'Doctor Who' Episode 1 Review: The Doc is back and 'Spyfall' ramps up stakes in a big way
Spoiler Alert for Season 12, Episode 1 of 'Doctor Who'
After over a year of waiting, the Doctor (Jodie Whitaker) is back, and the show's proven itself to be worth the wait. The season premiere sets up an alien conspiracy and brings back the return of a classic foe with style.
'Spyfall' has a few humorous riffs on the spy genre, but for the most part defaults to a sci-fi thriller, with a new kind of alien species that has the Doctor herself stumped. The new aliens, are not as disturbing as the Weeping Angels, or as memorably weird as the Daleks. What they do, however, is make the show feel like the threat level has been drastically ratcheted up. They're coming in en masse from another reality, and they're not just here for the planet, but the entire universe. It's never a good sign when the Doctor is stumped by something, and it's worse when they're in league with the Master.
Speaking of whom, the Master is back, as well! We only get to see a few moments of Sacha Dhawan actually playing the Master, as he spends most of the episode undercover as the good-natured Agent 'O.' When he finally does reveal himself, however, it's a masterful (no pun intended) moment. After abandoning his 'O' cover, he brings a shaky instability to the character that makes him feel like a bomb without a timer, one that could go off at any moment. Even in his triumphant gloating, you can see that right beneath the surface, there's a rage there. The kind of rage that would see entire universes burned down.
The premiere sets up mystery and threats that are big enough to be the focus of this season. The Master's machinations aside, the new aliens are here to conquer an entire universe, and it seems that the Doctor's universe isn't the only earth they're on. The show is either teasing multiversal explorations this season, or it's establishing one of the biggest threats that the Doctor has ever faced, and either way, there's a lot to be excited about in the upcoming season.
The show's choice to have three companions instead of one continues to be entertaining, even if it does at times feel cumbersome for the Doctor to have so many people accompanying her on her missions. Graham (Bradley Walsh), Yasmin (Mandip Gill) and Ryan (Tosin Cole) are shown to have been putting their lives on hold, and making their excuses to explain their travels with the Doctor. Like most companions, none of them have any special skills that make them essential to the mission, but they do feel like the family that the Doctor keeps referring to them as. The show would not be the same without them, and with three companions, that's three times the danger the Doctor needs to be dealing with. Although, with the premiere's explosive cliffhanger, it might be up to the three of them to save themselves from their plane's descent.
The new season could not have had a better start. Stephen Fry's appearance as 'C' was delightful, and he's a character that's gone too soon. The humor the show's known for balances well with the terror of the new alien threat, and it's always exciting to see the return of the Master. The Master technically shouldn't be alive, right now, but science fiction has an infinite number of ways to get around that problem. As the Master himself says of the Doctor, while he's under the guise of 'O'.
The next episode of 'Doctor Who' airs January 5, on BBC America.
