Doctor Who “Into The Dalek” - Review

Here we go, adventure number 2 of Statler and Waldorf. At least it is the episode where I can talk about an actress I quite like and the fact that Zawe Ashton is very clearly not Lerona Crichlow, previously in the fantastic “Gridlock.” As for anyone that wants to complain about me crossing over two women of color in my head because they sound very similar, I will point you to “The Day of the Doctor” and the 2-parter based on Paul Cornell’s Human Nature, “Human Nature” & “Family of Blood.” Who do I cross over in those? Joanna Page and Jessica Hynes, because they are both White Women of similar builds.

I am off to a flying start here, talking about not really confusing race in an episode with the bloody Daleks at the center. Tell me, oh mighty Chris Chibnall, what will you use in your final New Year’s Special this year? Is it another set of God-forsaken, upturned bins, often called Daleks? No, I am not seething to the point of burning the armor plates right off of a Dalek’s shell, that is all lies and slander! Ok, maybe just a little as next week (or Saturday) will be the 19th episode with Daleks out of the 153 of revival Doctor Who.

In terms of percentages (yes, my brain hurts now) the Cybermen and Daleks make up about three percent of Doctor Who episodes where they were used as the villains since the revival. Doesn’t seem like much, but they beat out most villains other than the Angels and the Master. Between all four, I think we could give them all a three-year rest period. None of which is a current problem for me, instead the current issue would be the setup to Robert Shearman’s fantastic “Dalek” condensed into a four-minute cold open with a Doctor I don’t quite like just yet.

If one thing became a little more apparent with Steven Moffat as he spread himself further out with Sherlock would be the slight clumsiness of some things. I’ve previously credited his deftness with defining characters before, but with the introduction of Mr. Pink and Mr. Sec’s far-off cousin, he’s not so much using a scalpel to graft the story as he uses a hammer instead. The introduction between Clara and Danny is (if inadvertently) strikingly close in idea to Mr. Smith and Miss Smith’s first reintroduction, though that time she didn’t know it. Within the first 10-minutes of the episode, we’ve seen two things taken from other episodes by other writers.

Of course, I can’t blame Steven exclusively when “The Waters of Mars” co-writer, Phil Ford, is also credited as the writer. This is the second episode Ford has written where I find the Doctor to be completely irascible. I don’t know which one wrote it, however, Moffat signed off on it and the line “She’s my carer, she cares so I don’t have to” means both of them should be shot. I’d prefer with something like a gun the fires teddy bears. The whole point of this series is the question first raised here, “Am I a good man?” You’ve just spent 900-years on a planet protecting people when you could have left or given up many times, so yes.

I don’t even like the people I usually like in this episode. It is another one where everyone is at everyone else’s throats and no one wants to walk away from those relationships. No one wants to say “you are a horrible person, I need to step away from you so we can both figure out what we have.” The first five minutes of Danny Pink is filled with those relationships, Clara being the example of the worst. I am a horrible person, but even I can recognize when I’ve said something that maybe I shouldn’t have and I need to give that person distance and an apology. Then, if they want to, they can continue the relationship.

Not that Danny is much better, he’s used for showing the fragility of the male ego with a brute force intent: I.E. a soldier that cries about killing people and beats himself up after screwing up being asked to go for drinks. I like the idea of actually showing that men aren’t all the cocksure and that it is ok to feel that you’ve screwed up something, that you aren’t any less of a man for it. I just can’t get beyond the fact that it is being accomplished with characters that are on the edge of unlikeable. Not anti-heroes and not morally grey characters, just plain unlikeable ones.

While we’re at it, shall we get to the domestication of the TARDIS? Russell did it for a while with Rose, and Steven has done it a little more with Amy and Rory, but this is where we’re going a little bit too far. Clara’s agreement is that she’ll go on the Doctor’s adventures as long as she’s dropped off in the same moment as she left. This is practicality for your home life, yes, but also bloody stupid in every way. That’s not adventure, that is a holiday away in the sun without missing work, which is the dumbest thing on the planet. Ok, this is second dumbest next to Steven Moffat and Frank Cottrell-Boyce for “In the Forest of the Night.”

“Into the Dalek” isn’t bad but it isn’t solidifying reasons to like this Doctor, these characters, or even reasons to like the writing. It is cannibalizing the best few moments of two other episodes, taking that one episode from The Magic School Bus “Inside Ralphie” and making it about the good inside a Dalek and the hate inside the Doctor. It would have been a great idea if it weren’t for the line “You would be a good Dalek” already being used against the Doctor that was infinitely more likable than Peter is already. If anything, the majority of the episode feels like a generalized, hasty amalgamation of other, better episodes.

As I tried to make sure last week, I like Peter and I think he’s great elsewhere, even here later on. I just don’t like his Doctor as we see him here. I think, despite the rather nothing she’s given, Zawe Ashton is good. One of my favorite actors that I don’t see enough of, mostly because he’s in things like Game of Thrones, is Ben Crompton who played Colin in the surrealist comedy Ideal. Even he was a bit unlikeable, but he was supposed to be. Crompton did what a lot of people forget when they are in Doctor Who, they are in Doctor Who. We saw this with Chris Noth, he just knows he’s in Doctor Who so he camped it up, giving it everything that it needed.

Ultimately, I cannot say I liked “Into the Dalek,” when I wanted to punt half the characters in front of the line of fire for the base-under-siege section of the episode. Despite its best efforts, it is not as refreshing or defined as it wants to believe it is. Michael Smiley (alongside Ben Crompton) brought a strong performance to the table while understanding the assignment, though he was somewhat let down by limited material. Conclusively, “Into the Dalek” is a classic episode trying to cram itself into the 45-minutes of a normal episode, all while nicking some ideas of New-Who too.