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Saturday 26 September 2015

Doctor Who 9.2 "The Witch's Familiar" Review

                                                Image result for doctor who the witch's familiar review
The Doctor (Peter Capaldi) has a plan up his sleeve as he watches Davros (Julian Bleach) hooked up in the infirmary.  Which he needs to survive, he soon plans an escape with Davros demanding to know what he's doing.  Then all you hear is Davros shouting that the Doctor's escaped, as we see Davros wheeling around as a dot on a map.  The Daleks exclaiming they must get him to the infirmary.

We find Missy (Michelle Gomez) and Clara (Jenna Coleman) out in the desert, with Clara dangling upside down, so where'd you get the rope Missy.  She sharpening a stick as she needs to hunt for food.  But Clara's tied up cos she might not find any.  Clara asks how they got here and Missy tells her to picture the Doctor surrounded by androids chasing him, what does he do, he takes the android's own energy and uses a transporter ring.  Falling into a pit of vampire monkeys.  Then he transports himself.  That's what the two of them did using the energy from the exterminator beam and transporting themselves into the desert.  At the planet, the door opens and we see the Doctor sitting on Davros' wheelchair.  Obviously that would be him.  He wheels in and says, "admit it, you've all had this nightmare.  Anyone for Dodgems?"

Missy knows they have to get back in and rescue the Doctor and the only way to do so is through the sewers.  The Daleks don't expel waste in that way as she prods the slimy matter inside the sewers with the stick and you hear the Dalek's scream.  Their sewer is also the Dalek graveyard, as she explains their word for sewer is the same as graveyard.  She manages to get Clara to look into the observation eye and they see an intruder, then sending down a Dalek to catch her.  But Missy uses the decayed Dalek slime to overrun the Dalek.  Then gets Clara to get inside it.  Telling her to say "I love you" which comes out as "exterminate" in Dalek speech.  She then says her name but it doesn't come out as Clara and she makes her get emotional which fires the gun, but also makes it exterminate.  She has to think what to do to operate the Dalek.

I suppose now is as good a time as any to interject here and ask what happened to Clara on the planet when we first met her in 7.1 Asylum of the Daleks and she was a Dalek and all that stuff with the souffle girl.  Was anyone satisfied that we didn't really have a proper ending to all that and get all the answers to "the impossible girl."  Not to my satisfaction anyway.

The Doctor leaves the wheelchair in a certain spot and the Daleks find they can't exterminate him. However Davros, lying on the ground complete with his screw thingy visible; sends Colony Sarf to retrieve his chair and he uses his snake 'agents' to wrap around the Doctor.  Bringing Davros back his chair and he Doctor is a prisoner once more.  They have a conversation about how the Doctor stole a TARDIS and ran from Gallifrey and he tells him he's not a Doctor. The Doctor says there's no such thing as a Doctor.  I'm just a bloke in a box telling stories."  Davros reaffirming he's a Time Lord. How he's compassionate and he helps people through that compassion.  The Doctor came cos Davros is sick and he asked him.  Compassion will be his downfall he tells the Doctor.  Also telling Davros he brought back his people and Gallifrey is out there, but even he doesn't know where it is.  He sees Davros has his confession box and also his sunglasses, which he reaches for and finds there's no scratch on them.  But he doesn't take the confession box.
Once again we get the Doctor flashing to Davros as a boy who asks for help.

Missy pretends to be a Doctor as the Dalek Clara takes her back to the Dalek base and she greets the red Supreme Dalek by whispering it's her favourite.  She tells the Dalek she has two hearts and the Dalek recognizes she's a Time lord, she's a woman now and can upgrade.  "The bitch is back," she adds.  Hmm, see the Beeb left that in!

Davros tells the Doctor that he's dying and asks him to come closer again so he can observe him with his own eyes, which he manages to open.  The Doctor is fooled into believing that he's really dying, or so we think.  "I am dying Doctor."
Doctor: "You keep saying that and you keep not dying."

He also tells the Doctor to look at the cables  he was hooked up to, cos we know that Sarf is in there somewhere.  Davros wishes he could see the sunrise for himself and the Doctor enables him to do that but he doesn't open his eyes now, oh it was such a struggle was it.  He asks if he is a good man, Doctor?  He then proceeds to give Davros his regeneration energy and that's what Davros intended all along.  This will regenerate the Daleks and they will be more powerful.  The Doctor can't stop it but Missy is on hand to destroy the connection.  Something the Doctor expected all along.  It seems the Daleks are flawed in their design as they have respect for Davros, intertwined with compassion and perhaps mercy.  Also they talk of Dalek hybrids.

Apparently when the Daleks say 'exterminate' they're just reloading, according to Missy.  The Doctor sees the Daleks from the sewer oozing in and bringing the planet down and the Daleks along with it. The Doctor and Missy make a run for it after he's rescued and he wants to know where Clara is. Missy tells him she's dead as Clara stands before him in the Dalek shell.  Missy tells him to kill it as Clara tries to tell him it's her, but it comes out as "I am a Dalek."  Which then turns to, "mercy."  The Doctor finds it strange that the  notion of mercy should find itself into the Dalek DNA.  As Clara keeps repeating mercy.  He tells it to open up but she doesn't know how.  She needs to think it and it will open.  Didn't Missy tell her she needs to think when she operates the Dalek.  He tells Missy to run.

Outside they see the planet being destroyed by the 'dead' Daleks.  Oh and the TARDIS is also back since he says it never really was destroyed.  As he and Clara escape in it.  The Doctor heads back to the planet where he rescues the boy.  He shoots at the Hand mines instead.

Perish the thought that Missy would ever have become soft as she tried to get the Doctor to kill Clara and that's as cruel and evil as you can get.  Oh and the Sonic, well he came up with new hardware and turned that into Sonic sunglasses!  "I'm over screwdrivers, they spoil the line of your jacket.  These days I'm all about wearable technology."  Ah but the sonic was a classic!  Who wants a pair of shades?

This second part was all about mercy though and a concept that found its way into the Daleks.  Davros is far from meeting his end as he takes what he told the Doctor about his own compassion being his downfall and uses that to his advantage.  There was still life in the old crafty codger yet with his ability to deceive even whilst dying and playing on the Doctor's compassion, in contrast to the boy genuinely asking for help, which was a nice touch.  Then the boy asking if the Doctor is the enemy?  As for the Doctor with the gun and toting it around, would he really have fired at the Dalek and killed it, or even killed the boy, it's all about compassion as we learn and it's obvious no matter how dark he got he wouldn't kill.  Also the Clara/Dalek if it was going to kill him, wouldn't have stood by so long and waited for the Doctor to kill it.

Funny line has to be when the Doctor finds himself back with Davros in his chair and he tells the Doctor, it's "the only other chair on Skaro."  Where'd that come from then?  Ha.  Also what was this about Missy mentioning a daughter, when she brings out the brooch to pierce the Dalek's shell in the sewer.  Not to mention the line of the present for the Doctor, canned.   If Clara was Missy's familiar, you know the bitch's er, the witch's familiar, then who was The Magician's apprentice last ep, Davros?

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