Doctor Who Series Blog – Asylum of the Daleks

If you were doing anything other than watching the new series of Doctor Who on Saturday night, then perhaps you need to reassess your priorities. Series seven kicked off with a bang, many of them in fact, considering a planet blew up and everything. Some might have expected Steven Moffat to keep some of the suspense and drama for later in the series, but Saturday saw the return of the ultimate Who villains, theDaleks, though in rather a different light…

For one thing, the creatures that have plagued the nightmares of viewers more than any other have suddenly got a whole lot scarier. The brand new episode saw supposedly humanoid beings morphing into Dalekian creatures complete with the infamous blue eye sprouting from their foreheads, and the exterminator weapon embedded in their palms. If that wasn’t enough to send you scurrying behind the sofa then you deserve a medal. So Moffat has indoctrinated the human race into the incredibly dysfunctional Dalek family. Apart from allowing them to infiltrate the human world, I imagine it makes climbing stairs a whole lot easier as well. The “nanocloud” on the Asylum converts any organic matter into a Dalek hence the terrifying moment when a very dead human body comes to life as a Dalek. Moffat appears to have gone all out with the long-standing enemy of the Doctor, and he brings the viewer into the very heart of Dalek society, the Parliament of the Daleks.

Anyone who has watched the episode will know that there was an exceedingly obvious difference about the Daleks. The seemingly undefeatable alien killing machines were not trying to kill the Doctor (well, directly anyway). Having entrapped and brought the Doctor and the Ponds to the Dalek Parliament, it might make sense if they were to kill him on the spot. Having said that, this would probably have cut the series to an extremely abrupt end. Anyway, the Daleks are interested in employing the Doctor and his companions to sort out their own affairs. It felt quite uncomfortable to see them chanting “Save us!” instead of “Exterminate!” What could possibly make the “supreme warriors” of the universe tremble in their wheels? Every species has its psychopaths and the Asylum is chockfull of the scum of the Dalek race.

Jenna-Louise Coleman made her first appearance as the brilliant Oswin Oswald, a genius who had the misfortune to crash-land on the Dalek Asylum. Having grown so fond of feisty Amy and hopeless subordinate Rory, some might have been apprehensive about Coleman’s debut. However, the future assistant to the Doctor promises to update the role of the Doctor’s companion. When Donna Noble became half Timelord, half human, she proved to rival the Doctor’s intellect and helped to avert the destruction of Earth. Oswin, though not a Timelord gains the Doctor’s esteem and admiration when she is able to hack into Dalek technology and lead the Doctor safely to her. In a cruel twist of fate, it appears that her reality is actually a false one, as the Dalek’s performed a full “conversion” on her, turning her completely into a Dalek with only her memories to keep her thinking she was human. The Ponds were widely expected to make their exit from the series around Christmas-time so Coleman’s early appearance was surprising to say the least. However, Moffat introduced her, and promptly left her with the promise that the Doctor (and the rest of us) will remember her.

Talking of the Ponds, even when they’re trapped on a Dalek Asylum, about to be blown out of the sky, all the Doctor could focus on was the breakdown of Amy and Rory’s marriage. Call me heartless, but when every corner holds an overgrown Robot Wars contestant with an exterminator ray, relationship problems should really pale into insignificance. Yet even when trapped in the Dalek Parliament, all the Doctor can think about is what went wrong with the Ponds. This is what I love about Doctor Who; it doesn’t take itself too seriously. The first episode of series seven could have been all doom and gloom, and yet they still thought to bring the drama to a human level with Rory and Amy fighting over who love’s who the most.

The episode also showcased Moffat’s long suspected adoration of puns. There was the marriage of the Dalek’s most famous catchphrase to a nutritious and tasty breakfast staple – not-so-dormant Dalek’s repeated the word “Eggs” before threatening a quivering Rory with egg-stermination. And then there was the glorious and shameless title tie-in. In order to save the Doctor from the plungers of the Daleks, Oswin manages to perform a mass delete of the Doctor from the Dalek’s memory database. When he escapes from the Asylum and returns to the Dalek Parliament, the Dalek’s begin to chant “Doctor Who? Doctor Who?” a very fitting way to end the first episode of the new series.

The Asylum of the Daleks brought together many of the familiar strands of the Doctor Who universe, but brilliantly merged these with new ones, such as the introduction of the future assistant. Next week features a spaceship, Queen Nefertiti and load of dinosaurs. Only on Doctor Who would these be mentionable in the same sentence.