The third episode of this series sees the Doctor and Amy arrive during the Blitz to Winston Churchill’s underground bunker. This was at the request of Churchill in the preceding episode. The Doctor and Amy arrive a month after the call and Churchill hopes to win World War 2 with the ‘Ironsides’ who obviously are Daleks. This story was written by Mark Gatiss who chalks up his third story as a writer having written the 2005 story ‘The Unquiet Dead’ and the 2006 story ‘The Idiot’s Lantern’. This is the second time that the Doctor has visited Earth during the Blitz having visited there during the Ninth Doctor’s time in The Empty Child & The Doctor Dances.
The story sees the Doctor trying to convince Winston Churchill what the Daleks are really like and the truth comes out that created Professor Bracewell to convince Churchill to call the Doctor. The Daleks need the Doctor because the Daleks have found a Progenator which is a capsule that contains pure Dalek DNA. The Daleks that are pretending to be the servants can open it because they are not pure Daleks as they were created from Davros’s DNA. Once the Progenator is opened five new Daleks are created and in one of the most memorable scenes for quite sometime we have a new paradigm which were identified as Scientist, Stategist, Drone, Eternal and the Supreme which are larger than the old ones. The Daleks get away because they use the classic line of making the Doctor choose between letting Londoners die from the bombings or let the Daleks get away. Obviously he chooses to save the humans and the Daleks get away but probably not for long. There seems to be a bit more to the ‘crack’ story arc where there is the crack in the war behind the TARDIS as it dematerialises at the end. But the biggest was that Amy didn’t know of the Daleks despite everything that happened in The Stolen Earth and Journey’s End.
Essentially this story will be remembered for years to come for the new look Daleks. Since the show returned in 2005 they have been the standard Gold Daleks but Moffat has decided that they needed to be updated. I like the idea that they have different colours and also different names because it denotes a rank system. However the actual look of them is something I’m not so sure about. It’s fine unless they film from the back. The sight of the Daleks making tea and acting like servants to the humans reminds me of the 1967 story The Power of the Daleks.
Matt Smith is very good in his first encounter with the icon monsters. I liked how at times he seemed scared of them but always untrusting to what the Daleks true intentions were. I am still impressed with how he manages to do serious stuff along with comedy moments. Threatening the Daleks with a jammy dodger was very funny. Karen Gillan also put in a good performance in her first story with the Daleks. Like in the previous story she shows why she is there when she talks to Professor Bracewell. It was Bill Paterson that was the best of the guest cast. The character of Bracewell seems like a normal happy brit trying to do his bit to battle the Nazi’s and win the war. However when we learn that he is in fact a robot and Paterson plays both sides of the character very well. Ian McNeice is very good as Churchill. He looks the part and at times sounds like the former Prime Minister. I liked how Churchill tried a few times to try and get the TARDIS key off the Doctor but to no avail.
Its not the best Dalek story ever but its not the worst either. All the characters were well written and everything looked nice and big. The sight of Spitfires in space is not something you would see on a World War 2 drama but only in Doctor Who would this happen. It’s a nice 45 minutes with new Daleks and also Winston Churchill.
The story sees the Doctor trying to convince Winston Churchill what the Daleks are really like and the truth comes out that created Professor Bracewell to convince Churchill to call the Doctor. The Daleks need the Doctor because the Daleks have found a Progenator which is a capsule that contains pure Dalek DNA. The Daleks that are pretending to be the servants can open it because they are not pure Daleks as they were created from Davros’s DNA. Once the Progenator is opened five new Daleks are created and in one of the most memorable scenes for quite sometime we have a new paradigm which were identified as Scientist, Stategist, Drone, Eternal and the Supreme which are larger than the old ones. The Daleks get away because they use the classic line of making the Doctor choose between letting Londoners die from the bombings or let the Daleks get away. Obviously he chooses to save the humans and the Daleks get away but probably not for long. There seems to be a bit more to the ‘crack’ story arc where there is the crack in the war behind the TARDIS as it dematerialises at the end. But the biggest was that Amy didn’t know of the Daleks despite everything that happened in The Stolen Earth and Journey’s End.
Essentially this story will be remembered for years to come for the new look Daleks. Since the show returned in 2005 they have been the standard Gold Daleks but Moffat has decided that they needed to be updated. I like the idea that they have different colours and also different names because it denotes a rank system. However the actual look of them is something I’m not so sure about. It’s fine unless they film from the back. The sight of the Daleks making tea and acting like servants to the humans reminds me of the 1967 story The Power of the Daleks.
Matt Smith is very good in his first encounter with the icon monsters. I liked how at times he seemed scared of them but always untrusting to what the Daleks true intentions were. I am still impressed with how he manages to do serious stuff along with comedy moments. Threatening the Daleks with a jammy dodger was very funny. Karen Gillan also put in a good performance in her first story with the Daleks. Like in the previous story she shows why she is there when she talks to Professor Bracewell. It was Bill Paterson that was the best of the guest cast. The character of Bracewell seems like a normal happy brit trying to do his bit to battle the Nazi’s and win the war. However when we learn that he is in fact a robot and Paterson plays both sides of the character very well. Ian McNeice is very good as Churchill. He looks the part and at times sounds like the former Prime Minister. I liked how Churchill tried a few times to try and get the TARDIS key off the Doctor but to no avail.
Its not the best Dalek story ever but its not the worst either. All the characters were well written and everything looked nice and big. The sight of Spitfires in space is not something you would see on a World War 2 drama but only in Doctor Who would this happen. It’s a nice 45 minutes with new Daleks and also Winston Churchill.
No comments:
Post a Comment