The Magician's Apprentice (TV story)

The Magician's Apprentice
Doctor:	Twelfth Doctor
Companion(s):	Clara
Featuring:	Kate, Missy
Main enemy:	Colony Sarff, Davros, Daleks
Main setting:	Earth, Skaro
Key crew
Writer:	Steven Moffat
Director:	Hettie MacDonald
Producer:	Peter Bennett
Release details
Story number:	253a
Premiere broadcast:	19 September 2015
Premiere network:	BBC One
Format:	1x45 minute episode
Production code:	5.1
Official trailer
▶︎ YouTube YouTube might collect personal data. Privacy Policy UnderstoodDismiss
Behind the scenes video
▶︎ YouTube YouTube might collect personal data. Privacy Policy UnderstoodDismiss
More behind the scenes stuff
▶︎ YouTube YouTube might collect personal data. Privacy Policy UnderstoodDismiss
Another behind the scenes moment
▶︎ YouTube YouTube might collect personal data. Privacy Policy UnderstoodDismiss
Doctor Who television stories
← Previous	The Doctor's Meditation
Next →	TBA
Production order
← Previous	TBA
Next →	TBA

The Magician's Apprentice was the first episode of the ninth series of Doctor Who produced by BBC Wales. It saw the return of many characters, such as Kate Stewart and Missy, who was believed to have been killed in Death in Heaven.

Davros also returns are a seven year absence in the show, having been previously believed to have perished in the destruction of the Crucible at the end of Series 4. As of this episode, how he managed to escape is left unknown.

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.

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. 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 the 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. 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

• The Doctor - Peter Capaldi
• Clara - Jenna Coleman
• Missy - Michelle Gomez
• Davros - Julian Bleach
• Colony Sarff - Jami Reid-Quarrell
• Kate Stewart - Jemma Redgrave
• Jac - Jaye Griffiths
• Mike - Harki Bhambra
• Bors - Daniel Hoffmann-Gill
• Boy - Joey Price
• Kanzo - Benjamin Cawley
• Mr Dunlop - Aaron Neil
• Ohila - Clare Higgins
• Voice of the Daleks - Nicholas Briggs
• Shadow Architect - Kelly Hunter
• Alison - India Ria Amarteifio
• Ryan - Dasharn Anderson
• Newsreader - Stefan Adegbola
• Newsreader - Lucy Newman-Williams
• Newsreader - Shin-Fei Chen
• School Girl - Demi Papaminas
• Dalek - Barnaby Edwards
• Dalek - Nicholas Pegg
• Soldier - Jonathan Ojinnaka

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", most likely a reference to "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 phrase "all the young dudes", the title of a song written by David Bowie, originally recorded and released as a single by Mott the Hoople in 1972.
• The Doctor being able to play the guitar is because Peter Capaldi was in a band when he was younger and learned to play the guitar.
• Clara tells her Coal Hill students to turn on their phones and go to News, websites and Twitter, and use hashtags, telling the world that planes have stopped mid-air, ThePlanesHaveStopped.
• The line "Do not go gentle into that good night" is a line from a Dylan Thomas poem of the same title.

The Doctor

• The Doctor can play the electric guitar. He plays the intro to "Pretty Woman".
• The Doctor claims that the day before he wore a bow tie, the day before that a long scarf.
• The Doctor breaks the fourth wall by briefly playing the baseline to the Doctor Who theme.
• The Doctor invented the word "dude".
• The Doctor jokes about having bought his tank online for his fish, meaning fish-tank; he claims it will be hilarious in a few centuries.
• As the Doctor and Bors engage in an axe duel, while Bors having a real axe, the Doctor plays his electric guitar, explaining that 'axe' also means the el-guitar.
• The Doctor taught the medievals some maths.
• The Doctor says a daffodil is not a broadsword.
• The Doctor gave marbles to Bors, and thought one of them was choking him.
• The Doctor, thinking the visible part of Skaro a hospital, says that "it's always the wait with hospitals". Hospitals are known to have a long wait.
• 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.

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 since Doctor Who returned in 2005 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 Skullion's 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, the gas and the first Roman numeral clock face tunnel now have a purple hue.
• This episode starts right from where The Doctor's Meditation left off.
• Missy used a Time Stop to stop the planes mid-air.
• The Doctor said that to his final party all of him is invited, possibly referring to his other incarnations.
• Missy is offended when the Doctor says Davros is his arch-enemy.
• The new TARDIS interior, roundels, are briefly seen.
• Colony Sarff travels via Hyperspace.
• Missy tells Clara to never believe a man about a vehicle, referring to the Doctor and the TARDIS.
• The read-through took place on 9th February, and production began on the 12th.
• When Clara asks Missy when she started caring for the Doctor, she said:

"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?

Ratings

Overnight: 4.6 million

Filming locations

Fuerteventura, Canary Islands

Production errors

to be added

Continuity

• From the Doctor's perspective, both WC: Prologue and TV: The Doctor's Meditation take place entirely within the narrative of this episode.
• Clara mentions that it has been "ages" since they last saw Missy. (TV: Death in Heaven)
• The Doctor previously mentioned he's running from an old familiarity. (WC: Prologue, TV: The Doctor's Meditation) It turns out to be Davros.
• The Doctor previously gave Ohila a confession dial, telling her she knows who to give it to. (WC: Prologue) This turns out to be Missy.
• Clara points out the Doctor has gone Scottish. (TV: The Time of the Doctor etc.)
• Missy reintroduces herself to UNIT on their computer screens with her song "Hey Missy". (TV: Death in Heaven)
• Missy throws her return, not being dead, away as no big deal, and Clara also asks how she can be alive, having been shot by a Cyberman. Clara also points out that she and the Doctor saw Missy die on Earth (TV: Death in Heaven). This is also not the first time in which the Master has escaped from certain death without giving an explanation as to how he survives (TV: Castrovalva, Planet of Fire, Survival).
• Clara considers herself the Doctor's best friend. (TV: Death in Heaven)
• Missy has a new and upgraded version of her device. She kills several people with it. (TV: Dark Water / Death in Heaven)
• Missy tells Clara to "say something nice", or else she kills everyone else. (TV: Dark Water / Death in Heaven)
• Missy says a Time Lord is supposed to die after meditation, in which it shows acceptance of it. (WC: Prologue, TV: The Doctor's Meditation)
• Clara says Missy constantly tries to kill the Doctor and she says he keeps trying to kill her. (TV: Terror of the Autons et al.)
• Missy is wearing a Vortex manipulator. and uses it to travel in time (TV: The Empty Child et al.)
• The Doctor reminds Clara he and Missy have known each other a long time. (TV: Terror of the Autons, Utopia, et al.; PROSE: The Eight Doctors, The Dark Path)
• Missy describes vortex manipulator time travel as "cheap and nasty". (TV: The Big Bang, COMIC: Space in Dimension Relative and Time)
• Missy asks Clara about Danny Pink, asking if he's still dead. (TV: Dark Water/Death in Heaven)
• Clara mentions that the Doctor is not the person to party. (TV: Deep Breath etc.)
• Clara is surprised by the Doctor's hug, knowing he doesn't like it, he tells her it's a way to hide one's face. (TV: Deep Breath, Listen, Death in Heaven)
• The Doctor mentions that he helped Bors and his men to dig a well. (TV: The Doctor's Meditation)
• Bors calls the Doctor a magician. (TV: Time Heist, Last Christmas, The Doctor's Meditation)
• When the Doctor says he's been there all day, Bors says he's been there for three weeks. (TV: The Doctor's Meditation)
• The Doctor says he spend a whole day in a bowtie. His previous incarnation wore bowties. (TV: The Eleventh Hour et al.) He also said he spend the day before that in a long scarf. His fourth incarnation wore a long scarf. (TV: Robot et al.)
• The Sisterhood of Karn appears. (TV: The Brain of Morbius, The Night of the Doctor)
• The Shadow Proclamation reappears as well as the Shadow Architect. (TV: The Stolen Earth)
  • A Judoon also appear. (TV: Smith and Jones etc.)
• The Maldovarium reappears. (TV: The Pandorica Opens, A Good Man Goes to War)
  • Several species appear in the Maldovarium:
    • Sycorax.
    • Ood.
    • Skullions.
    • Haths.
    • Kahlers.
• The Doctor says he no longer has a screwdriver. He stopped using his screwdriver previously during his fifth (TV: Black Orchid et al.) and sixth incarnations (TV: The Twin Dilemma et al.).
• Bors has become a Dalek puppet. The Daleks previously used them. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks, The Time of the Doctor)
• The Doctor says Davros is a child of the Thousand Year War. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks; AUDIO: Innocence)
• Davros replays footage to the Doctor of some of their earlier confrontations featuring his previous incarnations:
  • The Fourth Doctor (TV: Genesis of the Daleks)
  • The Fifth Doctor (TV: Resurrection of the Daleks)
  • The Sixth Doctor (TV: Revelation of the Daleks)
  • The Seventh Doctor (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)
  • The Tenth Doctor (TV: The Stolen Earth).
• During the aforementioned series of clips, highlighted due to its particular relevance to the situation, Davros plays the Fourth Doctor's question to his companions:

"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)

• The congregation of Daleks that Clara and Missy meet on Skaro include:
  • The original silver & blue model used from TV: The Daleks to TV: The Space Museum.
    • This story marks this model's first colour appearance in the series proper.
  • The Emperor Dalek's personal guard from TV: The Evil of the Daleks.
    • This story marks this model's first colour appearance in the series proper.
  • The grey & black model used from TV: Day of the Daleks to TV: Remembrance of the Daleks.
  • The Special Weapons Dalek from TV: Remembrance of the Daleks.
    • This story reveals that the cage-like structure at the top of the SW Dalek functions identically to a standard Dalek's dome lights, illuminating with each spoken syllable.
  • A black Dalek resembling Dalek Sec, who maintained a presence in the series from TV: Army of Ghosts / Doomsday to TV: Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks.
  • The Supreme Dalek model from TV: The Stolen Earth / Journey's End.
    • This model's appearance as a commanding authority for the Daleks seems to designate it as the Supreme Dalek for the New Paradigm.
  • The incumbent bronze model that has been in use since TV: Dalek.
• The Doctor and Davros talk about the Last Great Time War (PROSE: Engines of War, TV: The Day of the Doctor) and their argument they have had about the Daleks' creation since they met. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks etc.) The Doctor said their argument ended in the War, but Davros said it survived the War. (TV: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End)
• Davros mentions to the Doctor that he doesn't control the Daleks. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks et al.)
• Clara is still teaching classes about Jane Austen, only this time she seems to have met her. (TV: The Caretaker)
• The Doctor had previously contemplated his death on a battlefield, at Trenzalore (TV: The Time of the Doctor)
• As UNIT tracks locations that the Doctor has visited in the past across the globe in an attempt to deduce where he could have gone for his last destination, Jac notes San Martino, (TV: The Masque of Mandragora), Troy (TV: The Myth Makers), multiple visits to New York (TV: The Chase, Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks, The Angels Take Manhattan, COMIC: The Monsters from the Past, Time Bomb, Revolutions of Terror, Echo, The Fountains of Forever, Dinosaurs in New York!, The Greed of the Gavulav, The Doctor and the Nurse, PROSE: CHAOS, Cat's Cradle: Warhead, Christmas on a Rational Planet, Presence, Best Seller, Femme Fatale, Beautiful Chaos, The Forgotten Army, AUDIO: Blackout, Invaders from Mars), and three possible versions of Atlantis. (TV: The Underwater Menace, The Dæmons, The Time Monster, PROSE: Transit, AUDIO: Antidote to Oblivion, Scavenger)
• In the opening scene, the Doctor concludes that the war must be very old going by the mix of technology. He made the same observation in TV: Genesis of the Daleks, predicting that "they're going to finish off with bows and arrows..."
• Missy makes a similar bargain with the Daleks as the Doctor did in TV: The Daleks, offering to teach them how to operate the TARDIS in exchange for her life.
• Davros believes the Doctor's greatest weakness is his compassion. The Daleks have previously made the same the same observation. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)

Home video releases

To be added

Footnotes