Doctor Who Series 9: The Magician's Apprentice (Review)

So. Doctor Who ay? 

The Magicians Apprentice, to be specific.

Well...

It's...

Okay.

I think.

No, it's not amazing. It's not brilliant. It's not even good. But, it's alright.

It's full to the brim with Moffat-isms. Fan-wank, Clara, messing with established characters/themes/what have you. It's a tension-less, self-indulgent piece of Moffat dribble. That's for sure, no doubt about it...

...However.

I like it? There's a few plot holes here and there, and pointless elements which we really didn't need to move the story forward. The twists were obvious from a mile away, and the shocks... aren't shocking. Clara isn't dead. We know this. What's the point of killing her? It may shock the 10 people who still like her for a few femtoseconds, but that's it. Missy isn't dead either. We saw her teleport away before the Dalek beams even touched her for God's sake! And of course the TARDIS isn't gone. How moronic does Moffat think the viewers are that he think this will shock them? It's the same with the Missy reveal.

There's also a small goof with the Missy-Clara confrontation scene. Missy compares Clara to the pet dog of a couple walking past in relation to the Doctor. But, there are UNIT snipers surrounding them! I doubt UNIT would let people walk past someone they have snipers on! It's a small detail, but it shows a bigger problem with Moffat's scripts. Some parts of them, make no sense. 

For example, Bors (the beard man with an axe) is revealed to be a Dalek puppet. But that means that the Daleks knew where the Doctor was for THREE WEEKS! So for three weeks, the Daleks watched the Doctor perform for a bunch of peasants from the middle ages. In Essex. Ew.

Oh, and Clara. Clara, Clara, Clara, Clara, Clara. Clara. Please, just leave. And I mean actually leave. Please. I didn't like you in Series 7. Or Series 8. I still don't like you. Apart from her being a control freak (which we didn't actually see this episode), she has zero character. In fact, we haven't actually seen her be a control freak since Death in Heaven.

But my main issue with this episode is the #planeshavestopped.(#planeSHAVEstopped) plot thread. I know, it seems like a silly thing to be my main problem. But hear me out. It's completely pointless. Seriously, it only serves to get Clara and Missy to meet. Can't Missy just have gone and found her? It would've given the episode more time to answer some plot holes. Or, I dunno, build some tension? Oh, and the people inside them are pickled in time. Like gherkins in a jar.

Oh yeah, the episode looks fucking brilliant.

Oh yeah, Davros is back. That wasn't spoiled at all. Nope. No leaked trailers. No newspaper reports months in advance. Nope. The BBC has everything under control.

So, the Daleks. Yep. They're Daleks. They didn't really do anything. They were just there, looking admittedly pretty cool, occasionally being tickled inappropriately by Missy/The Master/Who Give a Flying Fuck. You know Moffat's gone too far when he writes about the Master fondling a Dalek and thinking 'yes this is totally great I am so good'. 

 And I love his 'The only thing on telly is old Pointless repeats' pose.

And Davros: my God how good he is! Julian Bleach is bloody fantastic. Davros is on point here, taunting the Doctor as usual. But Bleach is so ruddy interesting to watch. And considering he has to act through a fricken' prosthetic, he does exceptionally well.

THAT. ENDING. THOUGH.

There so much to talk about in this episode. Too damn much. And I can't possibly talk about all of it unless I put effort into this.

So, there we go. The Magician's Apprentice. It's... alright, I guess. Not a bad start to the series, but hey, it seems to at least try and be a good script, unlike Moffat's previous script. And that's gotta count for something... Right?

I don't have a special video for this... So, um... There's this?