Doctor Who Season 09, 'The Magician's Apprentice' review: Comfortable Capaldi is a spectacle to watch

Doctor Who is back for the ninth season and this time we can see that Peter Capaldi is more in his element than in the previous season.

'The Magician's Apprentice' is the perfect start to the new season. You have new villains, an arch-nemesis and an interesting cliffhanger, with the cherry on top being the inner dilemma faced by the Doctor of whether he is a good man or a bad one.

At the beginning of the episode, Doctor meets the creator of Dalek, Davros, on an unsuspecting attempt to save a boy from a field full of hand-mines which are actual hand-mines with eyeballs in their palms.

Cut to Earth, we have UNIT and Clara looking for the missing Doctor. This is where we see Clara in charge of herself and her surroundings. Not bogged down by the complaining boyfriend, Clara is trying to solve the mystery of frozen planes in the air.

Jenna Coleman's Clara is more confident this season. She can teach 9th grade and come to help London on a bike, and be the point person for UNIT. But this sudden change gets dull after a few minutes in the episode. She tries to have a showdown with Missy (the ever so magnificent Michele Gomez) but that's a KO from Missy, I must say.

Apart from Capaldi, Michelle Gomez is the biggest draw of this episode. We knew that Missy was disintegrated in the last season and therefore, the spectacular return leaves a deeper impact and you want to see more of her. Michelle Gomez wrings out every single drop of quirk and comedy out of her dialogues and therefore, the menace of Missy's doing strikes you harder than you anticipate.

Missy has received the confession dial of the Doctor. The one a Time Lord sends when he is dying. So she needs to find him. These two 'Pretty Women' of the Doctor find him clowning in medieval England, wearing sunglasses, paying electronic guitar, and teaching the subjects new words like 'Dude!'

Peter Capaldi's Doctor now looks more in his skin than ever before. His Doctor now knows how to have fun. His Doctor can have funny give-and-takes with Davros and still hit you hard with some real dark patches.

Here are a few highlights of the show - 

1. Brand new opening credit with the ever present eyebrows

2. The new villain is CGI mastery! This could be your new boogie man that can crawl onto your bed.

3. Clara is the puppy in Doctor and Missy's relationship

4. 'Pretty Woman' on electronic 'Axe' by the Doctor

5. Clara and Missy form a team to save the Doctor.

6. Davros made the Daleks, but 'Who' made Davros. (So much foreshadowing!)

7. We have new shiny Daleks 

Showrunner Steven Moffat started the season with a bang. With Hettie MacDonald he has already given us a skin-crawling episode 'Blink'. Moffat is back scavenging from the original series. There are more references and an actual appearance from season one of original series. The Doctor is changing. Internet is already abuzz with the sonic screwdriver rants.

Stay tuned, we are all in for a great ride.

Doctor Who airs on FX every Saturday at 9 pm and Sunday at 11 pm.