At best.
Rusty is probably the best character in the whole episode.
As the entirety of the World will be pleased to hear, Into the Dalek has no 'new paradigm' Daleks, so there's a point. Also, it's only co-written by Moffat. Bonus point! As usual, it all looks great (especially Rusty above), sounds great, and surprisingly few plotholes. Instead, for this week only, we get crap writing! Hooray!
Actually, this episode gets quite a few bonus points. It's an original idea, and an INTERESTING one at that. The continuation from Deep Breath with the three-week old coffee, and leads directly into the episode. The basic premise is future, lots a Daleks, and the human resistance has a malfunctioning Dalek hostage (called 'Rusty' by the Doctor). So, the Doctor, Clara and a few soldier/cannon fodder types go into the Rusty (not that way...) and fix the problem. Simple. How they managed to mess it up so seriously is really quite incredible.
Into the Dalek starts with some pretty BIG moral questions. The Doctor asks Clara in the first few minutes 'Am I a good man?' Hmm, indeed. That's pretty deep, I'm impressed. Then less than 10 seconds later, he jumps up and basically says 'now, Clara, wanna go see some Daleks?' And while seeing what it's like being inside a Dalek's casing is awesome and unique, it doesn't want to answer those big questions from earlier at all.
Now that's cool. A tiny Doctor standing eye-to-eye (literally) with his greatest nemesis. Now that's cool!
However, on board the Aristotle, the Resistance's ship, the rest of the Daleks have come looking for their buddy. So yes, and the best part of four years, we see people getting exterminated, in droves. Oh boy it was worth it.
However, it's still got problems. Clara gets some character, questioning the Doctor's morality and generally being... a good character. Blimey, that was hard to say. This opportunity is wasted, as Clara's development is written, but the Doctor isn't, not getting much in the way of development. Maybe he could be developed by his actions, but the episodes are so damn short he can't do anything that develops his character. The other minor characters are alright, not great, but above average as far as supporting characters go.
But, you can't help but feel the Daleks got the short straw in their own episode. Rusty provides the only major moral questioning in the episode, when he and Doctor get mentally linked, and sees the 'divine hatred' of the Doctor. And after slaughtering the rest of the Dalek boarding party, he says one of the best lines of Modern Who ever.
"I am not a good Dalek. You are a good Dalek"
I'm sure for many people, series 8 is their first series, but Into the Dalek seems to think everyone watching knows what the Daleks are and what they do. While this isn't a problem for me or the people I hang out with, for the casual viewer, that's quite a big ask.
While we're supposed to supposed to be getting big, superpowered Dalek empires, like in ye olden days of 2005 (God Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways. Such good memories). But, we're just supposed to know this. Although the Dalek empire in this episode, there's not much to go on. Yes, the ship at the beginning was HUGE. But, what if the Aristotle is just tiny, and the ship was just an average sized one? The Daleks don't seem to have this universe conquering power Into the Dalek suggests. Why didn't they just blow the Aristotle to bits? I know it wouldn't have made a good episode, but...
This is a glorious sight. Or, is it?
So, we all know the 'new Paradigm' Daleks were met with the same hostility as a hamburger in a Vegan committee meeting, so they buggered off for a series. When the Daleks returned in Asylum of the Daleks, we had our beloved Time War/Bronze Daleks as 90%, with the New Paradigm as a less numerous 'officer class'. Lets presume the big ship from Into the Dalek is some sort of command vessel. Why are there no officers on that ship, or is this not the control room/bridge thing? So, why are being showed this? Luckily, they've decided to write out the new ones altogether, so that's good. But, as much as the Time War Daleks are much cooler, they've got problems.
Well, there's no real class difference between drones and leaders, with of course the exception of the Emperor and the Supreme from The Stolen Earth/Journey's End, but that's it. And, the height is a problem. In 2005, when the Daleks were redesigned, they were made intentionally to be at Billie Piper's eyeline for Dalek (My favourite episode ever). While Billie Piper isn't exactly short, Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi are much taller, and a killing machine is less threatening when it's scraping at your ankles.
So yeah, Into the Dalek, not a bad episode, just kind of...empty. And although it was hinted our beloved Rusty would return, unless we see him in series 9, he's probably not coming back at all. I'm sorry, but you will be in our hearts Rusty. In the event of him not returning, here's a funny .gif of Rusty.
Final Grade: C+
Tries hard, falls flat. But has Daleks.
No comments:
Post a Comment