Monday Review: Doctor Who S9:E 1-2

I should start by admitting again, for those of you who didn’t catch it before, I only watched half of Season Eight.  The last episode I recall paying even half attention to involved a Time Lord kid  we were led to believe was The Doctor and, quite frankly, I recall a large amount of moldy cheese (and not the good, stinky, blue kind).  I didn’t see, and likely won’t bother to go back, to watch the old showdown with Missy because I simply can’t muster the give a shit.

I didn’t have any real intentions of watching Season Nine.  I do love Capaldi but I have never been, nor do I ever expect to be, a Clara fan.  She isn’t terrible… terrible would at least be interesting.  She’s simply… bland.  Sort of bog standard with nothing particular to either recommend her or engage my interest.  I Especially after Donna.  No one will ever be Donna.  Or Jack… of course Jack is an entity unto himself and for anyone to even attempt to Jack would be unseemly.

I ignored all the articles at first, but, as often happens, a headline about the “darkness” of the season caught my eye so I read it.  And then I read a few more.  And hope crept in and I figured, “What the hell.  I don’t have anything else to watch right now and my brain needs a vacation.  Worst case, I take a nap.”

I did not take a nap.

(Below lay spoilers.  You have been warned)

image via screenrant.com

I’m actually sort of shocked that Moffatt wrote the first two episodes of the season.  Because they were flippin’ awesome.  They were creepy and dark and they twisted a very essential knife that’s been sheathed or missing or rusting in a drawer for the last year.

The knife that is the Doctor’s quintessential, inherent goodness.  His compassion.  Because no matter how deep he goes, how furious he becomes, he always finds it again and it always, always bites him in the ass.  It bites him in the ass but he has, and will, make the same choice over and over and over again because he is, “The Doctor and I save people.”

People including Davros.  Davros, who created The Doctor’s most vicious enemy.  The enemy who would destroy The Doctor’s own people, who would torch his planet, and leave him alone in the universe as The Last Time Lord (though that has, to an extent been undone, he still can’t ever go home).  Even knowing what has happened, what will happen, The Doctor chooses to rescue the child Davros from a war as no one saved The Doctor himself.

image via funkidslive.com

He could change it.  He could leave Davros to the mercy of the creepy hand-with-eyball grenades.  It isn’t a fixed point in time.  He could save all the lives that have been lost to the Daleks.  He can save Gallifrey, his people.  He can change his own timeline.  He need never be the Last Time Lord.

He doesn’t.  He doesn’t because a child who is not yet his enemy is terrified and every child, even Davros, deserves saving.

We need more of that sort of hero.

image via screenrant.com

We also need more Missy.  I know she wasn’t super popular last season, but I’m finding her fun, I’m finding her engaging, and I’m finding her worth watching.  She’s wicked and clever and cruel and snarky and she cares as much about The Doctor as The Master ever has.  She knows him.  They have been friends for over a millennium.  She understands him in a way a human companion never can due simply to the scope of the life lived.  This Doctor needs that understanding more than the previous three because he’s the first one to be “born” with knowledge of the War Doctor.  Of what he did, what he had to do.  And while he may never agree with her methods, she is the match for him Clara can never be.   Also, I love that she refers to the transformation from male to female as an “upgrade.”  It answers the question that’s been debated heatedly for years: can the Gallifreyan regenerate as a different gender.  Missy is proof positive that the answer is yes which means casting for future Doctors is now wide open.

Bring on Hayley Attwell.

Even Clara has a few moments in the second episode.  I still don’t like her, but seeing her trapped inside the Dalek… considering we’ve known she ends up a victim of Davros’ children since her first appearance 3 years ago as Matt Smith’s Soufflè Girl… Definitely prickled the hair on the back of my neck.

I’m on board for now, though it likely wouldn’t take much for me to give up until the end of this season when the Cyberman smacks Clara in the bottom on the way out.  If you were waiting to see the reviews, I’ll affirm it’s been worth the time thus far and a hope it will continue to be so.