Sunday 20 September 2015

Series 9, Episode 1 - The Magicians Apprentice Review

SPOILER ALERT!!!
 
 
 
Hello fellow Whovians and welcome back to another addition of my blog here on Who Fan. Well it’s been over 24 hours since The Magicians Apprentice aired and phew, what a ride. I have to say that it was the best series opener since the series 6 episode ‘The Impossible Astronaut’. It was crammed packed full of ‘stuff’ and I’m glad it’s a 2 part story, because there is no way they could have done it as one episode.
The episode begins on Skaro during a war that I can only assume is between the Kaleds and the Thals (for you who don’t know what that war is then please watch the 1st ever Dalek story featuring William Hartnell, ‘The Daleks’). We see a young boy on the battle field alone and shouting for help surrounded by hand mines. Cue the Doctor. We soon learn that this young boy is Davros and the Doctor has a terrible decision to make. Should he save the boy or leave him to die.
Peter Capaldi’s performance as The Doctor was outstanding and you can quite clearly see that he looks comfortable in the role now after already having one series at the helm of the Tardis and yes that really was Peter Capaldi playing the guitar whilst riding a tank, epic. The big talking point of the episode was obviously the return of Davros and I predicted that the little boy at the start was a young Davros, but it was hardly surprising as that was the rumour already doing the rounds and it was nice to see Julian Bleach return to the role too as his performance as Davros from series 4 was, as the 9th Doctor would say, fantastic.
There were also several other returns worth a mention as well. We saw The Shadow Proclamation and the Judoon,  The Sisterhood of Karn and right at the start when Colony Sarff was looking for The Doctor he went into a bar and we had cameo appearances from an Ood, a Sycorax warrior, a Hath and a Blowfish (see if you can spot them). Oh and yes I almost forgot. Do you remember the Red Supreme Dalek from series 4? He also returned along with Dalek Sec (presumably), Special Weapons Dalek and various Daleks from the 60’s.
The most shocking part of the episode was seeing Missy and Clara get exterminated and also seeing the Tardis getting blown to smithereens. Now its ok Jenna Coleman isn’t leaving this soon into series 9, because we all know that she is in other episodes, so there’s no need to mourn just yet.
The episode ends just as it started. The Doctor and a young Davros pleading for the Doctors help to save him from the hand mines, except this time the Doctor pulls out some sort of weapon and bang the credits role and we have to wait until next week to find out if he actually kills Davros and prevents the Daleks from ever being created.
All in all it was a brilliant episode and if this is a sign of things to come then this series will shape up to be one of the best we have had in a long time.
The picture right at the top of this article was created by Stuart Manning and just like series 8 he will be creating retro movie style posters for every episode of series 9. These can be purchased from Big Chief studios website by clicking on this link http://www.bigchiefstudios.co.uk/. Please go and check them out, you won’t be disappointed.
What did you think of the series 9 opening episode? Let me know in the comments section below.
 Until next time Whovians
Andy



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