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The Magician's Apprentice (TV story)

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Revision as of 08:32, 23 September 2015 by Chakoteya (talk | contribs) (Added external link)
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The Magician's Apprentice was the first episode of the ninth series of Doctor Who produced by BBC Wales. Kate Stewart and Missy return, as does Davros, who is shown prior to his disfigurement for the first time on television.

Synopsis

Where is the Doctor? When the skies of Earth are frozen by a mysterious alien force, Clara needs her friend. But where is the Doctor, and what is he hiding from?

As past deeds come back to haunt him, old enemies will come face-to-face, and for the Doctor and Clara survival seems impossible.

Plot

 
A young Davros

On a misty battlefield, soldiers flee a bombing run. When the dust settles, one of the soldiers notices a small figure running in the mist. The soldier's companion warns him they need to leave, for clam drones are going to pass through the area to pick off those whom the bombing run missed.

The soldier says he thinks he saw a child and will catch up; he runs off and discovers a boy, whom he tells to stop. Dressed in the same uniform as the soldier, the boy turns fearfully and is asked if he is lost. The boy nods and the earth below him rumbles; something appears to be tunneling underneath it. The soldier warns the boy to be still and quiet; he takes out a scanner. It turns out the soldier and the boy are standing on a Handmine field; they will be safe as long as they remain still and quiet.

The soldier pulls out some tools and tries to keep the child calm; he asks if the boy has ever seen a Handmine before. The boy nods and points to the man's leg; a muddy hand has clamped onto the soldier's ankle. The soldier looks upon his ankle in fear and then back to the boy; the Handmine pulls the soldier down, creating a gaping hole that closes afterwards.

Alone and panicked by what he has seen, the boy begins to scream for someone to help him. His cries aggravate the Handmines; several muddy hands with a single eye on their palms rise from the ground and search for the source of the noise. The Doctor arrives to help the child, but is shocked to discover that this is the Thousand Year War, and the child is Davros.

Meanwhile, Colony Sarff, an envoy of Davros, is searching the universe for the Doctor. He isn't in the Maldovarium, where a great many species that have met him are patrons. In the Shadow Proclamation, the Shadow Architect refuses to tell Sarff where the Doctor is, insisting that she has no idea. On Karn, Ohila warns Sarff of the dangers hunting the Doctor can bring. Colony Sarff tells Ohila that Davros is dying, but i still anticipating his final meeting with the Doctor. He then leaves, giving Ohila a message for the Doctor, unaware that the Time Lord is hiding from behind the rocks.

On present day Earth, Clara is teaching in Coal Hill School. She looks out the window, noticing something amiss; using a marker, she draws a circle around a plane in the sky, realizing that it's frozen in the air. After assigning her class to use their mobiles to search about any information, Clara is told about a call for her by another teacher. Knowing it's UNIT, Clara leaves for the Tower of London, while attempting to contact the Doctor, but receives no answer.

At UNIT HQ, Kate Stewart's tracking the frozen planes. Clara deduces that the planes aren't being weaponized because an invasion doesn't forewarn itself. At that moment, the Doctor's communication channel turns on, and a lyrics appear on the screen, with one repeating word - Missy. Missy appears on-screen, explaining that the frozen planes were just a way to get their attention. She proposes a meeting with UNIT.

At 16:00, Clara and Missy meet in a cafe, where Missy demonstrates her ability to freeze the planes with a simple Time Lord trick and shows Clara the Doctor's confession dial - containing the Doctor's last will and testament. A confession dial's given to a dying Time Lord's closest friend on their final day. The Doctor's confession dial has been given to Missy, but will only open once he's dead. The Doctor's living his final day, Missy tells Clara, and has therefore come to Earth. Clara tells Kate to track mentions of the Doctor that don't also mention an alien disturbance - Essex, the Middle Ages. Using a vortex manipulator, Missy and Clara vanish into the past.

Clara and Missy arrive in a castle where the Doctor's performing a music gig for a primitive crowd atop a tank. They think he's a magician, and his apprentice is Bors. The Doctor defends his actions to Missy and Clara, saying that his last party is going how he wants, which includes being able to mess with time. Sarff arrives and demands for the Doctor to speak with Davros. The Doctor thinks back to his encounter with the child Davros, and agrees to go with Sarff. Missy and Clara demand to be taken as well; after voting, Sarff agrees to take them with, binding all three's hands with snakes. The Doctor, Clara and Missy are teleported to Sarff's shuttle. In their absence, Bors - now a Dalek puppet - procures the TARDIS and informs Dalek High Command.

Travelling to Davros' location - an apparent space station hospital - the Doctor tells Clara who Davros is - the creator of the Daleks; a war child who sealed his species inside tanks to preserve them. In the hospital, the Doctor goes with Sarff to see Davros, leaving Clara with Missy. Both the Doctor and Missy can feel the gravity - it's natural. The hospital isn't a space station. Missy opens the air lock.

 
The Doctor encounters a dying Davros on Skaro.

The Doctor meets with Davros, and they talk of how their conflict's been fueled by a conversation - is Davros right to create the Daleks, or does he lack compassion? At that moment, Davros plays several clips of the Doctor's various speeches to him about morality. To highlight the point of this, Davros plays the Doctor's reasoning against destroying the Daleks; additionally, the Doctor wondered if it would be right to kill a child who would cause nothing but evil once grown. Remembering seeing Davros as a child, the Doctor tells him that his point has been made.

Clara and Missy walk out apparently into apparent outer space, until Missy realizes that, once on the planet, one begins to synchronize with it. The illusion vanishes, showing a city in the middle of a wasteland; Missy is in horror and disbelief, while Clara is left confused. At the same time, the Doctor is shown the truth as well by Davros; they're on Skaro, the Dalek home world.

Sighted by the Daleks, Clara and Missy are taken to see the Supreme Dalek, who's with the TARDIS and a large weapon aimed at it. Missy attempts to reason with the Daleks - if they don't destroy the TARDIS, she can help them fly it, allowing them to conquer the universe. However, Missy is exterminated, vanishing; the Daleks appear to have upgraded their weaponry since the war on Trenzalore.

The Doctor pleads with Davros to not let Clara come to harm - but Davros doesn't control the Daleks. Davros observes the Daleks' preference for waiting for Clara to run. Then, they exterminate her. The Supreme Dalek then orders the TARDIS to be destroyed and it is seemingly vaporised by the weapon aimed at it. Davros reasons with the Doctor that this happened because the Doctor showed him compassion as a child, despite knowing his destiny - allowing Davros to create the Daleks, that have killed Clara and Missy.

 
"Exterminate!"

Back on the battlefield, the Doctor returns to the child Davros, confusing the boy on how he ended up behind him. The Doctor explains he's come from the future, and that he has to save the friends that have died thanks to Davros' future actions. Brandishing a severed Dalek gunstick, the Doctor glares at the child, shouting in anger "Exterminate!"

Cast

Uncredited cast

Crew

to be added

References

Real world

  • Whilst playing the electric guitar, the Doctor gets a crowd in medieval England to chant the word "dude", a reference to the film "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure". In the film, the two rock musician protagonists often use the word "dude", and also use a time machine disguised as a phonebox to visit medieval England.
  • The Doctor also gets the crowd to complete the title of "All the Young Dudes", a song written by David Bowie and originally released by Mott the Hoople.
  • The Doctor being able to play the guitar was prompted by Peter Capaldi's own abilities, which he honed whilst in a band when he was younger.
  • Clara tells her Coal Hill students to turn on their phones and go to News, websites and Twitter, and search for hashtags such as #ThePlanesHaveStopped.
  • The line "Do not go gentle into that good night" is a line from a Dylan Thomas poem of the same title.
  • Missy introduces herself with "Today I shall be talking to you through the square window", a phrase from Play School, in-which the presenters would appear through a square, circular or arched window.

The Doctor

  • The Doctor can play the electric guitar. He plays the introductory bars of "Pretty Woman".
  • The Doctor says that the day before Clara and Missy arrived he wore a bow tie, and the day before that a long scarf.
  • The Doctor invented the word "dude" several centuries early.
  • The Doctor jokes about having bought a tank for his fish online and instead getting a tank; he claims it will be hilarious a few centuries after the time period he is in.
  • As the Doctor and Bors engage in an axe duel, the Doctor humorously counters Bors' axe by playing his electric guitar, referring to the fact that 'axe' can also mean an electric guitar.
  • The Doctor said he taught the medievals some maths.
  • The Doctor states that a daffodil is not a broadsword.
  • The Doctor gave marbles to Bors, and told him not to swallow them, thinking Bors had swallowed one when was choking.
  • The Doctor, thinking the visible part of Skaro a hospital, says that "it's always the wait with hospitals", referring to the common business of hospitals.
  • The Doctor said that "all of me" is invited to his final party, referring to his other incarnations.

Davros

  • Davros does not know what the Daleks have in mind with the TARDIS, Missy and Clara, stating that the Doctor knows "what children are like".
  • Davros approves of the Doctor's new face, regarding it as "so much like" his own.

The Master

  • Missy uses a Time Stop to stop the planes mid-air.
  • Missy is offended when the Doctor says Davros is his arch-enemy.
  • Missy tells Clara to never believe a man about a vehicle, referring to the Doctor and the TARDIS.
  • When Clara asks Missy when she started caring for the Doctor, she says:
"Since always. Since the Cloister Wars. Since the night he stole the moon and the President's wife. Since he was a little girl. One of those was a lie -- can you guess which one?

Story notes

  • To keep Davros' return a surprise, Julian Bleach went uncredited until the episode's release.
    • The young Davros, played by Joey Price, is not credited as Davros, but rather as "Boy".
  • In Welsh, "Sarff" means "serpent".
  • This was the first series opener in the BBC Wales series to be directed by a woman.
  • This is the first story in which both Davros and the Master appear.
  • The episode's credits list the creators of the Kahler, Skullions, Hath, Blowfish, Ood, and Sycorax, all of whom were present when Colony Sarff was searching for the Doctor. This is the Skullions' first appearance on Doctor Who, having previously appeared in The Sarah Jane Adventures.
  • This is the first time a Special Weapons Dalek has been shown to talk on-screen, and also reveals that the gold square windows encircling its dome actually light up. This trait was subject to debate and speculation ever since the Special Weapons Dalek model first appeared in Remembrance of the Daleks, because that particular Dalek was never shown speaking, nor was the one seen in Asylum of the Daleks.
  • The title sequence was slightly modified starting with this episode; the clock gears, gas and the first Roman numeral clock face tunnel now have a purple hue.
  • This episode begins with a flashback immediately after its prompting in The Doctor's Meditation.
  • The read-through took place on 9th February[2], and production began on the 12th[3].
  • The congregation of Daleks that Clara and Missy meet on Skaro include:

Ratings

Overnight: 4.6 million[4]

Filming locations

Fuerteventura, Canary Islands[5]

Production errors

to be added

Continuity

"If someone who knew the future pointed out a child to you and told you that that child would grow up totally evil, to be a ruthless dictator who would destroy millions of lives, could you then kill that child?" (TV: Genesis of the Daleks)

Home video releases

To be added

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The Magician's Apprentice. BBC One - Doctor Who, Series 9. Retrieved on 23 September 2015.
  2. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3JZDF14smXfkQNdlcbsGXM5/the-magician-s-apprentice-the-fact-file
  3. ↑ https://www.facebook.com/DoctorWho/photos/a.182096918471010.52777.127031120644257/1065351840145509/?type=1&permPage=1
  4. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34307519
  5. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3JZDF14smXfkQNdlcbsGXM5/the-magician-s-apprentice-the-fact-file

External Links

Transcript of The Magicians Apprentice at Chrissie's Transcripts Site

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