grassangel | initial reactions to Spyfall part 1

Not so much my yeah, eh, hmm, nah format, more an actual live blog

With bonus squee at the end because of that reveal at the end

Really doubling down on the Resolution location typesetting. The typography is better this time around though, and I like the minus tracking. Gives it a bit more flavour and doesn’t make it so painfully obvious that it’s copying CA:CW and Killing Eve. (But more appropriate here than Resolution! This story is a spy story!)

Yaz isn't going to make it back. Not with the way she keeps saying she'll be back. Calling it that she doesn’t make the end of the series
Love they're actually packing their stuff though
Thirteen says she had an upgrade!
Also love the UNIT/Torchwood mention. Don’t care if they still exist or not but I do care they are at least mentioned
Also hurrah, serious mentions of the Doctor not always being a woman (especially, reflecting post-episode, the one made by O)
What happened to Yaz when she got transported by those beings of light? Nothing good I think
This whole VOR is a FB/Amazon stand in would've been a great story in 2018. Just a bit slow on the uptake Chibs, not extrapolating enough and not being speculative enough in your sci-fi series.
Red (or perhaps magenta) lining in Thirteen’s formal coat! 💕
Yeah! The Doctor playing Snap
Whittaker's profile when she's talking to Lenny Henry's character in the sunlight is BEAUTIFUL
Ryan screaming, fave. He’s the best character for reacting like that and I love him for it. More people should love him for being the companion that screams in this team.
:O
FINALLY we get to see a working Chameleon circuit AND it’s the Master’s TARDIS
Dhawan’s Master seems like a mix of manic Simm and Ainley at most playful with his TCE and it’s exciting
Unsure when in timeline, but he still thinks these aliens won't turn on him (which Missy seemed to have learned never works out) so I have to laugh a little at him
Awww, Terrence Dicks memorial. I hope the next episode has one too
The sort of rephrased 'without hope, without witness, without reward' in the preview is interesting

Also really struck by how, after TDF, I was imagining the reunion between the Doctor and the Master as one between Ruth Wilson as the Doctor and Riz Ahmed as the Master on a battle field, both in suits and here we are, under three years later with Jodie Whittaker and Sacha Dawan in tuxes.
Yeah sure, Dhawan isn’t my top choices of Hannah John Kamen or Riz Ahmed, but he’s awfully close. (And he isn’t Blake Ritson or Colin Morgan, who I can now say were my fears for white dudes who might play the Master.)

I am, of course, SQUEEING so much over Thirteen getting a Master of her own to play with. Even if it isn’t Missy and it once again looks heterosexual. But like... Dhawan!Master’s acknowledged that the Doctor has previously been a man, and depending on whether he’s after Missy, we might get a line that he was a woman previously too. So there’s definitely genderfuckery going on, never mind the fact Dhawan!Master likely flirted with that previous incarnation of the Doctor as well.

Anyway things that make me think he’s post-Missy (even if I would’ve liked to see a Master making a go of being their version of good) rather than an interstitial one between Simm and Missy or from the previous regeneration cycle that we haven’t met before

The Simm mania and Ainley playfulness. The Simm mania in particular isn’t really a thing that pops up in classic Who. (Yeah, Ainley and Roberts are dramatic fucks, but not manic the same way Simm is.)
The long con that is more associated with Jacobi and Simm (War Master/Saxon/Razor)
The whole set up - on Earth, aligning with aliens who'll inevitably betray him - very classic, very their flirting. So much so that I’ve been saying that the Master has been putting on an anniversary party for the Doctor
Doesn't demonstrate that he's aware he'll be betrayed, but does make a point of getting the fam on his side - making tea for Graham and offering him info about the Doctor, flirting with the pretty girl one. Very Delgado, very Gomez
He loves the Doctor so much. Like yeah, that's the natural state of the Master in the presence of the Doctor, but he is definitely more on the sweet side than the annoyed side.
Also a very modern Who characterisation of the character, but then apparently all the showrunners have shipped it and I’m glad they do.
There's deep lore about how other universes don't have Time Lords. I don't know how the Unbound series fits into that aside from being DWEU version of Marvel's what if universes, but I’m expressing my doubt here that Chibnall would wade that far into the lore on the main show.
Anyway points 1-5 are all very on the nose, very "I'm the evil step-mother", that it all could very easily be an act in the Doctor's favour and this Master is just a lovesick fool who misses the Doctor and wants them back
I did hear the rumours about the Master before the series started that I dismissed, but I did note that someone resembling Dhawan seemed to be hidden/in the background in a few shots which might mean he’s a recurring character. Which obviously I’m very excited about.

Things that make me think twice that this is our Master after Missy

'Heart' not 'hearts'
The Master isn't good at running? The one who ran with the Doctor through fields of red grass? Who the Doctor told to run on Skaro, fully knowing she'd be able to escape?
There was the tagging of Rufus Hound which does make me suspect maybe not the Master but another Time Lord BUT there are yet more rumours circulating that make me look askance at this theory too

Overall though... fun episode, gotta needle Chibs a little for not being a great speculative writer, but otherwise it’s looking hopeful. He split up the team, gave them different jobs to do, got them back together and then split them up again. That’s how you handle large TARDIS teams!
And of course I love this new Master and hope to see plenty more flirting between him and the Doctor. I’m already writing fic, which is better than the previous season already