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Having successfully blackmailed Clara last week, Artie and Angie weasel their way into a trip aboard the TARDIS. The Doctor takes everyone to the greatest amusement park in the galaxy – or at least to what used to be the greatest amusement park. It's long defunct and its only occupants are a Mr. Webley and his assistant Porridge, a gang of misfit soldiers sent by the Emperor to implode the planet, and a quietly gathering army of upgraded Cybermen. The children – particularly Angie – are bored and annoyed by the whole thing. Thankfully, the Cybermen abduct them and turn them into Borg-like zombies that don't say anything for most of the episode.
The Doctor soon discovers the Cyberiad's plot, but becomes infected with the Cyberplanner's intellect. The Cyberplanner takes up residence in the Doctor's brain, where it causes him to flail and mug and argue with himself with spastic glee. It renames itself Mr. Clever. The Doctor fights to retain control of half his brain and challenges Clever to a chess match. At stake is the fate of the planet, but of course Mr. Clever has no intention of playing fairly, and the Doctor knows it.
Meanwhile, Clara is left in charge of the soldiers, who are so astoundingly incompetent that even someone with zero militaristic experience seems like a step up. Her main goal is to keep them from imploding the planet with a voice-activated bomb, which should be easy considering the only person with the voice code dies fairly early on. Of course, there comes a moment when they want to implode the planet and now no longer have that ability.
The Doctor wins his chess match with a lot of talking and a bit of trickery, and frees Artie and Angie from their silent imprisonment. Damn it. The moment Angie is free, she Wesley Crushers her way into realizing what the grownups didn't: the unassuming Porridge is actually the Emperor. As the emperor, he voice-activates the bomb, summons his ship to carry everyone to safety, and destroys the planet along with millions of Cybermen. In the end, the Doctor and Clara don't really seem that necessary to the plot, since Emperor Porridge could have saved the day from the start. It all comes across like an excuse to get the Doctor possessed so that Mr. Clever can blab things to Clara about being the Impossible Girl, but she seems only vaguely curious about it.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!The TARDIS arrives at a mockup of the first Moon landing, complete with a cutout of the Earth in the background. The door opens, and the Doctor and Clara peer outside. Artie and Angie -- the delightful children who blackmailed Clara last week -- also take a peek. The Doctor leads them out with a flourish. "Well, here we are! Hedgewick's World: the biggest and best amusement park there will ever be!" Artie looks delighted, but Angie radiates such ennui that I am compelled to call her this for the rest of the weecap. "Your stupid box can't even get us to the right place," Ennui moans. She thinks it's some sort of moon base, but the Doctor says it's a "Spacy Zoomer" ride. A door opens in one of the larger rocks and out pops a man who looks like the human incarnation of the White Rabbit. He's disappointed to learn that they're not the cab service he called for some six months ago.
A group of soldiers barges into the scene, barking commands and raising their guns. The Doctor shows off his Golden Ticket to the park, but the soldiers don't care. "This planet is closed by imperial order," says the platoon captain. So the Doctor shows her his psychic paper, which relaxes her a bit. "Welcome, Proconsul," she says. "Any news of the Emperor? We pray for his return." The Doctor blathers something noncommittal in response, which is good enough to send the platoon away. The White Rabbit leads the Doctor and his gang off to what used to be the amusement park, but what now looks like a teetering junk heap.
The White Rabbit then takes them to something like a sideshow. It appears to be his establishment, only he arrived after the park had shut down. "Welcome to Webley's World of Wonders," he says. It's comprised mostly of wax statues and random artifacts. There's also a chess-playing Cyberman, the sight of which sends the Doctor leaping into action to protect his charges. The Cyberman gazes balefully at us -- or as balefully as one can with empty holes for eyes -- and into the opening credits.
"No need to panic," Webley says. "We all know there are no living Cybermen." Artie sits down to start a chess match while two little beasties watch from across the room. They look like robotic silverfish, as if regular silverfish weren't bad enough. Ennui figures out that there's someone underneath the Cyberman. Sure enough, the Doctor pokes around a bit and discovers Warwick Davis hiding in a cabinet beneath the Cyberman. "They call me Porridge," he says, crawling out from the cabinet where he's been operating the Cyberman. Webley gives Ennui an Imperial penny, eliciting a bit of a smile from her. Everyone sets off to explore the rest of Webley's Wonders, which include other defunct Cybermen and a statue of the Emperor.
Porridge gives them access to the Spacy Zoomer ride, which consists of them bouncing around the mockup under reduced gravity. Ennui seems to be having fun, but goes back to her sullen self once it's all over. Clara decides it's time to get everybody home. After all, they're all still alive, so why not quit while they're ahead? The Doctor, however, wants to investigate those creepy silverfish. Now, the sensible thing would be to take the kids home and come back later, but since when is the Doctor sensible? Porridge sets the kids up on couches for a nap while Ennui moans about being bored. The Doctor warns them about the dangers of wandering off, but are they going to listen? Of course not!
Webley goes to set up his Cyberman for its game of chest, only to be grabbed by his supposedly defunct shell of a machine. Dozens of robotic silverfish stream out of the Cyberman's eyes and up Webley's arms. "Upgrade in progress," drones the Cyberman.
Meanwhile, Ennui has found something new to complain about. "I hate the future! It's stupid! There's not even phone service!" Set sets her phone down in disgust and then wanders off against orders.
Porridge and Clara talk about the Cyber Wars and how his people only managed to defeat the Cybermen by taking out an entire galaxy. "I feel like a monster sometimes," he says. "Instead of mourning a billion trillion dead people, I just feel sorry for the poor blighter who had to press the button to blow it all up." The Doctor interrupts this moment of sadness to point out that Ennui has just wandered off into the soldiers' barracks.
In the barracks, the Captain and one of her soldiers are trying to figure out why a piece of their machinery is suddenly missing all its components. "I'm bored," Ennui announces as she sulks her way into their midst. So they throw her in the brig and we don't have to see or hear from her again for the rest of the episode! Or maybe the Captain just pulls her aside for a chat about Clara and Porridge.
Artie, left alone amid dozens of creepy alien wax figures, can't seem to fall asleep. Just as he calms down, a Cyberman grabs him.
The Captain wants to hear more about Porridge, but Clara and the Doctor interrupt. "Why can't you just leave me alone?" Ennui snits at her. You know, I'm not an advocate of corporal punishment. But if I were, I'd advocate whupping that girl's butt. Before Clara can remind Ennui that she was the one who blackmailed her way into this little trip, a Cyberman storms the barracks. It zips around like it things it's in The Matrix, grabs Ennui and then zips away with her. Yay, Cyberman! The Doctor looks to the Captain for help, but she explains they're really not much for fighting. "We're a punishment platoon," she says. "They sent us out here so we can't get into trouble." The Doctor -- acting as fake Proconsul -- puts Clara in charge while he goes off to rescue Ennui. As he leaves, he tosses out instructions like "don't blow up the planet" and "get to somewhere defensible," and "remind me not to let children blackmail me again." That last one may have only been in my head.
The Cyberman brings Ennui to its lair, where Webley and Artie have already been implanted with Borg-like facial doohickeys. "Please stand by," Artie drones. "You will be assimilated... er, I mean, upgraded." Ennui screams. At least she's not bored anymore.
Clara and the Captain consult a cartoon map of the amusement park to find a defensible location and settle on Natty Longshoe's Comical Castle. It has a moat and it's close to the bathrooms! The Captain is iffy on the prospect until Porridge takes Clara's side.
The Doctor returns to Webley's showroom to search out one of those silverfish. He sonics it and picks it up by the tail. "Not even a cybermat anymore, but a cybermite." He scans it to find the frequency of its home base, but ends up transporting himself to the Cybermen lair. There, he finds the children blissfully zombified and silent. (He's not as happy about it as I am.) "We needed children," CyberWebley says. With the park closed, they were running low on kids until the Doctor came. "Hail to you, the Doctor, savior of the Cybermen!" Oopsie!
He explains that the Cybermen have been repairing themselves with this facility, using park patrons as spare parts. "We needed children to build a new Cyberplanner. A child's brain with its infinite potential is perfect for our needs." Too bad Clara didn't have another one of those "infinite potential" leaves in her scrapbook she could trade off. "But we no longer need the children," says CyberWebley. The cybermites have scanned the Doctor's brain and found it very promising, despite the fact that it's not human. Thanks to their continuing upgrades, the Cybermen can use almost any living components. CyberWebley flings a handful of cybermites at the Doctor, who proceeds to flail about as if he's got ants in his pants. Robotic ants, even. By the time the mites are done with him, he's got half a Borg face like the others.
"Get out of my head!" the Doctor commands, but the Cyberplanner is enjoying its new home. They meet face to face in their shared brain. "Who's Clara? Why are you thinking about her so much?" asks the Cyberplanner. The Doctor erects a mental block that keeps the cyber presence from completely taking over his mind, despite its best efforts. "I'm so clever already, and now I'm a million times more clever," gushes the Cyberplanner. "I could call myself Mr. Clever!" Mr. Clever pokes around and finds out about Time Lord regeneration, which allows us flashes of all the Doctors. The Doctor threatens to regenerate and short out all the Cybermen to which he's now connected. So they decide to play... chess. Chess, to decide who gets control of the Doctor's brain. I prefer Chutes and Ladders to decide life and death matters, but whatever.
A soldier named Missy patrols the power station, looking for Cybermen. When she finds out, she freaks out and radios in for permission to hide. Hiding does no good, however, as the Cyberman detaches its hand and sends it skittering after her like a particularly well-trained tarantula.
A nerdy soldier tells Clara that something may have happened to Missy. Does Clara suggest they go look for her? No, she does not. She just takes it as a sign that the Cyberman is on its way. She and the Captain go over their weapons, which aren't many. There's one anti-cyber gun, a handful of hand-dealies that deactivate Cybermen if you get close enough to slap them upside the head, and one planet-imploding bomb that can only be activated by the Captain's voice.
The Doctor and Mr. Clever have begun their match. Mr. Clever notes that the Cyberiad has no record of the Doctor; upon further digging, he discovers that the Doctor has been erasing himself from history. The Doctor shorts out Mr. Clever temporarily by slapping his Golden Ticket over one of his face nodes. Then, instead of freeing himself and the others while Mr. Clever is zonked, he gathers up the chessboard to continue playing elsewhere.
The Captain and Porridge have a private chat. "You knew it was me," he says. She's figured out who he really is, and begs him to tell the Imperium what's going on. Alas, the communicators are out. The only way to report to the Imperium now is to activate the bomb, but Porridge forbids her. "I won't run away like you did," she says, and grabs the bomb as soon as Clara shows up. She gets halfway through the voice code when a Cyberman shoots her from outside the castle.
Clara orders her troops to search out the Cyberman, because that worked so well for Missy. Indeed, the first soldiers who comes across the Cyberman get taken out with so much as a shot fired. Clara blasts it to smithereens with their one anti-cyber gun. She rejoins the rest of the troops to find the Doctor and the Cyberkids just coming up to the castle. He catches her up on all the latest goings-on, from having the Cyberplanner in his head to the kids being in comas. Clara's none too happy about the latter bit, but hey, maybe she shouldn't have let the brats blackmail her!
Once inside, Clara ties up the Doctor as he asks. He removes his gold patch and resumes his chess match with Mr. Clever. Clara is somehow able to tell Mr. Clever's blathering apart from the Doctor's blathering. "You're not the Doctor," she says. "No, but I know who you are," he says. "You're the Impossible Girl. Ooh, he's very interested in you." The Doctor promises to explain later and refocuses on the match. He knows that Mr. Clever has no intention of playing fairly, but they're going to keep playing anyway.