Into the Dalek

Really enjoyed the episode, it did tread some familiar territory, the Daleks have been done so many times now that it's always gonna be the case but it was well done. The Daleks were menacing again and the idea of getting inside one was certainly interesting.

Finally though, Capaldi really is a fantastic actor, love his portrayal. The character's a complete contrast to Tennant and Smith and has turned what you expect from a modern Doctor completely on it's head after those two were fairly similar. Is he a good man? I'm not entirely sure.

23/8/24

its alright!!! wasnt really paying attention this time round tbh. oooooh what if the 12th doctor is so so evil and scary…….. meanwhile he is just runnin around being a silly autistic guy

I DONT CARE IF EVERY PIECE OF THIS STORY HAS BEEN DONE BEFORE I LIKED IT. I THINK THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST DALEK STORIES. PETER CAPALDI I LOVE YOU FOREVER GRANDPA

This is a fun enough idea in and of itself. Shrinking and travelling into a Dalek is pretty cool, and the best part of this episode explores Rusty's character, how it relates to the Doctor, and what a "good Dalek" even means. Some of the designs around the Dalek's interior are pretty interesting and I do love those shots of the Doctor face-to-face with a giant Dalek organism more than I don't. That stuff is largely great, but it feels like a very Moffat-heavy episode, even if he isn't the only credited writer.

There are some really strong, memorable lines in this story from Rusty, but for every one of those we get awful ones from the Doctor. He goes way too anti-military here and it is only done for the sake of drama with Danny Pink down the road, and the whole "Clara is my carer" thing is just not a funny line and makes Twelve seem worse than what feels natural for his character. This won't be the last time Moffat pulls this questionable feat, either, which is frustration because Capaldi always deserved better than that.

The way the story hypes itself up at the beginning, calling the inside of the Dalek "the most dangerous place in the universe," is one of many ways this story holds itself back. Even just how ham-fisted some of the writing can be at certain parts of the story really bothers me, like around the soldiers or the introduction of Danny Pink (which was pretty awful and only made worst in hindsight knowing what is in store for that character).

Finally, while I enjoyed the morality struggle between Rusty and the Doctor, it definitely gets overdone at a certain point and I found the ties to the larger narrative of the season about Twelve not knowing if he is a good man a little clumsy here. It's an alright story, but not the best. Basically just an inferior version of Dalek, really.

Ten year old me speaks (warning: spoilers; he's not that sensitive to other people's point of view):

Whoa! Space battle! Pow-pow-pow! Explosions! Someone's gonna blow up! But wait! The Doctor totally saves her. Then she pulls a gun on him and and he makes her say please! Then he takes her home and they're gonna kill him unless he'll goes all small and goes inside a dalek! Whoa! Then some stuff with Clara and a boy. Then the Doctor picks up Clara and they get shrunk and put inside the dalek. The dalek wants to be good and kill other daleks but there's something wrong and the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to fix it. Then the dalek's bad after all and we get a big battle with lots of exterminating. But the Doctor and Clara persuade it to go good again and it shoots all the other daleks and there are more awesome explosions and... and... and it's amazing! The end.

Back to older, more considered me:

Part of me surrendered to my inner little boy and just enjoyed the thrill ride that Into the Dalek was. It was an exciting action adventure with a new, gritty Doctor that was perfectly tuned to appeal to little boys. But the audience for Doctor Who is broader and I reacted to the episode on different levels. I don't think it's fair to give it a good or bad review, so let's try the feedback sandwich approach that we're supposed to get at personal appraisals.

Starting with the good stuff, there was lots to like in the episode. It had some breath taking visuals and it rattled along at an exciting pace. The new, spikier Doctor is a real treat. Capaldi's understated and dry performance is delightful and the callous or rude moments call to mind Gregory House as the Doctor. The overall concept of the episode was intriguing and on the whole pretty well realised.

Now the things I didn't like as much. This may seem like a well filled sandwich, but they're all pretty minor points. The plot seemed to have a few dangling threads which I'm reluctant to tug on too hard in case the whole thing falls apart, which would be a shame. The emotional contrast between Danny Pink and the Doctor's view of the military was interesting and is clearly an ongoing thread, but in order to accommodate this we had to have the Doctor pick Clara up from her day's teaching to have the adventure and then deposit her back in the supply cupboard at the end of the episode. The series has been doing this quite a bit of late; towards the end of the Smith/Pond era, the Doctor would drop in and out of Amy and Rory's lives rather than them joining him on his travels. This relies on him piloting the TARDIS with accuracy (most of the time), which means losing the notion of them arriving at random destinations. It also makes it harder to address the problem of "why don't they just get in the TARDIS and leave?", which earlier incarnations of the show took pains to address.

In this case, the Doctor is at gun point, about to be forced to be miniaturised and sent inside a dalek to fix it. Somehow, he gets away, goes to pick up Clara, delivers the coffee that he'd gone to pick up, has a discussion about whether he's a good man or not, then returns with her to continue the adventure, picking up on being at gun point again. His motivation is that he seems to have come across a good dalek, which intrigues him, creates his own identity crisis and, presumably, he decides he needs Clara to act as his carer. Or did he decide that the coffee was getting cold? It's hard to tell.

The problem with having a well functioning TARDIS, and the ability to duck away to it at will, is that the Doctor can duck in and out of his adventures as he sees fit. He could choose anyone he wants to accompany him based on their skills. Why not a previous companion? Jo was very empathetic, wouldn't she be an equally good carer? Of course the reason he chooses Clara is because she's his current companion, but when not following a narrative of a continuing journey, this all gets a little more messy to explain.

My next concern was regarding the "good" dalek. The Doctor is asking whether there's such a thing because the captive dalek is saying that all daleks must die, yet by the end of the episode he's lamenting that the dalek is no good for saying precisely the same thing. Yes, there's the whole mirror of the Doctor's hidden hatred for daleks which horrifies him, but I do wonder about his initial motivation. Once he's escaped gun point and got away in the TARDIS, is there not a better chance that he'd think "broken dalek is probably better off left broken" and just gone back and had his coffee with Clara? I'm over thinking it.

I also wonder a little about the timing of events once the dalek was repaired. Given how destructive daleks can be and that they were on maximum extermination mode, accept no surrender, things seemed to proceed at quite a leisurely pace inside the dalek. Don't get me wrong, the dramatic tension was maintained, I just wonder whether there really was time for the Doctor and Clara to formulate a plan and put it into place before everyone was wiped out.

My other slight niggle which I have with every miniaturisation story was I couldn't work out if the scale maintained was consistent. In the shrinking scene, it looked like the Doctor's party were shrunk to about a centimetre in height, but it's hard to tell if this remained consistent throughout. Incidentally, I liked the  whole "don't hold your breath" notion, as it had me concentrating on my breathing, but it doesn't hold up to much scrutiny. If the air in your lungs for some reason doesn't shrink along with you, what about the urine in your bladder? You can't compress a liquid, so does the process actually shrink each atom of your being? In which case the molecules of air would shrink alongside you, wouldn't they? I'm definitely over thinking this.

Let's get back to the stuff I liked. Little-boy-me loved the full scale space battle at the start. He loved all the explosions and the proper dalek battle the like of which we hadn't really seen since Parting of the Ways. I thought the setting of the inside of the dalek was well done. Despite my reservations about jumping between Coal Hill School and the adventure proper, I like the contrast between fantastic and mundane, it's something Doctor Who does well. I liked the emotional beats of the episode and I loved Danny Pink. He's a likeable character and I look forward to seeing more of him. Capaldi's Doctor is a tour de force and he's already fantastic, to coin a ninth Doctorism.

On the production side, I really like the new credits. They're beautiful and I love that they picked up on a fan's work. I'm less keen on the current version of the theme. The bass and rhythm work well but the "woo-woo's" seem a little thin and synth-y. If these credits were married up with the orchestral triumphant theme used in the Tennant years they would be spectacular.

Nick Brigg's dalek voices continue to be excellent, but I wonder if the production is missing a trick by using just one voice artist on them. In the classic era there was usually at least two or more of Peter Hawkins, David Graham and Roy Skelton (among others) working at one time. I think the result, while sometimes patchy, gave a broader range of voices. Daleks are not meant to be clones and while Briggs is versatile, I'd very much like to see what another actor could do with them too.

I've not yet touched on Missy. Her appearance here seemed a little forced and crowbarred in. She's intriguing though and her high tea looks lovely. She can certainly put on a good spread. And that's what Into the Dalek was. A damn good spread put with confidence by a highly competent team. I can't wait for next week.