Wednesday, August 13th, 2008...7:11 am
the impotence of the daleks - an essay
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Here’s an article about the impact (or occasionally lack thereof) of the Daleks in the new Doctor Who.
It is really interesting and i completely agree. We’ve had four seasons and the Daleks have featured in three of the season finales. Overkill at the best of times and if, like me, you think that season 3 was the better finale so far then it is even more worrying for the giant pepper grinders.
There hasn’t been a really good Dalek episode since season one’s “Dalek” in my opinion. I’ve enjoyed them all but none have had the same impact.
Discuss.
6 Comments
August 13th, 2008 at 9:16 am
It’s the borg on Voyager all over again.
Kick arse mother f****rs that overrun the galaxy, with a single ship wipe out a federation fleet, stopped only at the last second by sheer luck, suddenly can be stopped enmasse by a single scout ship that’s 75,000 light years past it’s next service.
Dalek was the best, though Journey’s end was quite good, but it did leave me with one question, the last time we saw the Supreme Dalek he was leading the rebel Daleks against Davros’ Imperial Daleks in the Dalek civil war. Why would you recreate your mortal enemy?
August 13th, 2008 at 9:31 am
I had major issues with Journey’s End but it was enjoyable, yes.
The Borg analogy is a good one.
I think they need to adopt the ‘less is more’ approach for Daleks. Big fleets of them look cool but then you’ve got to get rid of them.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:04 am
I mentioned my major issue.
May not seem like much, but it’s one that nags at you in the back of your mind and eventually overrides all other concerns.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:16 am
“Most recently in ‘Journey’s End’, Donna Noble has to flick a few switches in the Crucible and, shock horror, the Daleks go doolally and blow up. All of them.”
This can make sense on one hand:- At the end of Genesis of the Daleks, Davros has programmed the Daleks to believe that they are the most superior form of life in the galaxy and must exterminate lesser beings, and they promptly exterminate Davros (He is kept in suspended animation by his chair’s life support for several thousand years) When he is retrieved by the daleks, they intend to use him as a slave to upgrade them to fight more technological advance species (not mentioned at the time but likely time lords). Davros then creates imperial daleks and thus the civil war begins (so the rebel daleks were actually the original daleks).
Anyhoo, I digress. It makes sense that Davros would take some insurance to make sure that his Daleks didn’t turn on him again.
So it’s not a question of how easy Donna and the Doctor defeat the Daleks, it’s why is Davros their slave yet again?
August 13th, 2008 at 10:35 am
That makes a lot of sense. I would imagine that after Davros recreated the Daleks they imprisoned him. Not sure why. Spite perhaps.
Here’s my two main issues with Journey’s End.
1) Too Many Companions
That many people, even in the longer episode (70 something minutes) meant that nothing got the time it needed. There was just too much going on for anything to have any sort of gravity.
2) Rose and the Donna Doctor
This is just me being me but the whole ending where Rose ended up with the half Doctor felt cheap and made the end of season 2 mean nothing. I don’t care what Russel T Davies says, that wasn’t The Doctor. That was some sort of bastardised version with a bit of Donna Noble thrown in. Don’t get me wrong, Donna grew on me and by the end of the season i really liked her (see http://www.adrianzaslona.com/home/why-do-they-hate-donna for my thoughts on how she ended up), but this hybrid of the two wasn’t cool.
Those are my two main beefs. Well, three if you include the “Why Do They Hate Donna?” bit.
August 13th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
I think you just answered your own question (Why do they hate Donna?)
“Not enough time. “We all know that Captain Jack Harkness is a horny guy. Statement of fact. Sun will rise, so will Jack. He hits on everyone and everything. He hits on Rose. He hits on Martha. He hits on blue beetle girl from Utopia in season 3. He hits on Sarah Jane. He even tries to hit on the Doctor.
He doesn’t bat an eyelid at Donna.”
When does Jack have a chance to hit on Donna? The Doctor’s hit, regenerates, they’re captured by the daleks, Donna is cast into the power drive with the Tardis and then they’re escaping from the daleks and towing Earth home.
He does make a kind-o- sleazy comment when it’s revealed there are three doctors (”I can’t tell you what I’m thinking right now”).
For the most part I like that there were too many companions. It tied the main series and the spin offs together quite nicely. It allows Davros to accuse the Doctor of fostering violence in others and we can see what impact this current series has had on current companions, let alone the impact every doctor has had on the countless people who have traveled with him across the decades.
But it took screen time from Rose. Jack and Sarah and even Martha can be fleshed out in the two spin offs (Torchwood and Sarah Jane Smith Adventures) but Rose can’t. I think that this episode was to give both Rose and the Doctor closure and make the Doctor finally stop pining for her. But it didn’t work. First they are too busy fighting for their lives and then, whoosh, the Doctor dumps her back in Pete’s world and flies off into the sunset. There was too much happening to give THAT any gravity.
As for Rose ending up with the Doctor, any Doctor…. Where do I begin?
First, the Doctor LOVED Rose? As in loved loved. How, when did this happen? The Doctor is a nine hundred year old god like entity and Rose is a barley 19 year old human who is, at the end of the day, “still a stupid ape.” Sarah Jane Smith was the Doctor’s longest traveling companion, who was with him during two regenerations (third doctor and fourth doctor). He dumps her on Earth but does return at some point to give her K-9 mark III, but it’s Rose he loved.
It cheapened the Doctor and his relationship with all of his other companions.
And why after Rose spent so much time searching for a way back and the Doctor spent so much time pining for her did he just dump her back in Pete’s world? He let Micky stay in our universe. But Rose, someone he claims he “loved” he dumps back in her prison with, as you put it a bastardised version.
And why did he need to imprison his half human clone? Because he destroyed the dalek race? An action that the Doctor himself has previously attempted on two occasions (Genesis when the time lords send him to prevent the Daleks from being created. He blows up [after much soul searching and musing] the embryo chamber but concedes that the already built daleks would rebuild. And in the time war [Your race is dead. You all burned, all of you. Ten million ships on fire, the entire dalek race wiped out in one second.....I watched it happen. I MADE IT HAPPEN!])
I mean, why is the Doctor so upset? This Dalek empire was as powerful as the original prior to the time war and stopping that empire destroyed the “oldest and most mightiest race in the universe”. Did Davros’ final words get to the Doctor when he named him “destroyer of worlds”? That’s like Hitler calling Oppenheimer a mass murderer.
You talk about a cheapen second season, what about the third season when the Doctor decides to give up his nomadic life style to care for the master, but is more then happy to abandon his half human clone, a unique life form whose only crime is, at most, a momentary lapse in moral judgement.
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