Doctor Who Series 10 Episode 9: 7 Big Questions After 'Empress Of Mars'
5. Who Was Controlling The TARDIS?
Why don’t they just use the TARDIS? It has to be Doctor Who's most cited plot failing and it clearly bothers some more than it ought to. Occasionally explanations are given as to why she can’t be used, but more often than not the TARDIS is ignored by the writers. Usually she is left standing forlornly where the Doctor landed her, but this week something quite extraordinary happened.
The last time Nardole was sent on an errand to the TARDIS he passed out from asphyxiation, and once again things don’t work out for the Doctor’s hapless companion. The TARDIS, running on automatic, sends him back to Bristol. If Gatiss wanted to get the blue box out of the picture then she could easily have been trapped on the other side of the hive with a blast of the Gigantua, so what is really going on here?
Gatiss had already been working on the Empress of Mars when, having decided to up Nardole’s role in the series, Moffat requested that the character be added. The cynic might argue that the TARDIS went on auto-pilot to shoehorn him in and out of the original script.
But there’s also the more tantalising possibility that Missy or perhaps even the John Simm Master has taken control of the TARDIS in order to manipulate Nardole into releasing Missy from the vault. It wouldn’t be the first time the ship has been taken over by an outside force, and the Time Lords are particularly known for it.