After eighteen months of doing this on a daily basis, it becomes increasingly difficult to find something clever or engaging to say. Especially at eleven thirty at night when my bed is calling. So let's talk Doctor Who and get this over with so I can get to bed.

The Witch's Familiar

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

Today's episode opens by explaining how Clara and Missy survived their inescapable demise at the end of the previous episode (teleportation), and then spends most of the story with Clara and Missy paired together on one track while the Doctor and Davros bond over old age. On that front, it has one of my all-time favorite bits of business, as the Doctor slowly awakens from being stunned while Davros gloats over him.

I hope you are grateful. It wasn't easy to procure. And very nearly unique, of course. You should feel privileged. The only other chair on Skaro.

Oh, that Davros. If he ever gets out of the Genocide business, he has a potential stand-up career ahead of him. Except, I mean, that he can't stand up. Ba-dump-bump! I'll be hear all night, tip your waitress, and try the veal.

I joke, but this really is a well done story and Peter Capaldi gives a powerhouse performance in the scenes where he genuinely contemplates the possibility that Davros is deserving of mercy. Of course the whole thing turns out to be a ploy by Davros to get the Doctor to give up some regeneration energy, but then the Doctor does a Very Clever Thing that causes the entire Dalek empire on Skaro to be overwhelmed and destroyed by rotting sewage. So, not really the obvious outcome.

But the story emphatically shows that the alien, off-putting persona that pervaded the Doctor last season has been dispensed with. In its place is a character that truly lives up to the infamous Craig Ferguson description: "...the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism." This is the Doctor I had hoped for when Capaldi was cast, and it is such a relief for him to have finally arrived.

Ok, it's late, I have nothing profound to say. Maybe tomorrow. (But I doubt it.)

STATS:

Doctor(s): Twelfth
Companion(s): Clara Oswald
Episode(s): The Witch's Familiar
Steps Walked: 7,592 today, 3,443,075 total
Distance Walked: 4.07 miles today, 1,799.77 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 0 today, 6,579 total
Sit-ups Completed: 0 today, 929 total
Weight: 247.28 lbs (five day moving average), net change -60.02 lbs