Victory of the Daleks

[meddow]

After the last two wonderful episodes, this one was a disappointment. The Power of the Daleks set during the Blitz? Should have been brilliant. It wasn't.

I'm starting to doubt whether the new series is capable of pulling off a brilliant Dalek story. This was a blatant retelling of The Power of the Daleks which is up there with Genesis of the Daleks, and I would have thought the brilliance of that story combined with Moff's general love of creepiness would have made for one fantastic episode. But I should be used to Dalek disappointment now. The new series hasn't managed to pull off the Daleks all that well. The best was Dalek and that was ages ago.

Anyway, with this episode the pacing was all wrong and the tone was all wrong. It really should have been a two parter just because we needed more of the Daleks pretending to be humanity's servants, with the Doctor going around spouting off how they're the most evil thing in the universe and nobody believing him. There should have been more focus on the devastation of the Blitz, so that it could be put out there that maybe the Daleks are doing something positive if they're stopping people from dying, and the Doctor is acting like and insane jerk for wanting to put and end to them. The reveal of the Dalek's actual plan should have been an episode cliffhanger.

It really annoys me that after The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances that we never got an exploration of the strain and the devastation caused by daily bombing raids.

And it should have been creepy. There were a handful of creepy moments in the episode. Seeing the Daleks casually move past a doorway over the Doctor's shoulder was the best moment of the episode. It needed a lot more of that.

And also, 'We are your sol-diers' not half way as good as 'We are your serv-ants'. Did love the Daleks asking if anybody wanted a cup of tea. How on earth a Dalek managed to make a cup of tea using only a toilet plunger is a question for the ages.

I don't like the new Dalek design. Too colourful. Too plastic looking. I like the Daleks looking like they'd been made out of metal. I wonder why the writers felt they had to reboot the Daleks? That was what happened, they went back to their old genetic sequence and got a new look. But I doubt whether anybody would have cared if the Daleks got a new look without some explanation, and the genetic sequence thing didn't ever have to be brought up.

Finally, really, they stopped a bomb by convincing robot-guy that he's human? And worse, Amy going on about having a crush on somebody you maybe shouldn't followed by a significant look in the Doctor's direction. Please dear Moff, no.

Wow, that's a lot of negative. There were a load of good things about the episode. Amy pointing out to Churchill that they had the key to destroying the Daleks was great, Amy having forgotten the events of Journey's End makes for an intriguing mystery (I presume she wasn't scuba diving), and the Doctor fending off the Daleks with a biscuit was wonderful.

In conclusion, love Mark Gatiss acting in Doctor Who, still not a fan of his writing.

Comments

[catslash.livejournal.com]

Multi-colored Daleks: taste the extermination rainbow!

[meddow.livejournal.com]

Lol!

I have images of Daleks sitting around discussing colour schemes. "But I want to be yel-low. It is the colour of sun-shine."

[airie-fairy.livejournal.com]

"I wonder why the writers felt they had to reboot the Daleks?"

Yeah, that was weird.

[meddow.livejournal.com]

There wasn't exactly a call for it, and kind of just drew attention to the Daleks looking like they've stepped out of crayon box.

[snorkackcatcher]

Yeah, pretty much what I thought too. And that's not even mentioning the whole SPITFIRES IN SPACE WTF thing, or why the Daleks just turn the lights on when they seem to have plenty of power for the ship defences, or the Doctor strolling out into the Dalek ship without so much as a protective field as in BW/PotW. Just a cracktastic mess that made no sense. The weakest episode for some time, and I liked DiM/EotD ...

[meddow.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out somebody came up with the idea of spitfires in space and the whole episode was written to bring about that one cracktastic scene, which is why it ended up being such a mess of an episode.

[erinpuff]

I agree with everything in this post. Your reworking of it as a two-parter would have made a lot more sense - I was expecting a lot more of the ~Ironsides~ doing their thing, so I was disappointed.

I haaaate the new Dalek design. It's not scary! I think they should have gone in the opposite direction if they had to change it - smaller, more metal, more sort of pasted together rather than shiny and new-looking. (Not that that would have worked with the plot as it was - OOH WE ARE MAKING NEW DALEKS oh they look like crap.) I feel the same way about the Cybermen - the super-old-school ones with the cloth faces FREAK ME THE FUCK OUT, and I feel like they've gotten progressively less scary. That may just be me, though. ^^ Wrongness unsettles me; shiny and well-constructed things do not.

Finally, really, they stopped a bomb by convincing robot-guy that he's human? And worse, Amy going on about having a crush on somebody you maybe shouldn't followed by a significant look in the Doctor's direction. Please dear Moff, no.

Yeah, this was awful. Quote from my notes: "Heterosexuality saves the world again!" :p

Re. Amy not remembering the Daleks - I wonder if it's not that she's forgotten, but that she skipped over that bit of time somehow (presumably for reasons having to do with that crack we keep seeing). Or maybe it hasn't happened yet for her because of that theory that it's actually the early 90s in her town (because of Rory's badge) but with 2010 tech (because of the crack). IDK! I'm intrigued.

[meddow.livejournal.com]

Wrongness unsettles me

I agree with you on that. There's nothing scarier than something than something that's a gross and unnatural corruption of something we know. I haven't seen any of the cloth-face Cymbermen episodes (the earliest I've watched was The Invasion), but I've always been disappointed in the New!Who Cybermen for not being as scary on screen as the concept. I mean, people, being taken apart and being so horrifically and irreparably stripped of their humanity that self-awareness cause them to go insane, it's a nightmare of a concept. I'd rather be exterminated than become a Cyperman.

Yeah, this was awful.

It's something I would have expect from RTD at his worst.

I was thinking that maybe somebody has gone back and changed history and Doctor's found himself in an alternative timeline, one where the events of the RTD years never happened, leaving Torchwood and SJA unaffected by the Mothershow as they're in the first timeline and the Doctor's operating in the second. Of course, that would mean there's definitely no hope of Donna returning, so I don't want that to have happened.

Or maybe there's been a massive memory wipe of the human population.

[ishie]

Won't anyone think of the toys they can sell now? (Collect Daleks in all the colors of the rainbow today!)

I'm actually a fan of the episode because it brought up a lot of things that I hope will pay off later. Possibly I shouldn't be hoping that as it will lead to inevitable disappointment and raging!

(I like your idea up there about him possibly having stumbled into an alternative timeline, but then that will mean that the cracks are probably going to wind up bringing the timelines crashing together again, and then Rose will possibly tumble out of one and I'll be forced to make the gagging face.)

[meddow.livejournal.com]

Ah, how could I forget the toys. You know, I would quite like a little lime green Dalek toy.

I do hope it goes somewhere (altogether, I hope that place is not the Daleks showing up as the finale villain, because Done. To. Death.)

Rose will possibly tumble out of one and I'll be forced to make the gagging face.

Ugh. The horror. Although, maybe she can return Dalek style: with multiple time lines, maybe they can have multiple Roses, each one wearing a different coloured outfit.

[artic-fox.livejournal.com]

I admit, I was pretty underwhelmed. Wanted and expected it to be a lot better.

[meddow.livejournal.com]

I really wish it was a better episode. Such a shame to waste a good storyline on that episode.