“The Lie of the Land” is episode eight of season ten of the new Doctor Who.
So, in the previous episode, “The Pyramid at the End of the World”, Bill had turned the Earth over to the aliens discovered in “Extremis” in order to stop the Doctor from dying due to the blindness he incurred saving her life in “Oxygen”. Now, the aliens had apparently spent years modelling the planet, and would only take over if they were offered it out of love. Given that it was highly unlikely that most would do so – the first was afraid, the next three planned a double cross – could it be that the deadly pathogen created wasn’t what they had actually modelled as happening? Could it have been Bill saving the Doctor that they planned for?
The episode begins with the Doctor narrating about how the monks have been with humanity since its very beginning, guiding it and helping in all the advances accomplished, with various scenes, and defeated the threats humanity has faced, such as the Cybermen, Daleks and Weeping Angels. This all seems like a rather tacky piece of propaganda from a totalitarian state. Which it is. The monks are rewriting history in their own image, and deviations from this are punished, with a woman watching the propaganda carted away for contradicting the official story. Very 1984. There’s even a Ministry of Truth.
The Doctor seems to be cooperating but he is also imprisoned. Bill managed to get away, but she doesn’t know how. The monks seem to be altering people’s minds, so that most do not realise that the monks have only been around for six months. She is trying to keep her grip on actual reality, but she’s struggling unto Nardole turns up. He had been contaminated by the bacteria in the lab. Nardole arrives whilst Bill is talking to her imaginary mother. Nardole used to have an imaginary friend, but said friend left him for someone else.
Nardole has been looking for the Doctor and has found him. All anyone has seen of the Doctor is the broadcasts in which he extols the virtues of the monks. Bill is convinced that the Doctor is faking it and has a plan (how come the Doctor is imprisoned, when he wasn’t with the monks, but Bill is free, when she was?).
Bill and Nardole manage to infiltrate where the Doctor is being held very quickly. Too quickly; there’s got to be more going on. The Doctor seems to be actually on the monks’ side. He makes references to how history examples of fascism and religious extremism, and how people refuse to take heed of this. Which would appear to be a reference to actual events in real life. Especially when a reference to fake news crops up later. He says the monks are the only way that humanity will survive. There is definitely something going on and Bill is a mixture of pleased and massively annoyed when she finds out.
The Doctor says he needs help from someone as smart as him. Three guesses as to who that is, and the first two don’t count. There is one solution, which can be seen coming, because it’s quite a bad one. The Doctor does not like this solution.
There’s an Easter egg with the appearance, once again, of Magpie Electrical, originally from “The Idiot’s Lantern” but a firm which has cropped up many times since.
A better episode than the previous one, and it improves as it progresses, but perhaps not as good as the earlier episodes of this season.