Doctor Who reviews – Series 1, Episode 6 – "Dalek"

I believe this is going to be a really difficult episode for me to review, much harder than the previous five, because it's such a challenge to keep from turning this review in a great big pile of fangirl gushing. Perhaps I'll get it over with now: OH MY GOD THAT WAS JUST BRILLIANT I LOVED IT SO MUCH.

Sorry. Moving on.

Dalek continues on with the pattern Doctor Who has revealed that every episode is different. This time was an absolute wonder; I swear that this episode is one of the best things ever written for television. It was packed with just about everything I could want out of a show: action, wit, absurdity, philosophy, intrigue, and a compelling portrayal of central characters, all packed into this perfect little packet of 45 minutes. To some degree, the show has thus far proved it can combine all of these, but until now no episode has combined all of these so successfully. Dalek is like a television cocktail of perfection. I mean, fine, yes, all right, it's not perfect, but it's very, VERY good.

The Doctor and Rose arrive at an underground alien museum in Utah in 2012, tracing a distress signal. They quickly are arrested because they are the Doctor and Rose, and meet the museum's owner, Henry Van Staten. I didn't think he was the best antagonist we've ever had as there was nothing that original or complex about him – obnoxious, greedy billionaire who just wants to add to his 'collection' to make even more money, yada yada yada. I've heard this song before. Oh, and he was American, naturally.

In his museum, Van Staten also has one live specimen, the distress signal of whom the Doctor and Rose were tracking. When he learns the Doctor knows more about aliens than he, Van Staten forces him to identify the creature. And that's when this episode takes its turn toward brilliance.

So far in the series the Doctor has been portrayed as a hero. Not a conventional hero, mind, but a hero all the same. But when he was facing the creature, God, he SCARED me. He was not the hero of this episode, he was not even a good person. The entire confrontation was just so well-written and well-acted by Christopher Eccleston that I've still got chills as I write this.

Because the creature is a Dalek.

OK, I'd heard of the Daleks before, actually, and I know they're the Doctor's greatest enemies from the classic series. They look quite silly, I'll be honest, like pepper pots with a toilet plunger and a wire whisk sticking out of them, but they were imagined in the 60s so I'll excuse it. They're kind of cute, actually.

One thing that nagged at me, however, was that the episode was called "Dalek." Meaning that as soon as the opening credits rolled, everyone (that is, all the Classic fans) knew the episode was going to feature a Dalek. Doesn't it make the whole revelation of the Dalek anticlimactic? The producers should have given it a better title.

But back to the confrontation. We get to learn a whole lot about the Time War. So the Doctor's people fought the Daleks and both sides were wiped out – because the Doctor killed them all. Blimey, that's dark. He killed them because it was the only way he knew to stop the war, and then he ran away, leaving his planet and people to burn, and that's why he's the last of his kind.

Dalek: And what of the Time Lords?

The Doctor: Dead. They burned with you. The end of the Last Great Time War. Everyone lost.

Dalek: And the coward survived.

What great writing. But this Dalek survived, too, and the Doctor's utter hatred for the creature terrifies me. He hates it just for being alive. And then he tortures it, mercilessly, mockingly saying, "Exterminate" before electrocuting it. I know he helped Mickey kill the Slitheens last episode by blowing up Downing Street, but I've never imagined him capable of this degree of violence.

Meanwhile, Rose hangs out with Van Staten's only English employee, a sweet boy genius named Adam. I don't know what to make of him yet, he seems nice enough and all, but more than a bit dull. The suggestion that he and Rose fancied each other felt a bit too obvious for my taste, from the not-so-subtle flirting to the romantic background music, and it's even more obvious since he's a companion now too. I snickered when the Doctor called him "pretty."

But who cares about Adam when there's some much better stuff going on with the Dalek? Van Staten finds out the Doctor is an alien and tortures him upstairs as he means to patent him, while another guard tortures the Dalek some more to try to get it to talk again. While this is going on, Adam shows Rose what is going on in the Dalek's cell via camera, and when she sees it being tortured, oblivious to its evil, she runs down to set things right. I honestly fell in love with Rose in this episode, she's clearly the hero and not the Doctor. Without waiting a second, as soon as she sees a creature she doesn't know being tortured, she's quick to defend it and sympathize with it. Entering the Dalek's cell, it tricks her into touching it out of her own kindness so that it can use her DNA to restore its systems and break free, to, well, exterminate. I didn't really understand why it needed her DNA, something about her being a time traveller, so I'm unclear whether the episode didn't explain this well or if I'm just thick and missed it.

Then follows the action story. The Dalek escapes, it kills a bunch of soldiers, and Rose and Adam must get to the upper levels of Van Staten's base before the Doctor seals some gates to prevent the Dalek from getting up there and killing the entire population of the world. I definitely see the appeal of the Daleks as alien villains. Because they're programmed to kill – sorry, exterminate – anything that's not a Dalek, they're incredibly deadly while also not falling under the "let's take over the earth for no bloody reason" trope.

The episode has a high body count, all Van Staten's soldiers, because the Dalek can deflect bullets and also fly. Why not? I did think these sequences could have been trimmed down a bit, especially the footage of showing the soldier's bodies after they were killed. Effective the first time, but the episode did this twice, the second time for far too long. You made your point, don't overmilk it. We got it the first time. Just a small nitpick. I really did like the plot of this episode, the countdown added some great tension and the moral questions were the centrepiece.

One of my favourite scenes – one of three that is – is the Doctor's second confrontation with the Dalek. Again, brilliant writing and performances. Seriously, if the shows goes on being this excellent, I'm definitely hooked. I want to stress again just how terrifying the Doctor is in this episode, and the morality of his character is fearlessly addressed.

The Doctor: If you want orders, follow this one: kill yourself.

Dalek: The Daleks must survive!

The Doctor: The Daleks have failed! Why don't you finish the job and make the Daleks extinct? Rid the universe of your filth! Why don't you just die?!

Dalek: You would make a good Dalek.

Stunning, unexpected, and just downright brilliant writing and acting.

But while the Doctor is having a moral dilemma, the Dalek is having an existential and identity crisis. Because with Rose's DNA it gained the concept of morality, a conscience. It's not sure it wants to kill everyone anymore. It has changed. It fails to kill Rose, and it fails to kill Van Staten. But while Rose comes to recognise this and understands it, the Doctor is too blinded by hate and prejudice to accept the fact that we now have a moral Dalek. While the Doctor is off finding a suitable gun with which to kill it, the Dalek asks Rose to feel the sunlight, and she takes it to the top level to fulfil its wish. It's here the Doctor finds Rose, with the Dalek reaching out to touch the sunlight, and again I feel the need to quote this incredible climactic scene.

Rose: It couldn't kill Van Staten and it couldn't kill me, it's changing! What about you, Doctor? What the hell are you changing into?

After this, the Dalek, unable to cope with its new identity, ideas, and conscience, kills itself. There are now no more Daleks, and the Doctor, as he later acknowledges bitterly, has won. The episode also answered a question I'd had – how does the Doctor know he's the last one? If his planet burned, could there not have been survivors of which he was unaware? It seems to me he has some sort of psychic link with his people, and he cannot sense any other Time Lords in his mind. All right, that makes sense to me.

Doctor Who dealt with some heavy themes in its sixth episode, and did it ever pay off.

Robert Shearman, take a bow.

THOUGHTS AND QUOTES

'Bad Wolf One descending.' Soo, does Bad Wolf have something to do with Van Staten and Diana? Have we not seen the last of them? (don't answer that)

Why is Rose's hair all frizzy all of a sudden? When did she have her hair done and why did the episode not mention this?

Sorry, Van Staten, but Metaltron is not the most original, creative name you could have given the Dalek.

'Better take these. The last guy that touched it, burst into flames.' 'I won't touch it, then.' The sass with which he says this line makes me love him all the more.

'What are you gonna do, plunge me to death?' Er… yep.

'Release me if you want to live.' The Doctor sounded so badass when he said this. I kind of loved it a bit too much.

So if the Dalek downloaded the entire Internet, does that mean it knows about tumblr and all the weird stuff people post on there? Has it read all the smutty fanfiction?

'Broken. Broken. Broken. Hairdryer.' So utterly random. And I laughed out loud, being me.

'Adam's been saying how his whole life, he's wanted to see the stars.' 'Well, tell him to stand outside, then.' DOCTOR BLESS YOU AND YOUR SASS. Also your ears.

EXTERMINATE!