Doctor Who season 10: ‘World Enough and Time’ synopsis
By Lacy Baugher
The final story of Doctor Who Season 10 begins with the return of a classic monster we haven’t seen for decades.
Though it scarcely feels possible, this season of Doctor Who is almost over.
And soon we’ll be left with nothing but the annual Christmas special to look forward to, as we anxiously tick down the moments until Peter Capaldi’s regeneration into a new Doctor. But before we can get to all that, we have to wrap up the story of this season. And it looks like Doctor Who is going all-out for this finale. The episode, entitled “World Enough and Time”, looks as though it will feature everything from Missy doing her best Doctor impression, to the return of the original Cybermen. (Who, as it happens, haven’t appeared on Doctor Who since 1966.)
Written by showrunner Steven Moffat, “World Enough and Time” will kick off season 10’s final story arc. And, even though it’s not being explicitly advertised as the first half of a two-parter, it totally is.
The official BBC synopsis goes like this:
"A huge spaceship trapped in the gravity well of a black hole, teeming with impossible lifeforms, harbours one of the Doctor’s most feared enemies… Mondasian Cybermen."
This sort of indicates how the show plans to deal with the fact that Cybermen have…changed a bit since this original incarnation. Because, as viewers of science fiction, we all know that a black hole makes virtually anything possible. It’s science magic.
But the synopsis over at Doctor Who TV is … a little bit more dramatic.
"Friendship drives the Doctor into the rashest decision of his life. Trapped on a giant spaceship, caught in the event horizon of a black hole, he witnesses the death of someone he is pledged to protect. Is there any way he can redeem his mistake? Are events already out of control? For once, time is the Time Lord’s enemy…"
It’s interesting that neither of these descriptions mentions the big season 10 elephant in the room. This is also the episode in which John Simm returns to Doctor Who. The BBC hasn’t exactly been shy about it, announcing Simm’s return months ago and putting him in various promotional materials, including this week’s trailer. However, we still don’t know how his version of the Master will return. We know that he and Michelle Gomez’s Missy – the current incarnation of the Master character – will interact. But he could be anything from a dream sequence to an anxiety-induced vision to a time traveling version of his earlier self.
Watch the trailer for “World Enough and Time” yourselves:
The title of this episode is an obvious reference to Andrew Marvell’s poem “To His Coy Mistress”. Which couldn’t possibly scream “Missy” any more loudly, right?
Next: Doctor Who: What’s next after “The Eaters of Light”?
Doctor Who season 10 continues Saturday, June 24 on BBC One and BBC America.