Recently I've been noticing something a little odd about my challenge. Obviously it goes without saying that I now get some days when I'm sick and tired of watching Doctor Who. But some days I find myself discovering the excitement all over again and that was the case with this episode.
I've never really liked this one, for reasons I'll go into shortly but for this time round I really enjoyed watching it. Maybe it was because it was after a long day so the analytical part of my brain had shut down and I was just able to let the excitement wash over me. For example, Spitfires in space attacking a Dalek ship. Even given that there is a loose explanation as to how the spitfires were equipped with the ability to leave the Earth's atmosphere, the fact that this all had to be done in about 10 minutes is completely implausible. It's not just the fixing up of the planes but surely the pilots would have had to receive some kind of additional training etc. Watching it through this time I loved it! It's Spitfires I'm space attacking a Dalek ship! How cool can you get!
Some of the more positive moments of the episode come in the first half. The Daleks have apparently been invented by Professor Bracewell as a secret weapon to help win the Second World War. We of course know differently as does the Doctor and therefore some of the great scenes come from the Doctor desperately trying to persuade Churchill that the Daleks (or the Ironsides as he knows them as) are not the salvation they claim to be. It borrows quite a lot from the second Doctor story, The Power Of The Daleks where the Daleks are claiming to be the servants of humanity. The line used in that story of "I am your servent" is repeated here with a slight alteration to become "I am your soldier". I think I heard a story where Mark Gatiss (the write of this episode) asked Nick Briggs (the voice of the Daleks) to linger on the "S" of "Soldier" as a bit of a fan tease. I love it!
By the second half of the episode we discover that the Daleks have tricked the Doctor into confirming their identity as Daleks in order that they can successfully activate a progenator device which will produce a race of pure Daleks, thus the new paradigm is born. Or should that be the Power Ranger Daleks.
I'm not against the redesign of the Daleks in principle. The Cybermen were pretty much redesigned every story back in the old days! However this new look form is...just not very good. The colours are too bright and they look all plasticy! Also their shape is bizarre and they look like they have a huge ass! I thinks i would have gotten used to them but it seems that they have disappeared from the series one as most of the recent episodes have included the classic look of the Daleks again.
As a final note, and another exciting part of this episode, the crack in Amy's wall seems to be having a lingering affect on the series when the Doctor discovers that Amy has no memory of the Daleks at all despite their recent invasion of the Earth. Clearly something is not right. Unless of course Amy is like Donna who just so happened to be on holiday during every alien threat so always missed them all!
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