When does a Franchise jump the shark? That's a question that interests me every time something new or bizarre is coming out from a beloved IP. Take the Holiday Special from Star Wars for instance, it's a modern Art Masterpiece with surrealism that would even make Salvador Dalí blush!

The Story of this Piece of Media is simple: We see the Daleks, one of Who's darkest and goofiest Villain ever, chase an innocent (or is he?) Worm, named Walter the Worm. Very simple, almost too simple one would you say, but actually the more you think about it, the more you should see it for yourself. Because while Art is subjective, there is no “Objective” and yet this Piece of Media masters one Thing, which is fairly rare for ANY Piece of Media: That being seen and interpreted by multiple People.

I have never seen a Movie, a Show, a Game, or even a Book getting the Talk of the Town as much as this does and I totally get why.

The Gif about Daleks chasing a Worm inspires us to explore Areas of our Lives that we didn't think existed. It tickles a certain Part of your Brain that makes you go "Is this better than 2012 Lorax?" and while not as quite as good as this Masterpiece, it's VERY VERY close.

For me Doctor Who is easily my favorite Universe in all Fiction, because it has so much to offer, most of its Spin-Offs while connected can be enjoyed on their own terms, which is refreshing after countless heavily connected Spin-Offs from other Things.

Of course there is a Discussion to be had for only having Daleks and not "Doctor Who" in it. "Doctor Who" as they are known since The War Machines is a silly old Alien with a 60s Police Box travelling through Time and Space. They visited Planets such as Vortis and Vortis again, which is the Planet of the Web Planet, which is one of the finest Piece of anything I have ever experienced in my Life.

"But does that make sense?" I heard you ask.. and well does a David Lynch Movie make sense? I mean sort of, maybe, if you interpret it to make it sense, is it supposed to make sense? I don't know! Perhaps it is, or perhaps it doesn't matter either way, as Poet Tom Baker said in the Indie Production Day of the Doctor.

It's very hard for a Piece of anything to engage you this much, let alone make you question what even is "Art". For example, I am sure you have heard of that Art Piece with the Banana. A Banana stuck on the World. And while simple, a lot and I mean A LOT of People got angry because of that. "This is not Art", they say while watching the newest Episode of perfectly articulated Commercials to get you buy a Chocolate Ring or even a Fish. And those I say: "Is there a Way to truly define Art? Does Art have to be a Motion Picture? Why can't it be just a Banana stuck on the Wall?"

Stories are complicated, you know Biopics? They say they are based on real World Events when it's barely the Case, most of them almost feel like they have a Checklist, is it really artistic making a Movie about somebody's Real Life? Maybe. I mean I'm not There exist, which has plenty of People playing Bob Dylan.

This does bring out an important Question: "Why is there no Morbius Two?" And to I answer: Matt Smith got busy! Because they couldn't make another Adventure set in the Sony Universe with Morbius if it doesn't have Matt Smith.

Did you know that "Nosferatu", the Original, almost went missing? Yes it's true, nowadays unbelievable after he got famous on the Hit-Show SpongeBob Squarepants, but since this was basically Dracula all but in Name, the Stoker Estate sued them and wanted them to burn all the Copies. Thankfully it survived, you know what else I wished survived? Doctor Who The Highlanders Episode 2!

I wonder what William Hartnell would have thought about all this..

Oh yeah The Daleks chase Walter the worm was the Review Topic, wasn't it? UHHH i don't know 11/10? It doesn't have McGann, Gomez or even Faction Paradox, so it's not a 13/10, sorry!!

I am a horrible completionist.

This is one of the first things anyone who meets me will learn - I try to do everything. As a kid, I wanted to try every sport, win every competition, learn everything there was to know about the world - it's the ADHD, as I have now realised. It is, generally speaking, not a healthy way to live your life, and is something I have made great strides in changing about myself (though, the chronic fatigue did most of the work for me, if we're being honest). But, there is one stubborn shred of completionism left, and it will not let go - I have decided, ultimately, that as I cannot make it go anywhere, I may as well let it make itself at home.

That home is here. Welcome to my TARDIS.guide page, where I can quite literally track my progress in doing the impossible - I'm going to do all of doctor who! As Doctor Who very quickly spreads, like a sort of fungus, to encompass anything and everything in it's vicinity, calling this a 'herculean' task is an understatement. Perhaps now, finally, through this one indulgence, I can fulfill that childhood need to do everything.

Including, apparently, a ten second long clip of a worm being chased by some Daleks.

Now, at this point you must be wondering - why is ze still writing this. Where is this going. This feels more like an autobiography than a review. Well, the truth is, I have to write this! It's my homework! To scratch that horrible completionist itch, I asked Shauny to pretty please add this video (which he had initially not added because it is, quite literally, three Daleks chasing a worm and nothing else. For ten seconds). He kindly did this (super-fast, I might add!) upon my request, and then said, and I quote, "I want you to write a 200 word review of this masterpiece now". Well, after he so kindly accquiesced to my insanity, it seemed the least I could do.

So, without further ado... an actual honest to gd review of 'The Daleks Chase Walter the Worm'!

Although only ten seconds long, this video is a masterpiece in storytelling, visual dynamics, and expression. The story itself is simple: a worm, soon to become known to all true Doctor Who fans as a dear friend who makes an appearance in many a Dr. Men story, is being chased by three Daleks.

I would like to take a moment, if you will, to admire the composition - the shape of the fields, layered curves at sloping angles, create a wonderful impression of soft rolling hills, the subdued natural greens of the landscape and of Walter marred only by the harsh, unnaturally metallic Daleks. This creates a statement: the Daleks are out of place. They come in here with their great comic-bubble "EXTERMINATE!"s and their, their, their bumps, they harass the natives - they aren't supposed to be there. The story that is told through this composition and the uncannily smooth movements of the great metal beasts is one of imperialism, of colonialism, of everything that nature fears about man.

Walter is a victim of nazi oppression, so typically British - and who is helping him as he wriggles away, terrified, the emotion clear on his simply-drawn face? No one. Everyone says they would have helped hide the Jews, but they forget that it was ordinary people, people like them, who voted the nazis in - and it is ordinary people who are allowing the destruction of nature now. Who are feeding into the consumerist culture carefully curated by people who don't care about the damage they're causing, so long as they get rich. Who cares if we lose the rainforests so long as we can keep pulping out billions of shitty notebooks, right? Who cares if we don't have a planet to watch brilliant works of art like this on in a decade, if people are dying from wildfires and floods right now, as you are reading this, because, what, shrimp Jesus and being able to talk to simulations of popular characters was more important than human suffering???

Billionaire agendas funding industries like oil and AI are destroying our world and holding out a twelve-fingered hand, and you're eating right out of it's blurry palm! This is the palm of the Corporate! This is the palm of the 1% who take your jobs and stop you from getting healthcare and leave people to freeze to death to increase their bottom line and burn the planet!! If you really cared, if you really want to make a difference... you would help the worm.

Stop pumping money into Elon Musk's fortieth yacht and get involved in your local communities, fight back with kindness and solidarity, stand up when you see people threatened... don't be the sun, smiling on like nothing's happening. Ignorance is bliss, but you can't be ignorant forever. Not when a worm's life is in danger.

The lack of detail of the art allows the true horror the worm is experiencing to come through in an endless cycle, as the video is on a loop... that face, that face should haunt your nightmares. Contrasted with the playful, childish background of the smiling sun and the cartoon word bubbles of hate the Daleks spew, this video is nothing short of a masterpiece.

5/5

A more in-depth discussion took place in the discord while I was writing this review about the true nature and intent of the sun, smiling... malignant, ambivalent with a job to do, a bystander who did nothing to help Walter, or an innocent child with no understanding of the situation? For more conversations like this, please join the discord! Thank you to Sef, Owen, Delia, and everyone else who stopped me from going too far. This is surely a reasonable response to a ten second video of some daleks chasing a worm across a field.

"Would you still love me, if I were a worm?" - Albert Einstein, 1932

What is there to say about The Daleks Chase Walter the Worm? Some art speaks for itself. And yet despite this, it is only human nature to dissect and analyse art under a microscope. To break it down both into its component parts and its artistic merits. It's never enough for The Daleks to only just Chase Walter the Worm. We must understand why. We must understand how.

Before I delve into this further, what I appreciate here is the ambiguity of the piece. We know that The Daleks are bad guys, this has been established over the past 62 years of this show, and we know that Walter the Worm is a worm. And we know that the Daleks are Chasing him. But why? Why would all powerful, all hating creatures such as the Daleks go after one measly worm? What did he do to them? Did he do something to upset them? Also there are multiple Daleks after one worm. We know that only one alone is enough to destroy a world. So what did he do? How powerful is this worm to be a threat to more than one Dalek? Did he ally himself with The Doctor? Let's table this for now. I have a theory.

How evocative is this piece though? In only 10 seconds, it communicates this ambiguity and leaves you wondering these questions. It doesn't just start en media res. It ends that way too. And yet in this vertical slice, we understand that The Daleks are mad. They are yelling Exterminate. We understand that they are chasing Walter the Worm. We understand that he is a worm.

What's interesting though is that they are only chasing him. Despite yelling Exterminate, they are not shooting at him. Maybe Walter needs to be captured? Perhaps the Daleks are chasing not only He, but somebody else who is shown off screen?

There are so many ways to interpret this.

It fascinates me that the sun is smiling. It wants this chase. It wants Walter dead. Is it an ally to The Daleks? How did The Daleks get the sun on side? How can humanity survive if even the sun is against us? Frightening existential questions are raised.

I also appreciate that the 10s loop clues us, the viewers, into the fact that this is a time loop. Walter will never be caught. The Daleks will never exterminate him. There's a safety and comfort to that. I also interpret this as being a metaphor for the art of art itself. You can chase your dreams but you should never reach your final goal, if you want to keep your passion. The true passion is in the chase, the process, the improvement. Never stop chasing. Never stop improving. Never catch Walter the Worm.

On a more literal level though my theory is that Walter the Worm is the 17th Doctor, having regenerated from David Tennant.

I'll be thinking of this piece for a long time. There are so many layers to it. Will Walter ever escape? If he dies, will be turn into two worms? Was this foreshadowing for the bigeneration? What is art? Why do we analyse it? Who am I? Who are you? Why are you in my house?

All important questions raised by this pinnacle of the art form. The most important story in Doctor Who history.

I don’t think anyone understands the complexity of Walter the worm being chased by the daleks

it starts off with a worm named Walter being in a field clearly he enjoyed it and lived there feeling rejuvenated then suddenly he is on the run he’s up rooted from his home cause the daleks are coming

and the daleks have been after this worm for YEARS they finally found him Walter says goodbye to his worm wife Wanda and takes off sadly the daleks find Wanda and kill her brutally tears in his eyes Walter slithers as hard as he can to get away over the hills and far away he’s a million miles from LA but he’s making good distance the 3 daleks chase him too shouting there catchphrase exfoliate or whatever they say and then suddenly CLIFHANGER did Walter make it to la did the daleks take him it’s up to your imagination to decide as this never got a sequel I cry every time I watch this cause it’s basically as huge as torchwood was and that also ended on a cliffhanger sad times

In this life we live, we ask many questions. We want to know. Always. Humanity is in a dire, constant need of knowledge. Why? Are we just greedy? Is it an addiction? Why do we have sayings like “curiosity killed the cat” even though we very well know that at every waking moment of our lives we are those very curious cats. Do we want to be killed? Do we want to be scared? Do we like risks? Oh, there I’m doing it. I am the cat.

“What kind of ridiculous intro is that?” I hear you asking. Which you shouldn’t. Questions are dangerous. Knowledge is dangerous.

I would like to be happy. Wouldn’t you? And I was happy. When I was young and unknowing. When there was only the small world of growing up in which everything seemed so big. I didn’t know about war, about discrimination, about murderers and r****ts. I didn’t know about anything! And I was so, so happy. Every day there was something new to learn, always, the smallest things would bring such overflowing joys with them. So curious. Everything seemed possible. Like a worm, for example, that could be cut in two, and then live forth as two beings! What a wonderful thing! The wonders of this world were astounding.

And so one day I was on rollerblades. I did that relatively often, at least compared to now. I crouched down. I saw a worm. It wriggled around on the pavement, leading its worm life. It might have been happy, because it didn’t know what was about to come. Or maybe it didn’t know what happiness was even. There was a creature looming over it, a child. A human. Such monsters those were. Not that the worm knew. It didn’t know anything. So it must have been happy, right? The child didn’t know anything either, until it did. It remembered knowledge. And it savagely started to cut into the flesh of the worm with the wheels on its feet. It cut and cut, like a rough pizza cutter on a jelly finger. Until the pink wriggler wriggled on the pavement no more, but lay. In two pieces. And the child watched. Waited. The worm didn’t know what it was waiting for. The worm didn’t know why the creature committed the horrible, savage act of cruelty. The worm didn’t know anything. Because it was dead. My mum called, and so I stood up, and skated away on the rollerblades, its wheels drenched in the crushed remains of the poor, unknowing, unliving worm. And still, I didn’t know anything.

We know that curiosity kills cats, but have you ever thought of the curiosity that makes the cat kill? The mouse, or the bird that it catches in its claws, curious as to what might happen. With only death as its consequences.

The worm might have very well been on the other side of this conundrum. It is greedy too, it wants to drink. Is that greed? Maybe it’s just survival. But above all, it is curiousity. It’s been above the ground many times when it’s been raining, though now it wants to know how it is when it is not. Why has mother worm told it to only go and dig up the earth above whenever it feels there is water falling from the sky? It needs to know, no- It doesn’t need to know. Not at all. But it wants to. It doesn’t know what good it would do, neither what it will do once it’s there, but still; there could be something good. Maybe there’s actually more water when it’s not raining, and nobody has found out because they never looked! But if there isn’t, it will have been good to see anyways, so that it at least knows that it isn’t there. Maybe it will plant a flag upon the surface once it has reached the destination. Though it doesn’t know why it would do that, because it doesn’t actually know anything.

We could be contend! We could be happy! We could just accept life, and for those of us who live in pretty alright circumstances, we could just be happy. Happiness through acceptance. Does it make life better for you to know that you are just a concoction of molecules that thinks it is alive? No! Then why did you search it up? Why did you want to know? Oh, don’t give me that “for science, for medicine, if we know how we work we can live longer” (imagine that sentence in a whatever you find to be a very annoying tone of voice), no, why do you want to know? Because you’re not gonna cure cancer with that knowledge, you know that as well as everyone. So why do you want to know. I’m talking to you, stupid writer of this idiotic text, because I know that you know that I know that it’s useless for what you specifically want to do. You don’t need that information. Why are you asking a question right now?

Maybe it’s Human Nature™ to want knowledge. It’s our programming. To want. Always just want want want more and more and more until you burst at the seams with things you don’t actually want. Because it is exactly because you don’t know. You don’t know what you want with your meaningless mortal existence. You don’t know anything. So you try to look for an answer. Subconsciously you want to know, know more, look things up, learn more stuff, in the faint hope that the solution to this impossible, empty conundrum that is life will be found, will help you solve the puzzle of everything that exists, before that very thing makes that it’s too late. Or maybe you give up and make up the answer yourself. Knowledge is dangerous. Maybe you don’t want to know.

The worm has decided. It is taking a flag with it, and has a rucksack with things that might come in handy. It doesn’t know how this rainless world might be, so it has to come prepared. It says: “Bye mom, I’ll be back soon!” and before its mother can call “Walter? What in wormheaven’s sake are you doing!” back to it, it has started digging upwards.

Some people don’t know anything. And they are happy for it. They don’t need to know. They believe. For example, they believe that they are right. That they don’t need to think, that looking for knowledge isn’t necessary because they already know everything. They don’t know anything. They are miserable.

Some people don’t know anything. And they are happy for it. They don’t need to know. They ignore. For example, they ignore people who believe that they are right committing atrocities, because the people who believe that they are right don’t like being told that they are not. So when someone who knows that they don’t know anything comes along, it doesn’t fit. Doesn’t work. “If they don’t know anything, they must be stupid, or just don’t know what I know!” But they know. The ones who think they know nothing. They know infinitely more. Until they don’t know anything anymore. Because the cat has snatched at the worm, and it’s killed them both. And only the Daleks remain victorious. That’s what they ignore. That’s easy. So they smile brightly. They’re just happy.

Walter the Worm has gotten to the surface. It’s dry. Walter looks around and about. No water, good to know for sure, that. It is beautiful when it isn’t raining. Walter is glad it came. Walter takes the flag from its bag, and looks for the perfect place to plant it in the ground. One small wriggle for this worm, but a- Then Walter hears a sound. A bone chilling, evil clunking, and is that rolling? Walter looks around and about again. There it is. A curious thing that Walter has never seen before in its worm life. What a wonderful thing! The wonders of this world were astounding. “EXTERMINATE” Said the thing.

Sometimes cats fight. That’s okay. That happens. Sometimes they snatch at worms. Sometimes they are the worms. Don’t ask me how that works. And sometimes they kill a bird. And that’s horribly sad. But cats aren’t evil. Cats are the perfect creatures if you ask me. Don’t you think so too? That for all their mistakes, they are good. Good after all.

Walter dropped his flag, and ran. At least, as far as a worm could. The sun watched, and smiled. Because the sun was happy.

And even though it was scared, and felt awful in many ways, maybe Walter the Worm was happy too.