Doctor Who 9.01, 9.02: The Magician’s Apprentice and The Witch’s Familiar

[annathepiper]

Much to our surprise, Dara and I actually enjoyed the two-part season opener for Doctor Who: “The Magician’s Apprentice” and “The Witch’s Familiar”. Y’all may recall that we bailed on watching partway through season 8, and we’d been pretty sure we weren’t going to come back.

But after hearing good buzz about the first half of this two parter, Dara decided to check it out and quite liked it. So I joined her on a rewatch of that one, and then we watched part two last night.

Picoreview: this was in all honesty the most enjoyment I’ve had out of a Moffat story in a while! Spoilers behind the fold.

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Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Comments

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I agree with most of this review, I enjoyed it overall. Missy's last line was a reference to the film The Italian Job, which everyone in Britain knows, with Micheal Caine delivering that same infamous last line as he teeters on the edge of disaster.

I wasn't sold on the doctor with shades and an electric guitar and a tank either. A tank? Not his style.

I loved all the parts with child Davros. That was a great cliffhanger to episode one - not that I believed for an instant the Doctor was going to kill him, but it was beautiful the way it was resolved late in part two.

I liked Davros trying to tempt the Doctor to destroy the Daleks, though of course Tom Baker already made that decision. The show was a bit late for tension in having Twelve there, because Twelve has already resolved his Dalek issues. That would have been a very interesting proposition to put before Nine...

Clara in the Dalek was a good reference back to the first Clara - I liked that touch, and they used it in a good way. It's a whole new angle to leave of us wondering how many of the original Kaleds might have had that response to being put inside a Dalek body too.

Most of last season sucked, not because the actors were bad, but because the scripts were so awful. I'd like to see Capaldi and his crew get a real chance with some good material this year.

[annathepiper]

A HA. I have heard of The Italian Job, but just haven't ever actually SEEN it. Okay, that makes that line make rather more sense. :)

I had mostly no issues with Capaldi or Coleman's portrayals last year--mostly. Except for the argument that the Doctor and Clara have about her not having explained Danny to him yet, which, as I said at the time, really don't need to see the Doctor being an asshole.

If this iteration of the Doctor's gotten over that, sure why not, I'll be back on board.

And yeah, I really liked Davros overall. This episode did a surprisingly good job of making me sympathetic to both Missy AND Davros.

And now I REALLY want to go check out Big Finish's Davros backstory audio. :D