YMMV / Doctor Who S38 E1/E2 "Spyfall"

• Accidental Innuendo: Barton's company is called Vor, which is one letter away from, and pronounced the same as, the vore, the fetish of being eaten alive and eating people alive.
• Awesome Music:
  • Segun Akinola is having a grand old time channelling John Barry. The Bond villain-style theme playing during The Reveal is particularly delicious.
  • While the theme tune is recognisably the same arrangement as the previous season, it's been subtly remixed to make the bassline more prominent.
• Complete Monster:
  • Daniel Barton is the CEO of VOR, which he uses to track everyone who uses his technology. Deciding that human life was pointless, Barton allied with the Master and the interdimensional beings known as the Kasaavin. Barton experimented with overwriting the DNA of several spies, as well as his own mother, before using his technology to unleash the Kasaavin across the planet, with the goal of killing off humanity so that their DNA can act as storage for the Kasaavin presence.
  • The "Spy" Master sheds any remaining semblance of sanity and becomes a full-on unhinged psychopath, with no sign of the redemption arc they previously took as Missy. Even before his first appearance in this two-parter, he had already slaughtered everyone on Gallifrey upon learning of the Doctor's identity as the Timeless Child. On Earth, the Master organized the invasion of interdimensional beings known as the Kasaavin, hoping to use them to kill everyone on Earth before taking care of them and his accomplice, Daniel Barton. Returning in the season finale, the Master tortured the Doctor with the truth about the Timeless Child, all the while luring Ashad, the Lone Cyberman, to Gallifrey before killing him and using the Cyberium to create Time Lord-Cyberman hybrids to conquer the universe.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • The new Master's villainy and more Saxon-like behaviour, in contrast to how Missy was by the time of her last episode, sparked theories that he's actually a pre-Missy incarnation from some earlier point in the Master's timeline. Some of the theories even postulate that he might be an incarnation between Saxon and Missy (though a video put on the show's YouTube channel, presented by Dhawan, seemingly confirms that Saxon regenerated into Missy and highly implies Missy regenerated into Spy).
  • The Master mentioning the founders of Gallifrey, and a secret that the Doctor doesn't know, made many fans immediately suspect that the Cartmel Masterplan might finally happen on TV.
• Estrogen Brigade: Thirteen in a tux got an incredibly favourable reaction from bi women and lesbians.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • The Master was seemingly pretending to be O for some time before The Reveal. Was he acting like the Doctor's friend and an honest MI6 agent for a long time before springing his trap? Plus, with the implication he met a previous Doctor in this form, which one was it?
  • The Master spends 77 years on The Slow Path back to 2020 from 1943, which included several difficult prison breaks.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Last Tango in Halifax had Sacha Dhawan appearing alongside... Derek Jacobi, who played a past incarnation of the Master.
• Karmic Overkill: While the Master is a very bad person, and while he did willingly choose to work with the Nazis, the Doctor disabling his perception filter to expose him as nonwhite to the Nazis right before turning him over to them comes across as a needlessly mean-spirited way to defeat him, especially since she had already framed him as an Allied spy beforehand and didn't even need to do that.
• Narm: Yes, it's a name shared by a figure from Norse mythology. Yes, it makes perfect sense for a company that effectively "devours" people's personal information. That did not in any way stop Barton's company being named "VOR" from drawing a lot of shocked laughter from people for sounding exactly like "vore". Dialogue like "VOR seeps into every corner of modern technology" did not help; Stephen Fry announcing, with utmost gravity and solemnity, that "right now, VOR is more powerful than most nations" in particular became a Memetic Mutation in its own right.
• Narm Charm: The entire concept of the episode is Doctor Who does James Bond. It's incredibly cheesy, and it's awesome.
• She Really Can Act: A common feeling of Jodie Whittaker's Doctor in the last season was that she was good, but never really given the opportunity to be great. Her barely repressed anger at the Master and Gallifrey in this two-parter though, and looking completely shattered with a few rageful snarls, got unanimous praise and a lot of people far more interested in Thirteen.
• Shocking Moments:
  • The Reveal at the end of the first part was one of the most notable ones of the Chris Chibnall era to date.
  • As was the reveal at the end of the second part.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Part 1 kills off C, played by guest star Stephen Fry, about 20 minutes after he's introduced.
  • Ada Lovelace and Noor Inayat Khan only briefly aid the Doctor before being sent back home with their memories wiped.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • After the previous season wasn't shy about presenting the Doctor having to sit back and let the less savoury parts of history play out, it's odd that the episode completely ignores what could be a great poignant moment of the Doctor acknowledging that Noor Inayat Khan is going to be captured by the Nazis and executed shortly after she's dropped back off.
  • Gallifrey being destroyed again, and off-screen to boot, means that the only payoff of the Milestone Celebration "The Day of the Doctor"'s bringing it back was the final stretch of Series 9, in which the Doctor's return to his homeworld and people ended up playing second fiddle to the extended dénouement of his and Clara Oswald's relationship. The destruction of Gallifrey also ended up being a non-factor in the Timeless Child Myth Arc of the series, which some viewers felt made it an even more wasted opportunity since we don't get to see the Time Lords react to the Doctor being their progenitor, and played no part in either Flux or the 2022 specials that ended Chibnall and Whittaker's time on the show.
• Trapped by Mountain Lions: Yaz, Graham and Ryan are sidelined for Part 2, with the focus on the Doctor, Ada and Noor.
• Unexpected Character: After the previous season was mostly totally free of recurring villains from the franchise, with only a Dalek appearing in the New Year special, the return of the Master was kept completely under wraps, and even with leaks that Series 12 would feature other returning characters like the Judoon and Cybermen, absolutely no-one saw it coming, even if they pegged that O would turn out to be the Master.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Team TARDIS immediately asking if they're being replaced upon seeing the Doctor with another entourage came across as possessive and self-centered to some viewers.
    • Their indignation at the Doctor not telling them her life story also feels, off considering that the previous series implies, and Part 1 establishes, that the Doctor regularly drops them off to live their lives before picking them up again, which, when combined with the above, makes it feel like they're just annoyed that the Doctor has a life outside of them. It doesn't help that Ryan's assertion that they've already asked the Doctor about her past a couple of times isn't backed up by the events shown in the previous series, making this come off as less of a What the Hell, Hero? moment and more of a Conflict Ball just to start drama.
  • The Doctor disabling the Master's perception filter to expose his skin color and leaving him to the Nazis rubbed some fans the wrong way, as she effectively gains the upper hand over a non-white character by using his race against him.
• Win Back the Crowd: For some who weren't convinced by Series 11 or "Resolution", this is the episode that won them over to Chris Chibnall's incarnation of the show.

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