Doctor Who: World Enough and Time

“World Enough and Time” aims to grab your attention from its opening, pre-credits moments. The Doctor stumbles from the TARDIS into a frozen landscape, his hair longer and wilder than ever before, seemingly fighting against his regeneration. It’s a striking sequence, perhaps undercut only by that awful faux-regeneration in “The Lie of the Land,” an episode I’ve grown to despise exponentially since its airing. The series never should have done that knowing a scene like this was right around the corner. But if we can scrub the “Lie” from our brains, this is a hell of a way to kick off the end of an era.

Once the episode begins proper, we’re nowhere near that flash-forward, but instead skimming across the exterior of a vast spaceship that appears to be sitting on the edge of a black hole — and by vast, I mean 400 miles long and 100 miles wide. (Later, we find out it isn’t sitting, but actively attempting to escape the hole.) Between the double shot of openings, we are firmly entrenched in the expansive vision of director Rachel Talalay, who has skillfully guided all of Capaldi’s epic finales. But the enormity of the craft zeroes in on a tiny area of the ship in which the TARDIS appears, and out pops Missy followed by Bill and Nardole.

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