Doctor Who: Version Control Part 5, Episode 3: Pyramids

Episode 3 is the holiday, and it is short-lived.

The Doctor and Mia think the Editor is dealt with. As a result, Mia asks to see the Pyramids being built. It is one of history's great unsolved mysteries, and the Doctor is happy to take her. It is the first proper holiday of the series. The mood is light, and the leisure is earned.

They land. The Pyramids are spheres.

The Doctor, Mia and the audience all see it at the same moment. No character notices it first, and the camera doesn't cheat. All three share the same beat of confusion.

Then comes the silence. Mia's instinct is to ask what happened. The Doctor's instinct is to run the numbers quietly and arrive somewhere he doesn't want to be. Between her question and his answer, we understand that his earlier certainty might have been wrong.

The tell is a small one. Mia says "those aren't the pyramids", and the Doctor can't correct her. He's equally stunned. That missing correction is the moment.

Mia gets there first. It's him, it has to be, because they thought they'd stopped him and clearly they didn't. The Doctor doesn't agree, and he doesn't argue either. He knows how many beings in the universe could do this, and most of them wouldn't leave a note. Mia hears the difference between "it isn't him" and "I don't know", and it frightens her more than a yes would have.

Why spheres? There is no message in it and no weapon. It is the history version of someone changing your desktop wallpaper while you were out. If it is the Editor, he has been somewhere with infinite possibility, and the Pyramids are almost an afterthought, something he thought might be funny or impressive. If it isn't, that is worse.

Either way, they relaxed and maybe they shouldn't have. Mia came to solve a mystery and got a bigger one, not the one she came for. Her holiday is over before it started. Can The Doctor fix this one?

Tomorrow: Episode 4, and a very different ship.