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Spyfall Part 1... the first part of a two-part Doctor Who story, and how often do they actually need to last so long? Rarely.
Giving itself a similar name to Daniel Craig’s third, and very lacklustre, Bond movie, Skyfall, some sort of shape-shifting creatures are attacking MI6 spies, one being knocked out as she used a plane’s bathroom, somewhere about the Pacific Ocean, and another who made it to a safehouse that wasn’t very safe…
After escaping certain death in a car controlled by robots, The Doctor and the rest of the Scooby Doo gang finally arrived at MI6, where Stephen Fry plays Stephen Fry, but in this, he’s a government bod called C. Okay, he’s the head of MI6, but for all the difference it makes, he’s just Stephen Fry.
Lenny Henry plays Lenny Henry, a man who owns VOR – basically, the new Google, but it didn’t take long to figure out that he was the baddie of the piece, and knows more about the alien invasion than anyone’s letting on.
Plus, one problem with putting either Yaz or Ryan in danger is that not a single member of the audience gives two hoots about them. We’d all be quite happy if they were killed off!
Not a single part of this episode made any sort of sense, and even when The Doctor tried to dress up for Lenny’s big party, she still can’t get a pair of trousers that fits.
Spyfall Part 1 was an overlong mess that boiled down to a simple car chase, albeit with motorbikes following the car.
None of series 12 is available for preview. When it came to series 11, the only episodes available for preview were the first two. Unsurprisingly, only those were any good. So, you can see the pattern, here.
Finally, late on, there was a twist, but not much to get too excited about…
Spyfall Part 1 is available on the BBC iPlayer.
You can pre-order this series on Blu-ray and DVD, ahead of its release on March 16th.
Out the same day, is the Limited Edition Blu-ray Steelbook.
Score: 1/10
Director: Jamie Magnus Stone
Producer: Nikki Wilson
Writer: Chris Chibnall
Cast:
The Doctor: Jodie Whittaker
Graham O’Brien: Bradley Walsh
Ryan Sinclair: Tosin Cole
Yasmin Khan: Mandip Gill
C: Stephen Fry
Daniel Barton: Lenny Henry
O: Sacha Dhawan
Mr. Collins: Andrew Bone
Passenger: Sacharissa Claxton
Sniper: Melissa De Vries
Older Passenger: William Ely
Hakim Khan: Ravin J Ganatra
Najia Khan: Shobna Gulati
Sgt Ramesh Sunder: Asif Khan
US Operative: Brian Law
Browning: Dominique Maher
Ethan: Christopher McArthur
Seesay: Darron Meyer
Sonya Khan: Bhavnisha Parmar
Kasaavin: Struan Rodger
Rendition Man: Ronan Summers
Tibo: Buom Tihngang
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.