Davros

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Doctor Who: The Witch’s Familiar First Impressions

This one went in a different direction than I thought it would.  That’s a good thing, by the way.

  • Consider the Doctor: Interesting opening.  Missy is in top form, and the story she tells is definitely something I could see happening to the Doctor.
  • Missy and Clara Hanging Out: More awesome Missy and Clara interactions, love it.
  • How Does the Doctor Get Out: As simple as the statement “He assumes he’s going to win” is, it also makes a lot of sense.
  • Dalek Nightmares: A pissed off Doctor wheeling around in Davros’ chair?  Yeah, that’s gotta be pretty high on the Daleks biggest fears list.
  • Where’d He Get the Tea: I think “I’m the Doctor, just go with it” sums up the show as a whole pretty well.
  • Throwing Stones: You know, as soon as I heard Missy ask how far down that hole went, I knew Clara was going to get pushed in to it.
  • The Sewers of Skaro: Well, that’s not utterly awful at all!
  • Missy Pokes a Dalek:  That has to be one seriously strong brooch.  And no one should be surprised that Missy taunts the thing the whole time she’s doing the poking.
  • The Only Other Chair: They keep it around just for the Doctor.  Don’t even try to convince me otherwise.
  • Full Circle: Clara in a Dalek.  Something tells me this won’t end well; either in the short term, or the long term.
  • The Doctor and his Shades:  Sunglasses are the new fez.  You heard it here first.
  • Davros and the Doctor: Why are you trying to make me feel sorry for Davros show?  I’m not going to feel sorry for the guy who created the universe’s most evil pepper-pots!  Also, I can’t be the only one who thought that Davros opening his “real” eyes was just wrong somehow.
  • Missy and the Daleks:  I really do wonder what Missy was trying to do here.  Is she just playing to give the Doctor time to come up with something?  Or did she have some plan of her own?  At any rate, it’s all a moot point because…
  • Davros’ Real Plan: Ok, show of hands.  Who was expecting this little plot twist?  It couldn’t have been only me, right?
  • “There’s a Prophecy”: Oh dear, we have another season spanning plot here, methinks.
  • Second Word…Sewers: Oops, don’t think Davros thought of that.  This is why it pays to think of as many contingencies as you can.
  • “I Show Mercy”: Here’s the thing, remember when Missy said that Daleks sort of “weaponize” emotion?  When Clara calmed down a bit at the end there, she was able to get her meaning across more clearly.
  • Sonic Sunglasses: I’m…not really sure how I feel about this.  I guess we’ll have to see if it ends up being kind of a stupid idea or not, but right at this moment?  Not a fan.
  • Daleks Don’t Know Mercy:  Bit of a plot hole here.  If I’m remembering correctly, (not very likely, but still) I think we’ve heard a Dalek or two use the word mercy before.  I can’t remember which episodes, but I’m fairly certain that we have.  At any rate, the Dalek wasn’t in that case, it was Clara; so whatever systems govern the speech coming out of the case just searched for the closest word that would get Clara’s meaning across.  At least I think that’s what happened.

So next week we appear to have underwater ghosts.  Of course they won’t be actual ghosts, but whatever.

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Doctor Who: The Magician’s Apprentice First Impressions

Good news: I’m still alive!
Better news: There’s a new season of Doctor Who!

  • Hand Mines: Nice and Creepy, I like it.
  • My Name is Davros: Ooh, that can’t be good.
  • The Colony Sarff: I had a feeling we were dealing with snake people, and I was right!
  • #theplaneshavestopped: Yeah, that would get noticed pretty quickly.
  • Death is for other people: Considering how many times the Master is supposed to have “died”, I’d say that’s accurate.
  • The Doctor’s Last Party: Yeah, meditation isn’t really the Doctor’s thing.
  • The Doctor’s Big Entrance: Ok Doctor, I’ll give you the tank, and the guitar solo, but that entrance could have been much more Metal. Next time, add some flamethrowers.
  • Dude: Dude.
  • He spent yesterday in a bowtie: I always like it when the Doctor calls back to his previous regenerations.
  • Traps are her flirting: That makes so much sense it’s kind of ridiculous.
  • The TARDIS is Located: That can’t be good.
  • Missy and Clara: I really like the interactions of these two. They’re really fun to watch.
  • Doctor vs. Davros, Part 1: Boy Davros really wants to throw that whole “Left young Davros alone in a minefield” thing back in the Doctor’s face.
  • Why would anybody hide a whole planet: Because it’s more dramatic that way!
  • The TARDIS will be destroyed: I’m on Clara’s side on this one, good luck with that guys.
  • Missy Turns the Tables: WHY ARE YOU SURPRISED BY THIS TURN OF EVENTS DOCTOR?! THE MASTER’S ONLY DONE THAT KIND OF THING, LIKE, ALL OF THE TIME!!
  • Random aside: It was really nice to see some of the classic Dalek designs make a bit of a comeback.
  • The Death(?) of Clara: We’ll see how well that sticks.

So, overall I think this was a pretty solid start to the new season. But I am kind of worried that instead of playing with the themes of Genesis of the Daleks, they’re going to be cribbing whole-cloth from it. But I guess we’ll find out next week.

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Doctor Who: Two Trailers and a Leak

In a little over a month’s time, Doctor Who will be returning to television screens.  Already there have been two teaser trailers released.  The first one may just be a hint of what the new Doctor will be like.  From what I’ve heard, this will be a drastic change.  This Doctor may be more abrasive than fans of the current series are used to.  In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the viewing figures dropped during the first few episodes.  My advice to those who find this news worrying is to be patient. Really, people just need to give this new Doctor a chance to grow on them.  New Doctors take a bit of getting used to.  There’s always a bit of a “Regeneration Hangover”, the new series will not be an exception.

The second teaser is a bit more interesting.  The prevailing theory is that not only are the Daleks coming back, but they may be bringing their creator Davros with them.  Some viewers might note that Davros was killed in ‘Journey’s End’ towards the end of series four, of course old school fans like myself know that Davros has come back from the dead many times before.  He’s like  a comic book character (or possibly a cockroach) that way.  The implications for this are still unknown, however with every record of the Doctor having been erased, it will be interesting to see how everything plays out.

On Monday, the BBC announced that there had been an accidental leak of the scripts for the first five episodes of the upcoming series.  I say accidental, but the BBC has not seen fit to tell anyone exactly how the leak happened, other than the leak came from the Miami office which was translating the scripts for broadcast to Central and South America.  I have no idea what happened, so I won’t speculate on what’s going on; but I do find it interesting that the BBC got out in front of this early, releasing a statement to the Radio Times that asked fans who had already seen the leaked scripts not to spoil what was in them to everyone else.  From one angle, it makes sense for the BBC not to try and pull the scripts off the internet, things like that spread too quickly for anyone to stop them, so they didn’t.  Of course there will always be trolls who don’t care about other people’s feelings about spoilers, so I wouldn’t be surprised at all if someone just started posting things willy-nilly on tumblr or twitter.  It’s times like this that I’m glad that things like Tumblr Savior exist.  Still, for those trolls out there, just know that you’re a colossal douche and there is a special section of Hell waiting just for you.  Right alongside the child molesters and people who talk at the theater.

Edit:

And now it seems that the whole of the first episode has been leaked as well; apparently from the same place as the last leak.  And again there have been pleas from several fan sites and tumblrs as well as the BBC for people not to spoil everything for those of us who wish to wait for the season premier on
August 23rd.  I really am surprised at the fandom at large’s respect for people on this issue.  I’ve seen people going out of their way to not divulge spoilers if they have seen either the leaked scripts or the first episode itself (although, to be fair, I have yet to see anyone on tumblr admit that they’ve seen the leaked episode).  I’m not sure if this is a function of how beloved Doctor Who is, or if people are just plain sick and tired of having to wander around the internet metaphorically blindfolded, trying to avoid spoilers.  Either way, I’m actually pretty happy about this.  I think that spoilers and the spreading thereof are becoming a serious problem in fandom in general.  It’s one thing if you don’t care about spoilers, but for those of us who want to preserve some of the surprise of seeing something for the first time, it really does become something of a nuisance to practically avoid the internet entirely for however long it takes you to see the thing in question.  The upshot of all this is that a little common courtesy goes a long way.  And I’m glad to see people catching on to that.