Series 3 will know that the Master has done this exact thing as Harold Saxon, and the Doctor should know it.
• The stolen alien data from Barton is encrypted using the same technique that O used on the picture he sent to the Doctor.
• O tells the Doctor she should be looking for the spy “master” behind the conspiracy.
• The flying house outside is a homage to The Wizard of Oz. Who used to call themselves the Wicked Witch?

…that is some clever writing for an author whose previous Doctor Who episodes all rank as some of the least popular in the revived series, according to polls on this very site. Not only that but Spyfall might just be Chibnall’s best contribution to Doctor Who so far. Let’s hope he can keep it up moving forward.

Stray Observation:

I’m starting to think the Doctor’s new regeneration cycle is faulty in places. This is the second Doctor to not recognize another Time Lord upon seeing them. Twelve didn’t recognize Missy and Thirteen doesn’t recognize O-Master upon meeting them and neither was using an Archangel Network to disguise their identity.