Victory of the Daleks Review
Okay, so last week when we saw the trailer for Victory of the Daleks Churchill showed the Doctor a poster with a dalek on it. The moment I saw that I was hoping the BBC would put that on the official site as a download. They did and now that poster hangs proudly in my living room. Okay, I’m geeking out a bit, let’s get focused. You can get the poster here.
So the story picks up immediately where the last one left off. Winston Churchill has called the Doctor to London, during the height of the blitz. The was doesn’t seem to be going very well and Churchill is trying to keep moral up. However, he has a new secret weapon he can’t wait to show the Doctor. Up on the rooftop as a squadron of Luftwaffe are bearing down, ray beams shoot out from behind a sandbag barrier and destroy all the incoming bombers. The Doctor recognizing the sound of that weapon rushes to the sandbags and finds himself face-to-eyestalk with a dalek. The dalek claims to be a servant England and a soldier. Churchill explains that they are called Ironsides and they were developed by Professor Bracewell. The Doctor tries to convince Churchill that the daleks are the most evil beings in the universe. They are not to be trusted and they will wipe out all of humanity. The Doctor implores Amy, who has lived through the daleks plan to steal the Earth, to try and talk sense into Churchill. Only Amy doesn’t remember the daleks or the Earth being moved. The Doctor in a rage starts hammering on a dalek demanding to know what it’s plan is. The dalek, getting “testimony” from the Doctor then uses a transmat beam. The Doctor races off to follow the daleks only to find out that they have used him to regenerate the dalek race. Now the Doctor has a choice: stop the daleks, or let them go and save the world.
I’ll admit that I was a bit “meh” on the daleks again. I mean how many times can they just barley survive? But I did enjoy the episode itself. It was written by Mark Gatiss who you may recall also played Dr. Lazarus in the series three episode The Lazarus Experiment (he also has a cameo in this episode as a Spitfire pilot…). He has also penned the Ninth Doctor episode The Unquiet Dead and the Tenth Doctor episode The Idiot Lantern. Ian McNiece plays Winston Churchill in this episode. While he doesn’t really look anything like Churchill, he does seem to be channeling the man. When Churchill said, “Action this day,” I (as a history buff…) giggled a bit, as he was known to say that a lot. Bill Paterson also did a wonderful job as Prof. Bracewell, the key to the daleks’ plan. Once again we see the new Doctor has a quick temper. When the tenth Doctor encountered the daleks he had a begrudging admiration for their creativity. The Eleventh Doctor seems to have reverted back to seething rage. It was almost chilling. And what would he do without Amy? Sadly, she doesn’t seem to get to do much in this episode, but what she does do ultimately helps save the world. And she’s not gonna let Churchill get all clever with the Doctor’s TARDIS key either… What did you guys think?
8 responses so far ↓
1 peter ledwith // Apr 18, 2010 at 2:40 pm
mmmmm…good episode. Enjoyable 45 minutes but way too many plot holes.
Just a few….
Did these daleks survive from davros`s new army? How purer can you get being created from there creators DNA! So why did the new daleks destroy them for bieng impure??
The doctor leaves a dalek bomb wandering about 1940`s england??? and leaves a dalek gun lying about in the lab??? Does this make sense?
How did they build the 3 space spitfires, get them up there in space and destroy the dish, all in the 10 minutes left before the bombers level london?
2 CybexAl // Apr 18, 2010 at 5:04 pm
This is great stuff. Three episodes in and Doctor Who has never seemed so sure footed. I really love the new Dalek design. They look even more like a deadly kitchen appliance than before and it’s that very odd familiarity, that kitsch quality that makes them so special. As plots go, this is clearly a curtain raiser for something more explosive later on and anyone expecting a full blown three act story here would be expecting way too much for 45 minutes. I like the Scottish agenda replacing the gay one and seemingly poking gentle fun at it. Really think Matt Smith’s Doctor is the best since the series returned in 2005 along with Gillan’s Amy who is most definitely the best companion so far. Oh, and some of the comments in your last paragraph could be answered by you re watching the episode again.
3 Jessika // Apr 18, 2010 at 6:28 pm
Just watched! Excited about the crack in the wall - perhaps the Daleks’ doing? Might explain why Amy didn’t remember them - also, unrequited love? I’m curious as to all the backstory that they’re not so subtly hinting at. And, RIVER! Very excited about things. I was curious about how 11 would act in a war setting, 10 being very anti-guns. Mind, the scene with Amy and 11 discussing the danger of travelling reminded me immensely of some of the 10/Rose moments in season 2. ^-^ Vastly curious with what they’re going to do next. And a return of River and the Weeping Angels! Did I mention excited?
4 Ben Parkin // Apr 18, 2010 at 9:23 pm
Hmm-hmmm-HMMM! Plot thickens. I said last week that I’m guessing Moffat is going to “undo” the Time War that Davies threw into the new series. New Daleks seem to support that theory.
Anyway, I am a little disappointed that Amy really didn’t do much this episode, because she is awesome. And boy-oh-boy is Smith ever a short-fused Doctor. You could see him just ready to explode the moment he realized what was firing the ray guy. Still, he doe still have the lighter side; I absolutely LOVED the bit with the self-destruct cookie! XD
5 Jorn // Apr 20, 2010 at 12:11 am
I thoroughly enjoyed the episode- it seemed a bit over the top at times (esp the space-spitfires), but I think that was because they were introducing the new Dalek design and wanted to go big for the episode.
I have to admit, when I first saw the new Daleks, my first thought was “isn’t that the iPod colour assortment?” but I think the new shaping is neeto.
I don’t think the Daleks created the cracks in time, but I’m certain they’re why Amy doesn’t remember the earth being stolen and the subsequent Dalek invasion.
As far as the old Daleks being “impure,” that could be explained two ways - either the situation the Daleks escaped from was The Parting of Ways rather than The Stolen Earth, which would make them cultivated from human DNA, or more likely Because they were clones of Davros. He was their “creator”- he designed and built the dalek armour, but they were an entire species, plus the problem with building an army of copies is the duplication errors which will inevitibly occur. The machine didn’t recognise them because their DNA had degraded, which was the same reason the new Daleks wiped them out.
In the end, I was very glad the Daleks got away. They can go find a planet somewhere and start rebuilding their empire.
6 Dan // Apr 21, 2010 at 10:48 am
The new series (2005+) started out making things more “exciting” than they once were, but now every single episode seems to end with some kind of deus ex machina - it’s just poor writing!
Seriously: They had less than 20 minutes to refit three airplanes with new propulsion systems and lasers?
Also, why are the Daleks painted as supreme beings when they’re so extremely stupid? If an episode contains the Daleks, you can pretty much count on the Doctor standing in front of them, hands raised, and moments later being LET GO.
“I have a gun in my room. You give me 5 seconds, I’ll get it. I’ll come back down here, BOOM! I’ll blow their brains out!” - Scott Evil
7 Kimberly // May 2, 2010 at 6:36 pm
The “new” Daleks reminded me of the Daleks in the Peter Cushing movie. Weird, bright colors. All in all, I didn’t mind them coming back - after all, the Doctor needs an arch enemy. (Sigh, I suppose the Master will be back, eventually.) But these Power-Ranger Daleks look a bit kitchy to me. Please, somebody promise me that they won’t develop morphing powers! It’s bad enough that they can teleport and time shift now.
It was a fun episode, despite some of the obvious holes - 20 minute plane conversions, and technology left laying around… I don’t exactly like the way the Doctor just leaves Amy behind whenever it suits him. And while I can appreciate that Amy’s human insight can often be useful, the last couple of episodes have all been Amy inadvertantly saving the day. And he just goes along with it? Ack.
Matt’s portrayal of the Doctor works for me, but I’m having a little trouble getting into Moffet’s story lines. The episode is mostly over by the time I’m really into the story arc - and then it gets solved in the last 10 minutes. A little unsatisfying. I’m hoping the next two-parter has a little more meat to it.
8 Tom // Jul 30, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Reply to jorn
There’s a loophole in your explanation of why the daleks were impure. The daleks themselves are actually mutated kaleds which is davros’s species. So the ones in victory of the daleks are the purest you can get
Leave a Comment