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alexandraerinI wasn't disappointed by the third episode of Doctor Who, in which we learn that a handful of Dalek survivors escaped and fell backwards through time and then found a way to regenerate the Dalek race with a twist. I wasn't disappointed by it because it was no less than what I expected when I saw they were doing Another Fucking Dalek Episode.
Moffat and crew did one thing right: they showed the new bunch of Daleks escaping at the end instead of being wiped out, so now the Next Fucking Dalek Episode doesn't have to explain where the survivors have been hiding.
There were some good notes in the episode: Churchill, the self-destruct button, the absolute mindfuckery of Daleks serving tea... really, I think it would have been better if the Daleks had carried on the pretense for longer with the Doctor getting ever more extreme in his reactions to them. But that would probably have resulted in a Two Part Fucking Dalek Episode.
To digress a little bit: my problem isn't with the Daleks being a recurring enemy. My problem is the fact that almost every episode that deals with them is treated as being the final and definitive end to them. First we had the lone Dalek survivor of the Time War, dying alone (except for Rose). Then we had the Dalek emperor and his Daleks. Then we had the Cult of Skaro (at least we saw how one of them escaped.) Then we had Davros and his Daleks... I didn't mind that so much because it was picking up the thread of Dalek Caan rather than inventing a new pool of survivors and because it seemed so definitively finally final a finale that I believed they were closing the book on Daleks for good (silly me.
But anyway, if the new series didn't start out with the premise that Daleks were all wiped out/trapped in the Time Lock (depending on how many dimensions we're viewing the universe in) and then reinforce that by having most Dalek appearances start with "where these Daleks came from" and ending with "how the Daleks are once again wiped out completely", then it wouldn't be so groan inducing that they kept showing up again. If the first Dalek episode (Season 1's "Dalek") had, for instance, included a note that if one had fallen through time then others might have and each subsequent appearance of Daleks was one or a few other scattered and battered survivors, unable to travel through time and space to reunite with others and unable to produce more Daleks but still a Dalek and still incredibly fucking dangerous all by itself (Consider Nine insisting that if the one lone Dalek escaped the complex it would endanger the whole world... and lines like... "We would destroy the Cybermen with ONE Dalek") then the Daleks would be viable as a recurring enemy. Added menace would come from the fact that the survivors would be looking for ways to gain time/space travel, to repair themselves, to regenerate the race... victory for the Doctor would be stopping/containing/destroying this small group of Daleks.
That this episode was more of the same didn't disappoint me because it was what I expected. If it's not the worst episode of the season... if another episode manages to suck more... then I will be disappointed. And yes, I know there's a Cybermen episode coming up. But it looks like that one's going to have some genuine monster movie menace to it, which is a twist for Cybermen.
Moffat and crew did one thing right: they showed the new bunch of Daleks escaping at the end instead of being wiped out, so now the Next Fucking Dalek Episode doesn't have to explain where the survivors have been hiding.
There were some good notes in the episode: Churchill, the self-destruct button, the absolute mindfuckery of Daleks serving tea... really, I think it would have been better if the Daleks had carried on the pretense for longer with the Doctor getting ever more extreme in his reactions to them. But that would probably have resulted in a Two Part Fucking Dalek Episode.
To digress a little bit: my problem isn't with the Daleks being a recurring enemy. My problem is the fact that almost every episode that deals with them is treated as being the final and definitive end to them. First we had the lone Dalek survivor of the Time War, dying alone (except for Rose). Then we had the Dalek emperor and his Daleks. Then we had the Cult of Skaro (at least we saw how one of them escaped.) Then we had Davros and his Daleks... I didn't mind that so much because it was picking up the thread of Dalek Caan rather than inventing a new pool of survivors and because it seemed so definitively finally final a finale that I believed they were closing the book on Daleks for good (silly me.
But anyway, if the new series didn't start out with the premise that Daleks were all wiped out/trapped in the Time Lock (depending on how many dimensions we're viewing the universe in) and then reinforce that by having most Dalek appearances start with "where these Daleks came from" and ending with "how the Daleks are once again wiped out completely", then it wouldn't be so groan inducing that they kept showing up again. If the first Dalek episode (Season 1's "Dalek") had, for instance, included a note that if one had fallen through time then others might have and each subsequent appearance of Daleks was one or a few other scattered and battered survivors, unable to travel through time and space to reunite with others and unable to produce more Daleks but still a Dalek and still incredibly fucking dangerous all by itself (Consider Nine insisting that if the one lone Dalek escaped the complex it would endanger the whole world... and lines like... "We would destroy the Cybermen with ONE Dalek") then the Daleks would be viable as a recurring enemy. Added menace would come from the fact that the survivors would be looking for ways to gain time/space travel, to repair themselves, to regenerate the race... victory for the Doctor would be stopping/containing/destroying this small group of Daleks.
That this episode was more of the same didn't disappoint me because it was what I expected. If it's not the worst episode of the season... if another episode manages to suck more... then I will be disappointed. And yes, I know there's a Cybermen episode coming up. But it looks like that one's going to have some genuine monster movie menace to it, which is a twist for Cybermen.