If you want to find out who the Doctor really is then lock him in a room with his greatest enemy: the Daleks.
This has been one of the few truths of Doctor Who as a show, even more so after its return in 2005 and the introduction of the Time War plot establishing that the Doctor sacrificed his own people to rid the universe of the Daleks once and for all. As an unyielding trickster, the Doctor thrills in subverting the universe’s expectations and inspiring others to do the same. This trait is embedded deeply in the Doctor’s fictional history. He’s not going to bow to the constraints of Time Lord society, he’s going to steal a TARDIS and get the hell out of there. He’s not [whatever his Gallifreyan birthname is], he’s the Doctor. Just the Doctor. And you can’t force him do anything he doesn’t want to do.
Unless you’re the Daleks.
Spoilers for the episode ahead.
It’s not infuriating enough that the Daleks are soulless, ridiculously simplistic monsters that destroy entire star systems. It’s that they’re so successful at this that they force the Doctor to respond on their terms. They dictate the situation and more often than not they do so in a way that gives the Doctor no choice but to act in a way entirely antithetical to his choice of identity. Their purity of hatred erodes even the Doctor’s stubbornness and their greatest victories lay not in razing long stretches of the cosmos but in convincing the Doctor that he isn’t the Doctor anymore.
Concepts like the Time War and the War Doctor and episodes like “Dalek” and “The Day of the Doctor” all explore this conflict. After all, it was not as the Doctor that he undertook the most shameful decision of his life—the destruction of Gallifrey—and it was only by restoring his identity that he was able to reverse that decision.
But who is the Doctor now? So soon after a shaky regeneration, he stands eye to eyestalk with his greatest enemy. What will emerge?
As we’ve seen so far, not even he knows what will happen, and “Into the Dalek” continues the promise of “Deep Breath” in setting Clara up as a cautious guide, nudging Twelve into actions more akin to the history of the Doctor as she knows it, reminding him of himself, and being horrified when he strays. This isn’t a new position for a companion to be in—as characters they’re there to argue the human viewpoint—but the episode wastes no time in establishing that this particular Doctor is openly requesting that position. Sure, a cup of coffee in a cupboard and a tossed off “She cares so I don’t have to.” is a chilling way to express that, but it nevertheless establishes that while Clara was girlfriend material to Eleven, Clara is truly companion material to Twelve.
It’s a dynamic the show employed with some success years ago when transitioning David Tennant’s Doctor from his relationship with Rose Tyler into his friendship with Donna Noble. The Tenth Doctor openly requests her judgment and ends up growing as a person. (It is a sort-of-historical-irony that doing so in “Fires of Pompeii” results in Ten saving Peter Capaldi when he otherwise would not have.) You can see the effect a friend has on the Doctor in how he deals with the Daleks over the course of David Tennant’s run. In season three he’s taking taking insane lightning baths on top of the Empire State Building, but by the time he and Donna encounter Davros in latter season four, the Doctor is begging off from confrontation so as not to be distracted from saving his friends and Earth. (“I only have one thing to say to you. BYE!”)
“Into the Dalek” continues Clara’s transition into that role. The Doctor finds himself in front of a Dalek in need of a doctor and…he doesn’t know what to do. He hates this thing. Just look at how his jaw clenches and unclenches when he faces it. But it’s requesting help. Specifically, it’s requesting help to finish its mission to destroy Daleks. And he’s the Doctor…right? Helping one “good” Dalek would result in a lot of “bad” Daleks dying, and doesn’t that just suit him fine? What does that mean? Clara would know.
And she does, immediately. She points out that he’s letting his prejudices control him. It’s possible that this Dalek has grown beyond being a Dalek and it’s very possible that the Doctor is the only person in the universe who can truly help this Dalek. The Doctor has seen this happen before, long ago. So long ago. And he knows that Clara is right. “I don’t pay you, right?” he finally responds. “I should give you a raise.”
And suddenly they’re undergoing miniaturization to go inside the Dalek and fix it and why? The episode doesn’t quite explain that but it doesn’t need to. Pulling a Fantastic Voyage and traipsing through the innards of a Dalek is its own reward, for the viewer and the Doctor.
Being inside of a Dalek is bound to mess with anyone’s head and the three soldiers accompanying Clara and the Doctor are understandably jumpy, especially Journey Blue, who began the day being saved by the Doctor as her brother burned up under Dalek laserfire. She doesn’t know how to feel about this guy, who glowers and offers coffee in his weird spaceship that’s smaller on the outside.
For his part, the Doctor seems to be enjoying the experience, taking satisfaction in the victory inherent in simply being allowed inside of a Dalek. Clara is…not entirely present at first…which feels like a misstep on the part of the episode. She’s the first to note that the passage of the Dalek’s thoughts gives off a beautiful light, a unique perspective on Daleks to be sure, but she initially offers no additional insight beyond that. You would think that someone who was introduced to us as a Dalek would have more of an opinion about them. Even if she doesn’t remember being Oswin, there’s still an opportunity here to link that version of her with the one we know now, at least in the eyes of the viewers.
Although maybe not. We had the same opportunity with Victorian Clara and Actual Clara in last week’s “Deep Breath” and nothing came of that. And maybe it’s for the best that Clara doesn’t dwell on the prior season’s events. This is a new Doctor, after all, and this current season is still putting a lot of effort into re-forging Clara into a Real Human Character.
In fact, the first fourth of the episode belongs to Clara and her life at school, as she meets new character, new history teacher, and former soldier Danny Pink. Danny’s first day at school doesn’t go so well. Despite his insistence to his students that he won’t answer questions about his military history, the kids find ways to wheedle around the technicalities of Danny’s wishes. Okay, they can’t ask if you killed anyone, but did you shoot guns? Did you shoot guns when people were around? The kids want to know that teacher has killed people, because that’s exciting for them. They spend their days surrounded by rules regarding their dress and behavior and yet here is a man who has broken a cardinal rule of humanity. He has taken a life and can speak from beyond that moral horizon.
Clara takes an instantaneous liking to him in the teacher’s lounge, even after he is heavy-handedly introduced as a “ladykiller.” (And he is quite likable, to be sure.) Clara has a stronger resolve than she lets on, of course, and her attraction to Danny makes sense to us even if it doesn’t make sense to him. She travels with the Doctor, after all, and in this episode she watches that same Doctor trick one of the soldiers into becoming a target for Dalek antibodies. She travels with killers. They’re her hobby.
She’s shocked, yes, but not as much as the other soldiers. And she’s not angry, like Journey Blue is. She’s silent, even as they dive into the gooey remains of the soldier the Doctor just sentenced to death. She’s here to care where the Doctor doesn’t, but that’s not an automatic mindset she can adopt. Especially not when she needs to rely on the Doctor to guide them through the Dalek. She can’t protest, so she’s measuring, she’s justifying internally. Soldiers surround Clara in this episode, from Journey, to the Doctor, to Danny, and they’re all very different people. For now, her judgment is hers to keep. Let’s see how the Doctor plays out, she’s probably thinking. Let’s see how Danny plays out, too.
Unfortunately, passively letting the Doctor feel his way through this situation backfires continually. First Twelve lets an innocent die, then he repairs the radiation leak that changed the Dalek’s brain chemistry and made it able to imagine better things. The Dalek immediately goes back to being just another Dalek and as it rampages murderously across the base it’s housed within and summons the rest of the Dalek fleet to begin an invasion the Doctor essentially tells everyone “I told you so.” There’s no such thing as a “good” Dalek. It was just a radiation leak. Not his fault.
Only then does it dawn on Clara how corrective she needs to be. She slaps him a good one for his poor choices. “The Daleks are evil and the Doctor is right!” she taunts, as if that’s a good thing. “That’s what we just learned!” the Doctor says, but his justification is weak in the face of Clara’s awakened righteousness. “No Doctor, that is NOT what we just learned.”
Clara gets him to admit that one “good” Dalek would make all the difference in the universe, but that it’s impossible, and finally the Doctor realizes what’s gone wrong. Here he stands, the Doctor, unapologetic as people are gunned down as a consequence of his actions, inside of a Dalek that just described the beauty and wonder of a star born and the realization that life is a vast cycle that the Daleks can do nothing to extinguish. Whose words belong to whom here? Is there no such thing as a “good” Doctor? Can he not make all the difference in the universe?
One of the soldiers, Gretchen Alison Carlyle, asks the Doctor if he can restore the Dalek’s consciousness. “Is this worth it?”
She needs to know, because Gretchen needs to trigger the antibodies so Clara and Journey can get back up to the Dalek’s brain and reactivate its repressed memories. Someone needs to be sacrificed. One of the soldiers has to face death.
The Doctor promises that this is worth it. That this can lead to amazing things. For a moment, an important moment, our Doctor is here. We’ve seen him do amazing things and we believe in him, in a way that he is slowly, finally, coming to believe in himself.
That’s acceptable to Gretchen. “Do something good and name it after me.”
It’s Clara who makes the saving throw, restoring the Daleks memory bit by bit, tube by tube, until the Doctor can enter the Dalek’s mind personally. The Dalek sees the same beauty and endless divine perfection that the Doctor views. “That’s good. Put it inside you and live by it.”
It’s a stirring sentiment to end an episode on. Or it would be if this wasn’t Doctor Who and this wasn’t a man who’s hatred of the Daleks leads to his most furious, most shameful moments. The Dalek sees beauty but it sees the Doctor’s hatred as well. The Doctor is sure there must be more than that to his opinions on Daleks. After all, he believed in this Dalek for a little bit, didn’t he? But whatever sympathy hides in the Doctor doesn’t shine bright enough for the Dalek to see, and it rides the Doctor’s hatred into a total extermination of the Dalek fleet that’s closing in. “The Daleks are exterminated!”
“Of course they are,” the Doctor says, not really to the Dalek anymore. “That’s what you do, isn’t it?” This Dalek has a part of the Doctor inside of it now, and if you want to find out who the Doctor really is, all you need to do is lock him in a room with his greatest enemy.
As the soldiers mop up the battle, the Doctor laments his failure. This wasn’t a victory. He remembered himself, he tried to help, but what resulted isn’t a “good” Dalek at all.
The Dalek agrees. “No, I am not a ‘good’ Dalek. You are a good Dalek.”
Early on in the episode, the Doctor asks Clara very frankly whether she thinks he is a good man. She honestly doesn’t know, and her reply rattles him. That’s not the answer he would have preferred. Still, he thinks, she’s just one perspective and there’s time to prove her wrong.
Just not this time around, and even the rebellious Dalek can sense that. After the battle, the Doctor rejects Journey’s request to come aboard the TARDIS, dismissing soldiers and himself in the same breath. A soldier, a Dalek, such as himself can’t possibly be a good man.
Except, Clara tells him, even though she doesn’t know whether he is still a good man, at least he’s still trying to be, and that counts for her. That counts for everyone who’s alive right now thanks to the Doctor. That counts for a planet called Gallifrey, lost somewhere in the ocean of reality, but very much alive. And he should allows that to count for himself.
Thoughts:
- Gosh I liked this episode. It manages to be a thematic and direct callback to “Dalek” and the Time War while still imparting a ton of new character info about Peter Capaldi’s Doctor. He continues to grow into himself and I think I might actually be slightly disappointed when his character fully solidifies. Clara’s expanded role in this season ties in really well with this ongoing journey, even though their plotlines have run somewhat separately so far.
- Just like “Deep Breath,” this episode isn’t afraid to keep digging. The supporting cast is nicely fleshed out. (I wanted the Doctor to say yes to Journey!) The scenes linger, but not too long, and it has something definitive to say about the Doctor beyond the plot. If this were a lesser episode, it would have ended with the Doctor fixing the leak and the Dalek realizing it was good and that would have been that. Instead, we got so much more.
- And I like Danny! He’s slated to stick around and there were rumors that he would end up being an incognito Master (I think mostly because the actor has a beard) but that’s obviously not true. I imagine he and the Doctor will have a lot to talk about regarding morality and war once they finally meet.
- Weird Lady Theory Time: I think she’s a Time Lord. Gretchen flashing into Heaven seemed an awful lot like how the Doctor saved Journey in the beginning of the episode by wrapping his TARDIS around her, making it seem like she was teleported inside of it and not the other way around.
- I don’t think this woman is the Rani, because that’s played out and after the last season and the 50th anniversary hoopla the show seems done bringing back older stuff for a little while. In fact, I’m betting that this woman is a Time Lord who has kind of forgotten that she’s a Time Lord in favor of believing that she’s a GOD. Becauuuuse…
- She’s certainly framed herself as a celestial overseer of the afterlife. And we get a hint of her agenda here. If we consider that the clockwork guy from “Deep Breath” killed himself and that the Doctor didn’t push him, then that means the Doctor effectively convinced Mr. Clockwork (I forget his name) to sacrifice himself for a greater good. Gretchen does the same thing in this episode and honestly, a lot of people over the course of the series have done the same.
- All those people? All those soldiers in the Doctor’s wars? What if there was an entire afterlife full of them? What if this odd lady is intent on creating an afterlife full of them? What if she’s trying to prove that the Doctor isn’t making all the difference in the universe? For a season that seems to so far be about the Doctor doubting himself, this would make for a heck of a season finale villain. Moffat has also brought up the notion of the dead that that Doctor leaves behind at least once a season during his tenure on the show.
- It would also explain why she calls the Doctor her “boyfriend” in the first episode. If she sees herself as a God-figure, a guardian of the afterlife, then she probably views the Doctor as Death, i.e. someone with a vital relationship to her.
- It occurs to me that, if this theory is correct, it would be a perfect way to re-introduce Harriet Jones, Prime Minister into the show.
Chris Lough is the programming manager at Tor.com and would not make a good Dalek on account of all the student loan debt.
“(It is a sort-of-historical-irony that doing so in “Fires of Pompeii” results in Ten saving Peter Capaldi when he otherwise would not have.)”
Crazy thought… Could this be what the Doctor was trying to remind himself of by subconsciously picking this face? That act of compassion and pushing beyond the rules he thought were limiting his ability to help?
There was a lot to like about this episode, but also parts that didn’t quite gel. I liked Samuel Anderson as Danny, I think his character has potential and he plays it very well, but the writing was a little too heavy-handed about his guilt, and also about the meet-cute business with Clara.
And while the premise was interesting, it was also full of holes. First off, we never really got any evidence that this was a “good Dalek.” It didn’t say anything about compassion or morality, it just said it wanted to destroy the Daleks. That’s not a good Dalek, it’s just a normal Dalek with its targets reassigned. And the problem is that it takes away any sense of surprise about the ending, when it turns out to be a normal, hate-filled Dalek that’s simply directing its hatred against its own kind — the exact same thing it was presented to be at the opening. All the characters’ talk in the early part of the episode about how this was a “good Dalek” made no sense to me because we hadn’t been shown that.
Also, there’s a fundamental logical contradiction in the Doctor’s actions. From the start, the Doctor was saying that the Dalek’s malfunction had turned it “good.” He’d diagnosed the connection between its damage and its apparent morality before he was even sent inside. So why the hell did he or anyone else think that repairing the malfunction would be a good idea? Why were they remotely surprised that it turned the Dalek evil again? And, while we’re at it, why didn’t they remove its weapon once they had it docile and in captivity?
The Doctor’s reluctance to travel with a soldier is a bit questionable, since he’s had military companions before, including Steven Taylor, Sara Kingdom, Ben Jackson, Jamie McCrimmon (sort of), and Harry Sullivan, not to mention the other UNIT folks he’s associated with over the decades. But I guess if he’s doubting his own morality at this point, I can see how he wouldn’t want that kind of influence aboard. I imagine this will lead to some tension with Danny down the road.
I don’t like the gag of the Doctor insulting Clara’s appearance. Okay, we get it that there’s no romantic interest there — no need to resort to “negging.”
Liked. Felt the pace was much better, with less superfluous elements than Deep Breath (which I did also like, but yeah). Liked the carer lines. Liked the refusal to deal with soldiers (even if he has in the past, like ChristopherLBennett said) because he is/was a soldier and really doesn’t like that part of himself, especially at the moment.
I liked the segments at Clara’s school. Her having a life outside the doctor is one of the biggest reasons she works for me (and it was much better than the random flashback last week). I hope Danny Pink is exactly what he seems to be. I’ll be irked if he turns out to be something-in-disguise or whatever.
Was a little jarring to open with the Colonel (was it a colonel?) saying we don’t take prisoners, here, look at our Dalek prisoner. Agree it was a bit weird they were surprised fixing the malfunction reverted the Dalek to normal.
Have no theories or opinions on Missy.
I hated this episode.
I can see a long-term theme, about identity, but… I hated the incredible voyage book, and movie, and this episode.
Maybe Missy is trying to create a Valhalla for the Doctor’s sacrifices.
I really hate the name “Missy” for a bad guy. That’s the name an elderly lady would give her poodle.
Thanks for the excellent review, Chris! My two cents: I continue to like Peter Capaldi’s take and Clara’s response to him. Also Danny is a nice addition, so far, plus I’m still intrigued in the enigmatic Missy. I wouldn’t even hazard a guess to who she is and her intentions. Sharp idea, going inside the Dalek, but I just wasn’t fully invested in this episode and the pacing seemed way off. Overall disappointing.
I’m sort of new to the Who-verse, so if this doesn’t make sense, please be gentle. Is it possible that Missy is a regeneration of the Master? Missy could be short for Mistress, the female version of Master. I seem to recall an episode where the Master seemingly dies in Ten’s arms, but before that happened, Ten kept saying “stay with me. We’ll travel together, I’ll watch after you, etc.” Maybe the boyfriend line was major sarcasm? Thoughts?
About Missy, I like this theory that she is a Time Lady who sincerely believes herself to be a goddess. Because if this is true, there is no need to have a season finale where the whole universe hangs in the balance or to have links between episodes that rely on huge coincidences. The finale would just be an episode that would explain all these strange scenes that were irrelevant to the plot, and it could still be an important commentary about the Doctor as Death that would conclude the theme of the season (though that’s hard to tell after only two episodes).
@Christopher: I think the fact that the resistance, and the Doctor, immediately assume that the Dalek is a ‘good Dalek’ because it wants to kill the other Daleks is a deliberate feature of the story, not a problem.
The theme of the episode is, what do we mean by ‘good’ anyway? That’s what underlies the Doctor’s question to Clara, and it’s part of the reason why she doesn’t have an answer.
By the end of the episode, the Doctor and the resistance have come to the realisation that a Dalek who’s fighting on your side isn’t necessarily ‘good’ – but at the start, they view things as much more black-and-white. The Daleks are evil, so anyone who wants to destroy them must be ‘good’. An assumption we’re all guilty of at one time or another.
And this reflects on the Doctor. His opposition to the Daleks and their ilk isn’t enough to make him a ‘good man’. There has to be more to it. If he wants to earn his name, he needs to do more than fight bad guys. It’s something he’s grappled with before, but it’s a great foundation for a story.
Missy seems to be collecting people who might be able to credibly say that the Doctor has wronged them… people who could be convinced that the Doctor had the ability to save them but chose not to in order to pursue his own ends.
In other words, she seems to be collecting evidence to build a case against the Doctor.
Could she be the Valeyard?
@2: “Was a little jarring to open with the Colonel (was it a colonel?) saying we don’t take prisoners, here, look at our Dalek prisoner.”
That part worked for me, because establishing that they don’t take prisoners as a rule helped sell the idea that this Dalek was somehow special enough to be worth making an exception for. The possibility of a Dalek “seeing the light” and switching sides was so extraordinary, so revolutionary, that it was worth risking everything for.
@8: That’s a good interpretation, but even if it’s true, I think the episode didn’t put it across very smoothly.
Hi everyone.
First off, I have to admit – I didn’t care much for this story. Not sure why. It’s serviceable, but somehow didn’t create enough tension for me.
It’s like when the Doctor shows up on the medical ship and there’s tons of guns pointed at him, and his response is something along the lines of…”Yeah yeah, don’t shoot. I’m holding coffee.” And then when they’re in the belly of the dalek near the leak, and the Doctor says soemthing along the lines of “Lots of radiation here. Past the red line. We’ll probably all die. We’ll, let’s not dwell on that.” And then when the Dalek went berserk the Doctor just kinda said I told you so. Glad Clara slapped him at that point…for mailing it in.
I get that Capaldi is a different sort of Doctor. Maybe he doesn’t act panicked. Maybe that’s his thing. He won’t emote. Fine. OK. But if that’s the case we need something to rachet up the tension, and I just didn’t feel any tension last night. I’ll watch it again soon, and we’ll see, but for me this one just fell flat.
@8 – i like your analysis there. How do we define who’s good? So many ways to answer that, and so many pitfalls in each. By adhering to your religion? Eeek! The Crusades! And our current crop of Islamists. By protecting your people? All well and good till you waterboard the bad guys, then what are you? By obeying all the laws? You end jumping into the Seine. I took an ethics/philosophy class at the US Air Force Academy 20 years ago. We tried to confront those very questions, and I couldn’t come away with good answer. If an enemy without a conscience hands a live grenade to a toddler and point him your way (recorded incident from Vietnam), and you have a split second to shoot or not to spare yourself and your soldiers, what do you do? Can you kill a baby and live with yourself? What’s right? If you’re the British government and you learn by code breaking that the Germans will bomb Conventry, do you defend and/or evacuate the city, or let the bombing proceed to keep the secret that you’ve broken the code so you can win the way and end it sooner?
If the arc of this season goes that way, then this will be a great season, and this episode will make a lot of sense, and be better in hindsight. In this episode, we see a Doctor that would shoot the baby. He’d let the Germans bomb Coventry. Is that the right answer? Is it always the right answer. At what point does making these decisions turn a good man into an evil one?
I hope we find out…at least I hope we see Doctor Who make an argument.
I think you misunderstood what happened to the first escort soldier. He triggered the anti-bodies by accidentally hurting the Dalek. The Doctor tricked him into standing still for the antibodies so the Doctor could easily track his remains to the one place the antibodies wouldn’t chase them – because if you’re there then you’ve already been “dealt” with.
The second escort (Carlyle) didn’t trigger the anti-bodies as a means to get to the top of the Dalek. She knew that the antibodies would be triggered as a *consequence* of taking the fastest route, so not only choose herself as the instigator (so the antibodies would persue her first, she stayed behind. Knowing this was a suicide mission, she decoyed the antibodies to give Clara long enough to reactivate the suppressed memory banks (which, when the last one activated, caused a system reboot and stopped the antibodies *just* before they caught up with Clara and Journey). This makes Carlyle a bit more proactive…
And thinking about Danny Pink, I thought he was a maths teacher? I liked the sequence with the head and the desk… And that he’d noticed Clara had changed outfits, while the Doctor was oblivious!
@11: The “Churchill let Coventry be bombed” thing is a myth, by the way. He knew there was going to be an attack, but mistakenly believed London would be the target.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11486219
@12: The Doctor didn’t trick the guy into standing still for the antibodies. As he said, that man was already as good as dead; the antibodies had already targeted him and there was nothing to Doctor could do to save him. So he did the only thing he could, which was to get the guy to swallow a tracker of some sort just before he was killed, so that the Doctor could trace the residue to the waste dump and get the rest of the party in there so they could be saved. He was callous about using the man’s imminent and unavoidable death, but he didn’t intentionally set the man up to be killed.
Unfortunately, this is another instance where the episode didn’t quite get the idea across as clearly as it should have. The Doctor’s “He was already dead” line was really the only indication we had that the man was inescapably doomed. Hence the confusion.
But you’re right about Carlyle. She knew that using the grappling gun would bring the antibodies down on her (because it was the same thing that had triggered them the first time), but she did it anyway so that the others could get to the top.
I liked this one. I think it benefited from being a smaller-scale Dalek story (not literally), dealing with one Dalek ship instead of “all of the Daleks steal Earth and/or try to destroy the universe.” Reminded me a little of some of the Dalek War stories in Big Finish.
I liked the examination of the Doctor’s morality versus the Daleks’, and the possibility that a Dalek actually could be “good,” but the Doctor isn’t the one to inform that transition because he’s far too hateful himself. Had he closed off his mind just a few moments before, maybe we would have seen a Dalek devoted to the majesty of the universe.
I also liked Danny Pink. Also Clara, who’s been a better character in the past two episodes than in the rest of her screentime combined.
Still can’t bring myself to give one single damn about Missy, who she is or what she’s up to. It would be nice if they could pull off an entire season without some kind of thread running through every episode.
I think Christopher @1 got to the heart of the matter when he said this was not a Good Dalek, only one with its targets reassigned. The fact that the military personnel, and initially the Doctor, missed this, shows how warped your perspectives can become when facing such an implacable enemy. Realizing what you are about, and not just what you are against, is something that so many people forget in so many different settings. For years, being against Communism shaped US foreign policy, and now it is Moslem extremists. Defining ourselves as being against the Nazis led to the US forgetting some of the limits that should have controlled our behavior in WWII. Thus, the episode was a nice meditation on ends, means, and morality.
I do agree with comments that the episode felt a little choppy at times. The personality of the new regeneration of the Doctor is still not clear. Last episode was clouded by his own disorientation, and his reactions this episode were not quite enough to get a fix on where he is coming from. But what I see so far is promising.
I like Danny, and think he will be interesting, although the whole “this Doctor doesn’t like soldiers” thing seemed a little heavy handed and contrived at this point.
And Missy just seems strange and creepy and irritatingly vague. This season’s version of the “eyepatch lady” from few seasons ago. Meh.
Looking forward to Robin Hood next week–that should be fun. I always like the show best when there is some humor in the mix, which is probably one reason why this Dalek episode, while pretty good, was not my favorite.
Is Missy’s “Heaven” a homage to Douglas Adams’ LONG DARK TEATIME OF THE SOUL?
And if any Americans die, will they be greeted with peanuts and beer or potato chips and Coke?
Weird and stupid ideas for a weird and stupid story line.
I leaning more and more towards the Missy = TARDIS theory.
The “my boyfriend” makes sense, and it would explain how all these people are being saved at death.
@15: Now that I think about it, I’m not sure I agree that the Doctor’s dislike of soldiers is contrived. I think it’s a reflection of what he’s gone through. First off, he spent centuries fighting the Time War as the War Doctor. He tried to put it behind him, to distance himself from that incarnation because he didn’t go by the title “Doctor” in that lifetime, but then he was reunited with that earlier self and reminded of that extended part of his life. Sure, he discovered he hadn’t been as bad a person as he thought he’d become, and was able to come to terms with it… but then came Trenzalore, and centuries more spent fighting to protect the townfolk of Christmas from an endless horde of invaders. At this point he’s probably spent over half his life in those two incarnations that led lives defined by constant warfare. And he’s tired of it. He doesn’t want to be reminded of the warrior side of himself anymore, doesn’t want to be dragged back into that kind of existence.
Which I suspect gives him a lot in common with Danny, since Danny seems to have a lot of guilt over his actions as a soldier. There could be an interesting relationship between those two. We’ll see.
Any idea what problem the Doctor is working on? When he wakes up in the first episode, he uses the wood floor as a blackboard to scribble equations. In this second episode, when Blue wakes up, we see a blackboard in the background with equations. What are they setting up, I wonder? And since Danny Pink is a math teacher???
I don’t expect the show to reach back this far, but wouldn’t Adric be a person who might be in Missy’s paradise? He could have been scooped up before the ship exploded….
@18 Good points about the continuing warfare. Maybe the Doctor is suffering from what we called shell shock when I was young, and is now called PTSD. They say that a half a year at the front lines is about the maximum that most soldiers can stand without permanent psychological damage, and the Doctor passed that point centuries ago.
I don’t expect the show to reach back this far, but wouldn’t Adric be a person who might be in Missy’s paradise? He could have been scooped up before the ship exploded….
I guess the “afterlife” plot line is also just another moffatism in order to keep any characters from actually dying…
Though I like the idea of the woman being a female incarnation of the Master.
@14 Yes, it would be nice if there weren’t a thread running through each episode, except for character development! And can’t Moffet let go of the mysterious woman trope??? And Missy’s smugness is irritating.
Interesting overall episode, though. Twelve’s liking of bad puns aned Clara’s response amused me. Bring on more bad puns! :)
@24. I seriously don’t think he knows how to let it go. Missy is Tasha Lem is Irene Adler is Madame Kovarian is River Song, with a few tweaks to differentiate them, like an eyepatch, or a different cut of black suit/dress. Put them in a room together and they’d all stand around speaking Innuendo-ese and trying to smarm each other to death.
I was thinking after last week’s episode that the Doctor’s past two incarnations, 10 and 11, were basically a defensive mechanism designed to block out his dark and broody side by being all Manic And Wacky. Running around and hamming it up loudly enough to block out his own thoughts. With 12, the resolution of the biggest part of his war guilt — the fall of Gallifrey — means that he’s finally able to drop the pretense and look that side of himself in the face again. He can look at his other mistakes, the ones that are smaller and more manageable, and maybe turn those around the way he did with Gallifrey. While he failed in this particular episode (which I think is important to show is possible), I think that his current darkness is, if anything, a sign of progress toward some kind of healing for him.
@25 “Smarm each other to death” :). Yes, and also the mysteries connected to Amy and to Clara. And Donna, ultimately. Can’t he let women characters alone? All women characters don’t have to be archetypes. I haven’t seen all the classic episodes but I don’t remember there being any ongoing mystery to solve about Jo, Sarah Jane, Nyssa, Tegan, Peri, Mel, or Ace.
@25 I agree! Too many too similar femme fatales for my taste!
@13 – huh – you’re right. I had to go back and research that today. It appears that the myth started in the 70s with a few books making the assertions based on then-recently released Enigma codes, and it wasn’t refuted in full till the last 10-15 years.
Still, point stands about this Doctor stretching his moral horizons a bit compared to others, or at least not getting all weepy and emotional about it.
Re: Missy – every time I see her, I’m reminded of what I miss about the Russell T Davies (“Quel Dommage, Davros!”). His season-long (sometime multi-season long) hints about a larger arc were so subtle, sometimes, compared to Moffat. Or at least he wouldn’t hit you over the head with them until halfway thru the season. No joy with Moffat. THERE’S A CRACK IN YOUR WALL AMY! OMG THE DOCTOR’S DEAD! CLARA SURE IS IMPOSSIBLE!
Now it’s WHO’S MISSY? HUH? HUH? IS SHE IN HEAVEN OMG?
Ugh.
If you assume that the robot in episode 1 jumped from the balloon rather than the Doctor pushing him, then what he and Gretchen have in common with each other – but not with all the other dead people who weren’t rescued by Missy – is that they voluntarily died for the Doctor.
Someone needs to tell Moffatt that rarely–or ever?–are women simply archetypes. We have more depth!
But then he doesn’t need to go getting all mysterious about depth, lol.
And yes, archetypes are a shorthand way to communicate with the audience, but still . . . characters can be further developed as Robert Browning did in The Ring and the Book.
@30 – that’s impossible!
The thing is, once he gets past the mystery, I like these characters a lot better. I liked Amy and Rory as companions, especially when they were living their own lives and just traveling with the Doctor whenever he came to visit, and I’m starting to like Clara a lot more now that the whole boring mystery of her existence has been solved and she’s allowed to be an actual character. Now, if Moff can just start out with no season-long mystery tacked onto a girl, he’d be fine. (Granted, nobody will ever top Leela or Ace, but I’ve come to terms with that. Donna was pretty awesome too.)
I was glad to hear the Doctor tell people to, “Run,” as it just doesn’t feel like a Doctor Who episode if no one is running…
Funny, in all the discussion of Missy and the afterlife, I haven’t seen one mention of the previous Who’niverse depictions of the afterlife, vis a vis Torchwood. People who died and were brought back with the glove said that they found themselves in utter darkness with something scary moving in it. Brrr.
(Of course, that “something” turned out to be a rubber-suit CGI monster with a life-sucking shadow—kind of anticlimactic, really. But up until then, the idea of getting killed in the Doctor Who universe was really creepy.)
Sure, Missy could be a renegade Time Lady with a Tardis. But it’s not entirely outside the realm of possibility she’s more or less what she appears to be—some kind of creepy critter that really does reside in the afterlife. Sure, it’s a lot more likely there’s a “rational” explanation…but on the other hand, Torchwood.
@@@@@ 19 I believe The Doctor is working on equation to bring Galifrey back from “the crack in reality”.
I really enjoyed this episode, the scariest individual of the episode was “The Doctor”. My heart broke a little bit when he rebuffed Journey Blue. She seemed like a perfect companion for this incarnation.
And yes to everyone about the Mysterious Woman trope that seems to get rewritten into all of Moffet’s shows. Although I must admit, for me, River Song was such a bada** character, until…”she won’t save the universe because it would hurt her too much”…. So perhaps he should just keep the mysterious women mysterious…
I liked it. Capaldi is Good, JLC is gettin really good (or, well, her scripts are getting better). But I kept thinking “how would 11th reacted to this?”. Esxpecially in this episode, with the daleks, and soldiers dying (I seriously doubt that when the first soldier got killed by the antibodies 11th would have been able to shake it off so easily). I know, different Doctor. And it is still early in the season and the wound of missing Matt is still fresh. But i wonder if I’d ever get rid of this feeling.
I was so looking forward to this new season, new Doctor…but that was possibly the worst episode of Doctor Who I’ve ever seen, for so many reasons (and I’ve seen most old Who as well as the new Who). Very concerned going forward now… :(
@37: Of course, that makes perfect sense! He would be trying to figure out how to save Gallifrey. Great catch.
I enjoyed the episode. But I really must insist upon a small correction:
The doctor actually has been inside a Dalek before.
Continuity is important. :)
@41: But was that Dalek casing in “The Space Museum” a real one or just a replica?
Anyway, that was at least a millennium and a half ago in the Doctor’s timeline. He may have forgotten. Heck, just last week he didn’t even remember Clara, and just before that he didn’t remember how to fly the TARDIS.
Don’t worry, I don’t really have the same standards of continuity for Doctor Who that I have for other shows. (Dinosaurs have never invaded the streets of London either, neither did we put people on Mars back in the 1970s, all of which the show sort of ignores for the most part).
I only just watched “Into the Dalek” last night” and I made the video as tongue-in-cheek, when I remembered that moment from “The Space Museum.”
Maybe it’s just me, but I’d like to see an episode in which the people who knew they were fighting daleks brought some dalek-killing guns with them. If they are able to fight the daleks in space, they should be able to give their foot soldiers as much firepower as the daleks themselves have.
(Disarming their dalek captive would also have made sense, as other have pointed out.)
Other than that, I liked it.
Kudos to Moffat for giving a black character a white uncle, and drawing no attention to that. If only he could treat, say, lesbian characters the same matter-of-fact way.
@39: You’ve never seen “The Beast Below” or “Curse of the Black Spot” or “The Rings of Akhaten”? Cause, wow. This ep was a rollicking good time compared to those turdie-wurdies.
I’m lovin’ Capaldi so far (as I knew I would). And the writing is what it is as per usual. If they could only hire a professional director and editor — the high school AV guys they’re using this season just aren’t getting it done.
@44: Actually the “rebels” here did successfully blow up one or two of the invading Daleks, which is a pretty good showing compared to most Dalek-fighters. Usually those Dalekanium casings are nigh-indestructible — except in “Death to the Daleks,” of course, where the Daleks were so feeble that one of them even blew up spontaneously in a fit of guilt after letting some prisoners escape.
So, nothing about the connection between Danny Pink and Journey Blue? I don’t think we’ve seen the last of her.
@47: True, but why did they not between them have even as much firepower as Rusty? Would it have killed them to have the future equivalent on an RPG or ten?
@48: I agree. And I notice that Clara has taken a shine to a former soldier just as the Doctor has turned all anti-soldier. Presumably this will lead up to something.
I liked this episode, and I like that we’re gradually feeling out the new Doctor. One thing that did kind of bug me was the Doctor feeding the soldier that radiation tablet so he could track his remains after he’d been killed. I prefer to think of the Doctor that would never choose to view someone’s death as inevitable, and doesn’t consider any challenge to be impossible. Granted, I do think that was a deliberate choice on the writers’ part – by showing the Doctor so casually writing off someone, it feeds into the episode’s question of what makes someone good, and the (so far) season’s question of what makes the Doctor the Doctor.
So, sure, I just justified the thing I was complaining about, but it still bummed me out a bit when it happened in the episode.
-Andy
@49: Daleks are the ultimate killing machines; thus, it follows that their enemies are rarely able to match their firepower.
@52: Every weapon is a killing machine. If you can match them in space, you should be able to match them on the ground. At the very least, you should bring some heavy weapons along. By analogy: If you know you are going to be fighting tanks, you should be bringing RPGs, not just rifles.
@52: I said “the ultimate killing machines.” That means they’re better at it than anyone else. They’re not just made of steel, they’re made of Dalekanium, which is supposed to be the most durable armor substance in the universe. So, sure, the enemies are bringing the most powerful weapons they have to bear, but the Daleks still have a technological advantage over them, because nobody in the universe is as accomplished at war and destruction as the Daleks are.
More importantly, Daleks serve the story function of the ultimate killing machines, the ultimate threat. They’re not just a conventional military foe, they’re monsters, and monsters have to be nigh-indestructible or they aren’t scary enough.
“She travels with the Doctor, after all, and in this episode she watches that same Doctor trick one of the soldiers into becoming a target for Dalek antibodies. She travels with killers.”
This is a gross misrepresentation of the event. The Doctor tried to stop the soldier from drawing the antibodies by shooting the grappling gun into the Dalek. Once the soldier did this, he was doomed. The only “trick” the Doctor played was allowing the soldier and his companions to think the pill he gave him would save him from the antibodies. The soldier killed himself through his own actions.
Yes, and also the mysteries connected to Amy and to Clara. And Donna, ultimately
Donna is all on Russell Davies. It’s the one thing I won’t forgive him for, but she was not part of Moffat’s reign.
The only thing that bugged me was the Doctor being SO surprised at a good Dalek. The Dalek in Dalek was goodish, or at least not moustashe twirling evil. The one Dalek in Daleks Take Manhattan was turning good. I mean I may want to forget Daleks Take Manhattan, but the Doctor shouldn’t. And of course Oswin was a good Dalek.
I do love Capaldi and his pragmatism and not being emotional. It makes sense for a being who has lived 2000 years and watched so many die, especially watching generations live and die on the Christmas planet. It is a good demonstration of the circle of life and everything dies.
Another take on the “the Doctor doesn’t like soldiers” thing that may or may not be what they intended but works for me — the Doctor doesn’t “dislike” soldiers, but in this episode, he was judged hateful by the experts on hatred. It rattled him. He was also slapped out of his own perspective by Clara, whose moral compass points truer north than the Doctor’s, wherever he stands. The Doctor realizes that he needs someone with a viewpoint that will be contrary to his own long-standing presumptions, not someone whose job is to meet adversity with force of arms. A soldier shoots things. Maybe not callously — the Doctor did call Journey Blue brave and kind — but in the end, a soldier is not the sort of person that the Doctor needs informing his actions at this moment, because he’s too willing to pull the trigger himself. Interested to see how that plays out with Danny Pink.
@56: Excellent analysis. I think you’re dead-on.
Daleks, like many foes in the Dr. Who universe, are analogous to the Nazis, and if a modern episode features the Daleks, it most likely features the recurring trope in which the Doctor is compared to the Daleks – specifically, the writer offers the observation that given the right circumstances, the Doctor is a ruthless killer whose hate is only rivaled by that of his enemy. Upon the realization of this “fact” the Doctor is overcome with doubt, and begins to question his very being, and by the time the credits roll, the damage is done, and we leave off with the Doctor concluding that he is no better than a Nazi. What? The Doctor would not entertain this idea for a moment (especially after learning the truth abouth the War Doctor’s actions), and it isn’t a coincidence that the realization of this “fact” is always swept under the rug and left unaddressed until the next season, when the trope once again rears its pathetic head – this happens precisely because it is bad writing, which is incongruent with the Doctor’s personality, and therefore can have no meaningful resolution.
[color=rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal”>The Doctor
[color=rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal”> Sadly, it appears that the main story arc of the new series is focused on the idea of… the Doctor being no better than his enemies. Again. Seriously? I thought that the 50th anniversary episode was the end of all this self-doubting nonsense! Capaldi deserves better material, and so do we.
@58: I don’t agree that the Doctor would never entertain the idea. People who never question their own goodness are the ones most likely to turn evil. The really good people are the ones who assume nothing about their own morality, who recognize that they could go bad and therefore remain vigilant to ensure it doesn’t happen. Listen to the words of some of the most inarguably good people in human history, like Gandhi, and they’re constantly talking about how fallible and sinful they are.
The fact that the Doctor is terrified of the capacity for hate within himself is what makes him good. Because that awareness of the risk is what keeps him from succumbing to it. Does it have a resolution? No, but that’s not the point. We live in an entropic universe. Anything left untended will decay, including morality. So we have to keep questioning and doubting ourselves, have to keep working to better ourselves, or we’ll inevitably become worse. There is no resolution; it’s a neverending battle, as another great champion of good (or his narrators) put it.
@56 Good point. Notice that in one exchange, he refers to Clara as his “carer,” someone who gives him an example of empathy. At this point, he needs a civilian’s example, not a soldier’s. He has done the soldier thing once too often, and the events of the Day of the Doctor, followed by his years on Trenzilore, have brought that all back to him.
@60: Well, it was Clara who described herself as his carer — which is the British term for a caregiver, someone who tends to a person with a physical or mental ailment. So she was snidely suggesting that the Doctor was not entirely sane or well and needed her to keep an eye on him. The Doctor then said “That’s it — She cares so I don’t have to.” Which could be taken to mean “She feels compassion for others so I don’t have to,” but I suppose it could also mean “She cares about propriety/what other people think so I don’t have to.” But at the time, he seemed to be dismissing the idea of using her as an example for his own behavior, seeing her rather as a compensator for his uncaring behavior. But perhaps by the end of the episode, he’d gained more appreciation for her importance as a check on his own behavior.
@58; 59 – Hey! The site truncated my post! Luckily I emailed it to myself. The conclusion (hopefully):
The Doctor seeks to preserve life, and defends the universe from his enemies, who only seek destruction, profit, enslavement, or the elimination of individuality – he stands for life and beauty, and is rightly brought to anger by those who wish to replace it with darkness and pain. He does not tolerate intimidation, and he does not apologize for foiling the plans of his enemies, who surely anticipated casualties as a result of their mad ambitions, thusly putting their deaths on their own hands. No one regrets destroying the Nazis, because there was no grey area in the confrontation with them – there was only evil, and the will to put an end to it. Granted, dropping atom bombs on Japan was both morally objectionable and an avoidable atrocity, but the Doctor has proven time and time again that he is not capable of any such analogous atrocities, and any fan of the show automatically knows which side of that situation the Doctor would fall on. His motivations and actions are morally sound and cannot be misconstrued, and the day the writers decide that it’s time for the Doctor to become evil is the day the series ceases to serve its purpose. There is only one man for the job – the Doctor knows he is that man, and that conviction is the unshakable core of his identity, so for god’s sake stop trying to shake it – this idea, essentially a Nazi Doctor, isn’t interesting, believable, clever, or well conceived. Classic Who episodes correctly place these faults onto supporting characters whose inevitable comeuppances serve as a valuable morality play, and as a commentary on the human condition – that’s the whole point of the show! The Doctor is simply the brilliant lens we view it through. Yet, it appears that the main story arc of the new series is focused on the idea of… the Doctor being no better than his enemies. I thought that the 50th anniversary episode was the end of all this self-doubting nonsense! Capaldi deserves better material, and so do we.
@62: Nothing of what you’ve added changes my point. The show is not saying that the Doctor is no better than his enemies. It’s saying that he fears sinking to the level of his enemies, and it’s that very fear that makes him better than they are. No, he does not have an unshakeable conviction that he is in the right. You know who does have that? The Daleks. The Cybermen. The Sontarans. The Judoon. If you assume that everything you do is automatically right, then you can justify committing any atrocity. Good people question their own morality. They don’t just assume they’re better than everyone else. They recognize that they’re capable of doing wrong, and that’s what motivates them to make sure they do right.
And part of that is making sure you do things for the right reasons. The Doctor doesn’t do what he does because he thinks he’s the only man for the job; on the contrary, he’s inspired countless others to become champions in their own right. He’s just a guy who wants to help people when he sees them in trouble, and who knows he has the ability to help. And that’s the key. He does what he does, even when it’s violent, because he wants to protect the innocent. That’s why he fears the hatred he feels for the Daleks. He fears becoming someone who acts out of the desire to destroy and do harm rather than the desire to help. The Daleks are probably the only creatures in the universe that he actually does hate. And since they’re the very embodiment of hate, he fears that it means they’ve contaminated him with a part of themselves.
But again, that fear on his part is what keeps him on the side of the angels. If he ever stopped fearing that capacity for hate, then we’d be in trouble, because then he might genuinely start to give in to it.
@@@@@ 63: That’s the point – Moffat has written that fear and doubt into the character, as well as an undercurrent of guilt… for saving the entire universe from unarguably-black-and-white-pure-evil countless times? Non sequitur! Evil brings destruction on itself! Only in the eyes of his enemies could he be evil, and their opinion is irrelevant because they’re #$@@@@@$ing evil! You can take whatever message you like from it, including the usefulness of fear, but just like the 10th Doctor lamenting his own impermanent death, it’s bad writing that doesn’t belong in the Doctor’s head.
I’d say that the Doctor has been doubting the rightness of his own decisions for a lot longer than just Moffat. Look at what happened when the 4th Doctor was given the chance to destroy the Daleks before they even got started. He decided he didn’t have the right to commit genocide. (And I’ll bet he just kicked himself over that later when the Daleks waged war on the Time Lords as a result.)
@64: You’re still absolutely missing the point. Humility and self-criticism are what keep us good. The problem with our culture today is that we’ve gotten this idea that it’s somehow a horrible humiliation to admit that we could be wrong about anything and so we’re taught to avoid self-doubt and insist we’re always right about everything. But that just creates a world where people are unable to learn from their mistakes or admit it when they’re wrong or cooperate with other people who see things differently. Questioning ourselves is not an admission of failure, it’s a commitment to do better.
Self-doubt absolutely does belong in the Doctor’s head, because he’s arguably the most powerful being in the universe, and if he ever stopped taking a critical look at his own behavior, there’d be no limit to the evil he’d be capable of. We saw that in “The Waters of Mars.” When he decided he had the right to do whatever he wanted and ignore the laws of time, he almost became a monster. He almost became the Master, or the Valeyard. It was only when he was reminded of his own fallibility, his own potential to do wrong, that he brought himself back into check.
From saving the universe from a black-and-white evil at what cost?
Sometimes a black-and-white evil can still be a small evil, compared to the cost of stopping it, or stopping it completely. Even a very large evil may be small compared to the cost of stopping it.
And sometimes the cost of stopping even a very large black-and-white evil is so huge that your mourn and regret anyways, because the cost is so great.
And of course, the Doctor walks away in the end. He does not directly bear the costs of stopping evil. His question is not “is it worth my life to stop this evil?” but rather “is it worth the lives of all these other people, who may not have had control or a choice about their situation, to stop this evil?”
That’s a much harder question. Your own life is yours, to sacrifice for a cause, if you wish. The lives of others are not yours, to be written off as worth being lost for a given cause.
@@@@@ 65: Exactly – he made the right choice in not commiting genocide. He always makes the right choice because he is guided by a superior moral compass (@@@@@ 66: there’s nothing wrong in stating that – it’s a well established fact of his character). At the same time, he doesn’t brood about destroying evil when necessary, and he doesn’t apologize for it. Wrong is attempting to destroy life, right is protecting life. Simple. The viewer always knows what the Doctor will choose to do.
@@@@@ 66: If you want cautionary tales about the dangers of arrogance, power or inaction – look to other Time Lords, or the entire falllable race – that’s what they’re there for. The Doctor is perpetually deeply aware of himself, including his psychological workings – he has little use for accusations against his character because he is naturally observant of his faults and is diligent in maintaining an objective perspective! I’d be fine with the writers giving him the occasional reality check, but only for him to reaffirm his position and immediately quash the doubt – as it is, they’re trying to make moral shakiness and self-doubt a driving force of his personality! It’s not! Get it!?
In The Waters of Mars the Doctor saved a woman’s life so that she could do good for mankind, only to have her commit suicide to avoid changing the timeline. The Master wouldn’t try to save a brilliant minded do gooder, and neither would the Valeyard. Misguided as the action may have been, it wasn’t ill willed, or destructive – furthermore, a classic Who episode wouldn’t likely end with the woman commiting suicide as a commentary on the Doctor’s egomania (also, someone who was brooding about being the last Time Lord wouldn’t spontaneously turn around and revel in that fact), but then, there was a lot wrong about the writing of 10’s exit.
@68: You are still completely and utterly failing to get it. Yes, we know that the Doctor is good. But the reason he’s good is because he doesn’t take his goodness for granted. It’s only by questioning ourselves that we improve ourselves. He has a superior moral compass because he questions the rightness of his actions. If he assumed he were always right, he would have no check on his moral compass and could not tell when it went astray. “Genesis of the Daleks” proves that. He didn’t automatically know what the right choice was — he had to debate it with himself, take a good look at his own motives and thought process and question whether he was doing the right thing. Goodness is not spontaneous; it takes effort and care to achieve. (Entropy again: The reason systems tend toward disorder is that there’s only one right choice but plenty of wrong ones. So you have to take care to avoid all the wrong choices.)
Besides, we’ve known ever since 2005 that we don’t always know what the Doctor will do when it comes to the Daleks. They’re his weakness, his blind spot. They’re the only creatures he actually does hate, and thus it’s when they’re involved that he runs the most risk of losing his way and succumbing to his darker side. As Nietzsche said, when you look long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. The longer you fight evil and darkness, the more it becomes a part of you, and the easier it is to sink to using its methods. That’s why it’s so essential to be able to doubt yourself, to be alert to the risk of becoming like the evil you fight.
Also, you’re talking a lot about what a classic episode would do as if that were intrinsically superior writing. That’s not true. The classic series was generally rather more superficial in its characterizations than the modern series. It was more focused on the surface adventure and less on what was going on inside the main characters. The Doctor has been written with much more depth in the modern series.
@69: I just stated that he constantly questions himself, thus he cannot be thrown into a deep existential dillema everytime a villain questions his character, and he can’t be convinced he’s a fundamentally bad man, especially in light of the truth about the Time War. It’s bad, lazy writing. We apparently disagree on that point. Final note – superficial incongruent traits do not equal a depth of character. TARDIS-baby backwards-Time-Lord assassin astronaut wives are not a cool plot device. Doctor Who is not meant to be a cynical, post 9/11, politically apologetic soap opera for hipsters. I’ll see you in the next thread tomorrow night, and I’ll try to be more pleasant, though it is a Gatiss episode…
@@@@@ 67: Sorry, missed your post. He does ask “is it worth my life” – the doctor can die permanently, and has died in a Time Lord fashion over and over again in the course of saving everyone. He doesn’t often ask, “should I save the lives of inherently evil creatures hell bent on destruction” because said creatures have sealed their own fate by threatening existence, and any casualties they incur cannot outweigh the benefit of the continued existence of the universe. True, his choices may weigh on him, but he makes his choices selflessly, in the name of life, and there is no guilt in that.
@70: “I just stated that he constantly questions himself, thus he cannot be thrown into a deep existential dillema everytime a villain questions his character, and he can’t be convinced he’s a fundamentally bad man, especially in light of the truth about the Time War.”
I’ll concede the bolded portion, but the rest is still missing the point. First, it’s not every villain that does this to him, it’s the Daleks, because they’re the one enemy that he does hate, and that capacity for hate within himself is what frightens him. And second, he’s not convinced he’s fundamentally bad, he just fears the potential for evil within him. And the fact that he’s so afraid of that potential is why he’s so good.
@@@@@ ChristopherLBennett: We’ll see what tune everyone is singing at the end of the season, but I reckon more than a few fans will be sharing my sentiments.
You know, I hadn’t noticed till now that you authored this review. Silly me, I should watch my tone! Please accept my apology. I meant no disrespect, and in hindsight I appreciate your professional cool.
I assume you’re familiar with Jungian psychology, specifically the derivative Myers Briggs personality types – if you have a moment to read an accurate and somewhat exhaustive description of INTPs (see link) you might get a better idea of where I’m coming from with the Doctor, or, you might disagree with the classification.
While I’m still thinking about it, I might as well mention that another key difference between the Doctor and his enemies is ambition – the Doctor has none. Be seeing you.
http://www.intp.org/intprofile.html
p.s. Incidentally, Sherlock is, of course, another fictional INTP. God knows how Moffat ended up helming two such projects.
@73: No, Chris Lough authored the review.
Oh, with all of you Chrises running around who’s to tell the difference? You’re the same height. Why are you going all dark?
I finally figured out what the intro sequence reminds me of: the intro to Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Still not growing on me…
Andy@50:I prefer to think of the Doctor that would never choose to view
someone’s death as inevitable, and doesn’t consider any challenge to be
impossible.
Ten’s slide into blithe near-megalomania of the form “No challenge is impossible, so I promise to save all of you from this impossible challenge – oops, turned out I couldn’t, you’re dead now. But I’m really sorry. HTH.” did that to death, though.
If part of where Twelve is going turns out to be acknowledging that he’s not omnipotent and won’t always be able to solve absolutely everything perfectly, and exploring where you go from that realisation, that would be very interesting indeed.