This episode sees The Doctor, Nardole and Bill travelling to second century Scotland hoping to solve the mystery of what happened to the Roman Ninth Legion. They split up and Bill comes across a young Pictish woman who chases her. She falls into a hole and is surprised to find a Roman soldier there. He explains that he is a member of the Ninth and was one of a group that fled from battle. The escape and he tells Bill where his comrades are; he is killed by a creature but she gets away and joins his comrades. Meanwhile The Doctor and Nardole discover the site of the battle and it is clear that whatever happened to the Ninth wasn't due to any ordinary battle. They are then captured by the Picts; they explain that the creature is an 'Eater of Light'; a being that comes through 'The Gate'. Kar, 'The Guardian of the Gate' should have prevented the creature coming through but instead thought it could be used to defeat the Romans. The Doctor believes that is it isn't defeated life on Earth and possible our whole universe would be threatened.
This was a fairly mixed episode; the idea of having the missing Ninth Legion in a story was good although the way they were depicted was rather poor. The oldest of them was only eighteen and they referred to each other as Centurions; yet centurions were senior officers in charge of a hundred men and had to be at least thirty years old. The Picts are all similarly young. We also get more heavy handed political correctness which is getting a bit tedious I'm all for equality but don't want to be constantly lectured about it in what should be an exciting Sci-fi show. On the plus side the creatures were decent enough and the final scenes made us wonder whether Missy has at last become one of the good guy or is just being manipulative. Overall an okay episode but it could easily have been better.
This was a fairly mixed episode; the idea of having the missing Ninth Legion in a story was good although the way they were depicted was rather poor. The oldest of them was only eighteen and they referred to each other as Centurions; yet centurions were senior officers in charge of a hundred men and had to be at least thirty years old. The Picts are all similarly young. We also get more heavy handed political correctness which is getting a bit tedious I'm all for equality but don't want to be constantly lectured about it in what should be an exciting Sci-fi show. On the plus side the creatures were decent enough and the final scenes made us wonder whether Missy has at last become one of the good guy or is just being manipulative. Overall an okay episode but it could easily have been better.