"The Magician's Apprentice" -- Thoughts
• I wasn’t sure I was excited for Doctor Who to be back. I was mostly excited to have something to watch on television because television has been dull lately. But actually I really enjoyed this episode. Maybe some of that was just nostalgia. I’ve been watching this show for ten years, so it’s nice to have something familiar around. But I think maybe also I’ve gotten used to Twelve? Last season was rocky for me and Twelve, but I liked him a lot in this episode. I think getting rid of Danny really helped because Twelve was much less defensive without Danny running around shouting about the army constantly.
• Although when I watched the little “Doctor’s Meditation” bit and it was all about war again, I was like, “Oh, God, please let’s not have this be all about Danny Pink or something.”
• Why is this episode called “The Magician’s Apprentice”? Is Bors going to have a bigger role in the next bit?
• I thought the opening was really well done. I wasn’t thrilled to death to open in the war, but the soldier really got me on his side, and those hand mines things were CREEPY.
• I no longer remember what we know and don’t know about Davros. There’s a possibility that that is the key to enjoying Doctor Who: making sure that you’re casual about it, that you don’t sit there making everything make sense. And maybe in some ways it’s sloppy writing but here is what years of fandom has, I think, finally taught me: Canon will eventually kill you. Not just the fanfic writer, but the writer of the original piece. You will eventually collapse under the weight of your own canon. You need the ability to keep re-starting every so often, because otherwise you reach the point where everything has been done. That’s either when you cancel the show, or when you decide to start re-writing your history. We get this impulse, we fans; this is the fanfic impulse. But it exists because with every word you write, you close off possibilities, until eventually you have no more possibilities, until eventually the only thing to do is to re-start yourself and make different choices. I think I’m okay with that. It’s the longest-running fictional television show of all time, or whatever. Of course it’s drowning in its own canon.
• All of that is to say that I loved this Davros plot. When the little boy said his name, I was like, “Ooooh,” and I thought Peter Capaldi nailed the reaction. (Of course, I was also like, “Only one person was ever named Davros in all of time and space? Really?”)
• By this time, I think the answer to “Where is the Doctor?” is EVERYWHERE, ALWAYS. God, time travel makes my head hurt.
• I like the Shadow Proclamation lady, she can stick around.
• That snake guy was super-creepy and I loved how he was a democracy, hahaha.
• I like Missy. I like the dynamic they’re working with her and the Doctor. I think it’s perfect. The Master has always basically been the other side of the Doctor’s coin, and I like how this brash, abrasive Doctor has a brash, abrasive Master to go with him, and I just really love how Missy’s like, “Dude, of course we’re BFFs, why do you think we fight all the time?” because that is just the best thing, it’s so interesting, this complex push-and-pull between them. I like them. I like that Missy is basically the Doctor without all the guilty self-reflection. Because yes, of course, we don’t want our hero randomly killing innocents like Missy does, but sometimes it’s nice to have someone on the canvas to be like, “Doctor, get a grip, we all have to do bad things sometimes, let’s move on.” And it’s also nice for the Doctor to have someone more on his own level so he can just say “gravity” and know Missy will pick it up. The explanation to the human companion would take so long. It’s nice to have the human companion in there and we need the human perspective to balance the Doctor’s alienness, but it’s also nice to have the Doctor and Missy working as a weirdly seamless team. And what’s great is how, in this episode, Missy isn’t the villain. It’s nice to have the Master on the canvas as just another character, and not necessarily the villain all the time.
• And I kind of like Missy and Clara thrown together like they were in this episode. I am all for Missy and Clara kind of going around saving the Doctor from himself. I’m okay with that. When Clara immediately was like, “We’re both going with him, her and I,” I was like, YES, the gang’s all here. And I loved when they two of them were gamboling about on the invisible planet, and Clara was clearly enjoying herself, and then when the planet became visible, Clara ran over to stand by Missy so they could stand united against the new threat together. LOVE.
• Clara/Jane Austen. I ship it.
• I like that UNIT calls in Clara, and I liked seeing Kate again. I did think it was weird that Clara was like, “Don’t call the Doctor, let’s not call the Doctor,” for as long as she was. Like, all your planes have stopped in the sky? I’m not sure that’s gossip. But I see why they needed to delay it. Although why didn’t she have him call and he didn’t pick up? That would have worked, too, I think.
• Clara has a motorcycle. That’s awesome. (Did we know that? I fail.)
• I like that Clara didn’t flinch when Missy brought up Danny.
• I desperately want to know what’s in the Doctor’s will. And I love that it got sent to Missy. Because, as the Doctor tries to explain to Clara, their relationship is so much more complex than just enmity.
• I love that there’s randomly a couple walking a dog underneath a frozen plane in a plaza sealed off by snipers and security.
• “He keeps trying to kill me. It’s sort of our texting.” Missy had all the great lines in this episode. Including the one about traps being her flirting. I seriously adore her.
• I actually thought the thing about how not everything is about sex, but maybe just friendship, was really interesting.
• Why doesn’t UNIT kill Missy when she starts killing people? I guess they think they need information from her, but, like, Clara is really the one who finds the Doctor, when you get right down to it. I guess they thought they needed Missy, but really Missy needed Clara. Which says a lot about how well Missy really knows the Doctor. She knows some things about him way better than Clara ever will, but she’s aware that Clara knows some things in a way Missy doesn’t.
• The Doctor thinks he’s going to die, so he goes to some random piece of Earth where nobody knows him. Actually, for this incarnation of the Doctor? I totally buy that. He seems much less sentimental than previous incarnations.
• The Doctor showing up playing an electric guitar might be when I decided to really, genuinely like Twelve. And I loved how Missy was like, “God, here we go again with him being an obnoxious showoff.” I also loved how Clara and Missy were kind of like, “Seriously?” during his terrible jokes.
• Clara saying, “He’s never like this,” and Missy being like, “Oh, you really are new, aren’t you?” Yeah, I actually felt like he seemed very Doctor-y during that bit, and I actually, as I said, really liked him. So I hope this Doctor sticks around. No wonder I was never so fond of him before.
• I love the ongoing idea that the Doctor has a terrible grasp of time.
• He introduced the word “dude” several centuries early. Excellent.
• Something about Missy with the Doctor reminds me of Hillary and David on “Love It or List It.” Don’t mind me.
• Okay, so, like, Clara and Missy lead Davros to where the Doctor is, which was totally predictable and in fact Clara even suggested the plane thing was a trap meant to make them call him (the only reason it made sense not to call him). Although Davros didn’t set up the trap, I guess Davros just had a tail on Missy and Clara? And then it turned out that Bors was actually a Dalek? And Bors was around even for the Doctor’s Meditation? So didn’t they know where the Doctor was all the time? Why did they need Clara and Missy if they already had a spy befriending the Doctor? I would like to think the weirdness of that detail is maybe why this episode is called “The Magician’s Apprentice” to point us to that? But probably it’s just usual DW confusing plotting.
• It occurs to me that for a Doctor who used to whine a lot about being all alone in the universe way back when, now he’s got a lot of people around who he’s known for years, like Missy and Davros. I mean, it would be nice if they were nicer people, but still, I’m glad we’ve gotten to the point where he isn’t actually as alone as he was, where there are people around who remember him, who know who he was, who can remind him of this. People around for him to send his will to.
• The main thing I don’t understand about this episode is that presumably Davros is one of those fixed points the Doctor can’t change? I mean, I feel a little bit like if it was so easy to kill Davros and get rid of Daleks and the Time War and everything else, it should have happened ages ago? I don’t know Classic Who so I don’t know if that’s been spoken about before.
• Although when I watched the little “Doctor’s Meditation” bit and it was all about war again, I was like, “Oh, God, please let’s not have this be all about Danny Pink or something.”
• Why is this episode called “The Magician’s Apprentice”? Is Bors going to have a bigger role in the next bit?
• I thought the opening was really well done. I wasn’t thrilled to death to open in the war, but the soldier really got me on his side, and those hand mines things were CREEPY.
• I no longer remember what we know and don’t know about Davros. There’s a possibility that that is the key to enjoying Doctor Who: making sure that you’re casual about it, that you don’t sit there making everything make sense. And maybe in some ways it’s sloppy writing but here is what years of fandom has, I think, finally taught me: Canon will eventually kill you. Not just the fanfic writer, but the writer of the original piece. You will eventually collapse under the weight of your own canon. You need the ability to keep re-starting every so often, because otherwise you reach the point where everything has been done. That’s either when you cancel the show, or when you decide to start re-writing your history. We get this impulse, we fans; this is the fanfic impulse. But it exists because with every word you write, you close off possibilities, until eventually you have no more possibilities, until eventually the only thing to do is to re-start yourself and make different choices. I think I’m okay with that. It’s the longest-running fictional television show of all time, or whatever. Of course it’s drowning in its own canon.
• All of that is to say that I loved this Davros plot. When the little boy said his name, I was like, “Ooooh,” and I thought Peter Capaldi nailed the reaction. (Of course, I was also like, “Only one person was ever named Davros in all of time and space? Really?”)
• By this time, I think the answer to “Where is the Doctor?” is EVERYWHERE, ALWAYS. God, time travel makes my head hurt.
• I like the Shadow Proclamation lady, she can stick around.
• That snake guy was super-creepy and I loved how he was a democracy, hahaha.
• I like Missy. I like the dynamic they’re working with her and the Doctor. I think it’s perfect. The Master has always basically been the other side of the Doctor’s coin, and I like how this brash, abrasive Doctor has a brash, abrasive Master to go with him, and I just really love how Missy’s like, “Dude, of course we’re BFFs, why do you think we fight all the time?” because that is just the best thing, it’s so interesting, this complex push-and-pull between them. I like them. I like that Missy is basically the Doctor without all the guilty self-reflection. Because yes, of course, we don’t want our hero randomly killing innocents like Missy does, but sometimes it’s nice to have someone on the canvas to be like, “Doctor, get a grip, we all have to do bad things sometimes, let’s move on.” And it’s also nice for the Doctor to have someone more on his own level so he can just say “gravity” and know Missy will pick it up. The explanation to the human companion would take so long. It’s nice to have the human companion in there and we need the human perspective to balance the Doctor’s alienness, but it’s also nice to have the Doctor and Missy working as a weirdly seamless team. And what’s great is how, in this episode, Missy isn’t the villain. It’s nice to have the Master on the canvas as just another character, and not necessarily the villain all the time.
• And I kind of like Missy and Clara thrown together like they were in this episode. I am all for Missy and Clara kind of going around saving the Doctor from himself. I’m okay with that. When Clara immediately was like, “We’re both going with him, her and I,” I was like, YES, the gang’s all here. And I loved when they two of them were gamboling about on the invisible planet, and Clara was clearly enjoying herself, and then when the planet became visible, Clara ran over to stand by Missy so they could stand united against the new threat together. LOVE.
• Clara/Jane Austen. I ship it.
• I like that UNIT calls in Clara, and I liked seeing Kate again. I did think it was weird that Clara was like, “Don’t call the Doctor, let’s not call the Doctor,” for as long as she was. Like, all your planes have stopped in the sky? I’m not sure that’s gossip. But I see why they needed to delay it. Although why didn’t she have him call and he didn’t pick up? That would have worked, too, I think.
• Clara has a motorcycle. That’s awesome. (Did we know that? I fail.)
• I like that Clara didn’t flinch when Missy brought up Danny.
• I desperately want to know what’s in the Doctor’s will. And I love that it got sent to Missy. Because, as the Doctor tries to explain to Clara, their relationship is so much more complex than just enmity.
• I love that there’s randomly a couple walking a dog underneath a frozen plane in a plaza sealed off by snipers and security.
• “He keeps trying to kill me. It’s sort of our texting.” Missy had all the great lines in this episode. Including the one about traps being her flirting. I seriously adore her.
• I actually thought the thing about how not everything is about sex, but maybe just friendship, was really interesting.
• Why doesn’t UNIT kill Missy when she starts killing people? I guess they think they need information from her, but, like, Clara is really the one who finds the Doctor, when you get right down to it. I guess they thought they needed Missy, but really Missy needed Clara. Which says a lot about how well Missy really knows the Doctor. She knows some things about him way better than Clara ever will, but she’s aware that Clara knows some things in a way Missy doesn’t.
• The Doctor thinks he’s going to die, so he goes to some random piece of Earth where nobody knows him. Actually, for this incarnation of the Doctor? I totally buy that. He seems much less sentimental than previous incarnations.
• The Doctor showing up playing an electric guitar might be when I decided to really, genuinely like Twelve. And I loved how Missy was like, “God, here we go again with him being an obnoxious showoff.” I also loved how Clara and Missy were kind of like, “Seriously?” during his terrible jokes.
• Clara saying, “He’s never like this,” and Missy being like, “Oh, you really are new, aren’t you?” Yeah, I actually felt like he seemed very Doctor-y during that bit, and I actually, as I said, really liked him. So I hope this Doctor sticks around. No wonder I was never so fond of him before.
• I love the ongoing idea that the Doctor has a terrible grasp of time.
• He introduced the word “dude” several centuries early. Excellent.
• Something about Missy with the Doctor reminds me of Hillary and David on “Love It or List It.” Don’t mind me.
• Okay, so, like, Clara and Missy lead Davros to where the Doctor is, which was totally predictable and in fact Clara even suggested the plane thing was a trap meant to make them call him (the only reason it made sense not to call him). Although Davros didn’t set up the trap, I guess Davros just had a tail on Missy and Clara? And then it turned out that Bors was actually a Dalek? And Bors was around even for the Doctor’s Meditation? So didn’t they know where the Doctor was all the time? Why did they need Clara and Missy if they already had a spy befriending the Doctor? I would like to think the weirdness of that detail is maybe why this episode is called “The Magician’s Apprentice” to point us to that? But probably it’s just usual DW confusing plotting.
• It occurs to me that for a Doctor who used to whine a lot about being all alone in the universe way back when, now he’s got a lot of people around who he’s known for years, like Missy and Davros. I mean, it would be nice if they were nicer people, but still, I’m glad we’ve gotten to the point where he isn’t actually as alone as he was, where there are people around who remember him, who know who he was, who can remind him of this. People around for him to send his will to.
• The main thing I don’t understand about this episode is that presumably Davros is one of those fixed points the Doctor can’t change? I mean, I feel a little bit like if it was so easy to kill Davros and get rid of Daleks and the Time War and everything else, it should have happened ages ago? I don’t know Classic Who so I don’t know if that’s been spoken about before.