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The Monks
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Reviews
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The Monks
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Gods and Monsters by Niall Jones 26/12/23
Anyone who has read my reviews of the sixth, seventh and eighth episodes of Series 10 will note a striking absence. While these episodes are connected by the presence of the Monks, they are barely discussed in any of my reviews. In fact, I refer to them only once in my review of Extremis and mention them only in passing in my reviews of The Pyramid at the End of the World and The Lie of the Land. Part of this is simply that there is so much going on in these three very different stories that something has to be left out, but it's also due to the Monk's own inscrutability.
When they first appear in Extremis, the Monks are very much in the shadows, pulling the strings from behind the scenes. By the end of the episode, they remain as mysterious as they were when they first appeared. This isn't necessarily a problem, as Extremis isn't about fighting the Monks, but about the Doctor, Bill and Nardole discovering their simulation. By the time they've emerged from the shadows to take control of the Earth in The Lie of the Land, however, their continued mysteriousness becomes frustrating. They achieve absolute power, but fail to do anything with it.
While this may make them seem like bland antagonists, full of power but lacking in character, there is an interpretation that makes them much more interesting, one that is hinted at by numerous details in the three episodes, but which is never fully explored.
One of these details lies at the heart of The Pyramid at the End of the World. Unlike most power-hungry aliens in Doctor Who, the Monks cannot invade militarily, but must be invited in. While Bill is quick to identify the parallel with vampire lore, this turns out to be a red herring. The clue that hints at the Monks' true nature comes in the fact that they must be invited in out of love. While they rationalise this as being a more efficient way of taking power than violence, it could also be interpreted as a desire for sincere and genuine worship. The parallel to draw here is not with vampires, but with God.
Once you see this parallel, you see it throughout the trilogy. By running the simulation in Extremis, the Monks literally create the world, while the sight of them operating the simulation from the outside is reminiscent of the Norns in Norse mythology or the Fates in Greek mythology, weaving the tapestry of fate. In both The Pyramid at the End of the World and The Lie of the Land, their seat of power is a pyramid. In the latter episode, it is even referred to as a cathedral. They are referred to as demons by the authors of the Veritas and are first seen within the Vatican. Even their name implies a religious interpretation, although it is difficult to make much of this, as monks are servants rather than masters, suggesting that the reason for the name is superficial, referring to nothing more than their monk-like robes.
Speaking of robes, it is worth noting just how well-designed the Monks are. They have an uncanny appearance that, like the Silents, is human enough to be familiar, but alien enough to be disturbing, their desiccated skin and skull-like faces recalling the preserved bodies of volcano victims. When asked why they adopt such an appearance, the Monks respond that they look like humans. 'You look like corpses', comes the reply, to which the Monks retort, 'you look like corpses to us'. The Monks are gods made in the warped image of humanity. Resemblance here is nothing other than mockery. They look upon life and see only death. In addition to their appearance, the Monks' creepiness also stems from how they speak. The fact that their speech doesn't match the movement of their mouths is unnerving. It shows that they don't need bodies and further suggests that their half-hearted adoption of human form is underpinned by mockery.
Making the Monks into gods takes the classic Arthur C Clarke quote that 'any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic' and applies it to a series of contemporary settings. The Monks are so powerful that they effectively become supernatural beings. In this regard, it makes sense to preserve their mysteriousness: they are, after all, at their best in the shadows. Maintaining this inscrutability, however, becomes a problem when they take a more active role in proceedings. In The Lie of the Land, we see too much of them while knowing too little about them. The ubiquity of their presence largely robs them of what made them interesting in earlier episodes, while their silence means that their motivations never become any clearer. The episode fails to develop them as powerful adversaries; there is no change in how the Monks are presented, despite their transformation from schemers into overlords.
The issue with the Monks comes primarily from how they are used in the three episodes. Although there is an intriguing concept behind their design, it is rarely explored in much detail and, by the end of the trilogy, they are reduced to generic monsters. Although Extremis is interested in questions of belief and faith, the other two episodes fail to ask the right questions about the Monks. Instead of focusing on the why, they focus on the how. How do the Monks take over the world? How do they maintain control? The result is that they come across as oddly bureaucratic and cautious, developing elaborate processes to ensure that they can take over a planet with the minimum risk, but, once their system of control is thwarted, they are defeated remarkably easily.
All of this suggests a species whose potential is never fully tapped. While they appear full of hidden depths, they are often presented in superficial ways. It seems unlikely that the Monks will ever return to our screens, but stranger things have happened, and it would be great for the show to spend more time exploring them at a conceptual level. For now though, we will have to make do with being shown that potential in the first place.