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The Witch’s Familiar is the second episode in Series 9, and I was so hoping for a return to form, of sorts, after the disappointment of the much-hyped series opener, The Magician’s Apprentice. Did it succeed? Erm….
Well of course, Missy and Clara weren’t dead after all, but were stuck on Skaro just outside of the main town, aka Davros’ complex, with the latter hanging upside down, and the former sharpening a stick, explaining they might have to go hunting… and that Clara is tied up in case there’s nothing to hunt.
Meanwhile, there’s a bit of exposition about how the Doctor is being chased by 50 android assassins and about to die. How did he survive? A “teleport thingy” which he stole from an android. And so when he was shot at, he harboured the shots as energy to make his teleporter function, and that’s how the two women also survived. All sorted, then. Well, except for the vampire monkeys…
Clara deduces, “He always knows there’s a way to survive”, but then why did he throw a party when he thought he was about to die?
Post-opening credits, and after he and Davros have had a chat, The Doctor’s escaping and the Daleks are going after him. As usual. However, the Doctor’s pulled Davros out of his ‘tank’ and is now roaming around in his ‘tank’. But why is he drinking a cup of tea? The Doctor fields that one: “Where did I get the cup of tea? I’m the Doctor. Just accept it.”
The Doctor asks, while pointing an extracted plunger at the group of Daleks: “If Clara is really dead, then you’d better be very careful how you tell me.”
Dalek: “Clara Oswald. is not. Alive.”
And they’re also surprised about his stance since “The Doctor doesn’t use weapons”.
In assuming the usually-chaired one can only speak when he’s sat down, Davros’ voice comes over the speakers.
Doctor: “Davros, you’re up? Sorry, this chair’s taken”
But this victory is short-lived, as Davros employs the use of Colony Sarff’s snakes to entrap the Doctor.
Meanwhile, as they get back into the complex, Missy throws Clara down a well to see how deep it is. Well, she never was one for subtlety, but once the young heroine comes round, picks up Missy’s stick and points it back at her, she snatches it back and retort, “In future, if you’re going to take my stick, at least do me the honour of killing me”.
But what’s with the smelly sewer? They’re actually in a Dalek graveyard, full of bodies that can’t die, such is their genetic programming.
And as if her first actions weren’t horrible enough, Missy handcuffs Clara to the wall to use her as bait to bring the Daleks down to them. Clara Oswald handcuffed…. just think about that for a moment.
Anyhoo, once one comes along, Missy stabs the hapless Dalek with a brooch, even though they’re supposed to be heavily amoured. WTF?* And as such, the not-quite-dead Daleks try to seep into the regular Dalek, causing it to go mad and then explode. Even though it’s still in one piece, a moment later.
(*BTW, thanks to Laurence Olethros Roberts for confirming the brooch is made of dark star matter, something that’s been mentioned before in End Of Time, and is an incredible dense, rare material which goes through armour plate like knivees through people. Hopefully, it can slice out th nonsense from Moffat’s scripts as he was getting Missy to babble ten-to-the-dozen, making it look like he writes scripts by simply bashing the typewriter with his fists.)
In similar style to Davros’ chair, they take the tank and Clara has to get in and control it. She learns that emotion fires the weapons. And while she says a lot of things that the Dalek repeats, if she goes to say her name, it actually comes out as “Dalek”. And when asked to say “I love you”, it becomes “Exterminate” as do other similar strong emotional phrases.
Clara then ushers Missy along as if she’s a prisoner, but when challenged by a real Dalek as to her still existing, Missy says: “Is it still the same Supreme Dalek? “Tell them the bitch is back!”
And when they’re back in the Daleks’ chamber, Missy wants to meet Davros, and she has a lovely gift for the Daleks if they allow this. The gift? Clara. What a turncoat! Well, she’s Missy!
Go to page 2 for more thoughts on the episode, plus conclusions.
Doctor wakes up in Davros’ chamber, with the enemy back in his chair, and the Doctor in the only other chair on Skaro – a normal one. Yes, Davros only has one normal chair. So he’s like Alan Partridge’s number one fan!
Then comes lots of chat between the two, with the Doctor taunting him about not building a race with legs, while Davros says he gave the Dalek race a genetic defect on purpose – respect and mercy for their father.
Now, given that all the cables in the chamber help keep the baddie alive, as well as therefore all the Daleks, the Doctor has a choice to perform genocide on the entire Dalek race. So why wouldn’t you?
Capaldi goes all Meldrew as he laments, “There’s no such thing as the Doctor. I’m just a bloke in a box, telling stories. I didn’t come here out of shame. I came because you’re sick and I asked” and how he’s not an old Time Lord who just ran away… he’s the Doctor, and he has compassion. Davros asks why he runs. “Gallifrey was boring(!)”, he replies, sarcastically.
There then came a bit of a discussion about the Time Lord confession dial, but we didn’t get much other than learning Davros shouldn’t be allowed to touch it.
Davros then told how he’s pleased to hear that Gallifrey exists, even if the Doctor doesn’t know where it is, because “a man should have a race”. Surely it’s so he can go and wipe it off the face of the universe? The baddie opens up his eyes to talk to him, saying if he can bring back the Time Lords from the fire, then never lose them again, and protect them all as he has sought to protect his.
Davros asks “Am I a good man?” The question does get answered, but he states “You are not a good Doctor”. He really is dying, and bemoans how he wishes he could see the sun rise one last time with his own eyes. In sorting this out for him, and getting praise, The Doctor says, “I’m not helping you. I’m helping a little boy I abandoned on a battlefield.”
He uses some regeneration energy to power up Davros for this…. but it’s a trick! D’oh. And that energy is used against him.
Davros grunts: “You have opened your veins of your own free will and the Daleks will drink the blood of Gallifey, and they will rise stronger than ever before.”
At this point, the Daleks surrounding Missy and Clara are feeling the benefit, and will become half-Dalek and half-Time Lord. Davros is feeling much better, but what’s the Doctor about to do? He claims he knew this was going to happen, as explosions kick off around Skaro. All the gloopy Daleks in the sewers are rising up and very angry, meaning the it’s all bad news for them and not the good guys and girls.
Oh, and Missy pokes him in the eye! (all it needed was a ‘boing’ sound effect!)
When the three meet up again, Missy tells the Doctor that Clara is dead, when it’s really her in the Dalek tank. Who does he believe? And why would you believe Missy? But when one word Clara says translates as “Mercy”, and since The Doctor knows Daleks shouldn’t be able to say that, and since it’s not killing him… it must be Clara. Open sesame and the girl is revealed.
Cue more babbling from Missy as she states: “The friend inside the enemy, the enemy inside the friend. Everyone’s a bit of both, a hybrid.”
The Doctor replies, quietly, “Missy, run.”
As we near the end of the episode, The Doctor and Clara are surrounded by Daleks without the Davros chair force field to help them, but thanks to the Hostile Action Displacement System, “the TARDIS isn’t destroyed, it’s just redistributed itself for a moment.”
Oh, and instead of a sonic screwdrivers, The Doctor now has sunglasses as “wearable technology”. Really? So, Steven Moffat has thrown away 52 years of Doctor Who canon by changing his favourite implement?!
Missy is captured as Skaro goes to hell in a handcart, her final gambit being: “Do you know what? I’ve just had a very clever idea.” – similar to The Italian Job’s final line. Why didn’t Moffat copy it wholesale? Just to indicate that he hasn’t COMPLETELY run out of ideas??
And then at the end, we’re back with Davros as a child, and the Doctor pointing the Dalek plunger at him, but only to kill off all the handmines to allow Davros to be free. Why?!!! And he called the dying Davros a moron(!)
Young Davros: “Are you a friend or an enemy?”
The Doctor: “I don’t think that matters as long as there’s mercy. Always mercy”
And so we have the paradox of the Dalek being able to say “Mercy” because the Doctor just told it. Bravo…. (slow handclap)
Overall, it was slightly better than last week’s first episode but not by much. 5.5/10 vs 5/10. But then again, if the best thing you can say about a Doctor Who episode is that it’s only worth 5/10, well, you’ve gotta wonder.
Next time: The Doctor and Clara meet with a homicial force who can walk through walls and only come out at night, all taking place underwater in a nuclear reactor. As you do. Oh, and they’ve gone back to putting the ‘Next time’ pieces BEFORE the closing credits, unlike last week. Looks like they only restrict them to post-credits if they have a two-parter.
The Witch’s Familiar is available on the BBC iPlayer until October 26th.
Doctor Who Series 9 Part 1 is available to pre-order on Blu-ray and DVD, and individual episodes can be bought in HD and SD here. And click on all the images in this review for the full-sized version.
Score: 5.5/10
Director: Hettie Macdonald
Producer: Peter Bennett
Screenplay: Steven Moffat
Music: Murray Gold
Cast:
The Doctor: Peter Capaldi
Clara Oswald: Jenna Coleman
Missy: Michelle Gomez
Colony Sarff: Jami Reid-Quarrell
Davros: Julian Bleach
Young Davros: Joey Price
Voice of the Daleks: Nicholas Briggs
Daleks: Barnaby Edwards and Nicholas Pegg
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.
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