Dr Who: An Englishman in LA

Our man in Los Angeles, ROBERT CAVE, takes a look at the second episode of the new series of Doctor Who in a new weekly review column

Doctor Who Series 9/ Season 35 episode 2

First of all, in case anyone is in any doubt, here be spoilers for the second episode of series 9 of Doctor Who. If you’ve not seen the episode or dislike spoilers, please step away now.

Right, so, as I predicted, Missy and Clara survived. Clara even tells us how the got away, extrapolating from what Missy tells us of one of the Doctor’s past adventures (or should that be one of the past Doctor’s adventures?). This neat little pre-title sequence kind of encapsulates the approach of this week’s story. Things happen and the audience is invited to guess why and what might happen next. Then something else happens, distracting everyone, and on we go. Well, you have to keep the audience on their toes or they might guess what’s coming next a little too well.

Is there a plot? Let me answer that question with another question: does there need to be one? The characters are dancing around, in Missy’s case, sometimes literally, in attempts to keep everyone entertainingly off balance from one moment to the next. Is she making it all up as she goes along? Who knows? No, he probably doesn’t.

But what do we know based on past experience of Doctor Who? Well, Missy can’t be killed. She might change her name and her body, and her title, but she will remain the Doctor’s oldest friend and best enemy and keep coming back forever as the Doctor’s dark reflection.

We know Davros can’t die either (something else I predicted last week). He’s saved twice this episode, both man and boy. The Daleks will always return and so can never be defeated no matter what it might looks like at the time. Just look at every Dalek story ever. They always come back. Even Skaro, their home planet, reportedly destroyed back in the story Remembrance of the Daleks, is back now, completely rebuilt.

The dance is fun, and full of enjoyable little moments and teasing one-liners (Missy’s daughter, anyone?). But for me, the most enjoyable of these moments was seeing Clara trapped inside a Dalek, experiencing all the horrific narrowness of a Dalek’s eye view of the world, and literally unable to voice thoughts that are contrary to the Dalek creed of extermination. And all this is a call back to the 2012 story Asylum of the Daleks, where Jenna Coleman played Oswin Oswald, a human trapped in a Dalek. Is Clara going to be stuck as a Dalek? Are we going to find out the relationship between Clara and Oswin? Not this episode, it turns out. And now I am wondering if the Doctor knows how to get someone to open up their Dalek shell from the inside, why didn’t he try that to save Oswin back in the day?

There’s no time to ponder that, though. There are Dalek/Time Lord hybrids in their shells are being throttled by the regenerated slime of other Dalek/Time Lord hybrids who have no shells of their own. Of course the Daleks aren’t being defeated – they will be back again. Oh, and did you notice these Daleks are all the ones from that titular Dalek asylum I mentioned earlier? Will this become significant later on in the series, like the Doctor’s confession dial (shown again in this episode, but not actually opened yet)? Maybe. Missy is surrounded by Daleks and has apparently had a very clever idea, after all.

And the Doctor has sonic shades now? And the he goes back to teach young Davros mercy? And that mercy is now part of the Daleks? Has it always been? That doesn’t make sense. No yet, at least. But, I’m not entirely sure it is supposed to. Not until we’ve maybe heard the Doctor’s Confession, not until later in the series.

But before we get carried away thinking about the future, I think it might be interesting to look back to the past once again and Genesis of the Daleks. This story was heavily referenced last week and fans frequently cite it as being the first salvo of the time war. In that story, the Time Lords give the Doctor three options: kill the Daleks/avert their creation, find an inherent weakness in them or alter their development, which is what he seems to do here, introducing the notion of mercy into the Dalek lexicon.

If the doctor has managed to introduce mercy into the Daleks, and the Time Lords are still out there, as the Doctor seems to indicate this episode, could we be seeing the start of a new time war? It seems only time will tell.

Doctor Who – The Complete Series 8 [DVD] [2014]