Victory of the Daleks
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"Victory of the Daleks" is the third episode in the 2010 series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who. First broadcast on 17 April 2010, it is the first encounter between the Daleks and the Eleventh Doctor. It also introduces a radical re-design of the Daleks. It is the third Doctor Who episode written by Mark Gatiss who is one of only three people to have both written for and acted in Doctor Who.
Plot
The TARDIS materialises in the Cabinet War Rooms during the Second World War, one month after Winston Churchill (Ian McNeice) called for help at the end of "The Beast Below". The Doctor (Matt Smith) is greeted by the Prime Minister and recounts their past experiences. An arriving Luftwaffe squadron approaching London allows Churchill to show the Doctor his latest weapon, a high-precision energy weapon controlled by the "Ironsides", designed by Professor Edwin Bracewell (Bill Paterson), a Scottish scientist. At the Doctor's request, Churchill and Bracewell show the Doctor an Ironside, in reality a British-army-green-coloured Union Flag-wearing Dalek. Despite the Doctor's protests about the Daleks' omnicidal past, Bracewell insists that he invented them and they are docile and readily performing menial tasks such as serving tea. The Doctor tries to ask his companion Amy Pond to tell Churchill about their invasion of the Earth in "The Stolen Earth", and is visibly unnerved when Amy has no recollection of the incident.
Intent on proving the Daleks' evil, the Doctor interrogates Bracewell and learns that the Daleks were one of several futuristic inventions. In response, the Doctor repeatedly strikes a Dalek with a heavy spanner and recalls his battles with the genocidal race and finally exclaims "I am the Doctor and you are the Daleks!". The Dalek finally acknowledges this sentence prompting him to transmit this "testimony" to a Dalek ship orbiting the Earth while all the other Daleks turn hostile. Bracewell protests claiming he created the Daleks causing the latter to proclaim "No. We created you." and destroy his hand, exposing him as an android.
The Doctor runs to the TARDIS, telling Amy to stay behind as it is too dangerous. He then materialises in the Dalek ship. The Doctor pretends to be brandishing a TARDIS self-destruct control (a Jammie Dodger biscuit), so that the Daleks do not exterminate him. The Daleks reveal that one ship survived the destruction of the Dalek race in "Journey's End," and that it went after the last remaining Progenator[5] Device, a capsule containing pure Dalek DNA, from which the Dalek race could be rebuilt. The Doctor figures out that they built Professor Bracewell because the Progenator Device did not recognise them as Dalek, since these Daleks were grown from Davros's DNA. If the Daleks became part of the army, Winston Churchill would lure the Doctor in, and the Doctor would confirm them as Daleks. The Progenator accepted this as proof, because the Doctor is the Daleks' greatest enemy.
The Daleks then tell the Doctor to leave, or they will destroy London. The Doctor says they do not have that power. The Daleks then fire a ray turning all of London's lights on, making them an easy target to the incoming Luftwaffe bombers, and rendering London's blackout efforts ineffective. Then the Progenator completes its process, and creates a "new paradigm" consisting of 5 "pure" Daleks (identified as "Scientist, Strategist, Drone, Eternal and the Supreme"), larger, more imposing, and presumably more powerful than their antecedent, which disintegrate the original Daleks, who willingly offer themselves for extermination. In the Cabinet War Rooms, Amy and Churchill realise they can use Professor Bracewell to fight back against the Daleks. Stopping him from committing suicide, they convince him to help them send some modified Spitfires to the Dalek ship, equipped with Dalek laser cannons and anti-gravity technology. The Daleks discover the Doctor has not really got a self-destruct device, just as the Spitfires begin their attack. The Spitfires destroy the Dalek transmitter, assisted by the Doctor. The Daleks then tell the Doctor to stop the attack on their ship or they will destroy the Earth using an "oblivion continuum" bomb concealed inside Professor Bracewell.
The Doctor hurries back to Earth, in order to stop the detonation but leaving the Daleks to escape. He reveals the bomb inside Bracewell, realising that the only way to stop it exploding is to convince Bracewell that he is a human, not a bomb. He tries to remind the Professor of all his memories and how they hurt, but he cannot seem to stop the countdown. As the Oblivion Continuum approaches detonation, Amy steps in and asks him if he has "ever fancied someone [he] shouldn't". While dwelling on this, the countdown retreats to zero, cancelling the detonation. The Doctor immediately dashes to stop the Daleks, but he is told by the Professor that they have escaped. For a few moments, he feels that he has lost, but Amy reminds him that he saved the Earth.
After bidding farewell to Churchill and his staff, the Doctor remains puzzled that Amy did not remember the Daleks from the events portrayed in "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End". As the TARDIS dematerialises, a crack with a light shining through is seen behind the spot where it stood, as in the previous episodes of this series.
Continuity
- The Doctor comments on how he knows the Daleks and has battled them many times, including him sending them back into the Void, as seen in "Doomsday".
- The Doctor refers to the events of "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End" when talking to Amy about the Daleks, the Doctor becoming concerned when Amy does not remember these events.
- At the end of the episode, a crack is shown in the wall behind where the TARDIS had been parked. This has been a recurring theme since "The Eleventh Hour".
- The Doctor has already been to London during The Blitz. His ninth incarnation went there with Rose Tyler in Steven Moffat's two part story comprising the episodes "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances".
- The Doctor and Churchill appear to have a firmly established friendship in this episode, although the characters have not previously met on-screen. Churchill has prior knowledge of the TARDIS and the regeneration process, and is able to contact the Doctor via telephone.
- Churchill met the Sixth Doctor in the spin-off novels "Players" and "The Shadow in the Glass", while a flashback in "Players" revealed another meeting between Churchill and the Second Doctor, although Churchill never learned that the Doctors were the same person. The Sixth Doctor posed as his own son after meeting Churchill in 1899 and 1936. Churchill's meeting with the Second Doctor took place in 1915. He admitted in "Players" that he cannot shake the feeling that there is a connection between the two Doctors. Like all Doctor Who spin-off media, their relationship to the ongoing story of the television series is open to interpretation.
- The redesigned "new paradigm" Daleks debut in this episode.
Broadcast
DVD release
A Region 2 DVD and Blu-ray[6] containing this episode together with "The Eleventh Hour", "The Beast Below" and special features is planned to be available from 7 June 2010.[7]
References
- ^ Doctor Who magazine issue 420, page 10
- ^ a b Doctor Who Magazine, issue 417, 3 January 2010, "Shooting on Matt Smith's first series enters its final stages..." p.6 Cite error: The named reference "DWM417" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ Doctor Who Magazine, issue 419, 4 March 2010
- ^ "Radio Times TV Listing for 17 April 2010".
- ^ http://static.bbc.co.uk/images/ic/qe/crop/946x532//doctorwho/episodes/d11/s01/e03/art/d11s01e03_dalek_art_14.jpg BBC Artwork of Progenator
- ^ "Matt Smith - First DVD release date". Doctor Who News Page. 2 March 2010. Retrieved 17 March 2010.
- ^ "Doctor Who: Series 5, Volume 1 (DVD)". BBCShop.com. Retrieved 3 March 2010.
External links
- Victory of the Daleks on Tardis Wiki, the Doctor Who Wiki
- Victory of the Daleks at IMDb