Board Thread:Whoniverse Discussion/@comment-24121492-20150919193757/@comment-15395126-20150920023634

This was definitely the best premiere yet, as far as I'm concerned! I loved seeing Missy and Davros again, and even though the plot for this episode was leaked several months ago, I still enjoyed every moment of it! I have to say that the only thing I found "surprising" about this episode was Bors being a Dalek-puppet; the funniest part to me was how Missy chose to announce herself to UNIT. Writing-wise, I had to enjoy Moffat's use of puns when the Doctor made his entrance, as well as the epic quotes this episode churned out.

My predictions for next week:
 * The events of S9E1 were indeed a trap; the Doctor will kill young Davros, setting a larger chain of events in motion.
 * Alternatively, he doesn't kill young Davros and was instead shouting "Exterminate!" at something else which we haven't seen yet.
 * Missy and Clara will come back, as they were not exterminated in the traditional sense; their bodies did not collapse lifelessly to the floor, but they vanished.
 * The specifics of the trap in this episode are as follows: Davros is dying and needs the Doctor to save him. He knows the Doctor will not willingly do so, so he sends the Doctor back to the ancient past. Davros knows the Doctor will kill his younger self in a blind rage induced by the deaths of Missy and, more so, Clara. However, killing young Davros will, as I said earlier, set a terrible chain of events in motion; the Doctor realizes what he's done when he has come back to his senses and it is too late. The only way to undo the Doctor's mistake is for him to somehow use his regenerative energy to bring present day-Davros back to life.
 * I recognize that there is a hole in this theory: if Davros is killed in the past, this will erase both him and the Daleks from the future/present. Even so, the US "Next Time" trailer for S9E2 shows thousands of Daleks rising into the sky. This is either in triumph or to attack something that is a threat to them.

What I love about this pair of episodes is how it seems to reveal the Doctor as the one who "made Davros," thus he made the Daleks, his own worst enemy. As for what's going on when he touches those wires surrounding Davros, I have no idea what will happen…

I'm not well-versed on Classic Who, which this series seems to emulate, format-wise. Is it usual for two-parters like this to link to an overarching plot, or are they standalone? I don't know what could possibly happen in the future of this season if the events of S9E1/E2 impact the entirety of Series 9…