Doctor Who: 10 Times The Doctor Faced Consequences For Their Actions

And now to the tour-de-force that is Twelve’s final stand: World Enough and Time / The Doctor Falls. The overarching arc of series 10 is The Doctor and Missy’s relationship. After saving Missy from her execution in Extremis, The Doctor places her in an inescapable vault and stands watch over her for a thousand years, because she promises that she will attempt to turn good. After she saves the day (in her own Missy sort of way) during the events of Lie of the Land and Empress of Mars, Twelve believes that change really is possible for her, and decides she is ready to be a hero. He devises a plan in which Missy will respond to a bog-standard distress call with a reluctant Bill and Nardole in tow, all whilst he observes. They end up opting for a colony ship frantically reversing away from a black hole, and get ever so slightly more than they bargained for.

It’s fair to say that this plan hits the fan almost immediately. A panicked survivor blasts a hole through Bill with little hesitation, on account of being terrified of what lurks in the lower floors of the ship: Mondasian Cybermen. This forces the rest of the gang to follow the critically injured Bill and her Cyberman captors deeper into the ship - the only problem being that the ship is so large, and so close to the black hole, that time becomes dilated and the two or three minutes that The Doctor delays for end up equaling nearly a decade for Bill. And that’s not all, Bill befriends an oddball janitor that later reveals himself to be The Simm Master in disguise. This version of the Master has no good in him at all, and has no qualms with converting Bill into a Cyberman. He also manages to win Missy over with little resistance (though only so long as he is winning).

And that’s just the first half. Part two sees an all out war between the Cybermen and the surviving passengers on the ship. Here’s the casualty count for The Doctor Falls: The Doctor is electrocuted, shot multiple times and blows himself up, causing him to regenerate; Missy stabs the Master whilst attempting to side with the Doctor, also leading to his regeneration; The Master shoots Missy in the back with his laser screwdriver, supposedly killing him/herself for good; Nardole is doomed to an eventual death at the hands of the Cybermen along with all the human survivors; and Bill… well, Bill dies and turns into a puddle. A space-faring, immortal puddle who has lesbian adventures in Time and Space. You do you, Moffat.

Basically, everyone you love and care about is killed, brutally, in the only Who story to date that has disposed of the entire main cast in one swoop. This is a story that goes from 0-100 real quick, and all because the Doctor goes against his better judgement. This feels particularly tragic, given his companions, who were ultimately killed, weren’t on board with the plan at all in the first place.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Don’t let a deranged Time Lord loose with your best friends. Also, consider vetting your distress calls better, in case there happens to be, for example, two of your most dangerous adversaries of all time on board.