The Doctor Who Review | Season 9 Episode 2

Last updated on 28 December 2024

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Welcome back to the second Doctor Who Review, where I recap the week’s episode and give some thoughts and opinions on it. Please do not read if you have not seen this week’s episode. There are major spoilers ahead. You have been warned.  

What is Doctor Who Season 9 Episode 2 about?

Title:  The Witch’s Familiar

Written by: Steven Moffat

This episode carries on straight where last week’s episode left off. The Doctor is being held in the Dalek’s planet by Davros, the creator of the Daleks, and while Missy and Clara had been exterminated in the previous episode, we find them alive and mostly well outside the city walls, having teleported away in the same second that they were ‘killed’. We all knew they’d be fine, because a) it’s Doctor Who and Clara is the companion, b) they wouldn’t kill off two main characters in the first episode and c) Missy doesn’t ever seem to actually die.

The Doctor doesn’t know that Missy and Clara are still alive, but he’s still trying to escape from city, though he doesn’t have his sonic screwdriver on him, nor the TARDIS. Or so it seems. In short, Missy and Clara make it back into the city, Clara being disguised as a Dalek (anyone have a flash back to Asylum of the Daleks, we first meet Clara in Season 7?), and Missy as her ‘prisoner’.

The Doctor and Davros have a momentary nice moment, where you think for a second that Davros is truly regretful of what he did in the past, but then all hope is shattered when he starts sucking the regeneration power from the Doctor’s body. All good, though, because the Doctor knew he was going to do that, and now all the Daleks have super regeneration-stuff-fuelled powers, including all the semi-dead ones in the ‘sewer’ which is actually a Dalek graveyard. All of those Daleks are super angry, so when they are given this new found power, they start rising up through the ground and the Doctor and the now back-to-normal-outside-a-Dalek-casing Clara are safely gobbled up by the TARDIS, which was, of course, there they whole time but in a different form. Missy is left with the Daleks, and scene.

Can I just mention once again how awesome Missy is? We’re not supposed to like her, but how can we not? She’s hilarious, and she’s smart, and she evil, and she double-crossing, but she’s hilarious…(I do realise I said that twice…) Side bar: What happened to Missy’s daughter?! That was briefly mentioned…interesting.

The grossest thing about this episode (there’s usually at least once EW element to most DW episodes, don’t you think?) was the Dalek graveyard. All the walls and ceiling of the tunnels were leaking squishy substances, which was a nice, if not disgusting, way of reminding me (and perhaps others) that the Daleks aren’t actually their robotic selves, but rather an odd slimy creature within the metal casing. Occasionally I forget this.

This episode was another where the Doctor’s compassion comes in to play. While his whole nice moment with Davros was just a play on both their parts, it’s certainly something that the Doctor would do, I feel, and at the very end he does return to the child Davros, stuck in a hand-mine, and does save him. That mercy he shows the child comes forward later (or earlier…or later…time travel is confusing), when Clara needs to be released from the Dalek’s casing, and somehow the Dalek knows the word ‘mercy’. It comes full circle, and it’s awesome.

Speaking of awesome things, I’m quite enjoying the new colour range the Daleks are sporting. That white and light blue one? Nice! I’d wear that. Speaking of things people wear…while having sonic sunglasses was an ingenious move and I love that…the screwdriver is one of the Doctor’s main features. It’s the Doctor, the TARDIS, the companion, and the screwdriver. I really hope it actually comes back and that this isn’t the thing now.

Also…I don’t understand the title. What has that got to do with anything? Did I miss something? If anyone can enlighten me, that’d be swell. And the whole Dalek/Time Lord hybrid thing is super freaky, if you think about it…disaster! But is that still going to happen, now that Skaro is being eaten by angry slime-Daleks? Unsure about this. Though it is Doctor Who, so I don’t think we can rule anything out, nor, at the same time, assume too much. We’ll find out (or not) I guess.

Again, on a whole, these two episodes aren’t really a favourite of mine, and I do think it was a bold move starting with such a big double-whammy story like this, but I think they did pull it off and they were really good. Next week’s episode is called Under the Lake, and from the looks of the short snippet of a trailer we got at the end of this episode, looks like it’s going to be creepy!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this. Let me know what you thought of this episode! Like it? Wasn’t your cup of English Breakfast tea?

Original Image from BBC