An
overdue return for Doctor Who, in the
first of a short run of what’s promised to be “mini-movies” set to write out
the Ponds. As season openers go, Asylum
of the Daleks is a success, although it lacks the shock spectacle of last
year’s The Impossible Astronaut or
the sheer charm of The Eleventh Hour.
Altogether, this first episode is decidedly derivative, but is presented with
such confidence and verve it’s very hard not to enjoy it.
The
big news, of course, is the sudden reveal of Jenna-Louise Coleman’s character,
Oswin. Brilliantly kept under wraps despite the seemingly spoiler-ridden world
of the series publicity, Coleman’s debut comes weeks earlier than was expected
and is a genuine surprise. She immediately makes a huge impression in the role,
proving beautiful, sassy and confident, but let’s not overlook the regulars.
Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill are now perfectly comfortable in their roles.
They have an easy chemistry that here works just as effectively when they’re at
loggerheads as when they’re gazing adoringly at each other. Matt Smith, or
course, is totally at home as the Doctor, a mercurial, swift-footed eccentric,
with a strangely graceful clumsiness.
With
viewers now as familiar with these characters as they are with each other, it
would be easy for them to become boring to watch. Thankfully, Steven Moffat has
granted Amy and Rory some much needed development, allowing them to live lives
away from the Doctor. It’s not surprising that, without the constant
distraction of alien incursions, temporal anomalies and a full-grown daughter,
the couple have been able to focus on their relationship and found that it’s in
trouble. Being on the verge of divorce, barely speaking to each other, makes
them a much more interesting couple to watch. It’s also satisfying that the
events on Demon’s Run are finally shown to have personal consequences for the
two of them. Nonetheless, it’s good to see them back in each other’s arms by
the end of the episode.
The
Doctor rarely experiences a great deal of character development. The main
change for him in this latest run is his faking of his own death at the end of
the previous series. Quite how a man who pops up throughout the whole span of
history, up to millions of years in the future, can be considered dead by the
wider universe is anyone’s guess. It is, however, pleasing to see the series
holding to this development, particularly with the final erasure of the
Doctor’s identity from the Daleks’ collective memory. A real punch the air
moment, and one that could prove to be something of a game-changer, if the
writers choose to run with it. For this episode, at least, Moffat gets to have
it both ways, with the Doctor mythologised as ‘the Predator’ of the Daleks, and
then finally being stripped of his legendary status (seemingly) for good. As
the Doctor says himself, though, he’s no sort of predator, and it’s hard to
take this young, tweedy sort as a potent threat to this shipful of alien
killers. (Imagine Eccleston in this position.) Then he goes to prove that all
wrong, tricking a Dalek to self-destruct (convincingly, for the first time) and
take his comrades with him. I like to see the Doctor acting like a bastard.
What’s interesting about the Doctor here is
how he reacts to Oswin. They have an immediate rapport, and it’s actually true
that she gives as good as she gets with the Doctor. It’s not often that the
Doctor struggles to get a word in edgeways, with even the most verbose of
characters. It’s clear that he likes the girl, even as he forges ahead in his
mission, always suspicious of her true identity. It’s fun to watch the four
characters react differently to the stress they’re under. Under pressure, Amy
gets cocky, Rory gets sarky, while the Doctor and Oswin get gobby. Coleman
gives a layered performance, with a deep vulnerability behind her playful
banter. I have to say, though, that it wasn’t hard to guess that she was going
to turn out to be either a Dalek or one of their agents. Like an M. Night
Shyamalan film, a Moffat script is viewed looking for the twist. It’s still a
powerful sequence when Oswin is revealed to be nothing but a dream, trapped
inside the shell of a Dalek, although you’d think she’d be a red one, to go
with her dress.
It’s tough to do a Dalek episode
these days, after so many have come before. Moffat does admirably, riffing on
the Daleks’ previous hits and mixing them up for a new generation. It’s deeply
satisfying to see that the production team have finally relented and
more-or-less retired the chunky toy Daleks of the “New Dalek Paradigm” in
favour of the more effective bronzed Time War model. While the inclusion of
“every Dalek ever!” was something of an over-hype, what with most of the models
obscured by a layer of dust and grime and hard to distinguish from one another,
it’s great fun to see the vast Dalek Parliament and the intensive care unit for
Doctor-scarred Dalek vets. There are some very nice revelations about the Dalek
race: that they find hatred beautiful; that they have some form of government
aboard a starship; that they care for their insane (or at least, don’t destroy
them straight away).
There are some wonderful visual
elements on offer. Amy’s descent as the Dalek nanogenes rewrite her biology is
beautifully envisioned, with the surreal sight of disturbed Daleks rendered as
dancers through her confused perspective. The Dalek agents, although coming
from a long-line of such troops, are well-executed visually, with their frankly
nonsensical but effectively creepy Dalek eyestalks protruding from their
skulls. Even better are the skeletal versions that menace the Doctor and Amy on
the wreck of the starship Alaska.
From the revamped title sequence, the show has never looked better than it did
in this episode.
What next for this segment of the
series? It will be interesting to see where the erasure of the Doctor from the
records ends, or whether it will be quietly forgotten. It certainly seems like
it will be something of a theme this season. The other big question is Oswin.
How does she become the Doctor’s companion, when she is here reduced to a dead
Dalek? It will be thoroughly disappointing if she just turns out to be another
River, and the Doctor simply picks her up earlier in her timeline. Will she,
come Christmas, even be playing the same character? Where did this “Clara”
rumour come from? Perhaps Coleman will be playing a different character every
week. I mean, what sort of name is Oswin Oswald anyway?
Title
Tattle: Asylum of the Daleks is the
twelfth to follow the “… of the Daleks” format in the TV series alone (thirteenth,
if you count the near-miss of Death to
the Daleks).
Planets
visited: Skaro, the original planet of the Daleks. Last thing we knew, the
Doctor had blown it to kingdom come, but there’s the time travel aspect to
consider. For the most part though, this episode is set on the Daleks’ Asylum
Planet, a snowy globe that’s been hollowed out to be used as the prison for
millions of mad Daleks.
Links
and References: Hardly the first time we’ve had a whole planet hollowed out for
one purpose in a Moffatt script; the Library, of Silence in the Library, was such a thing. Other planets mentioned
include Kembel, Spiridon, Aridius, Vulcan and Exxilon, sites of previous Dalek
defeats by the Doctor. We’ve seen humans turned into Daleks in Revelation of the Daleks, Evolution of the
Daleks, The Parting of the Ways and Blood
of the Daleks on the radio, and Dalek-ised human drones in Resurrection, Evolution and The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Daleks
appearing in the Asylum include various models from earlier years - it’s easier
to pick them out in publicity stills, but the Special Weapons Dalek is
recognisable anywhere. The ‘nanocloud’ is comprised of nanogenes, Moffat’s
brand of nanite that appeared previously in The
Empty Child.
Hanky-panky
in the TARDIS: Jenna-Louise Coleman is simply gorgeous. She loves a bit of
Beaky – Rory gets some more flirty attention from a woman who turns out to be
something other than human (as previously in the Gangers two-parter). Amy gets
to do some pouty modelling – enjoy her while you can, fellow redhead fans.
Best Line:
“A Dalek without a gun? You’re a tricycle with a roof!”
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