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Victory of the Daleks

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205 – "Victory of the Daleks"
Doctor Who episode
A man standing before 5 Daleks in a bright metallic room
The Doctor looking at the five new Daleks featured in this episode immediately after their creation.
Cast
Others
Production
Directed byAndrew Gunn[2]
Written byMark Gatiss
Script editorBrian Minchin
Produced byPeter Bennett[2]
Executive producer(s)Steven Moffat
Piers Wenger
Beth Willis
Production code1.3[3]
SeriesSeries 5
Running time45 minutes [4]
First broadcast17 April 2010 (2010-04-17)[1]
Chronology
← Preceded by
"The Beast Below" 		Followed by →
"The Time of Angels"
List of episodes (2005–present)

"Victory of the Daleks" is the third episode in the 2010 series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Originally broadcast on 17 April 2010, it is the first encounter between the Daleks and the Eleventh Doctor. It also introduces radically redesigned Daleks, appearing in five different colours, and is the third Doctor Who episode written by Mark Gatiss.

Plot

The Doctor and Amy arrive in the TARDIS at the Cabinet War Rooms during The Blitz of the Second World War, one month after Winston Churchill requested the Doctor's help in the war effort. As the Doctor arrived late, Churchill turned to the scientific advances of Professor Edwin Bracewell, including robotic devices called "Ironsides" but recognized immediately by the Doctor as Daleks. The Doctor tries to understand their purpose in being on Earth at this time, but they continue to act as Bracewell's inventions, ready to serve Britain's war efforts. Angrily, the Doctor attacks the devices, shouting "I am the Doctor and you are the Daleks!" Unbeknown to the Doctor and the humans, a single Dalek ship is in orbit near the moon; upon hearing the Doctor's "testimony", the Dalek aboard uses it to activate a "Progenator[5] Device" and alerts its comrades on Earth. The Daleks reveal their intent and turn hostile, killing several guards and exposing Bracewell as an android before transmatting to their ship. The Doctor follows in the TARDIS, leaving Amy behind for her protection.

The Doctor learns that the ship escaped destruction at the moment of the collapse of the Crucible[6] after it fell through Time by accident, leaving it nearly completely drained of power. The Daleks' objective is to restart the Progenator containing pure Dalek DNA, thus recreating their race. The Doctor feigns to destroy the ship, including himself, before the Progenator completes, but the Daleks fire an energy beam at London that lights up the entire city minutes before an air raid, leaving the Doctor's allies vulnerable and creating a stalemate.

Then, five brand new, more powerful Daleks emerge from the Progenator Chamber. They disintegrate the older "inferior" models who were willing to allow this, knowing that they were not "pure" Dalek. At the same time, Amy convinces Churchill and Bracewell to use the technology know-how they have (from the Daleks) to modify three Spitfires so that they can fly in space. The pilots attack and destroy the dish on the underside of the Dalek ship that was firing the energy beam, saving London before it can be destroyed by German bombers.

The battle has claimed the lives of two of the pilots, but victory for Great Britain has been achieved. The Doctor orders the last Spitfire pilot to continue his attack and destroy the Dalek ship, hoping to rid the universe of them forever. The Daleks retaliate by triggering the "Oblivion Continuum", the power source inside Bracewell that contains an unstable wormhole that will consume the planet if released. The Doctor, torn over defeating the Daleks or saving Earth, orders the Spitfire to stop its attack and returns to Earth. With Amy's help, the Doctor is able to convince Bracewell that he is more human than machine, deactivating the device. The Daleks, having played on the Doctor's compassion for Earth, announce their victory and retreat in hyperspace. The Doctor and Amy remove all the advanced technology borrowed from the Daleks despite Churchill wanting to use it for the war, and convince Bracewell that he need not be deactivated as he helped saved the world. As they leave, the Doctor ponders why Amy had not seen the Daleks during the abduction of the Earth.

Continuity

  • 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.[7]
  • 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 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 attempts to take the Doctor's key to the TARDIS, apparently having tried this before, hoping to use the technology within it to advance Britain's war effort, and is upset when the Doctor removes the Dalek technology at the end of the episode.
    • Churchill met the Sixth Doctor in the spin-off novel Players and had a later encounter with him in 1944- set after the meeting presented here- in The Shadow in the Glass; 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 met Churchill in 1899 and 1936- posing as his own son in the second meeting-, while Churchill's meeting with the Second Doctor took place in 1915. Even when he can see no similarities between them beyond their names, Churchill admitted in a conversation with the Sixth Doctor in 1936 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.
  • Several allusions are made to the Dalek adventures of the Second Doctor, as played by Patrick Troughton (1966–1969):
    • Daleks pretending to be subservient to humans was the plot of Power of the Daleks. The Daleks declare "I am your soldier!", just as they said "I am your servant!" in the serial (The first time it is said, the Dalek hesitates on the "s", as if resisting saying "servant", due to some kind of race memory).
    • The Doctor also expresses a desire to see "the final end" of the Daleks - a direct quotation from Evil of the Daleks, when his second incarnation expresses the hope that the Daleks have finally been destroyed for good.[8] Also, the Doctor is used in a "bait-and-switch." In Evil of the Daleks the Daleks lead the Doctor to believe that they are interested in humanising themselves when what they really want is for the Doctor to isolate "the Dalek Factor." Here, they bait the Doctor into thinking they have a sinister plan for Earth when the real plan is to restore the Daleks to what they call their "pure form".

Outside references

Cast notes

Cultural references

During the climactic attack on the Dalek ship, the radio code names "Broadsword" and "Danny Boy" are used. These are the same code names used in the movie Where Eagles Dare during radio conversations between the undercover agents in Germany and their superiors in London.

Broadcast

Initial overnight figures showed that "Victory of the Daleks" was watched by 6.2 million viewers on BBC1, making it the second most watched programme of the day.[9] Final ratings for BBC1 were 7.92 million. However after consolidating ratings from BBCHD, the final figure was 8.2 million.[10] . This made the programme the fourth most watched on BBC1 for the week ending 18 April and the 11th most watched across all UK TV Channels for the same week. It was second for Saturday 17 April, behind Britain's Got Talent, which achieved 11.87 million viewers.[11]

DVD release

A Region 2 DVD and Blu-ray[12] containing this episode together with "The Eleventh Hour", "The Beast Below" and special features was released on 7 June 2010.[13]

Reception

The episode received a positive review from Daniel Martin on guardian.co.uk. Martin called it "the best [Mark] Gatiss has written for the show",[14] and praised the writer's investigation of "the idea of [the Daleks] as "man-made" war machines" for not being "as heavy-handed as you might have expected." Patrick Mulkern of the Radio Times hailed the episode as "a victory for all",[15] and praised Gatiss for the character of Professor Bracewell, commenting favourably on how the writer "turns him into an emotive robot like Star Trek's Data, and gives Bill Paterson material worthy of his status."

References

  1. ^ Doctor Who magazine issue 420, page 10
  2. ^ 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).
  3. ^ Doctor Who Magazine, issue 419, 4 March 2010
  4. ^ "Radio Times TV Listing for 17 April 2010".
  5. ^ McKinstry, Peter. "BBC concept artwork for Dalek Progenator". BBC.
  6. ^ Journey's End
  7. ^ Den of Geek - Doctor Who series 5 episode 3: Victory Of The Daleks review
  8. ^ "Doctor Who, Series 5, Victory of the Daleks". BBC. Retrieved 2010-05-02.
  9. ^ Lambert, Doug (2010-04-18). "Doctor Who: Victory of the Daleks Ratings". ATV Network Today. Retrieved 2010-05-02.
  10. ^ "Doctor Who "Victory Of The Daleks" Final Ratings". SFX. 2010-04-27. Retrieved 2010-05-02.
  11. ^ "Weekly Top 30 Programmes". BARB. 2010-04-18. Retrieved 2010-05-02.
  12. ^ "Matt Smith - First DVD release date". Doctor Who News Page. 2 March 2010. Retrieved 17 March 2010.
  13. ^ "Doctor Who: Series 5, Volume 1 (DVD)". BBCShop.com. Retrieved 3 March 2010.
  14. ^ Martin, Dan (17 April 2010). "Doctor Who: Victory of the Daleks - series 31, episode three". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 19 April 2010.
  15. ^ "Doctor Who: Victory of the Daleks". Retrieved 19 April 2010.
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