The thing about the latest seasons of Doctor Who is that they insist on sticking in mini episodes and prequels all over the place! Now that is obviously excellent as it gives us more content but did nobody thing how that would affect my challenge?? I think not.
Before watching this episode I watched the five mini episodes called Pond Life. The first four are very funny and it lulls you into thinking that they are nothing but amusing but unimportant fluff. As such the fifth episode hits hard when you realise that Amy and Rory's relationship is on the rocks as we see him storming out of the house.
Meanwhile in the prequel to the actual episode we see the Doctor being given a message to meet a mysterious woman on Skaro. Now I have two issues with this. First of all...is this technically a prequel? Surely it's a prelude. To me a prequel is something which is released after the episode that it comes before. Secondly, I thought Skaro was blown up. I'm sure the seventh Doctor tricked Davros in Remembrance Of The Daleks into destroying his own planet. Oh well, I'm sure it's explained somewhere and it does make for a pretty exciting "prequel".
At the start of the episode itself we see the Doctor back on Skaro and I love how they've gone to the effort to make the buildings look just like those in the original Dalek story back in 1963.
So the basic plot is that the Daleks have an asylum where they throw all the Daleks that have gone mad. Now they are worried that these Daleks may be on the verge of escaping which utterly terrifies them. In fact it scares them so much that they don't want to be the ones to go down to the planet to sort it out so the enlist the Doctor's help along with Amy and Rory to sort things out for them.
Whilst on the planet the Doctor makes contact with a young woman who has been stranded there for a year when her ship crashed. This character is called Oswin Oswald and her appearance is a pretty massive twist. At this point we knew that Amy and Rory would soon be leaving the series for good so the new companion was revealed to the world as being played by Jenna Coleman. And she is here right away as Oswin Oswald. It's so unusual for the new series to be able to keep secrets but this one was kept magnificently.
Amy starts to lose the plot a little when a wrist strap is taken from her which was the only thing from stopping a nano cloud from converting her into a Dalek puppet. There is one particular scene which sticks with me where she starts to hear music and walks into a room to see people dancing slowly or standing around looking at her. It kind of reminds me of a The Shining as it has that really unsettling tone to it. She is actually looking at Daleks who are inmates in the asylum.
The side plot of Amy and Rory's relationship breaking up is also handled really well. Amy is angry at the Doctor's attitude that he can fix anything. Her relationship is beyond fixing. It's later revealed that the breakup was because of Amy's inability to have children. In her mind she is letting Rory go. This is what I love about Doctor Who. For all the craziness going on around them, with Daleks going mad all around them, there is still this very real scene played out between a couple who are having the same relationship problems that any normal human couple could have.
So we assume we have met the new companion and that somehow the Doctor will later meet up with her again for many adventures to come. Therefore it all becomes even more confusing when she "dies" at the end of the episode! In a fantastic scene we discover that Oswin is in fact a Dalek. She was once a human who has been converted and she has created this fantasy world for herself in order to survive. When she realises the truth she is obviously a little upset. There's something so weirdly touching about hearing a Dalek cry. Hearing a Dalek emotionally asking the Doctor why he they hate him so much is brilliant.
Another cool thing about this episode is the inclusion of old style Daleks from the entire history of the show. I even spotted the heavy weapons Dalek! To be fair though I didn't feel like they were included enough. This episode had been highly marketed on the fact that it was going to contain all these old Daleks but for the most part they were kept very much in the background. The most unforgivable part is when the Doctor is walking through "intensive care". As Oswin reals off the names of the planets that these specific Daleks were recovered from the Doctor realises that these are the Daleks who survived direct encounters with himself. The planets listed are all planets featured in old stories. But they use the wrong Daleks! They all look like modern Daleks. If they were going to make the effort to bring in old Daleks at least put them in the right place. Nerd rage rising!!
No comments:
Post a Comment