Sunday, April 18, 2010

Doctor Who Series 31 Episodes: #3 Victory of the Daleks

Source: Wikipedia: The TARDIS materialises in the Cabinet War Rooms during the Second World War, one month after Winston Churchill (Ian McNeice) called for help at the end of "The Beast Below". The Doctor (Matt Smith) is greeted by the Prime Minister and recounts their past experiences. An arriving Luftwaffe squadron approaching London allows Churchill to show the Doctor his latest weapon, a high-precision energy weapon controlled by the "Ironsides", designed by Professor Edwin Bracewell (Bill Paterson), a Scottish scientist. At the Doctor's request, Churchill and Bracewell show the Doctor an Ironside, in reality a khaki-coloured Union Flag-wearing Dalek. Despite the Doctor's protests about the Daleks' omnicidal past, Bracewell insists that he invented them and they are docile and readily performing menial tasks such as serving tea. The Doctor tries to ask his companion Amy Pond to tell Churchill about their invasion of the Earth in "The Stolen Earth", and is visibly unnerved when Amy has no recollection of the incident.

Intent on proving the Daleks' evil, the Doctor interrogates Bracewell and learns that the Daleks were one of several futuristic inventions. In response, the Doctor repeatedly strikes a Dalek with a heavy spanner and recalls his battles with the genocidal race and finally exclaims "I am the Doctor and you are the Daleks!". The Dalek finally acknowledges this sentence prompting him to transmit this "testimony" to a Dalek ship orbiting the Earth while all the other Daleks turn hostile. Bracewell protests claiming he created the Daleks causing the latter to proclaim "No. We created you." and destroy his hand, exposing him as an android.

The Doctor runs to the TARDIS, telling Amy to stay behind as it is too dangerous. He then materialises in the Dalek ship. The Doctor pretends to be brandishing a TARDIS self-destruct control (a Jammie Dodger biscuit), so that the Daleks do not exterminate him. The Daleks reveal that one ship survived the destruction of the Dalek race in "Journey's End," and that it went after the last remaining Progenitor Device, a capsule containing pure Dalek DNA, from which the Dalek race could be rebuilt. The Doctor figures out that they built Professor Bracewell because the Progenitor Device did not recognise them as Dalek, since these Daleks were grown from Davros' DNA. If the Daleks became part of the army, Winston Churchill would lure The Doctor in, and the Doctor would confirm them as Daleks. The Progenitor accepted this as proof, because The Doctor is the Daleks' greatest enemy.

The Daleks then tell The Doctor to leave, or they will destroy London. The Doctor says they do not have that power. The Daleks then fire a ray turning all of London's lights on, making them an easy target to the incoming Luftwaffe bombers, and rendering London's blackout efforts ineffective. Then the Progenitor completes its process, and creates a "new paradigm" consisting of 5 "pure" Daleks (identified as "Scientist, Strategist, Drone, Eternal and the Supreme"), larger, more imposing, and presumably more powerful than their antecedent, which disintegrate the original Daleks, who willingly offer themselves for extermination. In the Cabinet War Rooms, Amy and Churchill realise they can use Professor Bracewell to fight back against the Daleks. Stopping him from committing suicide, they convince him to help them send some adapted Spitfires to the Dalek ship, equipped with Dalek laser cannons and anti-gravity technology. The Daleks discover The Doctor has not really got a self-destruct device, just as the Spitfires begin their attack. The Spitfires destroy the Dalek transmitter, assisted by The Doctor. The Daleks then tell the Doctor to stop the attack on their ship or they will destroy the Earth using an "oblivion continuum" bomb concealed inside Professor Bracewell.

The Doctor hurries back to Earth, in order to stop the detonation but leaving the Daleks to escape. He reveals the bomb inside Bracewell, realising that the only way to stop it exploding is to convince Bracewell that he is a human, not a bomb. He tries to remind the Professor of all his memories and how they hurt, but he cannot seem to stop the countdown. As the Oblivion Continuum approaches detonation, Amy steps in and asks him if he has "ever fancied someone [he] shouldn't". While dwelling on this, the countdown retreats to zero, cancelling the detonation. The Doctor immediately dashes to stop the Daleks, but he is told by the Professor that they have escaped. For a few moments, he feels that he has lost, but Amy reminds him that he saved the Earth.

After bidding farewell to Churchill and his staff, The Doctor is puzzled that Amy did not remember the Daleks from the events portrayed in "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End," and the TARDIS dematerialises. Behind the spot where it stood a crack with a light shining through is seen, as in this series' previous episodes.

Cast
Doctor

* Matt Smith (Eleventh Doctor)

Companion

* Karen Gillan (Amy Pond)

Guest stars

* Ian McNeice – Churchill
* Bill Paterson – Bracewell
* Nina de Cosimo – Blanche
* Tim Wallers – Childers
* Nicholas Pegg – Dalek 1
* Barnaby Edwards – Dalek 2
* Nicholas Briggs – Dalek voice
* Susannah Fielding – Lilian
* James Albrecht – Todd
* Colin Procktor – Air Raid Warden

Production
Writer Mark Gatiss
Director Andrew Gunn
Script editor Brian Minchin
Producer Peter Bennett
Executive producer(s) Steven Moffat
Piers Wenger
Beth Willis
Production code 1.3
Series 2010 series
Length 45 minutes
Originally broadcast April 17, 2010

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