The Doctor, Susan, Barbara and Ian arrive on the planet Skaro, where war has been raging between the Thal and the Daleks for 500 years.
The Doc helps Winston Churchill defeat Power Ranger Daleks with a Jammie Dodger
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The Eleventh Doctor and now ready-for-anything companion Amy Pond rock up in blitzed London with nary an eyelid batted.
Welcomed into the secret cabinet war rooms by the Badass of Blenheim, Winston Churchill, Doc is introduced to the latest invention by paisley professor Edwin Bracewell.
Uncannily familiar in design, the Ironsides stand to turn the war in Churchill’s favour with their plungers of mass destruction — but at what cost?
Listen to this Doctor Who review now and hear us try to answer such questions as:
- Why was the professor so buff?
- How could they make Spitfires space-ready so quickly?
- Why would the progenitor not just squeeze out fresh Daleks all the time rather than wait for another Dalek to prove its identity?
- And more…
Why tempt us with a sneaky Dalek story then blow the tension after 12 minutes? Why do Ironside Daleks carry water canteens? Why does the Dalek spaceship look like an underground car park (did they forget to build the set?). Why would Davros’s Daleks willingly be exterminated by Skaro Daleks? Why would the new paradigm Daleks bother exterminating ‘inferior’ Daleks given that Daleks regularly use inferior species as servants? How did Bracewell build his “theoretical” gravity bubble spitfires so quickly? If it was “time to think big” why produce three measly spitfires – why not send a few frigates into space? Why didn’t Churchill just use the space spitfires to destroy the attacking Luftwaffe rather then send them against the more deadly Dalek ship? Why didn’t the Doctor just consider sacrificing London to a Luftwaffe bombing run (killing a few 1000) rather than let the Daleks escape (who could go on to kill billions!)? Why didn’t the Daleks kill the Doctor when the ‘Tardis self destruct’ was revealed to be a Jammy dodger? Why did the Doctor punch Bracewell? Why didn’t the Doctor just fly Bracewell into space during the slowest bomb countdown ever? Why didn’t the Daleks blast London with the lasers they used to blast the spitfires? Why didn’t the Daleks use the Bracewell bomb in the first place rather than lighting up London? Why did it take five people to raise a small flagpole Iwo Jima style? (Did the flagpole fall down in the night or are they erecting a new flagpole?) Why would Bracewell go off to meet Dorabella if she isn’t his real memory? Why was there a half-hearted attempt at depicting the horrors of war with an off-screen death of someone we don’t care about married to someone we don’t care about? Why didn’t I just rewatch WW2 era 7th Doctor masterpiece ‘The Curse of Fenric’, where the Doctor takes on a hoard of vampire-zombie-vikings!?
2.9/5 Jammy Dodgers.
Woah-kay have we got callbacks. This episode mirrors The Power Of The Daleks. We have the Daleks masquerading as helpful beings, the Doctor freaking out, and the same Dalek eye stalk POV. And Matt Smith plays this similar to Patrick Troughton- with a mixture of barely concealed terror, and insatiable curiosity. To this combination Smith adds a character element that will become seminal to Smith’s Doctor- namely a penchant for bluffing. Tennant did this too but, Smith cranks it up to a very poetic eleven. The scene with the jammy dodger is utterly perfect.
I like the fact that Doc makes Amy stay put when it gets dangerous. This is the right time for it- it’s too soon for Amy to really understand all the risk in accompanying her “madman with a box”.
One confusing thing was the clue we are supposed to get from the fact Amy can’t remember anything about the Daleks. We are meant to think she lost that memory. I just assumed she was another oblivious redhead. Oops.
New trope for this era:
Clap your hands if you believe in fairies!
AKA
Think you’re a human hard enough and you’ll become one!
Second new trope:
Amy is confused.
Shit is constantly happening to Amy. Shit she doesn’t understand but disregards. Amy has forgotten the Daleks. She should probably care about this, but she doesn’t. There are many instances of this coming up, so stay tuned.
Rating: Spinal Tap (because it’s just so eleven)