Doctor Who - "Asylum of the Daleks"

Season 7, Episode 1

“Well, this is new.”

This is, by Steven Moffat’s own admission, supposed to be a “big” season for Doctor Who, one that plays down the serialization that became so frustrating at the end of last season and instead gives us lots of “blockbuster” type hours instead. And how does one go ahead and kick of such a season? By bringing back the Daleks, of course.

If we’re being honest, I was never all that big of a fan of the Daleks, and am somewhat skeptical of the nostalgia that seems to inspire enjoyment in most Who fans. Don’t get me wrong, I found the Ninth Doctor story “Dalek” to be a pretty awesome piece of television – and having seen some of the Dalek-centric episodes of the classic Doctor Who run, I get the appeal – but my largest experience with the antagonists has been watching Russell Davies (and to a lesser extent, Moffat) figure out every conceivable way to bring back the Daleks again and again to the point that I was sick of them. I found the purposeful lack of Dalek stories last season to be a refreshing change of pace, and to serve as proof that the show could create good stories without relying on old crutches. A new bar had been set, and the only reason I could see the Daleks coming back is if the was an interesting twist on these worn-out characters.

So I was fairly intrigued when the idea of the Dalek Asylum was raised early in the episode (to say nothing of the new form of tech, the Dalek Puppet), something that seemed to promise a look at the “insane” Dalek. I couldn’t help but wonder: What’s it like when an alien with Nazi-like views of purity becomes even more insane, to the point where its own people couldn’t stomach it? Unfortunately, and quite disappointingly, this didn’t seem to be a question that the show was all that intent on answering, instead giving us Daleks that were more “broken” than insane (most, interestingly, due to their past encounters with the Doctor), something that doesn’t really pop off the screen as much as insanity might.

Well, okay, there was one exception to this fact. But that sort of depends on how you look at it. That exception comes in the form of one Seuss-ily named Oswin Oswald, a young girl turned Dalek whose true nature is kept hidden even from herself, and whose existence in the Dalek Asylum raises and interesting question. Is she there solely because she accidentally crashed landed on the Asylum planet and that meant she was stuck? Or did the Daleks keep her there because as intelligent as she was, she couldn’t get rid of her pesky humanity, and that meant that they saw her as “insane” relative to their own cold logic? Sanity may just be relative after all, and what does that say about all the other Daleks trapped down in the Asylum?

Really, I should have seen the truth of Oswin’s true nature coming from a mile away. This is not to knock Moffat’s writing for the episode, which was as fleet-footed as ever. But as with the best stories that provide a final gut-punching twist at the end, there were signs along the way – like the fact that we only ever saw Oswin from one point of view, and the increasingly, almost limitless bounds to her intelligence and hacking acumen – and coupled with Moffat’s propensity for including twists in his stories, it’s one of those things that seems so obvious in hindsight.

Yet I found myself too distracted by the fact that Oswin was played by Jenna-Louise Coleman, who was previously and widely announced to be the new companion to take the place of Amy and Rory when their characters get written out at the end of the season. It certainly seemed a bit odd for the show to introduce the character so early in the season (doing it as part of the Christmas special would have been my bet), but the pre-knowledge of the actor’s position on the show, as well as Oswin’s engaging and vivacious personality, made it appear as if the character was meant to stay. (In fact, this may have been the reason that the normally tight-lipped Moffat decided to release this bit of casting news so early, so as to make sure the usually knowledgeable Who audience was taken off-guard.)

Anyways, while the charming and ingratiating nature of Oswin was obviously there to help sell the shock of her Dalek nature, as well as to make sure that she will be welcomed by a fan base that still cares deeply for Amy and Rory, it also helps to service Moffat’s attempts to dimensionalize and humanize the Daleks. There have been many attempts since the show’s return to just this, to explore the psyche of this alien beyond their need to EXTERMINATE, to look beyond their hate, but most have fallen flat or only served to show the complex position the Daleks will wrangle themselves into in order to carry out their xenocidal mission. Here, Moffat not only managed to work in another believable emotion for the Daleks to express (fear, which we’ve seen before in regards to the Doctor), but also used Owsin to explore that complicated relationship between Dalek machinery and those that are forced to inhabit it. In Owsin’s case, we see that it’s still possible for free will to win out over machine programing (something that we’ve seen in the past with the Cybermen), and that one’s humanity can remain intact. To what end does this mean that other Daleks might break from the EXTERMINATE protocol? We don’t rightly know just yet, but this episode certainly leaves open a door to discuss that possibility later on down the line.

During all of this narrative chicanery and high-minded discussion of identity, sort of lost in the shuffle were Amy and Rory themselves, as well as their marriage problems. While this was something that was hinted at with the “Pond Life” shorts that were released online this past week, it was left to the episode to do the heavily lifting, and I put an emphasis on the word “heavy”. The show has spent much of the last two seasons showing us just how much the two love one another, that in order for them to separate, there would have to be something quite substantial for them to seek a divorce. And while Amy’s inability to conceive would be a large and understandable issue for most couples, Amy and Rory aren’t most couples, and it becomes hard to buy that that would drive such a wedge between them.

Couple that with the fact that they are back together again by the end of the hour after merely talking it out in one conversation, and it comes off as merely a manufactured bit of drama, another something to kick up brief interest in Amy and Rory’s relationship, because perhaps the writers have run out of ideas. Sure, it was neat to see it as another problem for the Doctor fix using some underhanded trickery, but we don’t really need to see the Doctor fix yet another problem to prove his omnipotence. He can kill a bunch of Daleks with a single explosion, and help one particular, confused Dalek reach an important bit of self-discovery.

Next Week: Dinosaurs! On a spaceship!

Quotes and Other Thoughts:

So, how do you think that Coleman will be coming back to the show? Through some timey-wimey travel that sees the Doctor picking her up before she crashes into the Aslysum planet? Or will she come back at a twin-sister, cousin, or some other relative of Oswin’s, as the show is wont to do?

Yeah, I thought time travel as well.

“What color?....Sorry, there weren’t any good questions left.”

“Don’t be fair to the Daleks when they’re firing me at a planet.”

“Bad combo – no sense of humor and that chin.”

“We’re all ears.” “There’s a nose joke there if anyone wants to pick that up.”