Victoria and a
werewolf! Shakespeare and witches! Agatha Christie and a giant
wasp! Let’s be honest, which other show can boast episodes with pitches as
truly insane and delightful as those? My appetite was whetted for all of
these, and I didn’t find myself disappointed and when I heard that Mark
Gatiss - a man with novels the calibre of Nightshade and The
Roundheads and audio dramas such as Phantasmagoria to his name
- was going to be bringing us Churchill and Daleks in a wartime setting.
You could practically see the drool seeping from my chops! I came away
from the episode with a far more positive reaction than most fans if the
forum polls are anything to go by, and although the episode amounted to
little more than a spectacular run-around… well,don’t we deserve some
flashy spectacle every now and again?
I want to
address the Doctor first this week purely because I said to my husband
that this would be make or break week for him. Week one he was being
introduced to the public so a little creative disarray is expected and
week two he was settling in, but week three he is facing the Daleks and
had to emerge as the main man of his show. Matt Smith has had an
unfortunate job of constantly being compared to the unbelievably popular
David Tennant, and he is under regular media scrutiny for taking over the
job when the show’s
popularity is at its height. Now to his credit I think he is doing a
remarkable job. Rather than giving the audience what they expect, we
have an actor in the role that is adding nuances to his performance
that aren’t even hinted at in the script. I adore his general lankiness;
he tiptoes about like a pixie with expressive, flapping hands and a cheeky
grin. He doesn’t behave in a way that I would imagine anybody to behave
and that is the Doctor.
“I wanted to know what they wanted; what their plan was. I was their
plan.”
What’s more,
this script allows him to play a whole range of emotions. What surprised
me was how violent he was and I was literally on the edge of my seat as
the Doctor picked up that wrench and began kicking the shit out of the
Dalek. It is the most brutal that we have seen the Doctor be since Colin
Baker was in the role. Smith has such a beautifully photo-graphable face
so seeing him facing down a squad of Daleks with only a Jammie Dodger to
protect him gives him the perfect opportunity to own his show and
laugh in the face of ultimate evil. There were lots of touches from Smith
that made this work for me; his tiny breath of ‘history’; that sharp look
over his shoulder as the Dalek glides into the room;
“Don’t
mess with me, sweetheart”;
his hilarious reaction to Dorabella…and that wonderful sigh as he admits
at the climax “I
always worry about the Daleks.”
He gets to be bossy, confrontational, silly, clever, heroic and really
funny. The fact that he fails to rid the universe of the Daleks gives him
a little taste of failure too, but Amy is there to remind him of what he
has achieved. And I laughed for ages when threw the gayest punch in the
history of Doctor Who! There is something deeply unthreatening
about the eleventh Doctor which makes him all the more impressive.
Amy gets a
number of great moments too, but she is far less prominent this week.
Frankly I think that Karen Gillen could just stand in the background
making the tea and she could impress me! Amy taps on a Dalek’s casing like
knocking on a door and accuses it of being an alien war machine which
leads the Doctor to the worrying conclusion that she has no idea who they
are, despite their planet-pushing antics Series 4. Firstly, this is a nice
use of continuity and secondly, more evidence that all is not right with
our current companion. I’m
getting echoes of Charley Pollard here, and I wonder if Amy will suffer a
similar fate? Amy comes into her own once the Doctor has skipped the
scene, convincing Bracewell to create the outer space spitfires and
stepping in to help deactivate him once the Doctor’s attempts have failed.
With Gillen in charge Amy feels like a real person in every respect: warm,
sensitive, sexy and sassy. I really like her too. Odd little note:
my mum hates the new Doctor with a passion bordering on insanity, but is
still watching because she thinks Amy is holding up the show brilliantly.
“Blimey. What do you do to the ones who mess up?”
As a Dalek
story, Victory of the Daleks pushes their species’
narrative on in a very satisfying manner. One thing that I hate about
returning old monsters is when they are used simply because they are
popular rather than to advance their story or to add more detail to what
we already know about them. Gatiss offers lots of kisses to the past from
the scheming Daleks in Power of the Daleks (“I
am your serv-vant!”),
“The
final end”
(The Evil of the Daleks), the multi-coloured Daleks of the Cushing
movies, and the interracial Daleks from the Russell T Davies era, but
remembers that this is a new era which needs a new sort of Dalek. I find
the much criticised plan of the Daleks to get the attention of the Doctor
by manipulating the Second World War quite ingenious for a race who
usually shoot, bomb, drop plague missiles…so I guess having the Daleks
out-think their enemy is a tip to Death to the Daleks as well!
The
most fun aspect of this story was the metaphorical handshake between
Davies and Moffat as the ultra-cool bronze Daleks of the past five years
are replaced (read: demolished) by some kiddie-friendly, giant,
primary-coloured beasts. Some real thought has gone into how this Dalek
unit could work with a colour having a designation and their new look is
gorgeously art-deco retro. They almost look a bit naff until you hear that
growling voice and the director sweeps in with his camera to reveal their
size and firepower. I had absolutely no idea what was going on halfway
through this story, and the Daleks managed to surprise me… and that hasn’t
happened in many a year. I genuinely believe that the Daleks need a little
rest as they have been overused in the new series, but now when they
return they can be bright, powerful and unusual. Oh, and I loved those
khaki Daleks too. It’s
weird how old fashioned they look next the spanking new ones!
“This is my chance. The last of the Daleks. I can rid the whole universe
of you once and for all.”
Ian McNiece
offers up a far more jovial Chruchill than I was expecting, but I really
enjoyed the idea of a long friendship between him and the Doctor, so some
mutual respect can only be expected. He looks perfect for the role and I
was charmed by his stalwart English spirit. By the end of the story I was
hoping for another appearance…especially when he pocketed the TARDIS key!
However, it was
Bill Patterson who made the biggest impact and his character allowed this
story to continue the fairytale feel of the season so far. He is a Dalek
construct who was planted on Earth to pretend that he had created
the “Ironsides”,
and after having his robotic hand blown off by his own creations his life
is shattered. It is a lovely little character strand in the episode, just
like Gwen in The Unquiet Dead, that sees Bracewell consider suicide
before being reminded of what a human being is. Simon hated how the Doctor
and Amy deactivated the bomb but it was one of my favourite scenes in the
episode, reminding him of the pain of losing his parents and his secret
love of a woman. It was such a sweet moment in an episode full of bluster.
“You are gonna be
so deactivated…”
Paterson gives a
charming performance throughout; a far cry from the stony-faced
prof-essors that he usually plays, and I was grinning from ear to ear when
the Doctor and Amy were trying to indirectly trying to tell him that they
aren’t going to deactivate him and he should just run along and enjoy his
life. I’m not sure what the purpose of Blanche was, though, as she didn’t
have enough exposure to make any impact at all. When Kathleen received a
letter saying that her husband had died in The Curse of Fenric, I
wept buckets but that story spent ages building her character into the
story whereas the same thing happens here with Blanche my only reaction
was: “Oh,
I’d forgotten about her...”
The production
was as striking as we have come to expect from Doctor Who in the
noughties, and freshman director Andrew Gunn gives the story some real
pace and excitement. This man knows how to film Daleks and he swings
around them on the Dalek saucer effortlessly, framing the scenes
gorgeously. Who also pitches in with another glorious concept –
spitfires attacking a Dalek saucer in space, and the special effects are
astonishingly good. Murray Gold’s score is far more effective than last
week, although in a few places I wish he would turn the volume down a tad.
The Doctor’s agonising choice of defeating the Daleks or saving the Earth
is punctuated by a fantastic score (the Dalek sting from the Daleks in
Manhattan cliffhanger) and the music during Bracewell’s approaching
detonation had me thumping my feet!
“And if I let you go, you’ll be stronger than ever. A new race of Daleks…”
Looking at the
season as a whole I think we are in fairly good shape, but I do think that
we need a really meaty story next week after three fantasy tales. The
Eleventh Hour, The Beast Below and Victory of the Daleks have
all had huge merits, be it spellbinding atmos-phere, a dramatic conclusion
or the fantastic imagery, but what we really need is a knockout drama
which can stand up with the classics. Next week looks as though it might
fulfil all those criteria and then some, and with some time to breathe in
a two-parter, I think that Moffat may be about to deliver his next
masterpiece...
What surprised
me most about Victory of the Daleks was just how much like the
classic series this felt for me. Historical characters, colourful Daleks,
an unpredictable Doctor and an emphasis of adventure over character. A
run-around this might be, but it is a masterful example of its type and
terrific fun to boot.
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