Doctor Who: The Magician’s Apprentice

So Doctor Who is back – that kinda snuck up on me, I didn’t notice till about a week ago that it was coming up. It’s about the only fiction I watch on TV and pretty much the only thing I write up for this blog in a timely fashion – more a stream of consciousness bit of chat about the episode than a review per se, and probably won’t make much sense if you didn’t watch it. And yes, I’m waffling right now in this intro paragraph as its sole purpose is to not have spoilers in the entry preview on facebook/G+ 😉

SPOILERS AHEAD! Hover mouse over text to read, or read on entry page:

So now we’re past the spoiler warning let’s start with the end! Believe nothing you see is my takeaway from the rest of the episode. That was pretty much the theme running through the whole thing – not just the walking out into Skaros when they thought they were on a space station. But also the snakey-dude and the crypto-Dalek. And of course Missy who wasn’t as dead as all that at the end of last season (I mean, we knew she wasn’t but we “saw” a “death” for her). So I don’t believe any of that ending either: not the deaths, not the destroyed TARDIS, not the Doctor going back to kill child-Davros. (Did we even see the deaths live? Or did we just see both on Davros’s screens as the Doctor did? You can do a lot with special effects after all 😉 ) Of course, I’m just left wondering what else I’ve forgotten to disbelieve …

Oh and I think one shouldn’t believe Missy with that “you’re the puppy” line to Clara. Missy came to Clara for help, the Doctor seemed to react worse to Clara’s potential death than Missy’s … if she’s just a pet, she’s not just the cute puppydog. After all, it’s not like Missy turned good, as she demonstrated herself.

Damnit, wrote the above paragraph and it was niggling at me why that felt significant and I got about three lines further into this post & I think it’s just come to me. Look at the title of the episode: “The Magician’s Apprentice”. Isn’t that Clara’s relationship to the Doctor? Next episode: “The Witch’s Familiar”. Clara again? Or is Missy the Witch rather than the Doctor? Or Clara the Witch for that matter? (Or I’m totally off-base with this, but I must pay more attention to the titles than I usually do.)

It really wasn’t where I expected the season to start. I mean: the Daleks, the Master (Mistress, whatever), a two-parter. That feels season finale rather than opener. And more self-contained than a Moffat season normally starts off like – by which I mean that if there is a season arc/season big-bad set up in this one then I didn’t spot it. Moffat may’ve just got more subtle tho 😉 Or I’ve missed something blindingly obvious … or believed something I shouldn’t’ve. I’d call out the fairy-tale feel of the episode titles, but after a few seasons I think fairy-tale is just part of the underpinnings of Moffat Who.

I liked the 80s cheesey music vibe running through this. And the Doctor’s “axe fight” was awesome 😀 As were the crap jokes that were only going to work in a few hundred years time. Clara’s levelled up in badass too – both in terms of leather jacket wearing motor bike riding, and in terms of being called in by UNIT as much in her own right as because she’s the conduit to the Doctor, and facing down Missy. Obvious film reference was Star Wars, and I did enjoy seeing the seedy spaceport bar Doctor Who style.

Looking forward to finding out what happens next, about the only thing I’m sure about is it won’t be what I expect.

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