Doctor Who "Victory of the Daleks" [Spoilers]

[NecronLord]

Re-watching this, from a technical standpoint, it also lets us get something of a fix on dalek guns' ranges; in the opening scene, the preppy WAAF girl says that the group of Heinkels and Messersmits are approaching london, and outside the range of ordinary weapons. Churchill then deploys the dalek to exterminate them. That would imply a minimum range of about ten kilometers to be beyond range of London's AA guns.

[Gramzamber]

Actually, yeah. He probably could just leave. British WW2 high security installations weren't all time locked 'you don't leave without a chit' affairs. While he'd be checked on the way out, unless someone had deliberately issued orders to detain him, there's no reason he'd be stopped. There was one just round the corner from where I work (Western Approaches HQ) the staff went in and out all the time, they weren't exactly in the middle of nowhere or full time army bases.

Fair enough, though given his position and importance you'd think it'd raise a few eyebrows.

And frankly, that's assuming he didn't bother to just take that dalek gun and shoot his way out with it on paralyse - not like they programmed him with the memories of a soldier or anything is it? Why are you assuming he's vulnerable to bullets (barring, perhaps, roof of the mouth self inflicted)? Most robots in Doctor Who aren't, let alone dalek-tech robots. Most of his chest is a solid plate of what appears to be dalekinium.

Well I wasn't actually thinking that they'd stop him by force, because he'd win. Rather that they'd hold him up long enough for Churchill to come and give the speech he gave to the Doctor about 50 times during the episode.
Though I also find it odd that Bracewell would suddenly up and leave and not want to help his country. Granted the last time he tried to do that he let Daleks run around but with full awareness of what he is and what he can do I wonder why he doesn't want to help against the Nazis anymore. I just would've been more comfortable with him on the TARDIS, or the Doctor using his sonic screwdriver to fiddle with his memories or something.

[NecronLord]

Well I wasn't actually thinking that they'd stop him by force, because he'd win. Rather that they'd hold him up long enough for Churchill to come and give the speech he gave to the Doctor about 50 times during the episode.
Though I also find it odd that Bracewell would suddenly up and leave and not want to help his country. Granted the last time he tried to do that he let Daleks run around but with full awareness of what he is and what he can do I wonder why he doesn't want to help against the Nazis anymore. I just would've been more comfortable with him on the TARDIS, or the Doctor using his sonic screwdriver to fiddle with his memories or something.

Given that he seemed to get substantially more dalek knowledge once he realised what he was, I think he'd probably know about the importance of causality and all that unexplained wibbly wobbly stuff. But yes, that should have had a lantern hung on it.

And yes, I would have preferred him on the TARDIS, that'd have been awesome. But then, so would Human-Dalek Sec.

[mr friendly guy]

The Doctor refusing to play along just made things seem rushed. So instead of taking time for the Doctor to figure out their master plan, the script requires the audience to know about the Daleks plan really early, so they just have him do it in the most blatantly obvious way. Hitting the Dalek and shouting tell me what you are up to. I suspect though that it was meant as a homage to that scene from Revelation of the Daleks where Ace beats it up with a baseball bat, albeit one enhanced by TL technology.

The bluffing part would only work so far, even with the Doctor saying don't scan. I think that scene was just used to showcase how superior the new daleks were.

And if these were Davros Daleks, it might explain why they are "impure" because they are derived from Davros. Remember in the old series Daleks fought among themselves because of bullshit racism, which was actually potrayed nicely in Resurrection of the Daleks. So its not unsurprising the device would refuse Davros Daleks.

[PREDATOR490]

I think this would have been so much better if done in a multi-episode arc with the Daleks becoming more insidious as a means of surviving in their weakened state. They obviously have the means and intelligence to do so and the clearly identify the Doctor as a massive threat.
So... they go to the ONE planet the Doctor frequents all the time to hide...

What a great fucking idea ?

Then they decide to try and sterilize everything when playing the 'good guys' would have potentially had the Doctor get turned into the villain when he tries to attack them 'unprovoked'.
Of course, it is somewhat irritating that this past meddling stuff is stupid. If the Daleks can use Time Travel so easily and have no ramifications for making changes they should be able to rewrite Earths history to something more favorable.
I.E Help Britain win WW2 and have them see Daleks as their saviours and villify the Doctor for being the one that WONT interfere to help them.

Instead, they cram a poor plot into a single episode that still dosent fit and wash away everything thats happened except the one thing they wanted - Return of the Daleks.
I would rather see a decent Dalek story arc that branches into meeting River Swan and maybe even the Weeping Angels rather than them be self-container one-episode wonders. All we get for a consistant arc is the stupid seasonal 'looming threats' that rarely live up to the hype they get and got rapidly old for some suspense.

[NecronLord]

So... they go to the ONE planet the Doctor frequents all the time to hide...

What a great fucking idea ?

Bizzare as it is, they went there to find him so they could get the Testimony of the Doctor. That at least makes sense. Even if the progenitor recognising the Doctor err, doesn't.

[Crazedwraith]

I think the (somewhat flimsy) justification was that the 'testimony' included Eleven going "I am The Doctor! And you are the Daleks" rather than any of the previous speeches where he just identified them as Daleks. Perhaps the testimony also included bioscan data of The Doctor as he said it to prove he wasn't lying or something.

[Srelex]

Bizzare as it is, they went there to find him so they could get the Testimony of the Doctor. That at least makes sense. Even if the progenitor recognising the Doctor err, doesn't.

Well, given how many times the Daleks have bumped into him, it'd make sense if it could at the very least recognize him as Time Lord.

[PREDATOR490]

So... they go to the ONE planet the Doctor frequents all the time to hide...

What a great fucking idea ?

Bizzare as it is, they went there to find him so they could get the Testimony of the Doctor. That at least makes sense. Even if the progenitor recognising the Doctor err, doesn't.

While I get that it they actively wanted to meet the Doctor inorder to get what they wanted... its still an odd play to go about it. Why bother helping Winston Churchill / Britain in WW2 at all ?
Did they KNOW Winson Churchill could call up the Doctor whenever ?

I cant imagine the Daleks were too pleased at having to serve tea for a full month waiting for the Doctor to arrive. If the Doctor didnt arrive, where they going to carry through until they literally won the war and altered the history of Earth completely ?

The progenitor recognising the Doctor is just purely contrived shit. Is Dalek technology keyed to identifying the Doctor now ?
While I suppose it might be funny and understandable if they keyed their sensors and weapons to react to him, its beyond bizzare the Doctors Testimony is somehow recognised as an authority on Dalek purity.

[Ryushikaze]

So... they go to the ONE planet the Doctor frequents all the time to hide...

What a great fucking idea ?

Bizzare as it is, they went there to find him so they could get the Testimony of the Doctor. That at least makes sense. Even if the progenitor recognising the Doctor err, doesn't.

While I get that it they actively wanted to meet the Doctor inorder to get what they wanted... its still an odd play to go about it. Why bother helping Winston Churchill / Britain in WW2 at all ?
Did they KNOW Winson Churchill could call up the Doctor whenever ?

I cant imagine the Daleks were too pleased at having to serve tea for a full month waiting for the Doctor to arrive. If the Doctor didnt arrive, where they going to carry through until they literally won the war and altered the history of Earth completely ?

The progenitor recognising the Doctor is just purely contrived shit. Is Dalek technology keyed to identifying the Doctor now ?
While I suppose it might be funny and understandable if they keyed their sensors and weapons to react to him, its beyond bizzare the Doctors Testimony is somehow recognised as an authority on Dalek purity.

Dalek Technology has been keyed to recognizing the doctor since the second time they ever met him. That one of their devices can recognize him for their own ends isn't that big a stretch, especially since the progenitor machine seems at least reasonably intelligent.
As for 'serving tea til the doctor showed up', I bet they were entirely willing to do just that since it meant the extinction or survival of the pure dalek race. In fact, solving a major human crisis was probably their plan in the first place, to lure his attention and get his testimony.

[Dark Hellion]

Warning: I was switching dosages for some medication and I apparently had a bout of hyperfocus, so there is a shitload of text incoming. Don't ask me how I did this because I apparently typed and edited for like 4 hours straight but somehow didn't notice. It's a bit disjointed and rambley because I actually had to cut it down as I exceeded the character count. Read or skip at your leisure.

I am very torn about this episode. On one hand I liked what the story was trying to do or seemed to be. But the plot and execution was so crappy. I think I will give it a 3 but I may change my mind after typing the rest of this post.

Story: There are many aspects that I enjoyed. While it was executed in a ham-fisted way I liked the Davros Daleks plan to manipulate the Doctor. They are clever and deceitful, giving evasive answers and acting with such controlled subservience. I find the progenitor devices idea to be perfectly acceptable as well. The Daleks' obsession with genetic purity seems so extreme that it is highly likely that only a very slim range of genetic possibilities can open the device. The Davros Daleks could be closer to the Daleks than I am to another person of extremely differing ethnic background and still not meet the exacting standards that a race like the Daleks finds acceptable. I find the manipulation of the Doctor even more satisfying because it shows something that they explored a bit in "Dalek"; the Doctor and the Daleks are complete opposites, the Doctor wishing to see all the splendor of all the diverse life the universe has to offer and watch it flourish where as the Daleks want to exterminate all things that are even the slightest bit different. The Doctor wants a multitude of free willed species to build something wonderful and grand in the future. The Daleks want a future of purity and rigid order with no freedom just the eternal dominance of the Daleks. We now get the interesting aspect of this relationship which is that the Daleks and the Doctor are such opposites that it is a very small step for the Doctor to become so much like them. His absolute loathing for everything they represent can easily lead him to the path of the xenocidal madman bent on nothing more than wiping out every one of them. The strength of his character comes in that he chooses not to do such excepting the most extreme of circumstances and he is haunted every minute by what he had to do to end the Time War. Without this guilt and self-evaluation the Doctor could so easily become everything he despises.

I also liked the symbolism and irony of using the Daleks to fight the Nazis. For everything the Nazis represent the Daleks are worse. Genetic purity and eternal dominance at any cost. Not the millennial empire of the Third Reich or the martial pride of the German people. Not even any real glory. Just control, over everything, everywhere, at every time. This is the aspect of the Daleks that interests me most but seems to always be so poorly done. The Daleks are not just some super villain that wants to destroy the universe. That is such a poor way to utilize a civilization with such incredible story potential. They are capital E Evil. They are clearly smart enough and well developed enough as a species to be able to make moral decisions. And their decision is omnicide for all other species in the universe. As the Doctor says in "Dalek" other species are different and that is all the reason they need to kill you. They are not persuadable by money or emotion or reason. They have made their decision that the Daleks will be supreme and all other beings will be dead. They do not want to rule other beings or enslave them but one thing: Exterminate. And not the cold oblivion of an aggressive homogenizing swarm but the hot, passionate destruction brought about by a species that hates you simply for being you without any concern for what you have done or will do. I have always personally ranked the Daleks as one of the most evil species in all of sci-fi up there with things like the C'tan. They have both the intellectual capacity to make rational decisions and the power to enact those decisions and they choose to bring misery. I find it fascinating that for as light as pulpy as Doctor Who is that the Daleks are such a central force. The brighter the light the darker the shadow I guess.

I find that the aspect of codependency between the Doctor and the Daleks is such an intriguing thing. Despite being mortal enemies they have a certain need for each other. If the Daleks simply kill the Doctor they may win in the end but they will fail to prove that the Daleks are truly superior. They need the Doctor to see that the Daleks are truly the ultimate species in the universe. As the last Timelord he is the only one that can pass judgment on them saying that they are truly greater than his species, which stood as gods for time immemorial. Without that ultimate acknowledgment the Daleks victory is hallow as they can only say that they are currently the greatest species. They will not know if the Timelords were superior. They need the Doctor to see them win and be powerless to stop it; only then can they truly say that they are greater than even the Timelords. And the Doctor needs the Daleks as an antithesis of his quest. Of all his villains they truly represent everything that he stands against. In stopping them he proves that power isn't the ultimate decider in the universe but that good will and moral righteousness will prevail over the greatest evil the universe will ever know. They are also his source of salvation. He needs to defeat them as a reminder of why he would make the ultimate decision to end the Time War and destroy both his own people and the Time War Daleks. He needs to see the insanity of the era reflected in the Daleks actions and be reassured that whatever his sin was in obliterating the Time War it would be a worse sin to let it continue.

I think this episode got a number of these aspects very well. The dilemma that the Doctor is given is perfectly in keeping with the narrative character of the Daleks. They don't want to simply kill the Doctor. They want to destroy him utterly. Their escape is not really a victory but a simple continuation of the status quo. The Doctor is victorious in the end. He saves London from the blitz. He saves the Earth. And he saves the robot. He gives him a life as a human not as a simple creation of the Daleks. The robot doctor ends up not as a simple tool of the Daleks but as a man. The fact that there are Daleks on the loose is not really that important. There are always Daleks hiding in the shadows of some time warp or other anomaly of the week. The important thing is whether the Doctor can make something good come from the Daleks latest plot or not. In this episode he restored faith to the British high command that they can do great things by themelves and restored a mans faith in himself to not simply be a tool but to go out and find the love he lost. I like how Amy Poole is useful in this regard. She operates as a form of humanity for the Doctor. As was laid out in the previous episode the Doctor is not entirely human in his moral reasoning. He is very old and very kind but with that age and kindness has come more emotional baggage than any human could bear. He thinks first of suffering, the suffering of the Star Whale or the suffering in the trenches. He thinks of this first because this has been his life for a great deal of time, to wander about and stop the suffering and because of his kindness to take some of that in as well. Amy has a role as hope that the suffering can end and love can replace it. The Star Whales love of the children or the robo-docs love of a woman he shouldn't have loved.

This is why I really enjoyed the story of this episode and have enjoyed the story of this season so far. It has picked up a lot of loose or hanging story threads and starting to churn on them some more. I really hope they keep this up. We have seen (often poorly) that many of the Doctors companions are actually crutches that he needs to keep being the Doctor. It seems that Amy's role is becoming the next step from Rose's role. Rose seemed to be the one that kept that Doctor from falling into the pit he was digging for himself in his guilt. Rose raised him up and made him believe that he was capable of being something truly good and worth loving in spite of the blood on his hands. Now Amy seems to be taking him from that and reinforcing him into someone who is not simply the last Timelord but is neither the Timelord victorious. She seems to be making him into The Doctor, the one that River gushed about in the library episodes. Ancient with terrible knowledge and awe inspiring power, but the wisdom and kindness to truly utilize it. If this is what the next couple seasons are going for and they can improve their execution I think that moment will be one to see. I will get to this idea a bit later as I wish to finish my review before laying out a few more thoughts.

That all being said I think that the execution in this episode and really this season overall has been horrible. The acting isn't terrible but is nothing to write home about and lots of the plot elements have felt forced, rushed or just haphazardly put into place because they couldn't quite figure out how to both tell the story and show the plot at the same time. It seems that the staff at least seems to get that plot != story as there has been stuff that is developing outside of simple plot points. But god do those plot points tend to suck. Some are just too dependent upon us having a very analyzed view of the Doctor and others are just nonsense that seems to get stuck in because they seem cool or they have to utilize the time they are given (either rushing like this episode or plodding like the last). It feels like both this week and last week would have worked better if last weeks episode had been a 25-30 minute A plot after which the doctor would have traveled to WWII London and spent the last 22-27 minutes getting to the point were the Doctor confronts the Daleks and falls into their trap. It would have given a cliffhanger ending without having to reveal the Progenitor machine at all and allowed us more time to develop all the stuff that was rushed in this episode. I guess I will go with a 3 for this episode as I think the plot and execution was a 1-2 but I will give it a 4-5 for story content.

I have found that my greatest disappointment with the five seasons of "nu who" is that there is clearly ideas of stories going on in the minds of the writers but they never seem to be able to decide how far they want to go and never seem to want to have an episode that is based purely on the story of what is happening with the plot simply being what we are seeing of the big picture which we could elucidate from it. The episodes that really stick out in my mind are always those that seem to do this. I really liked the episode "Dalek" from the first season. It sought to give us insight into the Dalek and the Doctor and how the unending enmity between the two had warped the Doctor but simply reinforced the Dalek's resolve that it was right. As the Dalek mutates and changes it is unsure of itself. In the end the Dalek becomes warped until it has many similarities to the Doctor being unable to bring itself to kill and longing for freedom. In the end becoming something so antithetical to itself makes it wish its own destruction upon itself and serves as a reminder to the Doctor that the road he is going down could bring the same thing to himself. There was a terrible truth in the Daleks words that they were the same. They may have been on opposite sides of the continuum but a single step over the edge and they could be the same thing.

We see other developments in "The Doctor Dances". We see the fatigue of the Doctor, who has witnessed more suffering than any other being in the universe except perhaps the Jack at the end of his life. The Doctor is a being who by his nature always surrounds himself with death and sadness. To finally solve something without anyone dying and minimal undue suffering is not simply an emotional relief to the Doctor but a profound existential weight that is lifted from his shoulders. With out it weighing him down he has strength to hope that not everything he does will necessarily be built upon the lives and pain of others that he will have to carry with him. I think one of the places that the new seasons of Doctor Who have issues is with this idea of suffering. We either see it played up as a source of angst and having seen End of Evangelion numerous times my anti-angst defenses are pretty much immune to the weak ass shit the Doctor throws around. If it isn't played for simple angst it is often downplayed to the point of near irrelevance despite the fact that it often is the portion of the plot that could give the story the most weight and emotional impact.

"Gridlock" is a great example of this. We here a few short lines from the cat chick about how the Face of Bo closed down the underground streets to save the people and in doing so sacrificed his life by utilizing it to help keep the traffic grid running or whatever (been a couple years since I saw it). We get all this from a few throw away lines that are more about the cat girl gushing about how cool the Face is than anything else. But here we had a much better place to build the episode on than whatever bullshit they were trying to build it on (I am really not sure if it was supposed to be the gridlock itself or the crabs down below vs. nothing above).

Think about it though, the Face of Bo has witnessed or experienced untold human suffering because of the curse/gift of his immortality. When the people above start to die he witnesses it again and tries as always to do what he can to stop it. But in his current form there is so little he can do. In his impotence he can only do two things which is to save the cat girl by having her jump into his tank of protective fluid (or whatever plot device he uses) and to close down the underground passages, knowing that he will not have the power to reopen them. To save the people he must doom them to an unending monotony enclosed until some outside help comes. He must swallow this great guilt of trapping millions/billions of souls to a slow but sure death knowing he is saving them from a quick and inescapable death above. He must hold out hope for the one being he knows can help them. And with what we know about the Face of Bo (assuming the somewhat joking line is true, as I have seen some argue that it isn't) this is going to weigh very heavily on him when compounded by his past failures with Torchwood and other times.

From this we have the basis of a great story. We have a hero who is tragic in his impotence to truly help. We have the Doctor who is not actually in the usual hero role but he is a savior who comes to bring a release to freedom for the people trapped below and the release of death to the Face of Bo who has suffered so much over his thousands of years of life and over the decades of watching in silent horror at the dystopia he had to create to save the people. The Face of Bo is damned by the kindness he developed over so many years of life and watching people suffer and he needs the only other being in the universe who can understand this to finally set him free. And we have the additional element in that setting the Face of Bo free (letting him die) the Doctor will be alone again with no one else who can empathize left in the universe. This sets us up for the reveal that there is another Timelord. In losing the one who could understand him he finds a hope that there could be another. But we know that this hope will be dashed in the insanity that is the Master. Had he (the Master) been executed well the trail from the Face of Bo and "Gridlock" to the Master and to the ultimate 'death' of the Master (and we know he has to die; its the only satisfactory conclusion to the narrative) would have been able to serve as a powerful emotional story and one which contained a great deal of character development and impact for the Doctor. He goes from the savior who must let the only other being in the universe who is at all similar to him die, to a man hopeful that he can find that one true companion who he can finally be himself (a Timelord) with, to seeing that fleeting chance of something better destroyed in the madness of the Master and finally with the Masters death must seek to steel himself against the returning existential loneliness of knowing that no one will ever be able to truly know all that you are and have experienced. It would have been brilliant but was instead squandered on the zany antics of that crazy Master and grandpa Doctor and Martha, samurai rabbi. And god did it hurt to see it go to all that crap.

This difference between the potential that already exists and what we actually see is the reason I keep watching the new Doctor Who and the reason I am torn between liking the series and wishing I could invent a time machine so I could spend the rest of eternity kicking the writing staff in the crotch. When the deeper story really surfaces the result is beautiful. When it doesn't it is even more disappointing because we know that it existed if they had just been more willing to scratch the surface. It seems that so many writers don't realize that a Porshe with some dents and dings is still a million times sweeter than a Civic with spinner rims.

Now getting back to what I said earlier. I believe that a well executed story about the evolution of the Doctor from the quirky guy who fights monsters to the The Doctor, the man who monsters fear (to steal from the previews) could easily be one of the most important and influential stories ever told in sci-fi. With the history of Doctor Who and the character, something that vastly changes how he is perceived without having to use one of his resurrections and flowing naturally from the story would show emphatically that the dogmatic sticking to the status quo is completely unnecessary. This has been something that most intelligent fans with a decent understanding of literature and drama have realized for years but the generic fear of change has infected genres such as Sci-fi, Fantasy, and comics/manga. If an institution like Doctor Who, which seems most popularly known for its longevity and campiness, can have a powerful and profound change happen in a mature and dramatically impressive manner (and remain profitable), it could serve as a lasting reminder to directors and editors that changes are not the enemy but simply a tool that must be used with some care. That being said I have no real hope that this will really happen. I just wish it would.

Since we have conjectured about the cracks I wish we would get a real story out of it instead of a simple plot in which the Doctor stops it. I would like to propose a story along these lines, tying the loose ends of this episode and some of the ones of previous episodes and seasons together with the possibility of extending it further.

Season finale... We find that [insert technobabble here] is responsible for the cracks which will destroy reality/time/reopen the Time War. Whatever is causing the cracks and what their ultimate effect will be is somewhat irrelevant to the story, all that is necessary is for them to be something bad enough that the universe will not survive in any recognizable form and caused by something of such power and scope that the Doctor will be basically unable to solve it himself. We could devote a whole episode to the Doctor thinking he can stop them on his own but failing, although this would ultimately just be a bunch of plot with the added aspect of showing the Doctors growing desperation to save the universe and his failures driving him towards a kind of madness and building suspense. We probably would not even need an episode for this and could just have this be the first half of the first episode of a two-parter.

After his desperate flailing has failed the Doctor would be trying to work on a new plan when he would be approached by the most unlikely ally; the Pureblood Daleks. They also have a vested interest in the universe being around (hard to rule it otherwise) and despite their best efforts they are equally unable to stop the cracks. They offer the Doctor the man(pepperpot)-power he needs if he will lend them his scientific genius. It is obviously an extremely uneasy truce but both are truly desperate enough that they will grudgingly accept it. Now we have the place for a very good moral dilemma. The Doctor has to save the universe but is saving the universe for the Daleks worse than letting it end? The Doctor must attempt to somehow neutralize the Daleks while stopping the universe's destruction and he must worry about whatever betrayal the Daleks will indubitably have in store for him. We now have more plot as the Doctor runs about, figuring out how to use his new power to stop the cracks, tries to set up a plot that will make the Daleks destroy themselves in closing the cracks and keeps checking to make sure his Tardis and companion(s) are safe from harm. In doing so he obviously works himself to near exhaustion and his companion(s) being who they always end up will get into trouble trying to figure out what the Daleks' real plan is and escape by the skin of their teeth.

We have several elements to play with here as well. The power that the Doctor would command would be enormous, far more heady than the Timelord Victorious and with all the corrupting influence that comes with it. Now, we know that the Doctor won't be truly corrupted completely but he could teeter very precariously. Will he use the millions of Dalek soldiers he has some nominal command over to get the plot piece from the planet who is stubbornly holding it. This is another place where his companions serve a role. They would dissuade him from utilizing force to take it, instead using an ability that humanity has evolved from one of our ancient ancestors; weaseling shit outta people. The Doctor now has all the pieces for the anti-technobabble device but he still has to deal with the Daleks. So, he uses one of his most powerful abilities, stalling, while he sets up numerous different traps and manipulates the Daleks into the proper positions for springing them. He also uses this time to fend off several different attempts by the Daleks to gain access to the Tardis or do other 'naughty things'. But the stalling has a problem, time is running short and the cracks are growing worse and will soon be beyond stopping. The anti-technobabble device is set up and various Dalek Saucers are set up at the cracks to jargon the anti-technobabble beam into all the different cracks. But the Doctor wants a bit more time. He is very close to setting up his plan to destroy all the Daleks and is fiddling with shit as the timer counts down towards zero. We have a tense moment were the time is counting down from only a few minutes. With less than a minute left the doctor finishes the last of his tinkering.

The set-up is complete to destroy all the Dalek ships. He need only set a bomb outside the door of his Tardis leave the saucer he is on and activate the device to save the universe and destroy the Dalek in one fell swoop. He sets the bomb and begins to leave with almost 45 seconds to spare. But the Tardis won't move. The Daleks have locked it down with some blah-blah-blah field. But the Doctor won't have that. He has worked too hard and fought too long to let it end this way. He reconfigures things and tries again but no luck. He tries again as time slips by. First to 40 seconds, then 35, then 30 and 25 as he tries again and again to escape the blah field. At 25 the companion acts. They open the door and turn the bomb outside the door off and then pull the lever and activate the anti-technobabble device. The cracks close and as they do the Dalek saucers near them are simultaneously erased from time as well. But the Doctor does not notice this victory. He notices that there are still 15 seconds left on the clock and begins to berate his companion. They still had a few more tries. The companion attempts to calm the Doctor but days of working with his enemy and the centuries of hatred he has for the Daleks overwhelm any ability of the companion to reason with the Doctor. Even if they couldn't escape the companion disabled the bomb. They could have destroyed the last of the Dalek ships with that bomb, even if they had died they would have saved the universe both from the cracks and the Daleks. He threatens that when they get free he is going to take his companion(s) back and leave without them and unlike the other times when he has said it in frustration this time he is deathly serious. The Daleks have destroyed everything in his life too many times and are responsible for too much of the misery he has seen to ever forgive the companion for saving his life by sparing the Daleks. The Doctor is so furious he is not even going to figure out a way to finesse out of the blah field and begins to prepare to simply power his way out of it when the Daleks call him up.

However, when they call him up he sees that not only did the main ship, which he was on, survives but the general fleet does as well. Only the ships that directly responded to the cracks are gone. The rest are completely unharmed. The Daleks taunt: "You have done well Doctor. Your betrayal was impressive." The Doctor, not wanting to banter retorts that he still destroyed a vast portion of their fleet and their army and that it would take them years to rebuild. The Dalek leader replies: "We lost nothing. Only servants who knew their fate. The Dalek survive as strong as ever. We will rebuild and reconquer all we have lost. Like you doctor, we have time." This further taunt causes the Doctor to respond by pushing the power of the Tardis and simply tearing his way out of the saucer. The Doctor spits back at the Daleks that they cannot hold him and whatever plan they had for him has failed. To this the Dalek leader takes his greatest stab at the Doctor, "We had no plan. We simply kept you from running. We had no betrayal for you. We only undid your deceit. We kept our word. You did not. Today we were the honorable ones Doctor and you are the deceiver. We are the saviors and you are the murderer." In horror the Doctor realizes that this is true. All the manipulations of the Daleks were only to undo the things he did and to set up the blah field. There was no greater betrayal at work. In the entire time they worked together the Daleks had not even threatened him or his companion(s) where as he had killed millions of Daleks and had berated, belittled and threatened his companion(s). In his hatred of the Daleks he was blinded, unable to see that the possibility existed that he could ever be worse than the Daleks. The realization is a blow to his psyche that literally knocks him off his feet and brings tears to his eyes. He may have saved the universe but for the first time he truly lost to the Daleks. The Dalek fleet then prepares to leave, secure in their knowledge that they have inflicted a truly devastating blow to their nemesis. But the Dalek leader cannot resist one last twist of the knife: "You should be proud Doctor. You killed well today. You would make a good Dalek."

With this there would be a completion of a cycle. Despite all that he has gone through the Doctor cannot escape the past and what the Time War turned him into to. He cannot simply forget it and move on. He must in some way embrace it, come to terms with it and accept it as a part of himself. He cannot simply exist as the last survivor or as the victor. He must define himself by himself and not by a war that only exists in his memories. His hatred of the Daleks would again lead him to become the thing he never wishes to become, the reflection of the Timelords he had to destroy in the Time War. However, after all the things the Doctor has gone through since "Dalek" we have a Doctor who is in psychological state to deal with this. When the Dalek first taunts the Doctor that he would make a good Dalek it is a devastating thing for the Doctor to hear but it does little to stop him from attempting to take his vengeance. Only Rose and the changing nature of the Dalek itself stops him and he breaks down a bit after. But then he is already so jumbled and broken down that even with this experience crushing him there is only a limited amount that it can truly crush his psyche and instead just become another piece or scar within his mind. This time the taunt can have a different effect. The Doctor has finally found some degree of emotional health. He has beaten back nightmares again and again, earned the respect and love of dozens of people, and saved so many people from so many horrible things. He knows he is not just some monster attempting to earn his salvation. He is not a savior or a hero, he is very simply what Amy described him as... a being who is very old and very kind. He is simply a wanderer through time and space who has seen too much pain and suffering and wishes for it to stop. From this framework he can accept his loss to the new Daleks. He is old and old feelings and old hatreds consumed him. He did something he should not be proud of and was beaten. But he has lost before in worse ways. This time he lost but he lived and so did his companions and so did the universe. The Daleks may have escaped but they always escape. They are tricky, resourceful and will always be back. And when they get back he will be ready to stop them.

From here we can now go on further. The Doctor takes a bit of time to recuperate from his lose to the Daleks. But in many ways it is neither a physical nor psychological recovery. He has done those by himself. It is an emotional recovery. He makes amends to his companion(s) and simply refocuses on those things that make him who he is. And then he sets out to pursue the Daleks and put a stop to whatever their plan is. Not for revenge though, but because the Daleks always have some plan that involves the mass suffering of other living beings.

He is quickly able to catch up to the Daleks sometime far in the future attempting to technobabble there way into some type of archive to discover massive amounts of history as well as recover data on technology and weaponry of the future and of species in the past who would be strategically advantageous to conquer. The episode could have an interesting aspect in that it could spend a large amount of time focusing on the Daleks attempting to crack into a place that is made with much high technology than they have. This could be used to demonstrate that the Daleks are very intelligent and resourceful and why they are a challenging nemesis for the Doctor. Depending on our mood there are also ample opportunities for humor in having the Daleks engage in their monotone version of small talk. If played right you would have that sort of funny irony of a bunch of straight men talking, were their conversation is totally business, completely serious and literal and because of this there is no ability for any of the participants to realize that there is an outside context in which the conversation could be mean something else. There is a great opportunity to utilize humor with the Daleks as they are so capable of being menacing that slightly funny things can gain a much greater edge of dark comedy by being placed in juxtaposition with them. As with most things dealing with the Daleks the thing that is actually necessary is to make them competent villains dealing with an obstacle or situation which has some inherent comedic value and then showing them dealing with it in a manner consistent with their personality, hateful and methodically.

Anyway, we would be shown (not told) that the Daleks are capable of executing a complex plan that requires high levels of coordination, cooperation and planning and see this taking place on screen instead of being sprung on us. We could do this because the success of the plan is not important to the overall story and is only a driving force for the plot to help move the story along. We would see the Daleks successfully break through the security system and prepare to extract the data that they will utilize to conquer the past and build a new empire of pure blood Daleks. This is when the Doctor can arrive to stop them. The Doctor would do his generic tangling with large amounts of Daleks which involves him running around like an idiot, using his sonic screwdriver to accomplish whatever random plot activity needs to be done and generally being an annoying git. After some tension we would get the "Mexican standoff" moment. The Doctor would have located the central encryption dohicky and use the sonic screwdriver to lock down all the files and degrade them to meaningless garbage. The Daleks would capture the companion to use as a bargaining chip. Then the Daleks would taunt him, telling him that they know him and that he cannot sacrifice the life of a human just to protect the data. And again as they are the newer, smarter Daleks would further taunt him that there will be many other chances for him to interfere with their plans.

This would be the clue in moment for the Doctor. The catalyst for a change and the catharsis for his years of silent suffering. Again it would come about not because of what the Daleks say, but because what they say is true. He would be there to stop them. Again and again. We come back to Amy's description once again but we take it one step deeper. He is very old and very kind. He is not the man who comes to bring salvation, he is not the hero who comes to defeat the enemy. He is the man who has seen too much suffering and pain. He is the man who comes to relieve pain and suffering; and his name becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. He is The Doctor. He does not have to refight the Time War because even to a time traveler, even to a Timelord that is the past. He may never be able to forgive himself for what he did but he doesn't need to do so immediately, he literally has all the time in the world. In the mean time there will always be those who need the Doctor and he can resolve himself that he will no longer simply be doing patchwork but doing intensive care. And he is ready for it. In the karmic twist of fate the Daleks have damned themselves with the very taunt that was supposed hurt the Doctor. A single sentence that a few years ago would have infuriated the Doctor now has a transcendent meaning.

Now, as The Doctor he responds to the Daleks. He admits they know him. But, he cautions them, they only know the him of their present and that is enough to make him a mortal enemy worth all effort to crush. But they are in the far future now. What does history know of him now? He would then proceed to open one file for them. The file on Daleks, which would read in large red letters "EXTINCT". There would be some clear consternation amongst the Daleks, seeing their worse nightmare come true. But this was why they came to the future, to prevent this. But The Doctor would then send them one more file and would complete yet another cycle started in the library episodes. In those episodes he told the creature to look him up. Now he would be even more proactive. He would hit the Daleks with a hay-maker telling them that is who they are, sending them his own file, would remind them that this is what they face. As undecipherable script flows across the screen the Daleks would sit in their usual immobile waiting. The scrolling would finish and a single word would be uttered by the Daleks, but not the word that we come to expect. They would simply say "impossible". And The Doctor would reply with out hesitation and without the mixture of emotion that used to color his speech to the Dalek. It would be a simple declarative statement. "I am the Doctor and you are the Daleks and this is the future." And now the power of The Doctor is shown (or confirmed if you like) as the Daleks abandon the companion, flee to their ship and run. Not the tactical retreats or emergency escapes of the past but a rout. Not because of an emotion of fear or panic but existential dread at the information they are given. It is a repeat of a past plot point but that repetition is actually important. In the library episode it was a blustering threat to the creatures from a Doctor who was not really ready to be that Doctor. This is the confident statement of the man who is now going to be all those things that futures history will say of him. In the library it is the whining of a little kid warning that some day he is going to be big and could bully you back. This would be the statement of a man who knows he's tough, has won many fights and knows he will go on to win many more.

Further adding to the nature of the story is the fact that in many ways the Doctor still loses. The Daleks escape with knowledge from the future. But in many ways their escape is a major lose for them as well. They cannot have any illusions about the Doctor anymore. His place as an eternal adversary becomes immovably cemented. The Daleks cannot simply zap him and say "Exterminate" and pretend that this is a solution. They now absolutely need him alive to see them succeed. The ultimate victory of the Daleks over the Timelords requires it. They are now inextricably bound by both hatred and necessity but this hatred and necessity are always in conflict. They hate him and so wish to destroy him, but they need him and so cannot simply kill him. And now as The Doctor they cannot take simple shots at his psyche. It is thematically powerful because it allows for the Daleks to be used on the scales they need to be effective (either very small or very large numbers) but allows for them to operate on a scope that is lesser than what they were previously forced. No longer do <3 Daleks have to attempt to destroy the planet and >10 Daleks have to attempt to destroy the universe. Now the Daleks could have plots that are simply designed to hurt the Doctor or to prevent their own extinction. There is also room for success and failure. The Daleks can now win a battle. Thus there is actual room for dramatic tension as the Doctor can now lose. And as The Doctor he can lose because he does not need to play the warrior. He can technically lose a battle if he can turn this lose into a way to prevent people from suffering. As a Timelord he can always afford to trade time for life. He has plenty of time.

This has been my eternal dismay about Doctor Who, especially the new seasons. Between the classic stories of humanity that can be told endlessly and the actual depth of the Doctor Who background and the dramatic devices that are available within it, there is no excuse for the absolute crap of things like Doctor Donna. I mean jesus tittyfucking christ, it took me a few dozen times longer to type out the previous story frameworks than it did to come up with them. Give me a writer who does action well and one who does dialogue well and I could turn that into three hours of Who in less than a day. Would it be good? I don't know. But it would be making an attempt to make Doctor Who mean something which is more than the previous season did.

[Hillary]

Reasonably good fun, but nothing special. I haven't really enjoyed any of Mark Gatiss's epiodes for Doctor Who, which is a shame as I LOVED The League Of Gentlemen.

A couple of points that other people mentioned.

Amy not recognising the Daleks - this is surely all part of the series arc, along with the crack in space. It clearly isn't just a retcon, as it was mentioned as a major issue by the Doctor at least twice, rather than just briefly handwaved away.

The chief scientist guy may well turn up later in the series - that was my take on him being let go, that he would be a part of the solution to the Dalek/crack in time problem in the finale. After all, as a robot, he is probably still going to be around for a considerable amount of time.

The New Daleks screamed "merchandise" to me - funnily enough, I was reading Private Eye last night and they made this self same point. They also suggested that the series has had massive budget cuts this year and there are a few "back of the wardrobe" monsters to be found later on in this season. It also said that the BBC took £1m out of the budget to make a 3D trailer. :weep:

[NecronLord]

Reasonably good fun, but nothing special. I haven't really enjoyed any of Mark Gatiss's epiodes for Doctor Who, which is a shame as I LOVED The League Of Gentlemen.

A couple of points that other people mentioned.

Amy not recognising the Daleks - this is surely all part of the series arc, along with the crack in space. It clearly isn't just a retcon, as it was mentioned as a major issue by the Doctor at least twice, rather than just briefly handwaved away.

The chief scientist guy may well turn up later in the series - that was my take on him being let go, that he would be a part of the solution to the Dalek/crack in time problem in the finale. After all, as a robot, he is probably still going to be around for a considerable amount of time.

The 'Oblivion Continuum' is supposedly a source of 'perpetual power.'

The New Daleks screamed "merchandise" to me - funnily enough, I was reading Private Eye last night and they made this self same point. They also suggested that the series has had massive budget cuts this year and there are a few "back of the wardrobe" monsters to be found later on in this season. It also said that the BBC took £1m out of the budget to make a 3D trailer. :weep:

Most of those have been repudiated by the Beeb I believe.

[Hillary]

The New Daleks screamed "merchandise" to me - funnily enough, I was reading Private Eye last night and they made this self same point. They also suggested that the series has had massive budget cuts this year and there are a few "back of the wardrobe" monsters to be found later on in this season. It also said that the BBC took £1m out of the budget to make a 3D trailer. :weep:

Most of those have been repudiated by the Beeb I believe.[/quote]

I meant to add in my original post that Private Eye is sub-Wiki for accuracy, so this wouldn't surprise me.

[Jade Falcon]

Re-watching this, from a technical standpoint, it also lets us get something of a fix on dalek guns' ranges; in the opening scene, the preppy WAAF girl says that the group of Heinkels and Messersmits are approaching london, and outside the range of ordinary weapons. Churchill then deploys the dalek to exterminate them. That would imply a minimum range of about ten kilometers to be beyond range of London's AA guns.

If you're talking about the aircraft that the Daleks shot down/vapourised, its not the same ones mentioned in the war rooms. The Daleks shot down Stukas, manufactured by Junkers, Heinkels were the twin engined bombers seen in the Eccleston story (can't remember its name), and seen in large numbers in the film Battle of Britain.

Am I the only one who heard the "Where Eagles Dare" reference...."Broadsword calling Danny Boy"?

[NecronLord]

Re-watching this, from a technical standpoint, it also lets us get something of a fix on dalek guns' ranges; in the opening scene, the preppy WAAF girl says that the group of Heinkels and Messersmits are approaching london, and outside the range of ordinary weapons. Churchill then deploys the dalek to exterminate them. That would imply a minimum range of about ten kilometers to be beyond range of London's AA guns.

If you're talking about the aircraft that the Daleks shot down/vapourised, its not the same ones mentioned in the war rooms. The Daleks shot down Stukas, manufactured by Junkers, Heinkels were the twin engined bombers seen in the Eccleston story (can't remember its name), and seen in large numbers in the film Battle of Britain.

I know that.

The "ironside" presumably destroyed the first wave too. That's irrelevant to the point, though, which is that they've done field tests on it, and therefore know its weapon's range exceeds that of the AA heavies of the time.

[Thanas]

I think the difference might not be in range, but rather in accuracy. All AA heavies could theoretically catch the Stukas, the problem was hitting them.

[NecronLord]

The Heinkels were mentioned offscreen as "out of range" though, there's no reason to think they weren't. The wording is pretty explicit that the new weapon has greater range. They were a different group from the Stukas, which were clearly visible.

Not that an AA battery would have done quite as well anyway.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Jesus Dark Hellion!

I see what you meant about a lot of texts, that has to be the longest post I have come across so far.

Your ideas are incredible, and probably much better than what we can expect. You shoudl seriously consider sending them to the writing staff. If not this season, then maybe next season. But, still, WOAH

As for the Ironside shooting down the Stukhas, I agree with Thanas that it was most likely an accuracy issue. After all, they said "out of range" which could well have meant "out of effective range." Also, the fact that it was faster firing, more accurate, longer ranged and more powerful makes it clear why they are excited about it

[Johonebesus]

They should have reused the plot from "The Power of the Daleks", Troughton's first story. The episodes are lost, so very few viewers will have seen it or even know about it. It would have made much more sense for the Daleks to be helping the Brits in exchange for the energy and material necessary to operate their nursery/factory.

The racial purity business is crap. The Daleks have captured humans and metamorphosed them into Kaleds before. And Davros was close enough that a disease specifically engineered to only kill Daleks also affected him.

The new Daleks are ugly. I don't mind the colors so much, but they look hunchbacked. I'd rather they actually use the Cushing movie designs.

How difficult would it be to take old episodes and seamlessly replace monsters with new CG versions? It occurred to me that the new versions would work well as Davros' prototypes that the Doctor describes as "primitive, but unmistakably" Dalek. How long will it be before fans can use consumer desktop computers to actually retcon the visuals in old episodes and give the Daleks and Cybermen a consistent design?

[Soontir C'boath]

Went for a 3. It was a decent fun romp but overall, the only thing I kept thinking was, "That's five more Daleks kids will be going nuts to buy". The only thing Character Options have to do is keep the same mold but change the paint scheme.

[NecronLord]

They should have reused the plot from "The Power of the Daleks", Troughton's first story. The episodes are lost, so very few viewers will have seen it or even know about it. It would have made much more sense for the Daleks to be helping the Brits in exchange for the energy and material necessary to operate their nursery/factory.

That would contradict an episode people have seen, the one in New York, which outright says that Earth of that period has no useful resources, and they have to rely on a special lightning strike.

The racial purity business is crap. The Daleks have captured humans and metamorphosed them into Kaleds before. And Davros was close enough that a disease specifically engineered to only kill Daleks also affected him.

Desperate daleks have done that. And daleks have been into racial purity since forever.

The new Daleks are ugly. I don't mind the colors so much, but they look hunchbacked. I'd rather they actually use the Cushing movie designs.

How difficult would it be to take old episodes and seamlessly replace monsters with new CG versions? It occurred to me that the new versions would work well as Davros' prototypes that the Doctor describes as "primitive, but unmistakably" Dalek. How long will it be before fans can use consumer desktop computers to actually retcon the visuals in old episodes and give the Daleks and Cybermen a consistent design?

Why would we want to? It's only worth doing that with inexcusably bad visual effects in limited shots, like the dalek saucer in invasion of earth.

[Johonebesus]

They should have reused the plot from "The Power of the Daleks", Troughton's first story. The episodes are lost, so very few viewers will have seen it or even know about it. It would have made much more sense for the Daleks to be helping the Brits in exchange for the energy and material necessary to operate their nursery/factory.

That would contradict an episode people have seen, the one in New York, which outright says that Earth of that period has no useful resources, and they have to rely on a special lightning strike.

But those Daleks didn't have one of those progenitor thingies. As with "The Power of the Daleks" they would have the factory, all they would need is energy.

How difficult would it be to take old episodes and seamlessly replace monsters with new CG versions? It occurred to me that the new versions would work well as Davros' prototypes that the Doctor describes as "primitive, but unmistakably" Dalek. How long will it be before fans can use consumer desktop computers to actually retcon the visuals in old episodes and give the Daleks and Cybermen a consistent design?

Why would we want to? It's only worth doing that with inexcusably bad visual effects in limited shots, like the dalek saucer in invasion of earth.

So it wouldn't be worth doing to make the machines in Genesis of the Daleks look primitive, or to give the Cybermen a consistent appearance from "Tomb of the Cybermen" to "Silver Nemesis"? Even for the times the old series had some horrible effects.

[DaveJB]

So it wouldn't be worth doing to make the machines in Genesis of the Daleks look primitive, or to give the Cybermen a consistent appearance from "Tomb of the Cybermen" to "Silver Nemesis"? Even for the times the old series had some horrible effects.

For one thing, the cost of doing so would be enormous; it'd probably require even more FX shots per minute than a new series episode. And even if they actually did so, the net result would probably be to piss off the fans, since they don't like old series stories being tampered with like that.

[Johonebesus]

So it wouldn't be worth doing to make the machines in Genesis of the Daleks look primitive, or to give the Cybermen a consistent appearance from "Tomb of the Cybermen" to "Silver Nemesis"? Even for the times the old series had some horrible effects.

For one thing, the cost of doing so would be enormous; it'd probably require even more FX shots per minute than a new series episode. And even if they actually did so, the net result would probably be to piss off the fans, since they don't like old series stories being tampered with like that.

That's why I was wondering how long it will be before people can do this sort of thing at home on consumer desktop p.c.'s. It ought to be feasible to create 3D models and just paint them on top of the existing images, then fiddle with the lighting and resolution until the new models blend into the original shots. They did it in Hollywood a decade ago to make Forest Gump meet Johnson, so it should be possible within my lifetime for fans to make their own versions of classic shows on their home computers.