The Magician's Apprentice

The Magician's Apprentice
The Magician's Aprentice Promo.jpg
Season: 9
Episode: 1
Vital statistics
Air date 19 September 2015
Written by Steven Moffat
Directed by Hettie MacDonald
Episode guide
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The Doctor's Meditation The Witch's Familiar
Who will be the new apprentice???????
'"At first, I was worried I was having a mid-life crisis. You know, shave my head, bum around in a leather jacket, picking up blonde 19 year olds, that sort of thing."'
Dave Ross returns.
When was the last time you were this excited about anything, /who/? What have spoilers done to your enjoyment of the show?
"Jesus Christ, Clara, you look like someone killed your boyfriend... again."
Doctor and The Whos play their first show.
Missy's back.

The Magicman's Assistant is the first episode of the long awaited Series 9 and the first of a two-parter concluding with The Witch's Familiar.

Clara, Missy, Dave Ross and the Daleks returned. People hoped that Shona from Last Christmas would join the show (plebs), but that didn't happen.

It also features the debut of the meme shades, which are still a big source of controversy on /who/ to this day... for some reason.


The entire episode is built around a single line of dialogue uttered by the Doctor back in the classic series, when he tangled with Davros and his Daleks and was forced to make an ultimate choice regarding their fates:

Unimaginable power! UNLIMITED RICE PUDDING!

We see the origin of Davros, here revealed as basically the kid from The Family of Blood. There's hand mines, on loan from Guillermo Del Toro, and there's clam drones lurking somewhere else. The Doctor tries to save babbydavros and inadvertantly gives him the idea for the Daleks ("Survival is a choice, choose it now"), then when he realizes what he's done he does some timey-wimey jiggery-pokery Doctor flim-flam and straight up murders a child, live on camera in front of millions of viewers around the world.

Elsewhere in the plot, Missy meets up with Clara in... Turkey, let's assume, and seduces her. For their first date, they go visit a concert where the Dreamboys are playing. Also it’s around here the Doctor just offhandly mentions he won a sword fight with a daffodil. Unfortunately, a segue snakeman shows up and kidnaps everybody, taking them all to a space station that turns out to be skaro except skaro's destroyed except it's not and now it's cloaked but last time it was visible and also there's still 60s Daleks on it and also I saw a Special Weapons Dalek and ooooooo, special weapons dalek!

The Daleks exterminate the Master (again) and the companion (again) and the TARDIS (again). The Doctor seems awfully convinced that it's for real, but then, he doesn't know Steven Moffat like we do.

Pre-Episode Hype.

Still, there is reason to hold out hope:

>people on GB are saying its VNA level dark
>eviscerated rabbits
>dove like creatures
>paul daniels gives Clara a "shock of her life"
>'Is a man who can pull a rabbit out of a hat really a man at all? Is magic even real?'
>"This might be where you can argue that the new approach is, for the first time, seen uncluttered by any of the old approach."
>terrible dilemma
>Moffat said the ending scene at the kfc is his favorite scene in the Series
>Moffat said in DWM that Steven Moffat(writer of the episode) was going to stick around 'for a long time, I promise you' implying the script is GOAT
>instagram insult in episode


Damn fine opener. 11/10 s'alright.

As per usual, live /who/ was flooded with autists who screamed "MOFFAT OUT OHMYGOD SO CRINGEY HOW AWFUL ILL NEVER WATCH THIS show AGAIN" without actually watching the episode. It apparently seems pretty divisive.

Objectively, no, it wasn't The Eleventh Hour tier, but it was still a solid 8/10, if not higher. Yes, almost nothing was explained, and that really sucks, but this is the first part of a two part story. You'd think people would remember that.

Capaldi really owns it as the Doctor, every scene he's in is GOAT. Same with Julian Bleach. Davros is GOAT in this story, can't wait to see the resolution. As long as the plot coalesces into something coherent in The Witch's Familiar, this might be the best series opener yet. Davros was GOAT, the resolution was shit (literally), and it was generally pretty alright.

Also features the return of The Shadow Proclamation and a terrible dilemma with the idea that Twelvey "created" Davros by abandoning Shota Davey to die. Based Twelve.

If you're not autistic, you'll realize it's pretty good (as long as TWF doesn't let us down).

In all seriousness though, it was pretty shit GOAT crap great canon non-canon.


  • But who was apprentice? (I like /who/'s theory that's its Davros, 12's the magician and the Sonic Screwdriver is his magic wand.)
  • It had a tonne of Classic references, and even audio clips of Doctors from earlier Davros stories, but still didn't include any clips of 8 even though he has a GOAT story with Davros. McGann on suicide watch.