Okay, the fit of the entire outfit made me sad - I understand the brief was "small child playing dress-up", but I think of the tailoring in Missy's clothes and . . . .

YES OMG WTF CHIBNALL. The TARDIS knows how to dress the Doctor, damnit.

Aw, I like Jodie in suits, though I too was not a fan of the trousers. That woman can wear the hell out of a jacket and tie!

I bet she could also wear the hell out of a suit that fit.

I do wish the trousers were longer, for sure.

I was watching Doctor Who with friends, and we all went "Ooooooh!" at the reveal. But, yeah. Definitely in the missing Missy corner. I think Michelle Gomez might be busy with Sabrina, though, so even if they hadn't wanted to switch up actors, they might not have been able to get her.

I would *LOVE* to see some Thirteen/Missy interaction, but even more, I am hoping that tonight's ep finds a way to acknowledge the messiness of the Twelve/Missy relationship.

Did I mention how exciting it was for me to hear "Skaggs Island" on Dr Who? It's pretty exciting.

Are we supposed to remember O from last time he crossed paths with the Doctor?

I was wondering this too.

I'm pretty sure O hasn't been in a previous adventure. For better or for worse, this is his first go-round.

I have things to say about this ep, mostly about the Master and the James Bond (side not: this is not the first time Doctor Who has done James Bond) but right this instant I'm mostly miffed that part 2 isn't showing here until Thursday. The hell, ABC?

Anyway, a few quick notes:

Curious who the aliens are. They remind me of the Boneless from Flatline in Season 8 (one of my favourite eps from that season), especially when they're pushing through walls and such. Given they're invading from another universe or dimension or whatever, that could work. Most disappointing possibility would be the Cybermen. They seem like a clear riff on Army of Ghosts (in which too the Cybermen invaded from a parallel universe), so Cybermen is a chance; which would make this the third adventure in the last few years to pair the Master with them. My favourite and most obscure possibility is one person suggesting that they've brought back the Vardans. (Conceptually speaking, that could actually work.)

I'm a bit miffed that they killed off Stephen Fry in such short order. Also miffed they didn't make him more menacing. Here he is, head of MI6 and he spends a lot of time apologising for being a bit too cloak-and-dagger. (Lenny Henry, on the other hand, was a pretty effective piece of guest casting.)

There's a little more to say about this point later, but for now: the Doctor visits Australia! I can only recall two other adventures in the programs 56-year history where that's happened, and only one other where it plays a substantive role. So that's noice, it's different, it's unusual.

I quite liked this ep. It was decently pacy, set up some interesting questions, wasn't overly incoherent in plot or stance; overall I'd rate it so far as better than anything Chibnall wrote last season. Of course, that's all going to depend on how well it sticks the landing in part 2. And that said, I do think there were two key weaknesses.

First, of course, was the Master, who was disappointingly dated. Another unambitious moustache-twirler (I'm inclined to call him the Simmulacrum) is a letdown after Missy, of course. She was a great, fresh take on the character. I particularly liked her agent of chaos role in The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar.

I thought the use of the character was tired too. This isn't the first time the Master has been hiding in plain sight, either in disguise or as a new regeneration; I count at least eight times they pull this reveal on the audience. There are a few good ones, but often it seems to serve no other purpose than a conviction that fans like that sort of thing. (My favourite is the Fifth Doctor adventure, The King's Demons, where the Master is disguised as King John's champion, Sir Gilles Estram (Estram - Master). King John himself is also a fake, being a shapeshifting alien robot. The Master's plot is to have King John act SO VERY ANNOYING to everyone that there'll be a revolution and the Magna Carta will never be signed, because why not. Oh, and the shapeshifting robot is called Kamelion, and joins the TARDIS crew. They built an actual animatronic prop for him, though they could have him look like anyone and therefore be played by any actor, so why they got hung up on the prop I don't know. In the end he came back for just one more adventure where the Doctor destroyed him, because the production team couldn't figure out how to use him for any non-Magna Carta-related plots.)

Spyfall isn't that bad but the reveal was still pretty flat. It's possible that part 2 will turn it around, but I'm not hopeful.

Oh! One other retro element to this Master, and I had to go back and check that this was the case: it's the first appearance of the Tissue Compression Eliminator since the Fifth Doctor adventure, The Planet of Fire! (Which, incidentally, was Kamelion's other adventure.) It appeared in the very first Master adventure and was a common feature of the classic series. In the new series, Simm favoured a laser screwdriver(?) and Missy had a multipurpose disintegrator thing. Another step back to the future.