Anyway, Oxygen is about The Doctor and Bill doing space adventure. For the first time this series, Nardole comes along for the ride and gets some story beats in his own right. Oxygen is a commodity and suits are the three’s only hope of breathing for sustained periods. Then the suits turn on their human residents…

What I loved about this episode (which was yet another example of Doctor Who in confined space with guest stars getting murdered one by one), was the way it took the time to breathe, the way it let us fear for Bill and then The Doctor and then rage with all three main characters about the way capitalism has screwed us all over.

The Companions

I am still loving Bill. She is fast sky rocketing to one of the better companions in the show’s entire run. I loved her comment that inside the space station she couldn’t tell she was in space, but then she turned to a window and looked out, and the audience, like her, felt the wonder and emptiness of space. “That’s more like it.”

Of course, it’s Bill’s suit which malfunctions and we get to see Mackie’s acting chops on show as she does genuine shit your pants terror. I love that The Doctor gives his helmet to Bill and risks his own life. Even though Twelve is grouchy and sometimes coldly scientific (as his voice over at the start of the episode reminds us), when his companion is in trouble,he risks everything for their safety. Bill and The Doctor have a lovely relationship and I can’t wait to see where it all goes next.

This week as well, Nardole moves beyond mere valet and starts helping The Doctor on an adventure in his own right. I was never a huge fan of Matt Lucas, but this episode he grew on me with his combination of light comedy turn, cowardice and gentle put downs of The Doctor when needed. We also see that he values individual life. It is obvious that he cares for Bill’s safety because she is The Doctor’s friend. What else should the audience expect from an ex colleague of River Song?

The Doctor

Aside from protecting his companions and raging against capitalism (and with good reason in this story), there is another drop the mic Doctor Who moment which I for one did not see coming. The Doctor walks into a vacuum defenseless and seems fine. But this is not the case. His sunglasses shield the truth. That he has been blinded by his choice to spare Bill. I really hope that this story consequence isn’t hand waved away next episode. One of the great things about Capaldi’s Doctor (and I say this as someone who sees Eleven as her Doctor)is that he is a more back to basics kind of guy: less reliance on the sonic and on timey wimey stuff. More reliance on science, rationality and intellect. Series 10 has been a vehicle for great stories which underplay both of the former. Having a blind Doctor only adds to the difficulty of penning a story, but it makes for very interesting Doctor territory.

Other stuff

Guest stars this week were a mixed bag. The opening woman who is killed in the first five minutes gave a surprising memorable bit part performance. I was genuinely moved by her every time she was on screen. I loved the blue guy and his exchange with Bill on racism. I love that we can now depict racism and discuss racism on Doctor Who and it’s great that stories haven’t ignored Bill’s identity as a black woman. The female leader who distrusts The Doctor? I liked her for the most part (it doesn’t do to have everyone worship the ground The Doctor walks on all of the time) but I didn’t buy her sudden acceptance of The Doctor’s explanations for the oxygen, the suits, and the incoming new human cargo. A small niggle in an otherwise five star episode.

Memorable Quotes

The Doctor: They’re not your rescuers. They’re your replacements. The endpoint of capitalism. Bottom line. Where human life has no value at all. We’re fighting an algorithm. A spreadsheet. Like every worker everywhere, we’re fighting the suits!

The Doctor: The universe shows its true face when it asks for help, we show ours by how we respond.

Oxygen: 9/10 inky stars with another quality Mathieson entry

So what was Knock Knock all about? Bill is at home on earth while The Doctor finally takes Nardole’s advice and minds the box. She and a bunch of uni friends are moving out and where do they pick? A dilapidated nightmare out of a haunted house film, but hey, the rent is cheap, though the land lord is a creep. Side note: this whole series seems to have a running thread through it about neo-liberalism and its harmful, soul sucking effects. Last week the episode of the week was about a villain who put money over children. This week we have a land lord who seems to genuinely want to give some young people a cheap, convenient deal, but there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Rent is expensive and a decent house ever more unattainable in UK, as in Australia, so desperate people take shitty options because what else can they do? Anyway, the house starts coming alive, people get offed one by one, The Doctor shows up (which means trouble), and the damn land lord is still hanging around like a bad smell. Why?

The Companions

Nardole is scarcely in this story. Nothing to see here. Move along. Knock Knock is, however, Bill’s story even more so than it is The Doctor’s. We learn a bit about the hodge podge of friends she has decided to keep (and yay BBC for ethnic diversity) and deals well with idiot boys with crushes on her. She is curious and intelligent, but most of all just enormously fun to be around.

Having Peter Capaldi play Twelve makes for a more interesting companion/Doctor dynamic too, with Bill’s way of interacting with The Doctor reflecting Susan in some ways. The Doctor even refers to Bill as his granddaughter when he comes to the house and won’t leave. Bill is rightfully terrified throughout this adventure, and horrified by the death she sees, but she still sticks with The Doctor to sate her curiosity. I loved The Ponds as a family unit group of companions, but Bill may well become one of my favourite companions if she keeps this up.

The guest star

There isn’t all that much to say about The Doctor in this episode, at least until the episode’s denouement. There is plenty to say about the guest stars this week, both of whom were superb.

David Suchet chooses to play his mannered, old fashioned part in a very understated way and this works perfectly. In Suchet’s hands, the land lord is both creepy, cruel and tragic. The ending of this story is perfect. I didn’t see it coming, even when we first met Eliza. Once we know everything the land lord does with his flesh eating alien lice is in the name of preserving his mother, the story shifts into another gear. Suchet had flashes of sadness under the menace, even from the episode’s opening, and flashes of anger masking his ultimate selfishness too. I didn’t want to, but I did sympathize with his desire to keep his Mum alive, whatever the terrible cost.

Eliza, played by actress Mariah Gale, is also a tragic figure. Made of wood and living a half life, Mariah sold to us in a relatively short time period, her emptiness and pain and then, finally, the suffering at the terrible decision she had to make to protect others. Eliza kills her son and commits suicide, yet rather than feel vindicated that the villain of the week and his aliens are conquered, I just felt terribly sad for the waste of the land lord’s life in a false dream.

I thought series 9 was the best series since 5, but 10 could also be another blinder.

Memorable quotes:

The Doctor: What’s the point of surviving if you never see anyone, if you hide yourself away from the world?! When did you last open the shutters?

The land lord: Hope is its own form of cruelty.

Knock Knock: 8/10 inky stars for another quiet breathing episode which nonetheless packed emotional punch.

The Plague of the Christmas Special

Most people I know acknowledge that the Doctor Who Christmas special is never particularly great. They are weak points of even strong series of New Who. I came to positively loathe them in RTD era Who, and Moffat has been hit and miss with episodes like The Christmas Carol and Last Christmas great, and The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe abysmal. I always go in with minimal expectations so I can be pleasantly surprised when a special goes against type.

This year’s episode got the obligatory Christmas trappings out of the way early with carol singers playing against the backdrop of an alien planet and The Doctor appearing before Matt Lucas in antlers. One bonus of Capaldi’s grouchier Doctor is that he can at least lampoon the contrived Christmas moments. The plot too starts off ridiculous, much lighter than most of Series 9, with River contracting The Doctor (though she doesn’t recognize him as The Doctor) to extract a diamond from King Hydroflax, a war loving maniac. The diamond in the brain plot was very The World is Not Enough and is completely ridiculous. However, at least in this episode it served a purpose by showing the audience what River does in her time away from The Doctor. Though much of this episode is Christmas special silly, it felt earnt in this particular story because of what we see of River and her relationship with The Doctor.

River Gets Bad-Ass

River has always been a pretty damn bad ass character, but this special she gets to be extra bad-ass, marrying the diamond, not the alien to return a prize of archaeological value to the people, showing the audience she has access to a ship home to only people who have committed genocide and having plans layered within plans to a Doctor level degree (no wonder they married). It’s almost a shame in a way that the character name was in the episode title because it ruined her suspense in having River cloaked up towards the start of the episode. The following line, however, let me know I was going to be in for a good time:

River: If either of you use my name again, I’ll remove your organs in alphabetical order.

I have to admit, the first time I watched the episode, I thought Moffat and Kingston had finally fucked up the character when she positively cooed to Hydroflax with sickeningly sweet platitudes, including ‘I fly to you’ and ‘Prepare, master of my life.’ I should have known River would never become that kind of character, but Kudos to the team for making me think it had happened for a good five minutes or so.

Though it was stupid of River to tell her plan to The Doctor within earshot of Hydroflax, it was worth it for her chance to use her own sonic trowel (in an oddly ironic reversal of Eleven getting told “It’s a screwdriver… go build a cabinet or something” by River way back in Series 6) and her assessment of herself as, “archaeologist, murderer, thief.” From this point on I kept snorting with laughter at River’s antics. Who didn’t laugh at the below?

River: I’m your wife.

Hydroflax: You tried to kill me.

River: Don’t change the subject!

River’s spray which created whole new outfits was also awesome and I can’t have been the only person cheering when River told a turncoat waiter, ‘I’m an archaeologist from the future… I dig you up.’

The Doctor’s Relationship with River

This episode also showed us more of the two’s unconventional relationship. Though much of the episode felt like fic filmed, I didn’t care because I was having such a good time watching anyway. I liked that River didn’t recognize The Doctor, as this gave us the chance to see what she does get up to without him. I love the room that the show (and Big Finish) leave for themselves with the reveal that River often steals The Doctor’s TARDIS (He’s never noticed before) and the reveal of a brandy stash that The Doctor didn’t even know existed.

River’s failure to recognize Twelve also allows for great sparring between Kingston and Capaldi and helps the episode to sparkle. I loved Capaldi’s delivery as he fakes surprise at the TARDIS being bigger on the inside (‘My entire understanding of physical space has been transformed’) and River’s quip ‘were you born boring or did you have to work hard at it?’ I was howling with laughter at the Hydroflax auction with Twelve’s frantic improvisation and River’s fake telephone signalling. I also snorted at The Doctor and River’s attempts to one-up each other on the other marriages front as their ship is about to catastrophically crash, with both eventually conceding a draw at Cleopatra. I also liked the below quip which says it all really:

The Doctor: I’ve been doing it longer.

River: I’ve been doing it better.

The conceit also allows us to see events from River’s perspective, and allows the episode to blend the silly with elements of adult darkness and sadness. The scene where River has a tear in her eye over The Doctor’s diary, over her understanding that he was the sort of person who would know when a diary would run out and The Doctor’s observation that ‘he sounds like an awful person’ is quite interesting. When River tries to stall for time with her speech that The Doctor ‘doesn’t go around falling in love with people,’ it reveals a lot about her character to that point. The below speech was impassioned and epic, but note that River always had an escape route, even if no Doctor would have entered the story.

River Song: When you love the Doctor, it’s like loving the stars themselves. You don’t expect a sunset to admire you back. And if I happen to find myself in danger, let me tell you, the Doctor is not stupid enough, or sentimental enough, and he is certainly not in love enough to find himself standing in it with me!

The Doctor’s soft ‘hello sweetie,’ in reply was beautiful in its simplicity and allows us to see how Silence in the Library River came to be.

Closing the River Loop

The Husbands of River Song finally reveals to us how River ends up at the singing towers and the library. The final act of the episode is both bittersweet and a strangely adult ending to the fairy story that began in 2008. Though the restaurant outside the singing towers of Dollirium is essentially Doctor Who’s answer to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (the comparison brought to mind further with River’s comment that ‘I had this book. History’s Finest Exploding Restaurants. The best food for free. Skip the coffee.’), it allows for a lovely final date for the couple and the line ‘our only available slot is Christmas Day…’ four years in the future. Lucky for The Doctor he has a time machine. It also gives The Doctor an excuse to give River the sonic she sports in her debut two parter.

River: Funny thing is, this means you’ve always known how I was going to die. All the time we’ve been together, you knew I was coming here. The last time I saw you, the real you — the future you, I mean — you turned up on my doorstep, with a new haircut and a suit. You took me to Darillium to see the singing towers. Oh, what a night that was! The towers sang and you cried. You wouldn’t tell me why, but I suppose you knew it was time. My time. Time to come to the Library.

I also liked that Moffat connects the story back to River’s debut in dialogue as well as plot. Moffat loves to mirror and this year’s Christmas special was no exception. Take the below for example:

The Doctor: Are you crying?

River: No. It’s just the wind.

The Doctor: It’s never just the wind.

And:

The Doctor: When the wind stands fair and the night is perfect. When you least expect it, but always when you need it the most – there is a song.

And:

River: You’ll wait until I’ve given up hope. All will be lost, and you’ll do that smug little smile and then you’ll save the day. You always do.

Finally River’s diary sentence from Forest of the Dead makes perfect sense:

River: Everybody knows that everybody dies, but not every day. Some days are special. Some days are so, so blessed. Some days, nobody dies at all. Now and then, every once in a very long while, every day in a million days, when the wind stands fair and the Doctor comes to call, everybody lives.

The final part of the episode is pure fairy tale, but it’s both beautiful and suitably Christmas spirit, perhaps the most any any Christmas special has been since The Christmas Carol.

The Doctor: Times end, River, because they have to. Because there’s no such thing as happy ever after. It’s just a lie we tell ourselves because the truth is so hard.

River Song: No, Doctor, you’re wrong. Happy ever after doesn’t mean forever. It just means time. A little time. But that’s not the sort of thing you could ever understand, is it?

It’s a beautifully sad moment, but luckily, both the audience and River are proven wrong when The Doctor reveals that a night on Dollirium lasts 24 years. Such is the power of the River/Doctor relationship that by the time the episode fades out with:

‘And they lived happily ever after,’ trailing away to simply, ‘happily,’ it feels like Moffat and the episode itself have earnt the indulgence.

The Husbands of River Song: 8/10 inky stars

Missy and Clara

I cannot emphasise enough how much I enjoy Michelle Gomez as Missy and would pay good money to see her in her own spin-off show. I quite liked seeing how Missy interacted with Clara as a ‘makeshift’ companion: from ‘make your own pointy stick’ to a lecture of respect, to making Clara climb into a Dalek, what a firecracker this character is.

I couldn’t help but wonder if The Doctor had signed Clara’s almost death warrant when he demanded that the Daleks produce Clara alive and never mentioned Missy once. The Master is jealous and cruel and doesn’t like to share. Moffat also did some nice foreshadowing by having Clara climb inside a Dalek early on necessary for both Clara and Missy to rescue The Doctor from Davros. It is horrifying when Clara tries to parrot Missy’s phrases (I love you, You are different to me, exterminate), yet Missy’s plan to infiltrate Davros ship makes sense.

It makes the final stages of the episode all the more powerful when Clara is trying to tell The Doctor that she is Clara Oswald and alive. if people thought that Moffat was allowing The Master to become too likable, this moment should have re-assured. For one frightening moment, I thought that the show was actually going to have The Doctor kill Clara thinking she was a Dalek and manipulated by Missy. Of course, the show could never really have gone there. Murder of his own companion is something that I don’t think The Doctor would ever recover from, but for one powerful moment, it seemed possible…

What’s In A Name?

The Doctor Who Watchalong group I frequent got caught up on the episode titles. I see them as allegory. The Magician’s Apprentice referred to The Doctor as magician teacher of Davros. In the first part, we thought he made Davros the villain he becomes in adulthood. The Witch’s Familiar flips that concept on its head. Instead, The Doctor teaches Davros compassion. The Witch’s Familar then, refers to Missy as The Witch and Clara as The Familiar, which makes me wonder very much how Clara will exit the show and whether she will leave it enemy or friend.

Gallifrey, Missy and The Doctor

This plot twist on why The Doctor left Gallifrey from the beginning seems to have split the fandom. I’m withholding judgement until more unfolds, but like The Wedding of River Song, there is scope for Moffat to get it very wrong. Still, I quite enjoyed Missy accusing The Doctor of being the one who had always run away before she ran off down a corridor and her un-nerving declaration that she had chosen Clara for The Doctor to show “In a way, this is why I gave her to you in the first place; to make you see. A friend inside the enemy, the enemy inside the friend. Everyone’s a bit of both. Everyone’s a hybrid.” was quite brilliant. Part Dalek, park Time Lord, though? And what exactly is The Doctor’s confession? Not sure if this is a terrible idea or genius?

Redemption or deception?

The quiet heart of this episode was definitely The Doctor’s dialogue with a dying Davros. Davros in The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End lacked conviction or power for me. This episode, he raises the ‘am I good man?’ theme which The Doctor faced from series 8;

Davros: Did I do right Doctor? Tell me, was I right? I need to know before the end. Am I a good man?

Davros even appears happy when The Doctor reveals that Gallifrey has been saved from the Time War.

Davros: If you have redeemed the Time Lords from the fire, do not lose them again. Take the darkest path into the deepest hell, but protect your own … as I have sought to protect mine.

Bizarrely, The Doctor and Davros even share a laugh together over Davros’ death bed:

Doctor: You really are dying, aren’t you?
Davros: Look at me. Did you doubt it?
Doctor: Yes.
Davros: Then we have established one thing only.
Doctor: What?
Davros: You are not a good doctor.

Such banter couldn’t help but feel tinged with unreality. The Doctor/Davros truce couldn’t last. I doubt many were all that surprised when Davros back-stabbed The Doctor, trying to use The Doctor’s regenerative energy to trap him. More surprising was The Doctor’s second guessing of Davros’ plan and his use of regeneration energy to contaminate the Dalek’s, causing ‘the sewers to revolt.’

Compassion, Doctor

We all knew that The Doctor wouldn’t really harm a small boy, regardless of who he grew up to hurt and what he later created. Does this mean the look on The Doctor’s face which Clara interpreted as shame, wasn’t shame after all?

The Doctor: I didn’t come here because I’m ashamed – a bit of shame never hurt anyone. I came because you’re sick, and you asked.

The lines in this section of the episode are simple and beautiful. At a Doctor Who panel at Conflux on the weekend, myself and other panelists discussed the fundamentals of the show and all of us agreed that the fundamentals of the show are what fellow pannelist John Blum termed ‘the adjectives’ – things like ‘never cowardly, never unkind, never give up and never give in,’ and now ‘compassion.’

Davros: It is so good of you to help me.
Doctor: I’m not helping you. I’m helping a little boy I abandoned on a battlefield. I think I owe him a sunrise.

The ending of this two parter was so simple and yet so beautiful. The Doctor destroys the hand mines and rescues a young Davros, contaminating him, and through him, his Daleks’ by showing young Davros compassion.

Doctor: I’m not sure any of that matters. Friends, enemies. So long as there’s mercy. Always mercy.

A strong episode because of its willingness to focus on character moments, quiet drama and relationships and made more interesting than its first part because of a clever spin on the true morality of The Doctor, The Witch’s Apprentice is a classic.

The Witch’s Apprentice: 11/10 inky stars

The Magician’s Apprentice was glorious: unexpected, thought provoking and sparkling with fun, energy and great dialogue tempering the darkness which has characterized Capaldi’s Doctor. I felt that Capaldi worked for me as The Doctor from midway through Series 8 on, though the whole series last year felt more grown-up somehow, with the show unafraid to explore characters, allowing for moments of quite intense darkness and tackling some serious moral questions. For a show that’s now nine series in (and that’s just the new stuff), Doctor Who is certainly an example of a show that constantly re-invents. Some of this is the nature of the show itself (a show that has a time machine that can go anywhere in time and space offers a lot of scope to explore), but I also firmly believe that the current international success of the show is down to the work of Moffat. Say what you like about his ability to execute his big ideas, it is irrefutable that the ideas are there. Without his commitment to re-inventing the show, pushing viewers in unexpected ways and going against expectation as well as his audacious daring in messing with long-standing classic Who canon, I don’t think this opener would have happened at all.

Rug-Pulling

Moffat rug-pulling isn’t new and the last time we saw it was with the Missy reveal at the end of the excellent Dark Water. Moffat doesn’t waste time in pulling the rug out from under the viewer in the opening five minutes of The Magician’s Apprentice. There is a return of the war and soldier motif with a soldier trying to help a small boy surrounded by hand mines to escape an unnamed war zone. The soldier is exited. The audience pities the poor boy, feels his terror and prays The Doctor will come and avert the boy’s imminent death. The Doctor obliges.

The Doctor: Your chances of survival are one in a thousand… so here’s what you do… concentrate on the one… survival is just a choice.

So far, so good. The Doctor as a bringer of hope and of survival continues to go to form when he asks:

The Doctor: What’s your name? Tell me the name of the boy who isn’t going to die today.

The boy’s answer is a ‘jaw hit the ground’ moment, chilling and compelling.

“Davros.”

Not since The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon has an introduction episode felt so much like a finale.

Universe Continuity

One of the things RTD did well was making his series tie into each other so that the world felt connected and real. Moffat has done less of this, focusing more on concept story-telling and links to classic era Who, rather than emphasizing links to New Who. The Magician’s Apprentice feels richer for moving forward by looking back with a number of familiar places and people returning (The Maldovarium bar from Series 5 and 6), The Ood from Series 2, 4 and the Ten Christmas specials, The Shadow Proclamation and Davros from Series 4 and going back further, the sisterhood of Karn and the Dalek planet, Skaro, from classic Who). I, for one, would love to hear more from Karn and The Shadow Proclamation.

Clara Who?

I have never been keen on Clara. Governess Clara and Dalek Clara were just so much more interesting than modern day Clara. However, I did enjoy the show’s push in Series 8 to show a slow morph of Clara’s role in the show from mere companion to surrogate Doctor, culminating in her ability to perform The Doctor part in Death in Heaven pre-credits. However, in The Magician’s Apprentice I felt like Clara has finally come full circle as a companion and no longer has any place left to grow or go.

This series she is still teaching, this time Jane Austen, with a throw-away line about Austen being a great kisser (What adventure was this? Someone write the fan fic) and a command to the class to use the hashtag #planeshavestopped on Twitter. Clara is a confident and hip teacher, the cool English teacher we’ve all had at one point who nonetheless never made a lick of sense. Not only that, she’s the person UNIT calls when something’s gone wrong. She makes logical deductions rather than calling on The Doctor to make them for her (texting definitely isn’t The Doctor’s MO, planes frozen in time doesn’t equal an invasion, so logically it’s a call for attention). Alas, after she pairs with UNIT and Missy, her role becomes redundant.

The Twelfth Doctor

The Doctor is more fun this episode. Capaldi’s Twelve is still full of sadness and darkness, but there is a sense of Eleven underneath it all, made explicit when Twelve plays guitar on a tank Mad Max: Fury Road style and plays his audience with Missy like some kind of rock star. That doesn’t mean this Doctor doesn’t have gravitas. He’s just loosened up a bit since Series 8.  He teaches Medieval England the word ‘dude’ a few centuries early for heaven’s sake!

Best of Frenemies?

Oh, how glad I am to see an earlier than expected return of Missy. Michelle Gomez is an enormous asset to the series, able to play comedy, deranged mad woman, little girl lost and cold Time Lord within seconds of each other. Her pathetic explanation of how she survived Death in Heaven was suitable Delgado (“cutting to the chase… back again, big surprise), her tea session with UNIT and Clara awful yet entertaining (“NO, OF COURSE I’VE NAE TURNED GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD” followed by disintegration of some of UNIT’S lackeys), her deranged singing and dancing whilst held captive odd, but fun and her barbed comments entertainingly Master. There are too many great moments to recap, but the below was pretty great:

Missy: How’s your boyfriend? Still tremendously dead, I expect?

Clara: Still dead, yep. How come you’re still alive?

Missy: Death is for other people, dear.

One of the most interesting aspects of The Master as The Doctor’s distorted mirror has been the element of loving to hate each other, especially in New Who with both seeing themselves as the last of their kind. Though I enjoyed Simm’s Master initially, it felt like there was more to explore. Enter Missy and Moffat. Clara thinks The Doctor has sent his will to her and is mockingly rebuked by Missy (an echo of Madame Vastra in The Name of the Doctor. “The Doctor does not share his secrets with anyone. What makes you an exception?”) I loved Missy’s explanation of the long-standing friendship:

Missy: See that couple over there? You’re the puppy.

Clara: Since when do you care about the Doctor?
Missy: Since always. Since the Cloister Wars. Since the night he stole the moon and the President’s wife. Since he was a little girl. One of those was a lie, can you guess which one?

Missy: Try, nano-brain, to rise above the reproductive frenzy of your noisy little food chain and contemplate friendship. A friendship older than your civilization, and infinitely more complex.

When The Doctor plays to his Medieval audience, including Missy in his ‘performance,’ the two are performing parts that Clara has no part in, regardless of her deep knowledge of The Doctor and his history. Still, the script reminds us why The Doctor needs his human companions when Davros’ messenger tells The Doctor that Davros knows and remembers. Missy asks what the look on The Doctor’s face means. Clara already knows.

Clara: Shame. Doctor, what have you done?

The difference between Missy as The Doctor’s friend and a human companion is that whilst The Master can match The Doctor for intellect, shared history and culture and sheer bloody mindedness and audaciousness, humanity reminds The Doctor about the importance of emotions and why having heart matters. When The Doctor forgets his hearts, he is capable of horrendous things.

The Doctor’s Moral Choice

The Doctor: Davros made The Daleks, but who made Davros?

Who indeed? The heart of the darkness in this episode sits with Davros and his relationship with The Doctor. Davros is a real threat this time, less cartoonish as he was in The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End, scarier, more grounded and graver.

Davros: I approve of your new face Doctor… so much more like mine.

Like Missy, Davros becomes a mirror reflecting the possible inhumanity of The Doctor (we’re not so different, you and I. The Doctor goes to be with his human children to die, Davros to Skaro with his Daleks). What a conceit it was on Moffat’s part to riff off an old classic like Genesis of the Daleks, but it is a conceit that pays off. The lines, “If someone who knew the future pointed out a child to you, and told you that that child would grow up totally evil, to be a ruthless dictator who would destroy millions of lives, could you then kill that child?” are infused with a new horror. Could The Doctor, the hero of our show, really have created a monster, and knowing that he had, would he go back and change his past, murder a child, to prevent a more horrific future, and if he did this terrible thing, would he still be The Doctor?

Watching Clara get played with by Davros’ children is equally chilling.

Davros: See how they play with her. See how they toy. They want her to run. They need her to run. Do you feel their need, Doctor? Their blood is screaming kill, kill, kill! Hunter and prey, held in the ecstasy of crisis. Is this not life at its purest?

It is that moment that pushes The Doctor to the brink.

The Doctor: Why have I ever let you live?
Davros: Compassion, Doctor. It has always been your greatest indulgence. Let this be my final victory. Let me hear you say it, just once. Compassion is wrong.

Davros doesn’t hear The Doctor say it, but in this cliffhanger, actions speak louder than words with The Doctor going back along his time line to kill the boy who grew up to create The Daleks and cause The Time War. Will The Doctor follow through, and if he does next week, will he still be The Doctor as we know him? I don’t know. But I’ll be glued to the screen next week to find out.

The Magician’s Apprentice: 10/10 inky stars