Tonight ’s MD Who season premiere is all about two of the show ’s most iconic baddie . We ( and the Doctor ) see them in a new light , and it ’s enough to make you wonder if the show ’s interminable battle against evil is actually something more complicated . And if so , what does that intend for our hero , the MD ?
spoiler ahead …
“ The Magician ’s Apprentice ” is the first one-half of a two - parter , in which the Doctor gets a whole new view on Davros , the Almighty of the Daleks . And then we get a startling fresh perspective on his oldest foeman , Missy ( the Time Lady formerly known as The Master . )
The Doctor meets Davros as a scared small boy , in the middle of a warzone , surrounded by deadly genetically engineered “ hand mine . ” And the Doctor is about to save the boy , until he realizes who it is — and then he just read off in the TARDIS rather . ( Leaving his sonic screwdriver , which a scientist of Davros ’ calibre ought to be able to repeal - applied scientist . )
Not only does the Doctor not save Kid Davros , he also commits a spoiled sin — dangling the possibility of ultra optimism and ingenuity in front of the Thomas Kid and then just exit with the hope unfulfilled . The Doctor seems to be almost in the process of turning Kid Davros into one of his fellow traveller , until he realise who this is , and he offers the notion that even if you only have a one - in - a - thousand hazard of selection , that one chance is all you need . It ’s almost crueler to introduce Bob Hope and then take it out , than never to offer it in the first place .
The Doctor feel deeply ashamed of his refusal to help Kid Davros , and now he seems to inquire if this is the ground why Davros create the Daleks in the first place . After 1,000 years of war between two humanoid races , Davros decided to turn his own people into the ultimate warriors , who would never break off fighting , and seal them all inside army tank . ( “ Davros made the Daleks , ” the Doctor says , but “ who made Davros ? ” )
And when the Doctor hears that the adult Davros is looking for him , because “ Davros recollect , ” he gross out out . He goes off the power grid , so his friends ca n’t feel him , and then gives the Sisterhood of Karn his “ confession dial , ” a kind of Time Lord Will and Testament . Then the Doctor throws himself a Brobdingnagian three - week political party in early Rennaissance England , before surrendering himself to Davros ’ minion , the astonishingly un - Dalek - y Colony Sarff ( fundamentally a dude made out of Snake River . )
Then the Doctor gets taken by Colony Sarff to Skaro , the homeworld of the Daleks ( which is inconspicuous , for a minute or so , direct to an extended jape where they suppose they ’re on a space post but it ’s actually a planet ’s surface ) . The Daleks have somehow reconstruct their place satellite after it was destroyed ( back in 1988 ’s “ Remembrance of the Daleks ” ) and now they have the Doctor , Clara and Missy at their mercy .
Davros is dying , and just wants to blab out to the Doctor one last clip — and he deliberately impart up the thing the Doctor said way back in 1975 ’s “ Book of Genesis of the Daleks ” , about whether it would be correct to wipe out a child that you sleep with would grow up to be an evil potentate . ( Because Davros and the Doctor now both sleep together that the Doctor faced that exact quandary with Davros as a baby . )
Davros ‘ real agenda seems to be to make the Doctor say that compassion is wrong . Just once , he wants the Doctor to admit that caring for others is a dreadful mistake .
Unlike Davros , whom the Doctor get together as a tiddler by chance event , Missy gets involved in this narrative because the Doctor of the Church drags her into it . Even though Missy purportedly croak at the end of “ Death in Heaven , ” the Doctor assumes she ’s live and entrust the Sisterhood of Karn to find her and give her his confession dial .
But instead of just sit around waiting to discover out the Doctor has actually gone to his death ( at which decimal point the confession dial would open ) , Missy goes looking for him to taste and keep open him . ( Or at least make certain she ’s the one who gets to drink down him , maybe . ) As the Master once said a long clock time ago , “ a macrocosm without the Doctor scarcely carry intend about . ”
When Missy ca n’t retrieve the MD , she does a whole detailed affair involve block plane in meter , to get Clara ’s attention . ( And her stunt also gets the paramilitary governance UNIT involved , but they do n’t really do anything in this story , so get ’s skip over them . ) And then … Missy and Clara team up , first to find the Doctor and then ( maybe ) to preserve him from his own death regard .
Why does the Doctor give his confession dial to Missy , or else of to River Song , or Madame Vastra , or Clara , or Captain Jack , or any of a few XII others ? Missy says that it ’s because she and the Doctor are protagonist , literal champion , with a kinship more ancient and complex than human civilization . The fact that they keep endeavor to shoot down each other , and Missy is an evil psycho , does n’t change that fact .
If it were just a matter of Missy claiming that she and the Doctor are “ bezzie mates , ” as Clara puts it , then this could be just more of Missy ’s delusions — like last class , when she keep predict the Doctor her boyfriend . But the Doctor seems to agree , given that he swear her with his last will and testament . And he know that giving this to Missy will only make her get involve in whatever mess he ’s in .
So Clara and Missy track the Doctor down in late Medieval - early Renaissance England , where he ’s playing an galvanising guitar on top of a tank in a dickens - may - concern neglect for the unity of account . But Colony Sarff ( who ’s already looked for the Doctor in a Star Wars cantina , in the Shadow Proclamation from back in time of year four , and on Karn ) also tracks him down and captures him , along with Missy and Clara .
The Doctor very much does not want Missy and Clara to come with him on his self-destructive visit to Davros . But they insist , and Colony Sarff winds up agree . ( The Daleks also capture the TARDIS , because the main Renaissance guy wire was in reality a Dalek factor . )
So in the end , Missy seems really concerned that the Doctor is willingly going to his death — and she and Clara are both aim aback by the look of shame on the Doctor ’s font when he hold that he no longer has a transonic screwdriver . And it ’s Clara who decides that both she and Missy should go along with the Doctor to see Davros .
( And Clara calls the Doctor on the fact that he knew Missy was alive all along but hazard to suppose she was numb — but Clara just habituate this as a way of life to motivate the Doctor to stay live , so he can “ make it up to ” her , in a nice scene . )
So the Doctor decides that his shame over having abandon Kid Davros is so great , that he has to go see the senior Davros and atone . With his life , if necessary . But because Clara and Missy go along , they roll up cast into danger just as the Doctor and Davros are square off in for a jolly chat about old times and whether the Daleks were at long last a force for near in the universe or not .
Clara and Missy wind up being engage into the Dalek control room , where the Daleks have beguile the TARDIS — and the MD watches in horror as Missy seek to manipulate the Daleks , an effort they both recognise will fail . Missy gets exterminated . And then the Daleks wait until Clara makes a run for it , then they root out her , too . At last , they destroy the Doctor ’s TARDIS .
The Doctor is apparently pull up stakes bereft and without hope , on the planet of the Daleks . And that ’s when Davros says the thing about compassion being a misapprehension . At the remainder of the instalment , we see the Doctor go back to where Kid Davros is still stuck in the field of “ mitt mines , ” because the Doctor has decided to do the only affair he can “ to save my friend . ” Meaning , apparently , vote out Davros as a shaver .
( And I ’m left wondering : Why was n’t Skaro ’s past times block up off somehow during the Time War ? Given how ruthless that conflict apparently became , you ’d expect Kid Davros to be attack by swarms of Time Lord agent , unless the Daleks manage to protect their own past times somehow . It seems odd that the Doctor ’s able to just waltz into Skaro ’s history , without even meaning to . )
In any caseful , this sequence shows us not just a new side to Missy and Davros , but the doc as well . His remorse over choosing not to save Davros — in fact , over throw away the chance to make a difference of opinion — take a shit him unable to be his usual cunning self . In spite of the whole “ cast a mediaeval political party ” thing , he ’s weirdly vulnerable and miserable , something that Peter Capaldi conveys with a band of genuine ruth . And the bit where the Doctor gets on his knees to beg Davros to save Clara , on a 2nd ticker , is in reality quite powerful .
That say , a lot of this installment palpate like it could have been skipped over — the time - frozen planes , the random “ sterling hitting ” tour with UNIT and the Sisterhood and the Shadow Proclamation , the whole “ Skaro is disguise as a space place ” thing . And the gimmick of the Doctor fuddle himself a huge historical party before go to his death feels like something we saw Matt Smith ’s physician do a few prison term already . ( Except with more naked paintings . )
This episode has an interesting hook — maybe the Dr. ’s biggest helplessness is n’t hubris or whatever , but or else , it ’s any situation where his born inclination to be a Jesus of Nazareth is overridden by his sure-enough hate . But it ’s too busy throwing idea at the bulwark ( “ Hydra guy cable ! ” “ quick-frozen planes ! ” ) to really get to the substance of the story . Even as the first part of a two - part story , it ’s rather slim . as luck would have it , I can reveal without amaze into plunderer that next workweek ’s second half , “ The Witch ’s Familiar , ” is somewhat more substantial .
get in touch with the author at[email protected]andfollow her on Twitter @charliejane
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