Victory of the Daleks
sovietusername
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Like so many "bad" Who stories e.g. The Happiness Patrol, Journeys End, The End of Time etc, this story has MASSIVE potential and could have been really good, but it never quite met it's potential. It's good to see the Daleks again after a year and (a bonus of the whole cracks in time arc) I like how Amy doesent remember them. Not only does it mean the Doctor's the only one who knows about them which adds a massive amount of tension, but it addresses something that had been bugging me, that the Earth would completely change after an alien invasion f Earth, society would go completely topsy turvey.
The 1st 20 mins or so where the Daleks are still on Earth and no one knows what they are, are quite simply, brilliant. It may have been done before but the scenes with the Doctor trying to convinve everyone of the Daleks evil are brilliant. Love the scene where the Doctors talking with Winston in hushed tones and theres an "Ironside" moving down the corridor behind the Doctor, looking at him. We also get a chance to see a much darker Doctor whose actually quite menacing. I know we had him getting a bit angry in the last episode, but that was really just like a hissy fit compared to this. I love the scene where he attacks the Ironside with the spanner. Like the 9th Doctor, 11 is really filled with venom and loathing here, and you really sense a history between the Doctor and the Dalek, which I dont think was done as well in Tennants episodes, though there was the occasional moment I liked e.g. his scenes in Daleks in Manhatten/Evolution of the Daleks where he explains the Daleks to Tallulah and faces up to the cult of Skaro, or his scenes with Davros. Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent. My point is, I really like Smiths performance here. He really crancks it up here, ad we see an anger in the Doctor towards the Daleks that I dont think we'd really seen since 2005. And "would you care for some tea" is brilliant. Something I never thought I'd hear a Dalek say.
Of course, it's not just Matt Smith who puts in a good performance here. I cant really comment on Karen as she's has hardly anything to do in this episode except turn Bracewell off. She puts in a really good performance here though, even if this scene is rubbish. I mean the whole deactivating the bomb using love etc, what the hell is all that about? Why would that even make a difference? It's even worse than the end of Closing Time. It's not like he's been turned into a Dalek and non Dalek emotions would stop him, he's just a bomb, a remote controlled walking bomb. It would have made much more sense if the Doctor had just dragged him into the TARDIS, materalised by a black hole or something, and just chucked him in. Not that that ending would have been any better. However, the actor playing Bracewell is really good, and you do feel so sorry for him. The other characters are all really rubbish though. This has to be one of Mark Gatiss's worst scripts. I simply dont feel any connection to any of the characters except the Doctor and Bracewell (and the poor Dalek who gets beaten up). All the characters are 1 dimensional. There's the woman in charge of monitoring whose worried about whats happened to her boyfriend, and the guy on the roof whose all resolute and determined and anti-Nazi. The worst abomination of all though is the portrayal of Churchill here. What I liked about the historicals in the RTD era is, although the plots were often a bit rubbish, the historical figures were often very realistic e.g. Victoria in mourning etc, even if it did get a bit repetitive at times. Ooh look, Dickens is wondering about his legacy and whether or not he'll be remembered, ooh look, Agatha Christie is to, ooh, Shakespeare as well. But at least they were believable! Just compare Gatiss's portrayal of Dickens to his portrayal of Churchill. Gatiss's Dickens is a believable and well rounded character. His Churchill on the other hand is quite simply the Churchill of the wartime posters, the war hero who only ever had the British peoples interests at heart. The thing is, if not for his success in wartime, Churchill wouldnt be nearly as kindly remembered as he is. In fact he was a bit of a ****. Not only was a real Tory etc (big anti-conservative, me) but was also in charge of the disastrous and incompetently handled Gallipoli campaign and also seemed to be stuck in Britain's imperial past, being very anti-Ghandi and Indian independence. For example, I do believe he's the sort of man who WOULD try and take the TARDIS key by force, if it meant defeating Nazism. But I do like the idea of him and the Doctor being old friends, and the cabinet war rooms are much more realistically realised, Gattiss having visited them while writing the episode (I miss Dr Who Confidential).
It's in the 2nd half of the episode that it all really deteriorates though. Not only do we have the ludicrous scene with Bracewell, but the episode sort of completely changes in tone, it's weird. We go from a story about Daleks in WW2 London, to a story about a permanent return for the Daleks. Now I do think this restoration was needed. Dr Who could hardly just carry on with having Daleks escaping the war again and again, and I liked the idea of a redesign. I also quite liked the redesign they went with as well, I always liked how you had different ranks for different Daleks. In the old 60's movies, I always liked the thought of a blue warrior Dalek, or a red Supreme (and so on). Where they made the mistake was that they then did, nothing with them. I dont think reaction to the new Daleks would have been nearly as hostile if we'd actually seen them in action, seen them actually do something. And when they then didnt use them again, and went for mainly bronze daleks in series 7, in rendered this entire scenario utterly pointless.
Like I said, it's a failure to meet potential. It's like there were 2 different stories in 1 episode here. We have a story about Daleks being insidious which I dont think was fully explored thanks to the restoration of the daleks storyline, which in turn didnt meet it's full potential due to the insidious storyline. Add to this the lack of characterisation, the total lack of realism and the fact that it's only the Doctor doing something with Amy apparently taking a break, and we get what could have been a great story turning out shit. The worst episode of this series in my op, as well as the usually good Gattiss's worst script. The only good thing about it is we get to see 11 meet Daleks. Apart from that it has very little going for it. All I can say is thank God the next story was better.
And, er, do I really need to mention the worst thing about this story? You all know what I'm talking about dont you? That's right, the ****ING SPACE SPITFIRES! How on Earth could Moffatt think that would be a good idea? There's no way that would work! Really, the rest of the episode, though it irritates me, I can stand, but the Spitfires... God, they made me want to tear out my eyeballs. In that moment, I felt embarrassed to be watching this. It's just so silly. Spitfires. In space. Was he out of his mind? And it was even worse when they reappeared in AGMGTW. If the British could make spitfires capable of space travel in 1940, then the war would have ended 5 years earlier than it did. Really, Hitler would have got his ass kicked much sooner.
It's just so awful.
I mean, space SPITFIRES...:mad:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
The 1st 20 mins or so where the Daleks are still on Earth and no one knows what they are, are quite simply, brilliant. It may have been done before but the scenes with the Doctor trying to convinve everyone of the Daleks evil are brilliant. Love the scene where the Doctors talking with Winston in hushed tones and theres an "Ironside" moving down the corridor behind the Doctor, looking at him. We also get a chance to see a much darker Doctor whose actually quite menacing. I know we had him getting a bit angry in the last episode, but that was really just like a hissy fit compared to this. I love the scene where he attacks the Ironside with the spanner. Like the 9th Doctor, 11 is really filled with venom and loathing here, and you really sense a history between the Doctor and the Dalek, which I dont think was done as well in Tennants episodes, though there was the occasional moment I liked e.g. his scenes in Daleks in Manhatten/Evolution of the Daleks where he explains the Daleks to Tallulah and faces up to the cult of Skaro, or his scenes with Davros. Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent. My point is, I really like Smiths performance here. He really crancks it up here, ad we see an anger in the Doctor towards the Daleks that I dont think we'd really seen since 2005. And "would you care for some tea" is brilliant. Something I never thought I'd hear a Dalek say.
Of course, it's not just Matt Smith who puts in a good performance here. I cant really comment on Karen as she's has hardly anything to do in this episode except turn Bracewell off. She puts in a really good performance here though, even if this scene is rubbish. I mean the whole deactivating the bomb using love etc, what the hell is all that about? Why would that even make a difference? It's even worse than the end of Closing Time. It's not like he's been turned into a Dalek and non Dalek emotions would stop him, he's just a bomb, a remote controlled walking bomb. It would have made much more sense if the Doctor had just dragged him into the TARDIS, materalised by a black hole or something, and just chucked him in. Not that that ending would have been any better. However, the actor playing Bracewell is really good, and you do feel so sorry for him. The other characters are all really rubbish though. This has to be one of Mark Gatiss's worst scripts. I simply dont feel any connection to any of the characters except the Doctor and Bracewell (and the poor Dalek who gets beaten up). All the characters are 1 dimensional. There's the woman in charge of monitoring whose worried about whats happened to her boyfriend, and the guy on the roof whose all resolute and determined and anti-Nazi. The worst abomination of all though is the portrayal of Churchill here. What I liked about the historicals in the RTD era is, although the plots were often a bit rubbish, the historical figures were often very realistic e.g. Victoria in mourning etc, even if it did get a bit repetitive at times. Ooh look, Dickens is wondering about his legacy and whether or not he'll be remembered, ooh look, Agatha Christie is to, ooh, Shakespeare as well. But at least they were believable! Just compare Gatiss's portrayal of Dickens to his portrayal of Churchill. Gatiss's Dickens is a believable and well rounded character. His Churchill on the other hand is quite simply the Churchill of the wartime posters, the war hero who only ever had the British peoples interests at heart. The thing is, if not for his success in wartime, Churchill wouldnt be nearly as kindly remembered as he is. In fact he was a bit of a ****. Not only was a real Tory etc (big anti-conservative, me) but was also in charge of the disastrous and incompetently handled Gallipoli campaign and also seemed to be stuck in Britain's imperial past, being very anti-Ghandi and Indian independence. For example, I do believe he's the sort of man who WOULD try and take the TARDIS key by force, if it meant defeating Nazism. But I do like the idea of him and the Doctor being old friends, and the cabinet war rooms are much more realistically realised, Gattiss having visited them while writing the episode (I miss Dr Who Confidential).
It's in the 2nd half of the episode that it all really deteriorates though. Not only do we have the ludicrous scene with Bracewell, but the episode sort of completely changes in tone, it's weird. We go from a story about Daleks in WW2 London, to a story about a permanent return for the Daleks. Now I do think this restoration was needed. Dr Who could hardly just carry on with having Daleks escaping the war again and again, and I liked the idea of a redesign. I also quite liked the redesign they went with as well, I always liked how you had different ranks for different Daleks. In the old 60's movies, I always liked the thought of a blue warrior Dalek, or a red Supreme (and so on). Where they made the mistake was that they then did, nothing with them. I dont think reaction to the new Daleks would have been nearly as hostile if we'd actually seen them in action, seen them actually do something. And when they then didnt use them again, and went for mainly bronze daleks in series 7, in rendered this entire scenario utterly pointless.
Like I said, it's a failure to meet potential. It's like there were 2 different stories in 1 episode here. We have a story about Daleks being insidious which I dont think was fully explored thanks to the restoration of the daleks storyline, which in turn didnt meet it's full potential due to the insidious storyline. Add to this the lack of characterisation, the total lack of realism and the fact that it's only the Doctor doing something with Amy apparently taking a break, and we get what could have been a great story turning out shit. The worst episode of this series in my op, as well as the usually good Gattiss's worst script. The only good thing about it is we get to see 11 meet Daleks. Apart from that it has very little going for it. All I can say is thank God the next story was better.
And, er, do I really need to mention the worst thing about this story? You all know what I'm talking about dont you? That's right, the ****ING SPACE SPITFIRES! How on Earth could Moffatt think that would be a good idea? There's no way that would work! Really, the rest of the episode, though it irritates me, I can stand, but the Spitfires... God, they made me want to tear out my eyeballs. In that moment, I felt embarrassed to be watching this. It's just so silly. Spitfires. In space. Was he out of his mind? And it was even worse when they reappeared in AGMGTW. If the British could make spitfires capable of space travel in 1940, then the war would have ended 5 years earlier than it did. Really, Hitler would have got his ass kicked much sooner.
It's just so awful.
I mean, space SPITFIRES...:mad:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
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Comments
The rinse-repeat use of the most easily defeatable Doctor Who villains was becoming detestable. So to see an episode called Victory of the Daleks during which the Daleks achieve a major victory and get away with it - brilliant!
The reception to the new Daleks was an OTT mess. Moffat was the first to admit that they weren't replacing the older designs. But not everybody took any notice. Thankfully, this work wasn't entirely undone within half a series as Asylum of the Daleks proved.
The Daleks are back in a big way. The Oswin Effect may be controversial amongst some - but it's great to have them back as a permanent force in the Universe. This was the episode which made it possible.
But then, we've been over this in a hundred threads.
Space Spitfires are the most awesome thing ever. In my opinion, they weren't used enough.
The new Daleks were also total rubbish with a weird X-Factor like introduction. What is this? Power-Rangers or Dr Who? Dr Who monsters, you see a shadow on a wall and have to wait a week for the reveal, which is usually them turning a corner to trap the good Doctor.
Other than that, I liked it! The psychological trickery of the Daleks gathering testimony from the Doctor was totally unexpected.
I agree with Soviet that the first half of the story was better. The only thing that spoilt it was the deliberate homage to The Power Of The Daleks and the whole 'I am your soldier' line replacing 'I am your servant' from the earlier story. That was such a brilliant line in that story I didn't feel it needed to be copied into another. I did like that shot of The Doctor looking over out the corner of his eye as a Dalek glided past behind him and beating up a Dalek with a large spanner.
This build up of anticipation about what the Daleks were upto was similar to the mystery surrounding an apparent other Doctor in The Next Doctor. As with that episode, once the big revelation is made, in this case about about The Daleks real intentions, the whole episode falls by the wayside. Like most others at the time, I wasn't keen on the new coloured Daleks at all. I thought they were a bit thick, not spotting The Doctor's jammie dodger wasn't really a TARDIS self-destruct button for sometime. Another thing I agree with Soviet on is that it's good to see the Ninth Doctor's loathing of the Daleks back with the Eleventh, that had been missing somewhat with Tennant.
It's true Amy is reduced to a sideshow role here until the end but what she did do with Bracewell to stop the bomb was still good and I liked this side of her where she can do things that maybe The Doctor can't. This is why I liked her more when she was with The Doctor on her own, a lot of this sort of stuff didn't happen so much when Rory came aboard as it it became more about them as a couple than her most of the time. I think this was highlighted even more when they kept trying to imply to Bracewell they weren't going to destroy him and they acted as a team to get that info across.
The spitfires in space I agree was a daft idea but I lived with it. The characterisation of Churchill I can live with as well, especially his attempts to steal the TARDIS key.
Aside from that there isn't much else to commend the episode. I do remember thinking at the time that the pacier nature of this episode meant The Beast Below was maybe a one off and the Series was up and running, but then came the next episode and for the second time in this run, I was wrong.......:rolleyes:
Love what this episode did for the Daleks, it gets worse and worse on rewatches, but I usually put up with it to hear the new series' first mention of time corridors plus the excellent "you shall never defeat us Doctor... we will return! we will return!" -- which is quite true, the Doctor never defeats the Daleks fully, and it was good to estasblish that
And, yes, johnny, I know we've argued about the bomb, and whether love defused it many times before, but it still makes me feel queasy and uneasy. (Rightly uneasy as it turns out - solution by love has been far, far too prevalent in Moffat's series).
Ah, but we did see a shadow on the wall the week before.
There was also a nice bit of turnabout with the Doctor's testimony. In Power of the Daleks, Ben wasn't convinced that the new Doctor was the same person until the Daleks recognised him. In Victory of the Daleks, the Doctor returns the favour.
Still, I did thoroughly enjoy the episode, there's lots to love about it. The jammy dodger, the spacefires (totally copyrighting that phrase, nearly three years later, haha...), the look on Matt's face as he lamps Bracewell...
And, as if admitting to liking the spacefires (I'M GONNA MAKE IT STICK, DAMMIT!!!!!) wasn't forum suicide enough for one post... I actually like the colourful Daleks. Gives me a nice nostalgic glow, since they remind me so much of the wonderful TVC21 strips...
:eek:
Sorry! it's just that we always seem to like different things!
I'm not normally a fan of space opera type stuff in Doctor Who, but the spitfires were great fun. If you're going to do an "attack the death star", you may just as well do something new and fun with it. Churchill should have ordered them on to go and deal with the nazis setting up base on the far side of the moon.
How small but still scary the old Daleks were and how it has been a mistake to constantly make them bigger with each redesign.
Again a decent enough episode that could well have done with a longer run time. I've no problem with Space Spitfires just with the fact that they go from designs on paper to working models in only a few minutes, they really should have mentioned that they had prototypes ready to test.
Deny them access to the tri-helium.
However, then the episode just gets worse and worse once we know why the Daleks are really there. It is not that I do not like the tellytubby daleks, it is just I preferred when they were all the same color. Also, why did they destroy the "old" dalek because he wasn't as good as them but in AotD, there were Daleks of every generation there? Continuity gone wrong here.
Another thing that bugged me was the Jammy Dodger. Overly childish and perhaps lazy writing? How defeatable have the Daleks become that they are being tricked by Jammy Dodgers. These are supposed to be new and improved daleks as well!
I won't even get started on the bomb that was defused by love. An overly cheesy resolution that nearly tops remembering the doctor back into existence. I preferred Davies overlong long endings to be honest.
The best thing that can be said for this episode is that it ended with the Daleks escaping although so far, they have done nothing except lock the doctor in a box and then forget him completely. At least it is the return of the fantastic angels next episode, right? It also has river song, how could it fail to be a good episode, right?
And I have to say I actually liked the Spitfires in space! Sure, it was completely out of the blue and nonsensical, but... They're Spitfires! In space!!
And to me, it's because the Daleks they destroyed were bred from Davros, and are therefore not 'pure' (does that make sense?). And other than that I think the casing has very little impact, apart from the bronze ones being more like drones.
Ghastly.
Well as I've said many times before, even if you ignore the whole toy sales thing, it's no bloody good in any case.
The putting Daleks in unusual situations idea has been done a million times before by Big Finish, and done better. Attempts at being emotional just came over as trite- Pond going on about Paisley didn't connect at all, it felt like the scene where Martha Jones cries over the dead fish. Only worse. Also I don't want to come over all Christopher H. Bidmead but there should be some basis in realism in Who and those Spitfires were pure fantasy nonsense.
And they could have made the pepperpots resemble the Raymond P Cusick design. But they didn't.
I think much more could have been made of this part of the story. This was the first SM era story that I felt could easily have made a 2 parter. A feeling I would get repeatedly in future stories. If there's a recurring "fault" in this era, it's stories that are jam packed full of wonderful but underdeveloped and underused ideas.
Didn't like this portrayal Churchill, though I think Churchill's attitude towards the Doctor and his advanced technology was spot on. The story stayed away from showing his depression.
I loved the space going Spitfires, though they were made ready in an incredibly short space of time.
Tally ho!
The 1940's, two decades before hemlines visibly heightened and no-one noticed it! There was also a war on and you thought she would have stood out but she didn't! Not even Churchill commented on it!
Most strange!
Flappers, daveyboy, Flappers.
However, as far as DW is concerned, the only one of his stories I've liked is The Unquiet Dead. I found The Idiot's Lantern very disappointing, and this...well.
The Dalek offering the Doctor a cup of tea is mildly amusing. Ian McNeice is good as Churchill, despite looking nothing like him. And that's as much praise as I can give, really. Spitfires in space, for no reason at all? A human bomb, being defused with love? And I know the Daleks have been redesigned many times - I've watched DW since 1973 - but did they really have to be reinvented to look like bath toys? Not good.