Review - Doctor Who: "The Witch's Familiar"

In this week's episode of Doctor Who, Missy and Clara team up to save the Doctor, The Doctor and
Davros bond and Sonic Sunglasses?!



This episode was the 2nd part of the 2 part season 9 opener and it didn't disappoint, after last week's huge episode with Missy and Clara "dying" and the Tardis exploding, things seemed glum for The Doctor, but obviously Missy and Clara didn't die and the Tardis was not destroyed and the audience knows that they would never do something like that so early in the season, so it was all about how Missy and Clara escaped, it also explained how Missy escaped from the Cybermen in the season 8 finale. The Clara/Missy plot was great this week and involved the two of them going into the sewers in Skaro, "sewers" in Dalek translate to "graveyard" and we see these rotten old Daleks which are basically just ooze now, Missy and Clara's chemistry is great and your left always thinking if Missy is going to betray Clara, or actually help and save the Doctor, no surprise she betrays Clara! and puts her into a Dalek armor which was very interesting, they play around with the word "exterminate" and explain why the Dalek's use it so often, any kind of emotion that Dalek's have are used as a weapon, when they get emotion is when they shoot their lasers, which is a cool tidbit.

The other part of the episode focused on the relationship between The Doctor and Davros, mostly talking to each other, after The Doctor rather amusingly takes Davros' Dalek body for a spin, the conversation between the two was very heartfelt and sweet, i was surprised these two mortal enemies were speaking to each other like this, until The Doctor decides to give Davros some regeneration energy, surprisingly Davros takes a lot of the regeneration energy by tricking the Doctor and gives all of the Dalek's some Gallifrian energy, which The Doctor knew Davros would do of course (because he's the Doctor) Davros gives energy to all the Dalek's on Skaro, including the ones in the sewers stupidly, which sets the old oozy Dalek's to rise up and attack the current ones to regain their body.

The Doctor's thought on Clara's Dalek knowing the word "mercy" surprised him because they shouldn't know that word, which he realises that he teaches Davros when he was a child and goes into the Tardis to save child Davros and show him what mercy is. The question since Capaldi became the Doctor is what kind of man is he, but from this episode alone the answer is that he's a good man, the things he would do for his enemy shows this.

The Sonic Sunglasses!

Other smalls things i enjoyed throughout the episode were anything with Missy, she is a delight to watch on screen, she is so funny, even when talking to something like a emotionless Dalek and her protectiveness towards The Doctor is very interesting, it also seems that the Doctor has gotten ride of his sonic screwdriver for good and now has Sonic Sunglasses! Which is a strange new addition but a cool one, i'm interested to see how he keeps incorpaorating them into the episodes.

This two parter as a whole was a great season opener for series 9, it had the right amount of drama, humour and tense moments that made it a classic Who episode.

8.5/10

What did you think of "The Witch's Familiar"?
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