Friday, November 22, 2013

Who Review: Asylum of the Daleks

Steven Moffat has this problem. He comes up with all these great ideas, and nobody stops him, tells him to parse it down to sense-making, which is funny because that's exactly what he said was Douglas Adams's problem on the City of Death DVD.

With that in mind, I would like you to read the rest of this post in the voice of Chester A. Bum.

The Doctor meets a woman inside a statue of a Dalek! And then it turns out that she is a Dalek! And then we find that Amy and Rory are getting a divorce, because they already did a pregnancy last season and Moffat wants to keep them "interesting"! And then the Daleks abduct everyone! And then they ask the Doctor to save them!

And then we meet the girl who's going to be a companion half a season from now, half a season early! And she's making souffles! And listening to music so she can't hear the Daleks squawking at her!

And it turns out that the Daleks have an asylum where they lock up the Daleks! And the Doctor points out the obvious problem, namely that the Daleks should just EXTERMINATE any problem they come across! And the Dalek gives a response that amounts to "yup, but this is the plot so roll with it!"

So it turns out that there's this signal from the heart of the asylum! And it's the music that souffle girl is playing! And he communicates with her! She's Oswin Oswald, and her ship was crashed! And she survived against the Daleks for a year by making souffles! And when the Doctor asks a logical question the White Dalek changes the subject!

And they do that "Doctor's Name Isn't Doctor" thing that they kept doing last season! The Daleks call him The Predator! Which was a pretty good movie! So guys who look like Ser Ilyn Payne throw the Doctor, Amy and Rory into this beam of light! And the end up on the planet! And Rory falls faster than the others because frak physics! And we find a black guy working on the ship that Oswin was on! His name is Harvey!

And then a Dalek eystalk does that thing that R2-D2 did in Empire, only in snow instead of in a swamp, because why not? And it beams the music into his head! And then Oswin starts talking to him! But before she can tell him anything useful the signal cuts out again (sci-fi trope #82)!

And then they find that Rory landed on a sinkhole! And now he's way the hell underground, and slime is dripping on him, and he's surrounded by very dead Daleks!

And then the black guy - Harvey - says that they crashed two days ago, even though Oswin said they were there for a year! And when Amy mentions it, Harvey doesn't say anything! And then it turns out the entire crew is corpsified! And then it turns out that Harvey is a Dalek! And he attacks the Doctor even though the Doctor's there to help them!

So there's a security thingy in place that's exactly like the Chula thingies from Moffat's first episode, turning everything that doesn't have a wristband into a Dalek! Good thing that the Doctor, Amy and Rory all have wristbands! Except Amy gets grabbed on the wrist by the Dalek-zombies, and then we stop seeing the light on her wrist!

So the Doctor and Oswin get to talk again, and she gives him an escape route! And then while the Dalek zombies are beating down the door, the Doctor and Amy start talking about Amy's divorce! And she's very obviously not wearing her wristband anymore! And then Amy realizes that she's not wearing a wristband anymore! Hey, neither is souffle girl! I wonder what that could mean!

Meanwhile Rory's exploring the basement with all the dead and cobwebbed Daleks in it, and one of them wakes up! And Rory can't swear properly because this is family television! And the Dalek starts saying what Rory thinks is "eggs" but anybody with a brain knows that it's really saying "ex-" as in "EXTERMINATE!" And then Rory cottons on and starts backing away slowly! And then he starts running! And we see the Special Weapons Dalek from Remembrance of the Daleks! And then there's some gratuitous slow motion, and Rory escapes and gets to talk to Oswin!

The Doctor explains that Amy is going to lose her memories as she turns into a Dalek, and furthermore that she's already begun losing her memories because they've had this conversation four times! Because now Moffat's re-using the Silence's gimmick!

Oswin tells Rory to take his shirt off! She says "there doesn't have to be a reason," which sums up, well, this show! And while the Doctor talks to Oswin, Amy wanders into crazy-pants land! But the Doctor saves her and tells her that they're Daleks! Hey remember "The Time of Angels," where the aliens affected Amy's mind?! Because Moffat's recycling that too!

The Doctor finds a Dalek without a gun, who tells him that it's going to blow itself up in order to destroy the Doctor! So the Doctor tears open its head and sets it in reverse and turns it into a bomb that blows up the other Daleks!

And then the Doctor and Rory meet! And the Doctor is doing the Pieta Plagarism thing with Amy! And then the Doctor asks the question I've been asking for 20 minutes, namely, why Oswin isn't a Dalek yet, and she explains that it's because she's a genius!

So the Doctor explains that the Daleks in order are going to fry the planet the moment the Doctor drops the forcefield, but luckily he's just happened to find a teleport and he can boost the power! And his plan is to beam them to the Dalek ship! And then Oswin says she's not going to teleport them until they come and get her, because the teleport only has enough power for one long-range trip!

And because the Dalekification thing subtracts love (and not, say, "The Human Factor"), Amy needs to concentrate on love! And the Doctor plans for her to do this while she's alone in a room with a guy she's divorcing! And then they start arguing about who loves who more! And we find out that Amy's sterile because of that thing that happened last year with Melody/River! And she says she didn't kick Rory out, she gave him up so he could have kids! And then when Rory tries to put his bracelet on her, they find out that the Doctor already put his on her! (Man, Amy must have, like, no feeling in her wrist!)

So the Doctor, on his way to save Oswin, stumbles across "intensive care," where he finds Daleks that have survived certain wars! Like Spiridon, Kempel, Eridius, Vulcan and Exxilon! Hey wait, those are places they met the Doctor! Weirdly, they all look like New Daleks, even though all those places are from the Classic Series!

So the Daleks break free of their chains and start sqawking at the Doctor, and he's screaming at Oswin, to open the door, and then she assumes direct control over the Daleks! Because it turns out they have a hive mind! And Oswin makes them forget the Doctor! And the door opens! And it turns out that Oswin is dreaming! And also that she's a Dalek! And she can still remember the Doctor even though she deleted him from their memories!

And the Doctor asks where she gots the eggs and milk for the souffles, and she starts repeating "eggs" over and over again! And fool me twice, shame on me!

And then, for the first time since "Dalek," Nick Briggs gets to emote! And Oswin takes down the forcefield and tells the Doctor to leave her! And then she looks right at the camera when she tells the Doctor to run and remember her!

And Amy and Rory kiss! And the Doctor gets to them! And they wont stop kissing to push the button to save their lives so the Doctor has to do it himself! And then the Daleks destroy the asylum just like they should have done in the first place!

And then the Doctor beams himself into the TARDIS and all the Daleks have forgotten him, so they all start saying "Doctor Who?"

And then the Doctor leaves Amy and Rory at their house, and Rory gives Amy a look and she gives him a grin and he punches the air and they're obviously gonna go have sex!

This episode was really, really stupid. But also really, really fun. And I will admit: I got "eggs" = "exterminate" the first time around with Rory, and then slapped myself for not realizing that was what was going on the second time. Still, the "Amy and Rory were gonna get divorced" thing was bizarrobpants. 5 out of 10.

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