The Witch’s Familiar

[Anonymous @]

goodness @denvaldron I said this: “There’s a latent capacity, a due-diligence brought about by ferocious competence which ironically could hinder the Doctor’s own plans were he not equally as old and as clever as the Doctor” whilst I meant to say this: “….brought about by ferocious competence which could hinder Davros’ plans were he not equally as old and as clever as the Doctor…”

Dear me! Time to do something else. 🙂

[lisa @lisa]

So I don’t know if anyone mentioned this but we have so far 2 kings from the Arthur
Legend, King Bors who saves a maiden instead of his brother and also fights as
Guinevere’s champion and becomes Lancelot’s advisers in his disagreement with King
Arthur. We are next getting the Fisher King who was know as the wounded king. So
his kingdom suffers and becomes a wasteland. I bet we will get more Arthur characters
this season too!

[ichabod @ichabod]

@denvaldron  . . . the charge I level at Moffat. He’s taken a character with the potential for life-like depth and flexibility, for fallibility and humanity, and he’s reduced her to a plot pawn to perform a prescribed story function. 

I disagree; but where she can go after the special circumstances of S8 has been a question since S8 ended.  I don’t think that she’s dropped back into the (acknowledged by Moffat) pawn status of Clara in S7; but she is still unsettled by being somewhat sidelined to the Missy/Davros/Doctor configuration.  Episodes up ahead could persuade me otherwise, but these particular arguments about this episode don’t.

We are very different in our outlooks, but neither one of us were invited to write this episode. So it doesn’t really involve our processes as writers. We come to it as watchers, as an audience, and Moffat’s choices are open to analysis and critical assessment.

Yes; and to that analysis, I bring my own experience as a writer, whether I want to or not — that’s been a huge chunk of my identity for about sixty years.  You bring whatever you like, but it doesn’t cancel out what I bring, or my right to bring it.  The perception of art isn’t objective or passive: what the individual brings to it matters.

Davros was lying about all that? He was just making it up as he went along? Davros was having a ‘Fool’s Progress’? And just accidentally had the whole regeneration energy transfer mechanism all set up in advance?

No straw men, please.  I said, and I meant, that the exchange in which Davros appears to soften and engage in a (sort of?) normal conversation with his adversary, up until he springs his trap, was not all a con, and neither was the Doctor’s side of it, in my view.  I maintain that there was truth in it, and that that was more interesting than all the sting-y stuff, traps inside traps — to me.  In fact, I’d say that for a few moments there, Davros *did* join the Doctor’s Fool’s Progress — because he knew he was about to win via his trap, so it was safe to risk some closeness. Beyond that, I don’t know — I haven’t seen enough of Davros to go much deeper than his surface.

Actually, the Fool’s Progress is exactly what the Doctor claims for himself — “I am — an idiot, in a box, dropping by, helping out — ”  I doubt that he *does* learn a lot, really (apart from learning, as he has in S8, that he’s a Fool), at least in terms of the basics of his own life.  He’s very old and has a piano brain stuffed with memories and lessons.  He has already learned what he’s receptive to learning, and always trying his knowledge against challenges.  That *is* his Progress.  This fool doesn’t necessarily learn to be wise; and this one seems to be as wise as he going to get.   But he’s also learned to be an effective Fool, and to live with that and enjoy it.  That’s a Progress, too.

It’s very explicitly stated, this is a duel of Machiavellian chess masters.

Hmm.  Who explicitly says so?  I’m not a strategist or game player by nature (vv organic gardener); must have missed that.  So let’s say yes, there’s a Machiavellion chess game going on here; I’m saying that I don’t find that game nearly as compelling or interesting as the personal exchanges among Missy, Clara, the Doctor, and Davros.  The game, to me, is a useful schematic, entertaining and sometimes surprising.  But the *story*, for me, is what passes between the characters that’s authentic, not so much what’s fakery (anybody can tell lies; hell, my *cat* tells lies  — “No, I really don’t want to come inside, so go ahead and shut the door — a-HAH, gotcha, nipped inside as soon as you started to shut it!”).

But then, if the Fool actually develops, is this a Hero’s Journey?

Depends on what the Fool develops into.  What makes a hero?  (ahem, lion voice:) Curr-idge!  If the Fool is a scaredy-cat to start with but finds his courage on his travels, then he can be on a Hero’s Journey — but he could still be a Fool.  Consider Achilles: he’s full of physical courage, a recognized hero.  But, wise?  More like a sullen adolescent on steroids.  So what is the Fool’s Progress?  Could be a journey to the wisdom of experience, but that could be a journey to becoming not a Hero or a wise person but a cowardly but clever Trickster.  I don’t remember the details of Campbell’s paradigm, but I do remember finding it too simplistic for me.

Regardless, this is definitely not a Fool’s Journey for the Doctor.

Well, not to you apparently, no.  You’re not really saying, “You’re wrong and I’m right because I say so!”, are you?

[ichabod @ichabod]

Damn, I am not kidding — timey-wimey drives me crazy-wazy sometimes.  *When* are we, with TMA/TWF?  Clara rebukes the Doctor for keeping Missy’s survival a secret: “We both saw her die, but that was ages ago.  You’ve been keeping secrets”, more or less.  Clara’s not a TL, so “ages” doesn’t mean to her what it would mean to the Doctor or Missy; so what would that be — a few years, Earth time?  She’s clearly resentful that the Doctor has been keeping Missy’s survival a secret for some time now (and he’s caught out: “I’m sorry,” no explanation offered).

Clearly, it’s some significant time, and the Doctor has had some significant encounters, like Boy Davros and the hand mines, which re-enforces the divergence of the Doctor’s path from hers since she seems to know nothing about any of it.  “Come on, come on, great stuff awaits us!” is replaced by, “Oh, erm, yep, some big stuff has happened including Missy, sorry I sort of forgot to tell you about any of it and I’m not going to explain it now either.”

At the end of Last Xmas, they zipped into the Tardis together to go looking for adventure; but now they’re not traveling together, she doesn’t know where he’s got to and is busy teaching, so the resolution of Last X has turned into — what?  S9 = S8 without Danny, so the Doctor has kind of lost interest in Clara (now that she’s moved on to a more traditional, somewhat distant companion relationship with him, no competition for her attention to deal with?) and gone off on his own for an extended period?  Though the resolution of Last X might still be part of a dream crab illusion — ??

Just trying to get my bearings, here.

[Anonymous @]

@ichabod

Look, this idea of the Doctor and Davros ‘relenting a little’ is quite a feminine notion -as a few would have it on other Forums (not necessarily me, however: I’d get into too much trouble viewing it from a possible yin/yang perspective!). There too, there have been interesting discussions.

But it isn’t a chess game -explicitly. There’s no Machiavellian carry-on or strategy -unless it’s with Davros, specifically, but as I maintain and so do you, Davros is so certain of his absolute victory that he lapses into sincerity and opens his storm windows for a few minutes.

I think when they shared a joke, they were on the same side -for a little while (as @arbutus would suggest and others up thread too), and certainly  Capaldi showed the nuance of a “I wish it could really be like this” face. Flutters of that were expressed all through those severe close -ups. What tremendous acting. How haggard and exhausted did the Doctor look? Certain that Clara was dead? That perhaps it was his fault?

Wishing Davros could be sincere in his values and congratulations to the Doctor? Like two wires close together, a connection of brightness and colour surged between them -but just for a few seconds. After awhile it became obvious that Davros had meant it when he said to Sarff earlier, “tonight we entrap the Time Lord.”

It’s pretty easy to see such an obvious signal.  Then there was the Doctor, riding in on Davros’ ‘horse’, saying, “all the power he has is mine.” Like a liege Lord.

So those two phrases -one by the Doctor and one by Davros – foreshadowed the ending. For years to come, I imagine parents teaching their children clever dialogue using this exchange of “lies” and saying “if you notice, and watch very closely, you will know they’re playing a clever game with each other.” But not a game in the sense of chess: Knight 2 to Bishop….This is more organic and generally contains  room for manoeuvre: thousands or millions of options for what is said, for how a face resembles a feeling or demonstrates an emotion. For instance, we don’t know if Davros’ tears were entirely false. I don’t think they were. Just as “mercy” was a quality embedded in the dalek’s psyche and not something elucidated for the purpose of a mere game.

Also if the Doctor suspects such detail about Davros (he’s known him for over 1000 years) and fears the worst: a lie, an entrapment, would he also realise or suspect that the Daleks might not actually die? If the mad are sent to Coventry, this tells us -loudly- that there’s a deeper game a foot. If Missy knows it, I suspect the Doctor knows it too (that the sewers can revolt and nastily!).

Perhaps the impression I took away from this 2 parter was that these Time Lords are almost beyond our understanding. Smith and Tennant made them seem human, but Capaldi has shown an extraordinary grasp of something much deeper, and more profound: that he’s capable of intrigue, lies and deception in order to save his race, to save Clara and even Missy (and himself) whilst engaging in hostile action. And that it is perfectly acceptable.

It’s probably why he’s a ‘Lord’ -there’s noble majesty in that title though it’s not necessarily pleasant. It’s not always honest. But then Smith said to House in The Doctor’s Wife: “fear me, I killed them all [the TLs]”.

He’s never going to be fluffy.

[Anonymous @]

@ichabod

I think that there’s significant time past and yes Clara is still travelling with him -occasionally.

I recall last season when the Doctor said he’d go out for coffee, came back and Clara said “but that was ages ago”.

Weeks? Months? I get the impression when Danny died, a lot of time had past too. But again, perhaps we hear “ages” and the Doctor thinks “a pudding brain means to say ‘seconds’ -those silly humanoids.” (except humanoid is a dalek word: for all we know it could be saying “daughter”)

Perhaps it doesn’t matter. What does, is the trouble this Lord gets into when he travels -alone or with a mate.

[janetteB @janetteb]

@ichabod I also expected Clara to be a full time Tardis traveller by the start of this series so I was both surprised and a little relieved to see her still secure in her job at Coal Hill. I am hoping that as long as she is still at Coal Hill there is a chance of an encounter with Ian. I had forgotten the “you owe me” line. It may simply be what was stated, a call to him to stay alive, or it may play out later in the series.

On reading through the comments I am wondering if a group watch of “Curse of Fatal Death” would be in order. Maybe when the series wraps up as we might be in need of cheering up. It is interesting to watch now in light of how Moffat’s vision has played out over the years of AGWho.

Cheers

Janette

[jphamlore @jphamlore]

@purofilion: Much of this Doctor’s portrayal is reflected in the Sylvester McCoy Doctor era, but the writers have indicated they believe the McCoy era stories were badly written and perhaps blame it for the show’s cancellation back then. I was relieved they at least showed part of the McCoy Doctor’s diatribe against Davros.

The cold calculated emotional manipulation for example is shown in the Doctor’s breaking Ace’s faith in him so that Fenric could be defeated. Also in the McCoy era we see the Doctor having control over the Silver Nemesis which might as well have been the Moment in the current series and the Doctor hacking the Hand of Omega to destroy Skaro’s star system in Remembrance of the Daleks. Then as now the Doctor gives Davros the means of committing genocide but relies on Davros’ own greed to push the button.

[ichabod @ichabod]

@purofilion  He’s never going to be fluffy.

Good grief, did I write something that made it sound as if I think the Doctor is “fluffy”?  Or even could be?  Not my intention, I assure you!  It’s his sharp edges that I most admire, and find true to his nature as presented.  I thought Clara was rather fluffy in S7, which was one reason I didn’t take to her then.  She got her own sharp edges in S9, and I liked her fine.

Perhaps the impression I took away from this 2 parter was that these Time Lords are almost beyond our understanding. Smith and Tennant made them seem human, but Capaldi has shown an extraordinary grasp of something much deeper, and more profound: that he’s capable of intrigue, lies and deception in order to save his race, to save Clara and even Missy (and himself) whilst engaging in hostile action. And that it is perfectly acceptable.

Absolutely agree; and this is why Clara identified as “the puppy” is just recognition that she’s not in the same league as these much more powerful  people.  I’ve said it myself and seen others do the same — to a TL, a human is as a pet cat or dog is to us, short-lived (who could forget that remark to Courtney in S8!), of limited brain capacity, but companionable, interesting, and sometimes extremely useful.  When Capaldi said he meant to revive the sense of the Doctor as *alien* he wasn’t just blowing smoke.  He’s *doing* it.  And I agree too that the connection that little conversation allowed to happen only lasted briefly — it didn’t actually change the plans or intentions of either of them.

Oh, and thanks about the Machiavellian thing; long-winding, intricate master plans do sometimes work, at least in the larger intentions (like misleading the Nazis about where D-Day was going to happen).  But up close, things are forever going wrong (I heard Terry Pratchett talked about this once, in connection with experience with nuclear power plants).  What’s the opposite of Serendipity?  Murphy’s Law?  IMO, there’s a lot more Murphy’s Law hanging around waiting to happen, and to gum up the works, than Serendipity waiting to put helpful goodies in one’s way.

@janetteb   I watched “Fatal Death” a couple of weeks ago for the first time — really enjoyed it!  TWF certainly did raise its ghost(s), for me.

[jphamlore @jphamlore]

“… Cloister Wars … the night he stole the Moon and the President’s wife … since he was a little girl.”

And when the Doctor left Gallifrey after he stole the Hand of Omega?

[Anonymous @]

@ichabod

nope. I didn’t think you thought that at all. I said I wouldn’t believe it: Smithy did act like a big kid sometimes and at others showed a regal intensity that reminds me he really is a Lord (I mean to use that particular tense: damn being many people but really just The Doctor)

Thus, he’s not a fluffy thing 🙂

@jphamlore I wish I knew more about that time period: his rolodex is a bloomin mess. I also admit to not watching any episodes after Davison had the role. Life became different -I took a brief look at C Baker and shrieked. Thought McCoy was absolutely awful. But I was old then and I’m younger now. 🙂

[Anonymous @]

@ichabod I also wanted to say that gosh, the way you wrote, about the Fool and his progress? I liked it! I do like your writing. It is clear that this is not only what you ‘do’ but who you are. And you neither embellish this story nor misinterpret any of it -I think you hope to see it truly -as we all try to do, I hope.

But I think our beliefs about it will evolve as the season progresses.

Did anyone think Capaldi looked really quite sick? I’m assuming in addition to weight loss  – although his hair has grown weight 🙂 that perhaps the colourisation of the episode as well as the extreme close -ups have an effect. I just remember Tennant ageing. Watching The Big Bang, even Smithy had quite a baby face -in his last episode he looked a little gaunt.

Maybe one needs real regen. energy to survive this show. And how come Moffat always looks well rested and bouncy? 🙂 It’s a little bizarre!

Now, @jimthefish I haven’t seen you about the pages for awhile and hope you’re well and not too busy with pesky things in Real Life. You should be watching these eps over and over (like me: eerm. Cough. Yes, I do have an actual life. Cough.)

[221BadWolf @221badwolf]

@jimmythetulip

I really think (and still do after this episode) that Clara is the Master, an incarnation prior to Missy who used a chameleon arch to hide her true self.

Intriguing, but I’d like to point out that in <i>The Rings of Akhaten, </i>The Doctor goes through Clara’s timeline from when she was born to her mother’s death, and it’s established that she is, indeed, a normal human girl.

 

[Anonymous @]

Ah now @barnable you’ve watched Angel and I think we can safely state that Angel believes that it is the fight that is important: the victory may never be achieved. He realises this when he goes ‘down’ the Lift with the Head of Wolfram and Heart and then ‘arrives’ right back where he started. To fight at the feet of human kind ..one fight at a time…I think @ichabod makes a justifiable comparison when they say:

What distinguishes the Doctor as a hero (whether acknowledged or not) is that he’s brave enough.  Yes, it’s a trap — and he walks into it.  Yes, all his companions leave him — and he keeps taking them on, learning to receive and give hugs, and then losing those people.  Yes, everybody dies — but in the meantime, he’ll save them if he can.  Yes, some die anyway, and it’s failure, and it hurts and it’s scary…”

The Doctor, an idiot in his box, is like Angel. Saving people whenever he can?

Mmm.

[Anonymous @]

@221badwolf @jimmythetulip

I love the bonkers stuff but I must agree with Bad Wolf there: we know her as Clara Prime?

But has something happened in between? Or was it more likely something happened to her in the Dalek casing (ironically she was in a Dalek more than once: thrice? but only twice as Clara Prime)?

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@purofilion

For instance, we don’t know if Davros’ tears were entirely false.

We don’t know if his congratulations on the survival of Gallifrey were entirely false. If Davros’s most intense motivation is the survival of his people, it’s possible that he still has the empathy to realise that the Doctor being the last of his people would be the most terrible fate imaginable. And still has enough compassion left to realise that, however much he may hate the Doctor, he doesn’t hate him that much.

It also hints at a possible resolution for this wretched Time War.

[Can you tell I want the Time War to be over, finished, ended? In terms of writing holes, that’s the huge great deep one that we got landed with. Simply because it was a concept RTD came up with when he thought his new Doctor Who would only last one series – and now we’re ten years and nine full series in and it’s a giant black hole.]

::ahem:: Anyway, if Davros still has sufficient empathy to be glad that the Time Lord he’s about to trick and kill at least still knows his people will survive him, then possibly the Daleks also have sufficient empathy to (eventually) realise that perhaps – if both sides most basic desire is to want their people to survive – some kind of Mutually Assured Destruction Treaty is possible.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@everyone
I may be fighting a losing battle here, but the only Whovian acronyms I can read instantly are RTD (for Russell T Davis, who I now see as having the nickname Ar-Tee-Dee) TARDIS (for TARDIS) and I’ve now learnt to handle AG and BG (bit like BCE and CE, only with Gap). BTL has recently been added! Yay!

The problem is that, apart from the TARDIS (a word in caps), I read acronyms as individual letters and have learn, slowly, to associate the letters I’m reading with the concept they represent. And there’s just too many damn episodes for me to do that easily with episode titles.

So, basically, my reading will go: TWF – Tee double-you eff – what the heck is TWF? -it’s probably an episode – oh, The Witch’s Familiar.

Apologies for the long explanation, but even ‘Witch’ and ‘Magician’ would be a lot easier, if the problem is trying to type on those little virtual keyboards.

Thank you. 😀

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@221badwolf

from when she was born

No. We go through Clara’s timeline from when she was a small baby.

There are no shots of a pregnant Ellie, and the first shot of baby Clara is not the famous and oft-written Hospital Scene, with Proud Mum In Bed Holding Baby. It’s of Dad holding Baby Clara in their house.

Clara may indeed be a normal human girl – but those scenes are written to leave the possibility of adoption open. The adoption possibility also gets referenced later in Listen, when the Doctor seems to think it’s plausible that Clara once lived in a Children’s Home.

[janetteB @janetteb]

@bluesqueakpip Like you I want the time war to be ended. Having two all powerful forces at loggerheads that will lead eventually to the annihilation of the universe is indeed a narrative black hole. It seems that Moffat is slowly chipping away at that story though he ran with it in the Time of the Doctor. If Gallifrey is to return or be found then something has to happen to the Daleks to avoid the resumption of hostilities.

Clara may be the child of two human parents but who are they? The oft repeated line “I blew in on a leaf” does however imply some kind of supernatural agency in Clara’s origin. In the scenes of the Claricles we saw a woman cradling a baby in what appeared to be The Old Curiosity shop window. (Maybe that is just how I recall that scene.) I am curious about how the Gallifreyan Claricle was born, etc.

I am still rather attached to the idea that Missy is Danny’s grandparent, after all he does use a non gender specific term though in my “heart of hearts” I fear that Danny’s story is done and we will hear no more about him or Orson.

Cheers

Janette

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@purofilion

they’re playing a clever game with each other.” But not a game in the sense of chess: Knight 2 to Bishop….This is more organic

That is pretty much how I understood it.  On one level it does resemble a chess game – move and counter move, as I said in my first post on this thread; but there are many more levels, and few of them purely cerebral.

Davros has a game plan throughout which depends on exploiting what he considers the Doctor’s weaknesses* but whether or not it was part of the plan originally, this entails a summoning of his latent, somewhat shrivelled capacity for empathy.  By comparison the Doctor has empathy in bucket-loads for all sentient creatures and can feel for and with even his old enemy. This emotional connection enables him to ‘read’ Davros far better than Davros can ‘read’ him, giving him a distinct advantage in their mental and psychological manoeuvres. But however much he feels for his adversary, he does not allow this to cloud his judgement or lose sight of the objective, and his blade of a mind remains sharp and firmly in control.   He needles and goads and snipes, no doubt partly because that is what Davros would expect, before allowing glimpses of his genuine understanding and mutual feeling, which is what Davros also hoped for and expected, but all the time he is probing for clues and analysing the answers.

Whether he started out with a hunch as to what Davros really wanted of him, or worked it out it and arrived at a  solution in the course of their exchange, he responded to Davros’s cues with his eyes open, even if at the end it meant additional risk to himself – although for that matter he had been at risk from the moment he allowed himself to be brought to Skaro.  The only thing which may not have entered his calculations at that end point was the trap set by Colony Sarff (and had he really failed to notice that some of the cables were snakes?).

 

* with a plan B involving the use of force.

 

[todeledo @todeledo]

I think that sonic glasses are a good idea, is not as easy to loose as a screwdriver. You have both hands free. I find it quite doctoresque to wear glasses. But not sonic sunglasses. You can’t see the actors eyes! That  bothers me.

I totally agree with the idea that glasses is a great way to be abel to easily cosplay  the 12th doctor. The original sonic was quite expensive and hard to create by yourself. Peter Capaldi has showed a will to make his doctor avaliable to all ages and types of fans. This includes easy to cosplay costumes.

[Anonymous @]

@mudlark

Yes, and I nod, for you, as always, say it far better than I.

Beautiful. Funny, I was thinking all day, pottering about whilst everyone (most everyone) in the UK was asleep. Now you’re up and about but as it’s nearly 10 pm I’m going to bed. This morning I had 139 email notifications about this episode.

How’s that? Quite a bit of divergent thinking but the majority of people are not saying “hah, I thought that was terrible.”

Lots of goodies to read.

@bluesqueakpip

Really? on the not-the-baby-held-by-mama-in-the-hospital photo? Still, I’m not sure.

Yes, I mentioned your name about the abbreviations and just last week I learned BTL’ers too.

Still, are people always reading posts? Because, you know what? I don’t think they do. I think some skim read or even less, at times. So you may have to say your message every 4 hours for the next week!!

Now, I agree on the congratulations part too in the episode. Absolutely were the storm windows left aside for that moment. It seemed completely sincere. A Mutually Assured Destruction policy would be extremely practical in that less lives would be lost – – but would it really? 🙂

As the quantity of lives due to the ‘living’ sewers presents a tricky point! Eek 🙁

 

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@purofilion

As I said, I may be fighting a losing battle there.

But I can’t tell you how annoying it can be to spend five minutes trying to work out an episode title – and then discover that the letters I read weren’t actually in the order that they were written in. 😉

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

LindaLee gets strait to the point 🙂

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@bluesqueakpip

Dyslexia lures, KO?

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

@ichabod Hmmm. I do seem to be pissing you off, and that’s definitely not my intent. Allow me to offer my apologies for any tension or unpleasantness. I do believe that disagreement is entirely legitimate, that people are entitled to disagree, and that a mutual exchange of views will often simply refine rather than resolve that disagreement. But that’s not something to go to war over, or breed resentment.

Rather than go through every aspect of our disagreement, I’m just going to focus as narrowly as possible on the narrative.

You feel that there’s something honest in Davros opening up. I don’t feel that there’s anything honest in it at all.

I base this on the finale when the Doctor hooks himself up to Davros machine. Immediately, Davros manner changes. He’s no longer wistful, reflective, mellow. Rather, he becomes immediately animated, the mellow vanishes, the infirmity vanishes, he practically dances a jig. That’s the point where he says something along the lines of “You have fallen into my trap!” He also says “I didn’t even have to rip it out of you.”

Okay, so this nakedly tells us that Davros intended all along that the Doctor pour his regeneration energy into Davros machine.

That was the point of the machine. It may have had other purposes, but you don’t get an effect like that without specifically designing it into it. So the machine was designed, constructed and sits there with that intent in mind. It was a trap from the beginning.

That’s not controversial, because Davros says bluntly ‘Ha! It was a trap all along!’ And then he’s quite honest in that he was prepared to be much more brutal, to commit rape if seduction didn’t work.

So with the reality of a ‘regeneration sucking’ machine and with the naked statements at the end, can we look backwards and say that there was ever anything genuinely honest in Davros through that whole encounter?

I’m pretty dubious. Davros through the conversation is entirely manipulative. He repeatedly points the Doctor towards his machine. He deliberately protects himself and his Daleks by raising the prospect of genocide ‘How does it feel to be a god!’ Left to his own devices, his own thought process, the Doctor might have made the threat, tried to seize events this way. Davros is deliberately heading him off at the pass. He takes him all the way to ‘Here, hold this, you could commit genocide.’ Knowing that once he’s framed it so brutally, the Doctor could never do it.

That ‘am I a good man’ shtick, falls very close to last season’s moral conundrum of the Doctor. Coincidence? Or should we assume that the level of research that identifies the Doctor’s haunts and the Doctor’s friends, also has a good track on where he is psychologically, and where he’s been. What are the odds that Davros research doesn’t include this recent moral conundrum and that exact phrase? Maybe it’s a coincidence. Or maybe Davros knew that phrase, and used it with deliberate effect. The Doctor is very knowledgable about Skarran Sewers, after all. Should we assume that Davros is less knowledgable about his Archenemy? He probably subscribes to all the listservers and fanzines.

But if we assume the possibility that Davros actually knew that the Doctor had asked ‘Am I a good man’, then its likely that he knew precisely where the Doctor was in his life and how to manipulate that moment. Basically, Davros doesn’t really need to be dying, what he needs is the Doctor to be particularly vulnerable. If he knows that moment of vulnerability, actual dying is irrelevant.

Davros says he remembers, that’s clearly a call back to that moment among the hand mines. But in a sense, he’s probably remembered all along. What he’s had to wait for is a moment when the Doctor would remember it. When the Doctor would finally have that experience, have that event, and then react to it. Davros would remember it’s not Baker, and not Davison, or Baker, or McCoy, or Ecclestone, or Tennant or Smith. If he’d tried that shtick with any of these younger guys, the effect wouldn’t be reliable, he’d go ‘Davros remembers’ and they’d go ‘Huhn, you remember my boot up your wheelchair.’

No, he has to wait until Capaldi remembers, in order to start the game. He assesses Capaldi’s response to the event, and sets things in motion. Actually dying is an unnecessary coincidence at that moment. Seriously, Davros entering his death spiral immediately and coincidentally after the Doctor encounters him as a child? For Davros, it’s all about manipulating the Doctor.

I’m skeptical for instance, of the Davros is dying meme. For no other reason that Davros here looks healthier and more robust than he has in years. That’s all relative, since at the best of times, Davros is mostly an emaciated, paralysed, palsied corpse-zombie in a wheelchair. But I can look back to appearances, even in the new series, where he was a shell of what we see.

Now this may be a factor of the production team getting it wrong and the actor overdoing it. Can’t fault that, it happens. But on the other hand, they had access to a half century worth of production images and clips. So it’s entirely likely that we’re being visually tipped off that there’s something wrong from the beginning – that Davros isn’t truly dying, but pretty tough.

Certainly ‘Davros is dying’ plays on the Doctor’s compassion. But that’s almost certainly a deliberate strategy. Whether he is dying or not, Davros identifies the Doctor’s compassion as his greatest weakness. There’s no ambiguity here, during the conversation, he says “Compassion is your greatest weakness.” and then “It’s going to get you killed.”

That’s not idle chit chat, that’s been the philosophy of Davros since his first appearance, and on through every appearance. Compassion is not in his nature, he understands compassion as a tool to manipulate, and in Genesis, he even fakes it and dissembles to get his own way. But he doesn’t respect or admire it, he’s always considered it a weakness and a failure. He bred it out of his Daleks.

In the context of the conversation, in hindsight, Davros is pretty clearly saying ‘Right now, it’s going to get you killed right now.’ But the Doctor treats it as chit chat. This is Sopranos conversation.

In any event, from Davros point of view, the claim that he is dying is necessary. But that doesn’t speak to whether he is actually dying or not. It would be a pretty whopping coincidence if he is, but stories live on coincidence.

So is there actually any real evidence that Davros is dying, apart from his say so? No. I suppose the frailty at the end game, but that’s just more ‘say so.’ Is there any evidence that Davros is not dying ? Apart from his sprightly triumph and his overall buffness? Well, the Doctor apparently manhandles him out of his wheelchair and leaves him on the floor while he goes cruising. I dunno, I’d think that sort of manhandling of someone on death’s door would be pretty traumatic. Davros comes through the encounter just fine.

And by the way, apart from the fact that the Doctor acted like a gigantic prick in kicking the old fossil out of his wheelchair, think about how Davros coped with the experience. Assume you’re incredibly old, dying, vulnerable and afraid, trying to sort out your affairs. Rather than a civil conversation, your enemy dumps you out of the chair, onto the floor and goes for a joyride, leaving you squalling like a baby. The humiliation! The trauma! You don’t get over that, not if you are functioning with any emotional honesty. People, even Davros, do not undergo traumatic humiliation without emotional repercussion. It’s not even referred to afterwards. No “That was a crap thing you did to me.” “No, I’m sorry I kicked you out of your wheelchair and went for a spin.”

Except…. Davros doesn’t. Once he’s got the Doctor back in the box, all he does is make a joke about getting the Doctor a chair of his own, and then he’s back on the track. How honest is that? The only way that works is that Davros isn’t acting or reacting honestly. He’s following a plan. He doesn’t vent or respond, because that’s not part of the plan. His actions are as fixed as a train on railway tracks. Davros is about the con, the long game. Once he’s back in control, he’s back on the con. There’s no honesty there.

Apart from the trauma of squalling like a terrified baby when dumped on the floor, the only moment when Davros expresses anything that resembles an authentic emotion is his surprise and apparent pleasure when he learns Gallifrey is back. But even there, I think he is lying. He may be surprised and happy that Gallifrey is back, but what he tells the Doctor is a lie. Davros is not big on empathy. The Daleks were winning the Time War, Gallifrey escaped to hide, Gallifrey back means they can be finished off.

So no, I don’t see Davros having any emotional honesty, there’s no real opening up for him, there’s no genuineness in their interaction. Or at least, not an honesty that would be meaningful to normal people.

I suppose I should caveat normal people. I knew a pimp once upon a time. The circumstances of getting to know him, of watching him, neither here nor there. I actually made his acquaintance before he became a pimp, and because he was a fascinating character, we occasionally chatted. Now, the interesting thing about this guy, is that he was ‘honest.’ He was ‘honest’ in that in the moment he was saying something to you, he honestly, truly, sincerely believed it. Total conviction in those words, in those moments. I suppose it was what made him a good pimp.

But here’s the thing – thirty seconds after he’d grabbed your hand and eyes brimming with tears, voice choked with genuine and sincere heartfelt emotion after he’d just told you that you were his best friend, that you and he were soul brothers… he could, with equal sincerity and conviction, stab you in the back or steal your wallet. He could with passionate honesty state his love for you, even while on some level, he plotted to steal your car the minute your attention wavered.

Since then, I’ve come to know other people like that. People of Orwellian honesty and sincerity, who are able to maintain pure emotional truth on the surface, and yet abandon it and change course in a heartbeat, or maintain entirely duplicitous agendas underneath.

On some level, these people are genuine. On another level, they’re lying. The genuineness, the fact that in the heat of the moment, they may be sincere about their lie, that’s simply armor over the lie. It’s like the skin on a bowel of soup.

The Hallmark of such people, apart from their overt sincerity, the frantic energy they put into the emotional truth of the lie of the moment is their ability to change or not change. When on a script, they stick to the script relentlessly, they don’t respond normally to changes. And when not on a script, they’ll turn on a dime. Normal people whose emotions and honesty go deeper, are subject to a kind of psychic inertia, we can’t help reacting and we can’t turn on a dime.

That’s Davros in the Witches Familiar – manipulative from start to finish, he turns on a dime when it suits him, and he doesn’t react at all when pulled off the script, his absolute sincerity is contrived, manipulative, and to the extent that there’s any honesty to it, it’s the sincerity of the sociopath, oozing conviction on the surface. There’s nothing genuine to him.

[nerys @nerys]

@arbutus I think that the Daleks will be far more interesting as a species with the potential for things other than xenophobia and slaughter. Moffat or future writers could take this in interesting directions.

This was one of the things I’d long been tiring of with the Daleks. They were pretty much a one-note foe, seemingly brought back for nostalgic purposes. But understanding that the beings trapped inside are actually screaming different things than “Exterminate!” … well, that creates a whole new chilling understanding of them. I thought Jenna Coleman captured that perfectly. I was wondering if we would see a flashback to her Oswin Oswald incarnation inside the Dalek, but maybe our seeing Clara in a nearly identical scenario was enough. No hitting us over the head with it.

[nerys @nerys]

Re: the debate of “dumbing down” Clara for the sake of the script, I wonder if it might be something far simpler than what we have discussed. Maybe she was feeling an emotional resonance, a memory buried deep down but still there, of her Oswin incarnation who was permanently trapped inside a Dalek. Wouldn’t that induce a state of shock? After all, the terrors Clara has faced before were yet to come, possibilities that were never fully realized because she, like the Doctor, believes she will win. But those traces of Oswin must be somewhere in her consciousness. I know I have been waiting to see them come to the fore. So maybe that knowledge of a such a terrible fate is what struck Clara.

When Missy was taunting Clara and going on about how stupid she is, I thought that was just Missy being the manipulative bully that she is. Clara wasn’t being stupid, she was figuring things out. But Missy seemed to enjoy toying with her and demeaning her, making her feel stupid. Bullies are very good at pulling the rug out from under the people they have targeted, finding their weaknesses and magnifying them so that the individual loses confidence, even if only momentarily. Missy was inflicting psychological manipulation on Clara. And, in this, Clara is no match for Missy, who has been at this a long, long time.

[nerys @nerys]

@mudlark @serahni

I see that you both have beaten me to it. Sorry, I should have read all the replies before posting!

[nerys @nerys]

@bluesqueakpip You are not alone in your loathing of acronyms. I’ve wasted, oh, probably half a lifetime sitting here trying to figure them out. Some of us just don’t immediately grasp those trails of alphabet soup.

[DoctorDoctorWho @doctordoctorwho]

That scene with Missy telling the story of the Doctor and the Android Assassins and how it could have happened with any Doctor “they’re all the same to [her]” made me think about episodes and how they would change if it was with a different Doctor.

 

E.g. City of Death with 10th Doctor

[ichabod @ichabod]

@denvaldron  You feel that there’s something honest in Davros opening up. I don’t feel that there’s anything honest in it at all.

Yup.  We disagree, as we’ve both been saying for several rounds now.  Thanks for the detailed explanation — I still disagree, and so do you.  I grew up with siblings; I’ve had plenty of experience with disagreement, and it doesn’t trouble me.  I’ve had my say, so I’m moving on from it.

Looking forward to the undersea stories — the very vey tall guy in the very very ugly suit, now, he’s got me worried!

 

[ichabod @ichabod]

@arbutus  @nerys   On the Daleks as one dimensional baddies — there were times when my husband and I would just look at each other (we were fans together) and say, “Oh no — Daleks!” and go off to do something else, because the Daleks were so flat that they were comical, which tended to disrupt the stories.  Now that there’s a suspicion that there’s a tormented inner life *forced* on them by Davros’s way of “making them safe”, it’s a whole other ball of wax, and a much more interesting one, IMO.

[Spider @spider]

Oops! I’m very late for the party this time round. Was away at the weekend (shouting myself hoarse at a Scotland rugby game – which thankfully we ended up winning), so didn’t see the episode until the other night.

Have read through best I can all the comments, lots of very interesting discussions as always.

Overall I loved it. Was laughing out loud at Missy & Clara – in particular when Missy tests how deep the hole is by pushing her in. You just KNOW she is going to do it. The ’20 feet’ at the end just makes it even more funny.

Seeing the Doctor in Davros’ chair, and Clara in the Dalek was very chilling. ‘Anyone for dodgems’ was another of my favourite lines.

At some points I do agree with others here (sorry not sure exactly all who, not got time to go through everything and tag you all!) that Clara does get rather easily ‘led’ by Missy and should perhaps question things a bit more. However I’m prepared to let that slide given the rather unique situation she is in (a city full of Daleks, Skaro, the Doctor on what he considers to be a suicide mission etc.). Plus Missy doesn’t really give her much time to think, and is of course an extremely good manipulator.  I have to say myself even watching the episode I found myself completely drawn in and at points forgetting that I really shouldn’t trust Missy XD.

The bit with Clara not able to communicate to the Doctor who she is, for me that was totally believable. Jenna completely sold it to me. She is panicing, she is terrified. This is in no way the same situation as previous times – e.g. when up against the cybermen. At that point she was in control of herself, had full control of her words. Here, she has been plugged into a dalek, has been played by Missy, has just seen Missy run off to find the Doctor, who is obviously in some serious trouble (I’m choosing to believe Clara saw the regeneration energy coming from the Daleks). Then she is lost, trying to find where Missy has gone, then the city is falling apart around them and when she finally DOES find the Doctor he sees her as an enemy, with Missy then making the situation even worse. If Clara had calmly and easily motormouthed her way out of all of THAT then I would have been disappointed  and for me it would have cheapened the scene.

What was so very good here was even though i was very sure that the Doctor would figure out it was Clara. There was a little bit of doubt that Moffat might just pull a shocker on us. That was down to the damn fine acting of all three of them (not just in that scene – in the whole thing).

I can’t quite make up my mind what I think the Doctor knew/planned beforehand and how genuine he and Davros were when speaking to each other. Again, loads of great discussion on this, I’ll probably have to go read through a lot again.

I never thought an episode in any way at any point could make me feel a little bit sorry for Davros! This one managed it.

Intrigued by all the talk of ‘hybrid’ – feels like a plot point that will come up again as the season progresses.

The sonic sunglasses. I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand it’s great to have a change, but on the other I have to agree with what someone else said earlier – it hides Capaldi’s eyes, and I don’t like that. They will obviously be aware of this so hopefully the glasses will be used sparingly.

I’m not a huge fan of the Doctor’s outfit in these first two episodes, a bit too scruffy for my liking (but I do like him with longer hair) – although it does go with the rather haggard Doctor look we seem to have here (understandable in the circumstances). However, what I found in both episodes at first I thought hmmm not sure, but very soon was completely distracted away from that by Capaldi’s performance.

Cracking opening to the series. Can’t wait to see where we go next with it all!

(\(\;;/)/)

[jphamlore @jphamlore]

At the end of Genesis of the Daleks, just before the Daleks slaughter all of Davros’s team, Davros does scream at the Daleks to show some pity.

Perhaps Davros has deduced the Doctor has a moral code that distinguishes monsters from beings that show some sort capacity to live with others in peace. Killing monsters in the Doctor’s moral code, especially that of the Fourth Doctor, is perfectly acceptable. The Fourth Doctor is going around trying to kill several possible last members of species, from Sutekh the Destroyer last of the Osirans, the Fendahl, and the last of the Great Vampires. And the Fourth Doctor said the Jagaroth were a terrible warlike species that the universe was better off without. Killing sentient beings on the other hand who are not monsters is genocide in the Doctor’s moral code and is unforgivable.

[DoctorDoctorWho @doctordoctorwho]

So maybe 12 will give River his sonic screwdriver in the Christmas Special since he has no need of it because he has the Sonic Shades?

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

@ichabod Same here. Also, the Underwater Menace is finally being released in October, so it’ll be a twofer all the way around. All true Who fans are undoubtedly dancing with Joy. Or possibly trembling with fear. I think that the only comparable emotion would be if it turned out that Dimensions in Time had been lost for fifty years, then finally, a copy was found in some Lovecraftian pit of abomination, and gets released to the public without even radiation shielding.

All I can say is that I’ve already bought my lead lined apron.

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

Did anyone notice that Davros didn’t have any legs? He was pretty much missing from the bottom half down.

So what about the chair?

Where did the Doctor put his legs in Davros chair? I mean, what, was Davros just keeping empty space down there, for the benefit of anyone who might want to try it out? Did he keep storage down there? Davros lives in a chair designed for him and him alone, and he’s got no legs or lower torso? So what exactly is the Doctor squeezing into?

Just something to think about?

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@denvaldron   @ichabod

I have been hesitating whether or not to butt into this debate but, as you may have gathered, my position is somewhere in the middle, so maybe I have something to contribute.

Yes, Davros was being devious; he had made his plans and set the trap and he was calculating and manipulative throughout.  On the other hand, he knew the Doctor well enough to realise that it would be very hard to fool him unless he let his guard down a little and displayed a measure of emotional honesty.  He isn’t an automaton and he isn’t a true psychopath, simply someone whose thinking and emotions and natural capacity for empathy were twisted by the circumstances into which he was born.  “Are you an enemy?” the child asks the Doctor, because in his life and experience, that was the most important thing to establish. In his world there were only two states of being: us (friend) and not-us (enemy).

When he talked of the Daleks as his children – why he created them and what they mean to him, he did so with what I saw as true feeling, and when he spoke to the Doctor about the need of everyone to have a people to whom they feel they can belong, that spark of empathy was genuine, even though the people he was referring to in that instance are mortal enemies in his view.  And when they shared the joke, that was surely a point of true contact; Davros couldn’t have made it if he hadn’t, in some measure, felt an affinity between them.  But none of this means that he ever lost sight of his true objective.

The flaw in his plan was, as I have said, that the Doctor understands him better and at a more profound level than he understands the Doctor. The empathy the Doctor shows was real, because there was always a hope, however remote, that his adversary could be redeemed, but he wasn’t deceived.

[ichabod @ichabod]

@denvaldron   Davros lives in a chair designed for him and him alone, and he’s got no legs or lower torso? So what exactly is the Doctor squeezing into?

Well, one shudders to think, doesn’t one?  Do the squiddy Daleks have legs?  People do keep getting into the Dalek suits, so I guess by this time we’re not supposed to be asking that question . . . There’s a TWF “Extra” on the DW page that shows Capaldi perched on top of Davros’s chair (he says the thing is a nightmare to work in, and proves it by nearly taking the set down with it), so I doubt it’s particularly comfortable.

Do Daleks dream of electric legs, and keep a bit of space in the old salt-shaker in their memory?

[Mersey @mersey]

That was massive! This is exactly what I expect from the series and yes, from Doctor. Finally he is the Doctor without this odd question ‘Am I a good man?’ (I thought you figured it out all through 900 years). And Clara who was always for me rather undeveloped and unconvincing character finally started to act as Doctor’s puppy human companion who doesn’t know everything. Good job

[ichabod @ichabod]

My candidate for the witch’s familiar:

https://www.facebook.com/awvwv/videos/1020348338016079/

Ah, the majesty of Eee-villll!

[lisa @lisa]

@Icahabod @denvaldron You know guys I was thinking the same thing about Davros
having half a body as was I can imagine everyone else. So at a point I thought that
Davros probably still had legs. How they became separated from the rest of him
‘who nose’. They say amputees still can sometimes feel their missing parts.
Maybe Davros still wanted to pretend he had more of himself still attached.
Davros might have really become quite ‘attached’ to a deranged fantasy that there
were phantom legs filling out that bottom part?
But I bet he never had as much fun running it around in it as the Doctor did 🙂

[DenValdron @denvaldron]

@ichabod If I was a Dalek, that’s probably where I’d stash my porn.

[Whisht @whisht]

phew!

Ok, had to watch this on Monday and taken me this long to get through all the posts – fantastic stuff!

Different people have touched upon different bits that I liked or was less certain about (and both expressed it better than I) so I won’t tread over old ground.

I will echo @bluesqueakpip that acronyms for episodes can be a pain (and I’m not even dyslexic). Simply as reading “seeteffll? what the hell is that one?” happens often, whereas “Library” or “Vashta” or whatever may spark memories (and recognition via the word itself) might be more useful for people that are popping their head in for the first time/ don’t know all the series that well etc.
But, hey ho (maybe there’s a bot or ‘thing’ that in wordpress that can recognise acronyms and write them out as titles…. coder anyone??)

Absolutely loving the Tarot stuff and excellent spotting (how the hell did I miss the Hanged Man!!??!). I have a book on the tarot somewhere by Juliet Sharman-Burke (I dug it out to get her name), but no idea if its any good!
Same as the Fool – for my degree I wrote a dissertation on the Fool. When I came to re-read it 15 years later it was so execrable that after 2 paragraphs I tossed it into a bin! Honestly I read the words “The Fool” so often I wondered if I thought through repetition I’d get to hit the word count!

Honestly it was awful. I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to write about and was interested in lots of various things (tarot archetype; holy fool; literary journey fool; jester with ‘license’ to speak Truth fool; historical reality of courts and disability fool; Native American ‘fool’ using humour and shaming to enact social justice; blah blah blah….. it was all over the place!).
Thank goodness when I subject others to my twattering it isn’t in some wildly over-ambitious lack-of-focus musings on a subject.

[ahem]

But I do at least have something to add to the proceedings.

One is silly (qu’elle suprise):

The other is… well quite simply the secret of Clara.

I’ve now read through these posts and I may be wrong but so far we’ve theorised that:

Clara is CAL (bloody hell I’ll have nightmares about those anagrams again);
a previous regeneration of the Master (I like this – Clara regenerates into Missy, exits stage left as Missy and Missy enters stage right);
she is Susan (hm);
Susan’s mum (hmm);
she is Susan’s dad (maybe);
Susan’s daughter (oh ffs);
The Doctor’s mother (err);
The woman who held her face in her hands in that episode who’s name I forget;
That she is just Clara, and that’s enough…

but no, Clara is actually…..

The Doctor’s…….

Aunt.

Yes, Clara is the Doctor’s giddy aunt and her profound effect on him has been foreshadowed about…. well, decades ago.

She blew in on a leaf; was dispersed into Claricles:

Of course she’s bloody giddy!!

[Arbutus @arbutus]

@denvaldron    I would have thought it was obvious. Davros keeps his beer down there.

@mudlark    You have expressed my view exactly, and both eloquently and succinctly. This is just why I saw a  Davros/Missy parallel. When Missy tells Clara, scornfully, to try for a moment to consider friendship, that was clearly a moment of absolute sincerity. However twisted we may know that relationship to be, she honestly considers it to be friendship. That hasn’t stopped MixMaster from trying to kill the Doctor, frequently.

Regarding the acronyms, I agree that I too have a hard time with them, only because I can’t keep the names of the episodes straight unless they are pretty recently. Like @bluesqueakpip, in some cases I have actually learned the acronym, still without being clear on the actual title. SitL = Situation in the Library? Something in the Library, anyway.  🙂

[ichabod @ichabod]

@denvaldron   If I was a Dalek, that’s probably where I’d stash my porn.

@arbutus  I would have thought it was obvious. Davros keeps his beer down there. 

Too tough to get to — he keeps his medical records there.  Must be a lot of them, and they’re no damn use anyway.  Or really old telephone directories, for ballast and also for heft when you want to ram somebody.

When Missy tells Clara, scornfully, to try for a moment to consider friendship, that was clearly a moment of absolute sincerity. However twisted we may know that relationship to be, she honestly considers it to be friendship.

And, specifically, she’s drawing a parallel between “My best friend whom I keep trying to kill” and “The one I love and want to snuggle with”, and declaring the first superior by eons to the second, not least, it seems, because it’s *not* about flesh and reproduction.  Heaven help her daughter . . .

[ichabod @ichabod]

@whisht …the secret of Clara.
I’ve now read through these posts and I may be wrong but so far we’ve theorised that:
Clara is CAL (bloody hell I’ll have nightmares about those anagrams again);
a previous regeneration of the Master (I like this – Clara regenerates into Missy, exits stage left as Missy and Missy enters stage right); she is Susan (hm); Susan’s mum (hmm); she is Susan’s dad (maybe); Susan’s daughter (oh ffs);
The Doctor’s mother (err); The woman who held her face in her hands in that episode who’s name I forget; That she is just Clara, and that’s enough… but no, Clara is actually….. The Doctor’s…….
Aunt.

That’s all very well, but what happened to The Handbag?  (“A handbag, a handbag, is not a proper mother, not a proper mother, not a proper mother — ”  Anybody else see the short-lived musical version of The Importance of Being Earnest?).

[Devilishrobby @devilishrobby]

I am with others on the acronym debate I just hate them. As for episode acronyms why don’t people do what most archives would do which would be for  example doctor 1 season 1 episode 1 and for quickness reduced to D1S1E1 which would be the episode an unearthly child. there is surely lists somewhere listing the episodes somewhere online that give the episodes/storys in thier chronological order.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@denvaldron

Sorry, was going to wander off until the next ep, but just saw this quoted by @ichabod :

 the charge I level at Moffat. He’s taken a character with the potential for life-like depth and flexibility, for fallibility and humanity, and he’s reduced her to a plot pawn to perform a prescribed story function. 

This is just about the most thoroughly and absurdly ridiculous comment that can be made about Moffat’s writing. Everything – everything – Moffat writes is about the exploration of character. From Press Gang, through Coupling to Sherlock and Who his stories are entirely character driven (his imagining of Watson in Sherlock is a masterclass made real by a fine actor who knows when to dial it down).

Once deconstructed his plots are invariably pretty simple – usually some form of closed loop built around a standard, US-style A-plot, B-plot and (if there’s room) C-plot for light relief. And sometimes they are a bit rushed, as is inevitable with modern TV production schedules when the budget is bust, or the bus has been wrecked on a dockside.

But his characters are rich, complex and when things happen to them they are changed. There are never magic “all better now” resets and even when you think there are, they will be confounded further down the road. Consider how long it took Rory to trust the Doctor – or how quickly Amy chose when faced with losing him. Consider how long the Doctor had to keep the dreadful secret from River, or his investigations from Ganger!Amy and Rory.

And when Clara – who has been utterly crushed by Missy and then continuously abused – is confronted by just about the worst fear she could imagine SHE PANICKED.

Because that is what a once-confident human (who, incidentally, has seen more trauma than most) who has lost all sense of control and had her self-worth crushed like a discarded fag butt, would do.

To suggest otherwise by dismissing Clara as a plot pawn is absurd.

And to cap it all off, this episode really delivered in spades the full and epic scale of the arrogance of the time lords in a way that would have been unacceptable coming from The Doctor. And again, that is about the character of a people who have mastery of time itself and to whom stopping a few thousand planes is flight is a mere parlour trick.

 

[Author]

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