Review: Doctor Who: The Magician’s Apprentice

With the sad news of Jenna Coleman’s departure from Doctor Who confirmed just hours before the first episode of Series 9 aired last night, the Doctor returned with a whirlwind of madness. And so did his long-standing enemy Davros.

‘The Magician’s Apprentice’ begins with a dystopian theme and a battlefield that is pretty empty as far as wars go. Before we know it, a man is being sucked into the ground and a child left in the middle of hundreds of hands rising from beneath the soil. Within the first few minutes, there’s already a child in grave danger, but the Doctor throws his sonic screwdriver to the boy to try and save him.

With the return of the Daleks and Davros upon the Doctor (not to mention the seven-year interval since he last met with Davros in David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor’s body), he is left to make some very serious and moral decisions. Throughout the episode, we are left wondering if the Doctor will save the child Davros – can he live with the guilt of leaving a child to die?

Against the background of ‘#theplaneshavestopped’ and the return of an arch enemy, Steven Moffat places Missy on the ‘side of the angels’ while also having her violently dismiss the notion that she’s “turned good”. And suddenly, she, Clara and the Doctor are reunited and transported to Skaro where the episode finally settles down and focuses on one particular tone.

Steven Moffat’s Twelfth Doctor is all over the place in himself and it seems that the first episode of the new series is exactly the same. Moffat’s writing is completely insane, yet strangely wonderful – the Doctor with an electric guitar is something many Doctor Who fans didn’t see coming. ‘The Magician’s Apprentice’ somehow works despite the sharp twists and turns in Moffat’s writing.