The Lie of the Land
review

Holistic Review: Well, it's not a terribly original story, and the ending basically makes no sense, but it's still the strongest of the trilogy, with a fast-paced and (despite its problems) interesting plot.

There's something about The Lie of the Land that makes me feel like I've seen it before. Of course, the first 18 minutes are basically Last of the Time Lords done... well, better than before, anyway, as Bill takes on a Martha-esque role in her effort to resist the Monks and track down the Doctor. And of course we've seen fascist Earths in Doctor Who before, notably in The Dalek Invasion of Earth and Inferno, as well as Earth under alien control in The Christmas Invasion, Rise of the Cybermen and Last of the Time Lords (again). The "fake news" angle is reminiscent of The Macra Terror and The Long Game, though it feels even more topical now (how's about that shot of a grinning Donald Trump on the Monks' monitor?), and there's also a dollop of The Invasion of Time, when the Doctor appears to align with a hostile power against his devoted companion. What distinguishes The Lie of the Land is that I don't think we've ever seen the entire planet under alien mind control, with the entire population remembering as fact an alternative history that never happened. We could call it "the Dawn effect", fellow Buffyphiles.

And, to be sure, despite its familiar themes, The Lie of the Land (a great title, too — not doubly clever, but clever nevertheless) boasts a plot that's overall pretty strong, and definitely fast-paced. Its depiction of England as a totalitarian state with memory police is frightening, especially since it feels like some of our nations are veering further and further in that direction now. There's a moment in the teaser when a newscaster raves about the "merciful Monks" executing dissenters "by implementing a swift and painless death", and the watching crowd cheers with delight, that absolutely chills my blood, because it reminds me of hateful social-media posts that have come across my feed recently. Though I'm sure the people who promote those opinions wouldn't see the similarity.

It helps, too, that Toby Whithouse enlivens the story with a potent comedic vein, never undermining the tension but helping to relieve it at the right moments. And I really appreciated that most of the time I had a "huh?!" moment, it was later explained away. For example, in the propaganda video, the Doctor initially claims that "[The Monks] have been instrumental in all the advances of culture and technology", which made me think that now Azal and the Fendahl and Scaroth and the Silence had some competition, but then we learn that the video is entirely fake. Likewise, I was about to be really irked that Richard just "forgot" to check Bill and Nardole's papers, and at the lack of guards in the ship's corridors to stop Bill and Nardole just strolling in, until we learned that it was all a setup, and Richard was really just "checking" Bill and Nardole's papers. Really the only other issue I genuinely had with this part of the plot was the moment when a Monk shows up out of the blue, stares at a few people, and then abruptly leaves. What's the purpose of the Monk's visit? And what would've happened if a Monk hadn't chosen to barge onto the ship at that exact moment? If not for that interruption, how was Richard planning to get out of looking at Bill and Nardole's papers? But these are fairly minor details that don't hugely impact the integrity of the plot.

In short, while The Lie of the Land has its fair share of stumbles, it's nevertheless the strongest entry in the Monks trilogy.

One really great thing about an extended story like this — the equivalent of a classic-series six-parter, albeit without cliffhangers or a single overarching narrative — is that it allows more time for the characters, including the episode's antagonists, to develop. However, now that the trilogy has concluded, I find myself no longer able to hope that the Monks will eventually click as an adversary. Perhaps because the Monk stories were written by three different people, their characterization feels completely different from episode to episode. Rather than neatly tying together their abilities and motivations, The Lie of the Land just throws more ingredients into the stew and hopes for the best. So here's what we know about the Monks:

APPEARANCE  
  they're shapeshifters     Pyramid    
  they look like dessicated corpses Extremis   Pyramid   Lie
  they wear red robes Extremis   Pyramid   Lie
  they also wear orange and brown robes     Pyramid   Lie
TECHNOLOGY and SPACESHIP  
  they can build entire simulated hologram-worlds Extremis        
  they can analyze past events to predict future outcomes     Pyramid    
  they can control all timepieces     Pyramid    
  their ship resembles an Egyptian pyramid     Pyramid   Lie
  their ship can tractor-beam approaching objects     Pyramid    
  their ship can intercept security camera feeds     Pyramid    
  their ship can instantaneously teleport themselves and others     Pyramid    
  their ship can beam false memories into people's heads, using the statues as signal amplifiers         Lie
POWERS  
  they can form a psychic link with a willing human mind     Pyramid   Lie
  using their spaceship and the link, they can control people's minds         Lie
  they can make people hallucinate them when they're not present         Lie
  they can turn people into piles of sand/ash without touching them     Pyramid    
  they can emit lightning blasts from their hands         Lie
  they can generate stone shields from their hands         Lie
GOALS  
  they want to be loved     Pyramid    
  they want to conquer the Earth Extremis   Pyramid   Lie

As you can see, very few of the Monks' traits are carried over from one episode to another, except for the basics: they look like robed corpses, their ship looks like a pyramid, and they want to conquer the Earth. We still don't even know what they want to do with the Earth, besides rule it and be non-authentically adored, and that's after they've had control of it for an entire episode.

And another thing! Why on earth are these aliens called "Monks" in the first place? They wear hooded robes, yes, but that's the only similarity I can see. We might conclude that they worship and/or meditate on fate or causality, but that would be pure conjecture. I get the impression that the production team had a great idea for an original monster ("kung-fu monks!" according to Moffat — did he not see Tooth and Claw? — except they had to delete the 'kung-fu' part when they realized they'd forgotten to write any kung-fu scenes, I kid you not) but then weren't able to develop that theme beyond the visual.

I'm extremely happy that I was wrong when I guessed that this week's episode wouldn't be Bill-centric. In fact, she even narrates it! The Lie of the Land is very much about Bill, and it shows her character off to such good advantage that this feels like the episode in which Bill truly proves her mettle as a companion. For starters, she spends six months in a daily battle against the Monks' mind control, and because of her deep and unshakeable faith in the Doctor, she succeeds in staving off their influence. When an intruder comes to her door, yet again, Bill grabs the nearest object at hand with which to defend herself. But what firmly cements Bill's status as a truly excellent companion is her willingness to put her life on the line for others. Not only does Bill risk her life to track down the Doctor, and bravely admit to Missy that she's the linchpin in the Monks' conquest of Earth, she also expresses a readiness to die if it means saving the world, and then actively puts herself at risk — under the assumption that the result will be certain death — when she tries to end the Monks' transmission. And this time, she greets her death not with despair, but with a sense of humor. We all knew that Bill was a caring, ethical woman, but I don't think we've seen this utterly selfless side of her until now. I'm reminded of my comment in Oxygen that the character had room to grow, and grow she has. Interestingly, Bill also demonstrates that she's willing to kill the Doctor in order to save the world, which is definitely not a choice that most companions have faced. Before I watched the episode, I saw a Facebook post accompanied by a picture of a frightened Bill levelling a handgun at someone or something, but of all the possible explanations my brain conjured up, this was not one of them. But it's a great moment, demonstrating how much Bill is willing to sacrifice in order to defend her planet. An issue that gets brushed under the rug, though, is Bill's complicity in everything that happens this week. We know that she feels guilty for enabling the Monks to take control of Earth — that's why she's so willing to sacrifice herself to put things right — but nobody ever mentions the fact that Bill's decision, though it saved the Doctor's life, led to the deaths of who knows how many innocents around the world. I'm hoping the effects of this decision will become apparent in future episodes. Fashion-wise, I'm loving Bill's hair this week; the half-braid across her forehead is super cool. Great delivery by Mackie of "I needed you!", "You made me write a 3,000 word essay on free will!", her flabbergasted "So you, so you, you, er, you, er, you haven't, you haven't turned, you're not, you're not working for them?", and "Thank you. God, it was worth it." The scene in which Bill confronts the Doctor, and rails against his apparent alliance with the Monks, is so raw and intense that it deserves special praise. I must also highlight Mackie's expressive face this week. Watch her shifting emotions as she vents to Nardole about the Monks' mind control, her trusting smile on "He's faking it. I'm positive!", more wonderful facial acting on "It's like that time that we discovered that huge fish creature in the, in the Seine, in Paris?", her reaction to the metaphorical slap of the Doctor's betrayal, and the look on Mackie's face as Bill sees her mum reaching out to her on the monitors.

I was touched that Bill's mother (Rosie Jane) is such an integral part of the episode, too. This is a subject that tugs hard on my heartstrings, so I was very moved that we actually got to "meet" her mother, as Bill imagines having tea with her. (I should try this technique sometime; it looks comforting.) This finally makes sense of that line from The Pilot that I didn't understand at the time, about Bill imagining that her mother "always says" that you can smell the wind in some people's clothes. If she's been having imaginary conversations with her mother all her life, even before she had the Doctor's photographs, then that line suddenly makes much more sense. And now that she has the photographs, she's got a visual to incorporate into her daydreams. This does, unfortunately, lead us to the second part of the plot that I have an issue with, namely: it's never clear why Bill's mental recreation of her mother poses such a threat to the Monks' false history. I can make sense of it — like the Monks' false history, Bill's vision of her mother is equally unreal, along with being emotionally potent, so perhaps it disrupts their invented reality — but we've all vividly imagined things that never happened, so what makes Bill's mum special? I'm sure Bill, too, has entertained other vivid imaginary scenarios throughout her life; at the very least, it's implied that she's imagined getting into university, and surely that would be a powerful fake memory. (Or, can you imagine a version of The Lie of the Land in which it's Bill's fantasy of a hot date with Penny that drives off the Monks? Because that should be equally possible.) And if the Monks can override every other untrue daydream in everybody else's head, why is it that "the Monks can't get near" the vision of Bill's mother? The more fundamental problem is that we've been told that the only reliable way to stop the Monks is for Bill to die, or preferably to become brain-dead. Which is why Bill attaches herself to their headset in the first place: she knows that once it burns her brain out, the Monks will lose their ability to project an alternative history into everyone's minds. So it's really confusing when the Doctor declares, "They're hijacking her memories, infecting them like a virus! She's just reinforcing their lies! She's dying for nothing!" How is that possible? Her goal wasn't the same as the Doctor's, to overwrite the Monks' broadcast. If she dies, their link and control over humanity dies with her, therefore by definition it cannot be "for nothing". It's clear that latching onto this memory of her mother saves Bill's life, but it's unclear exactly how it also rescues Bill's plan to save the world. The only reason I don't mention this as a major plot issue is that I'm such a sucker for stories about beloved family members who have passed on. It's why I bawl during Father's Day, and why I welled up as Bill's vision of her mother began to beat back the Monks' influence. I about lost it when Bill's mum actually spoke, calling out her daughter's name with such love in her voice. So what if it doesn't make much sense? It hits all the right emotional notes without being cloying, so I'm gonna roll with it. (Take-home message: apparently, if last week's biohazard lab plot, or even Kill the Moon, had somehow incorporated a deceased parent as emotional manipulation, I'd have been just fine with it.) At least it's emotionally, if not intellectually, satisfying.

Another wonderful surprise this week is Nardole, because for the first time, a scriptwriter has given Matt Lucas material that really enables him to show off his comedy chops. The jokes in this script, especially during his two-hander with Bill at the start of the story, are bang on point, and Lucas delivers them flawlessly, beyond anything I would have expected. He and Mackie continue to demonstrate good chemistry when they're paired up, and Bill hugging him with huge relief is really sweet. (But seriously, why does she keep punching him? I don't think I find that cute.) I've recently learned, to no surprise at all, that Nardole's new and more successful characterization is due to Jamie Mathieson's influence, which then percolated into some as-yet-unwritten earlier scripts (by which I'm guessing he meant Knock Knock), so I feel I owe him a massive debt of thanks for intellectually thinking through what Nardole would be like as a person, then nudging the character in the right direction. I will also note that, on one occasion in this episode, Bill pronounces the character's name with first-syllable stress ("NAR-dole"), like I keep wanting to in my head, rather than second-syllable stress ("nar-DOLE") as has been the norm thus far. Does that mean I have permission to give in to the version in my head? (Or maybe I should follow Nardole's example, though I'm not sure I'm on board with it: "It's me! Nardy!") I'm delighted to be able to cite lots of wonderful line deliveries by Lucas this week: "If I was human, I would've died!", "Okay, well, er, let's, er, put a pin in it for now, as they say.", and several spectacular examples below.

In The Lie of the Land, the twelfth Doctor's surly personality pays huge dividends. It's dawning on me that season 10 has really played to Capaldi's strengths, on several occasions scripting him scenes that would have been challenging for many other Doctors to pull off as convincingly. Here, for example, it's surprisingly believable that he might have switched sides and become a traitor to the human race. But the only reason we can even entertain the possibility is that the twelfth Doctor is more easily exasperated with humanity than most, and more likely to turn his back in a fit of pique. Just look at how supremely creepy Capaldi is on the line "So relax, do as you are told. Your future is taken care of." Once the ruse is over, the twelfth Doctor is back to his loveable curmudgeon self as he leaps to action in organizing the Monks' takedown. Reciprocating Bill's commendable determination to rescue him, the Doctor's desperation to save Bill is so very touching ("There must be a way to shut this thing down!"). I also loved his delivery of "I'm sorry, but this is good.", but my favorite moment is probably the buzzing-airplane noise he makes as the Doctor waves his hand in front of the transmitting Monk's face! Hilarious!

That regeneration, though... we have to talk about that. On one hand, it's a brilliant scripting move, especially because they were able to tease us with it in the season promo: everybody had their theory about how and why the Doctor was going to regenerate, with the prevailing theory being "the Doctor's regeneration began long ago and he's been slowly dying all season", which sounded pretty convincing to me. At the very least, we were led to believe that there was going to be a genuine regenerative event before the season's end, which of course led to all sorts of wild speculation about how Capaldi was going to remain in the role through the Christmas special. And I admit, I really liked this idea (even though I don't want Capaldi to go yet), because it would be a very different type of regeneration from anything we've seen thus far. But then we discover that it was all a joke. Now, suddenly, all our theories have been shredded, as it appears that the twelfth Doctor is in perfect health and won't be needing to regenerate anytime soon. But that's the kind of "pulling the rug out from under me" that I like; it's startling, but only because I've allowed myself to be misdirected all this time. But, having said that... this scene does raise the question of (a) how the Doctor managed to access that regenerative energy when he's presumably nowhere near regenerating, and (b) whether this fake-regeneration counts as an actual regeneration (as in Journey's End) or if it was just an ultimately-harmless release of regenerative energy (as in The Angels Take Manhattan). As in that latter story, I take issue with the Doctor being able to access regeneration energy on a whim; in The Christmas Invasion, it made sense that his body would have some lingering regenerative power, but not in Manhattan, and not here.

Finally the mystery of the vault is unambiguously solved. Oh, Michelle Gomez, won't you stay forever? Her performance is just sublime, campy without being overdramatic, which is pretty amazing given how far over the top she goes. So many lines I must cite as evidence of her greatness: her laugh when Bill asks how she defeated the Monks, "...and a pony.", "I'm here, all right? I'm engaging in the process.", "Well, at this point, all that was left of the bloodline was a wee girl, and I just pushed her into a volcano.", and "Awkward." She's just delightful, and I'm looking forward to her presence in a full episode as soon as possible. I find it interesting that so many people are highly suspicious of Missy's apparent development of a conscience. I totally get why people doubt that her change of heart is genuine, and I'm sure they're probably right, but I find myself completely suckered in. Maybe it's because I like a good redemption plotline? The idea of Missy as a reluctant ally of the Doctor is just too good to pass up, and has resulted in some truly spectacular characters on other TV shows over the years (like Spike on Buffy, Regina and Hook on Once Upon a Time, Crowley and Rowena on Supernatural — and note that some of these characters remained morally ambiguous right up to the end). The Lie of the Land even points out one possible path for making a relationship along these lines work: when Missy observes that "Your version of good is not absolute. It's vain, arrogant, sentimental. But if you're waiting for me to become all that, I'm going to be here for a long time yet." If Missy and the Doctor both strive to do good things, but they have different conceptions of what constitutes "good", that could create some really interesting dynamics of conflict between the two of them, as it does here, in ways that I'm not really sure I've seen any other program explore. Usually a redemptive character is struggling simply not to do evil; but to struggle over whether, and how, the ends justify the means, especially if both characters have a valid point of view, could be fascinating. So yes, I'd like to believe that Missy's genuine in her attempt to turn over a new leaf, and I'm curious to see how it develops, especially when she comes face-to-face with... well, you know. On a more minor matter, I'm really digging her new hairstyle, which suits Missy's wacky personality much better than her previous updo (which matched her wardrobe better than her personality).

Emma Handy's brief role as Jane Bishop is a memorable one; in her single scene, Handy utterly sells the menace of the Monks' brutal new society, rolling her eyes at the ridiculousness of her arrest while simultaneously fighting desperately ("The Monks have only been here a few months!") to warn others as she's hauled away. Alan (Stewart Wright) and Richard (Solomon Israel) get very little screentime, but I enjoyed Richard's mirth at his little joke on Nardole, and Alan makes a surprisingly big impression thanks to Wright's subtle facial acting as they march into, and explore, the Monks' pyramid.

There are no effects to ding this week: I loved the effect of the map turning into a satellite image when the Doctor taps it, the slo-mo effect of Alan's tape deck getting shot, the blue glow as the Doctor interfaces with the Monks' fake-news headset (though I'm surprised he didn't have to wear it), and the pyramid launching into space. Even though they're one-time wonders, the Monks' lightning blasts and rock shield generation look really cool, especially the way they slowly branch through the air as if searching for the path of least resistance. There is one weirdly-timed effect, though. Missy's vault boasts a containment field, in which the Doctor can restrain her freedom of movement when he brings guests inside. On first viewing, I even missed his line asking Missy to get into the field before he opened the door, but from the visual, it's still pretty clear: the platform on which Missy sits is surrounded by blue-glowing columns which are apparently generating a forcefield that covers the gaps. However, it seems that the editors were concerned that the visual alone might not be enough. While I do appreciate their desire to clarify any potential confusion, the way to do that would be, say, to have Missy hurl a piece of paper at the forcefield in a fit of pique, or at least have it flare with some regularity (although that might have suggested that it was not entirely stable). Instead, they choose to make it flare only once — when the Doctor yanks Bill away from Missy — as if to flag the fact that Missy couldn't grab or pursue Bill even if she wanted to. Because it only happens on this one occasion, even though it's obvious that nobody has so much as brushed up against the forcefield, it feels like an embarrassingly obvious way to remind the audience that the forcefield is there.

Wayne Yip's direction was sort of mixed for me. On one hand, there are some fantastic shots, like the Monk's decayed hand reaching around to open the bulkhead door, and the rather dramatic reveal of the impressive broadcast-room set, which has a prototypical Doctor Who vibe. I was really impressed with the Monks' propaganda video, especially the opening shot of a Monk overlaid on the Earth, and the subsequent shot of a Monk standing near a primordial amphibian. And Yip does a great job of portraying Bill nearly succumbing to the Monks' brainwashing signal, before she shakes herself out of it. That one shot is all we need to show us how powerful the Monks' mind control is. But on the other hand, he includes a couple of rather weird shots. First, what's the deal with the shot of Missy-eyes floating in the sky? It's artsy and cool, but there's not really a narrative point to it. Second, what happens to the Monks that attack the Doctor's group of rebels? Apparently they're killed between shots somehow? (The fact that we don't see it happen left me worried that the group was going to be attacked again at any moment.)

Again, I'm not blown away by Murray Gold's incidental music, but I liked the score as Bill conjures up a vision of her mother sitting at the table with her (as the cacophony outside fades away), and as she says goodbye to the Doctor and goes to her death. He does, however, come on a little too strong when it's revealed that the Doctor's betrayal is just a bluff. The scene would play much better if the humor had been allowed to arise naturally, rather than being signposted with jolly bouncy funny music.

Finally, can I just say: WHY IS ERICA NOT BACK THIS WEEK? (Is there any chance she'll become, if not a companion, at least the Doctor's recurring biochemistry expert consultant?) and also I WANT MORE PENNY! (pretty please.)

Minor points:

The Monks trilogy had definite potential, but ultimately it was let down by a monster that lacked focus. Still, at least it starts and ends on a relatively strong note, and it's entertaining throughout. As for The Lie of the Land, it doesn't exactly make sense, but gosh, it's enjoyable and, at times, even heartwarming. Apparently the moral is "focus the story on Bill and you can't go (too) wrong".

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