It was on BBC 3 this evening. I really enjoyed it - though I always prefer Amy if Rory is there, I so miss him.

But I am puzzled because I couldn't remember why Amy couldn't remember the daleks.

I enjoyed the episode right up until the plastic toys appeared.

She didn't remember the daleks because at that point the cracks had erased The Stolen earth from time.

Loved it but i all ways have cant see why so many people hate it plus i love the new daleks

Good episode that I have a couple of minor quibbles with; I'm not an expert, but it seems implausible that you can talk a bomb out of exploding, and the Daleks casually ignore about 50 opportunities to shoot the Doctor.

Oh, and I don't understand why they didn't just recycle on the Dalek ship sets they (presumably) still had lying around, the cigar factory really doesn't look that great.

But yeah, apart from all that, I enjoyed it. Good to see the Doctor holding his oldest and deadliest enemy at bay with a biscuit - very Doctorish - and Amy and Winston were a fairly good double-team. Even Bracewell is pretty empathetic when he's not struggling to avoid personal explosion.

I just can't warm to it and those Daleks were horrific.

Thank you.

No, but you can talk a bomb out of being a bomb.

Still wish it was a 2 parter, just so we could have more of the camouflaged, good looking Daleks dottering around wartime London offering to make the Tea, kill hitler, that sorta thing

Still, there's a few grievances I have with it:

1) Why didn't the modified planes shoot down the German bombers before they had the chance to "do their worst"
They could easily have sorted the Daleks straight after instead of being so concerned with getting London's lights off in readiness for a bombing.

2) The Daleks leave their mortal enemy standing around yet have no problems exterminating slightly less perfect Daleks.
I know they only see Daleks as perfect but there was no need to actually destroy their predecessor Daleks, could've used them as servants or soldiers something, particularly as there's still only 4 at that point.

3) Leaving a robot around in wartime London seems dangerous, I'm assuming a robot isn't going to age like a human so as soon as they invent X rays at either hospitals or airports....rumbled.
I imagine he's been co-opted for some version of Torchwood or UNIT by now.

Yes.


I don't think you can, actually. Anyway, I wouldn't try it personally.


Yes.

I'm still not impressed, for reasons given by the posters above. Shame, as Gatiss is my current favourite person, and I did want to like it more.

I enjoyed bits of it - the Daleks offering to make tea (tea again! It must mean something!) the jammy dodger bit.

On a happier note, I did like The Beast Below a lot more this time round. I sort of suddenly got it. Very pleased about that. maybe there's hope for The Big Bang - we'll have to wait and see.

Let's just say it wasn't a classic.

Reasons:

There was just too much silliness in this one for me (the fighter planes in space chiefly), some weird characterization of the Doctor (understandable, as Gattiss hadn't seen the new Doctor yet when he wrote it), Karen Gillan was still finding her feet in the role of Amy pond, and on a more personal note I don't really care for the jingoistic, patriotric adulation Winston Churchill receives in a lot of pop culture, with this episode being a good example. I remember even Mark Gattis admitting in Confidential that his portrayal was more like the myth than the reality of the man and that there was a less positive side that he didn't think it appropriate to show.

On top of that i thought the lifts from 'Power of the Daleks' were a little too great to be a tribute and were closer to imitation and recycling.

And the walking time bomb guy left to wander around Scotland? Hmm, sentiment's fine but that's just plain crazy. And i can't really buy that the guy isn't a bomb anymore because he feels human. That's just too much for me to swallow, even in Doctor who.


You'll notice that I haven't mentioned the new-look Daleks; this is because, although I agree with those who felt they looked rubish, it doesnt really bother me too much. I'm always more concerned with the stories: the plots, the characters, the nuts and bolts. And there were far too many problems with those factors in this episode.

Didn't work at the end of "Dark Star"!

I thought Matt and Karen were great, but I can't warm to the episode as a whole - who on earth ever told Gatiss that the Doctor and Amy talking someone out of being a soon-to-explode Dalek-technology bomb was a good idea?

I know you have to suspend disbelief to watch DW, but that's taking it a bit too far...

There are a few good lines (some of which I presume Moffat asked for, as they reference the Stolen Earth and are related to the whole cracks in time arc), but the lazy resolution spoils it significantly.

My thoughts exactly. I liked the episode but it felt a little rushed, there were a lot of small niggles (why didn't the Doctor have the spitfires shoot down the Dalek ship, they were always going to detonate the bomb anyway) and the resolution was poor IMO.

An enjoyable episode, nothing amazing and nothing too poor. I quite like the new daleks, particularly the Supreme Dalek. Think the plot was a tad rushed in places, but it was good enough. My only problem is...all the lights on across London? Why don't people just take out their lightbulbs?

The Daleks could have killed the Doctor about 20 times in that episode and when they tried to exterminate him, they missed him. A Dalek doesn't usually have bad aim.

Also, if the Doctor knew they were going to detonate the earth anyway, why didn't he just kill them and then stop the bomb? Of course this wouldn't be a problem if the Daleks had just taken their opportunity and exterminated him in the first place.

Aside from these discrepancies I enjoyed it more this time around, probably because I had such high expectations the 1st time. Hopefully I will actually like the rest of the 5th series this time.

Ahh that episode with the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in, yeah thats an episode I wish I could forget.

The only thing that I wish to remember from that episode is the Ginger Dalek......I mean Karen.

The story, the concept, was great, the delivery and the end result was extremely poor.

Not sure if you can call that a discrepancy - after all, that's what always happens when the bad guys go face-to-face with the Doctor!

It's important to remember that Bracewell wasn't exactly designed to be a bomb, they just overloaded his power source. He rebelled against what they wanted him to be, he asserted himself against his nature - the one thing Daleks can't do.

I thought it was a good solid episode, with the Spitfires in space being my favorite part.

Like many people I wasn't impressed by the plastic Dalek's, but I suspect that has more to do with merchandising than anything else. Still at least we got the best looking Dalek's ever with the camouflage painted RTD style ones. Would you like a cup of tea?

The one thing that did irk me a little was the way the RTD style Dalek's admitted they were inferior and willingly submitted to extermination. That seemed totally out of character for a Dalek. Also when you consider that the original and hence new Dalek's were created from the DNA of people from Skaro, and that Davros was also from Skaro it doesn't make much sense. If anything the RTD Dalek's were purer than the new ones, as they came directly from the creator of the Dalek's.

As if the issues raised above with which I agree weren't enough — the resolution is idiotic, the Doctor acts like a fool, the jingoism is sickening — I also found the dialogue to be painfully bogged down in exposition. Taking three minutes every ten for another speech like 'I am the Doctor and you are the Daleks and you are evil' really grated.

Gatiss' contributions to Who are inexplicably poor. I can't think of a reason why that might be.

Probably because Gatiss is a poor writer. I've yet to see any drama that he's written which has been any good (and that includes Dr Who episodes, Sherlock, that lousy adaptation of The First Men in the Moon, etc).

But the (multi-coloured) elephant in the room is of course the fat, hunchbacked, Smarties Daleks.

Behold! The restoration of the Daleks! The resurrection of the master race!

I do like that scene

I still think they should have got Bill Pertwee in to play the ARP Warden, complete with a "Put that bløødy light out!" scene. He is the Third Doctor's cousin, after all.

Fair enough, but putting the objective standard aside I also meant that when Gatiss works on Who he seems to produce much worst work than he does for, say, Sherlock. That's what I don't understand.

I really rather enjoyed the Idiots lantern. Very interesting family story, and captured the time very well. Also very scary (scares from the monster, the government, the society norms and the domestic abuse). The Unquiet Dead is a classic - one of my favourite stories from any era of the show. Victory of the Daleks was packed full of good stuff. I don't like the disarming of the bomb and the shape of the new Daleks is not to my taste (yawn - visuals bit of a non issue). much else to commend it. Should have been two parts.

the dolls house one was really good. the dolls were blooming terrifying. Amy and Rory failing to work it out was really funny. the scenes in the flat were touching. Not a classic, but a very enjoyable 45 minutes.