Warning: Here be spoilers. Proceed with caution
I have been, of course,
anticipating the return of Doctor Who
since the conclusion of Season 8 last fall. I couldn’t help but agree with a
lot of people at the conclusion of last year’s series that Season 8 was fairly
hit-and-miss. While episodes like Mummy
on the Orient Express and Time Heist
were excellent, installments the likes of Dark
Water/Death in Heaven and In the
Forest of the Night bordered on the mediocre or just dull. So, what would
Season 9 bring? Well, for one a season two-part opener written by showrunner
Steven Moffat which saw the return of the Doctor’s arch enemy the Master (now
known as the Mistress or Missy) and, of course, the most famous Doctor Who
monster of them all…the Daleks. So, let’s dive in right in with The Magician’s Apprentice and The Witch’s Familiar.
What I loved about the
two-parter was its tone. From the start of The
Magician’s Apprentice, we could tell that this was going to be a darker
story. Even before the opening credits run, we’ve been introduced to the story’s
central moral dilemma with the Doctor wrestling with his conscious concerning
the young Davros. The hand mines which were introduced herein, reaching through
the mud of a battlefield with eyeballs affixed to their palms is a nightmarish
vision. I also really liked how this dark tone was carried through The Witch’s Familiar. All too often Doctor Who two-parters switch their tone
from episode-to-episode, but this two-parter actually felt like one continuous
entity. The only difference between part one and part two is the fact that The Witch’s Familiar is far more
character driven than the first. The central points of the second episode are
the scenes between the Doctor and Davros.
I think that it would be
safe to say that the story is far more slowly paced in its second half than it
is in the first. The Magician’s
Apprentice is one of the most jammed-pack Doctor Who scripts ever written and I think it’s safe to say that
if one more element had been thrown into the mix, the script for The Magician’s Apprentice would have
been dangerously close to being overstuffed.
Carrying the script, the
principle cast did an excellent job, so let us tackle the Twelfth Doctor right
away. Peter Capaldi is excellent – as always. The scene in The Magician’s Apprentice which finds the Doctor riding into a
medieval arena atop a tank playing a guitar is without doubt one of the
greatest scene in Doctor Who’s history. Go ahead, accuse me of hyperbole, but I
loved it. Later, Capaldi handled the Doctor’s darker scenes too and I loved how
he interacted with Julian Bleach’s Davros during the second part. I think it’s
safe to say that Capaldi is one of the finest actors to play the Doctor and his
emotional line readings are brilliant. As the companion, Clara, Jenna Coleman
was rather more sidelined than usual in these two stories. I like Clara – she has
garnered a lot of negative attention from Doctor Who fans, but Jenna’s a great
actor and she does a great job with what she is given. However, I am sort of
happy that Clara isn’t as prominent this season so far. If anything, Clara took
center stage far too often last season when Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor should
have given more prominence.
The villains of the piece
are just as interesting. Julian Bleach is by far the best of the actors in the
episodes and every time Bleach’s Davros was on screen he was simply brilliant.
I was gullible enough to fall for Davros’ plan believing him to actually be
reconsidering his life as an old, dying man. When the truth came flowing forth
I was utterly taken aback and loved it. Just when I thought that Moffat had
overstepped his boundaries (once more) and made one of the Doctor’s oldest
enemies an old softy, I saw that I had become completely shammed. The other
villain of the piece is Michelle Gomez’s Missy and…well…what do I say? I really
go back and forth about Missy. At times Gomez is great and she really exudes a
really evil vibe. The scene where she tries to convince the Doctor to kill
Clara trapped inside a Dalek casing is amazing, and it’s during times like
these when I’m reminded of my initial reaction to the character when I likened
her to Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter. But, at the same time there were times
when Missy was simply too over-the-top and it felt really out of character
especially for a character who is, at heart(s) the Master.
While the performances
and tone were great, the script was curious. Looking back on it, The Magician’s Apprentice, despite its
abundance of plot points, was pretty light on plot, and quite a bit of the
second half felt light on plot too. And that is without doubt the weakest
element of the story on a whole. The character driven moments were great, but
at the end of the day I wonder if there wasn’t too much padding throughout this
two-parter.
But in all, The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s
Familiar was a strong opening to a new series of Doctor Who. Despite the two parts were low on plot, the character
moments were great. The performances were excellent and I loved the look of the
two-parter. I give the two-parter 4 out of 5 possible stars.
