A powerful billionaire’s collection of alien artefacts becomes a problem when he acquires the crowning glory – a real, live alien. Unfortunately for him, the alien is a Dalek.
Cast
Christopher Ecclestone as the Doctor
Billie Piper as Rose Tyler
Steven Beckingham as Polkowski
Corey Johnson as Henry van Statten
Anna-Louise Plowman as Goddard
Bruno Langley as Adam
Nigel Whitmey as Simmons
John Schwab as Bywater
Jana Carpenter as De Maggio
Joe Montana as Commander
Barnaby Edwards operated the Dalek, and Nicholas Briggs was the Dalek’s voice
Written by Robert Shearman
Directed by Joe Ahearne
Daleks created by Terry Nation
Original Airdate
Originally broadcast on BBC One in the United Kingdom on the 30th of April 2005
Synopsis
In an underground facility in Utah, a billionaire collects alien artefacts which have fallen to Earth. A harmless enough pasttime, until he gets hold of a Dalek.
High Point
The Dalek. No question about that. More intelligent, better-looking and undeniably more dangerous than before. Fortunately for the Earth there was only one of them, as not only is it capable of extreme violence, it’s also capable of deception, self-doubt and philosophical discourse.
Low Point
‘Elevate’. It might have been scarier if the Dalek didn’t talk about everything before doing it for the first time.
The Review
How original can a story about a Dalek be? Quite a bit, as this episode shows. Not only do we see some very nice technical upgrades to the Dalek, we also see some things done with the Dalek which have not been done before. They’re far from mindless (yet very intelligent) killing machines now. Five out of six.
The effects were everything they wanted to do with the Daleks in the old series but couldn’t. In a few places you could see where they’d changed over to a CGI Dalek, but it was close enough that it wasn’t really an issue. The only point where the effects jump out as being insufficient was right near the end in the last Dalek scene. Five out of six.
As for the story, it was an excellent reintroduction to the Daleks. Some nods to the backstory of both the original series and the new one were slipped in rather nicely, everything fitted together rather well, and it was generally a lot of fun with a generous helping of tension, running around and cries of ‘exterminate!’, even if the ‘oh no Rose is dead’ element was used again. It could, however, have benefited from an extra quarter of an hour or so, which is not the writer’s fault of course – it’s a good vision constrained by the limits of the series’ format. Five out of six.
The acting came up well from all concerned. In the case of one character, this is particularly good. It’s fortunate that the new companion is played by someone who appears fairly capable. Five out of six – you’re not going to see better in Doctor Who in this universe.
Emotional response is a tricky one. Daleks aren’t hide-behind-the-sofa scary these days, but this Dalek is extremely impressive. Rose’s reaction to it and the Doctor’s interaction with it certainly deliver some emotional impact, but you kind of expect that because it’s the Daleks, it should be really really scary. Because of that I can only give this four out of six – your opinions may vary.
Can you ask more of the production? Well, yes, you could, but you’re not going to get it. Five out of six.
Overall therefore, despite not maxing out any of the other scores, you come away so thoroughly entertained that it just has to have six out of six.
And so we’re left with a grand total of thirty-five out of forty-two.
So when…
…is BBC America going to carry the new series? I just got this channel and couldn’t find the show in the listings.
-cb
Re: So when…
http://www.bbcamerica.com. Right now, it doesn’t look like they’ll be carrying the new Doctor Who.
-Joe
Re: So when…who cares?
Will I get banned for these words? Bit Torrent.
The world is my tivo, I shall not want…
For HD versions of every episode of this lovely
series at about 350M per episode.
Re: So when…who cares?
That’s How I Watch It.
Re: So when…who cares?
Ditto.
Re: So when…who cares?
Same here. I just caught up to this episode this week.
Re: So when…who cares?
I love the hell out of this show. I suspect BBC America, Sci Fi, USA, or even syndication would have a hit show on their hands if someone in the States had the brains to show the thing … Since they don’t, and I suspect the DVDs will be region 2 only, I don’t feel very damned guilty downloading these.
I usually have them a few hours after BBC1 shows them, as soon as the torrents go up. Watching Doctor Who has (again) become a Sunday morning ritual for me. Way back when, when Tom Baker manned the TARDIS, my local PBS affiliate would start off every Sunday morning with the multi-episode condensed verion of Doctor Who (all three or four episodes edited together.) I’d watch the Doctor, drink my morning coffee, and get ready for the rest of the day.
It’s like 1980 all over again, minus the pimples, the bully next door, and my Mom crocheting on the couch. :)
-Joe
Re: So when…who cares?
Back in the 80s it came on my local PBS Saturday nights at 9:00. I still have fond memories of ending the night with a 90 minute story arc of DW. Now we get the new episodes off the news groups and watch them the following Saturday night along with an old episode.
War in Heaven?
This episode was great. I thought that the Dalek was every bit as scary as any
previous Dalek – just tell me you didn’t feel the horror as Rose set the Dalek free!
I have not yet worked my way up to The Ancestor Cell. Could somebody who knows the
expanded universe material comment on
whether what they’ve told us about the Time War conforms to what happened
in the books, regarding the “War in Heaven?” Did that have millions of Dalek
ships facing millions of Time Lord TARDISes? It’s interesting, because in the
TV series the defenses of Gallifrey have always seemed to be mostly be left to
the single-point-of-failure transduction barrier.
Is it possible that we’ll ever see the Faction Paradox?
I was a big fan of Who in the 80s, and then kind of forgot about it for 15
years. It’s great having so much material (primarily books and the Big Finish audio
dramas) to assimilate now that actually seems to have some bearing on
the canon.
Re: War in Heaven?
The best way to describe the “Time War” with resorting to spoilers.
Lets just say that a slightly insane Time Lord President dumps some bad stuff into the Time/Space vortex.
Re: War in Heaven?
I didn’t get that kind of emotional response. It looked very much like an oversized tin salt shaker with a plunger. I guess since I’ve not watched the older series (actually I have, when I was little, but I remember nothing except the title and the phone box) I don’t really conjure up images of scariness out of a rolling trashcan. It was an interesting episode, but it wasn’t scary for me (unlike Aliens of London, which was creepy and the tense moments are really tense). I guess there’s something gruesome about being ripped apart by a claw rather than being zapped by a cheesy effect ray gun or being attacked by a plunger. But that’s just me, and I’m only commenting on it as someone not familiar with the mythos.
Re: War in Heaven?
I Thought That Would Be My Response, But I Found Some Older Episodes On-line, And There’s Something About Their Deceptive, Devious Nature That Freaked The Hell Out Of Me, Much More Than A Salt Shaker With A Plunger Should Have. They Made The Borg Look Like Weak Rip-Offs.
I’d Recommend Destiny Of The Daleks, Thats The One That Gave Me The Heebiejeebies.
Re: War in Heaven?
Actually, that’d be the Cybermen. For some reason I hadn’t figured that out years and years ago, but The Borg are just a rip off of the Cybermen. Remove emotion, run by computers, cybernetic implants, etc, etc. Don’t know why I never saw it before.
Re: War in Heaven?
See, I Just Got Into Doctor Who With This New Series, And Am Downloading The Old Stuff. My Only Exposure To The Cybermen Are The Few That Were In ‘The Five Doctors’. I’ll Have To Start Tracking Them Down, Next.
Re: War in Heaven?
I’d recommend Earthshock as a good Cybermen story. It’s available on DVD
(at least on region 2), and it’s the point where the Cybermen returned after
something of an absence, redesigned and with much more comprehensible
voices. The early Cybermen (try Tomb of the Cybermen, a Second Doctor
story also on DVD) had high-pitched voices I find quite hard to understand,
and I often end up watching that one with the subtitles on. However, their
stated intent in that story is to turn the Doctor and the hapless humans with
him into Cybermen. Very Borg-like – they dropped that from later Cybermen
episodes, at that point they just wanted to conquer the Universe. Not quite as
single-minded as the Daleks and also not as violently xenophobic, but still
you wouldn’t want to meet one, ever.
The thing the Borg had that made them more dangerous than the Cybermen
is the collective consciousness. The Borg disseminate information much
faster. You can’t take out one of their scouts and hope they didn’t report
back, because it’s almost certain that they reported everything the moment
they saw it. I think that’s pretty scary.
Although since the Borg turned up in Star Trek and not in Doctor Who, they
never did that much damage – the Daleks had more overall effect I think.
I loved this episode …
I can only minorly fault it.
I was shocked and pleased by the episode’s resolution, and I find the new Doctor’s rather raw emotions to be refreshing. This Doctor *tries* to be aloof, but often as not he fails. That’s excellent. Tears? Rage? Hatred? Wonderful. :)
My one hesitiation about this episode is my growing trepidation regarding the Doctor’s relationship with Rose. Its platonic nature is questioned too much, and it’s denied too vigorously. I suspect we’re being set up for an interspecies romance, and that’s just *not* Doctor Who, although perhaps the writers plan on bringing back the Time Lords?
Still. Damnit. No. As much as I love this series, especially the new series, that’s wrong. It’s practically taboo. I guess there’s no reason why the series writers *couldn’t* add romance to the Doctor, but to my knowledge (not having read any of the books or listened to the audio programs) it’s just not in keeping with the Doctor’s character.
-Joe
Re: I loved this episode …
Spoilerfont for complete conjecture.
Did I really hear that the Dalek extrapolated the Doctor’s DNA from Rose?
I am under the impression that there was some sort of past relationship between the Doctor and Rose’s mom. Notice how he never speaks to her, and never looks her in the eye past that one scene in the beginning. I think the Doctor may have found Rose and let her tag along for more reason than just chance.
Re: I loved this episode …
Answer in black too :)
Unlikely, since Rose’s mom didn’t know who The Doctor was. Perhaps in his previously incarnations… but that seems so unlikely. Not like The Doctor at all.
Re: I loved this episode …
Then why doesn’t he speak to her? It can’t be just because he doesn’t want to talk to her about what he is doing with Rose.
Re: I loved this episode …
Spoilerfonted to respect those who haven’t seen it yet.
I got the impression that he had simply extrapolated the DNA from a time traveller, in this case referring to Rose. We’ve already covered that the TARDIS messed with her brain in a beneficial manner by allowing her to understand languages that are not her primary language, perhaps the TARDIS might have made a few other effects as well. (As it is, I remember reading somewhere that Time Lords are sterile, though that source might be non-canon).
Re: I loved this episode …
Time Lords can’t be sterile (in the sense of being completely unable to
reproduce): the very first episodes of Doctor Who had the Doctor travelling
with his granddaughter Susan.
Re: I loved this episode …
On of the old books (that’s now on the BBC website) tells that all the Time Lords from the Doctor’s time are genetically created. Susan is from the Doctor’s past. She believed that he was her grandfather.
And another mention of “bad wolf”
I wonder if it has a meaning or if the writers are just tossing us a red herring.
Re: And another mention of “bad wolf”
It took a very, very long time for the title of episode 12 to be released (up until last week, you could easily get the title of any upcoming episode, except 12). The title was recently released, and the episode will be called “Bad Wolf”… so yes there will be a payoff. On Sunday, Outpost Gallifrey had an online chat with Rob Shearman who wrote “Dalek” (or more properly, adapted “Dalek” from his Big Finish radio play “Jubilee”) and he also mentions there will be a payoff to the Bad Wolf thread. Every story thus far (save “Rose”) has a Bad Wolf reference of some sort (the Moxx of Valhoon (sp?) speaks of it in episode 2, the Welsh assistant girl speaks of it in episode 3, it’s spraypainted on the TARDIS in the AoL/WW3 stories, and of course it’s Van Statten’s helicopter’s name in episode 6)… they’re not going to do something that blatant then not pay it off… this isn’t STTNG after all. :)
I for one enjoy having this thread going on, it adds a sense of mystery to the show, not unlike the Fenric threads weaved in the last few years of the original series (and paid off in “Curse of Fenric” of course).
Re: And another mention of “bad wolf”
Okay, I’ve Totally Missed This. I Saw The Spraypaint, But That’s All I Noticed. Anyone Care To Fill Me In?
Re: And another mention of “bad wolf”
Same here. I’ve been watching, and I have noticed the “Bad Wolf” stuff, but I have no idea what it’s referencing. Admittedly, this is the first Who I’ve watched regularly in 20 years, so the problem could simply be that. Still, inquiring minds want to know!
Re: And another mention of “bad wolf”
Dubbayou42 pretty much covered everything we know for sure. The
phrases “Bad Wolf”, “Bad Wolf Scenario”, have been used seemingly in
conjunction with The Doctor in each episode after the first.
What I am not sure of, is whether the “Bad Wolf” is The Doctor, or
someone else. In Ep 3 the medium says to Rose, “You’ve seen the Big Bad
Wolf”, which leads to speculation that The Doctor is the “Bad Wolf”. On the
other hand, “Who’s” afraid of The Big Bad Wolf?
I’ve seen lots of speculation in other fora, but nothing really firm more
than that.
Bad Wolf stuff…
The full list of references so far:
Supposedly, the Nestine Conciousness mouths the words “Bad Wolf” while talking to the Doctor in Rose.
The Moxx of Balhoon says “This is a Bad Wolf Scenario,” to the Face of Boe in The End of the World.
Gwyneth sees “the big bad wolf” in Rose’s mind and recoils in terror in The Unquiet Dead.
A kid sprays the words “Bad Wolf” on the side of the TARDIS in Aliens of London.
One of the reporters is named Mal Loup in World War Three. Mal Loup is French for bad wolf.
Henry VanStatten’s helicopter is called “Bad Wolf-1” in Dalek.
**BONUS REFERENCES**: http://www.whoisdoctorwho.co.uk references the final minutes of WW3, from Mickey’s point of view. He uses the words “big bad wolf.” The site is a BBC “viral advertising” site, made to look like a standard amatuer conspiracy site, but taking place in the DW universe, and is probably canon.
BBC has registered http://www.badwolf.co.uk. Their current/future intentions with it are, as yet, unclear.
And there is the title of episode 12.
Re: Bad Wolf stuff…
If you visit the BBC Doctor Who website and click on the right hand bottom corner you get “Bad Wolf” repeated over and over and over. Also if you sit there long enough to watch the cycle you get a picture of someone who looks like Davros. But I could be mistaken
Could this be something specific to the story line or is it just something to drive us all nuts waiting for an answer.
Re: Bad Wolf stuff…
I think that is “The Editor” from next week’s episode.
Re: Bad Wolf stuff…
Which I think looks to be very Matrix-like. :)
-Joe
Re: Bad Wolf stuff…
It’s… bad French for “Bad Wolf”… sounds like what you’d get out of a machine translation, or direct dictionary referencing (same diff).
Time War
To reply to an earlier comment on this page; in the new issue of the Doctor Who Magazine, head writer Russell T. Davies specifies that the Time War in the new series is completely different to the one in the BBC Eighth Doctor range of novels. In fact, they would not be allowed to do this because the BBC is a public service broadcaster, they cannot make it so you have to buy their products to understand what you see on the screen.
I thought the Dalek episode quite disappointing. It’s been ages since the Daleks were menacing, they never changed their design for years like they did with the Cybermen, and they basically became screaming henchmen for Davros. They finally addressed most of things that made them crap, gave them their calculating side back , actually made them look ruthless for the first time in years. I don’t know how to do that black font spoiler thing, but….. The Dalek Was Defeated Because A Girl Touched It! How rubbish is that? Since when is your value system and morals stored in your DNA? What a poncy, cop-out Star Trek ending. Just like Star Trek, they build up a really menacing alien threat, then weaken it with rubbish about emotions and end up reasoning with it. The whole point of the Daleks was always that you couldn’t reason with them. They’re an allegory for the Nazis.
My guess is the Bad Wolf is the Master.
Re: Time War
Well, I agree about the execution – it was the one thing in this episode
that I found really jarring, even if they had taken a bit more time with it, my
suspension of disbelief would have been aided.
However, to be
completely fair, in the 1967 story “Evil of the Daleks”, a similar plot device
was used to inject the “Human Factor” into the Daleks. So there is some
precedent both for pseudo-scientific mysticism as a plot device, as well as
the creation of an “emotioal” Dalek.
Re: Time War
Well, I agree about the execution – it was the one thing in this episode
that I found really jarring, even if they had taken a bit more time with it, my
suspension of disbelief would have been aided.
However, to be
completely fair, in the 1967 story “Evil of the Daleks”, a similar plot device
was used to inject the “Human Factor” into the Daleks. So there is some
precedent both for pseudo-scientific mysticism as a plot device, as well as
the creation of an “emotioal” Dalek.
Re: Time War
Spoilerish thingie: Remember, Daleks are genetically engineered to have no emotions other than those that Davros deemed useful: anger, hatred, etc … Add human emotions to the mix, fear, love, happiness, and the Dalek is compromised. It was dying and regenerated itself using Rose’s DNA as a template. It didn’t inherit her personality, but it did inherit human neurochemistry and all of those other emotions that Davros has edited out. I could see how those emotions would compromise a Dalek.
This reminded me of Hugh, the Borg. Wait a second, I just proved your point. :)
-Joe
If only…
I wish they hadn’t shown the Dalek in the “Next week” teaser and called the episode something like “Last of his Race” instead.
Can you imagine the impact of the scene where the Doctor goes in to the dark Metaltron cage and introduces himself to the small blue light if you didn’t know what was waiting for him? I’d have been straight over the back of the sofa with the first flash of the voice lamps.
Re: If only…
I *hate* it when the writers obviously want to build up to a beautiful reveal, and then whatever network is involved has to blow it in the preview for next week or the title of the episode. If “The Empire Strikes Back” was a TV production on the networks nowadays, it would have been named “Darth is Luke’s Father”.
Re: If only…
Of course, they’d have to have renamed the episode, too. Probably should have called it Mysterious Menacing Metaltron.
Re: If only…