History Recap / DoctorWhoS38E1E2Spyfall

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** As companions with the Doctor for long stretches of time, Yaz and Ryan have a lot of explaining to do to friends and employers about their repeated absences. Graham, who's retired, has less explaining to do.
** Yaz's supervisor lets her know that she is still a probationary officer and needs to finish her probie time or she'll lose her job.
** The Master joins the Nazi party and the audience is lead to believe they joined against a common enemy or because the Master had something they needed. It's only when the Doctor and the Master talk to each other that the audience learns the Master is using a perception filter to work with the Nazis, as the ethnicity of his current regeneration (an Englishman with Indian heritage) goes against the Nazi regime/ideology. When the Master's perception filter is switched off he is arrested and presumably sent to be tortured or become a prisoner. When the Master reappears to Ryan, Yaz and Graham in the present day, he's furious and exhausted, implied to be because of the amount of racial prejudice he had to endure and the number of prison escapes he had to do.

Written by Creator/ChrisChibnall, who described it as the "biggest episode ever", this two-episode serial originally aired from January 1-5, 2020. It is the first story in the Revival Series to consist of numbered parts since [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime "The End of Time"]] in 2009-2010.

--->'''The Doctor:''' "I'm getting nineteenth century... early... with a touch of mid... top notes, London... steam? Why am I getting steam?"

* CorporateConspiracy: The search engine/data-handling company VOR, headed by Daniel Barton, that's collecting everyone's data for the purpose of [[spoiler:turning most of humanity into {{Wetware CPU}}s]].

* HowDidYouKnowIDidnt: O's explanation for how his surveillance tech manages to hold off the Kasaavin . It turns out later that this is a lie; It's only working because he's working with them, but they don't want the Doctor to know.

-->'''"O":''' "I was the last one in every race at school."\\
'''The Doctor:''' "No, no, no, I read your file. You're a champion sprinter."\\
'''"O":''' "Hm... ''Got me.''"

* MadScienceFair: The Doctor visits the Adelaide Gallery in the late 1800s, where various engineers are promoting their inventions - in particular, Charles Babbage's Difference Engine. The Doctor passes off her sudden arrival as a demonstration of the Marvellous Apparating Man (...Lady). Shortly thereafter, the Master arrives to threaten the crowd with his Tissue Compressor Eliminator. [[spoiler:While he's preoccupied intimidating the Doctor, Ada Lovelace gets the drop on him by commandeering another inventor's machine gun.]]

-->'''The Doctor:''' "The name's Doctor. ''The'' Doctor."

-->'''Yaz:''' "Ryan, you're panicking. Rule 1--no panicking."
-->'''Ryan:''' "I thought Rule 1 was don't trust anybody?"
-->'''Yaz:''' "Rule 1a, then. [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs No panicking while you're not trusting anyone.]]"

-->'''The Master:''' "So, I've just had the most infuriating 77 years of my life."

-->'''The Master:''' "Did you really ''think'' I wouldn't make that sonic-proof, Doctor?! ''Come on!!''"

--> '''Graham''': "''I'm not panicking!''"\\
'''The Doctor's recording''': "Yes, you were, and I did just say don't talk back to the screens."

-->'''The Doctor:''' "No... no, you can't be."\\
'''The Master:''' "Oh, but I can be, and very much am."

--->'''O:''' "Doctor, I did say, "look for the spymaster." Or should I [[TheReveal say]] spy... ''[[Characters/DoctorWhoMasters Master]]?''?"''

--->'''Hologram:''' "If you're seeing this, you've been to Gallifrey. When I said someone did that, obviously I meant– I did. I had to make them pay for what I discovered. They lied to us. The founding fathers of Gallifrey — everything we were told was a lie. We are not who we think. You or I. The whole existence of our species — built on the lie of the Timeless Child. Do you see it? It's buried deep in all our memories. In our identity. I'd tell you more, but... but why would I make it easy for you? It wasn't for me."

Yes, you can't have Bond without Blofeld, as O is not who he said he is. O had told the Doctor to look for the spymaster, or in this case, spy-[[Characters/DoctorWhoMasters Master]]. Indeed, the Master himself is back once again, having intercepted the real O on his first day at [=MI6=] before pulling out the ol' Tissue Compression Eliminator, keeping his shrunken corpse in a matchbox in his pocket, and pulling a KillAndReplace.

Across the globe, intelligence agents in the [[UsefulNotes/CoteDIvoire Ivory Coast]], on a plane over the Pacific Ocean, and in Moscow are all targeted by mysterious creatures that can phase through walls. In Sheffield, Ryan, Yaz and Graham are all at home: Ryan playing basketball with his co-workers from his warehouse job, who wonder at the litany of medical problems he's had over the past months; Yaz, packing and heading off for another undercover job as her sister tries to get Ryan's number and her boss despairs; and Graham finishing up a medical appointment. All find themselves met by black cars, driven by men in black suits and sunglasses. At a garage, the Doctor is working on the TARDIS — draining water out of slides, lakes and a rainforest that are somewhere inside — and wondering why her "fam" is late when the three cars arrive to pick ''her'' up.

The Doctor would like to know where everyone is being taken, but before she can get an answer the SUV she and her friends are passengers in is remotely hijacked, with the driver disintegrated. Once the Doctor manages to stop the vehicle in the nick of time, a voice on the radio demands to know who's wrecking his cars. The voice belongs to [[Creator/StephenFry C]], head of [=MI6=], and the Doctor agrees to come over, driving herself, to see what he wants. After some identity-related confusion, C shows the Doctor and her companions a woman hooked up to medical apparatus; one of his agents, found unconscious in an airplane washroom after making pre-arranged contact with an informant. He has been granted the authority to speak for ''all'' of Earth's intelligence agencies, all of whom are losing people. All of the attacked agents were investigating leads related to tech billionaire [[Creator/LennyHenry Daniel Barton]], head of MegaCorp VOR.

The Doctor and her companions agree to help, with Ryan and Graham awed by the various spy gadgets they're shown. However, the Doctor is incredulous that C dismissed Horizon Watcher, the agent responsible for monitoring extraterrestrial threats, especially since groups like UNIT and Torchwood are no longer active to keep Earth safe. C can't even find Horizon anymore, since he's gone off the grid, but the Doctor has been keeping in touch. When the conversation returns to Barton, it transpires that he was once an [=MI6=] agent, but eventually stopped cooperating with them after he moved to America, and C suspects he may have turned double or even triple agent. The Doctor asks him who he thinks Barton works for now, but a laser shot through the window behind him puts him down before he can answer. The phasing creatures attack, and the Doctor and her companions flee into the TARDIS with the cases of gadgetry. One of the creatures, to the Doctor's shock, nearly manages to get through the TARDIS's doors before she shakes it by taking off, and afterwards the sonic can't get a read on anything.

The fam decides to split up: Ryan and Yaz are sent to San Francisco to see Barton and scan for any data they can find. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Graham head to the Australian outback to pay a visit to the Horizon Watcher and see if he's got any information. Yaz and Ryan use the stash of gadgets to pose as reporters Sofia Afzal and Logan Jackson, using camera attachments and a bioscanner disguised as a digital recorder during their brief interview. After Barton is called away early, he invites them to his birthday party the next day as a consolation prize. When Yaz checks the scanner, she discovers that Barton's DNA reads as only 93% human. In the Outback, the Doctor and Graham arrive at a remote house to be greeted by Horizon Watcher, a former [=MI6=] agent codenamed "O", and Seesay and Browning, two ASIS agents who've recently been assigned to guard him due to the threat.

O's house is full of information and computers. He's rather paranoid, or as he prefers, cautious, due to the alien threats he researches and keeps an eye on. He notes that, given the threat, it's possible some of them might follow the Doctor all the way out here. In San Francisco, Yaz and Ryan sneak back into VOR headquarters after hours using a duplicate of Barton's pass to steal files from his computer. They have a near miss when Barton unexpectedly returns, but they manage to finish the download and hide before he enters. Barton has a meeting with two of the intangible creatures, and he is not happy about them being less discreet than he'd like. After he leaves, Yaz tries to look for more leads but is unexpectedly ambushed by one of the creatures and vanishes, causing Ryan to flee. Yaz finds herself in a dark, misty place with cable-like pillars all around and lights moving through them into the ground. Ryan watches from outside as dozens of glowing figures appear in the windows of the VOR building.

After being brought to O's house, Ryan comforts a shaken Yaz. Talking with O inside, Graham is surprised to learn that the Doctor's claim of once having been a man wasn't just something she was joking about. O offers to show Graham his files on the Doctor, but before Graham can decide whether to accept, the Doctor pops in with a pitcher of iced tea and everyone heads out to the porch for some data analysis. Barton's non-human DNA is brought up, but the idea that a man as photographed as him could be a fake identity is dismissed as implausible. The Doctor discovers some alien code in the stolen data, and upon translating it, it turns out to be an encrypted image much like the one O sent the Doctor earlier, containing a map of the Earth charting the locations of the light creatures. Actually, it's ''multiple'' maps, but the Doctor can't figure out what they mean. So the Doctor and her friends decide to infiltrate Barton's birthday party. With everyone but Yaz kitting themselves out in tuxedoes from the TARDIS wardrobe (PC Khan going for a different choice of formalwear), they enter Barton's vineyard estate. As the companions enjoy themselves at the tables, since the party has a gambling theme, Barton and one of his staff note Ryan and Yaz, who failed to erase themselves from the office security footage.

Eventually, the Doctor manages to get Barton alone and asks him several pointed questions about what's going on, all of which he denies. He eventually orders her to stay away from him before leaving, and the Doctor and her friends chase after him. When Barton leaves in a car driven by a chauffeur, the Doctor and company steal motorcycles to follow. After a chase through the vineyard, during which Barton shoots a pistol at them, Barton disappears into a hangar. The Doctor and company follow him to the plane he's had readied for takeoff, and enter via the cargo hatch as the plane is preparing to take off. But as the plane reaches altitude, the Doctor realizes something's off. O said he wasn't good at sprinting after he got on the plane, but the files she read about him said he was a champion sprinter...

Yes, you can't have Bond without Blofeld, as O is not who he said he is. O had told the Doctor to look for the spymaster, or in this case, spy[[Characters/DoctorWhoMasters Master]]. Indeed, the "O" really stands for ''OhCrap it's TheMaster'', as Gallifrey's resident deranged nutjob is back once again, having intercepted the real O on his first day at [=MI6=] before pulling out the ol' Tissue Compression Eliminator, keeping his shrunken corpse in a matchbox in his pocket, going [[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E6TheKeeperOfTraken the Tremas route]] and pulling a KillAndReplace.

We pick up right where we left off, with the Doctor attempting to get her bearings in the nowhere-place, and her fam plunging to their doom. But the Doctor finds that she is not alone, finding a woman in 19th century dress who is strangely calm in the bizarre landscape. She introduces herself as Ada Gordon, and says that she has been brought here multiple times by her "guardian", one of the alien spies. Ada says that the creature will return her home and can bring the Doctor with her. The Doctor is suspicious, but takes Ada's hand as the creature glows brighter.

Meanwhile on the plane, Ryan discovers a series of unusually well placed notes guiding him to directions to pilot the plane, as well as a video from the Doctor attempting to talk them down, before a malfunction shorts out the video. Fortunately, Ryan is able to use the directions to access the plane's computer, leveling it out and bringing it in to land. Unfortunately, while travelling in the Master's TARDIS, Barton is informed that his plane is coming in for a landing, and the TARDIS has detected the Doctor. Furious, the Master sends Barton to deal with the companions, while he goes after the Doctor.

The Doctor and Ada materialize in the middle of the Adelaide Gallery in London 1834, where various inventors are displaying their wares. The Doctor is able to play off her and Ada appearing out of nowhere as a trick, but she is now trapped in the 19th century without her TARDIS or her friends. Meanwhile, in 21st century Essex, Ryan, Graham, and Yaz hide from Barton at the airport, determined to carry on finding out what Barton and "O" are planning. Using information from hacking Barton's diary, they set out for London to follow Barton to a keynote address he will be giving.

Back in the 19th century, the Doctor tries to explain the situation to Ada, but is interrupted by the Master, who starts using his Tissue Compressor Eliminator on the visitors. He forces the Doctor to kneel before him, but the Doctor realizes that the Master does not completely control the aliens (the Kasaavin). The Master teases "news from home" before Ada starts using the weapons on display to injure him and force him to retreat.

In the 21st century, Barton uses his contacts to locate Ryan, Graham, and Yaz, framing them for the destruction of the plane and putting anyone they know under surveillance. Graham is able to guide them to a construction site to hide out, where they express their concerns about the Doctor; not just about whether she's alive but why she didn't tell them more about her past. After Yaz remarks that the Doctor clearly knows "O" but somehow didn't recognize him, the companions put pieces of information together (the Doctor mentioning that she used to be a man, what she told Graham and Grace about the night they met) and deduce what regeneration might be. On the plus side, Ryan and Graham are both wearing some of the spy gadgets from C's office (the rocket cufflinks and the laser shoes), but neither of them know how to make them work. Meanwhile, the Kasaavin start appearing outside the construction site.

Following the attack on the gallery, the Doctor makes a surprising discovery: the man she met at the gallery and is letting her stay at his house is Charles Babbage, inventor of the difference engine. This means that Ada Gordon is actually Ada Lovelace, the mother of modern computing. The Doctor also notices a strange statuette in Babbage's study, one that looks exactly like one in the Master's TARDIS. Babbage explains that is called the Silver Lady, and that it is capable of moving and projecting images, which are really the Kasaavin. The Doctor quickly explains the Kasaavin have been studying Ada, and the Master has been allowing them to establish a presence on Earth throughout time, hence the multiple Earths in Barton's files. Using the Silver Lady, the Doctor summons a Kasaavin to use her sonic to direct herself back to the 21st century. Unfortunately, Ada grabs her hand at the moment of transport and they disappear.

They reappear in what they learn to be Paris, 1943, as the city is burning in the ravages of WWII. Hearing a patrol, a woman hides the Doctor and Ada under the floor of her apartment. The patrol, led by the Master, blasts the floor with machine gun fire, but the woman remains silent. After they leave, the Doctor deduces that with the hidden radio equipment from the British, the woman must be Noor Inayat Khan, member of the Special Operations Executive and first female radio operator to be parachuted into a war zone. She starts to put together a plan to return to the present.

In the present, Barton takes a moment from hunting Team TARDIS to visit his mother, or rather kidnap her and hold her prisoner in a hangar. According to Barton, she was never impressed by his achievements, and decides to reward her by letting the Kasaavin kill her, claiming that she will be the "first" of whatever it is he wants to do. Meanwhile the Kasaavin move in on the team, forcing Graham to use the laser shoes to fend them off. Yaz calls her sister to tell she's alright, which brings in Barton's men. But Graham uses the laser shoes again to allow them to take their phones and car to go to where Barton was. However, when they get to the hangar, they find only Barton's mother's body, as well as the Silver Lady. Barton calls them to gloat and reveals that he allowed the Kasaavin to experiment to further his plans.

The Doctor theorizes that Yaz and her being time travellers, plus her being a Time Lord, allowed them to be taken to the Kasaavin's realm and not be killed. The Master brags that his real plan was to capture the Doctor and create chaos, and he'll be able to deal with Barton and Kasaavin after they destroy humanity for him. But the Master has another secret: He managed to find the pocket dimension containing Gallifrey... and found it to have been razed again. But before the Master can complete his revenge, he is interrupted by German soldiers coming up the tower. The Doctor reveals what the message she had Noor send to the British was: telling them what a great source of information the Master has been as a double agent! She deactivates his perception filter and leaves the Master to be captured by the Germans. The Doctor then meets up with Noor and Ada where they took the picture: outside of the Master's TARDIS, still in Outback mode.

With a way back to her home time, the Doctor uses the TARDIS to confirm that the Kasaavin have been monitoring Earth's top technological minds. Namely, every human being instrumental to the development of the computer. And that's when the Doctor realizes part of what is going on. In the present day, Barton is holding his keynote speech in London while Team TARDIS follow via video link from the hangar. He mockingly thanks the audience for allowing his company access to all their information, explaining that since DNA is able to carry so much data, he could convert the large bulk of humanity into lifeless hard drives with him in charge. He activates the Silver Lady, summoning countless Kasaavin and causing everyone's devices to start reformatting them. Graham and Ryan trying to use their spy gear to break the Silver Lady's casing doesn't work, and they are interrupted by the Master (who got there the [[TheSlowPath long way round]]) as Yaz starts being reformatted.

Suddenly, the reformatting process stops, forcing Barton to retreat and the Master to wonder what went wrong. From the fog, out steps the Doctor, along with Ada and Noor. The Doctor explains that she realized the Silver Lady in Babbage's house was the same that was in Barton's office, and used the Master's own TARDIS to rig it to shut down and banish the Kasaavin back to their dimension for good. As the Kasaavin start returning to the hangar, the Doctor also reveals the Master's planned betrayal by playing a recording of their conversation on the Eiffel Tower. The Kasaavin drag the Master with them to their dimension, leaving the Master to rage against his enemy.

But there are still some loose ends. The Doctor uses the Master's TARDIS to go back in time to set the notes in Barton's plane for Ryan to find, then sets about returning Noor and Ada to their times. But the Doctor also wipes their memories of her and of all the future events they have witnessed. Back in her own TARDIS, the Doctor can't stop thinking about the Master's news of Gallifrey, and rushes to the pocket dimension to see for herself. Sadly, the Master was telling the truth; much like the last day of the Time War, the dome is broken, and the once shining cities of Gallifrey have been reduced to smouldering rubble. The Doctor receives a message from the Master, revealing that, to no one's surprise, he was the one who destroyed Gallifrey out of rage of what he discovered, something so awful, it terrified ''him'': the founding fathers of Galifrey had lied to the Time Lords, and it has something to do with the [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E2TheGhostMonument Timeless Child]]. Even the mention of it causes the Doctor to experience a painful vision of a child in robes, but the Master cruelly chooses not to reveal anything more to her.

** The Doctor says she spent 123 years in the Outback once and saw a lot of great rocks, which may be a nod to the classic series using [[BBCQuarry abandoned quarries]] for so many alien planets (which got a nod at the time with Tom Baker arriving on a new world and exclaiming enthusiastically, "Oh look, rocks!").

-->'''The Doctor:''' The name's Doctor. ''The'' Doctor.
* NewEraSpeech: Barton's speech at his alleged "new tech rollout" is clearly ''intended'' as one, but things don't go as planned thanks to the Doctor foiling the plot.

* NoOneCouldSurviveThat: You'd think The Master would have stopped being surprised at the Doctor and his companions escaping his inescapable deathtraps.

** The Doctor has the TARDIS in a car mechanic garage at the start of the episode, allegedly draining water out of slides, lakes and a ''rainforest'' that are apparently somewhere inside.

--->'''The Doctor:''' People always get so offended. "What are you doing in my liver again?"

** The Doctor, when one of the creatures proves capable of ''breaching the TARDIS's locked doors''.
** Yaz and Ryan when they think they've been discovered hiding in Barton's office. Then they get it again after Barton's gone when Yaz is attacked and vanished by one of the creatures.

** The Master as usual; not only willing to destroy humanity ForTheEvulz but his own home planet as well.

* OneSteveLimit: The guest actors for Part 2 include Kenneth Jay as "Perkins", who is presumably a different person than Frank Skinner's character from "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E8MummyOnTheOrientExpress Mummy on the Orient Express]]".

** The Doctor is normally very talkative, even when she's by herself, as shown by the first scene of part 2 when she's busy chattering to herself while in the dimension of the Kasaavin. After she takes the TARDIS to Gallifrey and sees that the Master was not lying when he said it was completely destroyed, she is silent while listening to the Master's geolocked message and continues to say nothing while angrily throwing the message away and then while sitting with her back against one of the pillars in the TARDIS. She evidently continues to be less-than-chatty while travelling with the fam, as Graham notes towards the end of the episode that she has barely said a word during their trips to five different planets. [[StepfordSmiler Naturally she denies that there's anything wrong.]]

* OverlyPrePreparedGag: The Master contrives to get his civilian identity known only by the letter O, just so the Doctor's surprised “Ooooh!” when she figures it out will sound funny.
* PayEvilUntoEvil: The Master destroys Gallifrey after learning the AwfulTruth. Considering [[BrainwashedAndCrazy what]] [[ColdBloodedTorture they]] [[AndIMustScream did]] to him ''and'' the Doctor on multiple occasions (not to mention the many, ''many'' atrocities committed during the Time War), it's not entirely undeserved...
* PerceptionFilter: The Master uses one when posing as a Nazi officer in 1943 because his current incarnation [[RaceLift can't pass for "the Aryan ideal" otherwise]].[[note]]Though bizarrely enough, the term "Aryan" used to refer to [[https://www.britannica.com/topic/Aryan the peoples of Iran and India]]. In other words, the Master technically ''does'' pass for Aryan in his present incarnation... just not the Nazis' nonsensical definition.[[/note]] The Doctor's plan to get him out of her way involves forcibly dropping it.
* PlaceBeyondTime: It's implied that the Kasaavin's dimension is somewhat this, with the Doctor arriving there from 2020 and meeting Ada Gordon-later-Lovelace visiting from 1834 just minutes later.

** The Master discovered something about the foundation of Time Lord society that was so horrifying, so utterly appalling even for ''him'', that he found a way to the pocket dimension containing Gallifrey... and razed it, once again rendering him and the Doctor as potentially the last two Time Lords in existence (depending on whether any other Time Lords were away from Gallifrey at the time).

** Applies again on another level after the reveals of part 2.

-->'''Yaz:''' Ryan, you're panicking. Rule 1--no panicking.
-->'''Ryan:''' I thought Rule 1 was don't trust anybody?
-->'''Yaz:''' Rule 1a, then. [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs No panicking while you're not trusting anyone.]]
* RunningGag: The gag from early Series 11 about the Doctor occasionally forgetting her new gender returns when she loudly announces herself to the crowd at the Alexandria Gallery as "THE MARVELLOUS APPARATING MAN!" ...no, sorry, "THE MARVELLOUS APPARATING LADY!"
-->'''The Doctor:''' ''[frustrated]'' Every time!

* SeriesContinuityError: Gallifrey is still in its pocket universe in this episode despite being removed from it prior to the events of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent Hell Bent]]".

** O has a complete set of Magazine/ForteanTimes in mint condition. Well he would, given that he's a time traveler who, along with the Doctor, probably caused half the things they write about.

* SirNotAppearingInThisTrailer: Likely to avoid spoilers regarding his identity, O/The Master was mostly[[note]]He is technically but barely visible in an aerial shot[[/note]] absent in promo materials released prior to the premiere. Scenes from this episode featured in the trailers have actually had him digitally removed from them. Also, Creator/SachaDhawan was not mentioned in the ''Magazine/RadioTimes'' cast lists for either episode, even as "O".

-->'''The Master:''' So, I've just had the most infuriating 77 years of my life.
* SpaceWhaleAesop: It's a bad idea to let tech companies have your credit card details and your mother's maiden name, because with this information they can allow extradimensional aliens to rewrite your DNA.

-->'''The Master:''' Did you really ''think'' I wouldn't make that sonic-proof, Doctor?! ''Come on!!''

** The Master joins the Nazi party and the audience is lead to believe they joined against a common enemy or because the Master had something they needed. It's only when the Doctor and the Master talk to each other that the audience learns the Master is using a perception filter to work with the Nazis, as the ethnicity of his current regeneration (an Englishman with Indian heritage) goes against the Nazi regime/ideology. When the Master's perception filter is switched off he is arrested and presumably sent to be tortured or become a prisoner. When the Master reappears to Ryan, Yaz and Graham in the present day he's furious and exhausted, implied to be because of the amount of racial prejudice he had to endure and the number of prison escapes he had to do.
** When Ryan asks how the Doctor was able to leave instructions for Graham, Ryan and Yaz on how to land a plane, she quickly realizes she needs to go back in time again so she can leave instructions for her companions on how to land the plane and do it without being noticed by either the Master or Barton.

** The video instructions the Doctor leaves for Ryan on how to fly the plane include her leaving gaps for them to express surprise, telling them to stop talking back since it's a recording and she can't hear them, and correctly predicting that Graham would be panicking.
--> '''Graham''': ''I'm not panicking!''\\
'''The Doctor's recording''': Yes you were, and I did just say don't talk back to the screens.

* TeaserOnlyCharacter: The three spies (the sniper, the airplane passenger, and the guy waiting for an extraction) in the teaser who are all attacked by the mysterious creatures. The passenger is seen later in a medical suite at [=MI6=] headquarters to provide a demonstration of what was done to them.

-->'''The Doctor:''' No... no, you can't be.\\
'''The Master:''' Oh, but I can be, and very much am.

* TimeTravellersAreSpies:
** Quite literally — Team TARDIS is called in to help [=MI6=] with an alien situation, and Yaz and Ryan even go undercover as reporters. The Doctor and company aren't usually spies, but this time they sort of are.
** The Doctor deduces that the Kasaavin are literally "spies throughout human history" after figuring out what the multiple Earth maps mean.
* TookALevelInJerkass: Regardless of what Missy thought about putting an end to their endless feud, this incarnation has gone right back to how he was before, fully prepared to destroy humanity and cause chaos just to spite the Doctor. Of course, we don't know if this reincarnation [[TimeyWimeyBall comes after Missy or before.]]

* UnexplainedRecovery: It wouldn't be ol' Koschei without this; the easy assumption is that [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E12TheDoctorFalls despite being hit with something that's supposed to kill a Time Lord permanently, Missy somehow regenerated and managed to find a way off the colony ship]]; thinking the Doctor deliberately abandoned them to die, the Master decided ThenLetMeBeEvil. Thing is, as you'd expect, there are enough ambiguous details to suggest it's not that simple.

** The Master teleports off the plane just before some of the entities send the Doctor into the alien dimension, leaving Ryan, Graham and Yaz stranded on an out-of-control aircraft that is now missing its cockpit thanks to the Master's bomb.

* WellDoneSonGuy: Barton has a very strained relationship with his mother. At one point he asks her if being one of the most powerful people on the planet is enough of an achievement to get a "Well done" out of her, and gets a very sarcastic one in return. It's implied that Barton's mother cares less about his success and more about a lack of meaningful communication from him; the most effort he's put into their relationship was sending her a friend request on Facebook (even though he hates using Facebook).

--->'''O:''' Doctor, I did say, "look for the spymaster." Or should I [[TheReveal say]] spy... ''[[Characters/DoctorWhoMasters Master]]?''?''
** The Master's hologram message revealing who it was that destroyed Gallifrey, and ''why''.
--->'''Hologram:''' If you're seeing this, you've been to Gallifrey. When I said someone did that, obviously I meant– I did. I had to make them pay for what I discovered. They lied to us. The founding fathers of Gallifrey — everything we were told was a lie. We are not who we think. You or I. The whole existence of our species — built on the lie of the Timeless Child. Do you see it? It's buried deep in all our memories. In our identity. I'd tell you more, but... but why would I make it easy for you? It wasn't for me.

** The Doctor discovering that the Master had ''not'' been lying about Gallifrey being destroyed.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse:
** What did the Doctor do with the Master's TARDIS once she got back to the present day?
** It's not entirely made clear if [[FrameUp Barton framing Yaz, Graham and Ryan]] as being plane hijackers is fully resolved, or how it was done if it was.
** No proper explanation is ever really put forth as to what the mysterious plane the Doctor and Ada are stranded on ''actually is''.

* ChaseScene: The Doctor and friends chase Daniel Barton on motorcycles through a vineyard, with Barton leaning out of his car to shoot at them.

** At the invention fair (not-yet)Lovelace and Babbage are attending, grenades for home defence and a SteamPunk machine gun are among the gadgetry on display. Ada goes for the weapons while the Master is too occupied with the Doctor to pay attention to her and attacks him with them, forcing him to flee the scene.

* {{Cliffhanger}}: Part 1 ends with the Doctor's companions left behind on a crashing plane while the Doctor is taken to the mysterious realm of the aliens.
* CliffhangerCopout: Defied: the conflict with the plane crashing is resolved with Ryan discovering some notes from the Doctor hidden on the plane instructing him how to pilot the plane even though the cockpit is gone. Later on in the episode, we see the Doctor go back to when the plane was being constructed [[StableTimeLoop in order to leave those notes]].
* ComeAlone: Oddly enough The Master does meet the Doctor alone at the top of the Eiffel Tower as agreed, though only because he thinks he's won.

** The Doctor refers to her being a woman now as "I've had an upgrade." Missy referred to being a woman as [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E2TheWitchsFamiliar "Some of us can afford the upgrade!"]]
** When C expresses skepticism about the existence of aliens, the Doctor retorts that he should ask the people at [[Recap/DoctorWho2019NYSResolution GCHQ]].
** The Doctor's evening-dress coat sports a red inner lining, like Twelve's outfit.[[note]]Though this one is an entirely different style, being a double-breasted coat while Twelve's were all single-breasted.[[/note]] The double-breasted style of the coat is visually similar to Eleven's brief period in a green greatcoat, helped by the presence of a bowtie.

** The Doctor [[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E3SilverNemesis disapproves of a character's willingness to use]] StuffBlowingUp, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E3SilverNemesis but not too much to let it be used to save the day, and we get vague hints that the Doctor is not what he/she seems]].
** This isn't the first time a non-white female companion has had her phone calls to their family traced by the Master and his allies, although in this case it's used to the good guys' advantage. In general, Ryan, Graham and Yaz being framed for a crime and forced to go on the run and off-grid is very reminiscent of what happened to the Tenth Doctor, Martha and Captain Jack in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E12TheSoundOfDrums The Sound of Drums]]", a story that also involved the Master.
** The Thirteenth Doctor is [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E3Rosa yet again]] grabbed in a chokehold by a male villain she's just intentionally angered, but isn't concerned about it because she knows things are going her way.

** The Doctor being reminded to go back in time in order to rig Barton's airplane to save her companions' lives is reminiscent of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E13TheBigBang Eleven's time-hopping in an almost-destroyed universe]].

** Similar to what he did with Bill, the Master spends time befriending the human trio (in particular Graham, who he also tempts with knowledge about the Doctor, and Yaz, who he gets cozy with at the craps table and who he wraps his arms around to hang on during the bike chase) for no real reason [[ForTheEvulz except to rub it in to them later when he reveals himself]].
** The Doctor gets to indulge in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E10Blink another round of]] TheTapeKnewYouWouldSayThat, this time via foreknowledge of her companions' characters rather than a complete stranger's timey-wimey transcript.

--->'''The Doctor:''' I'm getting nineteenth century... early... with a touch of mid... top notes, London... steam? Why am I getting steam?

** Hakim Khan's ConspiracyTheorist tendencies [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E4ArachnidsInTheUK return]], as he (in this case correctly) assumes that the family's temporary paralysis during the thwarted Kasaavin attack was the result of a conspiracy.

** The Master coming up with a lame pseudonym just to see the Doctor's reaction brings to mind the Delgado Master using such utterly ridiculous aliases as "Emil Keller" (Emil being derived from the Latin ''aemulus'' or "rival"), "Professor Thascalos" (Greek for "Master"), "Inspector [=LeMaitre=]" in the novel ''Last of the Gaderene'' (French for "The Master"), "Reverend Magister" (Latin for...you guessed it), and "Colonel Masters" (he wasn't even trying that time).
* ContinuitySnarl: Gallifrey is still in its pocket universe in this episode despite being removed from it prior to the events of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E12HellBent “Hell Bent”]].
* ConvenientlyEmptyRoads: {{Justified|Trope}}. The Doctor and Fam on motorcycles pursue the human villain's limousine through dirt roads in the middle of a crop, albeit one that's not far from a large social gathering.

* DisapprovingLook: The Doctor and Ada Lovelace exchange one when Charles Babbage says of the Silver Lady that "like all great ladies, she is as much for decoration as for purpose."
* DisproportionateRetribution: In response to the lie he uncovered, the Master has apparently laid waste to the entire planet of Gallifrey, not just those in charge but every civilian as well, including the current generation of all the children the Doctor counted on that dark night mentioned in "[[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor The Day of the Doctor]]".
* DoesntLikeGuns: The Doctor tells Ada that she doesn't approve of her firing the ball-bearing machine gun, even when it's being aimed at the Master and Ada's using it to save the Doctor and a room full of bystanders. She approves when Nora Khan says she doesn't have a gun--despite being an SOE agent in Nazi-occupied France--due to her pacifist beliefs.

** C tells the Doctor that Barton is suspected of having become one. It turns out he now works for/with the Master.
** The Doctor gets the Master's Nazi officer disguise framed for being a double agent by having Noor Inayat Khan send a radio message she wants intercepted claiming that he's been a valuable source of information.
* DramaticIrony: Thirteen is a ''lot'' more pissed at the Master than her Tenth and Twelfth incarnations, and why shouldn't she be? She doesn't know that Missy tried to stand with her, only to get killed on the way.

* EiffelTowerEffect: In Paris, the Eiffel Tower is clearly visible from Noor's window, and the Doctor later meets the Master at the top of the tower. Curiously enough, Ada does not comment on it, as the tower did not exist in her time (then again her view of a city undergoing an air raid was somewhat distracting).

* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: Subverted hard. Daniel Barton feels no love for his mother, experimenting on her and planning to have her wiped out with the rest of humanity.

* ExactWords: O tells the Doctor she should look out for the "spymaster" behind whatever's going on. As he points out during TheReveal: "Or should I say... the spy-''Master?''"
* FacialDialogue: When the Doctor catches on to the fact that "O"'s story doesn't quite add up, there is brief close-up on the Master's face, during which he is clearly considering whether he should try to keep the whole O facade going and come up with a quick lie to belay the Doctor's doubts for just a little while longer, or just straight up give the game away which will allow him to fully indulge in some EvilGloating. It is also clear which one of the options he finds to be the most appealing.

** When the Doctor first mentions "Horizon Watcher", she says he's an old friend but then backs down a bit and says he ''might'' be a friend because she's only met him once in person.
** C's last words — he suggests that Barton may be a double or triple agent for someone, and is shot after being asked who he might be an agent for. His surprised reaction? "Oh."
** When the Doctor realises they're in a spy thriller she tells the fam that they shouldn't trust anyone. Then she trusts O. ''Of course'' that's going to be a mistake.
** When O introduces himself, he claims he took the codename because C used to react with an "Oh, god" whenever he came into his office. It turns out that that exact reaction of surprise or fear is precisely why he took that identity.

** O mentions how unlikely it would be for Barton's identity to be fake given how many pictures there are of him at various ages on the Internet. The Master had done this before as Harold Saxon (here he does a KillAndReplace on the real O, making use of his identity; whereas for Harold Saxon he'd photoshopped a bunch of pictures and manipulated the public into electing him as Prime Minister).

** There is a shot of a house outside the aeroplane that brings to mind ''Film/TheWizardOfOz''. Guess who used to call themselves the Wicked Witch?

* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Something that the Master has discovered about Time Lords and The Timeless Child had him so ticked off that he destroyed the cities of Gallifrey!

* GooglingTheNewAcquaintance: Daniel Barton looks up "Sofia Afzal" and "Logan Jackson" on his smartphone to determine they are who they say they are. Thanks to tech from [=MI6=], Yaz and Ryan's cover identities ''do'' possess a real online presence so Barton doesn't find anything amiss. Called back to later, as Barton sarcastically asks Ryan if he should call him Logan as he makes the team fugitives.

* HeroicBSOD: Illustrated literally blue; as the Doctor sits staring into space after discovering the fate of Gallifrey, all the normally orange crystals in the TARDIS have turned blue. It also seems to persist, as the Doctor barely says a word during the next ''five'' planets she visits with the Fam.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Noor Inayat Khan, Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace.

** Sorta; once again, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E6TheKeeperOfTraken the Master steals a body]]. This time though, it's via KillAndReplace.
** The Master's EvilPlan is right out of the Pertwee years--a plan to destroy humanity purely to spite the Doctor, with a human ally and a race of alien invaders who end up turning against the Master. It even sees the return of the Tissue Compression Eliminator.

* HowDidYouKnowIDidnt: O's explanation for how his surveillance tech manages to hold off the glowing creatures. It turns out later that this is a lie.
* HumanoidAliens: The enemies take humanoid forms to mock humans.
* {{Hypocrite}}: The Doctor calls the Master out on using Nazis to find her as being a rotten thing to do (which it most certainly is)... only to do the same thing to ''him''. May count as LaserGuidedKarma.

* ICantSenseTheirPresence: The glowing aliens can be observed, but even the Doctor's sonic screwdriver can't detect their physical presence.
* InThePastEveryoneWillBeFamous: Justified with Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace who are connected to the aliens plans; less so with Nora Khan.

-->'''"O":''' I was the last one in every race at school.\\
'''The Doctor:''' Nonono, I read your file. You're a champion sprinter.\\
'''"O":''' Hm... ''Got me.''
* INeedAFreakingDrink: Charles Babbage is last seen taking a very large swig from his glass after the Doctor and Ada are disappeared by a Kasaavin.
* {{Intangibility}}: The glowing creatures can phase through walls, often having the appearance of the wall they've passed through afterwards.

** The Master called himself "O" in anticipation of the Doctor's OhCrap reaction to him. When she outwits him, he gets an "Oh..." of his own.

* LaserGuidedAmnesia: The Doctor brainwipes her temporary companions Noor and Ada when returning them to their original places in time and space so as to not adversely affect future history.

* MadScienceFair: The Doctor visits the Adelaide Gallery in the late 1800s, where various engineers are promoting their inventions - in particular, Charles Babbage's Difference Engine. The Doctor passes off her sudden arrival as a demonstration of the Marvellous Apparating Man (...Lady); shortly thereafter the Master arrives to threaten the crowd with his Tissue Compressor Eliminator. [[spoiler:While he's preoccupied intimidating the Doctor, Ada Lovelace gets the drop on him by commandeering another inventor's machine gun.]]

* MirrorCharacter: Even if Time Lords are above race and gender, the Master and Doctor still use them to degrade the other; the Master making the female-looking Doctor kneel in front of him, and the Doctor forcibly dropping the perception filter to alert Nazis to the fact that the Master looks like a MOC.

* MultiPartEpisode: Only the second two-parter of the new series, after "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime The End of Time]]", to use the "[Title], Part X" style of title. Fittingly, both stories aired in part on New Year's Day (and feature the Master). "The End of Time, Part 2" also aired exactly 10 years before "Spyfall, Part 1", forming a bookend of sorts, with the Master exiting the show in the former and re-entering in the latter (although the character obviously appeared in the intervening years as Missy). Both of the second parts of those episodes also involve the destruction of Gallifrey.

JustForFun/TheOneWith [[Franchise/JamesBond Sigma. Theta Sigma]]. And the one with the [[OhCrap O Crap! moment of the century]].

* AbusiveParents: Daniel’s mother cared nothing for his achievements. Despite becoming the CEO of a company, all she can muster is a sarcastic "Well done". It’s no wonder he killed her.
* AesopAmnesia: Played With. The Doctor has completely forgotten about how it's wrong to erase people's memories, even when they beg you not to. In this case; Ada Lovelace. Though Justified here, as this is a particular case where ''not'' erasing Ada Lovelace's memories would have made it more risky than usual, since allowing her to retain her memories of 21st century technology would have a significant chance of altering the course of history, as she actually traveled to the future and witnessed the existence of technologies ''directly related'' to what she was going to be famous for. The only other historical character allowed to do that in the revived series has been Creator/VincentVanGogh, who saw his own legacy as a painter within a museum, with much more benign consequences. The Doctor could have explained her reasons and let Ada ''choose'' to let the Doctor erase those memories, but she never gives her the chance.

* AdvertisedExtra: Stephen Fry as C is killed off after a few scenes.

* AmbiguousSituation: Just what point of his/her timeline does this story’s version of the Master occur in?
* AppropriatedAppellation: "O" took the CodeName because the head of British intelligence would say, "Oh god!" every time he walked into the room. After TheReveal that he's The Master he enjoys the Doctor's OhCrap response, implying that's ''really'' why he chose that name.

* ArtisticLicenceHistory: Ada Lovelace's maiden name is given as "Gordon". A [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace quick check]] on Website/TheOtherWiki reveals that before her marriage, her last name was actually "Byron" after [[Creator/LordByron her father]]. Especially confusing considering Lord Byron [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E8TheHauntingOfVillaDiodati shows up]] later in the same series, and is explicitly noted as being her (future) father.

** When Yaz and Ryan are hiding in Barton's office after dark, he asks them to come out because he knows they're there. It quickly transpires that he's actually addressing the glowing beings.

* BluffTheEavesdropper: The Doctor has Noor Inayat Khan send a message [[FrameUp identifying the Master's German-officer identity as a double agent]] so that the Germans will intercept the message and arrest him.

** This isn't the first time the series has riffed on the spy thriller genre. In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E3TheInvasion "The Invasion"]], the United Nations ''Intelligence'' Taskforce was [[EarlyInstalmentWeirdness introduced as a plainclothes spy organisation]], and the episode had a CorruptCorporateExecutive running a global industry who had converted his body with technology proved by alien invaders he was in league with.

** UNIT and Series/{{Torchwood}} are mentioned as being "gone" and unable to deal with the alien threat; UNIT having been grounded by funding issues in the [[Recap/DoctorWho2019NYSResolution previous episode]], and Torchwood having been officially disbanded as C implies the events of ''[[Series/TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth Children of Earth]]'' did that. Notably, this is the first time Torchwood has been ''mentioned'' since 2008, let-alone acknowledged within its shared continuity.

** The Master introduces himself as "I'm her best enemy" to the confused companions, the same way the Third Doctor introduces the Master to Sarah Jane in "[[Recap/DoctorWho20thASTheFiveDoctors The Five Doctors]]".

* LiteralMetaphor: Upon revealing himself, the Master mockingly says that the real "O" is "A man very close to my heart." Then he shows how literally he means it by producing a small matchbox... containing the real "O", miniaturized by the Tissue Compression Eliminator

Yes, you can't have Bond without Blofeld, as O is not who he said he is. O had told the Doctor to look for the spymaster, or in this case, spy[[Characters/DoctorWhoMasters Master]]. Indeed, the "O" really stands for ''OhCrap it's TheMaster'', as Gallifrey's resident deranged nutjob is back once again, having intercepted the real O on his first day at [=MI6=] before pulling out the ol' Tissue Compression Eliminator, keeping his shrunken corpse in a matchbox in his pocket, going the Tremas route and pulling a KillAndReplace.

!!!!'''Part 1'''

!!!!'''Part 2'''

* KickTheSonOfABitch: The Master destroys Gallifrey after learning the AwfulTruth. Considering [[BrainwashedAndCrazy what]] [[ColdBloodedTorture they]] [[AndIMustScream did]] to him ''and'' the Doctor on multiple occasions (not to mention the many, ''many'' atrocities committed during the Time War), it's not entirely undeserved...

The one with [[Franchise/JamesBond Sigma. Theta Sigma]]. And the one with the [[OhCrap O Crap! moment of the century]].

** The Doctor shows up with two historical guest stars and the companions [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E02DinosaursOnASpaceship fear they're being replaced]].

** UNIT and Series/{{Torchwood}} are mentioned as being "gone" and unable to deal with the alien threat; UNIT having been grounded by funding issues in the [[Recap/DoctorWho2019NYSResolution previous episode]], and Torchwood having been officially disbanded after the events of ''[[Series/TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth Children of Earth]]''.

** This is the first time Series/{{Torchwood}} has had an actual shout-out, heck, even an ''allusion to its existence'' since 2008 (even "[[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor The Day of the Doctor]]" only mentions Jack, and not much else), with no references to ''[[Series/TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth Children of Earth]]'' other than the fact Jack is drowning his sorrows in an alien bar in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime The End of Time, Part 2]]", and ''Series/TorchwoodMiracleDay'' has always been given the ContinuitySnarl treatment, especially during the time around its airing.

** The Master introduces himself as "I'm her best enemy" to the confused companions, the same way the Third Doctor introduces the Master to Sarah Jane in [[Recap/DoctorWho20thASTheFiveDoctors "The Five Doctors"]].

** The Master introduces himself as "I'm her best enemy" to the confused companions, the same way the Third Doctor introduces the Master to Sarah Jane in [[[[Recap/DoctorWho20thASTheFiveDoctors The Five Doctors]].

* ChewingTheScenery: Once his identity is rumbled, “O” drops all subtlety to his performance.

* HappyEndingOverride: Kills off all the Gallifreyans the Doctor went to such trouble to save in "[[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor The Day of the Doctor]]".

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: When the Master takes people at the gallery hostage, he orders the Doctor to kneel before him and say his name.

* ArtisticLicenceHistory: Ada Lovelace's maiden name is given as "Gordon". A [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace quick check]] on Wiki/TheOtherWiki reveals that before her marriage, her last name was actually "Byron" after [[Creator/LordByron her father]]. Especially confusing considering Lord Byron [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E8TheHauntingOfVillaDiodati shows up]] later in the same series, and is explicitly noted as being her (future) father.