Holistic Review: A rather clever gimmick leads to... well, we're not really sure yet.
Steven Moffat has pleasantly surprised me. I had two big concerns about this week's episode and, as it turns out, there was no need for me to worry. (Not that I can blame myself for it!) First of all, the Doctor does indeed stay blind for the entirety of this week's episode (with no sign of it abating anytime soon), and he does indeed have to find ways to compensate so that nobody else notices. Given my musings last week, I wryly note that, like Geordi LaForge, the Doctor is equipped with a VISOR-substitute: in his case, the sonic sunglasses help him make out the general outline of objects in the room, while also listing the vital statistics of any people present. These are reasonable abilities; they make the storytelling a little bit easier, but they don't compensate for the Doctor's lack of vision so completely that he might as well be sighted. He does still have to fumble for things, and he's completely unaware of any visual cues. Plus he's forced to wear the sunglasses constantly, even indoors, a fact which does not go unnoticed or unremarked-upon by Bill.
Aside from the sonic sunglasses, the Doctor's second source of support is Nardole. Having been taken into the Doctor's confidence, Nardole is uniquely able to discreetly serve as his eyes, and therefore rarely leaves the Doctor's side. His attempts to subtly clue the Doctor in to what's happening are really funny, in an "oh my goodness it's all going to come crashing down at any minute" kind of way, especially the moment in which Nardole appears to have wandered into a less-rigorously-edited Big Finish audio story: "Oh look, it's, er, a mysterious light shining round a corner, approximately 10 feet away." Ha! (I hasten to add, of course, that most Big Finish stories are far better scripted... but every once in a while, a writer just can't avoid a flat-out "that slimy purple monster is pointing its ray-gun at us!" moment. Nicely skewered here, even if unintentionally.) Generally, Nardole (and Matt Lucas, from a naturalistic-acting perspective) does a great job of tossing the Doctor hints, like when they stumble upon a "laptop!" next to a "reading chair with a safety belt!"
And that's my second surprise from Moffat: having regained scriptwriting control of Nardole, he actually writes him perfectly. I thought for sure Nardole's personality would revert in Extremis, at least a little bit, but sure enough Moffat seems to have realized how well his new personality is working, and so Nardole stays beautifully in (revised) character the entire time: he frequently scolds the Doctor but dutifully obeys his every command, he demonstrates a healthy respect for danger but not outright cowardice, and he shows considerable scientific prowess and deductive know-how. Moffat even goes one better, and reveals that Nardole is one of the few people in the universe who can actually order the Doctor around, and he's not shy about applying those skills to other people in his orbit. It gives Nardole the spine he was sorely lacking in his first few stories, and I love it. It's all about balance. A great empowering speech like the one he gives Bill, in which he claims to be a real tough guy, makes his whimper of fright immediately afterward all the funnier. And, joy of joys, we finally get some of Nardole's backstory: the Doctor didn't rebuild him out of loneliness (unless it was on Darillium and River was gallivanting around on her own); rather, River sent him to keep an eye on the Doctor. (What, she doesn't trust him to remain one of the good guys after her death? Based on his encounter with Missy, she needn't have worried.) Sure, it's a total retcon that conflicts with The Return of Doctor Mysterio, but this new backstory is totally in keeping with his new house-mum persona, so I'm completely on board with the revision. Another element of his backstory that's all but confirmed is that Nardole has indeed been accompanying the Doctor for all these hundreds of years, so we can perhaps assume that whether or not Nardole's species is itself long-lived, the Doctor's cybernetic upgrades have probably helped to keep Nardole alive as his manservant for the last millennium. Between his revised and beefed-up backstory, and his un-regressed personality, I'm warming to Nardole ever so much.
There's lots more to love about the story, too, but I feel the need to step on the brakes for a second before the praise-train goes runaway. Because while it has its great moments, Extremis also feels a bit undercooked.
Of course, much of the reason for Extremis feeling underdeveloped is that, well, it doesn't tell the whole story, quite deliberately. Extremis is half a story, the prequel to a future episode in which the monsters execute their plan to conquer the Earth, sort of like Mission to the Unknown before The Daleks' Masterplan. We know what's coming, and now the Doctor has a hint, but the story itself hasn't really gotten started yet. This was just a tantalizing glimpse.
On one hand, the plot is so inventive. The premise of a book that kills anyone who reads it is, if not entirely original, certainly a compelling hook. But even more, I absolutely love the idea of telling a story from the POV of a parallel-universe version of our characters, especially because we switch POVs right after the teaser, so we don't realize that we're no longer watching "our" Doctor. What's especially clever is that because this computer-generated universe operates according to rules different from our own, Moffat can play with scenes — like the shadow test — that would completely upend everything we thought we knew, which indeed is what I thought for a moment was happening. But because he's playing in a different universe, Moffat can take the narrative in directions that are normally off-limits, like killing Nardole and Bill. What it reminds me of is a weird, yet brilliant, cross between Inferno (a parallel universe with a bleak future) and The Invisible Enemy (in which part of the story is told from the POV of short-lived duplicates of the regulars). This leads to some really memorable moments, like the chilling scene of the CERN employees chiming in with Bill and Nardole to recite the same sequence of random numbers, and of course the aforementioned death-by-pixellation of Nardole and Bill. And quite frankly, the idea of creating a shadow world to practice conquering is flat-out brilliant; I'm surprised more alien species haven't tried it.
But on the other hand, I have a hard time finding the storyline realistic, because the whole thing hinges on a premise that I don't quite buy into. While it would indeed be very jarring to realize that your entire universe was part of a computer simulation, would that knowledge really drive you to kill yourself? Sure, some people would find it impossible to accept; but everyone? Especially religious and scientific experts, whom one would expect to be the best-equipped to cope with such a shocking paradigm disruption. The thing is, even if you're a computer simulation, death is still death, committing suicide is going to be just as painful as if you were "real", and life within a computer simulation is better than no life at all. (Just ask River. I think she'd agree; or at least, for her sake, I hope so.) But maybe the reason why I can't imagine people becoming suicidal is because this isn't an entirely hypothetical situation? I suspect that I would've found this plot concept utterly chilling except that it was ripped from the headlines. Just last January — so after Extremis was already written and filmed, meaning that either Moffat is chums with some cutting-edge astrophysicists, or he may have inadvertently predicted the future — science websites were abuzz with the news that a study (Afshordi, Coriano, Delle Rose, Gould, and Skenderis 2017) had confirmed observational evidence that the universe could, in fact, be a hologram. Apparently the theory dates to the 1990s, but now mounting evidence suggests that there could actually be some truth to it. Did I commit suicide upon reading that article? No. Nor, as far as I'm aware, did any of the scientists who proposed or subsequently studied the hypothesis. Granted, there's a world of difference (literally!) between an unproven hypothesis and the incontrovertible evidence of the shadow test, but if our universe really is just a computer simulation...? So what? I'll still go on living my life just as I always have, because this holographic simulation has awesome food and great TV. Even if you learned that your life wasn't "real", it's still your life. I'm much more convinced by the emotional resonance of storylines about "unreal" people who fight to stay alive. (Think Data from TNG, or Voyager's holographic doctor.) So I absolutely cannot accept the possibility that the entirety of CERN — all 30ish of them, whoa! — would decide to blow themselves up with dynamite to "save the world". Especially when their justification is "this isn't the world", ie, they're not actually going to save anything, thus the explosion that kills them all is nothing but a futile gesture.
If not for the fact that this Doctor is a copy, I would also be much more alarmed about the development that the Doctor trades some future heath, or possibly all his future lives, for a few minutes of eyesight. For that reason alone, I'm really glad this turned out to be a computer simulation. Especially because, as he later realizes, there's a much simpler and far less damaging solution at hand in the form of a laptop + an already-translated e-mail attachment + software that can read your e-mails aloud. (I mean, really Doctor, let's not jump straight to the last-ditch plan, mmkay?)
One last note on the plot: while the mass suicides are initially disturbing, and form a potentially scary plot point, there's an uncomfortable shift in the way they're portrayed when the Doctor discloses the truth to Bill: "Those deaths, they weren't suicide. Those were people escaping." In other words, "it's not as tragic as we thought that these people committed suicide. Actually, they were kind of heroic." Maybe I'm just over-sensitive after all the hullaballoo around 13 Reasons Why, but is this not glorifying suicide just the tiniest bit? Might some depressed teens watch this episode and think "I'm not committing suicide, I'm just escaping my horrible life"? I'm really not entirely comfortable with the way this plot element develops.
And speaking of things that develop, this week's monster is not one of them. Because Extremis is just their practice run, the monsters are kept shrouded in mystery, to the point that we don't even know the name of their species yet. (Oh okay, the credits are calling them "the Monks". Unoriginal much?) Extremis seems to want to keep them tightly under wraps, to build anticipation for their heavily hinted-at return, whenever that might be. Which is all well and good, except that Extremis tells us almost literally nothing about them. We know that they look like dessicated corpses, they wear red robes, they're technologically advanced enough to build entire simulated hologram-worlds, and for whatever reason, they want to conquer the Earth (and killing the Doctor is fine too, though they don't express any particular predilection for it, beyond the fact that it's a necessity; in fact, they seem to prefer toying with him). This is intriguing but, again, not scary. They look menacing — their conceptual DNA seems to contain elements of the Veil and the Foretold and the Whispermen and the Sibylline Sisterhood — but "menacing" is all they ever do to people. They claim to have killed the Doctor at least dozens of times, but we never see them kill him, or anyone else for that matter. They want to conquer the Earth, but how do they plan to do that? What will they do with the Earth once they have it? And what will happen to its inhabitants? Answering any of these questions might have given us some actual trepidation for their rematch, because — like Inferno — we'd know full well the consequences if the Doctor failed to stop them. But in Extremis, we're just meant to find them scary-looking.
Another underdeveloped element: the Doctor's Gallifreyan reading aid, a literal plot device with a completely undefined function. I initially assumed that it would scan and perhaps directly transmit the contents of the Veritas into the Doctor's brain, so that he could "read" it even without his eyesight or a Braille-analogue. But the Doctor never uses it for that purpose; instead, it seems to have the quite bizarre ability to enable him to borrow sight from the future. Even a line of explanation would have helped, because as it is, it feels like an utter macguffin.
Finally, I feel the need to gripe about the title. It's a great title, really it is. But ummmm, what does it mean? I'll even quote River's diary in full:
The only time that 'virtue is only virtue in extremis' actually comes into play is the moment when Missy confesses, moments before her execution, that she genuinely considers the Doctor to be a friend, and even then only if she doesn't know that the Doctor has tampered with the wiring. Otherwise, we see nobody making any hard choices to sacrifice themselves for others, or reject revenge in favor of mercy. How does this phrase give the Doctor the idea to e-mail the videorecording to himself? No clue. (Okay, I get it now: the idea is that even when the Doctor knows his own death is imminent, he'll try to do the right thing and save others. But when was that ever in doubt? Did he need to be reminded?) Worse yet, the episode keeps trying to find ways to shoehorn the title in. Why does the Doctor title his e-mail 'Extremis'? Why does the Pope tell the Doctor that he's paying a visit because of "Extremis" rather than, say, "Veritas"? (Not that either word would mean anything to the Doctor!) It doesn't make a lick of sense, and yet I can tell that I'm supposed to find it profound.
To my surprise and delight, we've hardly had any examples of the Shut-Up Counter this season, only a couple of scattered examples in the last several episodes. I let the last couple slide, but this time I'll make it official:
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So in spite of my spoiler-averse tendencies, I did get spoiled on a couple of details: that this episode involved an ancient book called the Veritas, and that it featured the return of Missy. (That one was more vague, but when several sources mention Missy's return, one can only assume that it's happening in the upcoming episode.) Add that together with several other reports which mentioned that we'd be finding out sooner rather than later who was in the vault and, well... it all reminded me of Androzani's frequent mantra: that when you're dealing with a Steven Moffat mystery, the obvious answer is invariably the correct one. So yes, Missy seemed like the most obvious candidate for the vault's inhabitant, and sure enough, she's the one who's trapped inside. (Unless Moffat plans to pull out some kind of twist on us, but I'd be very surprised!) Once Rafando mentions putting the body in a quantum-fold chamber for a thousand years, it becomes fairly clear that the Doctor isn't going to be the one getting killed, although I admit I wasn't certain until Missy knelt on the Cushion of Execution herself. I'm fine with this development though, really; I adore Missy, I'm gutted that Michelle Gomez has announced her plans to leave after season 10, and I'm always happy to see more of her, so if her being in the vault means that she'll be appearing more often this season, then I'm all in favor. She's really in contention to be my favorite incarnation of the Master ever; I have a lot of loyalty to Anthony Ainley's incarnation, but Missy is just that bit more obviously unhinged, and that bit more obviously craving the Doctor's approval. It's the latter characteristic that I find particularly appealing, because it really enriches the relationship between the Doctor and the Master, as indeed does this episode. Missy's confession that she genuinely considers the Doctor to be her friend is practically a tear-jerker, and the Doctor's appeal for her assistance at the episode's end sets up the tantalizing prospect of a frienemy alliance between the two of them, teaming up to defeat an alien menace not unlike their face-off with Axos. A plotline like that could go in any number of directions, and I'm fascinated to see where it might lead. Like, really fascinated, even though there's basically only one way it'll play out (ie, with a tense-but-successful collaboration, followed by the Master's betrayal and/or escape). But with Gomez and Capaldi, it's all about the journey. Again, because this episode tells a truncated story, we only get a glimpse of Missy's past and she doesn't affect the main storyline at all, but I'm pleased to have spent a few minutes in her company, and I look forward to her appearance in at least one future episode. (Among other lines which I will cite below, I loved Gomez' delivery of "What happened? Oh, I see.")
I'm really enjoying that the writers seem to have found exactly the right balance for Capaldi's Doctor this year. This first half of the season has given him a run of episodes with consistently excellent characterization, and now the Doctor's loss of vision is giving Capaldi new angles to play. At least for now, it seems that we've seen the last of the over-the-top goofy Doctor of The Return of Doctor Mysterio, and even the fiery anger of season 8 has been toned down to a pleasant surliness. Where some Doctors might find it challenging to politely deflect Bill's nosy question about wearing sunglasses indoors, the twelfth Doctor has no problem curtly evading her question. Yet because of Capaldi's performance, this gruffness is actually endearing, probably because we know that beneath that exterior he's a total softie. We've seen a little more of that soft side this season, I think, and I like it. Gruff-but-kind suits his Doctor so very well. Even with Missy, you can sense the concern behind his stern face. As I was saying just above, a real highlight of this episode is its exploration of the Doctor's friendship with Missy, especially once I actually thought about how the events of this story came to happen. I wondered at first why the Doctor even bothered bringing Missy to this execution planet if he had no intention of actually executing her; maybe he just wanted the vault for some reason? But then it finally dawned on me that he didn't bring her here. She somehow wound up getting captured and brought here, at which point the executioners tracked down the Doctor to satisfy their peculiar rule about only allowing a Time Lord to be killed by another member of their own species. In actual fact, the Doctor comes to rescue Missy, which I find really sweet. (But I still don't understand why he agrees to guard Missy's body. That's just a corrolary requirement of the execution; does the Doctor have some other reason for wanting to keep her imprisoned for a millennium? The way Nardole acts, you'd think it was a desperate necessity.) On top of this character-building, we also get a juicy tidbit about the Time Lords: the rather exciting discovery that they have three brain stems! (Why none of his previous medical exams have turned up this anomaly, I don't know, but I love it. Maybe they're intertwined, so they don't look distinct on a scan?) Love Capaldi's delivery of "I'm sorry that I didn't recognize you there.", "No." (when Nardole asks if he should tell him the real reason he doesn't want to tell Bill about his blindness), "Could you help me, please? Could you help me?", "I know. So did I.", and the look on his face when he says "We feel it." And have I mentioned yet how much I like Capaldi's hairstyle this season? Because I do.
And speaking of a good run, I'm so very happy to see Matt Lucas getting two fantastic episodes in a row. I really disliked disliking Nardole, and it's such a relief to be able to genuinely enjoy the character. I know how much it means to Lucas to be on Doctor Who, and I want the scriptwriters to make certain he has the best possible time, dad-blang it! Overhauling his character and providing some context to his TARDIS travel has really helped. However, Nardole's backstory does raise a rather large question: if Nardole didn't join the Doctor until the day he took his oath to guard the vault, and knowing Nardole's zeal for making sure the Doctor sticks to his word, then what were they doing gallivanting around New York? (Maybe Nardole wasn't such a stickler at first, until something nearly happened to the vault while they were away?) Love Lucas' delivery of "No, stop! You'll just get lost.", "Okay, Bill?", the expression on his face after "Look under the tables!", "Seventeen. Huh?", "No they're not. They're projecting everything!", and his freaky scream as Nardole is pixellated out of existence.
It's great fun to see Bill and Nardole finally team up. Now that Nardole has a personality I like, it's interesting to see how the two of them bounce off one another, and how they work together. Quite well, as it turns out! Even though Nardole shoots it down, I love that Bill has no intention of letting him "protect" her by walking in the lead. In the grand tradition of Doctor Who companions, Bill sets an excellent feminist example. Or maybe she's just stubborn, but it kind of works out to the same thing. (Nevertheless, she persists!) But she's not ultra-confident in all areas of her life. I really like that Bill isn't yet totally out and proud; she may be more comfortable in her own skin than Penny is, but she's still closeted from her mother and trying to feel her way around the dating world. It's rather sweet, and this vulnerability makes her more relatable. I continue to dig Bill's fashion sense; here she sports a chic wraparound jacket with an appealing monochrome geometric design. Love Mackie's delivery of "It would be stupid to go and look.", the way she raps on the Oval Office desk to prove that it feels real, and "Okay, well, maybe I'll call her tomorrow."
It's nice to see Moira again (as a fictional character; in real life I'd find her insufferable!), but even more I loved meeting Bill's potential new girlfriend. Ronke Adekoluejo lights up the screen as Penny, and her line deliveries are fantastic; I especially loved her great facial reactions during Bill's little talk about how they have nothing to feel guilty about. Can we pretty please see more of her? I must also give a brief word of praise for Alana Maria as the heroic-sounding Pentagon Woman, who is quite entertaining in her brief scene. Loved her delivery of "Of what?! ... The Pentagon!" And Laurent Maurel is fun as slightly-sloshed CERN employee Nicolas, especially when he ropes Bill and Nardole into the shadow test: "Choose a number, any number. Both of you, now."
Slightly less memorable, but still great, are Rafando (Ivanno Jeremiah), Cardinal Angelo (Corrado Invernizzi), and the Pope (Joseph Long), all of whom only suffer by comparison to the others because they're much more serious characters. But all three are totally believable as devout authorities of their particular creeds, with Cardinal Angelo and the Pope, unsurprisingly, coming across as particularly gentle and helpful.
Daniel Nettheim is back with us again after last season's Zygon two-parter. This story doesn't showcase quite as many obvious visual flourishes, but a memorable one — which surely must have been unintentional, but works beautifully — occurs when the lighting that circles the TARDIS' upper deck briefly illuminates the Doctor's face just as the cardinal offers to let him confess, as if God is smiling on him. Nettheim also handles the Monks well, particularly the way he teases their first appearance, with a freaky shot of the Monk's shadow backlit by the portal, talons extended like Nosferatu, followed by a lingering out-of-focus shot of the creature advancing down the corridor.
The score this week is pretty unobtrusive, but I really liked the moment as the Vatican officials file into the Doctor's classroom. And I like the noise that the reading aid makes when the Doctor fastens it to his temples.
I don't think there were a lot of major effects to comment on this week, but the pixellation effect that transitions us in and, as an especially subtle clue, out of the opening credits, was particularly clever. I also appreciated the hard work that the effects team put into making the teaser subtitle "A Long Time Ago..." gradually disappear behind the planet's curve. The castle set by the lake — some combination of location filming, CGI, and maybe even studio filming, I'd guess? — looks fantastic, oddly tranquil given its purpose. I especially liked the shaft of light illuminating the execution platform, and the stone-walled pathways in front of the castle. The spartan white projection-room set works all the better for being minimalist (and the shot of bright-red blood droplets against the gleaming white floor gave me instant Castrovalva vibes). The Hereticum set also deserves particular mention, mainly because I just adore moody libraries, even though its layout doesn't look anywhere near as confusing to navigate as Cardinal Angelo tries to make it seem.
I was just a bit delayed in watching Extremis (but no moreso than I was watching Thin Ice, now that I think about it) but I figured it was for a good cause: on Saturday, I went to Motor City Comic-Con with my friend Sander (it's become our annual tradition). In years past, my purpose in going was to meet actors from Buffy (Emma Caulfield), The X-Files (Mitch Pileggi and William B Davis), and Nightmare Cafe (Robert Englund, and yes, I was the only person in the whole line who asked him about that show; he seemed delighted to get to talk about it for a change!). But this year, their guest list boasted both John Barrowman and Billie Piper. So, I figured the opportunity to meet Rose and Jack in person was well worth a bit of a delay in watching new Who! (And they were both charming!)
Minor points:
Penny: "I thought you moved out from here?"
Bill: "Yeah, slightly didn't work out. Second attempt on the way."
Moira: "I have very strict rules about men."
Bill: "Probably not as strict as mine."
Bill: "Well, phew!"
Penny: "Well, phew!"
Bill: "The, er, pipes... it's, it's the, the pipes, in, in my bedroom. Be warned: sometimes I shout at them."
Bill: "It is absolutely nothing to feel guilty about. Okay?"
Penny: (reassured) "Okay."
The door bursts open, admitting... the Pope. Who stares at them in horror.
Pope: "Ma costa su geneto? Che si è de voi due ragazze? Come vai? Sono ferrito qui in questa casa? Io pensa decava ave molto tona darvarro di cano. Questo la pazzia! Dottore, perché me ha portato qui?"
Bill: "Doctor, here's a tip. When I'm on a date, when that rare and special thing happens in my real life, do not, do not, under any circumstances, put the Pope in my bedroom."
Missy: "Well, take a few more minutes if you like! Knock yourself out. Actually, do. Do that. Knock yourself right out."
Bill: "Are you trying to get rid of us?"
Doctor: "Why?"
Nardole: "Because you're sending us into the dark after a man with a gun."
Doctor: "Ah, well, I thought of that."
Nardole: "Thank you."
Doctor: "Nardole, make sure that you walk in front of Bill."
Missy: "I know I'm going to die. I have to say it. The truth... without hope, without witness, without reward... I am your friend."
So I have some pretty serious issues with the plot, and I find it difficult to judge a story that's clearly still ongoing, but as an introduction to the Monks, I must admit that I find it intriguing. I'm curious to see how they develop as monsters, and I'm excited to see how the Doctor's relationship with Missy develops. Even though Extremis isn't quite as strong of an episode as most of its season 10 predecessors, it's still a solid quick-paced story that poses tantalizing questions for the next handful of episodes to explore. Here's hoping that the back half of season 10 maintains this level of quality! (With Toby Whithouse, Mark Gatiss and Rona Munro yet to come, I'm optimistic! Next week, I think, might be the real test...)