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Doctor Who season 10 episode 6. Extremis by Steven Moffat

No holy orders, no confessions, from here in there are spoilers!

Anything I say about this story or rather stories is going to be spoiler, so forgive me if I go into broad terms. There are two stories here. The first is about who is in the vault and it should come as no surprise who it is and the fact that the Doctor has another 950 years to go to fulfil his pledge. The bigger question is who did this other Time Lord…er Lady get caught in the first place and wasn’t devious enough to escape.

The other story is so dialogue heavy you have to wonder if Steven Moffat is filling up the gaps between the special effects. If you want it simple it’s the Doctor meets the Matrix, although it isn’t the one of the Gallifrey origin but another alien who wants to assess the people of the planet Earth before finally deciding their fate in the real world. The Veritas book is the way for any sim person to leave the simulated world. Still with me? Good. So explain why the stimulated Doctor can’t have his sight restored or did this alien make a snapshot that has adhered to current events.

Things aren’t helped by Bill noting that the Doctor is wearing sunglasses even in places with little light or not realising from how Nardole is describing far too much to him. Bill, no matter which version, can’t be that stupid in putting things together.

There is also the matter of plot being designed too much for a blind Doctor. Would he have had as much difficulty or ease with his vision intact? This tends to stab of convenience plotting. You have the limitation and use it to propel the plot rather than work out from how would the Doctor cope in such a situation. He doesn’t. He has Nardole doing the visual work what his sonic sunglasses can’t do. Reading’s a bitch.

The Pope and the Vatican layer seems to get forgotten along the way which is a bit confusing as he and his peers were travelling in the TARDIS.

Have I given too much away? The plot is in the above, although you might be a simulation and not be able to tell. Being critical is my means to prove I’m not.

IF

This is more the start of a story than the end. We know from the sampler for next week that more is to come. There are elements of this story that look like they are going to follow a predictable path. I hope Moffat has risen beyond that. Oh and to add to the mythology, Time Lords have three brain stems although no indication where they go or what kind of knotted path they lead to the spine.

(c) GF Willmetts 2017

 

UncleGeoff

Geoff Willmetts has been editor at SFCrowsnest for some 21 plus years now, showing a versatility and knowledge in not only Science Fiction, but also the sciences and arts, all of which has been displayed here through editorials, reviews, articles and stories. With the latter, he has been running a short story series under the title of ‘Psi-Kicks’ If you want to contribute to SFCrowsnest, read the guidelines and show him what you can do. If it isn’t usable, he spends as much time telling you what the problems is as he would with material he accepts. This is largely how he got called an Uncle, as in Dutch Uncle. He’s not actually Dutch but hails from the west country in the UK.

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