Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 1, Episode 6 - Dalek

Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 1, Episode 6 - Dalek

I wonder what's coming in this episode?

The Doctor and Rose step out of The Tardis into a museum in Utah, 2012 , having located a signal drawing them to it. This ain't no ordinary museum though - it's an ALIEN museum, full of alien items like Cyberman heads and the speedometer from the Roswell spacecraft. Alarms start to ring as soldiers spring into action, training their weapons on our two heroes. The Doctor is an alien after all. He'd blend in well here.

The owner of the museum (and a sleazy moustache), a gentleman who apparently has the ability to have the President of the USA replaced, makes his way to see them, making some HILARIOUS jokes along the way. We also see from the viewpoint of something being tortured with a drill, and making some very Dalek-like noises as it screams. I wonder what it could be? No time to debate for too long though - The Doctor and Rose are brought in front of the museum's owner, who is busy examining some new alien artefacts. The Doctor schools him on the proper use of one of the artefacts, before he is introduced by an English aide as Mr Henry van Statten, owner of the Internet. They have a bit of a manly stand off (very Northern stuff from The Doctor), where The Doctor learns that van Statten is keeping one living specimen close to where the signal that drew them there is located. Rose heads off with the English chap, whilst The Doctor heads down to visit the 'Metaltron'. 

The Doctor ventures with 'the cage', and discovers the last Dalek in the universe, who's a bit narky at discovering his race's greatest enemy in front of him. However, this Dalek is impotent unable to fire his weapon, and after the initial panic at nearly getting deathed by a death ray, The Doctor lets out some of his Northern anger left over from The Time War, taunting it for being the last of its race and the fact that he made it all happen, before calming down a bit when the Dalek uses reverse psychology and makes him realise that was a bit of a mean thing to say, especially when he's in the same boat. One Dalek taunt too far leads The Doctor to torture him with electricity, and the Dalek to beg for mercy, and it's only stopped when van Statten sends soldiers in to drag The Doctor away.

Meanwhile, Rose and the English chap bond over some alien technology. They flirt over talk of aliens and World War III (that's some sexy talk alright), and Rose reassures him that she and The Doctor aren't an item. She gets disturbed however when she sees the Dalek being tortured on screen. Back in the lift, The Doctor learns that the Dalek fell to Earth at the end of The Time War, and immediately regrets admitting that he too is the last of his race when van Statten has him tied up and his shirt ripped off. Luckily he gets to keep his trousers. Van Statten tells The Doctor of how he uses the alien technology he finds to further mankind's technology, making him very rich and influential in the process. The Doctor tries to warn him about the Dalek, but van Statten's ego and moustache ignore him. 

Rose manages to gain entry to see the Dalek, who's acting a bit pathetic - it's only his entire race that's been destroyed, after all - but she makes the rather silly mistake of laying her hand on his metal casing, which has the unfortunate side-effect of allowing him to activate his cellular reconstruction programme, and burst of his chains. Whoops! Nice one, Rose...

The guard who was torturing it earlier enters, shouts at Rose, and then taunts the Dalek, asking if it's going to use it's sink plunger to 'sucker him to death'. The Dalek immediately suckers him to death, and then suckers the keypad of the door to let it escape. Van Statten frees The Doctor after letting him put his shirt and jacket back on, before watching the Dalek download the entire Internet. It ignores the adult material and cat videos, and goes around death raying everyone, it's mini-shields stopping all their bullets. The Doctor, van Statten and his assistant lady, Goddard, plan to get to the weapons cache as their only chance of stopping it, but the Dalek is standing between them and their goal. Rose, the English chap and a soldier lady flee up the stairs, reasoning that a giant pepper-pot won't be able to climb stairs, but they never reckoned on this one having thrusters. Soldier lady commits the worlds most stupid sacrifice instead of running away, as Rose and the English chap flee.

The Doctor tells all the soldiers to aim for the eye-piece and concentrate all their fire at once, but they're about as useful as Imperial Stormtroopers. Rose notices that it looks directly at her, as if singling her out for something, before it sets off the sprinkler system so it can electrocute them all to death in one go. Now, I know it's been tortured in much the same fashion, but forgive and forget guy - this is why the Daleks have a bad reputation.

The Doctor, van Statten and Goddard plan another escape, before the Dalek remotely activates the monitor near them and shouts a bit, telling the three of them it's going to just kill everyone because it hasn't got anything better to do. The Doctor suggests it kill itself and die a bit, to which the Dalek responds by telling him he would make a good Dalek if he ever thought about switching careers. Rose and the English chap sprint up the stairs away from the Dalek, but The Doctor has to close the bulkhead doors to stop it getting through, and Rose is trapped on the wrong side. We hear the Dalek shout 'exterminate' and then the line goes dead. The Doctor flips out at van Statten as he realises he has lost his companion, but then we learn that the Dalek didn't actually fire, and Rose is still alive. It tells her that it feels her fear, and it has been contaminated due to her DNA when it touched her. It re-contacts The Doctor, using guilt and emotion to force him to re-open the bulkhead doors.

The Doctor and the English chap search for uncatalogued weapons, as the Dalek's already rather shaky sanity seems to deteriorate even further when it questions why it didn't kill Rose. She stops it killing van Statten by questioning what it wants, to which it declares 'freedom'. It breaks a hole in the ceiling, ready to fly off and begin its own adventures, possibly with a spin off series on CBBC, opening up its casing to show Rose what it really looks like whilst feeling the sun on its skin. The Doctor, however, has other plans, determined to shoot it. Rose pleads with him, telling him that by not killing her and van Statten it must be changing, and that if he is willing to kill it that he must be changing too. The Doctor realises it's true, and tells it that is has mutated thanks to Rose's DNA, but also says that it is not good for a Dalek, and when the Dalek itself pleads for Rose to order it's own destruction, she realises she has to do it. It learns that she is frightened, and tells her that it is too, before exterminating itself. 

Van Statten finds himself taken away for his memory to be erased as punishment for the deaths he caused, whilst The Doctor and Rose prepare to leave. The Doctor mournfully declares himself the winner of The Time War, telling Rose that he knows no other Time Lords are alive as he can't find them. The English chap, who I've just found out is called Adam, arrives to tell them all they have to leave, but The Doctor allows him to come along with them when Rose argues that he should come along because she fancies him he's always wanted to see the stars. They leave, ready to go and confront Simon Pegg on next week's episode. 

And so, to the first confrontation of the modern series with Doctor Who's greatest villains. There's only one of them, but you only need one to cause mayhem. It's an excellent twist when we learn it's mutating due to Rose's DNA, as it gives us the episode's excellent ethical dilemma - is The Doctor any better than the Daleks? Of course, we know he is really, but needs to make these discussions if it want's to be as intelligent as this, and it does it superbly. Whilst the other villain of the week, van Statten is your fairly typical evil collector, the character works very well for the story, and it's a bit of a surprise that he doesn't end up dead, although he does of course end up with his memory erased. I'm less enthusiastic about English Adam coming along for the ride next week, as he's one of the most forgettable parts of the episode, but maybe he'll be better in the next episode.

Watching Eccleston vent The Doctor's fury at the Dalek when they first meet, asking it how does it feel and what is it going to do to him, is a pretty intense scene. We see the anger and emotion that the Ninth Doctor carries from The Time War spill out, and although Eccleston's Doctor has always been a grumpier than Tennant or Smith's, it still feels a shock to see - it's completely understandable of course, and is one of the key moments of the series in realising just how heavily The Time War affected The Doctor. When the Dalek asks, 'you made it happen?', the sudden shift to vulnerable and sorrowful is superb, and highlights the burden he carries, and how much he knows that though he rid the universe of it's greatest threat, he killed all of his people by doing so. He's a murderer of an entire race, just like the Daleks want to be (and have been in the past), and that's pretty hard to take. Even so, it's disturbing watching him torture the Dalek with electricity and hear it scream for mercy, only to watch The Doctor ask 'why should I?'. As you'd expect, Eccleston is fantastic at going from one end of the scale to the other, and it's another stand out seen from the first series to go along with The Doctor telling Rose he doesn't want to put her in danger in the previous episode's cabinet room scene.

The final talk between The Doctor, Rose and the Dalek is also pretty powerful. Thanks to Rose's DNA, the Dalek has mutated to have traces of mercy and other emotions, which causes great turmoil within The Doctor - he knows he should kill any Dalek as it's the biggest threat to the universe, but this isn't an ordinary Dalek. When Rose tells him that she doesn't like what he is changing into, you can see the reason why he has a companion with him - it keeps him level-headed when he needs it most. It's also strangely heart-breaking to watch the Dalek want to die as it is longer what it thinks a Dalek should be, and to proclaim that it is scared is almost enough to prompt a few tears. 

It's also very crowd-pleasing to hear the Dalek described as a 'giant pepper-pot'. 

It's hard to give this episode enough plaudits. There are some incredibly powerful scenes that really make you stop and think, and the acting is phenomenal at times, particularly from Eccleston. Billie Piper has impressed me more often so far this series, mostly because she wasn't an established actress like Eccleston at the time, but he shows just how incredible he is here, and has done more and more as the series has gone by. He's so different to Tennant and Smith, and because he only had one series it's easy to forget moments like this, but he's a fantastic kind of different. Piper is still great, her scene where she's about to get shot outside the bulkhead a particular highlight, and there's just something so easy to relate to with her as the wide-eyed companion along for the adventure. 

How It Fits Into The Series As A Whole

This is, of course, the return of the Daleks, The Doctor's greatest foe, although it's only a single Dalek in this episode. More, LOTS more, will come by the end of the series.

Bad Wolf Sightings

Henry van Statten's private helicopter is called 'Bad Wolf One'.

Overall

The best episode so far of the revived Doctor Who, and possibly of all seven series by the time I've revisited them all. Full of tension and drama, and some phenomenally good acting, this should be one of the starting points for converting non-Doctor Who fans. Unmissable.

10/10