DOCTOR WHO: Who Brought the Milk to the ASYLUM OF THE DALEKS?

“ASYLUM OF THE DAKES” – Series 7, Episode 1, Story 225 – Written by Steven Moffat; Directed by Nick Hurran – Series 7 kicks off with the return of the Daleks and the introduction of promised future Companion Oswin Oswald. (Or, at least, the first appearance of the actress who’ll be playing the new Companion.) There’s trouble in Pond Paradise as Amy and Rory are getting a divorce, and there’s trouble in the Doctor’s life as he’s kidnapped by the Daleks and brought to their Dalek Asylum, a planet where they keep all the Daleks too insane even for them. The Daleks are too afraid to go down to the planet and shut off the force field which they need to destroy the Asylum, so they send the Predator down to do it for them. And by Predator they mean the Doctor. Because It Would Be Weird (Though Awesome) If They Meant, You Know, The Actual Predator. Or Ice Cube.

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Well, now, this is a new way for Steven Moffat to start a Series.

In both Series 5 and Series 6, Moffat opened with a high-octane adventure ride. Both THE ELEVENTH HOUR and the IMPOSSIBLE ASTRONAUT / DAY OF THE MOON two-parter moved hard and fast, relying on Matt Smith’s hyper personality to ride the wave of the fan’s excitement of the new season.

ASYLUM OF THE DALEKS sets a different course. Instead of the fast-talking Doctor, we get a darker approach in ASYLUM. Some of Moffat’s trademarked inventiveness is here, but ASYLUM kicks the season off with neither HOUR’s zip nor ASTRONAUT’s grandeur. Instead, we get a self-contained story that plays like something from inside a season instead of launching one. ASYLUM is one of the most unique of all Moffat-penned episodes, as it seems less like an attempt to do something spectacular and more an opportunity to tell a simpler story as well as possible.

The biggest change this time around is that most of the fast-talking, cheeky dialogue has been given to Jenna-Louise Coleman to deliver. Her appearance in ASYLUM as Oswin Oswald was not something I was expecting; it’s been widely reported that Oswin will be the new Companion once the Ponds take their final bow, but everything I’ve read had her debut pegged for the Christmas special. Yet, here she is, appearing a guest star before she officially signs on to journey in the TARDIS.

Not that anyone actually, you know, signs official paperwork to travel in the TARDIS. There’s no medical form, no liability waiver, no-

Look, the point is, Jenna-Louise Coleman makes her unexpected debut in ASYLUM OF THE DALEKS and she is all sorts of brilliant. (One can only hope Oswin is the character she’ll be playing when she comes back full-time.) Fast-talking, super-intelligent, sexy, cheeky, and a terrible cook, Jenna/Oswin is a wonderful breath of fresh air for the program. While the Ponds largely suffer through the episode, their personal problems brought to a head by the episode’s plot, Oswin positively crackles. She already takes delight in ribbing the Doctor (continually referring to him as “Chin Boy” throughout ASYLUM) and operates on an intellectual level above his own, as she’s able to hack into the Daleks’ mindweb. When I look back at how Moffat has written the Ponds versus how he wrote Captain Jack, Reinette, Sally Sparrow, and River Song there’s a decided difference in intelligence. It’s not that the Ponds are stupid, but they are conceived as stand-ins for us, as average people getting to go on these extraordinary adventures. They’re Moffat’s version of Rose and Donna, and that’s perfectly fine, but Moffat seems to enjoy writing intelligent characters more than normal folk.

Of course, those intelligent characters (with the exception of River) are typically one-off characters in Moffat’s typewriter, so it remains to be seen if Oswin will be an actual upgrade over the Ponds, of if this appearance in ASYLUM is another bit of one-off brilliance.

The Ponds have had a weird existence in the TARDIS. In Series 5, they were starting to rival Martha Jones as my favorite relaunch Companion, but in Series 6 they were decidedly less fun and focused. (And before you say it – I love Donna. I love her. Unfortunately, I love her more than Davies did, as he struggled through her run to keep finding interesting things to do with her.) Several times during Series 6, I questioned whether Moffat had a real plan for them in between the season’s signature moments. Taken as a whole, I think Moffat had a personal plan for the Ponds in his episodes, but there was either a lack of communication or execution on the part of his writing team as to what to do with them.

Simply looking at the writing line-up for Series 7, it looks like Moffat has developed a tighter overall plan. The first-half of Series 5 (the promised final run of the Ponds) contains five episodes. He’s writing 1 and 5, Chris Chibnall is writing 2 and 4 (and the Series 7 prologue, POND LIFE), and Toby Whithouse is writing episode 3. This has to lead to a more cohesive season in tone and, one hopes, purpose for the Ponds.

Moffat has introduced a new problem into their lives as they are on the verge of divorce. Before they are kidnapped by the Daleks, Rory pops by Amy’s photo shoot to get her to sign their divorce papers. It seems like a trumped up plot because it comes from the POND LIFE prologue, but it’s a showrunner’s prerogative to reset the characters as much as he likes between seasons. I’m less concerned about the Pond plots that set this up as I am concerned with what Moffat and Co. do with it going forward, and unfortunately, it seems like the conflict was introduced just to be solved by the end of this episode. I wouldn’t be crazy about watching Amy and Rory fight all year long, but they go from divorced (Amy signed the papers) to declaring their love to moving back in together in one episode. Over and over again, it seems like all Moffat has in mind for the Ponds is for them to be on the verge of breaking up or dying.

I do give Moffat credit for addressing one of the unspoken attributes of Rory and Amy’s relationship in ASYLUM when he has Rory come straight out and say, “The truth of our relationship is that I love you more than you love me.” The set-up for this exchange is that when the Daleks beam the TARDIS 3 down to the Asylum planet, each of them has to wear a bracelet that protects them from the Daleks’ nano-field; without the bracelets, they’ll be turned into humanistic Dalek zombies. Amy loses her bracelet and she’s starting to lose her mind as the conversion process moves through her body. Rory finds his spine and tells her that he’s going to give his bracelet to her because it will slow the process down.

Now, he’s right simply because the presence of the bracelet will either slow down Amy’s conversion or outright save her, so theoretically, they could just keep swapping the bracelet back and forth and, at worst, double their survival time. Rory ups the stakes, however. Oswin has told them that the way to create a Dalek is to remove love and add anger, and Rory unloads on Amy that because his love for her is greater so he can last longer against the nano-field. He throws the “I waited 2,000 years for you outside the Pandorica” back in her face, which seems a bit childish, to be honest. As much as Rory is making a stand here, he’s also trying to get affirmation of his worst fear – that Amy really doesn’t love him all that much.

The Doctor senses that something is wrong with the Ponds and he wants to fix it. In a sense, the Doctor has never fully let go of little Amelia Pond that he first encountered back in ELEVENTH HOUR. The Eleventh Doctor does not want any problems with the Ponds’ relationship and he breaches the subject several times over the episode. Instead of offering his services as a marriage counselor, however, the Doctor lets the Ponds work it out on their own, knowing the tension created by the current conflict, and by Amy’s deteriorating health, will likely bring things to a boil. The central issue here is that Rory wants children and Amy can no longer have children given what was done to her throughout Series 6.

Eh, really?

What’s more confusing is that this is apparently a conflict they had not discussed. Rory claims Amy tossed him out, while Amy claims that she let him go, and that her letting him go is somehow greater than him standing outside a box from the time of Christ until the time of Steve Jobs.

Hey, Ponds, do you know what’s never good for a relationship? Arguing which one of you is the better person.

Luckily, the Pond drama is minimized. Oswin has better chemistry with both the Doctor and Rory than Amy does in this episode. She cheekily refers to the Doctor as “the Chin” and Rory as “the Nose,” and suggests they could fence one another. She’s sitting in a secure location and is helping guide the three visitors through the Dalek-infested Asylum and easily flirts with both men. When she’s brought Rory to safe, she tells Rory, “Now take off your shirt.” Rory starts to follow her orders and then asks why. “Does there need to be a reason?” she asks back.

I love the way she delivers her dialogue; it comes out so quickly that it’s easy to miss a line here or there but Coleman always feels in complete control of the words she’s delivering.

Matt Smith is in top form again, as he continues to impress as the Doctor. I love how this episode has the Doctor operating on multiple levels. He’s concerned with the Parliament of the Daleks, the insane Daleks, and he’s also trying to figure out how this one young woman has managed to survive for a year fighting the Daleks all by her lonesome. When she tells him she makes souffles to pass the time, he wants to know where she gets the milk. “Souffle Girl” laughs but he brings it up later, too, as he’s already wondering how making a souffle is possible if you’ve locked yourself inside a planet full of insane Daleks.

Oswin apparently gets blown up with the rest of the planet, but not before she gives the Doctor a parting gift – she’s erased all references to him inside the Dalek hive mind, meaning they don’t know who he is. When he beams back aboard the ship containing the Parliament of the Daleks (and it’s interesting that their supreme leader does not live inside a machine, but rather as an organic being contained in a case of glass – very Supreme Intelligence like) they want to know who he is. When he lists off various names the Daleks know him by (the Doctor, the Oncoming Storm, the Predator), they don’t know what those terms mean.

“Doctor … who?” they ask. “Doc-tor-who?” Combine this with their earlier pleas of, “Save us. Save us,” and Moffat manages to get them to say two things this episode that are equally as cool and chilling as, “Ex-ter-min-ate.”

ASYLUM OF THE DALEKS is a very good episode. No, it doesn’t contain the fireworks of earlier season openers, and it almost seems like cheating to start the season off with the copper teapots, but ASYLUM works as a very solid story with a really nice twist. Turns out that no one is bringing Oswin milk because she’s living a lie – she’s actually a Dalek who refuses to believe she’s been converted. It’s a very nice twist and Coleman proves herself just as capable with the heavier stuff as she does the flirtatious interplay. Director Nick Hurran does a fantastic job all episode, but especially here at the end. Oswin helps the Doctor escape, but tells him not to forget about her.

And when she says this, she turns and looks right into the camera, breaking the fourth wall.

ASYLUM is Moffat’s first attempt at writing the Daleks and he does a solid job. I’ve watched the episode three times now, and it’s just as good on the third watch as it was on the first. My problems with the Ponds notwithstanding, ASYLUM OF THE DALEKS manages to be both creepy and fun and marks a very promising start to Series 7.

DOCTOR WHO: Follow You Follow Me to the GENESIS OF THE DALEKS

“GENESIS OF THE DALEKS” – Season 12, Serial 4, Story 78 – Written by Terry Nation; Directed by David Maloney – We’re continuing straight on from the events of THE SONTARAN EXPERIMENT, and the Doctor, Sarah Jane, and Harry are hijacked by the Time Lords and brought to Skaro, where they want the Doctor to shut down the Dalek threat before it ever gets going. They’ve arrived just as the Daleks are about to go into mass production by their creator, Davros, who’s making his world debut in this serial. And potentially his final appearance, too. Because The Daleks Ain’t Gonna Take Orders From Anyone Who’s Not A Dalek – Not Even Daddy Davros.

Welcome to Big Boy television, Doctor.

Not only is GENESIS OF THE DALEKS is one of the finest DOCTOR WHO stories ever broadcast, it’s also one of greatest television stories ever told. Even after 37 years, the writing, acting, and directing stand up as high quality, grown up television. There’s little pretending that GENESIS is, in any way, a kid’s show; cultural differences aside, I don’t remember Big Bird and the Count having too many conversations about committing genocide.

GENESIS is DOCTOR WHO at the height of its powers, featuring a mesmerizing, deeply philosophical script by Terry Nation, brilliant performances by the lead actors, solid direction by David Maloney, and some of the most finely conceived situations and temporary characters the program has ever seen. It demonstrates that, when they were on their game, there wasn’t anyone who could write DOCTOR WHO better than Nation, there wasn’t anyone who could do the Doctor better than Tom Baker, and there wasn’t a better Companion than Sarah Jane Smith.

Once on Skaro, the Doctor, Sarah, and Harry find themselves in deep into the Thal/Kaled War. With the planet in ecological ruin, Davros and the scientific Elite are building the Dalek travel units at the same time Davros has mutated the Kaleds to their final genetic form, which needs the Dalek units to travel. Sarah Jane ends up hanging with the Mutos, and then being held captive by the Thals, while Harry and the Doctor spend the bulk of their time with the Kaleds.

When Sarah is captured by the Mutos (genetic mutated people that both sides of the conflict abuse), two Mutos argue over what to do with her. One wants to kill her, but the other, Sevrin, ponders, “Why must we always destroy beauty? Why kill another creature because it is not in our image?” Nation peppers his scripts with these kinds of philosophical questions, and while it may seem trite that it’s the ugly people commenting on beauty, the question rings loud and true down through the ages. How many governments or organizations have sought the destruction have sought to kill someone or something simply because it was not one of them?

The question rings louder when Sarah and Sevrin are immediately captured by the Thals, and put to work as expendable slave labor. Sarah proves what a great character she is, though, in this sequence, because as scared as she is, she’s also willing to do something to get herself and the other slaves out of there – whether they’re Muto or Kaled. Sevrin’s questioning of Muto philosophy finds its antithesis in the form of Sarah Jane Smith.

I love, too, how Sarah is such a well-rounded character. She is both brave and afraid, at varying times in this sequence, needing Sevrin’s help because she has frozen during the escape but rallying him to have tried the escape in the first place. She can be fierce and strong, but she’s not some kind of heroic gladiator; at heart, she’s still a very normal young woman trying to do her best in an extraordinary circumstance. Occasionally, that means she gets overwhelmed and needs a little help – but then, isn’t that one of the reasons why the Doctor has Companions? To remind us that everyone needs a little help now and then?

What’s striking is that GENESIS depicts both Thals and Kaleds as war-like; unlike THE DALEKS, where the Thals and Khaleds were more clearly divided into the good guys and bad guys, here they’re both fully committed to the idea of bombing the crap out of one another. It’s a little thing, but an important thing, that both sides are equally good and bad because it reminds us that nations and individuals can change during wars, and more importantly, the individuals are not the same as their government. The Kaleds are clearly designed to remind us of the Nazis, yet there are people inside the Elite who are trying to stop Davros and the advent of the Daleks, a name that they have only recently heard Davros use.

“Dalek is a name new to you,” the Doctor explains to one of the Elite scientes, “but for a thousand generations, it is a name that will bring fear and terror.”

Baker hits all the right notes balancing the genuine wariness to the threat the Daleks pose with his own healthy ego. After making his case to the Kaled ruling council, he’s told, “That was a very impressive speech, Doctor.”

“Yes,” he replies, “it was meant to be.”

There’s a sense of fun, though, too, even amid all of this war and destruction and the impending birth of the Daleks. When Harry tells him they have to go back across the Wastelands, the Doctor replies with a big smile on his face, “And there’s where out trouble really begins.” In another spot in the narrative, the Doctor introduces himself to two Thal soldiers by saying, “Excuse me, can you help me? I’m a spy,” and then he bashes their heads together so he can steal their protective suits in order to save Sarah.

GENESIS contains all the elements of great WHO storytelling: a moving conflict touched with philosophical concerns, plenty of action, humor, and drama. There’s both failures and successes. There’s a strong Companion. There’s a Doctor who’s kind and generous, but also impish and egotistical. He has a warm heart but a quick temper. After the Kaled dome has been leveled, a female Thal tells the Doctor that all Davros wanted was peace when he gave the formula that allowed the Thals to destroy the dome. “Let me tell you something,” the Doctor says crossly, “The Kaled government was on the point of stopping Davros’ experiments. And rather than let that happen, he helped you to destroy his own race.” The serial puts the Doctor between what’s good for the many and what’s good for his friends, when Davros orders that he tell him the reason for every future Dalek defeat, and if the Doctor doesn’t tell him, or lies to him, it’s Sarah and Harry that will suffer.

And then there’s the big moral dilemma – should the Doctor commit genocide against the Dalek mutations and thus end the Dalek threat forever? As he stands outside the mutation room, all he has to do is touch two wires together and the Daleks don’t happen. Millions of people will be saved, and yet … he hesistates. Here, at the moment of triumph, the Doctor can’t follow through with genocide.

It’s a decision that rings down the ages of DOCTOR WHO, of course. Later in GENESIS, he goes back to kill all of the evolved Daleks but the script wimps out and has a Dalek’s last blast do the dirty for him. And even then, it’s only a temporary delay in the rise of the Daleks and not a permanent end to their involvement in the universe. The Doctor tries to say it’s a win because all of the evil the Daleks generate is balanced by all the good that comes from people bonding together to stop them, but it does feel like a bit of a cop out. It strikes me as someone saying, “We can’t have a depressing ending,” and that’s an example of short-term rather than long-term thinking. Maybe the serial benefits from finishing on a bit of an uptick (and I don’t think it does), but the long-term benefits making the Daleks even bigger and badder threats.

When the Elite were negotiating with Davros over ceding control to them and ending the Dalek operation, Gharman’s proposed ultimatum to Davros centered on morality; he tells Davros his side “will only continue with the work on the Daleks if he restores the brain cells, the conscience. The creature must have a moral sense, a judgment of right and wrong. In fact, all the qualities we believe are essential in ourselves.” This fails and the Daleks are left without a conscience. We see this in action before the serial is out when they kill Davros, the man who created them.

Davros is a fantastic villain, as dangerous in his own way as the Daleks are in theirs. It’s totally chilling when Davros gives the order to his newly created Daleks to “Exterminate! Exterminate! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!” Ronson, one of the men working against him because it provides a devastating link between the creator and his creation. Even when talking with the Doctor about time travel, Davros proves his wheels (no pun intended) never stop turning, admitting that “though the power is beyond my understanding, it is not beyond my imagination.”

And it’s Davros who prophesizes the future of his creation when he proclaims, “Today the Kaled race is ended, consumed in a fire of war, but from its ashes will rise a new race, the supreme creature, the ultimate conqueror of the universe, the DALEK!”

The Daleks are trapped in the rubble of the Kaled city, but they are not deterred. “We are entombed,” a Dalek says, “but we live on. This is only the beginning.”

And indeed it is.

GENESIS OF THE DALEKS is absolutely a Tier One serial, one of the very best in the program’s long and glorious run.

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DOCTOR WHO: DEATH TO THE DALEKS and One of the Universe’s 700 Wonders

“DEATH TO THE DALEKS” – Season 11, Serial 3, Story 72 – Written by Terry Nation; Directed by Michael E. Briant – The Third Doctor and Sarah are on their way to have some fun in the sun when the power cuts off in the TARDIS. They exit to find themselves on Not Tatooine But Could Be, where they get embroiled in a hoo-hah between the native Exxilons, some Space Marines, and the Daleks. The latter two are looking for parrinium, which can only be found here and is the only mineral that can stop a plague and save billions of lives. Not that any of that matters. Because The Doctor And The Daleks (And The Space Marines) All Have To Work Together To Get Off This Crazy Rock.

Oh, what could have been.

DEATH TO THE DALEKS is a completely infuriating serial to watch because it has, at its core, one of the all-time great ideas in DOCTOR WHO history: the Doctor and the Daleks have to work together to face down a common threat.

It could be absolutely brilliant. At the very least, it should be a tremendous amount of fun to watch these two hated enemies uncomfortably work together. It should be, but it isn’t. Playing to the formula of the time, DEATH TO THE DALEKS takes this brilliant idea and jams it into a semi-enjoyable story about competing factions, the need for a rare mineral, and the mystery of why the power has been cut.

The big crime is that you could practically replace the Daleks with anyone – the Cybermen, the Sontarans, an army of Candymen - and I’m not convinced this serial would be any different, at all. In fact, I think having the Daleks in this serial instead of someone new actually hurts DEATH because from the moment the Daleks show up, the Doctor is all, “Don’t trust them. They’re evil. They’ll betray you,” which robs the story of any sense of mystery or tension.

That’s not to suggest that DEATH is an awful serial, just that it’s sort of a slightly-subpar-middle-of-the-road serial. For all of the limp tension and failure to take advantage of the Doctor/Dalek Team-Up idea, DEATH isn’t wholly a waste of time. There’s some nice Doctor-Sarah Jane moments, and-

Wait, let’s get to Sarah Jane. Sometimes I get the sense that Terry Nation wrote these Dalek serials at a typewriter that magically transported him back to 1963. Much of Sarah Jane’s sense of independence and fight that was present in THE TIME WARRIOR and INVASION OF THE DINOSAURS is missing from the script here. (I wouldn’t be surprised if the script literally says “SIDEKICK GIRL” instead of “SARAH JANE.”) You can literally see where Elisabeth Sladen (with, one hopes, help from Jon Pertwee and Michael Briant) insert little moments of her independence into Sarah Jane.

It’s hard to watch SJS play all frightened and stereotypically “girly” after watching her assert herself in the previous two serials. It’s no fun to watch her beg the Doctor not to go anywhere while she jumps back in the TARDIS to change out of her swimsuit when all that’s really happened is the TARDIS loses power someplace cold and foggy.

The Doctor, of course, does wander off, getting captured by the Exxilons, and then escaping to end up with the Space Marines. When he’s with the Space Marines (who are really more like the Space Scientists), we get all the plot stuff – they’re trapped here without power, they need the parrinium, the Exxilons are meanies. The Doctor is just starting to wrap his mind around all of this when the Daleks shows up.

They do their “Exterminate” bit except their weapons are rendered useless by the same energy dampening field that’s effecting everything else. It’s kinda funny, and everyone realizes right away that a temporary team-up might be in their best interests, but then Nation doesn’t do anything with it. Everyone is quickly imprisoned by the Exxilons (where they see the natives have captured Sarah Jane Smith) and the Daleks are instantly trying to work a side deal that works to their advantage.

Blah blah blah.

Because it’s four episodes instead of six, the plot moves forward quick enough that I was able to find some enjoyment in all of this; it might be formulaic, but it moves relatively quickly. The Daleks prove themselves capable at adapting as a Dalek raiding party arrives to attack the Exxilons, allowing the Doctor and Sarah Jane to run into the underground tunnels. Down there, the Doctor meets a monster and Sarah Jane makes friends with Bellal, an Exxilon that lives beneath the surface because he doesn’t agree with the ways of the surface folk.

The back story here is that the Exxilons built this amazing city (one of the 700 Wonders of the Universe, according to the Doctor) and fitted it with a brain. (Yup, a brain. A computer brain, not a brain in a jar.) Once the city got its brain up and running, it decided it didn’t need the Exxilons, so it killed most of them. Even though Bellal makes all nice with Sarah Jane, she’s instructed by the Doctor to go help the captured Space Marines. (After the Daleks attacked, they made all the survivors their slaves.) The Doctor and Bellal go into the city, which is populated by a series of booby traps that would make Choose Your Own Adventure proud, and they have to battle this big super computer in some not-very-interesting challenges. While this is happening, Sarah Jane is pulling a bait-and-switch with the parrinium the Daleks have collected from the slave labor force.

The serial ends with a bunch of things blowing up. One of the Space Marines sacrifices himself to blow up the Dalek ship. The Exxilon city blows up.

And that’s it. There’s some nice moments in DEATH TO THE DALEKS but on the whole this is just a very average, very bland story. I’m a bit surprised that the BBC still hasn’t released this serial on DVD (it’s out on VHS and a DVD release is apparently scheduled for 2012 sometime) since it stars the Daleks, but maybe they figure if they hold this DVD out they’ll sell more copies by creating a buzz over the release of a Pertwee/Dalek serial.

I won’t be buying it, but I wouldn’t object to you buying it for me.