Doctor Who Asylum of the Daleks [spoilers]

[Revy]

Also, in Victory of the Daleks, we saw a ragtag group of Daleks make a bomb small enough to fit inside a human torso, and powerful enough to destroy the Earth completely. So naturally a massive super-advanced Dalek fleet doesn't even consider sending a similar bomb down to blow the bloody asylum up.

The whole "We can't bring ourselves to kill you because your hatred is so beautiful" crap was a really lame way to explain why the Daleks don't just instantly kill the Doctor the second they have him, what with him being their greatest enemy of all time who repeatedly outsmarts them and annihilates them. That's like SG1 getting their hands on a mortal Anubis and finally having the chance to kill him once and for all, and then not doing so because he's ... too cool and evil to really kill. Yeah.

[NecronLord]

So why send the Doctor? Well, for one thing he might just be able to think his way through the situation. For another, and most importantly, he utterly loathes the Daleks. They are, ironically, relying on this hatred to make him kill Oswin without recognizing the opportunity she represents. As we can see by the look on his face when he's telling Oswin the truth (shifting from pity to disgust and back again), it very nearly works.

That makes no sense. They could have just sent one of their androids, equipped with a nuke. Plunk it down outside the door. BOOM. Why not destroy the Earth if the Doctor doesn't surrender to extermination at the end? Why not go capture him again later?

I am surprised they didn't give the Doctor a new, quasi-futuristic outfit too.

Also the path web, can they not cut themselves off from it? Are they that stupid? If they realized the danger they'd surely have taken measures against it.

[NecronLord]

Also, in Victory of the Daleks, we saw a ragtag group of Daleks make a bomb small enough to fit inside a human torso, and powerful enough to destroy the Earth completely. So naturally a massive super-advanced Dalek fleet doesn't even consider sending a similar bomb down to blow the bloody asylum up.

The whole "We can't bring ourselves to kill you because your hatred is so beautiful" crap was a really lame way to explain why the Daleks don't just instantly kill the Doctor the second they have him, what with him being their greatest enemy of all time who repeatedly outsmarts them and annihilates them. That's like SG1 getting their hands on a mortal Anubis and finally having the chance to kill him once and for all, and then not doing so because he's ... too cool and evil to really kill. Yeah.

I am reminded how SJA had the most sensible villains in the setting just shoot the Doctor on sight. He survived through being rescued, but still. It's a flaw in the series that really bugs me, and this episode is an especially pungent example.

[NecronLord]

I'd also like to point people at this review.

So if the Doctor getting "too big" is responsible for the Daleks getting so evil, what are we to make of this? Is heroism a bad thing? Should we not bother to fight evil, lest we indirectly cause it to become more powerful in response? Is apathy the new heroics? In real life, if we see evil happening, should we turn a blind eye, lest we just provoke it to become nastier? I want to link back to the rant that John Ostrander wrote after "A Good Man Goes to War" aired, in which he basically said that the Doctor shouldn't ever apologize for fighting evil, and we shouldn't ever stop celebrating heroism.

We have descended a long way from

There are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things. Things which act against everything we believe in. They must be fought.

[Crazedwraith]

How is making a Dalek forget about the Doctor going to stop it from killing him? They're Daleks! They kill anything not Dalek! When she wiped their memories, they should have gone from "Kill the Doctor!" to "Kill the humanoid lifeform!" and just plungered his face off regardless of his identity.
.

Those weren't ordinary daleks. It's spelled out that they're just not motivated by anything anymore except hatred of the Dalek. Oswyn was surprised they even moved, remember? Of course when they forgot him, it'd have been better if they shut down rather than backed off. That didn't make sense.

The whole "We can't bring ourselves to kill you because your hatred is so beautiful" crap was a really lame way to explain why the Daleks don't just instantly kill the Doctor the second they have him, what with him being their greatest enemy of all time who repeatedly outsmarts them and annihilates them. That's like SG1 getting their hands on a mortal Anubis and finally having the chance to kill him once and for all, and then not doing so because he's ... too cool and evil to really kill. Yeah.

I didn't see that as an actual excuse for not killing him. Just a bullshit excuse for failing to kill him when they try.

----

Anyway, the episode as a whole... just watched in on the iPlayer and well it was ok i bet. The Coleman character was sort of grating in her super-duperness and smugness but the reasons for it were adequately explained in the end so she comes off as a better doctor-lite than River or Doctor Donna so plus there. And she's very pleasant on the eyes.

The scene where she's revealed to be a Dalek was i think the strongest of the episode.

What wasn't strong. The contrived set up with the Dalek capturing them. And bringing along Rory and Amy. Amy gets more and more annoying with her 'i know the Doctor inside and out perfectly' shtick and oh my god I do not care about your relationship issues anymore.

Seriously you've sorta written them out how many times now? Let them go.

Also the doctor leaves them at their home again at the end of the episode. And their in the next episode segment has them in. So what bullshit reason is there going to be for them to be travelling with the Doctor next episode?

[Soontir C'boath]

How is making a Dalek forget about the Doctor going to stop it from killing him? They're Daleks! They kill anything not Dalek! When she wiped their memories, they should have gone from "Kill the Doctor!" to "Kill the humanoid lifeform!" and just plungered his face off regardless of his identity.

Not to mention on board the ship, there was a goddamn TARDIS parked there with presumably a Time Lord to go with it. So now apparently, they've forgotten the Doctor and the Time Lords.

Amy is all distraught because she cant have babies any more? Oh fuck off, I'm sick to death of 'women = babies' being shoved down my throat on TV. I can't have babies, and I don't break down into tears over it. Believe it or not Who writers, some women don't want babies. I know, shocking but true.

Rory wanted children really really bad and the Silence presumably sterilized her. She can't give her SO one of the major things he wants in life.

I'd also like to point people at this review.
*snip*

I think we've seen mentality like this in threads here during the Arab Spring. Don't overthrow Mubarak or whoever else because the rebels may bring out a worst future for themselves, etc. It's the mindset that things won't get better if you try.

[Darkevilme]

Oooh boy. Well it was enjoyable enough if you don't think. I just wish that 'make everything happen really fast so you don't question it' wasn't the normal approach to a doctor who episode.

Thoughts in order of episode:
1. Wasn't Skaro destroyed in the Time war? Or banished the the phantom zone along with Gallifrey. Whichever. The point is no one should be walking on it.

2. The Dalek puppets look blatantly silly. And we already have a word for dalek puppets, they're called robomen. Revamp that look if you must. I know you want to make it clear these things work at the behest of the daleks but we know that, the title of the episode has been announced already. You don't need to put daft head eyestalks on the minions to make it clear to us.

3. Save the daleks from...what? The doctor says something about the insane daleks getting out of the asylum but that doesn't seem that big a deal. Especially to a fleet that have access to those meandering blue shots that blow up planets. If they're that big a threat then I refuse to believe any species which advanced as far as the daleks did wouldn't set aside any cultural qualms it had about blowing escaping daleks/dalek ships out of the sky with their hundreds of blue missiles. So by the time the doctor touches down I'm still not sure why the Daleks sent him down (I know the doctor wants to go down to investigate Oswind but that doesn't explain the threat the daleks are worried about).

4. The daleks can fire giant teleport beams through the planetary shield but can't fire the wooshy blue missiles, or heck just beam down a bomb. I didn't remember the bomb in Dalek Victory but I just went on the basis that relatively portable planet destroying bombs were such a common overriding threat in doctor who that I refused to believe the daleks during their run hadn't accumulated at least 3.

5. The dalek puppets still look stupid. It bears repeating.

6. Couldn't Rory and Amy have had this conversation earlier? this seems like something one frank conversation about her desire to split up could of resolved before the divorce papers got signed.

7. Path net...argh. You're telling me an alien race which fought the time lords, an alien race who has had their plans thwarted in unconventional ways again and again by one man is entirely reliant on arrogance to defend this thing? I mean seriously, no effort to have backups or write permissions or firewalls instead they just assume only a dalek would be able to ever access it and all daleks are loyal. You are repeatedly thwarted by someone who does the wildly improbable, redundancy is not a dirty word.

8. And while we're on the subject of the path net, it apparently extends to the daleks in orbit why? I mean, they say these daleks are so insane the regular daleks are afraid of them...but sure lets have them share the same communication network with the asylum. Lets not worry about getting contaminated with crazy through the path net, even though that very worry was the only attempted rationalization for them sending the doctor down in the first place.

9. Ozwind. Sure Doctor, leave her here. She's someone with the drive and intellect of a dalek without the overwhelming hatred and xenophobia of the species. You were willing to commit crimes against nature during Daleks in Manhattan to try and create such entities (I believe the general idea is anyone who could compete with the timelords could do great things if they turned this energy to something other than evil) but no lets just leave this one to die because clearly you hate daleks just that much (maybe you forgot this in daleks in manhattan).

[The Imperator]

In answer to why I gave it a five, I gave it that because, other than two or three glaring issues, it was really good.

Before I address my issues, I will address others that people have brought up:

1) Why not beam a bomb down - maybe the shield had security that scanned everything that went into it, and it prevented anything truly lethal from getting in. I don't know, that just seems like something the Daleks would have.

2) The Dalek Slaves - IIRC, it is from one of the Doctor Who monthly comics, though I personally haven't, and don't plan on, reading the comics in the monthly magazine.

3) Skaro - Maybe it is a new Skaro, and it got razed during another war that these Daleks had. They obviously aren't using it as a capitol. Though really, I have nothing on this point, it seems stupid, really.


My problems:
1) the Telepathic network - Stupid, stupid, stupid. Makes no sense, etc.

2) The stupidity of the Doctor in going to Skaro.

3) eh, probably the Doctor's willingness to leave the Dalek. Gosh darn it, I want a Dalek companion!

[Eternal_Freedom]

Why oh why would the Daleks have a freaking Assylum? Anytihng that is not pure Dalek is exterminated. For fuck's sake, we've seen them fight two civil wars over their purity. We've seen Dalek's exterminated for failing, we've seen them self destruct for letting a prisoner escape. If the Dalek is broken, it's exterminated because it's no longer useful. We've seen that happen over and over.

And that Intensive Car bollocks. Daleks from Kembel, Mechanus and Exxillon? One, no Daleks survived those episodes and two, pretty much anything up to Genesis was sort-of retconned away wasn't it?

[The Imperator]

And that Intensive Car bollocks. Daleks from Kembel, Mechanus and Exxillon? One, no Daleks survived those episodes and two, pretty much anything up to Genesis was sort-of retconned away wasn't it?

Having just purchased the BBC's Dalek official handbook, I can answer that. It was retconned, but the BBC Dalek Handbook says that it is unknown what happened instead, or if things stayed the same. Also, it makes sense if the shield is temporal, defending against time changes. Also, maybe it was a testing ground originally, messing with Dalek psyches, until the Time War. Now they want it gone. The Daleks have been known to lie before (Evil of the Daleks, Power of the Daleks, multiple audio stories, Victory of the Daleks, etc.). I never take what the Dalek leader says, unless it is insane, as the truth.

[Eternal_Freedom]

THat may answer the retcon thing, but not where those Daleks supposedly came from. Again, Mechanus, Kembel, Exxillon, no survivors. Spiridon I could buy, there were survivors there, but not the first three. Go see, The Chase, The Master Plan or Death to the Daleks for why.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

So why send the Doctor? Well, for one thing he might just be able to think his way through the situation. For another, and most importantly, he utterly loathes the Daleks. They are, ironically, relying on this hatred to make him kill Oswin without recognizing the opportunity she represents. As we can see by the look on his face when he's telling Oswin the truth (shifting from pity to disgust and back again), it very nearly works.

That makes no sense. They could have just sent one of their androids, equipped with a nuke. Plunk it down outside the door. BOOM. Why not destroy the Earth if the Doctor doesn't surrender to extermination at the end? Why not go capture him again later?

I am surprised they didn't give the Doctor a new, quasi-futuristic outfit too.

Also the path web, can they not cut themselves off from it? Are they that stupid? If they realized the danger they'd surely have taken measures against it.

Regarding the bomb possibility, there's no answer to that, unless they were afraid she'd use the nanites on the bomb (which might be stretching it). From a writing perspective, having them be able to penetrate the shield at all was a mistake (for that precise reason). If they absolutely had to use the Doctor, then they would have been better off talking (or threatening) him into it then letting him go down in the Tardis. The mini-bombs Revy mentioned would have been perfect at that point. Implant Rory or Amy, or both, and you've got yourself a backup plan for destroying the planet and a means of keeping the Doctor under control.

As for the path web, well it was all I could think of that would make the asylum that much of a problem. It would have made more sense if the asylum was actually a Dalek hospital (facility for processing messed-up Daleks), or perhaps a factory/breeding planet (similar to the Sontarans) with the added function of transferring veteran Daleks to upgraded travel machines (hence the old machines hanging around). Even if Oswin's effective range was only planet-wide, she would still be in a position to indoctrinate all the Daleks on the planet and control the production facilities, making her a new and unwanted Dalek Emperor. This also provides a reason why they're determined to wreck the place, because they can't tolerate the possibility of 'tainted' Daleks surviving.

[The Imperator]

THat may answer the retcon thing, but not where those Daleks supposedly came from. Again, Mechanus, Kembel, Exxillon, no survivors. Spiridon I could buy, there were survivors there, but not the first three. Go see, The Chase, The Master Plan or Death to the Daleks for why.

Altered time line means some could have survived. That's the only answer I have. And this episode now ranks as #1 in my list of Who stories that are amazing but have horrible internal continuity. The only other serious contender being the Dalek Empire I audio series.

[Revy]

Rory wanted children really really bad and the Silence presumably sterilized her. She can't give her SO one of the major things he wants in life.

Well here's a crazy thought - directed at Amy, not anyone here - instead of cranking out another baby for an already overcrowded planet, why don't you show a shred of compassion and consider adopting one of the, oh, I'm gonna go with thousands of orphans in Britain alone, and brighten up their life by giving them a home and a family?

It was good enough for Sarah Jane.

And as Crazedwraith said:

Amy gets more and more annoying with her 'i know the Doctor inside and out perfectly' shtick and oh my god I do not care about your relationship issues anymore.

So damn true. I am sick and tired of Amy Pond and her weepy emotional baggage. I watch Doctor Who for sci-fi adventures, aliens, time travel and occasional mystery. I don't watch it to catch the latest Pond family drama. I'm starting to think that the much touted episode 5, where the Ponds leave the show, will have me cheering rather than crying as the Who team insists it will. Then again, I heard that Moffat did a 180 and changed the ending he had planned for them. My guess? He had a dark and deadly end planned, but decided he couldn't kill off his beloved characters and so rewrote them as having a happy ending.

Christ, I am so close to giving this show up.

[Broomstick]

Is Skaro back now without any explanation?

An explanation for that is that the Skaro scene takes places after the planet is fucked up and before it is destroyed. After all, the Doctor does have a time machine, right? And there are humans (in the future relative to us) who also have time travel technology so it's conceivable a human woman could wind up on Skaro during a time period accessible to the Doctor. A long shot, to be sure, but it would fit in-universe.

How is making a Dalek forget about the Doctor going to stop it from killing him? They're Daleks! They kill anything not Dalek! When she wiped their memories, they should have gone from "Kill the Doctor!" to "Kill the humanoid lifeform!" and just plungered his face off regardless of his identity.

Except that's actually consistent with the rest of the episode – the Daleks either completely ignore Amy and Rory, or react very slowly to their presence. I guess the equivalent might be that when you're soundly asleep people can talk nearby or walk around the room you're in and you don't react but if someone yells “FIRE!” you'll get up – until the danger is over and you drop back into sleep almost instantly. If the Daleks were somehow sedated they might not react to most stimuli, but the Doctor's presence might be alarming enough to arouse them.

Once they forget about the Doctor he becomes just so much background noise and they go back into an inert state.

Amy is all distraught because she cant have babies any more? Oh fuck off, I'm sick to death of 'women = babies' being shoved down my throat on TV. I can't have babies, and I don't break down into tears over it. Believe it or not Who writers, some women don't want babies. I know, shocking but true.

Amy is all distraught NOT because “she can't have babies”, she's distraught because she can't give Rory the children he wants. It's a fine distinction but it merits mentioning. They split, at least in part, because Amy thought that by setting Rory “free” to marry someone else so he could have the kids he wanted and find greater happiness than staying with her.

Maybe I just have a different perspective, having been married 20+ years and having had to deal with a infertile partner (who yes, did at one point suggest I should leave and find someone who could give me biological children. I swiftly corrected his notion of that being a good idea.). I found it touching. Of course, I also expect quite a few other people either blasted past the whole thing without noticing or didn't like touchy-feely relationship stuff interfering with the explody-wody stuff or are just sick of hearing about the Ponds/Williams thing.

That dialogue was pretty vague, actually - I'm still not quite sure whether Amy was upset because she now can't have children, or whether she was so emotionally traumatised by the whole Demon's Run and River Song business that she just doesn't want to have any more children. I suppose we'll find out more in the weeks to follow; somehow I've got a feeling this is going to link into her exit from the show.

I hope to god it's not normal infertility. Because that is assuredly something the Doctor can help with, not least by just going to a future hospital, perhaps one run by feline nuns.

That's assuming the Doctor knows what the problem is. He dropped them off on Earth, remember? Amy and Rory probably tried to conceive then discovered there was a problem, and at that point were stuck on 21st Century Earth with just our current resources and technology.

Of course, now that the Doctor is back taking her to the cat-nuns is feasible, but then again, most people seem to just want the whole baby thing dropped rather than devoting future episode time to it, so whatever.

So ... they escaped, and the Doctor is now infested with Dalek nanites which are rewriting him into a Dalek puppet? That's right, isn't it? Or is he magically immune to them even without the wristband thing?

Or maybe the nano-cloud bits can only exist on the asylum planet, so if something leaves the planet the nanogenes deactivate or self-destruct somehow in a manner that doesn't harm their surroundings. Because, you know, having stringent safety controls on that sort of technology just might be a good idea.

t looked good and was enjoyable if you didn't use your brain at any point, and it's kinda sad that that's the norm for Who episodes these days.

It's kinda been the norm for the past 50 years. Ridiculous stories and massive plot holes are staple elements of Who.

Good Grief. Parliament of the Daleks, okay, maybe the Doctor is just using the phrase... Prime Minister? What?

Well, the Daleks aren't actually speaking English, you know. The TARDIS is translating as best she can, and perhaps “prime minister” or “parliament” are the closest equivalents to words/concepts that have no direct translation.

Why are the daleks cowardly now? What exactly do these mad daleks do that's so formidable?

Fear of contagion?

They were empirically less threatening than normal daleks. There was also no reason to euthanasia the other daleks on the ground just because Oswin is playing some music.

Maybe the Daleks have decided the whole asylum notion was stupid and now is a good time to be rid of it?

The Dalek notion of beauty was stupid, it would have been much easier to just say that they didn't want to kill their own kind for no reason; seriously, even an ethical broken clock can be right twice a day. Daleks are all about racial superiority, is it that hard to believe that they are reluctant to kill their own?

Well, sure, except we've seen that Daleks really don't have a problem with killing each other. At least two civil wars that we've seen, Daleks killing other Daleks for being less pure however defined, killing Daleks for failure, and Og knows what else.

Why would they bother to keep Oswin alive when she was obviously not hateful, but deluded?

Because a prison can be a fortress and keep people out as well as keep people in? A full conversion was done in order to convert her to their cause and utilize her talents. Maybe by the time they realized this wasn't going to work in a good way for them she'd seized too much control of the systems to easily eliminate her? It was mentioned over and over that the Daleks were trying to get in to where Oswin was, so apparently the Daleks were trying to get to her but she was successfully preventing them from doing so.

The most sensible explanation, if you want to use the word, is that Skaro is what the daleks rename their current capital to... Doctor: Of course, this isn't the first Skaro, because I blew up the others.

Or, you know, time travel.

That makes no sense. They could have just sent one of their androids, equipped with a nuke. Plunk it down outside the door. BOOM.

For all we know they tried that. Oswin has been resisting them for at least a year (because, let's face it, she might have been down there a lot longer than that but only think it a year) and seems pretty savy. It might be that either the planetary defenses or Oswin spotted the human puppets/bombs/whatever and neutralized the threat. Thing is, they're sending the Doctor in as a kind of a rescue party, he's NOT a Dalek, and thus can get inside Oswin's mental and emotional defenses in a way no Dalek can.

Wasn't Skaro destroyed in the Time war? Or banished the the phantom zone along with Gallifrey. Whichever. The point is no one should be walking on it.

Yes. However, space-time travel makes it possible to go to Skaro before it was destroyed.

I know you want to make it clear these things work at the behest of the daleks but we know that, the title of the episode has been announced already. You don't need to put daft head eyestalks on the minions to make it clear to us.

Still not as bad as the Black Guardian with the dead bird hairstyle. By which I mean there was an actual dead bird on his head instead of hair.

Couldn't Rory and Amy have had this conversation earlier? this seems like something one frank conversation about her desire to split up could of resolved before the divorce papers got signed.

Frankly, miscommunication between two people leading to divorce is one of the more realistic parts of this episode. Which, granted, is not saying much but I don't look for realism in Doctor Who.

Path net...argh. You're telling me an alien race which fought the time lords, an alien race who has had their plans thwarted in unconventional ways again and again by one man is entirely reliant on arrogance to defend this thing? I mean seriously, no effort to have backups or write permissions or firewalls instead they just assume only a dalek would be able to ever access it and all daleks are loyal.

And non-Daleks have been trying to hack into the Dalek technology for how long? The point is not that it's without security or firewalls, it's the Oswin hacked the system when even the Time Lords never could, and that's a tip-off there is Something Amiss With Oswin. Just like the repeated question of “where does the milk come from?”.

Ozwind. Sure Doctor, leave her here. She's someone with the drive and intellect of a dalek without the overwhelming hatred and xenophobia of the species. You were willing to commit crimes against nature during Daleks in Manhattan to try and create such entities (I believe the general idea is anyone who could compete with the timelords could do great things if they turned this energy to something other than evil) but no lets just leave this one to die because clearly you hate daleks just that much (maybe you forgot this in daleks in manhattan).

Well, sure, except when the Doctor broke through her delusion of humanity she immediately started muttering “exterminate” and started to advance on him. Clearly, her resistance to the conversion was not 100% successful. Either you have to somehow maintain her delusions, or else the inner Dalek wants to come out and start shooting. Oswin isn't safe to have around. She's not safe for either Dalek or non-Dalek because you don't know when she's going to flip-flop her identity. She's insane and not curable. What could you do with her?

[Revy]

Except that's actually consistent with the rest of the episode – the Daleks either completely ignore Amy and Rory, or react very slowly to their presence. I guess the equivalent might be that when you're soundly asleep people can talk nearby or walk around the room you're in and you don't react but if someone yells “FIRE!” you'll get up – until the danger is over and you drop back into sleep almost instantly. If the Daleks were somehow sedated they might not react to most stimuli, but the Doctor's presence might be alarming enough to arouse them.

Sorry, no, I call BS on that. When Rory prods those Daleks upon arrival, they slowly power up and then all go berserk and start firing at him. He barely escapes alive from them. Later, Amy and the Doctor get attacked by a Dalek, who tries very enthusiastically to kill them even before identifying the Doctor - the one he talked into self-destructing, remember?

So no, I wouldn't say 'completely ignore them' is accurate. React slowly? Yes, but once they get going they try to kill the fuck out of you. So having a group of them go from being mere inches away from sucking the Doctor's face off, to losing all interest and wandering off just because they no longer recognise him as the Doctor ... that's BS. They tried to kill Rory and Amy and the Doctor earlier, despite not knowing who any of them were. That scene is just dumb.

Amy is all distraught NOT because “she can't have babies”, she's distraught because she can't give Rory the children he wants. It's a fine distinction but it merits mentioning. They split, at least in part, because Amy thought that by setting Rory “free” to marry someone else so he could have the kids he wanted and find greater happiness than staying with her.

Yeah, well all I see from that is the writers going "I'm a woman and I can't give you the babies you want! That makes me worthless to you as a wife!".

Because hey, Rory totally fell in love with Amy for her uterus, not for her, right?

Yeah, I know some women can be like that, but there are women out there that think they deserve to be abused by their husbands as well. That doesn't mean I want to see fictional characters like that in a sci-fi adventure series that's at least somewhat aimed at kids. And yes, I'm extra touchy because a) I can't have kids myself, and I don't want to even see this kind of attitude coming from a supposedly strong female character, and b) I just read a bloody interview of Matt Smith, whose only thought concerning the laughable (to him) notion of having a female Doctor is "Oh! Mini Doctor babies!", because that's all women are good for, right? Not saving the universe or inspiring younger women to be great, but to use your lady parts to crank out babies as God intended!

Ehhhh. I know I'm making a mountain out of a molehill over this, but I'm just so sick and tired of stuff right now. I'm starting to wonder if it's possible to get any more cynical than I am right now.

[Broomstick]

Revy, I get where you're coming from the the female Doctor thing, and on the women-and-babies thing. I share some of your irritations but not nearly to the same degree. As it happened, I never felt strongly either way about having or not having kids (which made the infertility issue in my marriage easier to deal with. Not easy, just less difficult) so maybe I tend to under-react. I think you're being a little oversensitive here although, as you have said, you have some very good reasons to be so.

If you feel strongly you might want to open a separate thread for either or both issues. I wouldn't mind participating, but I'd prefer not to turn the episode threads into major meta-debates on the entire history of the show.

[Crazedwraith]

Sorry, no, I call BS on that. When Rory prods those Daleks upon arrival, they slowly power up and then all go berserk and start firing at him. He barely escapes alive from them. Later, Amy and the Doctor get attacked by a Dalek, who tries very enthusiastically to kill them even before identifying the Doctor - the one he talked into self-destructing, remember?

So no, I wouldn't say 'completely ignore them' is accurate. React slowly? Yes, but once they get going they try to kill the fuck out of you. So having a group of them go from being mere inches away from sucking the Doctor's face off, to losing all interest and wandering off just because they no longer recognise him as the Doctor ... that's BS. They tried to kill Rory and Amy and the Doctor earlier, despite not knowing who any of them were. That scene is just dumb.

Again, as I mentioned before. Those Daleks that don't kill the doctor upon forgetting him. They were specifically said to be different from the other Daleks in the asylum. The ones that tried to kill amy/rory/the doctor in the first room.

The ones that fail to kill the doctor when they forget about him, were the survivors of other battles with the doctor and it was stated they were in a much deeper catatonic state than the others that their deep hatred of the doctor was the only thing that could wake them up and keep them awake.

Think that's stupid? Fine buts its not stupid for the reasons you're saying. It was explained in the episode.

[Revy]

So why is it that one Dalek has to have the Doctor shove his face in front of its eyestalk and tell it to identify him, (and said Dalek was wide awake), yet a bunch of catatonic powered down coma Daleks not looking at anything are suddenly able to know the Doctor is in the house? Did they smell him?

[Crazedwraith]

Yeah, like i said. Scene might be stupid but not in the way you were saying. That's all.

Maybe the identification was sent to all the others in the aslyum through the telepathic web way or whatever it was called?

[The Imperator]

After re-watching, I must say, the Daleks not going down made more sense. They were scared of being infected with the madness. Also, I still think the PM Dalek was lying; a research facility that played with Dalek psyches makes much more sense, and the Doctor expressly said that the place was a legend, meaning he did not know for a fact.

Telepathic network makes more sense, but the biggest hole is the ending. If the Daleks were scared to go to the planet because that would infect them, they obviously knew that staying in orbit wouldn't affect them. But, Oswin did affect them at the end, which is the only real problem I had with the episode on second viewing. Well, that and the Doctor being the reason the Daleks improved themselves; why must Moffat make the Doctor into some kind of god, right before causing those who saw him in this demonic god-like way to forget about him?

[mr friendly guy]

I think we've seen mentality like this in threads here during the Arab Spring. Don't overthrow Mubarak or whoever else because the rebels may bring out a worst future for themselves, etc. It's the mindset that things won't get better if you try.

The thing is, the Daleks would have gone more powerful anyway. At least the Doctor stopped some of their evil.

[The Yosemite Bear]

it was alright, the plot holes were pretty bad, reminds me, what evre did happen to them Thals?

[Darkevilme]

Path net...argh. You're telling me an alien race which fought the time lords, an alien race who has had their plans thwarted in unconventional ways again and again by one man is entirely reliant on arrogance to defend this thing? I mean seriously, no effort to have backups or write permissions or firewalls instead they just assume only a dalek would be able to ever access it and all daleks are loyal.

And non-Daleks have been trying to hack into the Dalek technology for how long? The point is not that it's without security or firewalls, it's the Oswin hacked the system when even the Time Lords never could, and that's a tip-off there is Something Amiss With Oswin. Just like the repeated question of “where does the milk come from?”.

In short I just find it objectionable to see an entire species casually mind raped by one delusional former human.

In long.
Oswind had a leg up in entering a Dalek only network from being a Dalek yes which let her get in. Now consider, this thing lets you rewrite the memories of other daleks. Has there ever been rebel or heretic daleks in the series? yes.
Are there a shit-ton of daleks so insane they put them on that planet so they couldn't influence the rest? yes.
Ergo if they didn't have backups or a way of subdividing the asylum into its own separate network or both then the only explaination I have is that plungers have enough suction to hold an idiot ball.

If they have no way of localizing or reversing changes made by this access then an entire empire is vulnerable to the first lunatic or heretic in their number who manages to hack the system. And I really doubt the Dalek attitude to this was "it would never happen so there is no reason to guard against it".

In fact, it's almost guaranteed it already happened. And the first thing a dalek would do after rewriting the others would be to make sure no one else could pull the same trick on them.

[Gandalf]

So presumably when the Ponds leave, the Doctor will somehow give them the gift of fertility?