The Magician's Apprentice
Sep. 19th, 2015 09:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daibhidcIt's back!
Towards the end of the last season, I think I suggested that the fact I'd ended up writing these things mid-week, or sometimes even just before the next episode, perhaps indicated that, while I was still enjoying the series, I wasn't as excited about it. If so, then the fact I'm back to writing straight after the episode indicates that I'm very excited indeed.
There's just so much happening! The opening scene is brilliant, with the biplane firing lasers at soldiers armed with longbows being a wonderful portrayal of what we later learn is the Thal-Kaled war that wiped out an entire planet's civilisation. The hand mines were a wonderfully creepy image (and unexpected after the rest of the SchizoTech was all still familiar weaponry), and then we get the Wham Line of the kid being Davros.
And then we get Colony Sarf hunting for the Doctor. I'm not exactly clear why a bunch of snakes in a human suit are working for Davros, but it's a striking image. And UNIT! And then Missy! Moffatt said he wanted to go back to the Ainley "So you survived" lack of explanation, and the dismissive "Not dead. Big surprise." is a lovely version of that. And her continued conviction that she and the Doctor are still friends is wonderful, mixing Delgado's "affably evil former schoolfriend" with Simms's "completely divorced from reality". (Although having said that, there's clearly enough truth to it that Clara's accusation he knew Missy wasn't dead and lied about it hits home. Then again, she has enough understanding of their real relationship to take offence at the idea Davros is the Doctor's archenemy. If pressed, she'd probably claim that only boring human brains would see a contradiction.)
I liked the idea that UNIT can track all Doctory things in history on a big board (in the 22nd century the Seventh Doctor will finally do something about this, as seen in the New Adventures), and Clara's insight into how you narrow it down to where the current Doctor is.
(BTW, I know Jaye Griffiths's UNIT computer scientist is called Jac, but my headcanon is that she's Ros from Bugs, still doing all the technobabbly stuff fifteen years after the collapse of the Bureau. Anyone else think that? Anyone else remember Bugs? Okay then, moving on.)
The Doctor's "proper" entrance to the episode was hilarious. He suggests that the party involves "being" his past selves, and I reckon this must have been him channeling Tenth. Specifically, Moffatt's Tenth, the one who invented the banana daquri. I don't blame Clara for being a bit perplexed.
It says a lot about how much the episode packed in that by the time we got to Davros, I wasn't thinking "about time" and was barely thinking "are we actually going to get any Daleks?" The episode had reinvented what it was about so much by that point I was just hanging on for the ride. And we finally tie back to the original scene as Davros blames the Doctor for abandoning him, and ties it all back to "Genesis", which is nice.
And of course, we do get the Daleks, in a reveal that I would probably have predicted the second Missy started going on about gravity, if the episode hadn't wrongfooted me so often I'd given up predicting anything. And yay! A clearly visible Special Weapons Dalek! (I know there's supposed to be one in "Asylum", but I didn't see it.)
And then the cliffhanger! Now obviously, Clara, the TARDIS, and possibly Missy are going to be all right. But is the Doctor really going to shoot Young Davros to ensure it? And - from the Nest Time - is Old Davros really going to help him? (I guess Davros would take the view that, if you're dying anyway, whether or not you actually existed is moot, and it's worth it to get the Doctor to see you were right and he was wrong. Or I could be misunderstanding the scene entirely; one week to find out!)
Towards the end of the last season, I think I suggested that the fact I'd ended up writing these things mid-week, or sometimes even just before the next episode, perhaps indicated that, while I was still enjoying the series, I wasn't as excited about it. If so, then the fact I'm back to writing straight after the episode indicates that I'm very excited indeed.
There's just so much happening! The opening scene is brilliant, with the biplane firing lasers at soldiers armed with longbows being a wonderful portrayal of what we later learn is the Thal-Kaled war that wiped out an entire planet's civilisation. The hand mines were a wonderfully creepy image (and unexpected after the rest of the SchizoTech was all still familiar weaponry), and then we get the Wham Line of the kid being Davros.
And then we get Colony Sarf hunting for the Doctor. I'm not exactly clear why a bunch of snakes in a human suit are working for Davros, but it's a striking image. And UNIT! And then Missy! Moffatt said he wanted to go back to the Ainley "So you survived" lack of explanation, and the dismissive "Not dead. Big surprise." is a lovely version of that. And her continued conviction that she and the Doctor are still friends is wonderful, mixing Delgado's "affably evil former schoolfriend" with Simms's "completely divorced from reality". (Although having said that, there's clearly enough truth to it that Clara's accusation he knew Missy wasn't dead and lied about it hits home. Then again, she has enough understanding of their real relationship to take offence at the idea Davros is the Doctor's archenemy. If pressed, she'd probably claim that only boring human brains would see a contradiction.)
I liked the idea that UNIT can track all Doctory things in history on a big board (in the 22nd century the Seventh Doctor will finally do something about this, as seen in the New Adventures), and Clara's insight into how you narrow it down to where the current Doctor is.
(BTW, I know Jaye Griffiths's UNIT computer scientist is called Jac, but my headcanon is that she's Ros from Bugs, still doing all the technobabbly stuff fifteen years after the collapse of the Bureau. Anyone else think that? Anyone else remember Bugs? Okay then, moving on.)
The Doctor's "proper" entrance to the episode was hilarious. He suggests that the party involves "being" his past selves, and I reckon this must have been him channeling Tenth. Specifically, Moffatt's Tenth, the one who invented the banana daquri. I don't blame Clara for being a bit perplexed.
It says a lot about how much the episode packed in that by the time we got to Davros, I wasn't thinking "about time" and was barely thinking "are we actually going to get any Daleks?" The episode had reinvented what it was about so much by that point I was just hanging on for the ride. And we finally tie back to the original scene as Davros blames the Doctor for abandoning him, and ties it all back to "Genesis", which is nice.
And of course, we do get the Daleks, in a reveal that I would probably have predicted the second Missy started going on about gravity, if the episode hadn't wrongfooted me so often I'd given up predicting anything. And yay! A clearly visible Special Weapons Dalek! (I know there's supposed to be one in "Asylum", but I didn't see it.)
And then the cliffhanger! Now obviously, Clara, the TARDIS, and possibly Missy are going to be all right. But is the Doctor really going to shoot Young Davros to ensure it? And - from the Nest Time - is Old Davros really going to help him? (I guess Davros would take the view that, if you're dying anyway, whether or not you actually existed is moot, and it's worth it to get the Doctor to see you were right and he was wrong. Or I could be misunderstanding the scene entirely; one week to find out!)
no subject
Date: 2015-09-20 10:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-20 01:08 pm (UTC)I have other thoughts, but I should probably save them for a post of my own.