Doctor Who S09E1 - The Magician's Apprentice (spoilers)

[Iroscato]

The Doctor being an abrasive, disagreeable bastard was one the of main things I liked about last series, personally. I'm open-minded to him softening a little - but I fear the show has bigger problems besides that.

[The Romulan Republic]

Abrasive, sure. Insensitive, sure. But the Doctor should not, generally speaking, be callous.

[Iroscato]

I suppose they did push the envelope a bit last season. "top layer, if you wanna say a few words" springs to mind

[Starglider]

Moffat has become Davis. The cycle is complete. The presentation is a bit slicker but the grab bag story composition is definitely approaching a Journey's End level of cheese and fanwankery.

[Iroscato]

Moffat has become Davis. The cycle is complete. The presentation is a bit slicker but the grab bag story composition is definitely approaching a Journey's End level of cheese and fanwankery.

I had that precise train of thought earlier today. Self-indulgence, throw everything into the blender story composition, style over substance. It's suddenly 2008 again.

[FaxModem1]

Yeah, frankly, I'm rather amazed that this Doctor is showing concern for people. It's for Missy and Clara, but it's a remarkable improvement compared to the previous season, in which people being killed by Daleks or dream lobsters is not his concern, and he happily walks away as its not his problem.

[Enigma]

Did they ever explain how Missy came back from last season?

[Iroscato]

Did they ever explain how Missy came back from last season?

Spoiler

"Not dead. Back. Big surprise. Never mind"

And that is that

[Crazedwraith]

That is not the kind of thing you can just hang a lampshade on and move on.

[The Romulan Republic]

Its Doctor Who. Apparently continuity is optional.

[Iroscato]

That is not the kind of thing you can just hang a lampshade on and move on.

In fairness, the Master would routinely come back from his explicit death in the classic series. But as I thought when it was announced, bringing her back this early was a mistake.

[madd0ct0r]

I'm surprised no-one has picked up on the episode title yet.

[The Romulan Republic]

So... the magician is obviously the Doctor. But who's the apprentice? Clara? Missy? Or... Davros? After all, its implied that he did learn from the Doctor in a sense- he learned of betrayal and fear. And yet, because of time travel, its circular- the Doctor did what he did because of his experiences with Davros and his creations. So is the Doctor, metaphorically, also Davros's apprentice? A rather depressing thought.

[Iroscato]

Perhaps the next ep will have the Doctor saving young Davros, and taking him under his wing to try and change his future. Then something will go wrong, and THAT will be the Thing that Davros remembers, not what we were led to believe in the beginning with Doc leaving Davros in the minefield.

[The Romulan Republic]

Incidentally, I am very much of the opinion that if their is one arch-villain for Doctor Who as a whole, its Davros. He is at least partly responsible for so much evil and misery and so much of what has shaped the show's stories, both directly and indirectly- the Daleks, the Time War, Rassilon's plot in End of Time and hence the Master, so much of the Doctor's own darkness... And he is in a way the Doctor's opposite, a brilliant scientist who turned his skill to evil ends.

[Broomstick]

I don't feel I can rate this episode until I see the next one, since it's clearly a two-parter and a lot can change next week.

I did think the scenes between Davros and the Doctor were the best ones.

I was also rather intrigued by the "hand mines".

I did like that it was made explicit that even if Missy is working with Clara and the Doctor this time around she is NOT good in any sense a Human would use the term.

As for UNIT going to Clara when they can't find the Doctor - she's his current companion, and the companions often find it easier to contact the Doctor than UNIT or governments do. I also enjoyed Missy putting Clara in her place ("you're the puppy") even if I think the Doctor doesn't quite regard his companions as pets. They certainly aren't fellow Time Lords (except Romana, of course).

[dragon]

one thing about when the Daleks destroyed the TARDIS. In Pandora opens the TARDIS was destroyed it created massive cracks in time. In center of the TARDIS it was provided power by suspending time around an exploding star in the act of becoming a black hole, harnessing the potential energy of a collapse that would never occur.

Given that there should have been a bit bigger explosion when the TARDIS got blown up by the Daleks.

[Crazedwraith]

As for UNIT going to Clara when they can't find the Doctor - she's his current companion, and the companions often find it easier to contact the Doctor than UNIT or governments do. I also enjoyed Missy putting Clara in her place ("you're the puppy") even if I think the Doctor doesn't quite

Now really there shouldn't be such a thing as a current companion from UNIT's point of view. They should constantly be dealing with multiple incarnations of the doctor in random order. 12th one day, 10th the next, then a run in with third or fourth or seventh. It's just an artefact of the series that the Doctor tends to hang around Earth in the present day of the production.

[The Romulan Republic]

one thing about when the Daleks destroyed the TARDIS. In Pandora opens the TARDIS was destroyed it created massive cracks in time. In center of the TARDIS it was provided power by suspending time around an exploding star in the act of becoming a black hole, harnessing the potential energy of a collapse that would never occur.

Given that there should have been a bit bigger explosion when the TARDIS got blown up by the Daleks.

Presumably the Daleks have discovered how to destroy TARDISs without vast collateral damage to their own forces, given that they fought a war with the Time Lords.

[The Grim Squeaker]

one thing about when the Daleks destroyed the TARDIS. In Pandora opens the TARDIS was destroyed it created massive cracks in time. In center of the TARDIS it was provided power by suspending time around an exploding star in the act of becoming a black hole, harnessing the potential energy of a collapse that would never occur.

Given that there should have been a bit bigger explosion when the TARDIS got blown up by the Daleks.

Presumably the Daleks have discovered how to destroy TARDISs without vast collateral damage to their own forces, given that they fought a war with the Time Lords.

Has there been ANY explanation as to how the Daleks haven't conquered the universe? Given that they've returned, and are apparently the "post time war" Daleks (rather than an earlier version of them/from their history)? Given they have an empire, time travel, and no Time-lords, they should have a rather easy time of exterminating the cosmos, no?

(I'm probably missing/forgetting something; but after Dalek Khaan bought them and Davros back - we seem to have a resurgent Dalek empire, with all their tech, numbers etc')

[Iroscato]

Well two reasons, I suspect.

1) The Doctor - obviously.

2) They're nowhere near the same level they were during the Time War, and are still rebuilding. Maybe the other empires that surround them act as a buffer to them expanding too much, too quickly.

3) Fuck knows. It's pretty much part of the makeup of the show. It just is.

[mr friendly guy]

I am going to go with that the Daleks while still as technologically advance didn't have the resources they had in the Time War, what with 10 million ships destroyed during the final assault on Gallifrey which according to the Time Lords consisted of "throwing everything at us."

I imagine if an equivalent disaster befell us, while some of our units might have state of the art things, most of our forces would be back to using older technologies. So this kind of weakens them.

That being said they should still be a huge spoiler force. Like the Time Lords they have magnetron technology and can pull entire worlds out of orbit. The Shadow Proclamation had no clue who was doing it until the Doctor figured it out, nor any way to stop it. That type of power is still going to ravage a lot of space faring civilisations even if they may not be able to conquer them completely.

[Parallax]

one thing about when the Daleks destroyed the TARDIS. In Pandora opens the TARDIS was destroyed it created massive cracks in time. In center of the TARDIS it was provided power by suspending time around an exploding star in the act of becoming a black hole, harnessing the potential energy of a collapse that would never occur.

Given that there should have been a bit bigger explosion when the TARDIS got blown up by the Daleks.

I was more interested in why the Doctor keeps the goddamned Hazard Action Displacement System turned off.
This is the exact sort of situation where it'd be really, really useful.

[Broomstick]

What if he had it on and that enabled the TARDIS to escape this time?

[Parallax]

Though that does raise an interesting issue.
The Doctors Type 40 is an antique of Time Lord technology. It's horribly obsolete is every way imaginable.
We can assume that every TARDIS built from the Type 40 days has HADS, or the equivalent thereof, installed and operating.
We know that TARDIS' see into their own timelines and know what will happen to themselves, quite possibly the basis of the HADS system itself.

So how did any TARDIS' get destroyed in the Time War? You'd think a modern TARDIS would be able to simply look forward 10 seconds, realise that Dalek Attack Saucers will materialise at X co-ordinates and fire TARDIS destroying missiles ... and move elsewhere.
And while the Daleks could have tech that distorts or even blinds TARDIS' abilities to scan their own timelines, that should be a massive sign pointing "don't go here in spacetime"