The Daleks Finally Get To Win One (Sorta)

Huh.

This was my general response to Victory of the Daleks. I definitely didn't hate it, but it had too many gaping plot holes and quirks to be really great, and as other reviewers have pointed out, it didn't have the emotional connection that made The Beast Below so enjoyable. But that definitely wasn't the biggest problem...

I Will Kick You In The Shins If You Even Think The Word "Iconic"
I make no attempt to hide it: I really, really don't like the Daleks. Being, very definitely, an Nu-Whovian, and having little to no experience or connection with Old Who, the Daleks don't have any nostalgic value for me. I find them shrill, obnoxious, and irritating, from their hideously impractical design to their unimaginative, exterminate-the-universe plans. I believe that in Dalek, Nine said they were geniuses, but given how they are consistently outsmarted by ordinary humans and come up with some of the stupidest schemes, I have my doubts. If they weren't so relentlessly, persistently hateful and nigh-indestructable, they wouldn't be a threat at all. Given the Journey's End fiasco--part genius, part (mostly?) facepalm--I would have been happy to have the Daleks really, truly, forever for the last time actually for reals defeated and gone. But no. Here they are again--in technicolor.

I won't spend time harping on the new color scheme (somewhat laughable and Lego-esque) or the new design, since these things have been discussed by reviewers much more knowledgeable than me. They're still malformed little tanks of festering, shrieking evil, and that's enough for me.

What Do They Want? What Are They After?
Their plan this time apparently involved going to all the trouble to make an android so lifelike as to be indistinguishable from other humans, who would then "invent" them, giving them an excuse to infiltrate the British center of operations in London during the Blitz (haven't we been here before? In a Moffat episode?), hoping, I suppose, that Winston Churchill will be unnerved enough by their presence to phone up the Doctor, whom they will then provoke into a rage so that he will declare what they (and we) already know: they are the Daleks. All this because their own technology refuses to acknowledge them as Dalek, and therefore they need the Doctor's "testimony" to convince the blasted thing to spit out more Daleks.

The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it becomes. Why would the Progenitor take the Doctor's word (when he's regenerated anyway, with a different voice) over the Daleks themselves? Their DNA may be "impure," but the technology is clearly Dalek. And anyway, the new Daleks were just going to destroy the unworthies anyway; how does it in any way matter what their DNA is like? Why would a race dead-set on obliterating all other forms of life be picky about who regenerates them, as long as they get regenerated so they can go on shrieking and rattling threateningly? And furthermore, if they wanted the Doctor's attention, why not, oh, invade London on the German side? That'd bring him fast. Or, for that matter, just blow up the moon or some such, if you really want to piss him off. The get-Churchill-to-call-him-for-us scheme seems to rely far too much on coincidences.

And furthermore, not only are the Daleks stupid enough to be held hostage by a jelly-filled biscuit (cookie!), they don't shoot the Doctor when they have the chance. Once they have the information they need from him, why not just kill him, instead of shouting "EXPLAIN!!!" apoplectically? They could gain nothing--and lose a lot--by letting him live.

As a final griping point (then I'm done, promise!), the "choice" they offer the Doctor was not a choice at all. The dichotomy is to either (a) continue the attack on the Daleks, hoping to destroy them, and sacrifice the Earth to the bomb or (b) call off the attack and save the Earth. The Doctor backs down, calling off the attack--but the Daleks still try to detonate the bomb. So why bother calling off the attack at all? Let the nice man in the gravity-bubble-bomber blow that crap out of the Dalek ship as much as possible while the Doctor goes back to Earth to try to stop that bomb.

Speaking of which...

Don't Mess With Me, Sweetheart
As has come to be standard in the last few weeks, Eleven was the shining point of awesomeness amidst all the kerfuffle. From the moment he stepped out of the TARDIS, I couldn't keep my eyes off him--because although we, the audience, knew the Daleks were coming, he didn't.

But he did not disappoint. From the first meeting on the rooftop, where he stares at the Dalek with a heartrending mixture of disbelief, sorrow, and horror on his face, knowing what will come, to the determined suspicion, to the suicidal, murderous rage with which he attacks the Dalek and shouts it down, he was absolutely brilliant. The depiction was reminiscent of Nine's reaction in Dalek; I got shivers when Eleven urged Churchill to "exterminate them!" Wow. Wherever this darker, more perilous and ruthless side of the Doctor has been hiding, it's certainly back with a vengeance now.

This new darkness also hindered the Doctor, though, as well as helped him. It made him play right into the center of the Daleks' plans, and it kept him from making the human connection necessary with Bracewell to keep him from exploding. For that, once again, we needed Amy.

Come On, Pond!
Unfortunately, poor Amy didn't have much to do this episode except stop the aforementioned Explosion O' Doom and get shut down repeatedly by the Doctor. That was a shame, because being separated from the Doctor for a good portion of the episode meant that the relationship between them that's made Season 5 such a joy so far was conspicuously absent. For the second time, though, Amy swooped in and saved the day when the Doctor, caught up in grief and death, couldn't quite make it work.

Let's for now ignore the overlong and positively narmy sequence of Amy and the Doctor (although mostly Amy) convincing a super-robot not to explode and destroy the world because being a human and lovesick would be so much more fun. Instead, let's skip to the part where Amy mentions fancying someone you know you shouldn't, accompanied by a very unsubtle glance at the Doctor. It's like no one was paying attention through season 3, and they're going to do the whole agonizing Martha Jones unrequited-and-unreciprocated-love thing all over again. Although I really hope not, on the other hand, there's a bit more to it this time, given Amy's past with the Doctor, and all the years she's had to idealize and idolize him. So on the one hand, I can hardly blame her. On the other hand...just no.

Also, the Doctor wasn't very nice to Amy in this episode. He shushes her impatiently at the beginning, leaves her behind to go face the Daleks, and simply tells her she's not helping when she suggests cutting a wire to defuse the bomb. Granted, in each case he has a good reason to push her away (ie she really is wrong about the Daleks, he wouldn't put her in that much danger, and she really wasn't helping) but he is surprisingly tactless about it, like going back to Ten's "Was that rude?" phase. But this isn't a phase; this seems to be a part of his personality: arrogant, somewhat curmudgeonly and brisk as well as playful and wondering. Between that and Amy's blissful ignorance about the Daleks, their relationship seemed a little distant and strained. Which, actually, might turn out to be very interesting.

Oi, Churchill! Give Back The TARDIS Key!
As for the rest of the episode's setting, it's difficult for me to comment. Other sources say that the depiction of Churchill is caricatured and silly, but I don't know much about Churchill to begin with, so I found him rather interesting. Since I'm not British, I don't have the same connection to the man. I imagine the Doctor would have to meet Washington or Jefferson or Lincoln to get that effect.

The thing that struck me most about this setting was the missed opportunities. In The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, there's a palpable sense of fear and desperation that overshadows the city, embodied by a gas-masked boy following a group of frightened children. In this episode, the bombs boom in the distance and the walls shake, but there's no palpable threat of imminent peril, no hint of the very human grief and desperation and determination. The only attempt at this was the young woman whose husband is shot down over the Channel, but this is quickly dismissed and has no impact on the story. It's a shame, because there was a lot of potential for the darkness of the setting to mirror and enhance the darkness of the Daleks' return. Instead, all the lights are on.

So, the Daleks jump into hyperspace, surely to return to plague us all again soon. Yes, they did "win", if by "win" you mean "escape and survive." But their enemy, the Doctor, still lives, and the Earth is still whole, so was it really anyone's victory at all?

Premonitions and Predictions
One of the best, most spine-chilling moments of this episode was the revelation that Amy doesn't know or remember the Daleks. Not that she was scuba diving or something when the Earth was dragged across the universe--she simply doesn't remember it happening. The Dalek invasion of Earth in Journey's End has been key in several ways (i.e. Waters of Mars's Adelaide's life), and the fact that Amy doesn't know this is very creepy.

It has been mentioned that Rory's hospital ID has an issue date in 1990, which, assuming it was issued when he was about 25 at the youngest, would make him, what, 45? Yet he's clearly not 45, and the people in The Eleventh Hour are using modern cell phones, so the Doctor wasn't in the past. Could he have fallen through into a parallel world when the TARDIS exploded--a world where the Dalek invasion never happened? Could that crack that we've seen four times now be one that he caused, maybe even the same one that he came through?

Also, adding up Amy's reluctance to get married or even think about her abandoned fiancee and this week's over-meaningful discussion of unrequited love, we may be gearing up for another Doctor + Companion romance, one-sided or no. Either way, when Amy finally does tell the Doctor she's engaged (where's her ring, anyway?), it won't be pretty.

Next week: Moffat's back, along with a still-too-knowledgeable Dr. River Song, archaeologist, and the Lonely Assassins!

It's Not Supposed To Make That Noise

A new preview clip was released as part of the "Doctor Who: The Ultimate Guide" special that aired on BBCA tonight. The clip is available in the player below:

A few things are clear in this clip. As has been speculated in our house, this is not River Song's first meeting with the Doctor; she's still ahead of him, and knows more about him than he does about her. Also, she knows her way around the TARDIS, and can fly it more smoothly than he can.

This leads to the positively glorious result of the Doctor attempting to imitate the TARDIS's wheezing vworp noise as Amy looks on skeptically. Turns out that the TARDIS isn't supposed to make that noise, and does so only because the Doctor leaves the brakes on. This would seem to indicate that if the Doctor started flying the TARDIS more efficiently per River's instructions (and we've already seen him snap the doors open in The Eleventh Hour), the TARDIS mights stop making the vworp noise altogether. This would be a tragedy of the first order, but given the Doctor's affirmation that he loves that "brilliant noise", hopefully he'll keep leaving the brakes on!

Continuity note: When turning on the blue stabilizers, Dr. Song reaches for the button with her left hand around the console, but in the next shot (a closeup) she pushes the button with her right. Clearly, I've just watched this clip too many times now.

Expect No Love From The Beast Below

As with The Eleventh Hour, I've been trying to work out what to say about The Beast Below. Several days and reviews later, I still can't get around the fact that I just loved this episode.

A note on the music: So maybe it was just the fact that the pre-title opening for the last episode was kind of painfully bad. Maybe we didn’t have the speakers cranked high enough. Because with an awesome and totally freaky opening involving a demonic robot, a terrifying children’s song, and a bottomless pit of doom, and with the volume on max, the new title sequence is a whole lot more epic.

I might even learn to like the new music.

Amy, What Have You Done?
This episode was all about choices, from beginning to end--political, moral, relational, practical--and dealing with the consequences of those choices. The biggest choice, of course, is the one that every adult on Starship UK, including the queen, has to make: whether to continue torturing a benevolent and innocent creature for their survival, or release it from its agony and die themselves. Every person on the ship has chosen to survive and forget the terrible truth, save for those few who dissent and are eaten, presumably unwillingly or unknowingly, by the creature itself.

This choice is presented to our heroes and decided twice in the episode, and both times by Amy Pond. The first time, she chooses to forget, urging herself to get the Doctor away before he's faced with the same choice. She presumably wants to save him from having to take the responsibility on himself, but it's very possible that she isn't at all sure how this strange, enigmatic time traveler will choose. She has no reason to assume that the Doctor will always choose to protect human life over alien, and good reason (he's an alien himself) to assume he wouldn't.

But inevitably, the Doctor's sharp mind and Liz 10's blasters get them back to the Tower, where the awful truth is again revealed. Infuriated at being kept in the dark and caught up in his own righteous rage, the Doctor determines to take a third option: extinguish the Star Whale's consciousness to block the pain and allow the human race to continue on into the stars. It takes Amy's connecting the dots and impulsive stubbornness to redo her own choice, this time choosing for the Queen not to forget but to "abdicate": set the Star Whale free. And for the first time in Nu-Who history, the companion is right and the Doctor, in his arrogance, is actually wrong.

I was much happier with Amy this time around. She's done what no other Nu-Who companion has done yet: shown up the Doctor, all on her own. And we finally get to see how she handles a real crisis and new situation. She doesn't disappoint, either; she tackles challenges head-on, makes her own decisions, and wanders past Keep Out signs just to see what might be there. Not only that, but the lovely and slightly awkward hug between her and the Doctor at the end was just adorable. This pair may be my favorite yet, and I thought it couldn't get any better than Ten and Donna!

Amy makes a few other important choices in this episode also. At the beginning, she chooses to go forward into the unknown of Starship UK when offered the choice to go back; and at the end, she chooses to try and explain to the Doctor what she's been hiding--namely, her upcoming nuptials.

Which reminds me--is Amy, being a headstrong, independent, and clever woman, simply leery of married life? Does she have another secret that prevents her being secure in her marriage? Or is there a problem with the man himself?

Help me, Obi-Wan—Wait, What?
If I sounded uncertain in the last episode's review--and I know I did--almost all of those qualms were resolved in this episode. I wanted to know if Eleven could pull off sadness, darkness, and wrath, and boy, were my prayers answered!

The Doctor really runs the gamut in this episode. He starts out as we have known him for a long time, back into Ten and even Nine's era: quirkily enthusiastic about a new place and time, insatiably curious, aware of more than he lets on and unable to resist the temptation to poke around. He sends Amy off on her own assignment, despite the fact that he's just told her that Starship UK is not necessarily a safe or friendly place, and reacts to Liz 10's entrance with suppressed curiosity. This is all pretty standard for our beloved Doctor, although Matt Smith plays it as a wonderful cross between an absentminded professor and a mischievous Peter Pan refusing to grow up.

But as the starship's secrets begin to surface, so do the new facets of the Doctor's personality. When asked about other Time Lords, he answers in vague terms and distant tones, his brow furrowed as if staring into an interminable distance. And then the man who stated not fifteen minutes ago that he never got involved in the affairs of other peoples or planets rebelliously proclaimed that he would bring down the government. Was he being facetious with Amy, knowing full well that he always gets involved? Or does the Doctor really believe that he does his best not to get involved, despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary?

Eleven's fascinated glee with the Star Whale's anatomy was wonderful to watch, as was the shocked look on his face when Liz 10 mentions the Virgin Queen. But the last twenty minutes of the episode are the real treat. For me, one of the most fascinating ideas in the Doctor's character is that he is an alien with an unimaginable intellect, powers we hardly ever see, and although all the people that enforced the laws of time are gone, he sticks faithfully to them anyway, keeping his ego firmly in hand. But what would happen if he decided to do as he liked? There are no Time Lords or--for the moment--Daleks to stop him. The only thing that keeps the Doctor from wreaking havoc with time and space to suit his whims is his conscience.

Waters of Mars played on this idea beautifully, letting the Doctor indulge his desire to help and change, which is constantly at war with his self-imposed rules about non-involvement and preservation, but after being (sort of) reprimanded/summoned by the Ood, the point was ignominiously dropped. Now, Eleven gets to pick up that thread again, but it a different way.

"Nobody human has anything to say to me today!" he screams, convinced that his way is the only way. Forced to choose between humanity and the alien, the Doctor has to follow his conscience and choose humanity, but there's a tension about that choice--as if he could have chosen differently, given just a little provocation. Eleven is clearly not the human-loving philanthropist that Ten was; he is palpably, wonderfully, terrifyingly alien, with alien morals, and alien standards, and an alien perspective. He chooses the people of Starship UK not out of loyalty to humanity but a simple ratio of lives lost: millions to one. And he is so accustomed to being right, to being the cleverest one in the room, and is so disgusted with the selfish and cruel decisions that have forced him into his terrible choice that he dismisses anything the humans have to say as automatically wrong. Of course, Amy figures out what he couldn't see. Humbled and disturbed, he nevertheless is kind to Amy--a graceful loser, if you will. It seems though, like there is no rhyme or reason to his decision to take Amy along, his threat to take her home when she defies him--even if she doesn't remember it--and his inviting her along again--it's all at a whim. That doesn't bode well for further conflicts.

I'm The Bloody Queen, Mate
I don't have much to say about Liz 10 except that she was awesome. The Princess Leia references aside, everything about her was great--her mask, her attitude, her wrathful determination to find the truth and subsequent horror at what had been done.

Now, of course, she has to deal not only with the guilt of inflicting all that agony on the Star Whale for hundreds of years, but also with restructuring the government and way of life on the starship. Given the horror that she put her subjects through--and the number of people that have been fed to the Beast and children working in the dungeons--she'll have lot of explaining to do. I imagine it won't be pretty.

Never Get Involved--Unless There's Children Crying
Although there have been complaints that the plot was weak, I certainly didn't think so. I loved that a full reveal of the heart of the mystery was simply handed to Amy, who then, in terror, promptly chose to have it all erased from her memory, so we had to discover it all again, bit by horrifying bit.

The Smilers turned out to be a fairly innocuous threat, more foreshadowing doom than presenting any real menace. They were definitely creepy, but not really scary--again, I didn't really feel like there was any immediate danger to the Doctor or Amy. Also, it's a good bet that most of the people watching this saw The End of Time; we're very clearly aware that the Doctor is the last of his kind. There's no need to beat us over the head with the connection between him and the Whale, thanks.

I loved this episode for its ideas, its slow reveal, and its development of the relationship between the Doctor and Amy. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more of this strange, alien Doctor, and the willful brilliance of Amy. Oh, and Winston Churchill.

Favorite Moments
Amy: Can we go out and see?

Doctor: Of course we can, but first, there’s a thing.

Amy: A thing.

Doctor: An important thing, in fact. Thing one: we are observers only. That’s the one rule I’ve always stuck to in all my travels. I never get involved in the affairs of other peoples or planets. Ohh! That’s interesting.

Doctor: Sorry. Checking all the water in this area. There’s an escaped fish.

Doctor: Oh, this fell out of her pocket when I accidentally bumped into her. Took me four goes.

Amy: What are you going to do?

Doctor: What I always do: Stay out of trouble. Badly.

Amy: So is this how it works, Doctor—you never interfere the affairs of other peoples or planets…unless there’s children crying.

Doctor: Yes.

Amy: Oh, don’t mind me. Never could resist a keep-out sign.

Liz 10: Help us, Doctor. You’re our only hope.

Amy: You look human.

Doctor: No, you look Time Lord. We came first.

Amy: So there’re other Time Lords, yeah?

Doctor: No. There were. But there aren’t...just me now. Long story, it was a bad day, lots of bad things happened. And I’d love to forget to all, every last bit of it, but I don’t. Not ever. Because this is what I do, every time, every day, every second. This. Hold tight. We’re bringing down the government.

Doctor: It’s not a floor, it’s, uh…So.

Amy: It’s a what?

Doctor: The next word is kind of a scary word, you probably want to take a moment, put yourself in a calm place, go “ommm.”

Amy: Ommm…?

Doctor: It’s a…tongue.

Amy: We’re in a mouth!

Doctor: Yes, yes, but on the plus side: Roomy!

Doctor: If this is the mouth, I’d love to see the stomach! …But not right now.

Doctor: Right then. This isn’t going to be big on dignity. Geronimo!

Liz 10: Hair of an idiot.

Liz 10: Vickie was a bit on the fence about you, weren’t she? Knighted and exiled you on the same day! And so much for the virgin queen, you bad bad boy!

Amy: I voted for this. Why would I do that?

Doctor: Because you knew that if I stayed here, I’d be faced with an impossible choice: humanity or the alien. You took it upon yourself to save me from that. That was wrong. You don’t ever decide what I need to know.

Amy: I don’t even remember doing it!

Doctor: You did it. That’s what counts.

Amy: I’m…I’m sorry.

Doctor: Oh, I don’t care. When I’m done here, you’re going home.

Doctor: Yeah, I know. You’re only human.

Doctor: Nobody talk to me—nobody human has anything to say to me today!

Amy: Very old and very kind and the very very last. Sound a bit familiar?

Premonitions and Predictions
The ominous crack appears again. Either it's following the Doctor and Amy, or it's simply everywhere. I vote "following", personally.

No ducks (or lack of ducks) this episode, sadly. However, we did have two other recurring ideas: glasses of water and twenty minutes. The Doctor used a glass of water to listen to the crack in Amelia's bedroom, and this time to check the lack of engine vibration. Last time he had twenty minutes to save the world; this time, Amy had twenty minutes of her memory erased when she chose to forget. These may just be coincidences, but we'll see.