After being very impressed with the opening episode, there
was an awful lot riding on this week’s episode. There was a number of new
things done in the previous episode that were new and more would appear in this
episode but the pre-title scene features just Clara and Missy where we get a
scene which basically explains how Clara and Missy managed to get out of the
Dalek chamber despite being shot by the Daleks. This allows Missy to be quite
humorous whilst telling a story about the Doctor. By the time the music played
and Clara and Missy were walking into the distance with Clara wanting the stick
I couldn’t help but find myself thinking that this is a potential spin off for
Big Finish.
If there is one thing that this episode that will forever
stick in my memory it is the part where the Doctor scoops Davros out of his
chair and appears in the main chamber sitting in the chair. The sight of the
Doctor in that rather distinctive chair is one that may never leave me. The
effect used to show that Davros is half the man he used to be is rather good
and this is another reason why Steven Moffat deserves more credit that he gets.
Other things that are used in this episode include a nostalgia nod to the very
first Dalek story. Clara get to sit inside a Dalek and this mirrors what Ian
Chesterton did. The difference is that Moffat uses this opportunity to do
something different because when Clara tries to say something nice it gets
changed by the Dalek and words like Exterminate get shouted. This leads to a
nice little scene at the end of the episode where the Clara Dalek is
approaching the Doctor and she is trying to convince him that she’s not a
proper Dalek whilst Missy is trying to convince otherwise is the last bit of
drama in the episode and it’s a nice three hander.
The thing about this episode is that it is definitely Julian
Bleach’s episode as he pretty much stole the show. There was always the
possibility of Davros not dying but it’s the truth and when the Doctor realises
that Davros is being honest it leads to a wonderful bit where Davros opens his
real eyes for the first time. A dying Davros along with the sun rising on Skaro
is another great moment in the episode. Davros’ return has been a huge success
and hopefully it wont be another eight years before the character returns.
There is the whole part in the sewer that is a mix of new
and old because they went through tunnels in the first Dalek story and in this
episode we get Clara and Missy finding a different way of getting into the
Dalek city but the fine mind of Steven Moffat means that the walls of the
tunnels in this story are in fact old Daleks that have been reduced to brown
goo. I know that this aspect of the story didn’t go down too well especially
when it lead to the Daleks being defeated. I admit visually it was a bit gross
but in terms of narrative, it works really well and the idea of gooey Daleks
being rather angry and in pain is quite clever.
There are aspects of this episode that don’t work quite well
and the first being Missy. She was really quite menacing in Deep Water and
Death in Heaven but in these two episodes she has lost a lot of the menace.
There were glimmers of the old Missy/Master but on the whole it seems that
Missy has been reduced to the companion status that was given to Clara. The
only good moment was when she was convincing the Doctor about the Dalek with
Clara in. That is about as much as I can fault the episode because when I
watched the omnibus and it was mixed into one I thought that everything worked
really well and it could easily have been a movie. The writing was clever, the
directing was superb from Hettie MacDonald and the performances were really
strong. The visual effects were all top notch and recreating Skaro in the way
that it was seen on screen was stunning and just makes me wish they could have
been used in the stories set on Skaro in the past.
This two parter (only the second one for Peter Capaldi) is
really enjoyable and shows that the series is going from strength to strength.
Watching the next time trailer I think that this could be a potential new
classic because it’s the base under water siege type story and I always love
them.
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