Doctor Who: The Lie of the Land

Well that was the slowest action packed episode ever.

This episode wasn’t bad from story perspective (aside from the end), but the pacing issues from last week come back and destroy it. Everything is so slow.

It starts pretty well showing how the Monks have re-written history, inserting themselves into every major event. Anyone who questions this is removed for questioning the “true history.”

Once again, the series is being pretty political focusing on the theme of people just going along with what they are told has happened/is happening and not investigating it for themselves. It’s not a bad theme to explore, but like I said the episode takes so long to say anything that it’s difficult to stay interested.

Other low points include the Doctor and Bill trying to figure out whether one of the other is turned evil. This ends in Bill shooting the Doctor in order to prevent him from helping the Monks. Then the Doctor fakes a regeneration and reveals that they’re still on the same side. The irritating thing is that this scene was done entirely for the series trailer. There is no reason for the Doctor to fake a regeneration. Everyone else in the room is in on the deception and Bill doesn’t even know what happens when an incarnation of the Doctor is killed.

It’s not all bad. Missy is back and her interactions with the Doctor and Bill are pretty good. However now that we have confirmation that it’s just Missy in the vault, it doesn’t make sense for Nardole and the Doctor to have been enigmatic about the whole thing especially when talking to each other.

And now…the ending.

The Doctor theorizes that he can use his brain power to overpower the illusion that’s being peddled to people by the Monks. When this fails, Bill has to step in with the power of her imaged mother. The idea is that the Monks can only affect real memories and real history. Bill’s mother as she knows her is pure imagination and fantasy so trying to replace her in Bill’s mind doesn’t work and loosens their grip on the world.

First point, the idea of Bill’s mum being her imaginary friend hasn’t been properly addressed until the beginning of this very episode, making her a one episode daus ex machina rather than a part of Bill’s personality. Second point, this is the same ending that The Rings of Akhaten had. In that episode, The Doctor attempted to overpower a telepathic being with the power of his brain and memories only to fail. At this point, Clara used a symbol of her late mother to overpower this being. The reasoning was pretty much the same; this creature could use memories to it’s advantage, but it couldn’t handle the fantasy of what a person could have had with someone they lost.

It’s a good theme to explore, as is the idea of drawing strength from loss, but when the series has already done it (better) in the past it loses it’s meaning.

Overall, not a satisfying ending to the Monk’s trilogy.