Steven Moffat is at the writing helm for this week’s Extremis, and has to build on the ending of Oxygen (and I assume he put that bit in as part of the script editing process). Missy make her (first?) appearance of this season (and Michelle Gomez leaves the show with Peter Capaldi). Add the Pope, mysterious monks, a trip to the Vatican and a book called the Veritas, and there’s plenty here, even if some of the ingredients are familiar.

I’m up for this episode, even to find out if the Doctor’s eyesight is restored, or how he can read the book (unless that’s the whole point). Missy seems a massive juxtaposition to the idea of the Vatican as a setting, and that’s no bad thing. Nardole and Bill are around, so expect a lot of unfolding of the bigger plot. No sign of John Simm yet; but who knows?

We’ve had the Papal mainframe before, and soldier priests and any number of basically human but a bit not-human aliens. Whatever.

I’d like to leave with this quote from Johannes Kepler, who had his own involvements with the Catholic Church:

Temporis filia veritas; cui me obstetricari non pudet.

Which, as any Latin scholar (or one with access to t’internet) knows means:

Truth is the daughter of time; and I feel no shame in being her midwife.

Enjoy the programme, let’s catch up after!