BBCOne to Repeat The Magician’s Apprentice / The Witch’s Familiar This Sunday

Philip Bates 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.

The Magician’s Apprentice and The Witch’s Familiar will get an omnibus repeat this Sunday, just one day after the concluding episode debuts on BBC One!

The 90-minute omnibus edition will screen on the flagship channel at 3:15pm, replacing repeats of Eat Well For Less?, and The Great British Bake-Off. To plug the gap before 5:15pm’s showing of Points of View, Doctor Who will be followed by Escape to the Country.

Peter Capaldi said this opening two-part story is a tribute to the First Doctor era, and this repeat just highlights the link; the first episode, An Unearthly Child, was shown again the following week as the BBC were worried that the viewers might’ve missed it the first time around, owing to the assassination of President JFK.

But this is unprecedented in NuWho: the last such unexpected broadcast, as DWNews notes, was a May 1974 showing of The Sea Devils!

It might seem a good thing, giving more people a chance to catch up with the latest adventures of the Doctor and Clara… but in light of the accusations that ratings were bad (indeed they weren’t as high as hoped; nonetheless, the catch-up service is making up for it), this does smell slightly of desperation. You could easily blame the Rugby World Cup, which was scheduled up against our favourite show.

Nobody panic: Doctor Who isn’t about to get cancelled. Just sit back this Sunday and enjoy a repeat showing!

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