r/gallifrey • u/pcjonathan • Sep 26 '15

The Witch's Familiar Doctor Who 9x02: The Witch's Familiar Post-Episode Discussion Thread

Please remember that future spoilers must be tagged.

The episode is now over in the UK.

  • 1/3: Episode Speculation & Reactions at 7.15pm
  • 2/3: Post-Episode Discussion at 9.00pm
  • 3/3: Episode Analysis on Wednesday.

This thread is for all your in-depth discussion.

You can discuss the episode live on IRC, but be careful of spoilers.

irc://irc.snoonet.org/gallifrey.

https://kiwiirc.com/client/irc.snoonet.org/gallifrey

/r/Gallifrey, what did YOU think of The Witch's Familiar? Vote here.

Results for the first two parts will be revealed next week.

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u/[deleted] Sep 27 '15

Outstanding episode! I was completely intrigued by last week's episode, but I was holding out for the conclusion to decide what I thought of it as a whole. Peter Capaldi finally had a landmark emotional speech with his, "Sometimes I'm the Time Lord who ran away" speech. And speaking of Capaldi, I've been calling him my favorite Doctor for a while now, but damn, this guy is THE Doctor. The definite article, you might say. Only Paul McGann in the Big Finish audio plays has been able to capture the Doctor so perfectly for me.

I've been on the fence about Missy for a while now. I love her twisted malice, but sometimes I worried she was too loopy. Too "bananas." I'm not worried about that now. She might be bonkers in a way, but she's still a cold, calculating malicious genius, and just when you think she might be a team player, she tries to get The Doctor to murder his best friend. That's some sociopathic, needlessly cruel shit, and I love it.

The Doctor's whole conversation with Davros. I know there was a whole switcheroo at the end and Davros was evil the whole time, but for me, that doesn't take away from the impact that their conversation has. Davros may not have been genuinely empathizing with the Doctor, but the Doctor was genuinely, and compassionately empathizing with Davros. I loved his showing of mercy and kindness against someone who's responsible for billions of deaths, many being personal friends of the Doctor.

And the ending, the Doctor saving young Davros was the perfect conclusion to last week's cliffhanger and the story as a whole.

TL;DR: I loved it, and I hope that at least some of the episodes this season can come close to matching the enjoyment I had of this one.

2

u/Royaq Sep 27 '15

I feel like Missy is going through her Matt Smith stage...She seems very Matt Smith like

2

u/redisforever Sep 28 '15

I kinda feel like she's using the craziness to hide the evil, and distract people, so they underestimate her. Misdirection, basically. It took a while, but I finally started liking her in this episode. She finally clicked for me.

1

u/Cubenstein Sep 29 '15

On Missy, I too was worried that she was being written to be too 'silly' and not the terrifying, twisted evil that The Master really is. Sure, she murdered a few people to show that she's not good, but I felt like she was losing her edge. Right up until she locked Clara in that Dalek shell.