Doctor Who: Asylum of the Daleks spoiler review
Well, after 8 months since the last ep, we’ve finally got a brand new ep of Doctor Who! Thoughts? Well, I really, really enjoyed it. Not the greatest episode, but still thought it was pretty darn good.
First things first: Daleks! Lots and lots of daleks! Ok, so as I’ve made it clear in the past, I’m not just a Doctor Who fan, I am a huge dalek fan, so an episode that was going to have every single one ever was bound to appeal to me, right? Well, the problem was, when you bring in every kind of dalek ever and you, you know, cover them in dust completely, you gotta wonder what’s the point, really? Really, you should’ve been showing them off in all their glory! Even the magazine got that right with their CGI dalek cover!
However, what was surprising about that fact is that, really, it’s only a minor, tiny disappointment. Because the real reason I’m a dalek fan isn’t just because of their design, it’s how they’re written, and here, I think they were written pretty darn well. Ok, so asking their greatest enemy for help takes away a little bit from their overall threat level, but that was more than made up for by how well they were overall used: repelling the Doctor by considering pure hate “beautiful”, really creepy moments like the daleks slowly coming to life around Rory, and even the return of the Robo-Men was wonderfully handled.
Oh yes, the Robo-Men. This leads me to another thing I loved about the episode: the horror. The Robo-Men weren’t really scary, but the Robo-fucking-Zombies sure were! Holy shit, Moffat, way to go at seriously traumatising a whole new generation for life! No, seriously, thank you: traumatising children was and continues to be Doctor Who’s bread and butter, so it’s nice to see Moffat continuing to do just that. And the surreal ballroom scene with Amy looked like something out of a David Lynch movie. Overall, I think this the most adult that I’ve seen Moffat push the show in terms of horror. As long as they don’t cross the line completely, I’m all for more of that.
Seeing Amy and Rory split up was…a little unbelievable, personally. Let’s be honest, the two have been through a lot together, and while the reason for Amy giving Rory up wasn’t too bad, giving a little bit more reality to them by Amy not being able to have kids…well, like I said, the two have been through too much to split up and aim to get divorced so quick, so I wasn’t a fan of that, quite honestly. I was just glad they were back together by the end, at least.
Speaking of companions, that was definitely a fantastic little surprise, seeing the new girl in the episode. Boy, they kept that secret, didn’t they? I admit, I was surprised to learn that she was a dalek the whole time, partially because the same actress thing really did throw me off and I was kinda expecting the Doctor to drop her off somewhere, temporarily. What did I think of her? She seemed likeable enough, but her flirtyness was, well, a little too similar to how Amy used to be, really. Moffat, to quote one of your own (non Who) scripts, “There are times when I wonder how you see women.” Still, maybe when she plays the actual new companion, it’ll be someone more shy or quiet. I hope so – it’ll be a needed change when Amy’s gone.
The Daleks being made to forget the Doctor at the end? I saw it coming the moment Oswin erased it from a few daleks – it’s just too good an opportunity to kind of reboot the whole “the Doctor versus the Daleks” story, and in fact continues what started in the Wedding of River Song – the slow but gradual end of the “the Oncoming Storm” and the return of the mysterious traveller that the Doctor once was. I thought that was brilliant.
So overall, I loved the ep. Not only did we have the return of the RTD era daleks, which quite honestly looked the best, much better than Gatiss’s daleks, at least, but we’ve had a decent Dalek story that was at times scary and dramatic. Not as epic as last year’s, and I wished the classic daleks had had a bigger role, but a fine episode, nonetheless. 8/10
Love the Dalek one. That's class!
Originally Posted by alkanto
And for those who do not know, they have been releasing very short mini-eps called "Pond Life" all week to get us ready for new adventures. The first 2 are here:
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