Series 8, Episode 1 | 1 part (feature-length) | First broadcast: 23 August 2014 | Writer: Steven Moffat | Director: Ben Wheatley
Cast
- Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor
- Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald
- Neve McIntosh as Madame Vastra
- Catrin Stewart as Jenny Flint
- Dan Starkey as Strax
- Peter Ferdinando as the Half-Face Man
- Paul Hickey as Inspector Gregson
- Michelle Gomez as Missy
- Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor
Summary
A dinosaur materialises in Victorian London and spits out the TARDIS onto the banks of the Thames, and out stumbles the newly regenerated Twelfth Doctor, disoriented and struggling to remember names and faces, alongside a deeply unsettled Clara. While the Doctor recovers at the home of the Paternoster Gang, the dinosaur bursts into spontaneous flame, one of a string of similar combustions plaguing the city. The trail leads to a restaurant staffed by humanoid clockwork robots, part of a crashed spaceship, whose “Half-Face Man” leader has been replacing his organic parts with mechanical ones (and vice versa) in a desperate bid to reach the “Promised Land.” After the Doctor forces a reckoning that ends with the Half-Face Man impaled atop Big Ben, Clara’s doubts about this colder, older Doctor are eased by an unexpected phone call from his previous self. In a mid-credits-style stinger, the awakened Half-Face Man is welcomed into the afterlife by a mysterious woman named Missy.
Interesting Facts
- This was Peter Capaldi’s first full episode as the Doctor and received a worldwide cinema release, alongside its BBC One broadcast, drawing 9.17 million UK viewers in the final ratings — the highest for a series premiere since Matt Smith’s debut in 2010.
- Matt Smith makes an uncredited cameo as the Eleventh Doctor, using archive footage originally filmed on the last day of shooting “The Time of the Doctor,” reassuring Clara from beyond his own regeneration.
- The episode marks the first appearance of Michelle Gomez as the mysterious “Missy,” introducing what would become the series’ central mystery arc, later revealed as the Master.
- Director Ben Wheatley was unavailable for the Missy/Half-Face Man scene, so it was filmed uncredited by Rachel Talalay (who would go on to direct the series finale), working from Wheatley’s notes.
- A kiss between Madame Vastra and Jenny Flint drew a handful of complaints to Ofcom, which declined to investigate; the scene was also cut from the broadcast in Singapore.
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