Doctor Who 9x02 The Witch's Familiar

What I love about this episode is there isn't a "goodie" and a "baddie" but instead leans into protagonist vs antagonist. But even those lines get blurred. The debate over the Doctor being a good man. Davros feeling the same. Missy coming through to save Clara only to later try to get the Doctor to be the one to kill her. It's beautifully complex. I have to say, River has been a favourite character of mine all the way from her first to last appearance. But Missy? OMG she's so fantastic. She was great in the finale of series 8, but in this two parter I really feel like we got to know the "REAL" Missy/Master. Showing up as the Doctor's friend, but also being entirely unhinged. She's amazing. Standing O for Michelle Gomez.

Ive seen all of it and in my opinion the 12th doctor does seem to become more and more quirky and fun as you get through s9 and 10

I don't know if you remember but in the Pandorica episode, there's one dalek saying ''mercy'' to River as she's about to shoot it, the thing is, the Doctor wasn't there at that moment so he didn't know they could say that, until now ^^

The cup of tea line is one of my favourites, it's so random yet hilarious, in fact all of the Doctor's line in that scene are so funny. 'Admit it, you've all had this exact nightmare!' The Davros scene is so special because it's so emotional and incredibly acted between the two but I think it hits more because you're not expecting it, you assume them two would just argue the whole time so to have such a compassionate moment really hits hard, I love that scene! And yeah and it's easy to forgot because she's so funny but Missy is a psychopath lol, she's here not long from creating a fake heaven and turning the dead into cybermen lol This character is still John Simms master with the drumbeats in his head driving him mad, the stuff with Clara is more true to the master than anything I would say, but Michelle Gomez is so GOOD (said in a Scottish accent) that you forget her character is meant to be a murderous crazy timelord/lady lol

I'm watching these episodes for the first time along with you and seeing Clara as a Dalek here, and remembering her fate in the very first episode we saw her in, really had me thinking this might be the beginning of the end for her!

Yes, well, with the Daleks, their language was redacted so decency, compassion and tolerance for divergence got cancelled. Noetically, the concepts may still exist, buried in sub-routines, but the encompassing 'machine' ensures that the inner Dalek creature, a symbiote, is prevented from ever accessing that data. The Dalek is caught mentally in a cyclical imprisoned state, purposefully impoverished of any other notion but that it is wrong to be different from a Dalek. And yes, obviously, there are real world models for this.

I'm glad you enjoyed Clara and Missy together, they really were the double act we never knew we needed. They do keep having to remind us how she's still evil even if she helped save the Doctor on this occasion and never made any attempt to kill or screw him over aside from trying to trick him with the Clara Dalek, because I guess she just couldn't resist messing around with him at least a little. Even with how much Davros was manipulating the Doctor, it's nice to think that some of those moments were genuine like sharing a joke and seeming happy for the Doctor getting the Time Lords back. He probably sees the Doctor as his only equal who he can talk to (which happens to be the Doctor's attitude towards the Master sometimes) even if the Doctor would flatly reject the idea they're friends.

So many funny lines in this episode! The interactions with Davros were beautiful, and a lovely deep dive into the Doctor's character. Missy was her mad, brilliant and entertaining self throughout.

The sonic glasses was Capaldi's idea, he wanted kids to have affordable toys from the show because some families couldn't afford the latest sonic toy