DOCTOR WHO - VICTORY OF THE DALEKS
In which: The Doctor and Amy travel back to WWII and discover that Churchill has a brand new weapon that could win him the war. They are the Ironsides, as invented by Professor Bracewell, metal machines with powerful weaponry. Except they are a kind of pepperpot shape, glide along the floor and have a sucker sticking out the front of them... yes, it's the Daleks.
What did I think?: I know this is a common theme for these reviews, but I liked it. Although it would appear that I am much more alone on this than on previous episodes as a lot of people, both in real life and on Gallifrey Base (Not that I'm saying that people on there aren't real, but you know what I mean) appear to have significant complaints about this episode.
But not me.
Come on, how can you not love an episode that contains *deep breath* Daleks, Churchill, Spitfires in space, The Doctor uppercuting a professor, NEW Daleks, an android and so much more...
Let's start at the beginning. The first ten or fifteen minutes are brilliant, atmospheric and just plain confusing as you get the Daleks moving around, being nice, obeying orders... and bringing cups of tea.
After the events of Journey's End (in which all the Daleks in the universe were destroyed for at least the third time in four years), one ship escaped (as usual) and that's the ship that ends up there in WWII. The Daleks on board found a progenitor (Spelling? Anyone?) which makes more Daleks, but since it only makes true Daleks, and the Daleks from Journey's End are rush jobs made by Davros, it won't recognise them. So it won't work unless someone proves they are the Daleks. So they built Bracewell as a robot, so he could pretend to have invented the Daleks, so that Churchill would ring the Doctor, so when the Doctor announces loudly "You are the Daleks and I am the Doctor" this testimony allows the progenitor to work and start spitting out new Daleks...
(Wow, I didn't realise how many times I used the word Dalek in the above paragraph until I spellchecked it... incidentally, why doesn't Blogger's spellchecker recognise Dalek? It must surely be a real word by now...)
Wow, that's complicated. At least it's complicated when you try and boil it down to one paragraph. But it is a nice change for the Daleks initial plan when they realise they're down to just a few left is NOT to try and invade/destroy a planet/the universe, but instead to make more Daleks. And the best thing about this?
*MAJOR SPOILER ALERT
(I MEAN IT, IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE EPISODE THEN LOOK AWAY NOW)
DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU!
The Daleks win.
Well, mostly.
They survive, which in NuWho is a HUGE leap forward. At last we no longer have to spend the beginning of every Dalek episode going "But you were all dead? How did you survive??". They survive because they make the Doctor choose between saving Earth or destroying their ship. And the Doctor, of course, chooses Earth.
In this brief outline I am, of course, not doing justice to some of the other fine areas of the episode, such as Spitfires dogfighting with a Dalek ship in outer space!! Which was great.
Now, I'm going to address some of the criticisms I have heard about this episode...
The New Multi-Coloured Daleks are rubbish and plasticky - Yeah, they look different. But the more I look at them, the more I've decided I like them. They lend an air of variety to the Dalek race, and the fact that they have different job titles means that we can see an expansion and evolution of the Dalek race. Plus, hopefully, they'll never be stupid enough to all end up in the same place so they can be wiped out again...
The WWAF who's boyfriend/husband was killed was pointless - Yes, she was, if you expected her to be a subplot. But to symbolise the carnage that was going on as the war continued, to show that the Daleks weren't the only enemy? In that instance it worked. (I grant you, it was a little underwritten/heavy handed, but there you go). Plus she was only onscreen for about 3 minutes, so why focus so much on her?
How did they talk Bracewell out of exploding? This is the thing that's annoyed me the most. People complaining how the way the Doctor and Amy talked Bracewell out of going bang was 'unrealistic.' Unrealistic? Excuse me? By that point we've gone through Spitfires in space, Daleks, and god knows how much other unrealistic stuff, not forgetting the fact the whole show is based around the 'unrealistic' premise of a time-travelling alien who's spaceship looks like a 60's London police box! Gain a little perspective! Since we don't understand the bionics/electronics of creating the perfectly functioning human robot, it's hard to judge. I thought that since he had human memories and human instincts that he was able to calm himself down, and by doing that and embracing his humanity (and therefore his lust for life), he was able to control his robotic/electronic safeguards and they stopped the bomb.
How did they get the gravity shields on the Spitfires in time?
Dramatic Necessity.
The characterisation of the Doctor and Amy seems dull and uninteresting
Hi, here's a crazy pill, but no more for you, you've already had enough. Dull and uninteresting? We've got a Doctor who has such violent mood swings that he's almost as bad as the sixth Doctor, and a companion who has a complete love for him because she's dreamed about him for 14 years!
Also - Amy doesn't remember the Daleks? Has this got anything to do with the mysterious cracks? (I know what my money's on...)
The Good: Have I mentioned Spitfires in space?? :P The acting continues to be stellar, with Matt, Karen, Ian McNeice as Churchill and Bill Patterson as Bracewell all being superb. The new Daleks winning, which means that we can have new Dalek stories in future - and their new ranks allowing for a Dalek society to grow again.
The Bad: Yes, the new Daleks are slightly plastic-looking, and the Eleventh Doctor does seem to be developing a preference for leaving his companion behind (can you develop a preference over only two shows? Not sure...)
Conclusion?: 9/10. THERE WERE SPITFIRES IN SPACE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!
Next Week: The return of the character I've had the most ambivalence about in the whole of NuWho - River Song...
9 comments:
What Doctor Who has always been great at is having a really ridiculous premise for a solution, and then explaining it in a confusing and yet strangely plausible way! That's one of the reasons I hated this episode (Bracewell exploding being the prime example). Because stuff just happened with no attempt for explanation at all. That's why I disliked the Bracewell bit. Not because it was unrealistic, but because it was inconsistent with the rules that Doctor Who has set for itself.
That and "ONE SURVIVED!!!" One always bloody survives! It feels like such a cop out.
And Spifires in Space... "Dramatic Necessity" SO does not satisfy that one! I think that was the point where I cracked and said "How is it possible to make science fiction so ridiculous?!" T'was a very weak excuse for some sub-par CGI and sub-par writing, though the entire episode was ripe with that one.
And Churchill was acted well but otherwise not done much justice. The WWAF officer was a let down, I understood the reasons for having her but after she first spoke to Winston I thought it was going to be different. Churchill finding out what was upsetting one of his staff and then making them feel better, despite running a war at the same time, and thus showcasing his awesomeness. I was a bit let down when it just turned out to be "Oh yeah. She's crying. Remember war sucks".
I agree with you on the Doctor and Amy's relationship though. I like that bit. Did you find the Doctor to be more..."Tennanty" then usual in this one?
Bracewell was not inconsistent with the rules of Dr Who - he was a personification of Descartes' "I think therefore I am". As soon as he used his human memories, he became human - therefore not explodeybangman.
Yeah - One surviving always bugs me - which is why it's nice the Daleks escaped :)
Why was Spitfires in Space ridiculous? And I would argue against the sub-par writing (and the CGI looked OK to me, but I know better than to argue such things with you :P )
What's everyones obsession with the damn WWAF woman????
And yeah - he seemed a little "Tennanty", but not too much. I kind of like it - it's as if he's still finding his feet...
It was inconsistent in that there was no attempt at an explanation. And he is a machine, you can see all the wiring. If just because he has emotions and he "convinces himself" that he is human then he somehow 'becomes human'...well that reminds me of the end of season 3. Where the Doctor essentially "became magic and fixed everything". That's the sort of thing I was glad we were rid of RTD for!
All they needed to do with Bracewell was have 30 seconds where the Doctor said: "these androids I've seen them before. The programming routines are controlled by the posotronic neural network, if we were to disrupt the foundations of that network by, say, convincing him he is human, then this should cause a system reset and disarm the bomb".
^ I mean it doesn't have to be scientifically accurate or anything like that, they just have to make an effort.
Spitfires in Space just suspended my suspension of disbelief too far. Like piloting the Titanic over London. I wouldn't have minded Spitfires in Space if they were done slowly. "Why don't we have these damn gravity bubbles equipped yet?" "Sorry sir, this technology is very new to us, it'll take some time." I felt that the very fact it was rushed through for "dramatic necessity" as you put it is the very reason it seemed unbelievable in the context of the Who universe.
The WWAF woman wasn't a big deal for me, just a bit of a let down :-)
And I wasn't particularly bothered by Matt's tennantness is this episode. I just hope he goes back to his version of the Doctor next week :)
ONE MORE THING:
Did you notice that the solution to taking down the Daleks in the first place this time (ie: Spitfires in Space) was not actually the Doctor's idea at all? It was all Amy and Bracewell!
This isn't necessarily a bad thing of course. It was just a very interesting direction to go in. It's always the Doctor that fixes everything, and yet here he caused the problem by accidentally giving testimony, and then couldn't come up with a way to fix it himself.
RE: The Doctor not coming up with the solution - I did notice that. The Eleventh Doctor seems a lot more fallible than the Tenth.. which I like :)
I thought the episode was great, despite the fact that the new Daleks look like the power rangers.
I will agree with Luke on the Bracewell thing, but it was necessary for the plot, you can't create a new breed of Dalek then destroy them right away, they needed a backup plan.
You can't even mention spitfires in space being ridiculous considering over the past few years we've had: 3D glasses used to find void stuff, the Doctor somehow surviving a perilous drop through a skylight after jumping out of a spaceship, the almost total destruction of reality using Planets as a strangely magic set of marbles, and Rose.
And there was nothing wrong with the WWAF officer, she was barely in it! Complaining about her is like complaining that a girl has given you a blowjob for a solid hour but took a small 3 second break to catch her breath.
-Az
My word. Az and I agree on something. The world is at risk...
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