The Season 9 debut delivers an exciting jolt to the system for both the Doctor and the viewer.
Full spoilers follow.
That’s right, readers: Your IGN Doctor Who reviewer has regenerated… into me! So jump into your TARDIS, ready your sonic screwdriver, and prepare for timey-wimey thoughts, discussion and analysis of Season 9 over the next few months…
The new season of Doctor Who — Peter Capaldi’s second as the iconic Time Lord — starts off with a bang, as we find ourselves in a ghastly war zone where anachronistic biplanes with lasers take out the enemy troops who seemingly only have bows-and-arrows to defend themselves. Amid this horror, a child is caught in a mine field. Well, a hand-mine field: This is quite literally a series of muddy hands propped out of the ground (with eyes in their palms, of course). We soon learn what happens if a hand-mine can get a hold of your leg, and it’s not pretty. A poor, defenseless child, fleeing the battle in panic, finds himself trapped in the field with no hope of escape. But a man appears who might be able to help… the Doctor! But then, and here’s the kicker, the boy tells the Doctor his name: Davros!
(In the fullness of time, Davros, of course, will become one of the Doctor’s greatest enemies and the creator of the Daleks.)
What a cracking opener to the season — and this episode — this is, not just because of its combination of exciting action, creepy visuals, and tense situations, but also because it immediately sets up a key dilemma for the Twelfth Doctor, and one that reflects his ongoing inner struggle: Is he a good man or a bad man?
This question is further highlighted by the return of his nemesis Missy, a.k.a. the Mistress and formerly known as the Master! She, of course, represents the flipside of the Doctor, the evil that he is capable of. And yet, she is working with the Doctor and Jenna Coleman’s Clara towards a common goal in this two-part adventure (part two of which will air next Saturday).
Yes, Missy was disintegrated when we last saw her in the Season 8 finale, but did anyone really think that would keep her down? The return of Michelle Gomez as the wonderfully quirky and strange yet deeply deranged Mistress is a real treat, hilarious and at the same time tantalizing in the hints that are dropped about her deep association with the Doctor. Plus, the prospect of the Doctor travelling with Clara and the Mistress as companions just seems like too great an opportunity to pass up. Whether or not things actually play out that way remains to be seen, however, as the BBC is being very cagey about revealing just how much of Missy will be in Season 9. (For more on Michelle Gomez and Missy, read my interview with her right here.)
Clara and Missy, new BFFs? Don’t count on it…
But I’m getting ahead of myself. After the Doctor’s run-in with lil’ Davros in the cold open, we go to Earth where Clara — and the rest of the world — observes the latest strange phenomenon to hit our blue planet: Aircraft everywhere have simply become frozen in midair. UNIT and Kate Stewart need the Doctor’s help but he has gone AWOL, so they seek the counsel of the next best thing: his companion.
It’s great to see Clara take charge of the situation, though she may be a bit out of her depth when the cause of the phenomenon is uncovered. It’s Missy who has frozen the planes in order to get Clara’s attention, for she is looking for the Doctor too. Her reason is more dire, though, as he has sent her his “confession dial,” which is essentially the last will and testament for a Time Lord. The Doctor thinks he’s about to die, and Clara and Missy must work together to find him.
The dynamic between the Doctor’s two “pretty women” (as he refers to them, by guitar solo, when they are all finally reunited) is a lot of fun, although I couldn’t help but be worried for Clara as well. Missy is so smart and powerful that it would be nice to see Clara one-up her somehow, to prove she’s her equal, though we haven’t quite gotten there yet.
And about that guitar playing: The Doctor has certainly chilled out quite a bit from his harder-edged persona from last year. The guitar and shades and more casual threads allow Capaldi to stretch his Time Lord performance some, to drop a bit of the grumpiness now that he is firmly established and out of the shadow of his so-popular predecessors. The Twelfth Doctor can have lots of fun in this episode, but he can also hit some real dark patches too. And it’s the climatic reveal/cliffhanger here that will help bring this Doctor towards the latter emotional state.
Some notes:
- That confession dial is bound to be of great importance this season. What will we learn about the Doctor from it?
- Clara’s a puppy!
- I was bummed to learn that the Doctor’s pal Bors was a Dalek.
- “I spent all day yesterday in a bow tie — and the day before that in a long scarf.”
- As much as I like to see Clara take charge, it sure does make the UNIT folks look like a bunch of idiots who need a school teacher to handle things for them.
This episode was written by showrunner Steven Moffat and directed by Hettie Macdonald, who last teamed up for the classic Who segment “Blink.” “The Magician’s Apprentice” approaches that level of quality, delivering a real jolt to the system for both the Doctor and the viewer to start off Season 9.
Talk to Senior Editor Scott Collura about Doctor Who or anything else on Twitter at @ScottCollura, on IGN at scottcollura and on Facebook.
