"World Enough and Time" is the eleventh and penultimate episode of the tenth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was written by Steven Moffat, directed by Rachel Talalay, and was broadcast on 24 June 2017 on BBC One. The episode received overwhelmingly positive reviews from television critics.
In the episode, the Doctor (Peter Capaldi), Bill (Pearl Mackie), Nardole (Matt Lucas), and Missy (Michelle Gomez) answer a distress call from a gigantic ship trying to escape a black hole. It is the first episode of a two-part story which concludes in the following episode, "The Doctor Falls". "World Enough and Time" is the first multi-Master episode in the show's televised history, as it features both Missy, the character's latest incarnation, and an earlier version (John Simm) last seen in the 2009–2010 serial "The End of Time". It also serves as an origin story for the Cybermen, and features the return of the original Mondasian Cybermen, last seen on-screen in the 1966 serial The Tenth Planet, which was the Cybermen's debut.
Synopsis
In the cold open, the Twelfth Doctor emerges from the TARDIS onto a snowscape and collapses, beginning to regenerate.
Earlier, the Doctor proposed to test Missy's atonement by having her, alongside Bill and Nardole, answer a distress call. They arrive via the TARDIS on a giant colony ship reversing away from a black hole. They are held at gunpoint by the solitary crew member, Jorj, who demands to know which of them is human, fearing creatures that are arriving by the lift. Bill admits to being human and Jorj shoots her out of fear. Humanoid figures, wearing cloth masks and hospital gowns, take Bill's body away claiming they can restore her. Right before the lifts depart, the Doctor telepathically tells Bill to wait for him.
The Doctor, Missy, and Nardole learn from Jorj that, two days previously, some of the human bridge crew had gone down to the lower level of the ship to start the engine reversal, but they never returned. Jorj claims the ship only had 50 people two days ago, but Nardole shows there are actually thousands of life forms below. They are the descendants of the crew: due to time dilation from the black hole, time moves faster at the ship's lower levels (further from the black hole) than the bridge (close to the black hole) 400 miles away, and a year has already passed for Bill. The Doctor incapacitates Jorj and, along with Missy and Nardole, departs below in a lift.
Bill awakens in a hospital, where she finds that she has been fitted with a mechanical device that serves as her replacement heart. Razor, one of the hospital's employees, shows her around and explains that some of the patients are waiting to be "upgraded" for "Operation Exodus", to escape the polluted air of the ship's lower levels due to contamination from the fuel. Years later, they see footage from the bridge of the Doctor coming down the lift. However, Razor then tricks Bill into becoming the next "upgrade" subject.
Upon arriving, the Doctor and Nardole explore the hospital while Missy tries to determine the origin of the colony ship. She finds the vessel is from a "twin" of Earth, Mondas. Razor approaches her and insists she has been here before, and that the Doctor will never forgive her for what has happened to Bill. When she denies it, "Razor" removes his disguise, revealing himself to be the Master (as played by John Simm), Missy's earlier incarnation. The Doctor and Nardole find an operating theatre where a "Mondasian" Cyberman, from when the Doctor first encountered them, emerges from a closet. The Cyberman identifies itself as formerly being Bill Potts. The Master and Missy then explain they are all witnessing the genesis of the Cybermen. The Cyberman tells the Doctor "I waited for you", revealing that Bill is the Cyberman; underneath its face cover, Bill sheds a tear.
Continuity
Bill is converted into a Cyberman matching the original design from the 1966 serial The Tenth Planet.
The Doctor performs Venusian aikido on Jorj, a specialty of the Third Doctor that he first demonstrated in The Green Death (originally called "Venusian karate" in Inferno).
The Master says that he loves disguises, a fondness which dates back to his debut appearance in Terror of the Autons when he posed as a telephone engineer. He also mentions being "someone's former Prime Minister"; the Master was elected Prime Minister during "The Sound of Drums" / "Last of the Time Lords", under the alias Harold Saxon.
Outside references
The episode's title comes from the Andrew Marvell poem "To His Coy Mistress": "Had we but world enough and time, / This coyness, lady, were no crime."