Fridge Brilliance
- Keeping with Series 8's soft reboot to introduce more Classic Who elements, Missy is in line with Classic Master's characterization: a camp villain whenever (s)he feels like it, and despite their insistence on killing the Doctor, (s)he's more willing to team up with him. The Master has previously offered the Doctor the ability to rule the universe, teamed up with him to stop his accidental destruction of part of the universe, and tried to save five Doctors from an even eviller Time Lord, implying that while he may enjoy doing evil things, actually killing the Doctor is NOT one of them.
- The appearance of the Cyberman-Brigadier isn't all that surprising, considering how Danny held on to his emotions and memories rather than choosing to delete them. Not only had the Brigadier seen enough of the Whoniverse's weirdness, and the sneaky alien forces and conspiracies that underlie Earth's ancient myths, to be immunized against taking Seb's word at face value, but nothing would have convinced someone as dedicated to duty as the Brigadier to forfeit his feelings for country, friends and loved ones. Makes sense, as a former soldier overpowering Cyberman programming and turning against the others, for love of their country has happened before.
Fridge Horror
- How many other characters from the show's history were uploaded into the Nethersphere and conscripted as Cybermen? Just for starters, there are at least five companions who would have died on Earth and been buried rather than cremated.
- As seen in "Into The Dalek", the Nethersphere isn't limited to Earth, eras prior to the present, or even from bodily disintegration. Any organic companion who isn't named Jack Harkness is fair game, including ones who haven't died yet.
- In-universe: when Kate Stewart learns that this uploading of human minds and Cyberman conversion has been going on for a while, she looks horrified. Of course this is because of the ramifications for the (living) human race, but also because her father, the Brigadier, died recently.
- In the last episode, the Doctor said, "Almost every culture in the universe has some concept of an afterlife. I always meant to have a look around, see if I could find one." In this episode, when Kate asks how long Missy has been collecting human minds, the Doctor replies that it could be as long as humans have had a concept of an afterlife. If humanity got the concept from Missy, what about the rest of the universe? Has she been a very busy girl?
- Fred Rogers had his consciousness butchered and downloaded into a Cyberman.
- Given the show's tendency for Doing In the Wizard, it's very much possible Jesus and the saints "ascending" to Heaven was actually them being downloaded to the Nethersphere. Same with Buddha "achieving" nirvana.
Fridge Logic
On the headscratchers page.
