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[threemonkeys]

It was the first leaders debate of the election campaign last night. So at work, what did everybody want to discuss - why the latest Dr Who episode. Last night was the Dalek episode with the Christopher Eccleston Doctor. Since I have deliberately avoided all the spoilers and downloaded episodes, it was new for me too.

The feeling was astonishing in its unanimity. Great rendition of the Dalek - just an excellent job of envoking the menace and power. The stuff with the sucker and the stairs was a nice homage to all the jokes about them over the years.

But everybody also agreed that the whole resolution with the last Dalek/Kaled getting emotion just didn't work at all. Daleks are supposed to be the ultimate evil - implacable in their desire to wipe out all enemies. They do not just wimp out, get emotions and destroy themselves.. That is just messing with the fabric of the universe. Rose Tyler may just possibly be the coolest companion ever but even she does not have the power to subvert a Dalek. It just ain't right.

OK, I'm done ranting.

Comments

[cricketk.livejournal.com]

*grins*

Strangely, I thought the episode was in large part about Rose. She transforms/destroys the Dalek - what effect is she having/will she have on the Doctor? Especially given that they've taken such pains to identify the Doctor with the Dalek in this episode.

I loved that the touch of her hand renewed and ultimately destroyed the Dalek, particularly with the insta-hand-holding of the Doctor and Rose. The first time I saw it, I was uttely convinced that they were foreshadowing the Doctor's transformation/destruction at Rose's hand.

So for me, this episode really worked. The Dalek getting emotion wasn't, to me, an important thing about Daleks. It was an important thing about the relationship between Rose and the Doctor.

I can't wait until you've seen the whole series!

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Nice analysis - I suspect you are really onto something there.

The thing is for me is that Daleks are really deeply ingrained in my psyche - its a total gut reaction. I am old enough to remember and be scared by the very first Hartnell Dalek episodes when I was a kid. I have grown up and grown middle aged with a series of completely evil Dalek stories - I just can't help reacting this way. The work colleagues I have been discussing it with are a similar age to me (i.e. a bunch of old codgers).

I am really looking forward to the rest of the series a lot but I am going to keep pacing it one week at a time - I think I get more out of it that way.

[cricketk.livejournal.com]

I think I'd have the same feeling if Vulcans decided that the logic-thing wasn't really doing it for them anymore.

After episode 9, I couldn't wait and downloaded the entire series in a rush.

I'm definitely getting more out of watching the new Battlestar Galactica one episode per week. It's so lovely to have the anticipation of what's coming, to try and second-guess the writers, to see if where I think they're leading is where they're intending to go. BSG is totally blowing my mind - they're not really going in unexpected directions (yet), but the execution is so clean. They stick a knife into me every week and I love it.

Every time I think that they have to slacken the pace, they up it somehow. I'm glad I can't get it any faster than once a week. Watching it is physically exhausting for me, I'm so keyed up about the characters.

/rant about unrelated TV show.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

*Remembers to pre-order BSG series 1 DVDs*

(combined Miniseries + S1 set due for release on 20th sept)

[darthsappho.livejournal.com]

But the Dalek agrees with you that it's supposed to be the ultimate evil; it considers a Dalek with a conscience to be so abhorent that it must be destroyed even if that Dalek is itself. It's not a case of wimping out, but of being psychotically obsessed with racial purity. Absorbing some random stranger's time-active biodata is a rather risky thing to do at the best of times, but the Dalek was desperate.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Very good point. I'm getting used to the idea now that my initial gut reaction to a Dalek with emotions is fading.

My acceptance is also helped by remembering a Hartnell episode (possibly now lost) where the Daleks capture the Doctor and force him to produce "the human essence" which is used to infect 3 daleks. All part of a plot to find "the dalek essence" and infect humans.