Paramahansa Yogananda once said that “Death is only an experience through which you are meant to learn a great lesson: you cannot die.” This statement, uttered by a being who passed eleven years before Doctor Who first appeared, would certainly apply to the show and the overall treatment of death on the program.
After all, this is the show where the protagonist is a being with what may be an unlimited number of regenerations at this point. Numerous characters have ‘died’ only to come back later on. Rory died often enough, and subsequently returned, to the point where he was essentially the Doctor Who version of Kenny from South Park. Someone trade in his centurion armor for an orange parka!
Now, after The Magician’s Apprentice, the Doctor is faced with what appears to be the death of both Clara and Missy. Exterminated by the Daleks, it would seem as though their fate is sealed, especially after the rumors that Clara would be killed off during this season. But to take out the Doctor’s best frenemy (I hate myself for using that word) and his companion at the same time? Ah Davros, you really know how to get the Doctor where it would hurt.
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But wait! This is Doctor Who, where death is simply a matter of getting a spot of tea and grabbing a bite to eat. Somehow, someway, the Doctor will be able to not only rescue his TARDIS, which was also seemingly disintegrated by the Daleks, but to save the two people that are closest to him. It is, quite simply, what the Doctor does.
What is likely to happen is that the Doctor, playing up that ‘magician’ persona that he adopted while playing guitar atop a yellow tank in medieval times, will find a way to trick Davros and the Daleks into thinking that they have emerged victorious, only to fail at the end. Missy and Clara will be back, because if there is one being more difficult to kill off than Rory, it may well be whatever incarnation of the Master is presently around. And Clara? Well, would they really kill off a companion in the first episode?
Oh yes, it was a shock to see Clara and Missy both get exterminated in the first episode of the new series of Doctor Who. But let us not furrow our brows and gnash our teeth in concern – history says they will be back shortly.