9.1 and 9.2: The Magician's Apprectice/The Witch's Familiar

SPOILERS.

The Doctor and Clara are back (and Missy/The Master, too) for Series 9, and I'm having trouble right out of the gate. I love the central idea that Davros is dying and wants to see The Doctor one last time. I love the idea of a reborn Skaro, and I'm even totally fine with seeing Davros as a sweet little boy begging for help, because the dramatic irony is too good to pass up. I love Michelle Gomez as Missy. I love Peter Capaldi as The Doctor. I love seeing The Doctor back on Karn, a planet we first saw in The Brain of Morbius and were able to revisit for the 50th anniversary. I love the big ideas and the exploration of our characters, especially Davros, and how these two episodes manage to retcon a few things about the Daleks and change how we will now view the previous half-century of stories.

I do not love the massive amounts of excess that surrounds these episodes. I don't love The Doctor riding in on a tank playing Van Halen's "Eruption" on an electric guitar and launching into "Pretty Woman" when he sees Clara and Missy. I don't love The Doctor introducing the word "dude" to a medieval culture, nor do I love the ridiculous plot device of Missy freezing all the airplanes in the world to announce her arrival. I don't understand why these elements are here, because they detract from what are some fantastic, intelligent story elements. Look, I get it: Doctor Who is a family show, so there are children watching. Those children need to be entertained in between all the existential back-and-forth between The Doctor and Davros, I understand, but there's very little logic or POINT to a lot of it other than to say "look what we can do! Check out our budget! We got a tank! A TANK!" It's so distracting to me that I have a hard time getting past it. I don't want a Doctor Who without whimsy, but I wish we didn't have to go so far over the top so often. I bristled when Russell T. Davies did it years ago, and most of my fellow Whovians did, as well. Now here we are, Series 9, and we're still seeing the same strange mixture of hard science fiction, thought-provoking ideas, and absolutely bonkers children's programming that isn't grounded in any idea or purpose. I don't want a joyless program, but I don't want an excessive one at the sacrifice of the pacing and storytelling, either. Old school Doctor Who had to rise above a shoestring budget with exceptional stories and phenomenal performances. I fear the opposite could be happening now that the show is experiencing unparalleled success.

Getting past all that, though, these episodes really do deliver in spades for long-time Who fans. It's fantastic to see former incarnations of The Doctor and get a reminder of the core idea behind one of Tom Baker's most famous stories, Genesis of the Daleks. I like that this show has the guts to revisit a storyline from forty years ago, which A) points new viewers to classic adventures, and B) shows that many of those older stories are still strong and relevant. I also completely endorse the idea that Daleks shout "exterminate!" to power their weapons and that everything they do is led by their own anger and fear. What a smart idea that explains why Daleks can't seem to shut up.

I really feel like the character of Clara is struggling to find a purpose. A look back at the previous companions, Amy and Rory, reveals that Clara has never really clicked as a companion. Last season's attempts at a love story fell flat for me because I didn't care about her romantic interests in any way, and now we're two episodes in and I still don't care if she lives or dies. I get that she had to stick around for Capaldi's Doctor to give viewers a through-line (especially the millions of fans who jumped on board with Matt Smith's era and had never seen a regeneration, let alone a companion change before), but she seems to be in a holding pattern. I hope they have something planned for her this season, especially since it's to be her last.

Criticisms--some of which are substantial--aside, I think this is a pretty good start to Series 9. I love that Capaldi's era has been one that isn't afraid to look backwards and isn't afraid to tackle some serious subjects. It's not scared of being hard science fiction, leaving Earth, and being a little bit unlikable. So far, I identify with Doctor number 12 immensely as a cranky, loner who secretly needs people and has a heart of gold under all the crust. Here's hoping Series 9 continues the excellent groundwork established last year.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

THE REGENERATION OF THE BLOG!

Way back in 2008, I started this blog called The Doctor's Diary. I took the name from the Series 3 episode "Human Nature," in which The 10th Doctor (played by David Tennant) finds himself stripped of all of his memories and hiding in the year 1913. Being a Doctor Who fan was different back in those days; the revitalized Doctor Who had been around for a few seasons, but it was hard to find it in America. In fact, for the first couple of seasons, US viewers had to lean on creative ways to see the show. It eventually ended up on SyFy (then the Sci Fi Channel) and finally on BBC America, which is where it belongs. No one in America knew much about the show. Until around 2010, when you told someone you were a fan of Doctor Who, you received confused or dubious looks. Now the show is an institution in America as well as the rest of the world, but in 2008, it still wasn't a big thing. I needed an outlet to express my love for Doctor Who, particularly the classic series that ran from 1963 to 1989.

I started blogging not about the current series, but about the classic show because I'd been going through it chronologically to the best of my ability. I had come off a long stint of watching Tom Baker's 4th Doctor and found myself on the cusp of Peter Davison's 5th Doctor. I saw an opportunity to review each story starting with the fifth Doctor as I watched them, and that's what I did until things got a bit hairy for me in my own personal life during the latter half of 2009. The blog was abandoned, I lost access to it, and it ended up in the Blogger Archive, inaccessible and destined for eventual deletion. I'm going to republish those original reviews of the classic 5th and 6th Doctor stories here so that they aren't lost forever. Not that they're revolutionary or anything, but I hate the idea of those moments in time being lost.

So here we are now. Doctor Who has just started its ninth season with Peter Capaldi in his second year as the Doctor (number 12!) and the show confirmed for at least the next five years. The viewership figures in America alone reach into the millions, and everyone loves The Doctor. There are books, posters, IOS games, DVDs, puzzles, you name it, The Doctor is plastered on anything and everything. It's a great time to be a fan of the rogue Gallifreyan, even if that fandom isn't a secret society anymore. I plan to blog about each and every episode of the show moving forward (and with an occasional retro review thrown in as well, because my heart still lies with the classic series) because I love it, and I just have to talk about it. After all, there's no one like The Doctor.