The Witch's Familiar

"All Daleks shall drink the blood of Gallifrey."

Writer: Steven Moffat

Format: TV

Broadcast: 26th September 2015

Series: 9.02

Featuring: Twelfth Doctor, Clara

Synopsis

Trapped and alone in a terrifying Dalek city, the Doctor is at the heart of an evil Empire; no sonic, no TARDIS, nobody to help. With his greatest temptation before him, can the Doctor resist? And will there be mercy?

Verdict

The Witch's Familiar was another stunning episode of Doctor Who that served as a truly brilliant conclusion to the story already started in The Magician's Apprentice! Once again, from start to finish this really was just superb and I honestly cannot heap enough praise on it. If I exclude the rest of Series 9 from judgement as I embark on the re-watch over the coming fortnight or so, I think this may eclipse every story from Series 8 and currently rank as my favourite Twelfth Doctor story that I have watched (twice). The cliffhanger was not really resolved until the latter parts of the episode but that was absolutely fine as we had the problem of Missy and Clara getting exterminated to resolve first. Missy's explanation of that using a past adventure of the Doctor, probably in his fourth incarnation as was wonderfully glanced at, was just brilliant and it also gave us the explanation of how she survived death in Dark Water/Death in Heaven. Now, we know that the Master should be long dead but even now in a female incarnation, she always manages to evade destruction. The way she was toying with Clara was just wonderful and I absolutely love Michelle Gomez. I do hope she continues to play the role for many years to come because she is truly fantastic. Her knowledge on the Daleks was quite interesting I must say and when she used Clara as bait and finally trapped a Dalek, the moment she told Clara to get in was just comedic gold. Speaking of comedic gold, the most humorous of moments came when the Doctor stole the chair of Davros. His comment about the Daleks all having that exact nightmare, of the Doctor sitting in their creator's chair, it was a rare moment of me physically laughing at a Doctor Who episode. Peter Capaldi was just sublime and the depth of conversation between the Doctor and Davros was unprecedented. But boy was it brilliant! Those two characters together always deliver but this may just have been the best of the lot. The pair sharing a joke must be one of the most contrastingly wonderful scenes in the show's half-century plus life and I remember on broadcast that I was so very nearly convinced that Davros had good intentions. Of course, that would not turn out to be the case and he was playing the Doctor along the whole time but the image of Davros opening his own eyes is quite striking. Steven Moffat took quite a risk in doing that as well as taking Davros out of his chair but as far as I am concerned it paid off in a big way. We learned a lot about the Daleks in this episode which was quite a surprise actually considering how many stories they've featured in but we finally learned why they say 'exterminate' so many times before firing. Clara demonstrated the emotional side of a Dalek tremendously and with Missy adding in some humour, it really was great. I liked the idea of a Dalek's inability to die being explored and although the whole sewer thing came under a bit of criticism, I thought it was excellent. It was just so Dalek and pretty horrific to see the sewers revolting against their healthy counterparts! The Doctor supplying them with regeneration energy knowing it would bring about their downfall was terrific and I liked the return of the TARDIS as well, with perfect timing. Clara's surprise at the sonic sunglasses was fantastic too. Missy's ambiguous ending about having an idea concerning the Daleks that surrounded her was really intriguing and I do hope that gets explored in the next series where her return has been confirmed. The mystery of the Doctor's actual reason for leaving Gallifrey being suggested by Davros was great and will be explored further as the series goes on and I look forward to revisiting the terrifying concept of the Hybrid. But for now, an absolutely brilliant story!

Rating: 10/10