Skip to content

Review of Daleks Among Us by sircarolyn

6 July 2024

I am not a Dalek fan. I think a good Dalek story can be brilliant, and that they can be used to say interesting and novel things, but by and large, Dalek episodes underutilise them as evil shouty things. Daleks Among Us, fortunately, does not do that. It is not subtle that Daleks have always been an allegory for fascism, and so naturally, they are trying to use the Persuasion Machine to subjugate the entire universe.

This is definitely the most interesting story of the trilogy, and requires a lot of concentrating. Davros has a cloned 'son' who wants the machine, while meanwhile we're dealing with other clones left, right, and centre. Some of the plot gets a little fuzzy due to its complexity, but really what it's building to is Klein's big revelation: that she is not from this universe, and that her mother is a big old Nazi.

I said in the last one that Klein is more interesting when she has that extra dimension, and I am right. This episode actually dug into that and made her interesting again, which I was pleased about - she has to wrestle with the fact that she, in this universe, was designed to be the perfect control for the Persuasion Machine, and that to defeat it and the Daleks, she must kill her own mother. Perhaps I just like my DW a little dark, but I think that is infinitely more compelling that a UNIT goody-two-shoes.

Review created on 6-07-24