Doctor Who returns to UK TV screens. He facing
off against his old foes in huge numbers in a big budget pilot with drama
between his old companions, all of which climates in a triumphant ending and
leaves you thinking one thing - This really needed to be a multi-part story.
Having been
back for a good few years now since the revival, people have gotten used to the
writing styles of the creative minds behind it and the fast paced nature of its
episodes. However, the pilot to this latest series just highlights a lot of its
flaws and everything feels like it’s been crammed together.
The story
behind this one is that the Doctor himself has been abducted along with Amy and
Rory, taken to the Parliament of the Daleks (nope, no emperor any more) and are
deployed to a planet used as an asylum for insane daleks. A human crashed ship
fell to the planet one year before and its only survivor has been fending off
their attacks for about a year, now the inmates are at risk of fleeing the
world. Too scared to do it themselves, the Doctor is sent in to deal with them,
lower the force field, and allow the orbiting fleet to obliterate the planet.
Forced to comply with their demands for the greater good, the Doctor heads for
the world trying to find a way to both end the insane threat and escape before
the world can be destroyed.
Now from this
brief description you can likely see one rather pressing question which the
episode never answers – Why don’t the daleks simply shoot the insane ones on
sight? They kill practically anything which shows deviation from their genetic
code, individuality or rebellion – What makes these daleks so scary and
threatening that they not only refuse to kill them but won’t even approach
them? The answer given is fairly dumb, even by the standards of this show, and there's no real reason the daleks couldn't take them on themselves. Those shown in the prison are in a state of
disrepair and barely working. If the story took more time to set up its premise
and give a better reason why they're not dead, they might feel more threatening but instead it rushes in at
full Moffat speed.
Similar
problems arise from other things brought up. When they are introduced we
quickly learn that Amy and Rory have split up, something which should be a
major thing considering this show’s focus upon them. While this is actually addressed
in one of the episode’s strongest scenes, it feels like there should have been
much more time spent with it – like almost everything else in this. It never
quite manages to find that balance between drama and action because it doesn’t
spend enough time building up the former to give its events meaning. This
especially becomes problematic with the scenes focusing upon the human trapped
on the ship, Oswin. We’re only given a very brief introduction to her and most
of her scenes rely upon the actress to give us reasons to care about her. Thankfully
Jenna-Louise Coleman’s acting manages to do the character justice and her eventual fate is
one of the episode’s big shock moments, though you might see it coming long
before it happens.
But all this
is just dressing to the episode’s main attraction – Daleks. How to they hold
up?
Actually pretty well, but they’re not properly used. One of Steven Moffat’s
big aims behind this story was to try turn the daleks into tin-plated terrors
once more. In a previous interview he stated that he felt they had become the "most
reliably defeatable enemies in the universe" due to their frequent appearances and wanted to
make them scary like when he watched them as a kid. It might have been for this reason he chose to bring back the bronze plated versions of the Russell T. Davies era as the minions of his more colourful brand.
While it could be argued that Dalek and Prisoner of the Daleks
already did make the villains scary, it’s an admirable goal and they manage to pull it off.
Despite being in a state of disrepair and low power, the daleks here are far
more intimidating than many of their previous appearances – almost taking on
the role of zombies within the episode. Where this fails is that it doesn’t
take full advantage of what they had on hand.
The BBC’s Doctor Who blog boasted
that they had every type dalek the Doctor had ever faced turning up: the
originals, Imperials, black ones, blue ones, silver ones; the lot. The problem
is that most of the time they’re either in the background or you can’t
distinguish them from the modern ones due to the lighting. Even when they do
make fleeting appearances you’re likely to miss them to give one example they
had the Special Weapons Dalek for this episode, a fan favourite! What do they
do with it? Have it sit immobile in a corner for one fleeting scene. It’s
things like this which really drag the episode down because you can tell they
could have easily done something good with them.
Overall the
episode isn’t bad, it’s just severely disappointing. There is far more
potential to this story than the episode ever takes advantage of and it’s
nowhere near as strong a series opener as The
Impossible Astronaut two parter. The most exciting moment for the future
comes at the last minute and actually provides some interesting opportunities for
the future, but otherwise treat it like Die
Hard 4. Explosive entertainment to watch with your brain switched off.
Or if you're reading this after watching the episode for some reason, here's a more humorous take on the episode's plot problems.
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Doctor Who and all related characters and media are owned by the BBC.
Or if you're reading this after watching the episode for some reason, here's a more humorous take on the episode's plot problems.
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Doctor Who and all related characters and media are owned by the BBC.
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