Previously: The Doctor blew up 10 Downing Street to save the world.
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Dalek
Sweeney: Sorry this post is late. I have Angel levels of, “I DON’T WANNA,” feelings about this right now, but seeing the episode title, I’m moderately excited because I know that Daleks are A THING and literally the only reason I am watching this show is because I hate feeling left out of cultural references and this show I don’t yet enjoy watching happens to be a BFD with my corner of the internet. “Ha! I get that joke!” I will say as I laugh into my internet martinis and choke them back a little faster so I don’t have to share my true feelings.
Kirsti: Remind me to send you vast quantities of booze for Christmas so that you can have actual martinis too. Mari can get you a martini set.
Marines: Okay, sure. I refuse to believe that this now (and not FSoG or Angel or season 6 of Buffy…) calls for the martini set, but OKAY.
Sweeney: Definitely not the blog activity that most calls for the martini set but also I’m not about to turn down a free martini set.
The TARDIS “lands” (is there officially recognized verb usage here? arrives?) and the Doctor steps out to see what’s going on because it did not go where he told it to go. Instead they’re in Utah, underground. Definitely not a place one would go on purpose. The “when” is 2012. Rose should be 26. Lights turn on and there are tons of display cases full of alien stuff. They spend a lot of time eyeing the cases and not considering that he’s an alien with at least two super powerful alien things pulled there against their will. He notices a case with a robotic silver head. (K: Those of us who aren’t Snows squeal.) It reminds me of Rosie. It used to be an enemy of his – “the stuff of nightmares reduced to a display case.”
Mari: “I’m getting old,” he says and it breaks my heart. Time is all wimey in this series, but it is moving on in a sense that the Doctor is collecting years or at least experiences. This episode (we’ll see) is about confronting an old enemy, but the first one he sees is in a display case.
Sweeney: At first I was all, “IS HE A DALEK?” But then the Doctor’s all, no, definitely dead. This isn’t the source of the signal – the distress signal is coming from something very much alive. He gets a little too close to not!Rosie’s display case and a bunch of guards appear instantly. “If someone’s collecting aliens, that makes you Exhibit A,” Rose notes.
After the credits, very official people are discussing very official things.
K: There’s also a helicopter with the call sign Bad Wolf One, so BAD WOLF SHOTS!!
Sweeney: The mustachioed man in charge tells his assistant that he wants the president fired. Assistant questions the wisdom in that plan so Mustache fires him and orders the guards behind him to have the guy’s memory wiped. A woman immediately steps up to take his place. She suggests that the next president be a Democrat because, “they’re just so funny” and that earns her praise from Mustache.
K: The fandom went INSANE when Obama won in 2012, because OMG LOOK DOCTOR WHO PREDICTED THE FUTURE!!!
Mari: Calm down, crazy fandom. There are really only two choices.
Sweeney: Congratulations on your successful coin toss!
Someone who he calls English Kid announces that he has found some new artifacts, but Lady Assistant wants to focus on their intruder situation.
Lady Assistant calls someone for good news and that someone has a drill and is trying to drill into something looking at him. He has no good news because the thing being drilled into is “screaming.” On account of being drilled into, I suppose.
The Doctor and Rose are escorted to Mustache’s office where the Doctor corrects the way Mustache is holding some artifact. The Doctor takes it from him and makes it light up and play music. The Doctor points out that it’s a long way from home.
Mustache takes it from him and handles it very indelicately and then tosses it aside to get to the interrogating. He doesn’t buy that the Doctor doesn’t know who this guy is because he’s very rich and has his fancy alien collection. Finally English Kid offers Mustache’s name but it’s not important. He “owns the internet.” There’s a lot of, “You know!” “I don’t!” back and forth to get us to the realization that they landed right by “the cage” which contains Mustache’s one living specimen. The Doctor wants to see it and he agrees to take him, but leaves Rose with English Kid.
Downstairs, they go to a vault where we learn that Mustache has named his specimen “metaltron” but would sure like it if the Doctor could give him an actual name. The Doctor is offered gloves so as to not burst into flames but he not only declines the gloves but walks right into the giant vault alone. Cool choices, bro. Sure enough, as soon as he’s locked inside, Mustache tells someone not to open the door until they get a result.
There’s a blue light in the room and the Doctor apologizes for Mustache being an imprisoning dick but he’s there to help. A creepy voice says, “Doctor? The Doctor?” (K: But all slow and dragged out to make it extra creepy: “Doooooccccttttooooooorrrrrrr!!” Sorry, Mari. I know how you hate repeated consonants…) (M: It’s fine. You can send me a martini set.) The Doctor says this is impossible and lights come on as the blue light robot thing (DALEK, YEAH?) says, “Exterminate!” The Doctor tries to escape and Lady Assistant notes that he’s about to get his face murdered off, but Mustache is pleased that the Dalek is talking. It says a bunch of garbled robot voice stuff I couldn’t understand, but which definitely included “Dalek,” so here, have a present:
Fortunately, the Dalek’s little gun thing doesn’t work. The Doctor is relieved and the Dalek is upset. The Doctor calls him “The Great Space Dustbin,” and shouts angrily at him about how if it can’t kill, it’s not good for anything. Dalek says that it’s there waiting for orders which the Doctor says won’t come: his entire race was wiped out. He and this Dalek have something in common. The Doctor gets in the Dalek’s “face” and says he made it happen, which is the point at which he seems to realize the thing they have in common and broods about how he had no choice.
K: Christopher Eccleston’s acting in this scene is pretty phenomenal – you can see the rage and the heartbreak and the frustration in his face as the Dalek speaks.
Mari: Agreed. Man, I have so many feelings about Nine and Eccleston. Here we truly see him as battle worn. He snaps in the presence of his old enemy and it’s like the trauma comes bubbling up.
Sweeney: He decides that he knows what to do to, what should happen, the Dalek should be exterminated. The Doctor electrocutes it, but Mustache’s men come in and pull him out. Mustache speaks into the Dalek’s blue eye and orders it to recognize him. He tells the drill man to make it talk again, “whatever it takes.”
Elsewhere, English Kid is showing Rose the stuff that’s not on display. He tries to impress her with the revelation that aliens are real, like he wasn’t even paying attention back in the office. Rose awkwardly plays along and asks about his job cataloging this stuff – she suggests he get out there and be among the stars. He doesn’t think that’ll happen in their lifetime – people who say they talk to aliens are crazy. He shares a War Games-esque story about his genius background and is glad that Rose isn’t dating the Doctor. Rose flirts with him to get him to pull up video of what’s going on with the alien. They see the Dalek being tortured and Rose freaks out, demanding to be taken to the Doctor.
In an elevator, the Doctor explains that the Dalek race was genetically engineered to have no emotions. I guess that makes it the new mascot for Team Heartless Cow. (K: RUDE. Team Heartless Cow has emotions. It just also has a lot of NOTPs…) (M: HILARIOUS. Both because LOL HEARTLESS COW and because this line alone tells you very much about a Snow reaction to a Dalek. “A plunger with no emotions then, yeah?”) Lady Assistant explains that it’s been on earth for over 50 years so it shouldn’t be a threat now and also that it probably went insane when it fell to earth. The Doctor says his being there makes it a threat and speculates that it must have fallen through time. The Doctor explains that the war in question was the last great Time War, between his people and the Daleks. He didn’t survive by choice, though, a Big Cryptic Thing that we’re not going to unpack now. Mustache points out that this means that he’s also an alien.
Cut to the Doctor being strapped to a gurney and being scanned so that Mustache can see that the Doctor has two hearts. IT’S LIKE A METAPHOR. HE’S SNARKY BECAUSE HE HAS TO MASK HIS MANY FEELS AND WHATEVER. (M: Dalek = Heartless Cow. DOCTOR = TEAM FEELS. OH YEAH.) Mustache basically scavenges alien stuff to turn a profit. The Doctor interrupts Mustache’s bragging to tell him that the Dalek is “honest” and “does what it was born to do,” which will include murdering everyone now that it knows that he’s there. Mustache doesn’t listen and insists that nothing can escape The Cage. (K: Oh, bro. You’re just asking for a That’s What Happens tag. Being a gloaty jerk is basically a recipe for disaster on ANY show.) He goes back to torturing the Doctor.
Rose touches it and it warms her hand and then it goes crazy, breaking all its chains. Drill Guy comes in and the Dalek busts out a glorified plunger and attacks Drill Guy’s face. Death By Plunger is a pretty embarrassing way to go.
K: I don’t know whether to be impressed that the BBC kept the whole plunger/whisk constructed-out-of-scraps Daleks when they rebooted the series or whether to just headdesk because they’re the most ridiculous things ever.
Mari: I’m fairly impressed. Modifying it too much would’ve probably been criminal to Classic Who fans because the Daleks are HUGE. They were faced with the task of bringing back this admittedly stupid looking enemy and reintroducing it to a bunch of people who would look at it and go, “…but it’s a plunger.” I don’t know that this episode completely succeeds in doing that, but it has its moments.
Sweeney: I mean, cool for them and everyone who already knew what it was and enjoyed it like that. Since I can only speak as someone who didn’t have that full background knowledge, I can only say that it was not successful on that part of the equation.
Other official people call a Code Red to Mustache. The Doctor orders him to release him if he wants to live.
They rush to a monitor where he can talk to Rose. They weren’t in too big of a hurry because the Doctor took his time getting re-dressed and stuff. He tells them to not let it out, and they assure him of the safe’s security. The Doctor says the Dalek is also a total math whiz who can calculate all the possible combinations in a second.
Sure enough, the Dalek uses its magic plunger to do just that. The cage opens and guards start shooting. Mustache is angry that they’re hurting his fancy possession. The Doctor tells Rose to go, but she doesn’t until some guards are told to remove her so that the civilians make it out alive. The Doctor watches as the Dalek goes to the screen he’s on and breaks it with his magic plunger and uses it to suck up all the electricity. It instantly heals.
In Mustache’s office we see that the building is losing power and because of magic and reasons the Doctor knows that the Dalek has also just used a plunger to absorb the entire internet. So. Um. Cool writing choice.
K: I had a brief second of “That would be cool” but then I remembered how much grossness is on the internet and yeah, no. I definitely don’t want to absorb the entire internet.
Mari: Guys, it made me laugh so much. The Doctor is all, “he’s got the Internet. IT KNOWS EVERYTHING.” The Internet knows everything y’all! INTERNET HIGH FIVES.
Sweeney: Did it also absorb the corresponding digital literacy to understand how to weigh the validity of different sources? Or is it over there putting YouTube comments on a 3 year old political video right alongside academic journals? Important questions.
Downstairs, Dalek is destroying shit, vowing that Daleks will live in him. The Doctor helpfully observes that it’s, you know, “destroying everything.”
Guards are trying to kill it and they’re all dying, complete with all the fancy Intro to After Effects techniques this show can throw at these deaths. I bet little Timmy got an A on his computer class final!
K: Girl, it’s the BBC. They have five actors, two sets and one props department. Stop judging their terrible special effects or I’ll make you watch Classic Who because OH MY GOD THE EVERYTHING.
Mari: She’s never going to stop. I mean, we never quit ranking on Buffy’s effects…
Sweeney: Preach. (a) I refuse to watch that -and- (b) I invite you to revisit any post from the first three seasons of Buffy if you genuinely think it’s reasonable for me to stop pointing out that these effects look ridiculous. But as a show of good faith, let’s pause to laugh at another show’s Terrible Special Effects Department:
#memories
Mustache continues to be cartoon villain levels of evil and stupid as he shouts about the guards shooting when they’re disposable but the Dalek is $$$. The shooting is proving pretty futile regardless, though. Nobody answers his orders and he realizes that they’re all dead. But, like, the Dalek is fine!
In Mustache’s office, Lady Assistant shows the Doctor where all the fancy alien weapons are. Unfortunately, the Dalek is between them and that weapons vault. Mustache whines some more about not harming his fancy prize, oblivious to not only his own imminent demise, but also the fact that the Dalek is about to destroy all of his other shit. The Doctor is not about to let Mustache trap Rose down there with the Dalek.
Speaking of, she’s in a stairwell with English Kid. A guard appears and tells them to run up because it’s coming. It stops at the stairs and English Kid brags about it being defeated by stairs, like he hasn’t seen the giant gun on its head. And also they’re all behaving like fucking idiots not using this time to continue to running far away. Everyone is stupid. In continued stupidity, the guard blah blahs about negotiating terms with the Dalek, trying to order it back into its cage. She tries to order it to surrender. It responds by elevating. AND THEY ALL JUST KEEP STANDING THERE. The guard ultimately sacrifices herself, trying to kill it and buying them time to flee. Time they all could have had because they all just stood around for fucking ever for no apparent reason.
K: I’ll give you that one, the standing around watching the Dalek was monumentally stupid.
Mari: I think this is more of the show trying to address the Dalek problem of limited mobility. It’s weird to have a big time enemy defeated by stairs and from what I’ve read (don’t be impressed; I Wikipedia everything) this was the case way back when.
Sweeney: In Mustache’s office he tries to get the Doctor to negotiate with the Dalek. The Doctor reiterates the, “Dude, it’s going to kill everyone, for real for real,” theme. Round and round we go. The Doctor explains that the Dalek genuinely believes humans should be dead because supreme genocide is its mission statement.
More guards gear up to fight the Dalek and the Doctor tries to give them helpful advice which they he-man chest thump that they don’t need. This slaughter would be more traumatic if I didn’t hate everyone. Rose and English Kid come running up and are hurried outside. Rose has a moment of feels that maybe the Dalek ~knows her~
Inside, the Dalek arrives. Guards open fire and there’s a whole bit where we pointedly acknowledge that he wants the Doctor to watch. If that’s your kink, Dalek… The Dalek elevates and sets the sprinklers off before killing everyone.
Mustache’s office, they stand about with the appropriate sadness for the slaughter they just witnessed. Mustache finally gets on board, suggesting they abandon the place. Lady Assistant notes that they have no power to the helipad and it would take A COMPUTER GENIUS to override the helipad. Mustache volunteers as tribute.
A screen pops on and the Dalek announces that it will speak only to the Doctor. He says that the DNA of a time traveler (Rose) regenerated him. The Dalek has been scanning the radio and satellites for the Daleks but found nothing. It’s not sure where it will get its orders from now but figures it should instead follow the primary directive to destroy. The Doctor asks what the point is, adding that everything he was and stood for is all gone now. The Dalek asks what it should do now and the Doctor shouts that his new order is to just kill itself because the Daleks have failed.
K: His “Why don’t you just DIE?” is filled with so much guilt and self-loathing.
Mari: He’s addressing the Dalek but it all applies to him, in a way. Without his people, where does the Doctor get his orders? What’s the point of him? Did the Time Lords fail? Why doesn’t he just give up and die?
Sweeney: “You would make a good Dalek,” it answers before turning off the screen again. (M: Sick burn.)
The Doctor orders them to seal the vaults. We watch the Dalek elevate. Mustache does computery stuff. Lady Assistant reminds the Doctor that Rose is still down there. He calls her as she runs up the stairs, telling her that the doors are closing and there’s nothing he can do to slow it down – she just has to run. She’s nearly there, but they’re out of time, with their lack of power. There’s a sad broody moment where The Doctor hesitates and has lots of feels but ultimately has to hit the button in order to save humanity.
English Kid rolls under the closing door. Rose runs up just as its closing. The Doctor asks if she made it and she breathlessly apologizes for being a bit slow. She turns to see the Dalek coming up behind her. “See you then, Doctor,” she says, before assuring him that it wasn’t his fault and she wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Behind her, we see her through the Dalek’s blue screen. “Exterminate,” it says.
Upstairs, the Doctor rages out about failing to protect Rose – specifically about how totally Mustache’s fault it is when the Doctor could have killed the Dalek hours earlier, saving a lot of people’s lives. The Doctor says going into space for mankind is about exploration. Mustache insists he wanted to touch the stars but the Doctor calls bullshit because he’s really all about dragging the stars down. And he dragged a 19-year-old girl down with him.
Except not. Rose turns around to ask what’s taking it so long. It promises to destroy her, but is halting because it feels her fear. It’s angry because it gave her all this gross life and feelings and stuff. Yup, definitely Team Heartless Cow.
K: Team Heartless Cow will exterminate your ass. If only because you gave us an ottoman to sit on…
Mari: A single ottoman for so many of you. The greatest tragedy. Team Feels feels for you, but not enough to get up off our comfy couch.
Sweeney: Back in the office, English Kid arrives just as the screen comes back on again. The Dalek orders them to open the vault or it will kill Rose. Rose tells him not to “What use are emotions if you won’t save the woman you love?” the Dalek asks. The Doctor relents, refusing to kill her again.
As the Dalek makes its way to them, they wonder what they’re going to do. English Kid notes that only the cataloged weapons are in the vault. Mustache gives him a pointed look.
Cut to the Doctor rummaging through broken shit until he finds a big menacing looking weapon.
In an elevator, Rose pleads with the Dalek not to kill anybody. It asks more existential questions about why Rose isn’t dead, and what it even is if it’s not killing people.
The elevator opens and Rose tells them not to move because it’s beginning to question itself. The Dalek starts by asking Mustache why he tortured him. Mustache panics and says he just wanted the Dalek to talk. It says it should hear it now and shouts “Exterminate” a bunch more, but doesn’t kill. Rose asks if there’s something else it wants. “Freedom,” it answers.
We get a shot of the Doctor running with his fun new toy just before we see Rose and the Dalek heading off to set it out. I mean, I get that it’s currently all repentant and stuff, but this is a pretty quick, “Whatever,” response after all the murdering it just did. And it’s not actually not very repentant. But that’s not the point. The point is for it to blow a hole in the ceiling and have a big moment with Rose where they discuss how the sun feels. The Dalek opens its front and we see a blobby mask of organs slither out to feel the sunlight.
K: I prefer it when the Daleks stay in their metal cases. Because urgh.
Sweeney: Just then, the Doctor arrives with his gun, ordering Rose out of the way because the Dalek is a killer. She notes that he’s the one currently pointing the gun at her and refuses to let him do this. The Doctor shouts about how the Dalek took everything from him. Rose tells him to look and notices that its feeling the sunlight – it couldn’t kill the last three people and, as such, is changing. “What about you, Doctor? What the hell are you changing into?”
The Doctor has feels and drops the gun. The Dalek asks why they survive, but the Doctor doesn’t know. He also knows that he’s not even the last of the Daleks, because Rose’s DNA morphed him into something new and different. He apologizes because that’s terrible for a Dalek. The Dalek has more existential feelings and begs Rose to order him to die. She refuses and it begs some more. Finally she acquiesces. It asks her if she’s frightened and she says she is. The Dalek is too. It closes itself up and then elevates before imploding into a snazzy little sun flare.
Elsewhere, Lady Assistant has taken control, ordering the guards to wipe Mustache’s memory in the same fashion he did with the first assistant.
The Doctor and Rose return to the TARDIS. He says that is, indeed, the end of the Time War. “I’m the only one left. I win,” he says, a bit bitterly. Rose suggests that if a Dalek survived, maybe some of his people did too. He says he knows in his head-heart that he’s alone.
K: Excuse me while I have a lot of feels.
Sweeney: English kid comes running up, ready to go and the Doctor tries to hurry him off to catch a flight. Rose speaks up for him and how he always wanted to see the stars and he’s all on his own now. Oh crap, was I supposed to have been using his actual name? Is he significant? Oops. Sorry English Kid Adam. The Doctor lets him come along, confused about why they’re getting into a box. End credits.
Well, that episode was, um, you know, BRB I need to go refill my drink.
K: Personally, I like this episode. It’s a pretty great introduction to the Daleks and their long history with the Doctor in a way that doesn’t feel like info-dumping.
Mari: Keeping up the pattern, I like this one so much more on rewatch. We’re really supposed to understand the Daleks through the filter of the Doctor. We may not at first see it as something particularly scary (again, plunger and whisk), but we see the Doctor freaking out when locked in a room with it. It kind of emphasizes the point to the detriment of the episode (Sweeney pointed out the repetitive nature of the episode), but it was important to have the Doctor go, “NO. BUT GUYS. SERIOUSLY. BAD NEWS.”He even locks Rose up with the Dalek so as to stop the Dalek. It’s insane, if we think about how much he has protected her up to this point.
We get a bit more pieces about the Time War here, as the Doctor admits that he was behind the extermination of the Daleks. He’s clearly got very intricate feelings about them, about his actions, and about his status as the last Time Lord. Overall, it’s a lot of information you’ll need going forward that doesn’t feel particularly poignant at the moment, without the benefit of the full story.
Sorry again, Sweeney. Halfway through season one, though.
Sweeney: Admittedly, I’m just sorry that I can’t stop shitting on this thing you all love. But also, I can’t pretend I think it’s any good (yet! I’m trying to believe this is just a “yet” thing!). So, drinks for everyone!
Next time: Adam goes on an adventure with The Doctor and Rose in Doctor Who S01 E07 – The Long Game.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
