Review: Dalek (9th Doctor)
Dalek is the episode in which The Doctor goes a bit mental. It’s an intense one, and I really like it. Did I mention that you get to see The Doctor’s naked chest? Onward to the spoilers!
Episode: Dalek by Robert Shearman
Rating (1 to 5): 4.5
Baddie: The Dalek and Henry Van Statten
Rose is Trapped: In a bunker with the Dalek.
The Doctor is Trapped: In a cell with the Dalek.
The Doctor Enjoys: The fact that the Dalek’s gun is broken.
The Doctor Dislikes: Daleks…and Henry Van Statten.
Doctor-y Strangeness: He has 2 hearts. He and The Dalek want to kill each other. He actually appears with a gun intending to deal with the Dalek himself near the end.
Scary Stuff: The Dalek. The Doctor going mental.
Does someone local help out? Adam? Only a bit though. Mostly a whole horde of soldiers who end up dead.
Bad Wolf? Bad Wolf One is the name of Mr. Van Statten’s Helicopter.
What we learn: The Doctor can play at least one instrument. The Doctor is the one that destroyed the Daleks in the Time War (and his people too, it seems.). He has two hearts (if you didn’t know that already.) Daleks were genetically engineered. The Doctor didn’t mean to survive the end of the Time War. Daleks can use the bio-mass from one touch of a time traveler to renew itself. Daleks have a forcefield that can melt bullets before they make contact. The Doctor knows how to use a gun.
The Doctor’s Death Wish: The Doctor didn’t survive the Time War by choice.
The Doctor Apologizes To: The Dalek, before he realizes what it is, about Mr. Van Stattan. Rose? When he starts to shut the bulkhead.
My Favorite Bits: The Doctor’s first meeting with Mr. Van Statten. The Doctor’s first encounter with the Dalek. “Ten million ships on fire - the entire Dalek race wiped out in one second.” “Release me if you want to live.” “What use are emotions if you will not save the woman you love?” “Oh, Rose. They’re all dead.”
Observations and musings:
Oh dear. Rose is always trying to help, but she really opened Pandora’s box this time. Mind you, if The Doctor hadn’t been there first, I don’t think it would have played out quite the same way. She is also quite perceptive in this episode. When the Dalek is looking at her, she knows it is looking specifically at her. When she is the Dalek’s prisoner she even gets it talking. And in the end, she’s there to stop The Doctor from doing something he would regret. Why did she decide to bring Adam with them? He’s worse than useless.
The Doctor isn’t at fault for the flight being off this time, as the TARDIS was drawn off course by a distress call. Too bad that the distress signal came from a Dalek. Before we may have suspected that The Doctor was suffering from survivor guilt, and was perhaps a bit war damaged. Now, we learn that it is so much worse. Somehow, The Doctor killed all of the Daleks, but also, it would seem, his people. Yeah, everyone lost. This encounter almost breaks him. You really feel for him, trapped in a bunker with one of his worst nightmares come to life. Worse yet, it has Rose. Strangely, throughout the episode he almost seems to respect the Dalek in some way. Another thing that The Doctor needs to learn is to keeps some of his knowledge to himself. He really shouldn’t have offered Mr. Van Statten so much information. All it did was get him captured and examined.
This time out the TARDIS crew ends up in an underground base in Utah in 2012. Interesting that they choose to show a classic series cyberman head in a Dalek episode. I would like to mention here that Adam really annoys me. Daleks have been able to elevate since the 7th Doctor’s time, by the way. The leader of the folks sent in the second wave to stop the Dalek should really have listened to The Doctor. Some of them might have survived if he had. I’m glad that Mr. Van Statten was relieved of duty at the end of the episode. He annoys me too. I loved how The Doctor and the Dalek tended to ignore him. You have to wonder how he managed to accumulate all of that alien tech with Torchwood and UNIT about. Anyway, as you may have gathered, I loved this episode. Interesting to see the dark side of The Doctor. Okay, I’ll see you next week for my review of my least favorite episode of season one - The Long Game.
Dalek, Robert Shearman, Doctor Who, 9th Doctor
Image Source: http://www.time-and-space.co.uk/
January 30th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
I really liked this episode, too. You rarely (if ever) get to see the Doctor out of control…and I totally understood why he was. Made him so much more real. It also had one of my favorite exchanges ever from the show. “A Democrat.” “Why?” “They’re just so…funny.” It was also nice having the nod to the classic series with the Cybermen head. Could they have all been destroyed in our dimension, too? Also (wrong forum for this, but something I’ve been wondering) if he ended up destroying all the time-lords along with the daleks, does that include Romana who was, suppossedly, still in E-Space? Dang, we need to get together and chat soon.
January 30th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Wow Erik. Nobody comments on my reviews. Thanks! As far as Romana goes…well, in some story or other (Scream of Shalka?) she had returned to Gallifrey and had become president. Who knows if we will ever find out officially. Oh, and even if I don’t get that Friday off, I’m still planning on coming down for the Gallifrey One weekend. So…be warned.
November 7th, 2007 at 12:46 am
[...] we see our heroes getting chummy with a Dalek. This photo actually helps you get an idea of the size of those things. That, and it really makes [...]