TV Catch Up // Doctor Who, Series 8, Episode 2: 'Into The Dalek'
Warning: contains spoilers!
Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jenna
Coleman, Zawe Ashton, Michael Smiley, Samuel Anderson, Laura Dos Santos, Ben
Crompton
Written by: Phil Ford, Steven
Moffat
Directed by: Ben Wheatley
The Story: The Doctor journeys to the
most dangerous place in the Universe - inside a Dalek. And we’re introduced to
Coal Hill’s new maths teacher, the mysterious Danny Pink.
Here we go. A new Doctor, a new Dalek story. I have to confess
that rather than scare me senseless, Skaro’s evil tin pepperpots usually do no
more than irritate me. They may be Doctor Who’s most iconic villains,
but they’re also the most easily defeated and easily the most annoying.
It’s difficult for any Doctor Who writer to get it right
with the tin menaces. Robert Shearman did an absolutely sterling job with
Christopher Eccleston episode Dalek and a single menacing Dalek, while
Mark Gatiss’s Victory of the Daleks introduced a bunch of fairly
ludicrous M&Ms type Daleks that we’d rather not mention again.
Into The Dalek takes a new/old approach
and literally injects the Doctor, Clara and some soldiers from a rebel
spaceship into a solitary, captured Dalek who the Doctor calls Rusty.
The main theme permeating Into The Dalek is the age old question
of good and evil. The Doctor asks Clara if he is a good man and he has to face
an inherently evil creature that has apparently become good. But of course,
life is not black and white/good or evil. While Rusty waxes lyrical about
seeing “endless divine perfection” and the birth of a star, Peter Capaldi’s
Doctor continues to demonstrate the moral ambiguity we saw in his debut episode
where the viewer was left in some doubt as to whether the Half Face Man jumped
or was pushed to his death. This again has echoes of early Doctors and makes
for an incredibly unpredictable character, which can only be good for the
programme as it moves forward with this new Doctor.
The boyfriend Doctor is most definitely resigned to the annals of Who
history as his relationship with Clara becomes less of a hug-fest and more of a
joust. I was never completely sold on Clara as a companion in the Matt
Smith days, but it is becoming a joy to watch her relationship with this new
Doctor unfold. Clara here is better than she’s ever been and Coleman and
Capaldi really work brilliantly together.
Into The Dalek writer Phil Ford’s last Doctor
Who episode was David Tennant special The Waters of Mars, which gave
us an excellent portrayal of the Doctor as cold and largely unsympathetic. In Into
The Dalek we’re treated to a Doctor who is casually callous; one whose
hatred of the Daleks succeeds in reanimating Rusty’s hatred, although not with
the results you (or indeed the Doctor) would expect. Ford’s dialogue bristles
with wit and some malicious and twisted humour. The interplay between the
Doctor and Clara is great, but by my reckoning Rusty got the best lines.
Ben Wheatley takes on director duties again here and he gives us a
beautifully cinematic episode on a BBC budget. There are some hilariously naff
set pieces with the shrinking of the capsule that’s injected into Rusty and the
fantastically Adam West/Burt Ward climbing-up-a-wall scene, but there are also
some impeccably executed scenes both inside and outside the Dalek. The Doctor
emerging from the capsule into the Dalek is particularly breathtaking as are
the Dalek/human battle scenes.
Supporting cast members Zawe Ashton and Michael Smiley are great
additions to the world of Doctor Who and Zawe’s soldier Journey Blue’s
plea to the Doctor to take her with him (and his rejection of her) may be
something that plays out further in future episodes. We hope so, anyway.
And so on to Coal Hill school’s new maths teacher and former
soldier Danny Pink. Male companions in the new era of Doctor Who have a
tendency to be over-shadowed by their more charismatic girlfriends/wives. Think
Mickey’s “tin dog” and Rory before he became a kick-ass Roman. So how will
Danny Pink fare? Based on his debut here, this delightfully awkward and obviously
damaged young man is a mystery to be solved as Clara (who last week told us
that her poster boy was Marcus Aurelius) sets off in shameless pursuit of him.
Who will he turn out to be? We’re not ones for speculation or
spoilers here at SRCZ, so we’ll watch with interest as the series unfolds.
Did you know? Rusty’s shout of Death
To The Daleks! is also the title of a 1974 Jon Pertwee episode.
It’s whatshisname: Michael Smiley played drug-addled raver
Tyres O’Flaherty in Channel 4’s cult comedy, Spaced
Definitely not a boyfriend Doctor: “You’re not a young woman any more”, “You’re built like a man” and
“I’m his carer”
Music of the Week: Murray
Gold’s March of the Stormtroopers-style theme as humans and Daleks go
into battle
Best Line: You are a good
Dalek
The ‘Call My Agent’ award: goes to Ben Compton, who may not have been told that playing a soldier called Ross in Doctor Who is the equivalent of a new guy in a red shirt in Star Trek.
Words by Andrea McGure. Images (c) BBC Worldwide.
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