Trivia / Doctor Who S35 E1 "The Magician's Apprentice"

• The Cast Showoff: Peter Capaldi is an avid electric guitar player and a former member of a punk band. He went out and got an electric guitar for this story, as seen in a Vine with him at a guitar shop. Fittingly, this story debuts his Doctor's guitar and becomes one of his trademarks.
• Cast the Expert: This is the first of several episodes in Series 9 and 10 to show the Doctor playing guitar, a character facet introduced due to Peter Capaldi's real-life playing ability.
• Lying Creator: In interviews prior to the start of Series 9 (not to mention Series 8), Capaldi was quoted as saying that there would be no flirting between the Doctor and Clara. Notwithstanding his contradictory remarks in the August 2015 interview with Wil Wheaton (in which he directly said the Doctor and Clara were in an old-fashioned romance), one of the very first things the Doctor does in this episode when he is reunited with Clara... is flirt with her (something Clara herself flags as out of character, although there are additional moments of this nature later in the season).
• Role Reprise: Once again, Julian Bleach plays Davros.
• Throw It In!: Michelle Gomez confirmed on Twitter that her tickling a nearby Dalek's bumps when referring to the TARDIS as "the dog's unmentionables" was improvised.
• What Could Have Been: It was revealed by Russell T Davies in a 2020 Doctor Who Magazine interview he held with Steven Moffat that the two had been discussing the plans for what would become "The Magician's Apprentice" in 2014 as Moffat was pushing hard for Davies to write a script for the original pitch of Davros being held on trial. The two have noted that very little of what they had discussed made it into the final story.
• Word of Saint Paul: The actor playing Bors stated on Twitter that he believes the real Bors was unconscious in the castle while a "simulcron" did the work.

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