Doctor Who, "Evolution of the Daleks"
"Everything that they were has been lost."
My reaction, post the second part of this Dalek extravaganza, is pretty much the same as it was after the first part: entertaining, I enjoyed it, but probably my least favorite story arc of the season thus far; and I'm glad that we're past it so that we can now move on to the episodes everyone has been pimping to me since I started watching DW.
That said, a couple of interesting, and probably significant, thematic points are raised here.
The first is the ongoing establishment of the idea that, for the Doctor, everything he ever knew has been lost, and he's been left with no hope of ever getting it back: he lost his people and his planet in the Time War, and then he lost Rose to a parallel universe. The man we're watching on the show now is very much a man who's reacting to those things, who is acting with the knowledge of that grief and with the deeper, even more hurtful knowledge that it's a grief that can't be changed or assuaged. It's a larger grief, maybe, than humans are equipped to deal with. And yet he keeps going in the face of it, in the face of the knowledge that, as far as he knows, he's the last of his kind, and doomed to be alone in the universe.
Which is why I think he reacts the way he does to the Daleks, and to Dalek Sec. There are two factors at play here: one, a sudden rebirth of hope, and two, anger at the rejection of that hope. If Dalek Sec can change -- if a Dalek, a creature of unreasoning anger and superiority and destruction, can be changed -- then this is, suddenly, a new sign of hope for the Doctor. Dalek Sec is changed in ways that he wouldn't have expected by his taking on of human DNA, and, rather than reject this change, he embraces it; he sees it as a new opportunity, a real opportunity for the Daleks to be reborn as a race, and not just go on, but grow and change and live. It becomes a true chance for evolution, not just a mutation, and I think this is what the episode title is really touching on: the idea that Dalek Sec has, by taking on human DNA, truly taken on more characteristics of humanity, and raised himself to a new level of evolution, pushed toward something new -- something that truly could bring all of them hope.
And look at this from the Doctor's point of view: if a Dalek can change -- if one of the last four Daleks in existence can change -- maybe, then, there's hope for him, too. It doesn't change the fact that Gallifrey is gone forever; it doesn't change the fact that his people are gone. It doesn't erase the Time War. What it does, though, is give him a new sense that change can happen. And if that's true, then maybe he doesn't have to go on this way forever; maybe there's hope that something can change for him, too.
That's something that should, maybe, be inherent within the Doctor, that possibility for change. He is, after all, a man who's died and been reborn ten times now, who has literally become a new man each time. And yet he carries the weight of his past with him; that's inevitable, too. And I think the Doctor, right now, the Tenth Doctor, is a man who's very much focused on both his past grief and the weight of his present grief; it's become that much harder for him to look ahead, to dream of change. Seeing the possibility of it in Dalek Sec is a reminder of what has been, and of what could be.
Which also explains the weight of his anger at the rest of the Daleks when they strip Dalek Sec of his authority and ultimately murder him, and when they then, in turn, murder the rest of the humans who were to be part of this new evolution. There's a simpler explanation here, too, for the Doctor's reaction: he's furious at the senseless murders, at the waste of life, as any decent person would be. However, I think his reaction also carries additional weight, here, because of all these factors.
And that also plays a role when he goes to the very last Dalek left -- the very last one -- and offers compassion, offers to help. And it explains the sorrow that underlies his anger when that offer of help is rejected. It's senseless waste of life he's reacting to here; it's also senseless rejection of life, rejection of the possibility for change. That any living being could be offered the chance for change, for something better, and toss it away, has to be galling to him.
The second important point in the episode is the development of the Doctor/Martha relationship. Martha nails it when she tells Talullah that "He's not seeing me, he's just remembering." It's key, and it goes a long way toward explaining why the Doctor runs so hot and cold with Martha -- because, in his reactions to her, it's not so simple as that he's not responding to her romantic overtures, or that he's not looking for any kind of deeper relationship. He's pushing her away even as a friend, and more importantly as a real companion.
Yet, at the same time, he does run hot and cold, which is what's so frustrating and hurtful for her, and what highlights, clearly, his own grief and internal struggle. Because there are times when he does reach out to her, when he does -- literally -- embrace her, and when it's clear that he's glad to see her. But he can't make that final step toward truly accepting her and really embracing her as part of his life -- not when he's still carrying Rose with him.
Not, more to the point, when he's still carrying Rose's loss with him. This latest loss is one more grief, one more hurt, on top of all the others, and it holds him back.
The grief keeps him from change. The grief keeps him from life.
The grief is standing between him and hope. He is, possibly, rejecting the idea of change every bit as much as the Daleks are.
Martha's smart enough to realize that, but she's not at the point, yet, where she knows how to deal with it. Her emotions are too tangled up in all of it, and she's still too much in awe of him to really know how to handle it. His grief is too big for her, and, at the same time, her understanding of its scope still seems to be too human -- it's a hard thing to comprehend, like I said, grief on that scale, and I think Martha is still working through that, a process that's further complicated by her emotions.
And the Doctor is still in shellshock.