Doctor Who Witch’s Familiar Series 9 Episode 2
When we last left the Doctor, he had been taken to Skaro and brought before his old enemy Davros, creator of the Daleks. With his companion Clara, his enemy Missy (who was previously the Master) and hist TARDIS all killed or destroyed by Daleks, the final image we were given was that Doctor returned to Skaro once more, but this time in the past, with a Dalek weapon aimed at the young Davros, who was begging for help in the middle of a “hand mine field”.
For a week now, I’ve been pondering: did the Doctor really leave Davros that first time he found him on Skaro? Is that the secret Davros knows, that the Doctor wasn’t as moralistic as we’ve always thought because he left a child to die? Did this hatred for the man who left him to die cause Davros to become who he is and create the Daleks? Or, did the Doctor actually stay and help Davros initially? Is the secret that Davros knows the Doctor is the ultimately responsible for all the death the Daleks have caused because he couldn’t leave a child to die? With the Doctor’s armed return, is he there to kill Davros? Or is he there to destroy the mine field? No matter what, it seems the Doctor has gotten himself into a bit of a paradox. It seems whatever way you look at it, the Daleks creation and subsequent actions are somehow connected to whatever he did on that field on that day in the past. Did his actions create the galaxy’s own worst nightmares? What’s interesting is that it is the “current” or “modern” Doctor that did it, so this “secret” or remorse he’s been carrying hasn’t been present in his previous regenerations. They say we are our own worst enemy, and there could be more truth in that saying for the Doctor than we could have imagined.
With the quick intro before the opening credits, we now learn how Missy has survived the both Cyberman attack at the end of Series 8 and how she and Clara escaped death at the end of the Magician’s Apprentice. Missy proposes the situation to Clara: the Doctor is being chased by invisible attackers with ray guns, and the teleporter he’s been using is out of power, how does he escape? By being clever. The Doctor always assumes that he’s going to win, so he finds that way. In this case, he harmonizes the depowered teleport bracelet to absorb the power of the laser blasts to recharge and escape. Missy adapted the same idea and put it into her (and Clara’s) vortex manipulators. They survived, and the Daleks think them dead, but now they are in to the heart of the Dalek empire, on Skaro, with only a sharpened stick. There was some nice back and forth between Clara and Missy, as she was sharpening the stick with a knife…though what happened to the knife? Shouldn’t they really have two weapons now? I also have to say again (because I’m certain I said it last year in my reviews) that commercials really to kill the flow of an episode. Daleks are mobilizing and seeking out the Doctor, but Missy sees something off screen that is “what they need”…apparently the new iPhone 6s and maxi pads.
What did Missy see? Well it turns out it was a sewer into the Dalek city. As Clara and Missy trudge through the Dalek sewer (which doubles as their graveyards) the Doctor and Davros verbally joust. The Doctor arrives in the Dalek control room in Davros’ chair, when the Daleks open fire. Davros’ chair is naturally surrounded by a forcefield and the Doctor is unharmed, sitting in the chair sipping a cup of tea. Where did he get the tea from? Well, he asks that of the Daleks too before informing them that he’s “the Doctor, just accept it”. Could that be the whole reasoning and every explanation behind all the writing and all the shortcomings and all the plot holes written in the last four seasons? I was actually surprised this episode that the back and forth dialogue was pretty good, and not overly cheesy or condescending. It for the most part made sense and carried the story. A story set on Skaro, with Daleks everywhere is not an action filled chase story, but dialogue driven. I wouldn’t have guessed it.
Missy puts Clara into a Dalek shell (after the Dalek was killed by the sewer slime that was made up of dead Dalek DNA) and they head to the Dalek command center to free the Doctor from Davros. Davros is dying, and he explains to the Doctor how he is still alive. His life support system has been genetically linked to every Dalek on Skaro. Davros tempts the Doctor with this thought, that since he’s connected to every Dalek, he could use the machinery to kill them. Kill all the Daleks, commit genocide, and at the same time kill Davros too, putting him out of his misery.
This episode gave us an interesting look into the mindsets of many of the major characters of the show; Davros, the Daleks, Missy and of course the Doctor. The Doctor who was written more like himself than I think he has been in several years. He shares a joke with Davros, who opens his own humanoid (or I suppose his Kaled) eyes, and weeps a tear as the Doctor reveals that he’s saved Gallifrey even though he can’t find it. Davros asks the Doctor if he’s a “good man”, much as the Doctor asked Clara last season, he then laments that he won’t live to see one last sunrise. The Doctor talks to him much like he did to Handles in the Time of the Doctor Christmas special where he promises the Cyber head one last sunrise, and decides to lend Davros a bit of regeneration energy to allow the dying scientist (who he now seems to consider an honoured enemy) his last request. Davros seems happy that the Doctor could still find Gallifrey and his people, as he can kind of relate, as he does love the Daleks as his own people and as his own children. But now, the Dalek trap is sprung. The energy revives and re-energizes all the Daleks on Skaro, as they were all connected to Davros who was leeching off of them.
The Daleks are supreme, the Daleks are regenerated, the Daleks are interrupted by another commercial…. You know, it’s kind of funny, I’m a grown adult, and now I’m actually afraid of the Daleks right now, sorry, these “super Daleks”. The thoughts of what future they could bring and what direction they could take the show in were scary! And I had to wait an entire commercial break to see how the Doctor would solve the problem, and solve it he did. Though, Davros had set a trap for the Doctor, the Doctor saw it and knew what would happen, so he allowed it to be sprung around him. The Daleks were destroyed by their own designs, as we learn that the Dalek sewers are revolting….pun intended.
All wraps up quite nicely as we see Missy turn on Clara, the Doctor deduce that she’s inside the Dalek that blocks his path, reclaim the TARDIS, and escape the Dalek city, leaving Missy encircled by Daleks waiting to fire. So it’s now ultra clear how Missy will escape this time, as it was telegraphed out earlier in the episode. Of course we’re left to figure out how Davros will escape, because all the good villains always do, and what about the Doctor returning to the child in the minefield we ended with last week, and should have began with this week? Well, we end with it again, as the Doctor does return to Skaro and puts mercy in the mind and heart of the young Davros.
The Good:
• Lots of snappy dialogue to carry what turned into a very “human” story.
• The return of the HADS. The Hostile Action Displacement System, or HADS, saved the TARDIS, and it’s already in established continuity, so it’s not just a lazily written fix.
• Last week we got an insight into the Doctor and the Master’s relationship, this week the Doctor and Davros.
• We also got to peek into the mind of a Dalek as Clara is hooked into the telepathic control of the drone and we see words and concepts like “love” become “exterminate”
The Bad:
• Commercials.
The Ugly:
• The Daleks were essentially beaten by poop.
• The abandonment of the sonic screwdriver for wearable technology? Really? The Doctor’s Ray-Bans are now his sonic screwdriver? In recent years, the writers have really abused the use of the sonic screwdriver. It’s a scanner, it’s a ray gun, it’s a magic wand. How did the Doctor ever “read” anything from it before? While it may now make a bit more sense as the sunglasses will actually have a screen to read, I still don’t think I like it. It can be useful as a lockpick or a screwdriver, and to scramble some electronic devices, so keep it like that. Tone it down. Reel it in. Of course I see the sales of Wayfarers going through the roof…and since I lost a pair of sunglasses on Monday…..I’m such a sucker.
• Oh yeah, more snakes this week, but hopefully they’re properly finished!
Quick question for keen eared viewers, or those more accustomed to English accents than I, where did Missy say she got her broach from? All I heard was that the Doctor gave it to her and something something daughter. I couldn’t hear it, and can’t figure out if i can get subtitles/closed captions on my DVR. Wow. I was all set to hate this season, but these first two episodes were pretty good. Next week: Under the Lake …looks like it could be proper scary, and I’m looking forward to it.
