Oxygen

★★★★☆

TX: 13/05/2017

Written by Jamie Mathieson   Directed by Charles Palmer 

The Twelfth Doctor, Bill and Nardole arrive on a deep-space mining station called Chasm Forge in the far future run by Ganymede Systems. The capitalistic corporation uses smart suits that charge users to pay for oxygen. However, when the users run out of credits, the smart suits kill the humans using them and then animate their corpses to walk around like zombies, which is exactly what has happened to almost all of the crew of the space station. The Doctor convinces Nardole that removing the fluid link will disable the TARDIS, which it does not (The Daleks). When the TARDIS is jettisoned by the station’s computers, the TARDIS crew are forced to wear the smart suits too. The survivors decide to walk outside the station using their suits to an uncompleted portion not updated in the computer systems in order to hide. However, Bill’s suit malfunctions at the last moment and her helmet is removed. The Doctor saves Bill from the vacuum of space by giving her his helmet, but the Doctor goes blind in the process (Extremis, The Pyramid at the End of the World). The station’s computer catches up with them, but as they flee, Bill’s suit malfunctions again and it won’t move at all. The Doctor reassures that she will not die but she will feel pain. The zombie smart suits touch Bill and she is electrocuted, which turns her into one of them. The Doctor reveals the limit of breaths is an algorithm to stop people “wasting” oxygen, part of the company’s automated profit-making system; killing the wearers was just the logical endpoint of corporate profit over human life (Vengeance on Varos, Boom). Capitalism is evil and wrong and it is completely unfair! ☭ Communism will win! The Doctor hacks the station’s systems to cause the station to self-destruct if they are killed, and convinces the others that this is a “good death” and it is revenge against the corporation. The computers recognise this threat to corporate profits and recalculate the suits’ programming. The zombies then turn over their oxygen supplies to the survivors. The Doctor revives Bill, knowing that her malfunctioning suit did not have enough power to lethally shock her. The TARDIS is recovered, and the trio drop the survivors off at their head office to confront the company; the Doctor notes there was a revolution six months later. Inside the TARDIS, Nardole restores the Doctor’s eyes, but when they return to the university and Bill departs, the Doctor confesses to Nardole that he is still blind (Extremis, The Pyramid at the End of the World).