Doctor Who - Victory of the Daleks - spoilers

[Plane Sailing]

I'll not put any spoilers directly in this first post, at least not without including some lines of text which will appear in the preview 'tooltip'.

There is one thing which I think was great (and necessary) about this story, one thing which seemed mind-bogglingly stupid, and one thing which seemed to me indicative of a worrying trend.

1. Great and necessary
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At last, a story with daleks which doesn't result in them all being destroyed. If you want to keep using them, you've got to let some get away! Only one escaped from the 'daleks vs cybermen' story, but he was then tossed away in a pointless later story. All the other 'dalek' stories has resulted in a wipe out for them.

Here at last we have daleks escaping to take their brand of ultra-xenophobia onwards.

Shame they look so silly with the humpback and all, but can't have everything.
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2. Mind bogglingly stupid
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The android is a bomb powerful enough to split the planet in two, but getting him to think emotional thoughts turns off the bomb and winds its count-down back? What kind of numpty builds a bomb like that? The whole scene doesn't make sense.

What is worse, it led directly onto...
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3. Worrying trend
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Once again new assistant saves the day. Last week it would have all gone pear shaped if it wasn't for Pond's assistance. This week it would have all gone pear-shaped if it wasn't for Pond's assistance. In the last two weeks disturbed kissogram girl has miraculously jumped into the kind of 'knowing partnership' with the doctor which previous assistants took weeks to grow into.

Bottom line - if it wasn't for the assistant, the last two weeks would have been disasters for the doctor. Makes him seem like a fool, and what's the point in watching a program about a fool of a doctor? It is what turned me off Tom Baker in the K-9/Romana years, when he bumbled along and the day was continually saved by his smarter, more savvy assistants.

Gah!
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Cheers

 

[Morrus]

For me it was retrofitting spitfires into space vehicles with the dalek tech, getting and training the pilots, and then having them in orbit within a few hundred metres of the dalek saucer all within the space of 1-2 sentences of the Doctor's conversation with the daleks.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Gosh yes, I think my brain edited that out of my memory!

 

[Morrus]

Don't get me wrong - I'm cool with the concept. I've seen people criticising the spitfires-in-space concept, to which the only reply is "dalek technology, dummy!". It's just that I can't get around it being done during the space of a single conversation!

If they'd fitted a two-day gap into the script (even if it were just a throwaway line), I'd be completely behind it as an awesome concept.

 

[Plane Sailing]

The problem is that they had already introduced the drama of 'Oh no, the Daleks are turning the lights on in London and Nazi bombers are 10 minutes away', leaving them no room for such a two-day gap!

I couldn't help thinking about how this contrasted with 'The Empty Child/Doctor Dances' under Ecclestone. This one was a lot more 'wahoo' and blindingly obvious to the population; I feel the stories have worked best when more claustrophobic and scary. London under the Blitz is getting a bit crowded for Doctor Who, isn't it?

 

[Krug]

Yeah as I said in another thread the Doctor sometimes comes across as too much of playing a supporting role. I've only started watching this season, and really liked the second ep. This ep wasn't bad but the 'be human' manner in which they defused the bomb was just too silly.

 

[Felon]

Regarding Amy:

It appears that we're unlikely to get a companion that's not a working-class cheeky chit any time soon. This steers the show's creators into a problem where they know that it would be politically-incorrect to see their female lead reduced to a screaming damsel-in-distress. So, she has to contribute. Now, how do you contribute when you are accompanying someone who knows everything? Well, she has to capitalize on her working-class-cheeky-chit humanity in the form of empathy and insight, figuring out angles that the Doctor is just not quite human enough to pick up on.

Oh well, at least this episode we didn't see any shamelessly self-conscious, ham-fisted affirmative action, which seems increasingly relentless on BBC shows.

 

[Mallus]

re: Amy... I'm glad the new Doctors have partners instead of foils. After 30-odd years we get that he's clever, awesome, heroic, and/or a lonely god. It's nice the characters who share roughly half the screen time with him get to contribute on a regular basis.

re: instant spaceships... I assumed the robot scientist had been working on a prototypes and maybe this tech was a ground-based anti-gravity bubble projector, or, well, something. I like to make up things that help the story go down smoother. It's something of a hobby.

Really, the important thing was 'robot scientist turned planes into spaceships'. As with most sci-fi, the how's, when's and why's are all BS anyway, so I tend to ignore them.

re: black hole heart bomb. You can kinda see how this was supposed to work. By reminding the robot scientist of his perceived (and experienced) humanity they hoped he could override the destruct order issued by the Daleks. Essentially, the bomb might have been in his heart but the command was still routed through his brain/CPU and therefore could be overridden with enough sentimental balderdash.

Again, once I get the gist of it, I'm satisfied (my wife calls this critical habit "being easy").

re: episode in general... I liked it, though I wish it were less rushed.

 

[Pseudonym]

Essentially, the bomb might have been in his heart but the command was still routed through his brain/CPU and therefore could be overridden with enough sentimental balderdash.

I can see the follow-up episode later in the season when the Doctor return to find the remains of the Earth only to learn that the robot guy got really mad one day and Boom!

Seems like after disarming the bomb, removing it would have been the next order of business, even if it was just a few seconds of sonic screwdriver and a line of technobabble. Unless that plot point will be relevant later.

 

[Pseudonym]

Well, she has to capitalize on her working-class-cheeky-chit humanity in the form of empathy and insight, figuring out angles that the Doctor is just not quite human enough to pick up on.

Don't forget journeying through time and space for the purpose of either pointing out that she is Scottish or meeting other Scottish people.