Series 9, Episode 2 | Part 2 of 2 | First broadcast: 26 September 2015 | Writer: Steven Moffat | Director: Hettie MacDonald
Cast
- Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor
- Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald
- Michelle Gomez as Missy
- Jami Reid-Quarrell as Colony Sarff
- Julian Bleach as Davros
- Joey Price as the Boy (young Davros)
- Nicholas Briggs as the Voice of the Daleks
Summary
Believing Missy and Clara destroyed, the Doctor remains on Skaro to confront the dying Davros, who is wired into every Dalek on the planet for life support. Missy and Clara, in fact very much alive, make their way into the sewers beneath the Dalek city, where Clara is forced to disguise herself inside a captured Dalek casing to sneak back in, only to discover that speaking inside it reduces all her words to “Exterminate.” Davros tempts the Doctor with an opportunity to wipe out every Dalek using the very cables sustaining him, but the Doctor instead offers Davros compassion and a measure of his own regeneration energy so the dying creator can see one last sunrise. The energy proves to be a trap for the Doctor, however, surging back through the cables to revive every Dalek on Skaro, including the ancient and insane ones in the sewers below. As the Dalek city is destroyed and Missy and Clara escape amid the chaos, the Doctor realizes what he must do: travel back to the battlefield of the first episode and rescue young Davros from the deadly handmines after all, finally answering his own decades-old dilemma with an act of mercy.
Interesting Facts
- The episode features the return of several classic Dalek variants, including the Special Weapons Dalek from 1988’s “Remembrance of the Daleks,” and stages a direct callback to the original 1963 serial “The Daleks,” in which a companion likewise hid inside a Dalek casing.
- Davros references the destruction of the Doctor’s original sonic screwdriver in the Fifth Doctor era, tying the loss of the Doctor’s classic gadget (replaced only by “sonic sunglasses” this series) into the ongoing mythology.
- The episode heavily mirrors Davros and the Fourth Doctor’s philosophical debate from “Genesis of the Daleks,” including Davros again asking “Are you ready to be a god?”
- Missy reveals how she survived being shot by the Brigadier at the end of the previous series’ finale “Death in Heaven,” resolving a cliffhanger left open since 2014.
- Michelle Gomez’s performance as Missy received widespread critical acclaim, and the episode holds an unusually strong 89% score on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics highlighting the “protracted dialogue scenes” between the Doctor and Davros as a series highlight.
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