First Impressions Of A New World

Victory Of The Daleks

JUST three weeks into the new series and Steven Moffat has sent in the heavies.

The new Doctor is pitted against his fiercest enemies for the first time, and disastrously for him, the clue is in the title, he fails to stop them. It is quite easy to see that Mark Gatiss’ story is just one corner part of a jigsaw in a much bigger picture where the Daleks of the Time War are no more and a new improved, and colourful army awakes to potentially wreck havoc on the universe.

The background story set during the Second World War is dwarfed by the return of a deadly nemesis, and in the end it boils down to just two factors that have been constant throughout the whole history of Doctor Who, the Doctor and the Daleks.

The new design for the Daleks is bigger and more imposing than before, with parallels being drawn between this design and the ones Peter Cushing’s movie Doctor encountered back in the sixties. The look on the Doctor’s face as they emerge from their metal womb is one of horror and detest, and for once there is ultimately nothing he can do to stop them.

With every passing episode, Matt Smith continues to grow and grow in stature as the Doctor. As he witnesses the birth of the new Daleks and threatens them with a jammy dodger, it’s almost as if he has been facing everyone’s favourite monster for years, the perfect pitch for the Time Lord, staring into the eye stalk of an enemy he has defeated so many times before, and for the first time with his Granddaughter and two schoolteachers back on Skaro in his first incarnation, yet here is the same man standing before them, torn between their resurrection and the humans below.

Another performance that sparkles throughout is that of Ian McNeice, whose portrayal of Winston Churchill is instantly likeable, the man with which the hope of a nation devastated by war rest on his shoulders, and he carries the responsibility of the great man marvelously. A return appearance must surely be on the cards.

Some aspects of Victory are startlingly similar to the Patrick Troughton classics Power of the Daleks and The Evil of the Daleks in both concept and dialogue. The Doctor’s “the final end” quote is plucked straight from the last episode of Evil whilst the notion that the Daleks live to serve the human race is taken from the former story, and these nods to the classic series are somewhat melancholic considering both stories are now lost in the winds of time.

Once again the Doctor is left with a difficult choice, like last week dilemma in The Beast Below it holds a personal problem, destroy the thing he despises the most or save the beings he loves the most from the android puppet that is Professor Bracewell, the walking time bomb. The Daleks are always one step ahead of the Doctor and in capturing his testimony to start the restoration of the Dalek race and leaving a booby trap behind this is their greatest victory, and there is surely more to come.

The battle between the spitfires and the Dalek flying saucer is both fun and spectacular, suspending our disbelief at such an audacious concept which is genial.

The Doctor’s pain and anger in losing the to the Daleks is softened by his new friend and the fact that he saved the Earth, a fact that Amy states and she is fast becoming the friend he really needs, the missing link in his long hectic life, someone who sooths the disappointment when things do not go to plan and a human who spots the things the Doctor misses, and without that he would be lost.

So then, overall Victory serves it’s purpose in re-introducing the greatest monsters in the Doctor Who universe back as a massive threat in the cosmos once again. It was never going to be as grand or epic as recent modern classics like Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways or The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End but after watching it, that is not the way it has been written. It’s one man against a broken but strong alien menace building themselves back to glory with the old traveller helpless against the tide of inevitability. But why has Amy forgotten the Daleks? And what of the crack in the wall that is ghostly haunting the Doctor and Amy? Maybe the Weeping Angels and River Song hold the answer…  7/10