Victory of the Daleks- Yes, I think I would like some tea, thank you.
Something odd I was wondering about, if anyone knows the answer-- The description Comcast has for this episode on On Demand calls BBC America ‘BBC 15 America’. Does that mean that what we get is technically BBC15 (like how they have BBC2, BBC3, etc. in the UK), or is that just some weird typo? I’m thinking it’s the latter because 1) the way they’d be wording the name is really bizarre ("BBC 15 America's DW"?), and 2) it’s not like typos are uncommon for the descriptions Comcast seems to get (from everyone, not just BBC America), although I don’t know for sure. Not very important or at all urgent, but if you guys have any idea, I’m still kinda curious.
And sorry this is a full week late, but I had my birthday on Thursday, and Robert Downey Jr. playing a slightly drunk superhero is very distracting indeed.
Spoilers in this post? They’re just as likely as you think. Unless you’re somehow expecting that there aren’t any, in which case you’re an idiot.
That tiny Dalek figurine is only reinforcing my need for Doctor Who gashapon to exist so I can put it on a shelf next to my tiny plastic shinigami and state alchemists.
Theme music isn’t bothering me so much this week. Maybe I just needed to get used to it?
Sure, Doctor. Blame your lateness on your Tardis. Has nothing to do with the fact that you probably just weren’t paying attention at all (again).
Ah, those blimps still look like Goldfish Crackers.
Daleks are fighting the Nazis? But… but… Daleks are Nazis! That’s like dividing by zero! *brain explodes* Those saddlebags make me lol though.
Wasn’t someone thinking that they’d invented the Daleks to use as a new kind of weapon for a world war the plot of a DW graphic novel that was coming out? *looks it up* Yeah, here it is, The Dalek Project by Justin Richards. It’s in the previews-for-other-DW-books in the back of Prisoner of the Daleks by Trevor Baxendale:
’1917: The Great War is at its fiercest and most terrible….Armaments manufacturer Lord Hellcombe has a new secret weapon he believes will win the war. But when the Doctor witnesses the final demonstration he begins to realise how much danger everyone is in. Because Lord Hellcombe claims to have invented the Dalek.’
Says it’s supposed to be the first in a series of graphic novels featuring Ten. Was it cancelled or something because it was too similar to this episode? (Did they just cancel the whole line of graphic novels?) I know I’ve looked for it and haven’t found it, and I’m pretty sure Amazon would’ve recommended it to me by now if it was out or at least available for pre-ordering…
OMG, I need that Dalek propaganda poster in my life. I must own one, you have no idea how much of an overwhelming urge I have to frame that and hang it on my wall.
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…Oh, Forbidden Planet, how I love you. Now I just need to find myself a frame for cheap, cos the currency converter I used says that this’ll be about $17 (£3.99 for the poster itself, £7 shipping to the US of A)... ~^_^~
Wait, how can Amy not remember the Daleks? Not only from when they kidnapped the Earth in season 4, but also from them coming through the Void and flying around at the end of season 2? (I assume people noticed them, and probably reported it in the news at some point in addition to all the Cybermen that were everywhere.)
*poke*
’CAN-I-BE-OF-A-SSIS-TANCE?’
‘Oh! Yes, yes! My friend reckons you’re dangerous, that you’re an alien. Is it true?’ ^_^
Okay, I’ll ignore her having no memory of the Daleks for as long as we get exchanges like this out of it.
Since when are Daleks so polite? O.O *brain explodes again*
The Daleks may be the Doctor’s oldest and deadliest enemies, but they still suck ass at it. Again, they’ve never once managed to kill him/cause a full regeneration (Eight regenerating into Nine at the end of the Time War is a possibility, but until we have canon proof...), and they’ve actually managed to create a second Doctor to help the first, plus a temporary third, if we count Donna in there. That’s like the Doctor: 1,000,000, Daleks: -1.5.
Oh, Winston. The enemy of your enemy being your friend only really works if that EOYE isn’t also your enemy to start with.
I am never going to get the image of a Dalek with a tea set out of my head. This is not a bad thing.
So everyone from Paisley, Scotland on this show is going to be awesome now (not complaining, as it seems to be true based on both DW’s characters and the cast/crew)? What’ll happen if there’s ever a character from there whose last name is Smith or Jones? They should end up being Batman-level awesome…
Wow, beating that Dalek with a giant wrench didn’t even scratch its paint. That’s some fine craftsmanship, that is.
And they’re still evil. Good. *order is restored to the universe*
Testimony? Is the Doctor on trial again?
The professor is a robot? Honestly wasn’t expecting that.
‘Hey, who turned on the lights?’
Is that self-destruct button what I think it is? It can’t be…
Ah! So Dalek!babies come from LED-encrusted Easter eggs?
The Daleks basically had to have the Doctor come fix their computer. Wow, just… wow.
When will the Doctor learn that the Daleks (/Cybermen) are the spilled glitter of the universe? He can try to get rid of them all, and he’ll probably think he has, but he’ll never get them all. He’ll still be finding them years later.
Hmm… think I prefer the old-new series Dalek design. The new ones’ heads look like accordion-things that you could push down on and they’d bounce back up, and the section that the plunger and the whisk/inside-of-a-paint-roller attachments just doesn’t look right to me. I also miss the blue eyestalks, but I suppose I can live with yellow if I have to. New design makes them look more like plastic Happy Meal toys to me.
Although… hold on here a sec. In just this episode, we’ve had a green Dalek, a red one, yellow/gold, orange, blue, white, and then we’ve had black ones in the past… aww, shit. Shit. You know what we have here now? We’ve got the Dalek Lantern Corps.
Think about it:
-Green (Willpower) = had to take a lot of self-restraint to pose as [essentially] humans’ servants for however long it’d have taken to be in a position like to so they could lure in the Doctor.
-Red (Anger) = all Daleks wanna do is kill anything that isn’t another Dalek. I’d say they’re a bit angry.
-Yellow (Fear) = they’re pretty good at causing it, what with their tendency to kill you/everything.
-Orange (Greed) = wanting the entire universe just to themselves is rather greedy, wouldn’t you say?
-Blue (Hope) = surprising it’s there, I know, but if you’re a Dalek and your plan rests on getting the Doctor to help you….
-White (Life) = also a bit odd for a Dalek, but they do seem to have to keep doing things to resurrect themselves, so I guess it’s [technically] appropriate.
-Black (Death) = if you really need an explanation for this one, then you haven’t even watched this episode yet, let alone any DW episode featuring/mentioning Daleks before, cos all they’ve done in the new series is either be dead or kill a bunch of other people, and so… wtf are you reading this for again?
No shock Indigo (Compassion) and Violet (Love) are missing. (Lantern symbols by Ryan Orr @ Bitcontrol btw, and yes, this probably is what's going to happen every time I see a rainbow from now on. Fucking DC Comics...)
Amy understands finding out that your entire life is a lie and that you’re really a robot created by murderous aliens, and then being suicidal because of it? O-kay. Interesting.
’Blimey. What do you do to the ones who mess up?’
So that’s why the Time War started. It wasn’t the whole ‘Gallifrey frowns upon your going around, killing people, fucking up history, etc.’-thing, it was just the fact that Daleks and Timelords are so similar. They were destined to either be best friends or bitter enemies, and we all know how that turned out. The new!Daleks executing the old!Daleks is basically the same thing that happened to the Master in The End of Time Pt. 2: ‘Hey, thanks for doing exactly what we wanted and bringing our entire race back from the blink of oblivion! But, oh! You have some flaw that’s a result of something that isn’t really any fault of your own? Too bad. Go fuck off now.’
This habit of calling everyone ‘dear’ or ‘sweetheart’ or something similar that Eleven seems to have developed makes him sound a bit like someone’s granny.
’AND-YOUR-SELF?’
‘Occupational hazard!’
Fuck and yeah, Doctor.
’Alright, it’s a jammy dodger, but I was promised tea!’
He… he fooled the Daleks with a... cookie. A cookie! That is just beautiful. Oh Mark Gatiss, you win at life. So very, very much…
A dogfight in outer space with WWII bombers? I’m not even the military history geek in the family and this makes me squee. *_*
Just how many different races of Dalek are there? I mean, for a species that gets so pissy about anything not 100% pure-Dalek… Or have Daleks just been using ‘race’ to refer to the different models for their bumpy little mechs? Cos that would make more sense to me, at least. ‘WE-ARE-NEXT-GEN-CONSOLES-DALEKS, YOUR-PS2-IS-YOU-ARE-IN-FER-I-OR. EX-TER-MIN-ATE!’
Is punching a bomb really the best idea? Especially when the bomb seems polite enough that you could’ve just asked him if you could have a look before he detonates?
’There’s always a blue wire! Or a red one…’
‘You’re not helping.’
Meh, the Daleks would be big enough bastards to make ‘em all the same color anyway…
For my fellow otaku, does Bracewell remind anyone else of the way Alphonse Elric from FMA was right after his fight with Barry the Chopper at Laboratory 5? All Al’s existential angst over whether his memories of before his soul was affixed to the armor are really real, or if he’s just something Ed created, and the memories are only there so he doesn’t know he’s only an alchemist’s creation… Don’t think this episode ever specifically said just how long the Daleks had been planning this and getting everything set up to lure in the Doctor, so Bracewell could be going through the same thing.
So does this mean that Amy’s fancied someone she knows she shouldn’t? (Hopefully it was not Jeff.)
They diffused a bomb by talking to it? Nice. Unless that was the Daleks’ plan all along-keep the Doctor busy thinking Bracewell’d explode (they were kinda desperate here, would they really have had the resources to create such a powerful weapon? He might just be a timer), then run when he wasn’t looking.
Earth is an acceptable consolation prize for when the Doctor has failed for the umpteenth time to eradicate the Daleks. Good to know.
Dammit! The R on that old guy’s helmet makes it look like he’s wearing a Team Rocket uniform and it’s been driving me nuts all episode.
Maybe the poor girl who lost her boyfriend will meet Captain Jack after this. Assuming that Nine and Rose haven’t already picked him up, of course…
Um, how did the Doctor not notice where Churchill’s hands were going to get the Tardis key? And I wonder when/if Amy’s going to get her own?
Also wonder how long Robo!Bracewell will be roaming the Earth. I imagine he probably doesn’t age, being a robot and all.
And again-why doesn’t Amy remember either of the last two Dalek invasions of Earth?! This is the one thing about the episode that really annoys me. Besides Team Rocket Guy’s helmet, I mean. Amy’s lack-of-a-memory is something that could turn out to be really important later on, and they just kind of keep glancing over it here. Would really help if we knew for sure what year the Doctor met Amy (as a kid or all grown-up since we can easily do the math from either point), although that could also just end up confusing us more than Amy’s miniskirt did before we knew she wasn’t really a cop.
Possible explanation time?:
-When the Doctor picked Amy up in her garden at the end of The Eleventh Hour, it was actually just before or long after (read: possibly before she was even born, depending on what year the Doctor crashed into) anything happened with the Daleks in Canary Wharf or kidnapping the planet, so Amy wasn’t even there for it.
-Both things happened before Amy met the Doctor when she was seven, and she's supressed the traumatic memories because Daleks killed her parents, which is also why she was living with her aunt.
-Amy was in a mental institution and simply had no idea what was going on in the outside world (for her aunt to send her to a shrink when she’s only seven just for having an imaginary friend seems a bit much to me, plus with her pretending to call for backup & be someone else when she clearly knew damn well who the Doctor was, I’m guessing she probably has some other serious issues).
-When Ten was off shagging queens and whatnot before he regenerated (think Eleven still has the lei and cowboy hat somewhere?), he did something that changed future-history so neither event with the Daleks in the 00s happened, and now Eleven’ll have to go fix it (Ten may have also broken the universe entirely, if Prisoner Zero implied what I think he did about who exactly put the cracks in it).
-Eleven himself changed future-history by unintentionally helping the Daleks here so the events in the 00s never happened.
Ah, there’s the random, glowing crack for this episode! Think Churchill’s going to call the Doctor back when someone finally notices that? No zeroes in this episode, though, so that apparently isn't part of the season 5 meme.
Next week should be awesome. Weeping Angels, plus River-in-an-evening-gown. Whenever a woman shows up in an evening gown in these sorts of things, it usually means she’s either going to be a damsel in distress or completely badass like a Bond girl, and I think River’s already proven that she just isn’t the DID-type.
Overall, I thought this was another great episode for the new cast & production team. Pure fun, and I think Matt Smith really got to come into his own this week. For The Eleventh Hour, we were all having to get used to the Doctor not being David Tennant anymore and just seeing whether or not Matt could handle the most basic parts of the Doctor’s personality (it was also the post-regeneration episode, so the extra loopiness made it a bit hard to fairly judge him as the Doctor just yet). Plus, in both that episode and The Beast Below, we got distracted by the-awesomeness-that-is-Amy-Pond, since she’s a completely new character we knew nothing about and we had to see what she’s like and then focus a bit on how she handled her first trip in the Tardis. Here she was out of the action for the most part, and Daleks are old hat for anyone who’s been watching the show, so we really got to see how Matt’s Doctor does things. (FYI, he does things like a boss.)
Holy fuck, just how many times did I type the word ‘Dalek(s)’ in this thing?