Doctor Who: World Enough and Time.

Well that was pretty damn good.

Steven Moffat gets a lot of flack for his writing, some it deserved, but most of it misplaced. The common complaint I’ve heard is that he’s obsessed with self-aware humour and fan service references.

In terms of the self-aware humour, I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t annoy me sometimes. This episode in particular goes overboard on it, with too many winks to the camera to a scene. I’m fine with Missy and the Doctor acknowledging that neither of their back stories make any sense and that throwing out lines like “He’s called Doctor Who; look at all the screens” but it’s just that they all come too close together. It’s difficult to engage in the episode when the self-aware dialogue is removing you from it every few seconds.

As far as the fan service references go, I’ve always seen them as secondary to the stories he’s building. They’ve never really bothered me and I always liked that Moffat is clearly a fan of the show and wants you to know it.

This episode it a showcase of Moffat’s ability as a writer. While it does have a significant development for Bill, the episode is actually about the Doctor and Missy.

This is a fact that you don’t really realise until the end. Bill’s transformation into a Cyberman is ultimately a distraction, from really delving into who Missy (and the Master) really is.

The Master is a dark parody of the Doctor and that’s the point that the story builds up to. The Doctors motivation in trying to help Missy is that she’s the only other Time Lord who’s ever seen the universe as he has.

I especially like the way that this factors in to her not recognizing her predecessor. In the same way as the Doctor appears to disregard memories from his previous incarnations (Twelve only ever feels de-ja-vu when he see’s something that we know Ten or Eleven already dealt with). Where all incarnations of the Doctor will cross their own timeline in order to save just one planet out of billions, the Master will cross his because he’s worried that his future incarnation isn’t killing enough people.

It’s not perfect; John Simm’s make up job isn’t really good enough so you guess it’s him as soon as he turns up and the time difference thing with the ship (while necessary) is really annoying.

But overall, this is a showcase of character driven story and definitely recommended.

Regarding the opening stinger with the Doctor regenerating, I don’t think that they’d do two fake outs in one series.

Moffat has said that this year’s Christmas special is going to be unlike any other in terms of the Doctor. Personally, I think that means the Doctor will be in a pre-regeneration state right up until the climax of the episode, possibly with the new Doctor surfacing in time to beat whoever the villain is.