Last week, Davros showed up and wanted the Doctor to visit him during his final days. Turns out it was all a trap and the Daleks got a hold of the TARDIS and plan to destroy it. The Daleks killed Missy and Clara.
On this week's episode, Missy tells Clara a story about the Doctor escape invisible androids. Apparently, both Missy and Clara teleported away while being shot at. They go onto a mission to save the Doctor who is in a standoff with the Daleks. The Doctor wants Clara back. Eventually, during a moment between Davros and the Doctor, Davros poses the idea of the Doctor killing all the Daleks. Once again, the Doctor is in the position to kill every Dalek, much like during the "Genesis of the Daleks" story line.
Meanwhile, Clara and Missy are teaming up and Clara is getting inside a Dalek outfit, which she quickly learns how important emotion is while inside the Dalek suit.
Davros wants to see the sun rise one last time but it dying, so the Doctor offers a little of regeneration energy to him, and Davros turns on him and steals it. The energy starts going into all the Daleks on Skaro, including the ones in the sewers, who turn on the rest of the Daleks.
The Dalek mythos is built on here but in some very different ways. We learn that underneath the city on Skaro is a sewer system for the Daleks. However, the waste contained within the walls of the sewers is actually decaying Daleks, and that knowledge comes in handy later on for Missy. Even in a state of decay, Daleks are still vengeful even against their own time. It's a really well done and bizarre concept that works for the story as well as for the mythos of the alien race.
While Daleks are extremely overused in the new series of Doctor Who, what is done with them here really works well because it's dealing with morality and what is or is not ethical, as Davros gives the Doctor the option to kill off all the Daleks. It's more than just an episode of the Doctor taking on an enemy. It's a smarter episode that may read as slow or dry, but this episode offers up a lot of character development and depth here.
The majority of the episode consists of a conversation between the Doctor and Davros about belonging to a people, protecting your people, and what is right and wrong. It's emotionally gripping to see Davros crying as he asks the Doctor whether he was a good man. It does feel a little bizarre to see these two arch-enemies talk to each other. As many fans would predict, Davros turned on him to steal his energy, to produce the Time Lord/Dalek hybrid.
Finally, Missy is the companion that you will love to hate. At every moment, she's looking for a way to turn on Clara or the Doctor. She's only in it for herself and the moment in the episode where she tries to get the Doctor to shoot the Dalek, which was actually Clara, was a pretty fantastic moment. There is an element of good inside the character and it pops up now and again, but it's weirdly refreshing to see a character on this show that is so self-serving.
There are a couple very minor problems within the episode, but they're more personal problems over anything else. I'm not too keen on the Doctor being able to use his regeneration energy and channeling it.
Overall, this was a fantastic start to this brand new season. Series 8 was an overall bumble of a season, and it's reassuring to see a series kick off with a bang, utilizing a heavily-used villain in a brand new way. Probably the best parts of the episode actually involved the character arc for Missy though, as the played by her own set of rules. On top of that, there's these great moments between The Doctor and Davros which actually make the viewer feel compassion for him, but alas, he's still evil to his core.
Questions of the Week:
- Although it seems most of the Daleks are destroyed, the survivors now have Time Lord energy inside of them. How dangerous will they be after this story?
- What's coming down the line for Missy?
Fun moments of the week:
- The Doctor moving around in Davros' chair.
- Missy poking Davros in his third eye.