From Newsgroup: rec.arts.drwho.moderated
From Address: jphalt{at}aol.com
Subject: Victory of the Dlaeks: my review

VICTORY OF THE DALEKS

1 episode. Approx. 42 minutes. Written by: Mark Gatiss. Directed by:
Andrew Gunn. Produced by: Peter Bennett.


THE PLOT

A summons from Winston Churchill (Ian McNeice) brings the Doctor to
the London blitz. It's not the blitz as he remembers it, though. The
British are fighting off the Nazis using an alien weapon of awesome
power, one the Doctor instantly recognizes. His deadliest enemy: The
Daleks!

With a Scottish scientist insisting that the Daleks are his creation,
and Churchill consumed with the hope of a quick victory, the Doctor
cannot convince anyone that these creatures are the evil aliens he
claims. He resolves to prove his case against them - and in so doing,
walks straight into the trap that's been laid for him!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Is, apparently, really quite stupid. That's the only
explanation I can come up with for his strategy to "prove" the nature
of the Daleks, which amounts to: Throw three temper tantrums, the last
of which involves beating on one with a heavy wrench. He does have a
good point about Churchill calling him in, then refusing to listen to
him. But given the way in which he behaves, I don't think I'd listen
to him either! Matt Smith remains a likable presence, but this is by
far the worst characterization the Eleventh Doctor has received to
date. It might well be the worst characterization the Doctor has
received. Yes, including Time and the Rani.

Amy: Doesn't remember the Daleks, which confuses the Doctor, given
that she would have been alive when they invaded Earth by transporting
it across the galaxy. Her lack of memory has something to do with the
crack that we keep seeing, the crack from her bedroom, and now I'm
starting to wonder if this entire season is possibly set in a parallel
universe that the Doctor either crash-landed his TARDIS into when he
regenerated, or that he accidentally slipped sideways into during his
"five-minute hop." Right now, I'm leaning in that direction, though I
suppose we'll see where this all goes soon enough. The episode itself
gives Amy relatively little character material, though Karen Gillan
invests such energy that she still comes across strongly.

The Daleks: "I am your sol-DIER!" Writer Mark Gatiss is clearly trying
to channel The Power of the Daleks here, right down to having the
Daleks pretending to be servants. Unfortunately, that set-up is
quickly abandoned in favor of bringing out a new toy Dalek production
line. I will say that I think the new Daleks look better than the
battered Time War Daleks, and I hope to see them as a formidable
presence in a genuinely good story someday. But in this story, any
sense of threat is obliterated by how persistently awful they are at
exterminating the Doctor. First the Time War Daleks stand around
chanting Dalek phrases instead of exterminating the Doctor. Then the
new Daleks emerge, announce that the Doctor must be exterminated,
announce that they know that his "self-destruct bomb" doesn't exist,
and then... stand around chanting Dalek phrases instead of
exterminating him, until he has a chance to run away. Amy's quite
right - Dalek technology is a bit slow on the uptake.


THOUGHTS

Ugh.

OK, as I said in my review of The Unquiet Dead, I have never been a
fan of Mark Gatiss' Who scripts. I've liked his work elsewhere, but
when he writes for Doctor Who, all spark of originality seems to leave
him. So I'm admittedly biased against any episode that carries the
credit, "Written by Mark Gatiss." On top of that, I've been
consistently unimpressed with the new series' Dalek stories, which
seemed to run out of ideas (or at least good ones) after the Eccleston
season. So combine one of my least favorite new series writers with
the iconic villain that the new series has, to my tastes, consistently
failed to use well, and this was probably never going to be a good
episode for me.

But Victory of the Daleks is not simply uninspired and unoriginal. My
problem with the episode is not that it's derivative (though it is).
My problem with is that it's bad. One of the few genuinely bad Who
episodes I have yet reviewed, and my new pick for World Champion Worst
Dalek Story Ever!

In addition to the Daleks' big victory being a victory of putting out
a new toy line, there's the stirring Star Wars ripoff in which
Spitfires are turned into X-wings and sent in to blow up the Death
Star. Why is this done? So that they can get the lights back off
before the Germans bomb London again. YOU'VE CONSTRUCTED FRIKKIN'
STARFIGHTERS! Let the lights stay on, and then send your new,
genuinely cool superweapon over to Berlin to blow up the city. Then
collect Germany's surrender at your leisure.

Which raises another point. The Doctor insisting on removing all the
alien technology makes sense. He wants to preserve history and its
proper course, and the last thing the mid-twentieth century needed was
a British empire with technology roughly 1,000 years ahead of the rest
of the world to enforce a brand new, worldwide reign. But Churchill
gives into that with only a bit of mild grumbling and whining.

Grumbling and whining, before giving in to the removal of weaponry
that would end the war very, very quickly? Let's take a look at what
the real Winston Churchill was facing at this point. France had
fallen, Australia was pinned down by the threat of invasion, which
meant that its forces were effectively stuck guarding Australia, while
the United States was maintaining an official neutrality. Britain very
much stood alone, with the Axis Powers at their absolute height. Never
mind the bombs falling all over the country, and then on London
itself. The real Winston Churchill would have been facing a grim
picture of the future, in which there was no certainty that there
would continue to be a future for Great Britain.

Give that guy (the real Churchill, not this episode's cartoon of him)
Spitfires capable of shooting lasers and flying into space at
incredible speeds. Then have the Doctor say, "Actually, it's a bad
idea for you to have these." I somehow think he would have told the
Doctor exactly where to stuff the shape of history before putting a
small army around the upgraded weapons with orders to shoot instruders
on sight. That's assuming he didn't just have the Doctor and Amy
confined on the spot as enemies of the Allies... which the Doctor
actually would be in this situation!

Fortunately for the Doctor, this is a cartoon Churchill. He puffs on
cigars, makes a few "KBO" cracks, and has character depth that makes
Yosemite Sam look like one of the more vivid figures in a Faulkner
novel. Ian McNeice is a good actor. It's a shame he was given a one-
dimensional cutout to play, instead of a character.

Good bits? Hmmm... Well, there's the scene in which Amy uses her
knowledge of human nature, gleaned from a career as a Kiss-o-Gram, to
talk a Dalek bomb into not exploding because it's human. Yes, it's
every bit as stupid as it sounds. But thanks in large part to Gillan's
performance, the scene actually sort of works. Maybe it's because it's
a scene involving emotion, that hints at something resembling a
character for both Amy and the bomb, that helps it to stand out from
the rest of this noisy, frenetic runaround.

But this one scene was literally the only one in the episode that I
enjoyed at all. And even it was, essentially, daft. By the labored
"ten minutes... fifteen... well, twenty" bit, I was actually kneeling
in front of my screen, praying to any deity who might listen to please
God, please just let the episode be over.


Rating: 1/10.

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