• In the real world, between The Husbands of River Song (2015) and The Pilot (2017), the Doctor was brought to a planet of executioners in order to put Missy to death, using technology “precisely calibrated” for the destruction of a Time Lord – by stopping both hearts and “all three brain stems”, then delivering “a cellular shock wave” to “permanently disable regenerative ability”.
• According to Cardinal Angelo, the Doctor’s services were recommended by Pope Benedict IX, writing in 1045 – leading the simulated Doctor to recall an extraordinary night with said Benedict, a lovely girl: “I knew she was trouble, but she wove a spell with her castanets.” A portrait of pretty Benedict – who said that the Doctor was “more in need of confession than any man breathing” – guards the entrance to the Haereticum. Described by Cardinal Angelo as a “library of blasphemy”, this secret area was instituted by Benedict herself.