Kasterborous Reviews: The Magician’s Apprentice

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Our Doctor Who Series 9 reviews are taking a new direction. Embracing the maxim that “no one sets out to make a bad episode of Doctor Who” we’re team-sourcing our reviews, polling the news and reviews teams here to offer their thoughts about each episode of Series 9. For more in-depth analysis, see the podKast – in the meantime, welcome to our new look review format! Let’s start at the beginning…

Tony Jones

The programme may be about the Doctor but Michelle Gomez as Missy stole almost every scene she was in. Her appearance was so strong it leapt right out of the screen (quite literally at one point) and she is all but effortless in her domination of the story. The best moment? Skipping, Mary Poppins style, as she tests the local gravity before concluding she and Clara are on a planet, not in space. This then followed by the opening of the airlock, heedless of the possibility of death if she is wrong. After so many lives, why wouldn’t Missy feel herself immortal? Also, wouldn’t a few episodes where Clara has to travel with Missy be fascinating TV?

It wasn’t Missy and the Doctor who were the highlight of the night—it was Missy and Clara…

Steven B

The number of beautifully-crafted set-pieces in this season return was jaw-droppingly impressive.  Each served a purpose in the narrative – building a momentum and sense of near-dread that I don’t think we’ve seen from a first episode since probably The Eleventh Hour – and each in turn were beautifully constructed,  delving into the show’s past as much as they served to set us up for the future of Series 9.

Whether it was the past Skaro battlefield bookends, #planeshavestopped, new UNIT HQ, the Mexican stand-off, rock ‘n’ roll with all the young dudes, snakes alive, or the death of the Doctor’s wife, girlfriend, and best friend on the invisible Planet of the Daleks, and all the kisses to the past along the way, each contributed to a very probably likelihood that we are in for a series of eleven more blockbusters yet to come.

But, for me, the best part?  Probably the smallest, quietest moment of them all; when the Doctor and Clara, who mean so much to one another, got to say hello again after they seemed to have said goodbye:

CLARA:  “How did you see me?”

THE DOCTOR:  “When do I not see you?”

That’s what Doctor Who does best, in my eyes.  It presents the unending possibilities of the universe, with all their glories and evils, without ever forgetting – not once – that the force that moves the heavens and stars is love.

David Power

Oh my word, they brought Davros back! And I’m not even talking about kid Davros, I’m talking about post-The Stolen Earth/ Journey’s End Davros. I’ve seen every Davros story (bar Destiny of the Daleks, I’ll get there eventually), and Julian Bleach is hands down my favourite portrayal of the character. Julian’s voice is so sinister and unnerving, and his prosthetics make him look the most menacing he’s ever looked.

What struck me about how Davros was played in The Magician’s Apprentice was how subtle a performance Julian delivered. Now don’t get me wrong, I loved how insane Davros was in Journey’s End. His “destruction of reality itself” speech still gives me chills to this day, and the utter glee he expresses when he clutches his head and announces “detonate the reality bomb!” is captivating. But it was just fascinating to see this incarnation of Davros acting with such subdued malice.

There’s only two things I want from The Witch’s Familiar, an explanation of how Davros survived the explosion of the Dalek Crucible, and a scene with Missy and Davros. That would be mind-blowing. Welcome back Doctor Who, you’ve been sorely missed.

James Lomond

We got a more tempered version of Missy in this series opener but she was still almost on fire with danger. Eight snipers for specific organs and parking a jet overhead to make a point. This Time Lady knows how to hold an audience’s attention! It was also refreshing to see another character be thoroughly Doctorly in the episode – Missy’s deduction about the oddly planet-like gravity in Davros’s hospice alongside Clara’s amazement felt very much like a Doctor-Companion pairing. And then Missy’s understated horror at seeing Skaro appear before her added brilliantly to the threat of the Dalek City.

And oh what a City! Something that -weirdly- gave me a warm fuzzy feeling are the design choices they’ve made with the city on Skaro. Rather than trying to hide or apologise for what me might now see as slightly naive 1960s aesthetics, The Magician’s Apprentice embraced and ran with the bulbous metallic futurism of the original Dalek city and made it look beautiful – this is a city designed to look like a busy circuit board from far away, because: y’know, science and stuff. We’ve even got the original 60s door frame shape.

Finally, Davros. Julian Bleach is on fine form and delivering a more carefully-drawn Davros than the frantic madness in the Series 4 finale. Bleach and Capaldi gave a dark and brooding interaction – I’m not sure whether it’s the script or Capaldi’s hair but somehow this feels more like Doctor Who than usual!

Joe Siegler

My favourite thing about The Magician’s Apprentice has to be the over the top self referential stuff.  I admit to being a sucker for that kind of stuff.  So for an episode to have its core storyline pulled from a line uttered by Tom Baker back in 1975 was an epic fangasm.  We also got to hear dialogue from Doctors 4, 5, 6, & 10 in here.  Not to mention the gaggle of enemies and previous character occurrences we got in the opening sequence (Hath, Sycorax, and a few others) just led me to pause the episode way too many times on first viewing.

Then there was Davros.  As I said above, the fact that we got to see a kid, non chair bound version of Davros is quite exciting.  Both in the way it was executed, and in the way that ticked the nostalgia bone of this fan.  I wonder if in Part 2 we’ll get to see what put Davros “in the chair” so to speak.  I seriously doubt they’re killing him off for real, so how the characters escape Part 2 seems interesting to me.

The over the top entrance for the Doctor playing a guitar on top of a tank was both ridiculous and something that worked at the same time.  I can’t recall offhand if the Doctor has played a guitar before in the show, but I know Sylvester McCoy’s doctor held a guitar at the end of Delta & The Bannermen.  Definitely one of the more fun moments.

Thomas W Spychalski

The Magician’s Apprentice quickly established from the pre-credit sequence onward that this series opener was going to be epic. Even being mildly spoiled by a rumor that we would see Davros as a child this year, it did little to suspend my excitement as I thought this was an excellent idea, one that I hoped would be played out in reality. My excitement doubled when I saw Julian Bleach back as Davros, who personally I think is the best to play the role since Michael Wisher in Genesis of the Daleks. Bleach brings a darkness and insanity to the role too terrifying for television in the seventies and eighties but just right for today’s standards.

Continuity with much of Davros’ past televised appearances, particularly the aforementioned Genesis of the Daleks, was also front and center. Throw in Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor as he deliberates over destroying the Daleks (and dependent on the resolutions in part two), the Magician’s Apprentice may very well become one of my favorite Doctor Who stories ever.

Jonathan Appleton

So, 40 years on, we get a sequel to Genesis of the Daleks to open the new series. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised; the Hinchcliffe era classic did, after all, serve as a key element of the set-up for the 2005 revival with the strong implication that it was the Doctor’s mission to head off the creation of the Daleks that provoked the Time War. Along with this confirmation that Moffat feels the viewing public have an impressive grasp of the programme’s history, there were impressive performances from the leads (was it me or did Michelle Gomez tone down the arch villainy a touch?) and several moments to thrill both new and old fans (Daleks! Davros! Skaro! UNIT!). From the moment I saw the trailer I knew I would struggle with the electric guitar but otherwise this was an enjoyable opener. Plenty of set-ups that will need paying off in part two, mind…

Jeremy Remy

There were so many amazing elements to the first episode of Series 9: including the return of the Shadow Proclamation, UNIT, and the Sisterhood of Karn. Of all the elements that brought joy to my little Whovian heart, however, the one I most anticipated was seeing the Master work with the Doctor. There was less of that particular plot than I’d expected, but I have to say, I wasn’t disappointed. The episode was fairly light on the Doctor, with secondary and ancillary characters taking the lead. Doctor Who travels to so many new times and places—regularly focusing on the adventure of the week—that such development is often left to occur in the background. This episode hints at a stronger Whoniverse, but it also leaps back to the 1970s, when Delgado’s Master was the best frenemy the Doctor ever had.

Still, it wasn’t Missy and the Doctor who were the highlight of the night—it was Missy and Clara. Clara is Missy’s companion through the course of the episode, but Missy makes no attempt to obfuscate who she is. Rather, she remains her mad, evil self, and Clara is more than willing to work alongside her for the common goal of rescuing the Doctor. Michelle Gomez fully embodies the character, with all of Degado’s genius, Ainley’s readiness to betray, MacQueen’s arrogance, and Simm’s madness. The two women are a strong pairing, and it left me wanting more of this time-travelling duo.

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