Doctor Who: Dalek

[selenay]

Collectormania was a lot of fun and very exhausting. Spent the weekend wandering around with yragg, sazzle_02 and a few other friends from the FDAS list who don't seem to be LJers (yet). Much fun.

There was a Doctor Who strand, so I got to meet Sylvester McCoy and Colin Baker, take photos of Daleks and generally revel in the Doctor Who-ness. There were many other people and things to see that, although there were so many attendees that it was all rather over-crowded and hot. There was, thankfully, Costa Coffee and tables outside for the important imbibing of caffiene and water while enjoying fresh, cooler air.

And I even managed to see Dalek while I was away. Very cool and squee-worthy.


I honestly loved this episode. Completely. It was possibly the best yet, IMHO. I hadn't believed that anyone could make me feel sorry for a Dalek, but the writers did it. At the same time, the thing was terrifying. An extremely cool trick.

One of the reasons why I never found Daleks too frightening as a youngster was that they seemed to too easy to destroy. Yes, they were metal tin pots with their own battle armour, but machine guns and explosives seemed to destroy them rather too easily. Ace beating the crap out of a Dalek with her super-charged baseball bat remains a familiar memory despite that :-)

But this Dalek was indestructible. Convincingly so. The idea of shields to melt bullets before they got to it and battle armour that couldn't easily be penetrated made the thing much scarier. It was easy to believe that just one of it could kill every living thing on the planet, particularly after its casual slaughter of dozens of soldiers in one stroke. That showed genius as well as invulnerability - a truly terrifying combination.

Now, as an old Doctor Who fan, I knew that Daleks had finally been given the ability to fly up stairs during the Eighth Doctor's reign. Somehow that didn't make the Dalek's flight any less scary this time around :-)

I think that what I liked about this episode was the idea of expanding the Dalek a little. This Dalek started out as evil and inhuman as ever - that was scary. But the changes after it absorbed Rose's DNA made it a more interesting story because it was no longer pure evil. It was trying to fit the feelings it developed with its programming and couldn't. It's an idea that could have been ridiculously cheesy or inane in the wrong hands, but it worked. The writers gave it that maturation and development without turning it into a fluffy!Dalek because, in the end, it didn't turn to the side of Light. It chose death instead.

Somehow I doubt that this is the last we'll see of Daleks and I'm sure that the rest will be as evil, inhuman and indestructible as ever.

The Doctor's first confrontation with the disabled Dalek was brilliant. The terror has he realised what it was and then the darkness when he realised that his enemy was powerless. The joy he seemed to take from telling the Dalek about the fate of its fellows was chilling and the hints about the Doctor's role in the Time Wars both intrigued and frightened me. This Doctor has a dark side and that's what was on show there.

In fact, fear seemed to be the motivating force behind all of his actions during the episode, right up to the final confrontation. It's certainly the only explanation for the Doctor finding the biggest, meanest gun in the place. He's usually the man trying to find a way for everyone to coexist, but the Daleks (both in this episode and previous adventures) are one of the few races that he knows can't be negotiated.

That isn't to say that he always has a "wipe them out" reaction to the Daleks. In Genesis of the Daleks he has the chance to wipe out the Daleks at their birth and Tom Baker's speech when he's trying to decide whether to do it is one of my favourite Doctor Who moments. In the end the Doctor decides that, although the Daleks are irredemably evil, they have forced other people to grow and advance. He doens't have the right to change history in such a devestating way. It makes me wonder what happened during the Time Wars to change the Doctor so that he will wipe out the Daleks.

I really hope that the Time Wars turns out to be the interesting plot that's being hinted at.

What else did I like about this episode? Rose, as usual. I loved her little speech to the Doctor when it looks like she's going to die - just beautiful. And it was interesting to see that this time it's Rose able to see the humanity in a creature that the Doctor just wants to destroy. Billie Piper is turning out a far better performance than I ever thought she was capable of.

It's always fun to see Anna-Louise Plowman playing strong bad guys. I loved her revenge on van Statten :-)

I have yet to decide what I think about the young lad who helped the Doctor and Rose. I liked him during the episode (particularly taunting the Dalek on the stairs), but I'll wait to see how I feel if he becomes a regular. I didn't think that Bille Piper could make me like Rose, so I'll give the former soap actor a chance.

I'm sure there were other things that I noticed and wanted to comment on, but at the moment their all gone. Apart from repeating that this was an extremely good episode :-))))

Daleks! Squeee!


Ah, the Doctor Who love is still strong :-)

Comments

[paranoidangel]

I knew that Daleks had finally been given the ability to fly up stairs during the Eighth Doctor's reign

That would be seventh.

[selenay]

D'oh!

You are, of course, way smarter than me. And your memory (and counting skills) are much better :-)

blip

[historyterry.livejournal.com]

Funnily enough, I was there too. Not at all pissed that you forgot.

I'm in PAIN. Be NICE to me!!!!

Re: blip

[selenay]

*g* Sorry! I was trying to only list the LJers and always seem to forget that you have an LJ - obviously my brain wasn't up to much on Monday.

And in pain? Why, pray tell?