Doctor Who - Asylum of the Daleks (Mild Spoilers)

Doctor Who – Asylum of the Daleks

Review by Ken Parker

(Mild Spoilers)

Here I was, sitting back to watch another premiere episode of Doctor Who, hoping that the excellence of Steven Moffat would show up in the series that he is producing. His writing during Russell T. Davies's era was outstanding and with two seasons of cluttered confusion under his producing belt, I am still waiting for a return to greatness.

Right away I noticed Asylum of the Daleks was lacking some of the loud obnoxious character moments that Amy and the Doctor seem to have all too often. They are much more subdued in this one and Karen Gillan acts her socks off, a rarity in her time. Her range from mad wife to scared girl to rediscovering her love for Rory works well in the story. Moffat reboots their relationship of sorts by reminding the audience that they are truly in love.

The Doctor is not as confident and annoying as he was last season and Matt Smith seems to have a pretty good relationship with Oswin and in a way this is the most important and sad part of the entire story. Moffat can be great at setting up a surprise within his stories, one that you can't quite get your head around until the final reveal but when it does happen, you are blown away. Oswin's fate is certainly the shock of the episode and for reasons I will not go into (Spoilers) was shocking from the moment she appeared. (What?.... Wait a minute...... I thought.....).

Moffat does tend to go all out and makes things bigger than they need to be. The number of Daleks in the story is vast but not over used. I had already mentioned that the most scary Cybermen moments in the new series were the ones in The Pandorica Opens. Moffat does inject some creepiness back into the Daleks with the “crazy” ones in the Asylum and it is good to see the RTD bronze Daleks back in the fold. We still see some of those plasticy Moffat ones but thankfully they are in the background.

Speaking the Daleks, did anyone play the “spot the Dalek game”? I did. If you hadn't heard, it was suggested that every previous style Dalek was going to appear in this story. Okay, that will be fun to see them. How many different types did you see? 10? 20? I watched carefully and I spotted 2. That is all. The Special Weapons Dalek was obvious and I saw, for sure, one old style Dalek. I saw others that may have been other Daleks but when they are all covered in dust and in the shadows, it is hard. People online have stated they have gone back and have seen a few but all of them? False advertising I think. How much would it have taken to just hear in the background “Alpha!” “Beta!” “Omega!” or something along that lines.

Okay, now what about the story? The idea is sound. The Daleks calling in the Doctor to help them is fine and the whole Oswin plot is logical and powerful. Some of the Amy/Rory scenes seemed familiar as yet again Amy might be going through a transformation (Didn't this happen to her with the weeping Angels two seasons ago?) Amy and Rory needing reminding that they are in love was done yet again. Still, these are only minor and really they are more secondary to the story. The story was not frantic and was not hidden by gimmicks and blustering dialog. There were not many overlapping cliffhangers and questions and beyond just one big question for the audience (Why is she.....?) Moffat manages to give a concise and small story with plenty of emotion and adventure. I just hope he doesn't give in to the fannish need to tie everything in together and hopefully Amy is not still infected or that the whole “Remember” motif is not important later on. Beyond the obvious , keep the story where it is.

We now have a reboot of sorts with the Daleks and the Doctor, which is definitely refreshing because the more the universe knows the Doctor, the less interesting and fun Doctor Who is.

Moffat has started the season off very well and I cross my fingers that it will remain this way, although the imagery of the Doctor riding a dinosaur is not helping my expectations one bit.