The Randomizer: Dalek
Mar. 21st, 2014 05:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplecatIn retrospect, I don't think I really appreciated or understood what season 1 of NuWho was trying to do. I recall thinking that the stories all seemed very simple, but on rewatching there is a lot more going on - its just not the sort of thing Doctor Who has attempted much either before or, to be brutally honest, since.
You actually don't get a lot simpler than the plot of Dalek which is, mostly, a chase sequence and not a chase that involves a great many events. However the story isn't really about the chase, or even about making Daleks scary again (which I vaguely recall being a part of the publicity at the time). The story is very much about highlighting the Doctor's emotional state, the dark place he has reached, and Rose's capacity to redeem him.
The Doctor's initial reaction to the Dalek, particularly once he realises that it can not escape is shocking, and I'm surprised that I have no memory of this at the time. The Doctor gloats, and is deliberately cruel to a defeated enemy something I don't think* we've ever seen before. Its an excellent scene, tightly directed, which very clearly sets out the Doctor's state of mind. The parallels between the Doctor and the Dalek, including the way Rose redeems both of them, then continue to be carefully drawn, with the acting and direction remaining focused on the characters. It is all, really, very good indeed.
The secondary story, of the Dalek escaping its confinement is also very well done. I think it has become tempting to say that a lone Dalek is naturally more scary than an army of Daleks and that Who has got trapped into some kind of "and yet more Daleks" arms race. But I suspect it is more accurate to observe that you can tell a story which is essentially a chamber piece (for all the scores of expendable soldiers and scientists) with a single Dalek while any story featuring an army of the things is necessarily an epic of some kind. Chamber pieces let you tell tightly focused stories which, when done well, are often more memorable and gripping than sprawling epics. I don't honestly see why Doctor Who couldn't do another lone Dalek story, so long as the forces ranged against it were underpowered enough, its just that it hasn't, so far, chosen to do so.
*In 50 years of the show I'm sure it's happened some time, but never, I suspect, quite so deliberately.
To be honest, I don't have a great deal to say about Dalek. It is very good indeed but others have noted that before me. I'm surprised that The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances beat it to the Hugo, though maybe I'll revise that opinion when I rewatch the latter. The only real revelation is the feeling that I very much under-appreciated this season of Doctor Who the first time around.
You actually don't get a lot simpler than the plot of Dalek which is, mostly, a chase sequence and not a chase that involves a great many events. However the story isn't really about the chase, or even about making Daleks scary again (which I vaguely recall being a part of the publicity at the time). The story is very much about highlighting the Doctor's emotional state, the dark place he has reached, and Rose's capacity to redeem him.
The Doctor's initial reaction to the Dalek, particularly once he realises that it can not escape is shocking, and I'm surprised that I have no memory of this at the time. The Doctor gloats, and is deliberately cruel to a defeated enemy something I don't think* we've ever seen before. Its an excellent scene, tightly directed, which very clearly sets out the Doctor's state of mind. The parallels between the Doctor and the Dalek, including the way Rose redeems both of them, then continue to be carefully drawn, with the acting and direction remaining focused on the characters. It is all, really, very good indeed.
The secondary story, of the Dalek escaping its confinement is also very well done. I think it has become tempting to say that a lone Dalek is naturally more scary than an army of Daleks and that Who has got trapped into some kind of "and yet more Daleks" arms race. But I suspect it is more accurate to observe that you can tell a story which is essentially a chamber piece (for all the scores of expendable soldiers and scientists) with a single Dalek while any story featuring an army of the things is necessarily an epic of some kind. Chamber pieces let you tell tightly focused stories which, when done well, are often more memorable and gripping than sprawling epics. I don't honestly see why Doctor Who couldn't do another lone Dalek story, so long as the forces ranged against it were underpowered enough, its just that it hasn't, so far, chosen to do so.
*In 50 years of the show I'm sure it's happened some time, but never, I suspect, quite so deliberately.
To be honest, I don't have a great deal to say about Dalek. It is very good indeed but others have noted that before me. I'm surprised that The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances beat it to the Hugo, though maybe I'll revise that opinion when I rewatch the latter. The only real revelation is the feeling that I very much under-appreciated this season of Doctor Who the first time around.
Re: More than just the capacity to redeem
Date: 2014-03-27 06:57 pm (UTC)I saw, after I'd done the friending thing, that you've linked to at least one of my
rantsreviews in the past. I suppose I ought to have remembered, but I'll claim extreme business (which is mostly the truth).It's odd, in a way, that Gwen fills this role so much less successfully (in my opinion) in Torchwood since a lot of the publicity for that show suggested she was supposed to be a humanising influence on the team.
I don't think I've thought of Gwen that way before, but it makes sense now you say it. I can certainly see that she was meant to be the viewer's "in" to Torchwood, like a Who companion. And I suppose it also makes sense to me that her characterization was less successful because Torchwood itself was so much less successful a program (Children of Earth excepted), in the sense that it never seemed to quite know what it was supposed to be from one episode to the next.
Anyway, thanks for the return; I'm looking forward to see your posts — Who-related and otherwise — on a regular basis.