Extremis

Left blind by his attempt to save Bill from exposure to hard vacuum, the Doctor has returned to Earth at Nardole’s insistence; the vault in the basement of the Doctor’s college office has been left unguarded too often, despite the Doctor having sworn an oath to watch over it for a thousand years. What the vault contains is none other than Missy – kept locked up for her own good as well as that of the universe.

The Doctor is feeling rather less than useful when the Pope himself comes to ask for his help. A document called the Veritas has been removed from the Vatican’s library of heretical texts and has been circulated via e-mail; all who read it kill themselves after learning what it contains. The Doctor, without the ability to read it, is perfectly safe from the Veritas, and he relies on Nardole to be his eyes…and also relies on Nardole not to reveal his blindness to Bill. Alien monks swarm the catacombs of the Vatican, seeking to find and conceal the Veritas, for it reveals to all who read it that this is not really Earth…but the Earth is in grave danger.

written by Steven Moffat
directed by Daniel Nettheim
music by Murray Gold

Cast: Peter Capaldi (The Doctor), Pearl Mackie (Bill), Matt Lucas (Nardole), Michelle Gomez (Missy), Francesco Martino (Piero), Alana Maria (Pentagon Woman), Laurent Maurel (Nicolas), Jamie Hill (Monk), Tim Bentinck (voice of the Monk)

Notes: The Doctor can “steal” energy from future regenerations, possibly up to the point of robbing himself of those future lives, with a Gallifreyan device that seems to operate similarly to the machine used by Mawdryn in Mawdryn Undead (1983), except that of course, this being the age of the iPhone, the Doctor’s device is much, much smaller than Mawdryn’s room full of equipment. The Doctor’s life has been impacted by previous attempts to execute the Master, as seen with the end of his seventh incarnation in the 1996 TV movie after the Daleks attempted to carry out the Master’s execution. Though Star Trek‘s existence as a piece of entertainment in the world of Doctor Who has long been established (The Empty Child, 2005), Nardole’s mention of the holodeck may be the first reference to Star Trek: The Next Generation.