The second installment of DOCTOR WHO season nine is called “The Witch’s Familiar,” and it picks up where “The Magician’s Apprentice” left off.
Here is a gallery of newly released pics. Some people apparently consider some of them spoiler, although I don’t see anything new here. However, if you’re totally spoiler phobic, then, I guess…. SPOILERS!
“The Witch’s Familiar” premieres tomorrow night at 9 o’clock on BBC America.
Series nine of DOCTOR WHO — the second for Peter Capaldi as the 12th Doctor and the last for Jenna Coleman as Clara — returns tonight with the first installment of a two-parter, “The Magician’s Apprentice.”
This is the official episode 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.”
“The Magician’s Apprentice” airs tonight at 9 on BBC America.
The BBC has released a second trailer to help get us psyched for the return of DOCTOR WHO just barely more than a month from now!
“Same old, same old — just the Doctor and Clara Oswald in the TARDIS!” Indeed!
There appears to be a lot of new aliens and monsters in this forthcoming season — but also another appearance from the Daleks. (I would really like to see an entire season without the bloodthirsty pepperpots but, alas, they are to be too popular to exile.)
This season will also feature a dragon and Maisie Williams, but there is no truth to the rumor that there will be a full-blown GAME OF THRONES crossover.
In case you’ve forgotten the season’s first trailer, you can see it again here.
The Doctor (Peter Capaldi) and Clara (Jenna Coleman) will be back in action in just a few short weeks, when the series returns on Sept. 19 at 9 p.m. on BBC America.
Only two episodes into his run, Peter Capaldi already has a classic episode under his belt with “Into the Dalek,” a truly ripping yarn! Yes, that may sound like too much praise, but I’ve been thinking about it, and I really think this story stands among the best Dalek tales ever.
Viewers also saw more of this new 12th Doctor – and the view is not entirely reassuring. This is a much (much) more gruff and short-tempered Doctor. He’s very (very) funny. And, most surprisingly, I really do not know if this incarnation likes Clara (Jenna Coleman). He acts like he can barely stand her one second, but relies on her the next. The Doctor/assistant relationship has been deftly and completely reimagined, and that has introduced a palpable sense of uncertainty.
Tonight’s episode, “Into the Dalek,” written by Phil Ford and Steven Moffat, features the first appearance of Samuel Anderson as the new recurring character Danny Pink, who is a teacher with Clara (Jenna Coleman) at Coal Hill School. But, perhaps even more significantly, it pits the 12th Doctor (Peter Capaldi) against his most persistent foes, the merciless Daleks, for the first time!
Executive producer Moffat has been dropping some pretty big hints in print about the storyline. For instance, he told Doctor Who Magazine:
What’s the most dangerous place you put the Doctor, we wondered. And then we put him there. Oh, it’s a proper blockbuster, this episode. So many explosions that Peter Capaldi came in on his day off to watch the Daleks blowing up.
The BBC is treating DOCTOR WHO fans to a plethora of promotional video material to mark the 12th Doctor’s first adventure with his mortal enemies, the Daleks!
Brief Teaser:
The Doctor has his most interesting patient yet, eh?
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The BBC has released a bunch of promotional images and an official synopsis for the second episode of series eight, “Into the Dalek,” airing Saturday night on BBC America.
Finally, after a couple of all-too-brief teasers, we get a full trailer for the new season of DOCTOR WHO, starring Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman — but it’s still too short!
So, now we know for sure we can look forward to the return of the Daleks, more dinosaurs (this time, not on a spaceship), some new foes and, of course, lots of explosions. But there apparently will be more than a little soul-searching by the Doctor, who wonders if he’s a good man and wants to atone for the mistakes he’s made. This definitely looks like the “darker” season with a more “dangerous” Doctor that we’ve been promised.
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How about a couple of brief yet fun DOCTOR WHO treasures of yesteryear? These video clips are examples of what’s in the archives of British Pathé News and just recently made available to the public at YouTube.
Dalek bookseller circa 1964:
Cyberman and Yeti
I know, I know… all-too-short and quite weird. But that’s what I like about these clips. We fans who weren’t in Britain in the mid-1960s can never truly understand the depths of Dalekmania or places the Doctor’s classic enemies held in the hearts of British children. But I think these videos can begin to hint at it — if you imagine the culture that could give rise to an automated magazine seller in the form of a malevolent pepper pot!
While the end of Matt Smith’s tenure as the 11th Doctor restored Gallifrey and set up the mystery of exactly where the planet is now, don’t be too surprised if the 12th Doctor fails to find his home planet in the eighth series of DOCTOR WHO. Or maybe even the one after that.
Frequent WHO scriptwriter Mark Gatiss (“Cold War”) — who will pen two episodes again this season— suggests a visit to Gallifrey might be a bad idea:
“Every time you go back to Gallifrey, it starts to make the Time Lords a bit too domesticated. I know that’s why Russell T Davies came up with the whole idea of the Doctor being the last one because eventually if you see them so often they become a bit like a bunch of MPs, whereas if you talk about them as this amazing, powerful force, they’re much more exciting.
“I don’t know if I would want to [write a Gallifrey episode]. I think the way the Time Lords were represented in “The End of Time” and “The Day of the Doctor” was very exciting because we’re seeing them in a crisis and they’re trying to come up with different ways of saving themselves.
“But I suppose if the Doctor ever does find Gallifrey again, then we might find out more. Who knows…”
I firmly believe it all comes down to the story. If you have a strong idea for a Gallifrey tale, then tell it; if you’re just looking for an excuse to show an alien planet, go somewhere else, please.
The same goes for anything else: The story must come first. If you have an absolutely killer Dalek story idea, then let’s see it. If not — if you could substitute any other monster without changing the tale appreciably then it’s not a Dalek story — don’t shoehorn the pepperpots in just because.
Read at Joe's 
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