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DVDfever.co.uk – Doctor Who Series 5 Episode 3 review by Dan Owen
“Victory of the Daleks”Broadcast on BBC1, Saturday April 17th, 2010 As premiered ondanowen.blogspot.com
Series 5 Vol.1 Blu-ray:
Series 5 Vol.1 DVD:
2009 Specials (Blu-ray):
Director:
- Andrew Gunn
Screenplay:
- Mark Gatiss
Cast:
- The Doctor: Matt Smith
Amy Pond: Karen Gillan
Winston Churchill: Ian McNeice
Edwin Bracewell: Bill Paterson
Captain Childers: Tim Wallers
Lillian: Susannah Fielding
Blanche: Nina de Cosimo
Group Captain Todd: James Albrecht
Daleks (voice): Nicholas Briggs
Expect spoilers
Following the nascent pattern of the 2005 series (premiere, future-set episode, historical episode), “Victory Of The Daleks” even found Mark Gatiss writing a story where The Doctor (Matt Smith) battles an alien menace with the help of a British icon. This time Winston Churchill (Ian McNeice) echoes Charles Dickens from Gatiss’ excellent “The Unquiet Dead”.
Arriving in the midst of World War II, The Doctor’s surprised to discover that his old friend Churchill has a new invention to defeat the Nazis: so-called “Ironsides” robots, created by Scottish scientist Edwin Bracewell (Bill Paterson). Unfortunately, these metal soldiers with the ability to shoot enemy planes out of the sky with lasers are recognisable to The Doctor as the inimitable Daleks, so it’s up to the Time Lord to convince everyone these obedient drones are a danger and determine exactly what the Dalek’s latest plan is. Are the Daleks lying about their true intentions? Why don’t they recognize The Doctor? And why is Bracewell so adamant he created them?
“Victory Of The Daleks” was certainly fun, if lacking a certain sparkle. It was more amusing and amenable than truly gripping and exciting; possibly because the Daleks are now so overused, but it didn’t help that a single episode doesn’t feel worthwhile for these iconic villains. There wasn’t really much human investment in anything going on, beyond The Doctor’s frustration that the Daleks had managed to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes (and it made little sense that Churchill wouldn’t heed his friend The Doctor’s dire warnings, incidentally.) Even Amy (Karen Gillan) didn’t recognize the lethal pepperpots, but more on that later…
In many ways, this story was simply about introducing the Eleventh Doctor to the franchise’s greatest foe, because to a lot of people you’re not The Doctor until you’ve faced Scaro’s militant tin cans, right? The story also tied-up some loose ends from Russell T. Davies’ “Journey’s End”, although we were denied any hint at what became of Davros. For a brief moment I thought Davros was going to be revealed inside the Dalek’s “progenitor device”, but instead the story found a way to let Moffat’s era give the Daleks a redesign so now they’re multi-coloured plastic-y hunchbacks with deeper voices. Like the stormy opening titles and theme tune, it’ll take some getting used to.
Perhaps the most fascinating thing about this episode was discovering Amy has no memories of the Daleks, which means The Doctor has either whisked her away from an earlier pre-Dalek time without realizing (did you know that her boyfriend Rory’s hospital badge was dated 1990…?), or something’s altering history without his knowledge. If true, could that latter theory be connected to this series’ motif of a glowing crack, one of which forms on a wall as the TARDIS vanishes at the end - and does that indicate it’s the TARDIS doing the damage? Whatever the reason, rewriting history would nicely ret-con problems with RTD’s era, too — in that humanity became far too aware of aliens and The Doctor.
Overall, this was a perfectly enjoyable episode that just lacked bite and proper emotional hooks. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little concerned that the past few episodes have both involved Amy saving the day, too. While it’s nice to see an assertive companion with intelligence, she’s starting to make The Doctor look like an ineffectual idiot half the time. Matt Smith was left to do his best with an unconvincing friendship with Churchill, before ranting at the Daleks inbetween threatening them with a Jammy Dodger biscuit for most of the episode. I think we need a few episodes where it’s The Doctor taking the lead and solving the week’s crisis. I appreciate the steps taken to make The Doctor less of an indomitable God-like hero who swoops in and defeats the enemy with a wave of his sonic screwdriver, but I really think he needs to start showing us some flair and super-intelligence.
Asides:
- It’s always fun to see the Daleks, and there were amusing scenes of them carrying box-files and tea cups around as subservient drones. “Would you care for some tea?”
- Disarming a bomb inside an android by convincing it it’s human was… well, the kind of silliness I’d hoped we’d left behind post-RTD, to be frank. But I did quite like how it was Amy who realized it could only work by reminding him of his true love, something the more alien Doctor didn’t think to exploit.
- I do hope a Jammy Dodger is a new equivalent of Tom Baker’s jelly babies, don’t you?
- Amy called Bracewell “Paisley” and “Paisley Boy”, referring to a Scottish town that’s the birthplace of showrunner Steven Moffat.
- When The Doctor says “the final end…”, this is a call-back to the Second Doctor saying the same thing in “The Evil Of The Daleks”.
- The call names Broadsword and Danny Boy refer to Where Eagles Dare, where a character called John Smith (a Doctor pseudonym) says “Broadsword calling Danny Boy…”
Join in the discussion about this episode atDan’s Media Digest
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.