Victory of the Daleks

Given my travels it took me a couple of days to catch up with this one. Also since my net access has been weak since Saturday evening, I’ve managed to remain largely unspoiled.

I see fan opinion has been a bit mixed on this. I rather liked it. I have no objections to remodelling the Daleks. I am the sort of person who has difficulty in telling the difference between different types of car, and do not credit myself with any fashion sense whatever, but the new version looks to me more substantial and perhaps evil. In my rewatch of Old Who I’m about to hit the most fundamental redesign before this, that of the Cybermen in The Invasion, and I feel this one may have a similar impact.

Still less do I mind the Moffatt/Gatiss idea of actually giving the Daleks a narrative and some sense of continuity. Under RTD the Daleks always seemed to be utterly destryoed and then coming back again for more, rather like the Master in almost every story after Delgado. I think it is rather good that the Doctor explicitly realises that the story is not yet over for them.

I liked the explicit reference to Power of the Daleks and to Philip K. Dick’s classic short story “Imposter” (that last giving Amy her moment of awesome humanity over the Doctor). And a small note, but one where this episode scored over last week’s: Gatiss, unlike Moffatt, seems to be able to dial down the British patriotism even in episodes about the Coronation or Winston Churchill.

But I was not completely satisfied. An RTD who story like this would have been crammed with incident and Significance. This season’s shows seem less heavily laden, less emotionally charged, which overall is a relief but sometimes leaves me feeling that the result could have been mroe substantial.

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