TV Review: Doctor Who Season 9

Doctor Who and The Simpsons share the same rarified air: TV shows with such intricate and lengthy backstories that only a dedicated fan could possibly mine the possibilities as a writer.  I’ve always said that the Star Trek franchise didn’t survive Enterprise because by that time they were hiring writers based on their knowledge of Star Trek trivia, not writing ability.  Fortunately for Doctor Who the whole thing is overseen by Emmy-winning writer Steven Moffat, who both knows Doctor Who trivia and is a brilliant writer.

Only a dedicated Whovian would dare go back to the most visited well in the Who-niverse, the Daleks.  Specifically the creator of the Daleks, Davros.  The two-part season 9 opener, The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witches’ Familiar, ultimately ends up being too twisty and turny to land the emotional ending it aims for, but traveling with The Doctor is still a fun ride after 50 years.

A large part of the fun is the addition last season of Missy, the latest incarnation of The Doctor’s sort-of main nemesis The Master (one of the most amusing things in the episode is Missy’s hurt feelings when Davros is referred to as The Doctor’s main nemesis).  Now in female form, she is a wild card; completely unpredictable and nearly as brilliant as The Doctor.  I disapproved of the previous reincarnation of The Master as played by John Simm; he was portrayed as a cackling supervillain, whereas the previous portrayals (I am most familiar with Anthony Ainley) showed The Master as a cool, calculating villain who just wanted power and didn’t care about the collateral damages caused by his plan, like blowing up the Earth.  He was a sociopath, not a psychopath.

For some reason I will cut Michelle Gomez more slack, mainly because her Missy is just so much FUN.  In The Magician’s Apprentice Clara Oswald calls her “good” and she immediately kills a security guard who had a wife and family.  Macabre, yes, but it keeps things lively.  Gomez’s Missy displays all the improvisational genius The Doctor has, but with zero moral constraints.  It’s a potent combination.

The plot deals with The Doctor believing he is about to die (never explained why) and going to meet Davros, who is also about to die after centuries of leading the Daleks.  Davros’ last wish is to prove to The Doctor that compassion is wrong, and he will do so by throwing The Doctor’s compassion in saving a young Davros back in his face by having his Daleks kill the Doctor’s companion, Clara.  However, before the issue can be fully debated it is revealed to be a ruse designed to trick The Doctor into extending Davros’ life.

There are lots of great details, including an explanation as to why the Daleks repeatedly intone “Exterminate! Exterminate!” when attacking.  Clara proves to be nearly as good a companion with Missy as she is with The Doctor (if only Missy would stop threatening to kill her every five minutes), and the plot keeps its cards close to the vest until the final denouement. The problem is that of course it has to end back where it began, because in episodic television heaven forbid a major character die or a potential plot device be sealed off permanently.  Having mined the Dalek backstory for this plot device, Stephen Moffet isn’t going to poison the well by dispatching Davros or the Daleks forever.

I will question one possible mistake; a key plot point is that The Doctor recognizes that something is wrong when a Dalek asks for “mercy.”  But we’ve already seen a Dalek do that, when confronted by River Song in the fifth season finale with Matt Smith, The Big Bang.  Okay, The Doctor wasn’t there, and maybe River Song didn’t tell him about the incident, but it seems odd for something that happened several years ago should be forgotten when providing the clue to resolving a plot point. I also intently disliked Kate Lethbridge-Stewart’s new science advisor, who made pronounced like saying the ability to freeze all airplanes in mid-flight was beyond the capacity of human science.  Duh. One deeply missed Osgood, the science advisor that had impressed The Doctor but was killed by Missy in the episode Death in Heaven; this being Doctor Who one hopes there is some ingenious way to bring her back.

Oh, and replacing the sonic screwdriver with sonic sunglasses?  Stupid.

I have not said much about Peter Capaldi, who continues to shine as The Doctor.  He can’t quite do whimsy as well as his predecessors (his entrance in Magician’s Apprentice is funny, but Matt Smith or David Tenant would have made it hysterical), but he brings more gravitas to the role and just seems like an older soul.  If only his Scottish accent wasn’t so frequently impenetrable.

The Doctor is doing just fine after 50 years and 13 different Doctors.  It is certainly doing better than The Simpsons, which hasn’t been that good for about 17 years.  It is more and more difficult to produce stories with an emotional resonance after all this time, and Steven Moffat’s genius for creating new stories out of well-trodden ground can only go so far.  This two-parter asks whether the Doctor will commit genocide and kill the Daleks; despite Moffat’s hand-waving, that question has been asked and answered.  But still with The Doctor it’s all about the journey, and The Doctor and Clara are still fine traveling companions (at least for a little while longer).