Doctor Who Review by John Keegan

Doctor Who 9.01: The Magician's Apprentice

Doctor Who 9.01: The Magician's Apprentice

Written By:
Steven Moffat
Directed By:
Hettie MacDonald


It doesn’t take long to realize that the ninth series premiere presents the audience with everything that is special and wonderful about Doctor Who: moments of horror and angst mixed generously with the patently absurd.  Oh, and a healthy helping of connections to previous continuity that don’t necessarily have to be understood to add flavor to the proceedings. 





The previous season was centered, albeit imperfectly, on the question of what kind of person The Doctor really is: a good man or a bad one, essentially.  And the answer was as vague as it is for any of us: who judges such a thing?  By what measure can such definitive labels be determined?  And so of course this premiere echoes one of the most nuanced explorations of that question from the Classic Era by revisiting the Davros scenario.  If The Doctor could prevent untold universal and personal suffering by killing Davros as a child, would he do so?  It was a thought experiment in the days of the Fourth Doctor, but now it is rendered literal.


Had the scenario been generated merely on the apparent death of Clara, I wouldn’t have bought it nearly so much.  In fact, I am still mildly annoyed that the fate of this one companion is so vital as compared to the fates of so many others that were sometimes casually tossed aside.  (Granted, that hasn’t been the case in the Modern Era, but this tale invokes the past enough to expose the dissonance.)  Adding Missy back into the equation, and exploring the nuances of the Doctor/Master dynamic openly, made the scenario all the more interesting.  Anyone who balked at the notion that The Master is somehow The Doctor’s oldest and best friend needs to go back to the Classic Era, particularly the Third Doctor’s tenure, and see how the topic was originally treated.  





Not that the premiere didn’t have its share of Moffat-isms that will no doubt annoy those who want something more than a litany of “cool” moments.  Hand-mines was mildly clever, but there is a point where things just kinda happen and there’s no attempt at all to make sense of it, like stopping all the planes in mid-air.  There’s such a thing as trying too hard, especially when other moments are equally insane and work far better.


I am of course talking about the “axe fight” and the notion of The Doctor playing an electric guitar solo of the show’s theme music while riding a tank into a medieval lodge.  Perhaps it’s a matter of personal taste, but when The Doctor does something completely off the rails, it feels a lot more “in character” and justified.  Somehow, confining the majority of the absurdity to The Doctor seems to work best, as that allows his attitude and irreverence to be an ongoing commentary on the scruples of those around him.  If everyone is doing inexplicable things, then where is the contrast?






Which brings me to Davros.  I would love it if the messiness of the Daleks could be brought back under control (what is the deal with those “human” Daleks, anyway?), but I’m simply not sure what it is that Davros thinks he is currently accomplishing.  Just another attempt to wipe The Doctor off the map is fine, I suppose, but this story seems to be introducing a much greater weight to the proceedings than that.  Hopefully, if this is kicking off another season-long arc, it will hang together better than what we’ve seen in recent years.

Our Grade:
B+
The Good:
  • Missy, Clara, and The Doctor had a ton of perfect moments
  • The callbacks to the Classic Era were definitely on point
The Bad:
  • Weirdness for the sake of weirdness is getting a bit old

John Keegan aka "criticalmyth", is one of the hosts of the "Critical Myth" podcast heard here on VOG Network's radio feed Monday, Wednesday & Friday. You can follow him on twitter at @criticalmyth

Doctor Who by - 9/21/2015 12:21 PM939 views

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