Doctor Who: Into the Dalek

As ever, twelve brief thoughts on this latest episode.

1. Apparently it wasn’t enough that Irene Adler was virtually identical to River Song, for now the Doctor is more-or-less indistinguishable from Sherlock Holmes. More interested in the problem than the people? Rude and condescending to those around him, even when they’re struggling with grief or trauma? Lines like: “she cares so I don’t have to”? All of this could just have easily been material for Cumberbatch’s Sherlock.

I know everyone makes empty threats to flounce away from a show if their threshold of intolerance is crossed (without the slightest bit of intention of actually doing so), but if I have to put up with yet another asshole protagonist who gets away with treating people like crap because he’s good at what he does, I really am quitting. I totally mean it this time!

2. Every new Doctor needs at least one Dalek story, regardless of how overused they are at this stage. It’s just the rule. I’ll get to the moral implications of “a good Dalek” further down, but I generally liked the premise of a sick Dalek needing a doctor, and of the Doctor and his companions being miniaturized in order to fix it from the inside.

I especially liked the little bit of world-building that established the participants had to keep breathing as they shrank, comparing the situation to poking holes in the film of a microwave dinner. Nice touch.

3. So this episode actually had POC in it. More than one! Danny Pink seems likeable enough, even if the introduction to his soldier background was a little heavy handed (that single tear? Really?) though Journey Blue remained more of a cypher. I have no idea why she wanted to travel with the Doctor after such an unpleasant adventure and his complete callousness over the death of her brother, so I suspect that it was simply to establish the Doctor’s newfound aversion to soldiers.

You could argue that he wants to distance himself from the military side of things after the events of Trenzalore, but I suspect it had more to do with setting up tension with Danny Pink when they inevitably cross paths further down the line.

4. I’m assuming that the last names Blue and Pink were not only deliberate, but hold some deep significance?

5. On the topic of Journey and Danny, I still can’t get as attached to supporting characters as I did in the RTD era. It can’t just be because I feel the acting isn’t as good (as that would mean they’re inexplicably casting subpar actors for every role) so I’m going to say it’s because the actors are given one-liners and dramatic inflections instead of naturalistic dialogue. None of them come alive for me as people.

Even the death of Journey’s brother is turned into a witty quip: “he burnt to death a couple of hours ago so he’s really letting me down today.” Hah...hah?

6. But I thought the splicing between different times actually worked well this time around, mainly because it was used to keep things brisk, not to demonstrate cleverness. (I’m referring to Clara and Danny’s conversation and Danny’s agonised recap of it afterwards).

7. Another appearance from Missy, this time welcoming Gretchen into heaven – or what passes for heaven. These bits are quite disconcerting. Not only does Gretchen’s arrival at Missy’s table undermine her sacrifice, but it suggests she hasn’t died in the truest sense of the word. So what’s really going on? As ever, when the characterization is shallow it’s the questions raised by the plot (LOST style) that keep me tuning in.

8. Because this show is so ever-changing and expansive, it’s almost impossible for me to pay close attention to continuity and/or character development. I’ve seen plenty of other reviews contrast Into the Dalek to previous episodes, trying to plot the course of the Doctor’s characterization and the show’s general themes from one season to another. That way lies madness. The only way I can watch this show (especially in the Moffat era) is to take each episode as its own separate entity with a singular thread of plot-points that are occasionally and unsatisfactorily explained.

I mean heck, there was absolutely nothing in this episode to indicate that Clara was originally introduced as a Dalek. There is no continuity here; just Moffat ideas that are brought up and cast aside just as quickly.

9. The question of whether or not there could be a good Dalek was an interesting enough question to pose, though not untangled properly by the narration, and stymied by the fact that they never really articulated what they meant by “good”. At the beginning of the episode the Dalek was crying out for the extermination of the Daleks, and by the end it was... crying out for the extermination of the Daleks. Only by this point, no one can bring themselves to call it “good”.  

A better theme to explore would have been nature versus nurture (or rather, nurture versus programming) and whether what’s happened to the Dalek (on witnessing the birth of the star) is a true epiphany or just a malfunction. That a Dalek overcoming its hatred could be considered a glitch easily repaired and erased was an interesting point to make, one that calls into question what exactly “good” is, but the message got a bit muddled when the Dalek absorbed the Doctor’s memories and reasserted its “destroy the Daleks” mantra based on the Doctor’s personal hatred of their race. Back to square one.

10. In short, it became more about the Doctor than the Dalek, which is unsurprising, but undermines poor Rusty’s acknowledgement that resistance against life is futile. Yet perhaps it was all worth it for the creepy last “stare” it gave the Doctor and the line: “you are a good Dalek.” The Doctor is just as capable of dishing out death and destruction as any Dalek, and the only thing that differentiates between the two is that at least the Doctor is defending the innocent when he does so.

11. The Doctor asks Clara: “Am I a good man?” I dunno. But he’s definitely not a nice one.

12. Um... I like Clara’s outfits.