Uh oh!

[HStorm]

One of the episode titles in the new series ends, "...Of The Daleks." Bit overused maybe?

Ah'm jus' sayin'.

[Skarkill]

mmmmmm kind of have to agree.

I could do with the Daleks taking at least a series break from the show.

[HStorm]

A-GREEEEED! And if they really have to be included every year, at least stop giving them an ... Of The Daleks title.

In fact, have you noticed that there are three great cliche titles in Dr Who; -

1. x Of The Daleks, which immediately deprives you of any shock value over who the guest villains are.

2. x Of The Cybermen. See 1.

3. x Of Death. Which just sounds so corny that it makes me wanna puke. Pity though, because some of the best stories in the history of the series had ... Of Death titles e.g. The Robots Of Death (by Chris Boucher, now there's a truly great BBC writer), and City Of Death (by Douglas Adams, no introduction required).

[DarkComet]

On the plus side, it features Anglocised Daleks in Camoflage. In an alliance with Churchill. Fighting Hitler

I'm going to reserve judgement on this one, because this is a premise that sounds fucking awesome.

[HStorm]

That title isn't just cheesey and generic, it's also a little meaningless, as this battle appears to have been a draw. Sill, seeing the Daleks mostly get thrashed all the time, I suppose holding the Doctor to a stalemate may count as a victory of sorts.

This story is somewhat likeable, but all-in-all I thought that this was all very silly. From colour-co-ordinated Daleks, to threatening the would-be world-conquerors with a jammie dodger, to yet another of those interminable "why-don't-they-just-shoot-him-instead-of-standing-around-for-ten-minutes-needlessly-explaining-their-dastardly-plans-to-him-in-intricate-detail-including-light-show-presentation-with-Microsoft-Powerpoint?" scenes, to the truly ridiculous (if spectacular) contrivance of Spitfires that can fly in outer space, the whole thing had a distinct smack of Mark Gatiss wanting to hold a Star Wars remake at Duxford airbase.

In its defence, the episode may have been just a silly as Evolution Of The Daleks was a couple of years ago, but this time at least it was a story that was clearly conscious of its own absurdity, and so never took itself too seriously. It also managed to progress itself fairly soundly. Just about. Sort of. Ish. That meant it was able to be fun without seeming self-indulgent or pointless. But it still has to be seen as a hangover from the RTD era, as it's one of those all-too-frequent episodes of NuWho that can only be enjoyed by not really thinking about what you're seeing too much. That's the motivation for Murray Gold's deafening scores; they're so loud and so overwhelming to the senses of the audience that it's very difficult to keep your brain switched on.

The performances were generally a bit iffy. To my eyes, Ian McNeice looked more like Leo McKern than Winston Churchill, and sounded even less convincing. Matt Smith's performance was his weakest so far. He wasn't helped by the very strong impression from some of the lines that the script was written for Tom Baker, and there were times when he seemed to be thrashing about trying to get hold of the personality he was meant to portray. On the plus side, I thought Karen Gillan was probably at her best here, and so it's a pity that she was a little underused; Amy's role seemed chiefly to be "Stand-next-to-Churchill-and-sound-panicky-like-a-stereotype-companion-from-a-Barry-Letts-story-a-lot".

Couldn't stand some snippets of dialogue in this. Worst ones were undoubtedly, "We're sitting ducks!" which is a cliche that belongs firmly back in 1980's cartoons where it should have died a justly-uncelebrated death, and "Oi, Churchill!" which is one of those irritating pop-culture references that I had hoped the series would get shot of now that RTD had left. Still, at least it was a whole lot subtler than Barbara Windsor's "GEH OU'A MA PUB!!!!" in Army Of Ghosts.

On a more positive note, the Daleks' plan was quite clever and well worked out, and the ending in some ways was also a plus, in that it avoided yet another re-run of almost every Dalek appearance since the revival of the series. Most of the time, the Doctor triumphs and the entire Dalek race is wiped out in one fell swoop, except just one of them manages to find a trapdoor to quietly escape through on the last page of the script, and the entire race is eventually revived from there. This time, the battle is a stalemate, and all the Daleks escape loudly, proudly and openly.

There was some interesting development of the Doctor's personality at the end too. What wasn't openly stated was that the awful dilemma he faced was one he faced before. In the Time War, the Ninth Doctor had to choose between destroying the Daleks and saving Gallifrey. On that occasion, he chose destruction. This time, with the Earth imperilled he chose mercy. His terrible anguish in the aftermath was almost certainly born, at least in part, from the rekindled memory of the war.

So underneath all of the silliness the episode has its depths, which is something Gatiss can usually just about manage. But in the end, it's the silliness that really prevails. It's just another of the many recent Dalek episodes that have been badly-contrived self-parodies.

It brings me back to the point I've been making for a while that the Daleks really need to sit out a couple of years. As no writer at present seems able to come up with a sensible idea for including them in a story, why not just leave them out? They've been in every season since the revival, and the only two worthwhile episodes they've been in during that time are Dalek and Daleks In Manhattan (and the latter was ruined by the really daft second part). I get the feeling that the only reason the series keeps bringing them back all the time is because it thinks it has to, which is not a good reason at all. Overuse is wearing out the ideas for them, while also making them less scary; when you see them every year they become too familiar to be startling anymore.

It's likeable enough that it scrapes a 6/10. But it's easily the weakest episode of the season to date.

[BBrooks]

VOTD was definetly one of the better Dalek stories since the shows return, it was a great story which had some great moments. The Daleks Masterplan to lure the Doctor to World War 2 was excellent and the plot was brilliant. But like HStorm, I did find some things to criticise.

Firstly the New Dalek Race, they look pefectly fine from the front (the living eye was super-cool) but when I saw them fully in a long-shot, they looked too Silly and Bulky (it's more room for the operators on the inside, but less scary for the viewer's on the outside).

Secondly, why wasn't anybody at the airbase shocked at what Amy was wearing, if you cast your minds back to Tooth and Claw from Series 2, Queen Victoria said something like "Please explain to me, the reason's for the nakedness of this girl" to the Doctor, about Rose's clothes.
If you were a woman in the 40's, then wearing a short skirt and low cut top would have been like walking around naked and you would have almost certainly have been arrested for Indecent Exposure, it would have been the most shocking thing at the time, but no-one seemed to mind, I guess they were to busy concentrating on the War .
I expected Winston Churchill to say "Goodness Me, my dear, cover yourself up" at some point.

And Thirdly, the Jammie Dodger scene, it was like Mark Gatiss had written that scene for David Tennant during his era but never got round to including it in one of his scripts, so he decided to dust it off and include it here. It felt like Matt Smith was doing an impression of the Tenth Doctor.

Like HStorm I would love to see a Dalek-Free season next year, as I too didn't get the thrill of seeing them again. If you're reading this Mr. Moffatt then put the Dalek's to bed for a year or two, so when they do return it'll be much bigger and more of an event. Like it should have been on Saturday. Next Week's episode looks amazing "A Weeping Angel, amongst Stone Statues". I can't wait.

[DarkComet]

"Alpha! The Doctor's escaped! Recruit a team of Daleks with attitude!"

GO GO DALEK RANGERS

[Pooka]

I predict that the BBC will make a lot of money out of selling action figures of technicolour Daleks.

I still think the sound balance is all wrong, myself. Once again I had to watch it with the subtitles on, which made the episode lose which subtlety it had left. The story didn't really go anywhere, either.

Not really an episode, in the end. More a precursor to more Dalek stories in the future. Still, if they wanted to get the Daleks back into existence they had to do it somehow. Otherwise they'd just have to not do any more Dalek episodes...

...although wasn't that the plan?

[HStorm]

wasn't that the plan?

Well if it was, they wouldn't have had any complaints from me.

[Kieran]

Given that the Daleks have actually been off screen for nearly 2 years, I imagine they have already had their break (minus a very brief moment in The Waters Of Mars, but we won't count that....will we?)

Whilst I do not expect them back this year, I wouldn't be too surprised if we saw them again come Christmas.

[DarkComet]

Since they're appearing in one of the upcoming adventure games, they'll probably NOT feature prominently in this series' ongoing story. Which works for me, since I never really saw them as "final boss of the Doctor" material.