Asylum of the Daleks
Story 226, Episode 785, Series 7 Episode 1
Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor
Companions: Amy Pond, Rory Williams, Clara Oswald (sorta)
We meet a whole lot of Daleks, an intriguing soufflé girl, and rush an entire plot about divorce.
The Review
The pitch for Asylum of the Daleks is irresistible: every Dalek variety ever in one place, all insane, what’s not to love? Despite how slickly produced the story is, it kind of falls flat. The main problem is The Daleks never provide any menace. We get the Dalek Parliament which is of course a fun idea, but nothing much comes from it. Those Daleks are all asking the Doctor for help (which Defender of The Daleks will do again but earlier for the Doctor), so they’re not after the Doctor. The insane Daleks are too brain-scrambled to do anything and come across more as old broken Daleks than vicious crazed lunatics: not what I imagine to be the desired look. The biggest legacy of this story is a brief return to Skaro foretold in the spooky prequel, and the Dalek puppets inhabiting people. Those are scary and effective, including the fact that people don’t even know they are Dalek puppets. Still, the whole idea of a Dalek asylum is kind of wasted: The Witch’s Familiar will do this better.
The real big mistake in this story is introducing Amy and Rory getting a divorce, and dealing with it all in the same story. Even for people who watched Pond Life it comes seemingly completely out of nowhere. Eventually the truth comes out that Amy was going to let Rory go so another woman could give him children. Heard of adoption? It’s baffling to me to introduce this major stress in their relationship, and then in an admittedly well-acted scene the two are finally honest with each other and it works itself out. I’m not intrinsically opposed to an arc of Amy and Rory having relationship issues, but maybe that should’ve been an arc throughout an entire season rather than just in one episode. They also don’t really do much to contribute to the plot at all, but it’s fun seeing Amy in heavy moody make-up I guess.
The best part of this is a classic twist as Jenna Coleman shows up way earlier than advertised as Oswin, a young flirty woman seemingly trapped in the Dalek ship. There are lingering questions, mainly the Doctor wondering where she gets milk for a year for her soufflés. It turns out ‘exterminate’ slowed down sounds a lot like ‘egg stir’, explaining the soufflés which is some impressive wordplay. Tragically, Oswin is actually a Dalek and is so powerful she was fighting back. If you didn’t know the news that Coleman had been announced as the new companion, she’s just another guest character and your shock will take place later on. It’s fun, but it’s not enough to save a bizarrely structured episode. Hey, at least we get all The Daleks wondering ‘Doctor Who?’ after Oswin wipes their database of the Doctor.
Amy and Rory are getting divorced for some reason, and insane Daleks end up not being all that threatening.
8/10 Cool visuals keep it from going lower, but just a weirdly out of sync episode.
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