The fuck was that? I love The Master more than anyone, but the show needs breaks from its greatest villain. We had three seasons jam packed with Missy, so we needed at least two or three seasons with no Master whatsoever. But nope! We get the Master back again and, after the magnificent gender swap and the incomparable performance of Michelle Gomez, and at a time when the Doctor is finally a woman, the Master has regenerated back into a man. He’s also regressed from the character that The Doctor almost turned good in “The Doctor Falls” and seems to have returned to his old schtick of trying to kill the Doctor. I’ll give them credit for making the Master’s identity a twist at the end, like it always should be, unlike John Simm’s not-so-surprise appearance at the end of “The World Enough and Time” that was spoiled by all the trailers, but this just feels like going back to the well way too soon.
That being said, if the character has to be brought back and downgraded back into a man, Sacha Dhawan is a perfect casting choice. I think some tabloid got ahold of the news that Dhawan was the new Master, but tabloids have been reporting a lot of wacky nonsense lately that has turned out to be horseshit, so I didn’t necessarily believe that. Dhawan goes from innocent and friendly and even flirting with Yaz only to turn on a dime and letting his deliciously sinister side out. His expressions on the plane are absolutely priceless, and were frankly my favorite part of the episode. While I have some problems with the way this Master was handled, I have nothing but praise for the casting choice.
But that’s the problem with this episode: it’s mostly just killing time until we get to a pretty mediocre reveal at the end of the episode. The whole thing was fairly dull, to be honest. The episode plays around with some tropes from the Daniel Craig Bond films, which I have to admit a certain prejudice against. I fell asleep during Skyfall, so when I heard that this episode was going to be “Spyfall” you could color me less than thrilled. And by the time we get to the big cliffhanger, I’m left with more questions than answers, but I really don’t care what the answers to those questions are going to turn out to be in part two. Why are these aliens attacking spies and dumping them in some creepy forest? Why is the Master involved in this? Why was Stephen Fry brought in only to be killed off after about three minutes?
Actually, let’s touch back on this one, why bring in Stephen Fry for so short a time? Rumor has it he was offered the role of the Doctor during the classic series, and it’s known he wrote a script for the revived series in season two that never got made, so after years of almost getting one of the greatest comic actors of all time on the show we finally get him for an extremely minor role that’s over too quickly.
So pretty much the only saving grace in this snoozer of an episode was Sacha Dhawan’s brilliant performance. The rest was a snoozer of an opener to this season and I can only hope that part two picks up the pace and delivers something a lot more interesting than part one.
Oh, and like all good Who villains need to be resurrected, welcome to the resurrection of (the slightly redesigned) Horror of Fan Blog! I tried to retire it last season in favor of posting on the Mile High Who website. But I got sidetracked, and now the MHW website is no more. So this season my reviews will appear in the blog and as notes in the Mile High Who Facebook group. Let’s get ready for what, I hope, will be a better season than that episode suggests.
No comments:
Post a Comment