Doctor Who: 10 WTF Moments From The Magician's Apprentice
"Unlimited rice pudding!"
Well that was quite the start, wasn’t it? Many shows, Doctor Who included, choose to ease fans in gently to the start of a new series. The Magician’s Apprentice, the first episode of series 9, blasted onto our screens like the TARDIS in hyperdrive ("pardon my sci-fi"), and didn’t let up throughout its 45-minute run-time.
Peter Capaldi is back for his sophomore year as the Doctor, and it’s clear from the get-go just how settled he is in the role now, and having the character back front and centre makes his performance all the more enjoyable. He's very much in the driving seat of the TARDIS, and that can only mean the show's headed in an excellent direction.
He was ably supported by Clara, played by the soon-to-depart Jenna Coleman (with support being the operative word there), and of course the returning Michelle Gomez as Missy, who is back from the dead and thankfully still delightfully insane.
It was a great opening episode, building on the strong finish to 8, and perfectly sets up the rest of the series. As always with Doctor Who there were plenty of moments that were wonderful, weird, and left you wondering W…T…F?! These are the best of them from The Magician’s Apprentice.
Important notice from this point on: spoilers, sweetie.
10. Hand Mines
The cold open for the episode was absolutely brilliant, setting up everything that was to come over the next three-quarters-of-an-hour, but also thoroughly entertaining in its own right.
While it was the latter stages of this that had major ramifications on the episode as a whole, the way it started was every bit as chilling as you would want from an episode of Doctor Who. A solider tells a small boy to be careful of land mines, before disappearing into the earth.
Then, a hand shoots him from out of it, dirty and with an eye in the middle of the palm, and it’s quickly followed by countless others. The ‘hand mines’ are a super-creepy villain, one that really feel like a Who monster, even if their appearance here is fleeting. It was an excellent way to kick things off, and hopefully we’ll be seeing more of them in the future.