Warning: SPOIL - ERS! SPOIL - ERS!
The Daleks, at one point in the history of Doctor Who, were actually quite scary. Then, they got into a horrible pattern where they're killed by the Doctor, all of them, every last one of them - and then, a few episodes later, they all come back to life and the Doctor kills them all again. And again. And again. And we're bored. And again. And they're not scary any more - fact. So much so that Karen Gillan (Amy Pond) admits she's "never been completely scared of the Daleks," and showrunner Steven Moffat says "there's a slight danger with the Daleks that you might start to think they're cute." And, regarding the show's 7th season opening episode, he said he's successfully made them "scary again", "properly vicious" - which is a bit rich considering we are treated to hearing a Dalek with a girls voice, crying a little bit.
Absurd's the word. The cheek of it, to suggest that this opening episode is full of "properly vicious" Daleks! We start off with the Daleks asking the Doctor to 'save them' from, well, that's never really explained very well - but they send the Doc and his gang (who appear to be having marital problems for the sake of a B story) down to a planet that functions as a 'Dalek asylum'. Their mission? To switch off its defense shield so that it can be destroyed, by the 'sane' Daleks, once and for all. That's despite the 'sane' Daleks initially stating that they think hatred and insanity is actually quite beautiful.
Gotta ask - if the Daleks are capable of creating robots that look so convincingly human that they're able to stroll about planet Earth quite freely, why not focus on building an army of those, rather than the usual trash can look they opt for - and invade?! Destroy! Exterminate, as they might say! It seems to have been forgotten that the Daleks are "insane tanks" who have only one intention - to take over the entire galaxy, killing everything that isn't a Dalek until they're the only living being left in existence. Phil Mitchell is more threatening.
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| The toilet facilities at the Dalek asylum are shocking. |
So, our trio run about the place, never acting very scared, joking about, with a booming happy backing track that strips every scene of fear. Rory has a conversation with a Dalek about an egg, which up until that point was fairly intense, and the Doctor pats a corpse on the head, remaining unphased when it stands up and tries to kill him. Scary stuff. But, everyone is kept perfectly safe because they're lucky enough to be communicating with a lady who crash landed her ship into the asylum a year ago and who's naturally had enough time to hack into all the computers. She manages to delete the Doctor from every Dalek's memory (why she couldn't delete their determination to kill everyone boggles the mind), she turns off the planet's defence shield and decides to beam everyone back to safety - but not before the Doc discovers, oh dear, she's actually a Dalek! She was turned into one ages ago and never even realised. That's when we hear the girly Dalek voice nearly cry - terrifying stuff. But, hang on! It's the Cybermen who convert humans into robots, not the ruddy Daleks!? Oh, it's no use trying to figure it all out - it's all so awful.
We need the lights darker, we need the music off, or at least quieter, and we need these characters to shit themselves - we need them to quit having a laugh and genuinely face the fact that they could die at every turn. Slow the pace, let's properly explore the Daleks' menace. But no, bang bang bang, that's your lot.
One Dalek in an episode entitled 'Dalek' from Christopher Eccleston's season of Doctor Who came across as a lot scarier than the entire planet of mentally deranged ones here. Such a wasted opportunity to reboot these monsters.
PS. He actually did run through a corridor!
★★☆☆☆
Roo