454 – Doctor Who – Spyfall

Doctor Who returned to our screens in 2020 with the two-part opener, Spyfall. Simon and Eugene discuss.

Episode Synopsis:

Part One

Operatives are attacked all over the world by strange creatures pushing through the walls. The Doctor and her fam (and if I never hear the word “fam” again it will be too soon) are “collected” by C, head of the MI6. The agents have all had their DNA re-written, and that can only be unearthly technology. The world calls on the Doctor to save them.

The only clue, all the operatives were following up leads associated with Daniel Barton, CEO of VOR, the nightmare technology company that started as the world’s most successful search engine and then branched out into servers, phones, home automation and anything else they could think of. You know, like Google, only fictional – supposedly.

The Doctor wants to enlist the aide of Horizon Watcher – the MI6 agent known only as O – (that is, apart from being know as the Horizon Watcher) – who operated MI6’s X-files, until C fired him. C is killed by a sniper shot, and the glowing aliens attack the Doctor and the gang, but they escape in the TARDIS.

The Doctor drops off Yaz and Ryan in San Francisco, where they are to do some undercover digging into Barton, while she and Graham travel to the Australian Outback to confer with O.

Using spy gear, Yaz and Ryan first manage to finagle an interview with Barton in the guise of journalists, then forge his ID and break into his office to download the info on his computer. Interesting side note, a scan of Barton’s DNA reveals he’s only 93% human. In his office, they are almost caught, but learn that Barton is working with or for the aliens.

In the Outback, the Doctor and O confer, but the glowing aliens attack. They manage to escape, taking O with them, and infiltrate Barton’s enormously convenient birthday party. After the Doctor confronts him, Barton goes on the run, eventually flying off in his private jet. The Doctor and the gang manage to get on the plane but then the big reveal…. O isn’t O after all, nor is he the Horizon Watcher – he’s the Master – he’s in league with Barton and the aliens, and there’s a bomb on the plane. The Master leaves with the aliens just as the bomb goes off and the Doctor is somehow transported to another place.

Part Two

Onboard the frontless plane, Ryan finds several plaques with his name and info on them leading him to recorded instructions and software from the Doctor to gain control of the plane and let it fly automatically to its original destination.

The Doctor, alone in the strange place meets Ada, a 19th century woman who apparently visits frequently, but knows not why. She helps the Doctor escape back to 1834 London, where the Master attempts to kill the Doctor, unsuccessfully. The Doctor meets Ada’s associate, Charles Babbage, and like a calculating machine, the Doctor puts 2 and 2 together and realizes this is Ada Lovelace, pioneer of computer algorithms.

There’s a weird sculpture, called the Silver Lady in Babbage’s study (which we, the audience, had seen in Barton’s office in the 21st century) which the Doctor deduces is a McGuffin and sonics it, cause her and Ada to be transported to 1943 Paris, where they meet Nor Khan, British agent, and are pursued by Nazi’s lead by…. you guessed it… the Master.

Back in the future, Graham, Yaz and Ryan and are the run. Barton has brought the full weight of his technology to bear on them and they are tracked, wanted for hijacking and on the run in a surveillance state. Graham takes them to somewhere that he thinks is off the grid, but he is wrong. The aliens find them, but they are saved by Graham’s soft shoe dance routine – and a pair of laser shoes borrowed from MI6.

The Doctor arranges to meet with the Master on the Eiffel Tower, where he can’t help but blab a bit about how he found out about the aliens, gave them a better plan, will destroy the human race, then dispose of the alien when they are of no further use to him, too. He also drops a bit about Galiifrey being destroyed – again – but doesn’t elaborate.

The Doctor has laid a trap, giving the Nazi’s false information that the Master is a double agent for the British and the Nazi’s are coming. The Doctor, Ada and Nor escape in the Master’s TARDIS.

Graham, Yaz and Ryan think they’ve been clever, allowing themselves to be located by Barton’s team, then capturing their car and using the GPS to take them to Barton’s base, which is an empty warehouse with the dead body of his mother. (Barton killed her earlier because he has mommy issues.)

Barton is giving a speech and he reveals to the whole world how terribly stupid and naive they’ve all been, giving his company access to everything about their lives. Their location, family, friends, thoughts, bank accounts, children… everything and now that he has all that, he implements the plot – which has virtually nothing to do with any of that. He’s just using their phones to re-write their DNA and turn the entire human race into DNA-based hard drives to store the aliens’ massive porn collection, or whatever it is that they need to store on unreliable, organic, prone to mutate, age and wear out hard drives.

But that doesn’t work because the Doctor fixed it all not to work off-screen between scenes. She also reveals the Master’s perfidy to the aliens and they get upset, taking him with them back into exile in their own universe.

The Doctor makes a brief stop at Gallifrey to discover it has been destroyed and gets a recorded message from the Master saying, that he actually destroyed Gallifrey because they lied to them all about their nature and it really upset him.