The Doctor Who Review | Season 10 Episode 9

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WARNING! SPOILER ALERT! Welcome back to the Doctor Who Review, where I recap the week’s episode and give some thoughts and opinions on it. Please do not read if you have not seen this week’s episode. There are major spoilers ahead. You have been warned. Check out the rest of the Doctor Who Reviews here.

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Title: Empress of Mars

Written by: Mark Gatiss

This week’s opening scene is the Doctor, Bill and Nardole stopping in on NASA as they view Mars for the first time. There on the red planet are the words ‘God Save the Queen’.

Back in the TARDIS, the team are off into space once more and this time land in caves under Mars’ surface. Stepping out onto the dusty planet, Bill is quick to point out that the fire they see before them means there’s oxygen. Off come the masks on their space suits, and moments later Bill falls down a hole. Nardole runs back to the TARDIS to get rope, but while he’s in there the TARDIS – having a mind of her own – sweeps him back to the university office on earth, leaving the Doc and Bill to fend for themselves.

On Mars they meet a British Army Regiment from 1881 – the first of whom looks like a combination of all four Beatles merged together – and discover that the creature they call Friday is an Ice Warrior. Ice Warriors call Mars home, and while the population seems to be extinct, Friday is helping the British mine for gem stones. Or so he says.

Nardole, meanwhile, is trying to get the TARDIS to go back to Mars with no avail.

With no way to get home, Twelve and Bill are forced to hang around. They watch as the British use this incredible mining machine which Friday helped them build, to blast rock away from the caverns. On one blast, a room is discovered, where a sleeping Ice Warrior awaits. Gems surround her slab of rock that she lies on, and in a selfish greedy manor, one of the men pries off a gem stone, awaking the Ice Warrior Queen, Empress Iraxxa. Turns out it was Friday’s plan all along.

“Don’t belong here? We’re British! Mars is part of the Empire now!”

Back on earth, Nardole goes to the vault in the hopes that Missy will tell him how to get back to Mars.

Twelve and Bill have to persuade the British not to shoot the Empress, and have to persuade the Queen not to kill the British. To wrap it all up really quick, the Ice Warrior Queen awakens some more of their species from their 5,000 year slumber, the British get angry, there’s a coup, eventually Doctor and Bill save the day. They send out a signal into space, and the aliens over at Alpha Centauri greet the Ice Warriors and welcome them to the universe. Twelve and Bill leave a message on the planet’s surface to the ship from AC can find them. It reads ‘God Save the Queen’.

Twelve and Bill head back to the now-returned TARDIS to find Nardole asking what he missed…and to not have a ‘frowny face’ when they enter the time machine. There’s Missy, and the Doc is like ‘well, you have to go back into the vault you know’…and scene.

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My thoughts on Empress of Mars

I’m glad to be rid of the ‘2-part or 3-part’ episodes. Empress of Mars was simply a nice episode with a good outcome for the ‘monsters’, and it was just … nice.

I liked how the Ice Warrior Queen took a liking to Bill because she was only other woman in a room surrounded by men. That was a great woman-power moment that sort of continued through the episode till the end.

While Nardole wasn’t that present in this episode (sad!), everything he says is gold so the little appearance that he did make was good enough for me. Despite the fact that he was adamant that Missy stay in the vault for 8 episodes now, he saw that the Doc and Bill needed to get home and he did want he didn’t want to do, which was great of him.

The movie references in this episode were spot on, especially this one from the Doctor himself:

“You’ll be trapped in an eternal winter, like… Frozen! It’s a movie.”

Well, Missy is finally out of the vault. It took 9 episodes, but we’re there. The real question is, will it last? The end of the episode had them talking about how it wasn’t the deal and it’s ‘back to the vault you go’ … but it’s Missy. And it’s the Doctor. So who knows.

With only 3 episodes to go, it’ll be interesting to see how they wrap up the whole Missy/Master thing. I’m unsure about when the Doc is regenerating though. The last episode is called The Doctor Falls so could be then. Perhaps he will regenerate right at the end and then we’ll see his new face in the Christmas episode. I’m just guessing, because we still don’t know who will play Thirteen.

If anyone knows any more details, can you please chuck me a comment?

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Overall thoughts on Empress of Mars

Quite enjoyed this week’s episode. I feel like it was a more light-hearted episode than the past few weeks. It’s fantastic when even the sci-fi shows are relatable to real life. Mars is still part of the Empire-that-doesn’t-exist-any-more right? Beatle-man seemed to think so. Brexit clearly wasn’t a thing in Victorian times.

Next week’s episode looks like a goodie. It’s called The Eaters of Light, and hopefully it’s another stand-alone episode.

What did you think of this episode? Enjoy it? Not your scene? Let me know!