The Storyline
The Witch’s Familiar by Stuart Manning
We open this second part with Clara hanging upside down on Skaro with Missy explaining the Doctor to her and his and their escape from the Daleks, but the Doctor is still a prisoner of Davros.
The Daleks try to kill him but cannot for he is protected by a force field. Missy and Clara are underground in a sewer; the graveyard of the Daleks. Davros is trapped, the Doctor taking him out of his chair, Colony Sarf ready to serve him.
The Doctor meanwhile is back with Davros, awakening from a nightmare of leaving the boy Davros behind. Davros is trying to explain something to the Doctor but he will not listen. He then realises that Davros is giving him the choice to kill all Daleks but he won’t. Whilst the two talk, Clara climbs inside a Dalek helped by Missy. Is Clara about to permanently become a Dalek, forever trapped inside the casing forever more?
Davros questions the Doctor about leaving Gallifrey, the Doctor telling him his planet is safe. Davros is seemingly happy and the Doctor is surprised to see tears of relief that this is so. Davros is indeed dying and seems to want his old enemy to help him find peace within himself.
Missy and Dalek Clara are captured by the Daleks and Missy tries to make a deal with them for the Doctor’s life.
The Doctor helps Davros see the sunrise using his regeneration energy and BANG! The Timelord falls into his trap.
Davros is trying to create a hybrid of half Timelord/half Dalek; which it seems was an ancient prophecy the Doctor ran from Gallifrey centuries before.
Missy rescues the Doctor as Skaro’s city is torn apart. The Doctor comes across a Dalek with Missy who tries to kill the Dalek Clara until he realises it is her. He tells Missy to run and they make their escape. Missy is captured by the Daleks.
The Doctor realises that he has to save the boy Davros in order to save Clara and so it ends with the Timelord walking off through the battlefield holding hands with the frightened child Davros.
The Review
The Doctor on the battlefield of Skaro courtesy of BBC Doctor Who
This episode played with the viewers mind and emotions with the question on whether Davros was indeed looking for peace before dying and would the Doctor give him it, forgetting all else and putting their differences aside? But no, some are beyond redemption and besides, you cannot kill off Davros for he is the Doctors arch-enemy, more so than the Master who is now Missy who is now bad but not totally evil as women are not as crazy as men. Well, just a tad and I’ve known a few in my time!
I loved the fact that Davros seemed to be ready to die and wanted to make peace with his old enemy and yet came back more powerful than before. The Daleks and their leader will never die. They must not die. I also liked that the Doctor gave away he had saved Gallifrey, now leaving it open for the two to meet again and fight over the Timelord’s home planet. Also, there was a moment when Clara was trapped inside the Dalek by Missy and for a moment or three I actually thought that she would be trapped inside and left for the previous incarnation to find as he did when he first encountered Clara long ago.
The episode was fantastic and had everything you could ask for and yet it still played with the idea of the Doctor becoming a woman. Are we going to get this in every episode now until we are forced into accepting it like some brainwashing for that is exactly what it is. We should not have to put up with this kind of thing just to please a few fans who happen to be the shows writers who play ‘god’ at changing the history of something unique for their own satisfaction.
Once again, if it aint broke don’t fix it.
That being said I loved this episode very much even though Missy is starting to grate on me now, a fine and fantastic actress that Michelle Gomez is; and I cannot wait until next weeks episode with some genuine creepy new monsters similar to the Silence, to get us hiding behind the sofa once again…
If you are interested in the above poster by Stuart Manning you can buy his prints and he does commissions too. You can view his work here and buy them here.
The Cast
Peter Capaldi – The (13th) Doctor
Jenna Coleman – Clara Oswald
Michelle Gomez – Missy
Julian Bleach – Davros
Jami Reid-Quarrell – Colony Sarff
Joey Price – Young Davros
Nicholas Briggs – Voice of the Daleks
Barnaby Edwards, Nicholas Pegg – Daleks
Production
Writer – Steven Moffat
Director – Hettie MacDonald
Richard Estes
September 28, 2015
I much preferred this episode to “The Magician’s Apprentice”, which struck me as a Matt Smith story for Capaldi, along with too much over the top Star Wars type CGI, Moffatt’s grandiosity and a disjointed narrative. Missy and Clara saved it from being a disaster.
But it was obvious that we were in for a very different experience right out of the box with “The Witch’s Familiar”. The opening, pre-credits scene with Clara and Missy was shockingly good, one of the best opening scenes in the entire history of Doctor Who. And, Moffatt channeled his cosmology through an extended dialogue between Davros and the Doctor, to great effect.
Moffatt’s ongoing inquiry into whether the Daleks must always be inherently evil, as presented last year in “Into the Dalek” and developed further in the final stages of “The Witch’s Familiar” is an intriguing story line with great possibilities.
Darren Greenidge
October 4, 2015
Interesting views but the whole Missy/Master thing is not right and just a fanboy thing by new writers…