Hello, kiddos! Firstly, I’d like to thank all of you who caught last week’s Doctor Who Round-Up on That Nerd Show Radio! We’ve finally begun what is rumored to be a quite busy Series 9 of Doctor Who. With all the bustle and hustle about Clara’s impending departure and who Maisie Williams could possibly be portraying, I hope you all got to catch the first two episodes. I sure did and let me tell you, they were ok.

“The Magician’s Apprentice”, aired September 19th, drops Who-fans off on a doorstep they’ve been many a time: the last day of The Doctor. However, the help comes from Clara and an unexpected source, Missy! That’s right guys, Missy is back and she so fine. She so fine, she blow our minds, etcetera. I was quite fond of the new take on The Master (Mistress) from last season, so it was a delight to see Michelle Gomez back. She returns and it is she that delivers the bad news to Clara, showing her The Doctor’s Confession, a sort of Time-Lord will, which is to be delivered to a Time-Lord’s closest friend and opened on the eve of his death. After some snarky, biting comments and an explanation of friendship that our “nanominds” could understand from Missy, an uneasy partnership is formed betwixt the two for one sole purpose: to save The Doctor. Without giving too much away, “The Witch’s Familiar,” aired September 26th, picks up after, with The Doctor completely without hope and conversing tersely with both Daleks and the creator of the horrid race, Davros. The episodes use the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff to create an excellent frame-narrative with flash backs of real and Missy’s take on some other events. Overall, both episodes are what we’ve come to expect from Doctor Who, but the question is do they enthrall us?

“The Magician’s Apprentice” comes in posing some excellent questions, good call backs, and a new and mysterious villain.  From the start of the episode, The Doctor meets young Davros, caught up in a war that had been going on since before anyone could remember. When he learns the child’s name, a fog rolls in, clouding The Doctor’s face as it shifts to a knowing horror of what this child would one day create. As the fog rolls out, the Tardis cloisters can be heard with Davros calling for help. This episode asked the viewers if they believe The Doctor has the capacity to kill or if he just could not do it. It is not a new question, and some Doctors have even been shown to have the capacity to maim (Tennant), but it is a debate none the less. When the episode ends, it seems to promise answers on part two. Interestingly enough, with Missy’s jump to involvement in rescuing The Doctor, we get another question; does Missy have the capacity to be good? Now to the villain, and no I’m not gushing about Missy again. I’m talking about Colony Sarff, a creature made up of democratic snakes, wearing a cloak. He goes around, threatening and asking for The Doctor’s whereabouts, de-cloaking to unleash the hoard of slithering creatures during his quest. We did not get a whole lot of backstory on him, but he was intruiging enough to where I was hoping for a little bit more in the next episode.  As for the callbacks, I’ll leave those as surprises for you to spot save for one. In a conversation between The Doctor and Davros, Davros asks The Doctor if he missed all of their conversations. After this, he plays segments from numerous Doctors speaking to or of Davros and the Daleks. A key segment is from the Fourth Doctor, where he states, “If someone who knew the future pointed out a child to you and told you that that child would grow up totally evil, to be a ruthless dictator who would destroy millions of lives, could you then kill that child?” While relatively fast paced, the episode was enjoyable. The last few seasons have had very action based firsties, so a more dialogue driven, humorous episode was well received. The Doctor’s bad puns and Bill & Ted moment of introducing the word “dude” in 1183 really downplayed the danger that Missy and Clara felt in a respectable way. It is never good to have too much doom and gloom.

While “The Witch’s Familiar” was a good episode, it did not really aspire to all that we were hoping. Yes, it did answer the questions, but it fell flat. The majority of the episode focuses its gaze on the relationship of Davros and The Doctor, still maintaining the frame narrative aspect from the previous episode. Meanwhile in the background, we have the misadventures of Missy and Clara as they traipse about the Dalek strong hold and sewers. Yes, Daleks have sewers. No, they are not really sewers. The Doctor vouches for the ideal of compassion whilst Davros, an old, dying man now, attempts to show The Doctor the innate error in having compassion at all and tries to get some sympathy while he’s at it. In one of his best “Doctor” moments yet, Capaldi pulls off a stunning performance, not through monologuing like his predecessors, but merely dialoguing. Davros is accusing The Doctor of his compassion being his downfall, saying one day it would consume him and Capaldi’s earnest, serious answer is, “Yes, I hope so.” It seems he finally has his Doctor boots on firmly and I applaud him. Missy, on the other hand, proves all in all that her time period for goodness is about as long as it takes to drop a spoonful of poison into your tea. This should not be a surprise and with all her witty repartee and slightly unhinged demeanor, would you really want her to be? She spends the first five minutes of the episode poking a tied-up Clara with a stick, going on about how she’d turn Clara into sandwiches, and the rest of the first half shoving the poor girl into a Dalek tin-can. This proves to be a near-complete waste of time later, but when it’s happening it is kind of funny in a sadistic way. As for Colony Sarff, well, he slithers on screen once but that is all. We see the snakes in one scene and any subsequent scenes we see one big snake or have Sarff being spoken to without being visible, snakes or cloaked. The episode falls short when they reveal the entire episode to be a double bluff by The Doctor. Of course The Doctor was not going to die, we’re only on the first two episodes! However, the execution of the grand plot just happens to go The Doctor’s way and the rest is sort of a cobble of loose ends and ha, ha, had you going theres. Missy’s still evil, Davros is Dark Lord of Skaro, and Daleks are crazy, racial purist trash can monsters with whisk and plunger arms. It is to be expected of the Whoniverse at times to fall into this pattern, but it just felt off.

Admittedly, they are building to the whole season, however, you kind of expect some grander revelations within the start of a season. With last season’s introductory episode, we were posed the question, “Is The Doctor a good man?” We were also introduced to Missy. Here, the viewer finds themselves searching for a greater message. Does the Doctor go back and take young Davros with him and Clara on adventures? Will that last will and testament come up again? And what of Missy? She’s still alive, after all, and still bananas. During the episode, The Doctor does mention Gallifrey still being out among the cosmos, but it feels like a giant misdirect. The only other possible hint is swept under the rug, as Davros begins to speak of a Time-Lord  prophecy that two races would come together to create a hybrid and implies The Doctor is part of that prophecy. Missy then bursts into the room and puts the kibosh on that conversation. Overall, it felt like the first episode was over-developed and the follow-up was under cooked. The episodes were good, but nowhere near as fantastic and attention grabbing as one would have hoped.

As we begin this new season, there are mysteries, both self-imposed and series imposed, that we must think upon. Hopefully, Michelle Gomez will return and Missy will darken The Doctor’s doorstep once more. Maybe we will finally hear The Doctor’s confessions and his true name. As we all await here for the next episode and Clara’s departure looms near, I know everyone is dwelling on a deeper question than I even dare ponder, “Seriously, who is Maisie Williams going to be?”