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Extremis – or, rather, In extremis – is Latin for “in the farthest reaches” or “at the point of death”.
How about a load of confusing rubbish that shows Steven Moffat at his most self-indulgent? It really must be his WORST episode since the Xmas one, The Return of Doctor Mysterio – which was Moffat’s LAST worst episode. Is he trying to kill the show off completely before Chris Chibnall takes over??!
NOTE: I will give spoilers for this episode, because I can’t describe my thoughts on it without revealing what happened within.
So, who’s in the vault? In short, it’s Missy. In long… it’s still Missy.
As it began, we the Doctor killing off Missy, in a fancy setting, since it requires another Time Lord to do the deed, and it’s her first episode since the second episode of Series 9’s two-part opener, The Witch’s Familiar.Oh, and there, he can seemingly still see, despite being blind now. Huh?
This entire episode was an absolute bloody mess, jumping back and forth throughout, but before the opening credits, everything stopped as he received an email entitled “Extremis”.
Early on in, The Pope turned up in need of help from the Doctor – to help cure all the priests in Rome of paedophilia?
To make matters worse, while no-one was missing Bill, she was brought into the proceedings, putting the mockers on a date when the Doctor and his TARDIS interrupted them.
As for what followed, they travelled to the Vatican for the Library of Blasphemy, some of them read the Veritas – meaning ‘truth’, the Doctor got his sight back – for a while, there’s emails to and from CERN, a monster wandering about, a death pact at CERN, shadow people, fake Earths, Super Mario, and a portal opening with a bright light where you can accidentally travel into the Pentagon and other places thanks to alien technology.
None of this made a lick of sense, or even garnered any interest. Nardole and Bill were seemingly killed off, yet were brought back into existence through no real explanation. And since we know John Simm’s coming back as The Master, Extremis felt like a time-filling episode to bring Missy back into the game for a short time before Simm returns.
As for this week’s monsters – they have no nose! How do they smell? TERRIBLE!!!
Next week: a 5,000-year-old pyramid that’s just come into being today (well, on the day the episode takes place) and it contains monsters who – as usual – will attack the Earth, but what’s not usual, is that it’s the same ones from this week. Sadly, Moffat’s one of the writers again.
Extremis is available on the BBC iPlayer until one week after the series ends. You can also pre-order Series 10 Part 1 on Blu-ray and DVD, ahead of its release on May 29th. Both versions contain six episodes, plus six exclusive Series 10 art-cards.
In addition, you can pre-order Series 10 Part 2 on Blu-ray and DVD, ahead of its release on July 17th. Both versions contain the last six episodes, plus six exclusive Series 10 art-cards.
Individual episodes can be bought in HD and SD here.
Score: 0/10
Director: Daniel Nettheim
Producer: Peter Bennett
Executive Producers: Steven Moffat and Brian Minchin
Writer: Steven Moffat
Music: Murray Gold
Cast:
The Doctor: Peter Capaldi
Bill: Pearl Mackie
Nardole: Matt Lucas
Missy: Michelle Gomez
Moira: Jennifer Hennessy
Cardinal Angelo: Corrado Invernizzi
The Pope: Joseph Long
Penny: Ronke Adekoluejo
Rafando: Ivanno Jeremiah
Piero: Francesco Martino
Pentagon Woman: Alana Maria
Nicholas: Laurent Maurel
Monk: Jamie Hill
Voice of the Monks: Tim Bentinck
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.