Doctor Who - The Pyramid at the End of the World Review

Doctor Who:
The Pyramid at the End of the World
By Peter Harness and
Steven Moffat

“Bill, what have you done?”

“The Pyramid at the End of the World” is the second part of three of the story that features The Monks and their attempt to take over the world.  This story was co-written by Peter Harness and Steven Moffat and it more or less sets up what will happen in the next story “The Lie of the Land” which will be written by Toby Whitehouse and is the conclusion of this three part story.  Like what I wrote last week I really cannot grade this story until I see all three parts but so far I liked “Extremis” a lot better than “The Pyramid at the End of the World”.

While “Extremis” gave us the setup for this story and introduced us to the new threat of the Monks we see in “The Pyramid at the End of the World” the power of the Monks and how they plan on taking over the world.  The way they planned on doing it I thought was pretty clever.  They wanted someone to ask for the Monks help and in exchange for their help the Monks would get the world.  But the person asking for help had to be sincere and really mean it.  Which we found out from the first four really weren’t and were just doing it as a sense of duty. But the problem lies with Bill who really meant it.  Since The Doctor had already foiled the Monks plan by destroying the bacteria it would cost him his life as he was still blind.  Letting Bill know this and the fact that she loves The Doctor as a friend she asked the Monks for the Doctor to get his eye sight back in exchange for the Earth.  While The Doctor is saved the Earth now belongs to the Monks.  Thus setting up the next episode and have us all guessing some more about how The Doctor is going to save the day yet again.

“The Pyramid at the End of the World” didn’t really offer up anything that we haven’t seen before in Doctor Who except we got a different spin with the Monks being the protagonist.  We had the usual stupid military method that has been done for ever on Doctor Who and yet again we see them fail and fall flat on their faces.  We see the companion do something incredibly stupid to turn the tide for the bad guys which is nothing we haven’t seen before and of course we have some scenarios that are a lot simpler to resolve but yet are made more complicated by the writing which is a staple of Steven Moffats writing.  For instance why would a facility that specializes in harmful bacteria have a ventilation system that would release the bacteria into the atmosphere without a proper filter system or at least an incinerator to burn the air before it is released?  In the real world it would be but I guess for the sake of the story it can get a pass.

One thing I am glad that is finally resolved is the Doctor being blind.  I really did not like how long they kept the storyline going but seeing how it was resolved made sense in a way but I just did not care for the blind Doctor all that much and thought it went on a tad too long.  The thing is you knew it would be a stupid decision by the companion to help get his sight back.

“The Pyramid at the End of the World” isn’t the best story of this new series it is the weakest but in all honesty it isn’t all that bad as Steven Moffat has written worse stories than this one.  In any other series this would be one of the better stories but in a series with so many really strong stories this one just falls a tad short.