Just waiting on confirmation in print, but apparently Jenna Coleman just confirmed in a radio interview that she is indeed leaving.

And it pisses me off. Joking aside about me wanting Osgood to be the next companion, it pisses me off she's leaving now. Because of one reason: The Christmas Special last Christmas. She had this beautifully written out, this wonderful send-off that would've been remembered for a good long time. Clara, old, having lived a good life saying goodbye to the Doctor for the last time. Needing help with her Cracker like she helped him during the Invasion of Christmas. It was the perfect send-off for Clara. Instead she stayed, did another season, and here she is leaving. I admit, I never liked Clara. I'm hoping this naming the Companion thing dies with her departure (You know. The Girl Who Waited, The Impossible Girl. It can die like "I'm still not Ginger"). But now Clara'll never have that good of an exit as last year and it pisses me off.

Also Osgood, next Companion, make it happen.

Completely agree (well, about the Clara stuff anyway ;) ). I liked both Clara and Jenna but I can't find it in myself to care when she was set up to leave last season so well and then backed out last minute because she changed her mind.

Oh, and it's 100% confirmed now by the way. Can't post the links as I'm on my phone but even the BBC themselves are reporting it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/doctorwho...9-2fad42c46da3

Perfectly fine with this. I like the character, but I'm probably not going to miss her.

Oh look, all this talk about Jenna leaving and she dies in the first episode. And Missy too. For Realsies this time! We promise!

But yeah, I loved this episode. From the first moment I guessed it was Skaro in the beginning I wanted to see where it went. And, after we proved UNIT was utterly incompetent, taking orders from a schoolteacher and then not immediately guessing who was causing the issues, Missy stole the show. Well, her and the Doctor riding a tank, playing a guitar. Well, they both did, until Davros came back in person. Sure, the question that Moffat's asking is one that's been asked before, but it's nice to see it presented again. Especially on that ending scene.

Plus, we got more "Unlimited Rice Pudding". You can never go wrong with "Unlimited Rice Pudding".

Oh, and no Oswin. Sorry Sentai :p

I wonder if they'll ever get Martha to come back in for an episode or two? Or even Jack for that matter?

John Barrowman has a busy schedule over in the states with Arrow, I'm guessing, but considering the recent Torchwood audios, it's not as if he doesn't want to do it. And Freems Agyeman is doing a netflix thingy, so who knows...

well that was great opening chapter and i love the little connection to 4th doctor back to the first a[[earance of daveros. where 4th said how do you deal with saving a inocent child who would later grow up becoming a dictator.

I enjoyed it; a great season opener. I’m still having a “fan-girl moment” over that guitar scene. XD

That was so damn good. My jaw damn near hit the floor just before the credits scene and there were at least three more "holy shit!" moments before the end of the episode. Absolutely loved the hell out of this episode.

Also, it was nice to see Moffat keep his word about The Mistress returning with no obvious explanation (although the way she and Clara disintegrated when they were shot looks very familiar). I appreciate that as a throwback to Anthony Ainley returning from certain doom at least twice per year in the 80s.

Man that was a fantastic episode.

I think I'm nicely over my Missy/Master thing now. I'm still not the biggest fan of it but Michelle Gomez is just so perfect in everything she does that I can't dislike her. This episode nicely reeled the insanity back to show that it's still the Doctor's oldest friend under there and it worked really well.

Davros turning up was an incredible surprise, I'm so glad they managed to keep that under wraps before the premiere. Julian Bleach is still great in the role and had a much better dynamic with Capaldi than he did with Tennant. Davros stories like this have been done to death in the expanded fiction but it's always interesting to see how differently people do them.

The multiple types of Dalek being there didn't make a whole lot of sense, but the spectacle of it all was enough to make me overlook it :lol

i agree. i still like the way they used the baker line about saving child that turns in to a dictators what is now doctor saving daveros as a child that turned int o his number one foe

The Master wouldn't be near, anywhere near, as good without Michelle playing her. She's psychotic but you can't help but love her.

And before I forget. Something about last night for me thinking of the Impossible Astronaut. He was regeneration 12, the last one. So.. When River shot him why did he start to regenerate? He should've just died.

You know, I never thought about that before. I guess some would try to wave it off as "maybe he looks like he regenerates before dying" but that seems like a genuine plot hole.

Right? He should've just dropped dead but she even went into this long explination about why he died. Because he was killed while regenerating, and she of all people should've known better.

Wasn't he the Tesalecta at the time? That could explain it

That's no excuse for shitty writing.

BBC posted The Magicians Apprentice, so for those of you that missed it here you go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXKbqtWnvFI&app=desktop

Interesting that they did that. Wonder if it'll stay up as long as we get it on the BBC iPlayer over here.

The show never needs an excuse to have the Special Weapons Dalek show up.

Also, not how the series 5 Daleks are still nowhere to be seen. They started pretending that never happened fast. :lol

Fun theory version: the Doctor had the fake body appear to regenerate because he was that committed to the lie that he was only #11.

Real explanation: because Chris Eccleston hadn't refused to participate in the 50th Anniversary yet, therefore requiring the creation of a new Doctor to fill in the role of the guy who ended the Time War.

True (I like that they gave its neck glowing speech lights too), I was just amused by the fact there was a renegade Dalek a few steps away from it :lol

And if I wanted to go full-on nerd, original appearance Daleks can't travel on outside surfaces. But then they don't have glowing blue eyes either so whatever :lol

So when do we see the darker ace fight in new who

Daleks being just as nostalgic as the fans. Revisiting the old favourites and all that :)

I thought the various Daleks appearing on Skaro were them being recalled home, knowing the Doctor was coming and knowing they could destroy the TARDIS and take over the universe. Like a victory celebration.

Guess that kind of makes sense for some of them.
The only real issue (and I say "issue" in the loosest of senses, because I don't actually care and just enjoy talking Dalek variants) is that the Special Weapons Dalek and the grey one on the upper level were on opposing sides in a civil war, so wouldn't be getting on :p

I would assume that the Time War forced the Imperial and Renegade Daleks to put aside their differences and work together.

Maybe it's more budgetary. Maybe they couldn't afford to make newer Daleks so they just brought whatever was in storage?

Not exactly something they're capable of though is it? :lol
I can believe the renegades ended up winning and integrating the imperial Daleks into them though.

It was. Apparently a lot of them were borrowed from the Doctor Who Experience.

I think I'm gonna have to watch this episode at least once more to get a proper feel for it. I didn't think it was as strong as last week's, but it was still pretty great.

The Good:

- It's kind of shame Davros was pretending, because those scenes between him and the Doctor were really strong. Not a fan of the eye thing, but the whole exchanges about having a race and him congratulating the Doctor were delivered brilliantly.

- Missy was really fun again, I've warmed up to her a lot more over these last two episodes than I did last season.

- Clara getting into the Dalek. I'm always a fan of seeing that crop up again.

The Bad:

- Oh my god the Daleks were portrayed AWFULLY in this episode. I can kind of overlook it a bit here since it was primarily a Davros episode, but it just adds to the evidence that the Dalek stories took a serious nosedive in quality when he became a regular (apart from Remembrance, which he's barely in anyway sooo...). Everyone just rang rings around them and they didn't do anything REMOTELY threatening here.

- Sonic glasses. Yeah.

Hey look. Missy and Clara aren't dead. What a shocker.

So, this continued the great streak from last week. The Daleks didn't really do much, but whenever Davros is in an episode, they do usually get given a side seat to the guy. And Davros stole the show. Sure, it was obvious he was scheming, but Julian Bleache put so much emotion into it, it was hard not to feel moved. And Missy continued to be awesome. Mostly when she was pushing Clara into sewers. Especially when she was pushing Clara into sewers.

And I have to admit, I did not expect the sewers to come back in the end. Good on you Moffat. Now let's see how much you can annoy the fans by digging up the Doctor's history againthis year :p

EDIT Oh yeah, and I agree with you on the Sonic Glasses, Zeo. For some reason I doubt they'll appear again. For a start, the Jungle Fury rangers are probably going to sue

i have to agree with mosst of thoes point it just that also saw it coming. i think for a two part the first part was the stronger half.

also Sonic glasses. Yeah.

They were in next week's preview :lol Well, he might not use them but he was wearing them at least

The approach really reminds of the “old days” for some reason. I like it. (^_^)

If Moffat sticks with it, I say we go find him and *censored for web safety* :lol

Oh man, that was fun. Missy was in top form, but the real highlight was all the scenes with Capaldi and Davros. I mean, yeah, obvious trap was obvious, but all the bits of them interacting were absolutely riveting.

Should probably post this even though I'm sure everyone's read it by now:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/doctorwho...4-f1b6567260f1

I don't think I even need to point how, out of all the endless Doctor Who spin-off ideas, this is probably among the ones people least wanted to see.

It's already not got Clara in it, so I'm just waiting to see if it'll have the kid from Kill the Moon in it just to get a sense of how bad it will be.

Eh, I'm hopeful. I'd rather have some more Torchwood or a Bernice Summerfield type thing, but it's got Patrick Ness helping with it, and I like his stuff.
Honestly, I'm more surprised it's going to be on BBC 3. I thought that was getting canned?

It's going online only I believe.