Poor Bors. Do you remember Bors? He was the beardy, medieval guy in The Magician’s Apprentice that the Doctor challenged to an ‘axe’ fight. He seemed pretty alright then – before it was revealed a few scenes later that he was actually a Dalek agent, eye stalk and all.


As one fan raises in Doctor Who Magazine this month, however, this development proved a tad confusing. For just when – and how – did Bors change sides? And if he was in league with the Daleks all along, then why didn’t he just give Colony Sarff a call to let him know that the Doctor is partying in1138? Well, Steven Moffat has answered.

“Bors wasn’t an agent all along,” he writes, “he was a perfectly innocent helper to the Doctor. But when Colony Sarff sent a snake agent to wrap round his neck, that snake bit him. Sarff’s venom is full of the Dalek conversion nanogenes that we saw in Asylum of the Daleks. From that point on – but only then – Bors was a Dalek agent.

Even if this wasn’t explained on screen, that makes sense. In the American prequel for The Magician’s Apprentice, The Doctor’s Meditation, we see a bit more of the Doctor’s 1138 procrastination, including his budding, very genuine-seeming friendship with Bors. (You can watch it here.)

Elsewhere in the magazine, Moffat explains why Davros is a villain like no other, the VFX of series 9 are broken down and there is an extensive preview of Zygon two-parter The Zygon Invasion / The Zygon Inversion. All good stuff.


Doctor Who Magazine 492 is out now.