I originally thought this was a complete rip off from the season 1 episode "Dalek" and now i disagree with that for the most part, and i think the episode fails mostly on it's own merits.
I wish it was a rip-off, it would be better than what we got. I think it's even worse than last time i watched.
It goes through some standard beats of an episode, it's just most of the execution is mediocre.
Danny is written way too publically weird. It's not even realistic, and he and Clara just don't have a connection.
Putting a personal dalek episode as the 2nd episode of this incarnation is the wrong decision. In the first season it hit deeper because we had got to know the doctor around 5 episodes, and the personal experience with the dalek was more emotionally resonant.
By putting it as the 2nd episode it is similar as when you do a body swap episode a few episodes in on an ensemble show. You haven't got to know the characters enough to make the body swapping feel interesting or enjoyable enough to see characters in other's bodies.
Except it's not even a personal Dalek episode. It's a generic action episode. A few interesting ideas with no atmosphere, no tention and little emotion.
I don't even buy the premise. A dalek would have defenses against every kind of virus and bacteria, and our heroes are much larger than those. They would have been destroyed as soon as they entered.
It's said that the center of a Dalek's hate is a mechanized part of the Dalek. I don't buy that. A dalek is a biological creature inside an artificial shell, or a symbiosis.
And i also don't like it because it boils down hate into mechanics, rather than the behavior of a being and of a species, in this case the Daleks, which it doesn't make sense to boil it down to mechanics. It's like the writer is trying to add something new where nothing needed to be added, and this addition convolutes the mythos of the Dalek's along with not making much sense and going against previously established information, which then takes us out of the episode.
I hardly buy the doctor going into the dalek in the first place, and he was fighting Daleks literally 2 episodes ago.
I like the doctor taking advantage of the guy's imminent death to get a lead.
I liked that woman who sacrificed her life and made the doctor remember her name and make it count.
And of course the dalek betrayed them once it was repaired. The doctor just helped repair it.
I get it, there was some rubbish about the Dalek was actually good but he repaired it to be bad again and we must make the Dalek good again.
Ugh.
Random slap from Clara. Sexist.
Along with thinking she's a know it all about the Daleks, when her experience with them is miniscule compared to the doctor. In-fact, she has none at all. She's never been in a full Dalek episode before. In "Asylum" it was a different character, and in "The Name of The Doctor" she said she had "faint" memories from her previous selves. Or something. I guess she has "faint" memories from those dozens or hundreds of random versions of herself, or something, and it's never been brought up again.
Ugh.
Luckily the doctor who has two thousand years of knowledge. Knowledge on brain chemistry and electricity and neuroscience and biology, along with extremely specific knowledge on Dalek physiology, he's able to understand re-write the part of the Dalek to alter it's behavior to unlock it's memories. I can buy that.
No wait, it was Clara...
Ugh.
Then this damaged Dalek then goes and destroys many other non-damaged Daleks.
Ugh.
So everyone who dies in the universe or is around the doctor when they die get transported to an afterlife? Their consciousness energy gets transported? From anywhere in the universe throughout space and time?
Ugh.
There's a common complaint in the fandom that the weeping angels become overused and no longer scary. That's true, and it's the same with the Daleks. Overused and no longer scary for a long time, and it's episodes like this that contribute heavily to that.
Review by WardVIP 8BlockedParentSpoilers2023-12-16T20:35:37Z
I originally thought this was a complete rip off from the season 1 episode "Dalek" and now i disagree with that for the most part, and i think the episode fails mostly on it's own merits.
I wish it was a rip-off, it would be better than what we got. I think it's even worse than last time i watched.
It goes through some standard beats of an episode, it's just most of the execution is mediocre.
Danny is written way too publically weird. It's not even realistic, and he and Clara just don't have a connection.
Putting a personal dalek episode as the 2nd episode of this incarnation is the wrong decision. In the first season it hit deeper because we had got to know the doctor around 5 episodes, and the personal experience with the dalek was more emotionally resonant.
By putting it as the 2nd episode it is similar as when you do a body swap episode a few episodes in on an ensemble show. You haven't got to know the characters enough to make the body swapping feel interesting or enjoyable enough to see characters in other's bodies.
Except it's not even a personal Dalek episode. It's a generic action episode. A few interesting ideas with no atmosphere, no tention and little emotion.
I don't even buy the premise. A dalek would have defenses against every kind of virus and bacteria, and our heroes are much larger than those. They would have been destroyed as soon as they entered.
It's said that the center of a Dalek's hate is a mechanized part of the Dalek. I don't buy that. A dalek is a biological creature inside an artificial shell, or a symbiosis.
And i also don't like it because it boils down hate into mechanics, rather than the behavior of a being and of a species, in this case the Daleks, which it doesn't make sense to boil it down to mechanics. It's like the writer is trying to add something new where nothing needed to be added, and this addition convolutes the mythos of the Dalek's along with not making much sense and going against previously established information, which then takes us out of the episode.
I hardly buy the doctor going into the dalek in the first place, and he was fighting Daleks literally 2 episodes ago.
I like the doctor taking advantage of the guy's imminent death to get a lead.
I liked that woman who sacrificed her life and made the doctor remember her name and make it count.
And of course the dalek betrayed them once it was repaired. The doctor just helped repair it.
I get it, there was some rubbish about the Dalek was actually good but he repaired it to be bad again and we must make the Dalek good again.
Ugh.
Random slap from Clara. Sexist.
Along with thinking she's a know it all about the Daleks, when her experience with them is miniscule compared to the doctor. In-fact, she has none at all. She's never been in a full Dalek episode before. In "Asylum" it was a different character, and in "The Name of The Doctor" she said she had "faint" memories from her previous selves. Or something. I guess she has "faint" memories from those dozens or hundreds of random versions of herself, or something, and it's never been brought up again.
Ugh.
Luckily the doctor who has two thousand years of knowledge. Knowledge on brain chemistry and electricity and neuroscience and biology, along with extremely specific knowledge on Dalek physiology, he's able to understand re-write the part of the Dalek to alter it's behavior to unlock it's memories. I can buy that.
No wait, it was Clara...
Ugh.
Then this damaged Dalek then goes and destroys many other non-damaged Daleks.
Ugh.
So everyone who dies in the universe or is around the doctor when they die get transported to an afterlife? Their consciousness energy gets transported? From anywhere in the universe throughout space and time?
Ugh.
There's a common complaint in the fandom that the weeping angels become overused and no longer scary. That's true, and it's the same with the Daleks. Overused and no longer scary for a long time, and it's episodes like this that contribute heavily to that.