The Magician’s Apprentice
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21 September 2015 at 17:20 #43149
@denvaldron “Davros is actually kind of buff” lol!! Yeah well I have to agree. He
definitely had more spunk than the last time he visited the series. But seems to me
that this is earlier in the time line than that last Davros we saw. And really, Davros
is always at deaths door. He exists on the threshold of that door. But my impression
is that the Doctor did something to manipulate this Davros recently. Remember very early
in the last season he said he wanted to correct mistakes he had made. I believe that this
story is 1 of those corrections. So in effect, the Doctor created this opportunity to
make a new Davros earlier in time and when there is still see a planet Skaro existing.
Anyway, based on what I see happening that’s my take.21 September 2015 at 17:41 #43150Anonymous @
Thanks for your Spotters Guide to Daleks, it has added some weight to my theory that this episode takes place before the events of The Stolen Earth (which I was begining to abandon) as it highlighted something which I hadn’t noticed on first viewing – lack of New Paradigm Daleks.
Is that a Dalek gun by the way?
Yes it’s a gun-arm from the 2005 version of a Dalek. You can just make out the black ‘ball joint’ behind The Doctor’s left hand. The guns ‘handle’ is what attaches to the Dalek mutant and is normally concealed by the ‘gun-box’.
Also, on the Timey Wimey thing – Skarro got blowed up in Remembrance of the Daleks.
I’ve been wondering whether the Dalek City is on Skaro or if it’s a planet with similar atmosphere/geology that the Daleks have colonised and named after their homeworld.
Regarding how The Doctor got back to ‘Skaro’, I can think of another character who owns a Vortex Manipulator – none other than spoilers 😉
21 September 2015 at 17:44 #43151Yeah, the absence of ‘New Paradigm’ sticks out like a sore thumb. But then, the New Paradigm are ‘post Davros’ stolen earth stuff. I think you are correct.
21 September 2015 at 17:45 #43152Regarding viewer stats, I’m wondering how the viewer numbers for S8E1 compared to the average for a series opener. With the long hiatus after the 50th anniversary, only broken by Eleven’s regeneration at Christmas, and a long-awaited new Doctor, it seems possible that viewership for that episode might have been unusually high. If it has now dropped, it might have simply adjusted back to something more normal? This is purely speculation as I have no idea of any of the numbers, but it seems reasonable to me.
21 September 2015 at 18:09 #43153Hi! Here’s my interview with Bors (Daniel Hoffmann-Gill) who appeared in both “The Doctor’s Meditation” and “The Magician’s Apprentice”. I hope you all enjoy it.
21 September 2015 at 18:18 #43154@ichabod yeah I used the wrong phrase here, Clara being ‘dumbed down’ isn’t really what I meant. It was more she was ‘put in her place’ by Missy (I think you used the world ‘outclassed’ which I very much agree with). I loved seeing her be all super-confident Clara with UNIT and bossing them about, but she (and us) are very much dragged back to reality by Missy. The pet comparison is very apt (short term relationship with a sad ending) as usual Missy is quite happy to point this out.
Ok, ‘buff’ Davros – please, just … no XD.
@denvaldron yes Skaro was destroyed. But here I believe someone (Missy? or the Doctor) says ‘they rebuilt it’.
As for the rest, my personal take is Missy, Clara and the TARDIS are dead/destroyed (for now). BUT the Doctor will escape and go back (via vortex manipulator) and rewrite time so this doesn’t happen. I can’t see this being by him killing the boy Davros – because surely that would cause a potential universe-ending-huge-paradox-many-timelines-collapsing-thing, and destroying the universe would rather defeat the point of the Doctor trying save his friend (now does he say friend or friends here? – need to go rewatch).
The result of all of this will be the Daleks are still created by Davros – since even if the Doctor undoes his cruel abandonment act, there is plenty other scope for some other traumatic event to turn Davros into The Davros. But the ‘new’ Dalek will be changed, so we have more scope for them to not be out-and-out-evil. A few people (sorry I forget who!) have already mentioned this, so I am just jumping on the bandwagon here.
But all of the above isn’t bonkers enough, and that’s why we are here so here goes:
Bors finds Rassilons CD player (accidentally dropped by Missy) and uses it manages to fight off the influence of the Dalek that has possessed him, then using the special timey-wimey marbles the Doctor gave him, takes the tank and time travels to a future war torn Skaro. Using the tank (which WAS loaded – the Doctor lied) he blasts a path through the hand mines allowing Davros to escape and saving the Doctor from making an even bigger mistake. Meanwhile Davros clocks the tank and thinks ‘neat idea’.
That bonkers enough? 🙂
(\(\;;/)/)
21 September 2015 at 18:22 #43155@bluesqueakpip Had I taken the time to read all the way through the comments before posting my last, I would have seen that you had already answered my question! 🙂
@serahni Good point about Clara, talking vs. running. My guess would be that she has just watched Missy try to talk her way out of trouble, and it ended in maximum extermination. So clearly that approach wasn’t going to work this time.
@ichabod Very nice thought about the poignancy of Clara’s being “put in her place”, so to speak, after the events of last series. I am really liking the continued “re-alienization” of the Doctor, after watching him feel increasingly human throughout the AG show. Although it did stand out for me that, although the Doctor sent the Confession disc to Missy as his oldest friend and one of his people, his most vocal fear seemed to be for Clara. Notwithstanding his complex relationship with MixMaster, we know that he cares for Clara very deeply, in a really very paternal way actually. The line from last season about her betrayal not making a difference, and looking at her at the end of Last Christmas and not being able to tell whether she looks old or young, and even “when do I not see you”; from a parental point of view, all these sound familiar.
Regarding the timing of the incident with boy Davros, it would have to have been recent, because of the screwdriver that was left behind. It must have happened since we last saw the Doctor and Clara at Christmas.
21 September 2015 at 18:30 #43156the Doctor makes reference to ‘saving his friends’
(now does he say friend or friends here? – need to go rewatch)
Actually, in the final scene boy Davros says: “Are you going to save me?” and the Doctor replies: “I’m going to save my friend”.
Friend-in the singular.
Now that opens up a whole heap of possibilities. Which friend? Clara? Missy?…Davros?
21 September 2015 at 18:30 #43157Of course, we’ve only seen half the story. It’s hard with two-parters, to remember to treat them the same way we treat the BG serials that we’ve been watching for our retro-Doctor discussions. Because with the modern show, we’ve gotten used to the vast majority being self-contained, snappy episodes without a lot of room for extras.
@bluesqueakpip @blenkinsopthebrave I absolutely agree about “the Doctor facing death”. I think that the story was that the Doctor did a shameful act, and felt obliged to “face the music”, even though it was almost certainly a trap that would mean his death. I suspect that we’ve moved on from that now, and the second half of the story will march to a new narrative, one that involves choice, or undoing his mistake, or saving his friends (which includes the Tardis!).
@denvaldron My guess is that, between the destruction of the Tardis and the reappearance of the Doctor in the handminefield, that more has taken place, which we will be shown in part two. Obviously the Doctor has to have found some way to travel in time.
Regarding Skaro, Missy says, when she realizes where they are, “They’ve built it again, they’ve brought it back.” We don’t yet know exactly how they’ve done this. Or maybe, as you suggest, they have travelled in time to pre-destruction Skaro.
21 September 2015 at 18:31 #43158The poodle belongs to both members of the older couple. Missy created Clara as much as the Doctor did. Missy has stated she has been all up and down the timestream of the Doctor’s companions, so she has probably seen Clara’s end. After all it is the Master who looked into the void while the Doctor ran away when they were kids. And it was Missy who used the phrase “impossible girl” in the newspaper advertisement to get Clara’s attention, so Missy knows what role Clara has in the Doctor’s existence.
21 September 2015 at 18:55 #43160@fatmaninabox great spot on it being a 2005 Dalek that he’s using. But as has been pointed out there is a lack of daleks from the new dalek paradigm, not to mention I am certain that when he created them Davros would have installed a failsafe to prevent them firing on him. So how could it be? I think SM’s train of thought is a bit RUSTY.
@blenkinsopthebrave considering the immediate preceding events to that line, I would guess at none of them. He wants to save the TARDIS, that’s been the only constant in the Doctor’s life.
21 September 2015 at 19:08 #43161Now here’s another bonkers speculation: The sonic screwdriver the Doctor gave to Boy Davros had two types of extremely important information that would shape the Daleks into a force that could threaten the universe: Time Lord tech from the future and Time Lord DNA. The Daleks have both the talent and the knowledge to stand toe-to-toe warring with the Time Lords because thanks to the Doctor, the Time Lords and Daleks are brothers.
That is also the only possible eventual resolution to their war, this mutual realization.
21 September 2015 at 19:26 #43162He wants to save the TARDIS, that’s been the only constant in the Doctor’s life
Well, perhaps, but I don’t really buy that. I know that the TARDIS has been anthropomorphised in the last few years, (e.g. “The Doctor’s Wife”), but at the end of the day, I still think it is a vehicle, and as Missy said: “Never trust what a man says about a vehicle”. For me, it seems to go against what the Doctor stands for to prioritize a machine over human life.
I am really starting to wonder if it isn’t Davros that the Doctor is referring to. If you go back to “The Prologue” we now know that when Ohilia and the Doctor are talking, they are talking about Davros:
Ohilia: “You owe that creature nothing”
The Doctor: “We’ve known each other a long time”.
Ohilia: You’ve been enemies the whole time”
The Doctor: “An enemy’s just a friend you don’t really know yet”
He now knows something about Davros that he didn’t know before–that he was a frightened little boy who needed to be saved.
21 September 2015 at 19:31 #43163I’m sorry if this has already been brought up, but recently Michelle Gomez spoke about the Nethersphere making a possible return.
Perhaps that’s where Missy and Clara have ended up?
21 September 2015 at 20:17 #43165@bluesqueakpip The Daleks as children with their choice taken away from them; children with no choice but to be evil. Clara with her Space Dad and Wicked Stepmother. Boy Davros as a child, abandoned by the Doctor.
It’s still about the children of the Time War.Yes; it’s not just “Protect and save the children — ” It’s also, “protect and save them from the ever outwardly rippling and horribly deforming effects of War.” Doctor: “Which war?” Boy Davros: “Just — the War.”
@purofilion I think, personally, the core idea is the “manic derailment[s].” It’s the Doctor tuned into himselves. He would have a party: a final revel to out-class all revels. . . . What worked was the genuine feel for the Doctors which Capaldi summarised with intensity: I felt a whiff of Troughton, Hartnell, Tom Baker, McGann, and Tennant. The shouty, partying of Tennant blended nicely with what would be Baker’s frustration as well as his peculiar banter. Add that to a dollop of McGann-type shock and loss near the end and I feel I’m watching almost all of them.
Exactly; I didn’t find anything “choppy” about CapDoc, because he, the Doctor, owns it all, and in the face of what *might* prove his death, he flaunts it all. I loved the arena scene, beautifully done; bravura is the word that comes to mind — but then, logical consistency has never been my standard for DW in general. There’s a different level of story going on here — this ain’t a Clive Cussler novel or a deft police procedural. It’s a glorious fantasy, with a solid dash of silly in the mix.
As to the assertion of “cool”, I’m fine with it — something for the younger sets who get off on cool, and why not? The Doctor may abandon Davros, but he will never abandon his younger fans — not CapDoc, anyway. And he’s going back for Boy Davros too, one way or another.
For folks thinking we’re going to see that the Doctor has gone into this with a cunning plan (so some of his actions are deliberate deceptions), I’m more and more inclined to think you’re right — that CD Player of Rassilon sets off alarm bells for me. And I agree that in his own mind, he’s not facing certain death: he’s facing a comeuppance for leaving Boy Davros, but who knows what, exactly, that might be? Layers and layers . . . I like looking at the levels of deviousness we find in these ancient people, TLs and Davros himself — which is also part of putting Clara in a larger framework. Her lies and manipulations of S8 dwindle to nothing in the face of how these larger than (human) life figures operate — the passionate but ultimately small obsessions of — a puppy?
21 September 2015 at 20:25 #43166@doctordoctorwho Michelle Gomez spoke about the Nethersphere making a possible return.
Perhaps that’s where Missy and Clara have ended up?Maybe; but in Danny’s last conversation with Clara (when he sent the Afghan boy home instead of coming back himself), he said of the Nethersperhe, “This place is dying.” So — ? Depends.
Hmm, a thought: could knowing that Danny did that — saved the child he’d accidentally killed — be a factor in the Doctor’s decision to go to Davros for a judgment for having left a child in peril, himself, on Skaro? Would the Doctor know that? If he did, I think he would care — Danny, object of the Doctor’s dismissive scorn, mended his grave error. How can the Doctor not address his own?
21 September 2015 at 20:52 #43167Okay now I’m putting on my tin foil hat, bear with me.
So when the episode had literally just started I thought the handmines were Weeping Angels. it wasn’t until I saw the eye on the hand that I realised that they were not. However, I’ve been thinking: What if this is when they were created? True they are said to have been around since the beginning of time, and the Thousand Year War is approximated to have been 450-1450AD, but this is SM we’re talking about. He’s prone to occasional continuity errors. Also, it might not even be a continuity error, as I show now explain.
Here’s my theory:
Doctor tries to Exterminate Davros, but Davros has screwdriver (I can’t remember if he’d picked it up already). Explosion of energy akin to the one in HP, causes Davros to become like he is now aesthetically, would do the same to the Doctor but for his Gallifreyan healing powers, remaining energy latches on to handmines.
Energy from Screwdriver (which includes Time Lord DNA, causing the near indestructibility of the Angels, plus as Missy showed already in the episode, the ability to control time/forced quantum lock defence mechanism)
The blast also has the side effect of sending all of them back in time, to the birth of Skaro.Remember this is my in foil hat theory guys
21 September 2015 at 21:23 #43168@ichabod I’ve been thinking about the CD of Rasilon a lot too . My hunch is that
it could be a very interesting device used in the next part of the story. It might
have some other use in the same way most TL tech often does. Like fob watches
or stasis cubes or sonic screwdrivers. There are always multiple applications. The fact
that Missy has it is also interesting. I’ve been thinking that she has a mission that we
are unaware of yet and that device is a part of it and Clara is also part of it (but Clara
hasn’t been told the whole plan). Receiving that CD was a message to Missy that the Doctor
was ready to execute his plan and that it was time.
I wonder if the CD can change its shape like the Moment?21 September 2015 at 21:52 #43169Hmm; but he could be lying about “recent”.
A Timelord’s idea of ‘recent’ might not be ours, but the Doctor who deserted the child Davros was the current incarnation, and I am pretty sure that once he had had time to recover his wits and think things through, he would immediately have started to feel guilty about his failure to live up to his ideals, and to consider the possible repercussions.
After the first viewing of the episode I re-viewed the Prologue, and from this it seemed pretty clear to me that by the time he arrived on Karn, well before Colony Sarff came looking for him, the Doctor knew that Davros was seeking him, and why, and that knowledge had brought him to the point of deciding what he needed to do to atone, even if it meant walking into a trap. He had made his preparations and arrived with the ‘confession dial’ ready to hand over for transmission to Missy.* Now he was simply procrastinating, while trying to nerve himself to the point of acting on his decision – hence his hesitation and prevarication in the face of Ohila’s questioning.
As an afterthought; the Doctor, before abandonment of the child Davros, might nevertheless have provided him with the incentive to escape the handmine field, with his encouragement to ignore the 1000 in a 1:1000 chance, and to concentrate on the one.
Other random thoughts:
The suggestion by Missy that Clara was no more than the Doctor’s pet was clearly aimed at undermining Clara, and not to be taken too literally, even if the relationship is between a 2000+ year old alien and an ephemeral human – a fact which, as @spider pointed out, we perhaps need to be reminded of. But Missy is jealous; she wants to be the doctors one and only friend and cannot help but put down a very temporary rival, even if that ‘rival’ is, for the moment, an ally.
I think it was @nerys who suggested that Davros created the illusion of Missy and Clara being killed; but could he in fact do that? He admits (though he could be lying) that he is no longer in control of his ‘children’.
Missy and Clara may or may not really be dead in the current timestream, but I cannot accept that the Tardis has been destroyed. A Tardis could, no doubt, be decommissioned and dismantled (very carefully), but I cannot see how it could be zapped into oblivion on a planet without the planet being annihilated. In Journey into the Centre of the Tardis we were told that ‘this ship is infinite’ – at least in the sense of its interior dimensions being without defined boundaries, and at its heart, held in stasis and powering it, is an exploding/imploding star in the process of becoming a black hole. If the Tardis could be destroyed in a single blast, think of what energies would be released!
Finally @denvaldron Thanks for the recap of Dalek design. I can now confidently affirm that the Dalek resident in our local branch of Waterstone’s is of Genesis vintage.
* In passing it has occurred to me to wonder whether this ‘will’ was a document comparable to what we mean by a Last Will and Testament, or whether it was something compiled and updated as an ongoing document of a Timelors’s lifetime.
21 September 2015 at 22:10 #43170Re @blenkinsopthebrave‘s comment
Missy’s rather cruel jibe to Clara about Danny: “still dead is he?”. Why put this in?
I agree with @pedant‘s post that it’s there to demonstrate how nasty Missy is. There may be a veneer of being on the Doctor’s side for now, but you can be sure it’s only for precisely as long as it suits her.
I thought the Doctor’s one word comment – “Gravity” – to her was interesting. He knows at that point that they’re not in artificial gravity and he’s making sure that she does too. A clue…?
Thanks to @denvaldron for the Dalek post, great stuff. And you’re right, the Daleks were always light years away from traditional clunky costume-heavy monsters. They were speedy, and also extremely cunning-smart. Love the special weapons dalek (especially how it always looks a bit scruffier than all the other Daleks who presumably have self-cleaning apps). I like how their base in this harks back to the original design with dalek-shaped arched doorways.
I also agree that there’s a jump at the end; is the Doctor replaying the scene in his head? Does he always go back with the Dalek gunstick to save young Davros? Or is it something new as a result of seeing Clara exterminated? In which case he’s apparently going to significantly change timelines.
BUT – what if he always did that? The implication throughout the episode is that the Doctor is so horrified by the prospect that it’s his current incarnation (unknown to all his previous selves) which causes Davros’s horrific injuries and drives him to create the Daleks as hate-filled creatures, that he immediately abandons the child (and sets those events in motion). But what if it wasn’t? What if he does go back to save the boy (presumably going for the hand mines with the Dalek gunstick (which he gets from where…? (There’s a missing piece here, whether he’s remembering or if it’s something he does after the events we’ve seen so far. Daleks don’t give up their guns easily)). What if Davros “remembers” the compassion of a stranger rather than having been abandoned (but goes on to create the Daleks anyway).
And what of the sonic? It’s left with Davros the boy, and he still has it as very old Davros.
Whatever, that last scene of the Doctor shouting “Exterminate!” is as chilling as the boy saying his name at the beginning.
21 September 2015 at 22:13 #43171Thinking about the Tardis and its ‘infinite’ interior dimension, I was suddenly reminded of the asteroid in Greg Bear’s Eon. Externally just a large, potato-shaped lump of rock, but in the hollowed out interior, a series of compartments containing habitats, the furthest of which has no end and continues indefinitely.
21 September 2015 at 22:20 #43172Re the TARDIS being destroyed, my money’s on HADS kicking in. But as far as Missy and Clara are concerned, the Doctor certainly looks convinced that they’ve been zapped. (Although I agree the bracelets do give a potential get-out). It’s still a series of shocking scenes even thought (we think) we know they’ll be back.
Had a watch of Genesis.. again – it’s well worth a look to compare the opening scenes. Especially to compare how far production values have moved on. Everything’s so much more believably grubby this time around. And kudos to the boy playing Davros, thought he was great.
21 September 2015 at 22:24 #4317321 September 2015 at 22:30 #43174Since we’re sharing theories…
What if the Doctor does kill Davros to bring Clara back (as well as the TARDIS)? Then they go off & have a whole bunch of adventures until the Doctor realizes how big of a paradox getting rid of Davros & the Daleks has created. Therefore, in order to fix the paradox, the Doctor has to ensure that Davros lives…at the cost of Clara’s life…
Of course, that would mean the end of Missy too, & I don’t want to see Michelle Gomez leave yet…
Then again, “Death is for other people.” 😉
21 September 2015 at 22:30 #43175@scaryb I also thought it was quite chilling to hear the Doctor say ‘exterminate’.
I briefly entertained the possibility that the Daleks most infamous phrase could have
originated from him? Too hard to acceptIts tantalizing to imagine that the Doctor would recruit Missy. But then I can imagine
that its why Missy returned from Galifrey. Damage control of the Daleks? They
both have their own reasons to implement this plan. However, that is probably only
a part of Missy’s total agenda. At this point I’m convinced that the CD is in no way
just a document. Although it may include certain instructions it has to have some other
application.21 September 2015 at 22:44 #43176Exterminate!
I think that’s exactly what we’re supposed to think. The clear implication throughout this episode is that the answer to “… but who (Who??) made Davros?” is that it’s the Doctor’s (in)action in abandoning the boy in the minefield that started Davros on his journey to create the Daleks and filled him with his hatred of the Doctor.
Which is precisely why I’m suspicious, LOL! It’s a very Moffaty thing to do to set up a horrific concept to get you thinking about it, then bring it home as something safer. Not to undermine it, but to provide a better resolution in the context of a family show, which is not going to alter the Doctor’s fundamental character. It’s not in the DNA of the show to put the central character on that much of a psychological journey (Look at the problems they ended up with, with the last of the TimeLords thing). The companions change so the Doctor doesn’t have to. I’m thinking for example of the concept of the dead still experiencing what happens to their bodies that was introduced in Dark Water but then shown (probably!) to be a lie in Death in Heaven. But the “what if…?” is still there to be pondered over.
I love 2-parters! 🙂
21 September 2015 at 22:52 #43177@arbutus @mudlark One of the ways in which Capaldi is, for me, absolutely the Doctor, is the way in which he is able so subtly to convey glimpses of those earlier selves. I completely agree with this. And I too loved the “all of me are invited” line!
YES! So yes. And “it’s my party” — he can be as flamboyant and changeable as he wants to be: it’s his party, and this whole scene — this whole first ep — is reassurance to the fans, *all* of them, that yes, things will still be dark and edgy, but yes, we won’t forget how rich this character is (simply through accretion over time of many aspects of the core personality) and we *will* indulge all the youthful, goofy, impulsive, bombastic stuff too. It’s a declaration of peace, if you like — which, of course, the grumps over on reddit and the pirhannas of tumblr etc. will reject, because rejection is their MO. But hey, never mind — this is a high; enjoy it! We’re meant to. And we’re doing it.
21 September 2015 at 22:54 #43178BTW Did the Daleks really procure the Doctors Tardis? Or was a stand in?
Just cause it looks like the Tardis doesn’t make it the real item. There
was that time when we had 2 Tennant Docs. Why not?21 September 2015 at 23:00 #43180Re your post http://www.thedoctorwhoforum.com/forums/topic/the-magicians-apprentice/page/4/#post-43154
and using the tank – I love it!
Also liking the idea (also suggested by @bluesqueakpip) that as a result of this that the Daleks will be subtly changed to at least have the capacity for other than blind hatred. Maybe the Doctor picked up on that while he was inside Rusty and fiddling with its memory banks, or when they had the “mind meld”.
21 September 2015 at 23:09 #43181Serahni Good point about Clara, talking vs. running.
After rewatched, I still think Missy turned Clara into a puppy, but I really like how Clara still stood up to Missy. Clara might be a puppy but she ain’t on a leash. Yes, Clara seemed out of character to run. If she got exterminated while speed talking, it would have been much sadder and shocking.
My guess would be that she has just watched Missy try to talk her way out of trouble, and it ended in maximum extermination. So clearly that approach wasn’t going to work this time.
That is a good a reason. Problem solved for me. Thank you Arbutus, I don’t believe the TARDIS was destroyed either. If it really was then that will be shocking!!
Thx @serahni, the Doctor says the same thing to River in Name of the Doctor, so still wondering if Clara is really dead or not?
@denvaldron @fatmaninabox @thekrynoidman – I see the difference in daleks now. I didn’t know the 60’s daleks looked so different, because it’s black and white. My head might explode fitting them into the timeywimey.
Bonkers theory for War on Skaro:
The wide gap in the technology of the weapons being used makes me wonder if they are all from the same time during the 1000 year war.
The Weeping Angels might be on Skaro during the war too. So they pull Kaleds and Thals back in time (from different times during the 1000 year war). That’s why they all have different weapon technology. The handmines might be Weeping Angels tech.
21 September 2015 at 23:10 #43182@serahni ALL of his incarnations are invited to the party, and yet most of their previous contact with the Claricles has involved them not seeing her at all!
Yes — but S8 was all about mutually seeing, finally, and for Clara, CapDoc at his own multiple party, his celebration of the great wide universal canvas that’s his home, it’s his tenderness for her that brings him back to the Doctor of the S8 two-hander so he can speak to her from that identity: the one who became a friend who would *always* see her, wherever, whenever. Graciously, he offers her truth cut to fit her puppy dimension, rather than the wider truth of all the earlier not-seeing. That’s how I read it. He wants to acknowledge that closeness and acceptance achieved in S8, because it’s rushing away as the focus widens and broadens to include his whole, vividly populated upheaval of a universe again. He showed her parts of that universe that she would otherwise never have seen. But he couldn’t *give* it to her: she can’t live long enough or have the big-brain capacity to receive it all even if he tried.
She is not a Time Lord; he’s not a human. Since S8, he will always see her, and she deserves to know that; but she can’t go with forever. Whose tragedy is shaping up now . . .
21 September 2015 at 23:22 #43184@fowl (Barnable <waves! you’ve regenerated!>
Re the 1000 year war on Skaro and the wide diversity of weaponry (all that’s left after the long strife) – that’s also an explicit feature in Genesis of the Daleks – it’s worth having a rewatch of the first scene of the first episode of that story to see how much of the beginning of TMA is based on it.
Which is not to say that things can’t be changed and time rewritten of course!
21 September 2015 at 23:36 #43185@mudlark * In passing it has occurred to me to wonder whether this ‘will’ was a document comparable to what we mean by a Last Will and Testament, or whether it was something compiled and updated as an ongoing document of a Timelors’s lifetime.
Oh, I like that! And I think the “Will” would indeed have to be different from our “what to do with my stuff” document. More testament than Will, perhaps, as you suggest, and a distinct part of the process Missy describes when Clara asks how a TL is supposed to die. Maybe like the “life review” that some people think we all do *after* our own deaths as part of some form of “moving on”.
I’m not trying to demean Clara with the “puppy” designation, which Missy most certainly *is* trying to do, out of jealousy as you said (part of the madness being to be jealous of someone with a mayfly-life, for goodness’ sake!). I’m addressing the content of Missy’s comparison rather than its style of delivery and purpose, and that content is true as to the disproportionate lives and conditions of TLs vs. humans.
21 September 2015 at 23:59 #43188Just been having my first rewatch (it’s been a busy few days) and I noticed:
Of course Boy Davros ended up believing that compassion was wrong. The Soldier shows compassion and gets killed, helping Boy Davros not one jot.
The Doctor chucks him his screwdriver, lectures him on being the ‘one’ instead of the ‘thousand’ and (seemingly) leaves him to get on with it. If Boy Davros did then escape the handmine, the lesson he learnt was that showing compassion was wrong.
The more helpful adult was the one who didn’t show compassion.
22 September 2015 at 00:02 #43189An excellent point well-made! I like that explanation, and I can certainly see its merit. I guess I wasn’t refuting the legitimacy of The Doctor’s remark, more that it just struck me as a poignant and perhaps-significant thing for him to have said. The phrasing in particular seems interesting. “When do I not see you?” isn’t the same as “When have I not seen you?”, because the change in tense does shift it more towards their present relationship than the past ones. It may have just been a reaffirmation of the effort he now makes, as you say. With all of his personas present and represented, as per his claim, we may just have been seeing a flash of Smith’s incarnation returning. One thing is for sure; I am very impatient for Part 2!
22 September 2015 at 00:04 #43190Interesting thought. And not undermined by the last scene with the Doctor returning shouting a very uncompassionate “Exterminate!” (Even if he’s after the handmines rather than Davros)
22 September 2015 at 00:10 #43191I’m not trying to demean Clara with the “puppy” designation
Missy does treat Clara rather like a puppy; there’s also an almost Delgado Master/Jo Grant vibe in that both of them start developing an almost friendly working relationship very quickly. I think at the moment I’m going for Clara as the Witch’s Familiar.
Possibly a coincidence that Clara was compared to what looked like a white poodle – Prince Rupert’s white poodle was regarded as some kind of supernatural familiar spirit by many of the Parliamentarian troopers in the English Civil War.
22 September 2015 at 00:29 #43193@scaryb Whatever, that last scene of the Doctor shouting “Exterminate!” is as chilling as the boy saying his name at the beginning.
Yeah, beautiful bookending there — call, as it were, and response . . . separated by the rest of the episode. That missing piece is a whopper too — getting back without the Tardis (how?!), but with a gun stick? What?!!! And I agree that the problem with these possible time “fixes”, supposing that they’re possible despite timelocks etc., is that once you change event A, you have *no idea* whether you’ve changed the right element (in the right way) to produce the different future effect that you’re after (including your own survival into an altered future, or whether the timeline will shake off your change and proceed in a rather more roundabout way to the some future outcome, or some other damn thing. (I’ve told you, timey-whimey makes my brain melt.)
Anyway, the Doctor could go back fully *intending* to “exterminate” Boy Davros, but just not be able to do it; end up doing something else instead — blasting enough of the hand mines to get Boy Davros out, instead, and trying to set him on a different path (like, take that sonic back, for starters!)? Could Boy Davros become — a companion?! For a while? Whoo . . . how did lisa’s tin foil hat get onto my head?
22 September 2015 at 00:31 #43194@lisa Oooh, the CC personifying itself as the Moment did? Well, if it’s the Doctor’s story, the *whole* story, then couldn’t the CC manifest as any one of the past Doctors whenever somebody triggered the right “bookmark”?
22 September 2015 at 00:34 #4319522 September 2015 at 00:46 #43196@stellaluce33 I like your thought, there; that would make a truly ghastly series arc, wouldn’t it? Boy Davros has to survive to become Monster Davros or the universe collapses, so — Sorry, Clara. Oy. Surely not! Um. It is rather rather splendid bonkerising, though . . .
22 September 2015 at 00:48 #43197Damn. “Confession *dial*”. There. I’m behind on so much that I’ve got calendars on the brain.
22 September 2015 at 00:51 #43198@scaryb It’s not in the DNA of the show to put the central character on that much of a psychological journey (Look at the problems they ended up with, with the last of the TimeLords thing). The companions change so the Doctor doesn’t have to.
Brilliant! Yes . . . he is not and can never be a child-murderer, except in a horror show about a good person being driven to extremes and cracking, becoming a used-to-be-good person now stumbling from awful crime to more awful crime. That was “Breaking Bad”. This ain’t that show.
22 September 2015 at 01:03 #43200@serahni Thank you — and I like your point about the tense chosen, “When do I not see you?” Checking out the words Moffat chooses is always a good idea — sometimes those choices unpack in such interesting ways. This is why it drives me to distraction when whiners moan on about “lazy writing”. They have no clue to the high quality of what they’re dismissing so cavalierly, mostly just to claim a spot in the super-sophisticated in-crowd (as I think they see themselves) of people who show their “love” for the show by tearing it down (only because they want to make it “better”, of course). Reddit is full of them. I should stay away, but it’s hard — and there are some smart people there too, whose comments are worth reading.
22 September 2015 at 01:11 #43201@bluesqueakpip Of course Boy Davros ended up believing that compassion was wrong. The Soldier shows compassion and gets killed, helping Boy Davros not one jot.
The Doctor chucks him his screwdriver, lectures him on being the ‘one’ instead of the ‘thousand’ and (seemingly) leaves him to get on with it. If Boy Davros did then escape the handmine, the lesson he learnt was that showing compassion was wrong.Thanks for doing that much more clearly and concisely than I managed to. It’s not quite a fit to Old Davros, though, if what he means by “Compassion is wrong” is actually “Showing compassion, rather than a passionate determination to kill, is wrong,” at least until — that last shot of the Doctor with the gunstick. At that point, he does appear to be more Dalek than man. It all depends on what happens next; the unfolding results of what the Doctor actually does, and the point in that unfolding that Boy Davros assesses as the major “lesson” of the experience.
22 September 2015 at 01:27 #43203We can relax.
LindaLee has spoken.
22 September 2015 at 01:37 #43206Hi @scaryb!! <waves back to favorite Yeti>Missed your furryness. The regen’s like tenndoc’s meta-crisis, both names work. 🙂
I like your reviews for TMA, especially:
What if Davros “remembers” the compassion of a stranger rather than having been abandoned (but goes on to create the Daleks anyway).
Oh, that is good. We don’t know what the Doctor is guilty about? Missy, Clara, Tardis, or leaving/saving Davros, now I can’t wait to see what is coming next.
The continuity with Genesis of the Daleks is cool with me, there are improved visuals now, but it still looks like the same war. So you’re right, the Weeping Angels theory is not really needed to explain anything.
Which is not to say that things can’t be changed and time rewritten of course!
Of course! 😉 Now that you mention it…
GotD shows, Skaro has strange animals on it, making it dangerous to walk around. Davros might make the Daleks round, so the handmines can’t grab’em. And maybe Davros could walk but he is just too afraid of the handmines?? Just like the Doctor (and others) in Listen were afraid of things under their beds.
Seriously, if Moffat shows that handmines live under my bed, I will have nightmares. 😯
22 September 2015 at 02:09 #43208Has anyone heard the episodes that are going to be in this season? I love the way it’s organized because it sounds like a poem: The Magician’s Apprentice, The Witch’s Familiar, Under the Lake, Before the Flood, The Girl Who Died, The Woman Who Lived, The Zygon Invasion, The Zygon Inversion, Sleep No More, Face the Raven, Heaven Sent, Hell Bent. The Zygon part does really cut into the nightmarishness of the it though. But then again, with Doctor Who, it’s Historical Science Fiction, so you can’t do anything without at least a sprinkle of aliens.
22 September 2015 at 02:52 #43209indeed we can relax. 🙂
“They didn’t explain how Missy’s back. She just says, ‘not dead. Big surprise…’ and there’s a man whose face looks like it got thrown onto a BBQ grill.”
Good to hear things from the mouth of babes.
I too thought the hand mines were fabulously clever.
BoyIlion enjoys an arc as much as any one and felt last years single episodes or standalones weren’t convincing enough for him. Here, he likes how we’re thrown into the action immediately and like American thrillers where everything must be explained repeatedly, Missy’s back (coz we never thought she’d die anyway) but we’re expected to ‘deal and move on.’
His favourite element of this episode wasn’t all the fun stuff -guitars, cool, tanks, fish, dude…but rather the explosion of a consistent Missy onto the screen, the Doctor’s secret regarding Davros (and again we don’t possess all elements of the back story but are expected to work it out) and the changing palette of the Doctors -lots of close ups, a multitude of expressions, a beautifully and colourfully lit set in greens, greys and blues mixed with the yellows and oranges of the indoor fair.
Ultimately he enjoyed a relegation of Clara to “confused” rather than talking her “human way out of everything.” That she went from extremely “cool and capable, yelling out orders to UNIT and then sitting at a coffee table opening and closing her mouth like a gulping fish.”
I think this is an astute realisation from a 13 year old -one who recognises that Clara does change as @denvaldron suggests but that’s it’s part of the intellectual through line of this 2 parter. Particularly as in the recent past, Clara has connected the two doctors, chatted her way through disaster after near disaster (witness her banter with the Mayor of Nottingham) and argued with Danny about the Doctor and with the Doctor about Danny.
She’s a fresh new face, at the moment, and as @ichabod said, she’s dealing with ancient peoples: the TLs -as well as an enormous history between Missy and her “best friend.” She’s left somewhat speechless, her youth so very evident and her human qualities cause her to pale in the face of this very alien TL culture. With Smithy, she was assured of her friendship and standing and whilst the friendship hasn’t changed, her perception of where she fits in the Doctor’s existence, has altered markedly.
The Doctor has fully regenerated: he spoke in Deep Breath of how he really needed her and now she feels somewhat bereft and superfluous. In that past 6 months, her life has utterly changed: a fully regenerated Doctor often travelling alone, she’s still at Coal Hill but there’s no Danny. At least with UNIT she had some purpose and authority but in the episode it seemed just a little laughable.
I recall, in the Anniversary episode, how B&W photos of Clara walking into the Tower were on display boards with pictures of Susan, too. I wonder about those connections and what they might mean -how much further she still has to ‘travel’?
@ichabod Loved that: “Checking out the words Moffat chooses is always a good idea — sometimes those choices unpack in such interesting ways. This is why it drives me to distraction when whiners moan on about “lazy writing”. They have no clue to the high quality of what they’re dismissing so cavalierly…”
“Of course Boy Davros ended up believing that compassion was wrong. The Soldier shows compassion and gets killed, helping Boy Davros not one jot”
Absolutely -a great discussion.
@scaryb I liked this too:
Maybe the Doctor picked up on that while he was inside Rusty and fiddling with its memory banks, or when they had the mind meld”.
It makes me wonder just how all these episodes are interlinked in the Doctor’s head: Into the Dalek was for Clara a long time ago, and yet for the Doctor feels like yesterday. Almost as if he knew that increased knowledge about the emotional components of a Dalek were going to come in handy.
The scene of young Davros on the battlefield with the Doctor’s gradually changing realisation, reminded me of The Dalek when Chris Eccleston’s Doctor sees a chained, weaker Dalek -the look of terror and utter helplessness on his face provided us with more glimpses of his memory and understanding. There too, the Dalek was begging “help me, help me”
22 September 2015 at 03:16 #43210“Into the Dalek was for Clara a long time ago, and yet for the Doctor feels like yesterday. Almost as if he knew that increased knowledge about the emotional components of a Dalek were going to come in handy.”
So when I wrote that, it occurred to me he visited the young Davros -for whatever reason, after Into the Dalek -what did he see when he was ‘melded’? Was this part of “his fixing all” his ‘mistakes’: “I have a lot to make up for, Clara, am I a good man?” (I was trying to connect the t-shirt wearing, occasionally long haired doctor with a ‘time line’ in S8 and I failed utterly!)
I wonder what was in the Dalek’s memory banks which sent the Doctor on a mission he may’ve kept secret from Clara?
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