With the emergence of a new Doctor it was only a matter of time before he came face to eye-stalk with his oldest, most dangerous foe; they wasted no time here, having them emerge in the second episode as the question is raised, can there be such a thing as a good Dalek?
In a non-specified bit of space and time a resistance fighter is on the run from the Daleks when the Doctor saves her, he takes her back to her fellow soldiers who reveal to the Doctor they have a broken Dalek they want him to try and repair; why would they want to save a thing that can kill them without effort? Because this Dalek wants the other Daleks to die. After a quick trip back to earth to pick up Clara, they and a small team of soldiers are shrunk down to a minute size and venture inside the Dalek where they must figure out how to fix it and why it has changed the way it has.
This is a very solid episode and sets a great tone for how Capaldi’s Doctor responds to his greatest enemy and also how he deals with the death of people helping him. Whereas David Tennant or Matt Smith would try their hardest to save everyone even if it meant sacrificing themselves to do it, Capaldi is willing to let people die if it means he can carry on and save more lives. The needs of the many and all that...
Clara is similarly good here; The Doctor asks her early on if he’s a good man, she says she doesn’t know. The Doctor has brought her with him to act as his conscience, since he doesn’t know if he can be trusted to do the right thing. This adds a lot of weight to Clara’s already mixed opinions about the new Doctor and Jenna Coleman plays it wonderfully.
Also worthy of a mention is Nicholas Briggs as the voice of Rusty, The Dalek. Briggs always gives the Daleks suitable menace through the voice modulator and has been doing since day one of the revival, but here, much like in Asylum of the Daleks he adds a real frailty and emotional depth to one of the most alien creatures ever conceived for sci-fi. The speech about witnessing the birth of a star is great stuff.
In a non-specified bit of space and time a resistance fighter is on the run from the Daleks when the Doctor saves her, he takes her back to her fellow soldiers who reveal to the Doctor they have a broken Dalek they want him to try and repair; why would they want to save a thing that can kill them without effort? Because this Dalek wants the other Daleks to die. After a quick trip back to earth to pick up Clara, they and a small team of soldiers are shrunk down to a minute size and venture inside the Dalek where they must figure out how to fix it and why it has changed the way it has.
This is a very solid episode and sets a great tone for how Capaldi’s Doctor responds to his greatest enemy and also how he deals with the death of people helping him. Whereas David Tennant or Matt Smith would try their hardest to save everyone even if it meant sacrificing themselves to do it, Capaldi is willing to let people die if it means he can carry on and save more lives. The needs of the many and all that...
Clara is similarly good here; The Doctor asks her early on if he’s a good man, she says she doesn’t know. The Doctor has brought her with him to act as his conscience, since he doesn’t know if he can be trusted to do the right thing. This adds a lot of weight to Clara’s already mixed opinions about the new Doctor and Jenna Coleman plays it wonderfully.
Also worthy of a mention is Nicholas Briggs as the voice of Rusty, The Dalek. Briggs always gives the Daleks suitable menace through the voice modulator and has been doing since day one of the revival, but here, much like in Asylum of the Daleks he adds a real frailty and emotional depth to one of the most alien creatures ever conceived for sci-fi. The speech about witnessing the birth of a star is great stuff.
However I have a considerable complaint against this episode that stands as a complaint of the series as a whole at the minute. The Daleks are utter wimps. When the show was reintroduced nine years ago the Daleks were established as all but unstoppable, taking down whole armies with ease, but now they’re being killed by machine guns and in a later part of the story they become utter cannon fodder. This was also seen in several parts of Asylum and The Day of the Doctor. It’s hard to take the Daleks seriously as a threat when they can be taken out like ants under a magnifying glass.
That aside this was a good episode, plenty of menace, Capaldi and Coleman giving excellent performances and the writing and direction both carrying a lot of weight behind them too. All in all a well executed Dalek story with an interesting, if at times irritating, take on the great villains.
That aside this was a good episode, plenty of menace, Capaldi and Coleman giving excellent performances and the writing and direction both carrying a lot of weight behind them too. All in all a well executed Dalek story with an interesting, if at times irritating, take on the great villains.