TV Review: Doctor Who – Asylum of the Daleks [SPOILERS]
Image via BBCAmerica.com
Doctor Who – Asylum of the Daleks
Season 7, Episode 1
It seems like producer Steven Moffat really is going to use this year as a break from multi-part stories, as mentioned by Bill in his season preview.
Though I prefer more serialized stories, this plays towards the frantic pacing that the rebooted Who has always been comfortable with. One of the best things about Doctor Who is how it remains one of those rare shows in the post-post-postmodern, seen-it-all-before, saw-it-coming world of television that can really surprise an adult audience. Between spoilers, casting news, and entertainment websites like this one, it’s hard for anything to surprise you anymore. The fact that it’s fun for the kiddies is a bonus.
The Daleks is one area where the kids and I disagree. I credit Moffat for avoiding them so much after becoming a crutch in the Russell T. Davies era. Unless you count the caveman in An Unearthly Child, the Daleks are the oldest of the Doctor’s enemies and it’s safe to say at this point that every Dalek-based story that can be told has been. Certainly after watching the Doctor defeat them again and again and making it seem so very easy for him (that is his schtick after all), they haven’t been especially intriguing for a good, long time.
But the idea of sympathizing with Daleks has been hinted at almost since the beginning of the new series from the self-exterminating title character in 2005′s Dalek to Dalek-Sec to the Dalek-created Professor Bracewell. That idea is taken to it’s logical conclusion of a truly sympathetic Dalek in the form of the converted Orwin.
The main problem with Orwin Oswald is how few problems she has throughout the episode. Though the Doctor (and any viewer who thinks about it) realizes something is off with how perfect this girl is. She crashed alone on a Dalek prison planet, sealed her room to protect herself from Dalek-converting nanobots that even the Doctor can’t defeat, and lived in peace for two years baking the cutest ruined souffles. Moffat was certainly walking the line of dumping a Mary Sue in our laps. She was arguably as smart as the Doctor, able to confuse and confound the Daleks both on and above the planet. She was funny and cheeky and beautiful, impressing the Doctor and Amy and Rory, and isolated as the seemingly omnipotent master of the asylum. But that lingering doubt and an honestly engaging performance by newcomer Jenna-Louise Coleman saves the character and the episode itself. The sorrowful reveal (helped with some tremendous editing) that Orwin just dreamed herself a life and she was in fact a fully converted Dalek redeemed her supposed awesomeness without invalidating it. And it’s the tragic conclusion I’ve come to expect from the writer of The Girl in the Fireplace.
If nothing else, I appreciate that she solved the rut the Dalek stories had fallen into. The idea that the Doctor is SO TOTALLY AWESOME that he inspires his enemies to be even better villains has mostly been explored with the Silence, but it fits for the Daleks too. The only thing as easy as him defeating them has been some Dalek escaping certain defeat to trouble him again. Hitting the reset button when Dalek-Orwell wipes out all of the Dalek’s knowledge of the Doctor is a nice moral victory to wrap up the episode.
One of the main problems with Orwin though relates back to what we mentioned before about how informed the audience is to the behind the scenes information. [Skip this paragraph if you're one of three people that honestly haven't heard any casting news for later in the year.] We know Coleman will be back at Christmas as the new companion, and that undermines her sacrifice. While it will probably be a River Song-esque situation where the Doctor meets her earlier in her timeline and we know someday her mind will be wiped and she’ll die on that prison planet, I personally would be thrilled if the Doctor had a freaking Dalek for a companion, probably with some modified perception filter so Coleman can interact with Matt Smith. Either that or it’s a twin sister. I’m hoping for either of the first two options.
The Amy and Rory subplot is apparently the Doctor Who version of the storytelling trope where a couple is too perfect for one another to be together. They broke up out of love! See Sam-Diane, David-Maddie, Ross-Rachel, Jim-Pam, etc. At least Doctor Who kept it’s reputation as one of the most frenetic-paced shows ever and couldn’t drag that plot out for more than 40 minutes. While the idea that Amy can no longer have children does throw a tragic twist on it all, with just the one-off episodes remaining I think Moffat really finished their story in The Wedding of River Song, and might just have Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill along for the ride for a few more episodes. And since I’ve loved those companions and Gillan and Darvill’s performances (even in sub-par story lines like this week’s split), I can get on board with four more weeks of the Ponds.
The fact that we’re looking at another fractured season with five episodes followed by a break until the Christmas special followed by the remaining episodes sometime in 2013 means I’ll be feeling a lot like Amy when she mentions that she “really missed this.” But with a strong opening episode, it’s definitely good to have the Doctor back.
I think that Moffat is playing a long-con on us by asserting that this season is all standalone episodes. Jenna Louise-Coleman appearing in the first episode might be just clever casting (Freema Agyeman guest starred in a episode as a different character before she played Martha, so there’s precedent in the Who casting for something like this) or more likely it’s a clever tie to some future event.
Plus, the Dalek Parliament ends this episode by asking The Question. I’ve got a theory (not bunnies, this time) that we’re going to see more and more people asking “Doctor Who?” before the end of the series. If that’s the case, well…these standalones might be a bit more tied to continuity than Moffat has let on.
It’s much more likely to be a tie-in. Freema Agyeman (and Karen Gillan, for that matter) both guested on the series before they were hired for the main show, as did Eve Myles pre-Torchwood. With Jenna Louise Coleman, she’s already been hired, so either this is a huge red herring (from Moffat?) or there will be SOME kind of connection.
I don’t think Moffat is even capable of not doing a long arc. I’m just hoping he stays away from timey-wimey stuff, because he tried too hard in s6 and fell a bit flat. If this harkens back to s1 (Bad Wolf) or s5 (timey-wimey that worked) I think it’ll be great.
And by “main show”, I mean “to be series regulars”. Post-Dragon Con exhaustion, sorry!
There HAS to be a connection between Oswin and Clara. Moffat is obviously up to something; he always is. I can’t wait to see how it ties together. It would be so amazing to see the Doctor have a Dalek companion for a while, so that’s what I’m hoping for! I’m so glad this show is back. Sadly, I work late on Saturday nights and won’t be able to watch any of this season live. That’s the main reason I’m glad I can count on my Hopper to have every episode recorded and waiting for me to enjoy as soon as I get home. It’s a relief to know I won’t be out of the loop when the time comes to discuss new episodes with my Dish co-workers who are fellow fans. Can’t wait to see what Moffat has in store for us this season!
I really enjoyed this episode, but I think it’s a great example of one of Moffat’s writing faults, that he’s much better at creating ‘throwaway’ characters than he is at writing ongoing ones. That being said, it’s an issue that’s plagued Doctor Who since its return.
Pretty much every scene with Oswin in it was much more engaging than any Amy/Rory one. Mind you, that may be due to the fact hat Karen Gillan really isn’t that great of an actress. A lovely girl, to be sure, but not a great actress. What we saw of Jenna Lousie Coleman in this episode makes me feel quite comfortable with her as he new companion.
It will certainly be interesting to see how they resolve the fact that she’s already been in the show when she makes an appearance again. I think it’s probably a mistake to look at how they handled Freema Agyeman and Karen Gillan, as they were both in ‘bit parts’ before they became full-timers, so that was more coincidence than anything else. This is a rather different situation.
There’s definitely more going on here, as Oswin has to tie-in to Coleman’s ongoing role in some substantive way. I definitely wouldn’t consider Coleman playing a role five episodes before she starts as a companion IN THE SAME SEASON, the same as Gillan playing a bit part a year before she was cast (by a different show runner) and two years before she appeared as a companion. That was pretty much a case of Moffat enjoying the performance of an actress that happened to have been on the show before.
This definitely will involve more than a throw-away “hey you must be related to…” line that we saw for Agyeman and Myles.