Doctor Who Series 9 Episode 2 - The Witch's Familiar (Part 2) - Review
Starring: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Michelle Gomez & Julian Bleach
Written By: Steven Moffat
Directed By: Hettie MacDonald
Welcome
back to my review of The Magician's
Apprentice and The Witch's Familiar. You
can find my review of Part 1 here:
So, let's waste no more time and crack straight on with Part 2:
The Witch's Familiar.
Starting
directly where The Magician's Apprentice left off, Missy and Clara have escaped death by
the Daleks and have teleported to the wastelands of Skaro, while the
Doctor remains trapped in the heart of the Dalek City with no sonic
screwdriver, no TARDIS and no friends. With the Doctor trapped and
surrounded by the creatures who hate him the most in the universe,
Missy and Clara begin a journey through the Dalek sewers in an
attempt to save him.
As
much as I enjoyed The Witch's Familiar, I'll be the
first to admit that it sadly fell flat within seconds of starting as
it had to deal with the incredibly poor cliff-hanger from last week.
Last week I
guaranteed you that the way Missy and Clara would survive would be
through teleportation. Before the titles had even had a chance to
turn up on screen, I was proved entirely right – Missy and Clara
survived by teleporting. This was
always going to be entirely predictable and disappointing, as it
wasn't exactly hard to guess how they would survive. Credit has to go
for Steven Moffat for trying to resolve this cliff-hanger in an
interesting way, by giving us a little story about the Doctor and some
androids, but nothing could really make that resolution any better. But once we get the title sequence out of the way, this episode gets
much better. One of my complaints last week was that Part 1 was
sloppy in terms of its structure, with all sorts of fanservice,
references, and past characters being thrown at the screen. This
week, this problem is resolved as the episode feels much more
structured and has a much clearer plot. The Daleks also get
much more to do this week, and they are used well. While it's
a shame they don't get the chance to get into a shootout with anyone
on Skaro, the threat they displayed last week is still here and you
do feel that the Doctor is in a dangerous situation.
The
dynamic between the Daleks and Davros is also well-balanced here, as
each party gets used to their full effectiveness. The scenes between
the Doctor and Davros are easily the highlights of the episode, with
Peter Capaldi and Julian Bleach working so incredibly well off each
other. In fact, all of the performances here are strong, and while
the two highlights are definitely Peter Capaldi and Julian Bleach,
credit has to be given to Michelle Gomez and Jenna Coleman. While it
is entertaining to see a shouting, ranting and insane Davros, it also
makes for good viewing to let his emotions and intelligence shine
through. Seeing the Doctor and Davros talk to one another, not as
enemies, but almost as friends, gave the episode a genuine feel of
tension. As the two continued to talk and work together, this tension
dissipated and you really started to feel that Davros was being
truthful, and that he was truly happy that Gallifrey was back in the
skies. This episode also made history and gave us the best scene in
Doctor Who since Flatline (Spoiler Warning!) -
when Davros opened his eyes. This was a genuine shock, and gave us a
truly beautiful moment between the Doctor and Davros. It must be
noted though, that similar to when we saw the unmasked Ice Warrior in
Cold
War,
it was great to see once, but that's it. Any future appearance from
Davros should not see him open his eyes.
The
sense of trust and friendship that Steven Moffat successfully built
up between Davros and the Doctor started to feel so genuine, that I even
started to get a little worried. While I did like these scenes,
Davros is one of the Doctor's greatest enemies, and in my opinion,
Davros should always remain a villain. Thankfully, my fears did not
become a reality, as Davros revealed the real reason why he brought
the Doctor to Skaro. I have to admit it was clever, and I didn't see it coming. As soon as Colony Sarff
restrained the Doctor, and Davros turned round to
face him, I got a genuine shiver down the spine.
I've got a bit of mixed opinion towards how this episode was resolved. On the one hand, I like to think its clever and make
use of something established by Missy earlier in the
episode. On the other hand, the scenes of the Dalek City collapsing
in on itself, remind me that the Daleks were literally defeated by
crap. It's a difficult one. However, The
Witch's Familiar isn't
all doom and gloom, as sprinkled throughout the episode are some
moments of comedy gold. The humour in this episode works far better
than it did last week, with the Doctor taking Davros' chair being the
undoubted highlight, followed by Missy pushing Clara down the hole,
and “the only other chair on Skaro”.
So
while pretty much everything worked in the favour of the Daleks, the Doctor and Davros, the same cannot be said for Clara and Missy. Clara and Missy
certainly had the weakest parts of the story, as the audience
engagement and interest in the story grinds to halt when the story
switches back to them. It was a bad idea to pair them together in the
first place, as many jokes are made at Clara's expense, meaning Missy
gets away with quite a lot. Let's not forget that two stories ago, in
Death
In Heaven,
Missy was responsible for killing Danny Pink, and Missy even
introduced herself to Clara last week by saying: “How's your
boyfriend? Still tremendously dead I expect.”. This relationship
cannot feel real after Missy made a jab like that. That being said,
for the first time since Dark
Water.
Missy does get a brief moment where she is actually the Master again,
when she literally punches holes into a Dalek in a brilliant scene.
Sadly,
The
Witch's Familiar shares
one of the biggest problems that plagued Asylum
Of The Daleks,
as yet again, Steven Moffat completely messes up Dalek continuity.
This week, I was hoping for an explanation as to why all the previous
Dalek models were here on Skaro, but there's none given. Was it just
fanservice again, or another go at what Asylum
Of The Daleks failed
to do? Davros also explains that the reason Skaro is back in the
skies is because the Daleks rebuilt it, and at the end of last week,
the Doctor seemed shocked that he was brought back to this planet.
But Skaro already came back in Asylum
Of The Daleks.
Is this a new planet that the Daleks have conquered and decided to
make into new Skaro? However, the biggest problem by far is Clara
inside an empty Dalek tank. To get into the city, Clara gets into an
empty Dalek casing. However, everything that Clara says get modified
by the casing. “I love you” turns into “Exterminate”. NO!
That is not a Dalek! It is the mutant inside that is filled with
hatred towards all others, the casing is just what it drives. The
casing doesn't and shouldn't do that, and that is another fundamental
misunderstanding of the Daleks that should have been taken out of the script.
To conclude, The
Magician's Apprentice and
The
Witch's Familiar make
for an entertaining, strong and celebratory start to Series 9.
The two episodes feel like a celebration of past Dalek stories and
The
Witch's Familiar manages
to restore some sense of threat to the Daleks, while also providing
some of the best Doctor-Davros scenes that the show has ever seen.
Unfortunately, some of the over-the-top fanservice and messed up
Dalek continuity hinder it slightly, but not to the point where it
become less enjoyable.
Final Score for The Magician's Apprentice and The Witch's Familiar
8/10
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