(Spoilers for Victory of the Daleks below.)
Victory of the Daleks is pretty great until the point where it more or less becomes complete rubbish. Around the time the Daleks accept the Doctor's testimony in fact. We start with the excellent Ian McNeice as Winston Churchill, the great "Ironsides" Dalek design, and keeping Daleks at bay with a Jammie Dodger ("I was promised tea!"). After "TESTIMONY ACCEPTED!!!", we have big fat, candy-covered Power Rangers Daleks, the somehow disappointing spitfires vs. Dalek saucer dogfight, and the Doctor leaving a massive Dalek bomb free to roam the Earth. It was all better in the trailer, wasn't it? Had the Dalek re-design been better, I think all would have been forgiven, quite frankly. After all, that's a nice moment when Amy makes professor Bracewell connect to his humanity, and the dogfight remains excellent eye candy. No, it's the promise of these Daleks' return that specifically grates. Aside from allowing taller actors to play them, and maybe the more intimidating voice, there is nothing advantageous about the new breed. They are just plain ugly. Cumbersome, colod-coded tanks that don't so much remind me of the Peter Cushing Daleks as they do the naff ones from the Dalek porno. I don't want to see them return.
As for the rest of the story, it's a silly enough romp. Good guest-stars, an initially interesting plot, and the regulars are good as ever. Bit indulgent in its patriotism. Despite the antagonists of the piece, it's a "light" episode. That is, until you consider one particular reveal that has the internet abuzz with speculation: Amy doesn't remember the Daleks (specifically the events of Doomsday - possible - and The Stolen Earth - not so easy). Why? The obvious link is to the crack(s) in spacetime that have been appearing in each episode since The Eleventh Hour. Has history been changed? Or is there more going on here? With Steven Moffat at the helm, the latter is entirely possible. Here are a couple of possibilities that come to mind...
Cracks in History: The obvious solution is that the cracks in time have somehow changed history. Erasing the attack on Canary Wharf and the Day the Earth Was Stolen has the advantage of making sense of the Who timeline, not just in terms of the Dalek Invasion of the mid-22nd century, but of the new series itself (such as when no one knew what a Dalek was in "Dalek"). On the other hand, I'm not sure fans would like it if the RTD era's key points were undone. In fact, how would that work? Does Rose fall into the parallel universe without the events of Doomsday? Does Donna ever stop traveling with the Doctor without "Journey's End"? And wouldn't the Doctor be aware of such massive distortion in his own timeline.
Amy as Catalyst: Perhaps there's something wrong with Amy herself. After all, the cracks are appearing wherever they go. It is doubtful there's a crack everywhere in space-time, and barring silly coincidence, the easiest explanation is that the TARDIS is attracted to them. EXCEPT! The one in The Beast Below formed after the TARDIS left. While we might think its travels are leaving cracks in its wake, the true common element is Amy herself. There was a crack in her room long before the TARDIS showed up. Has she been contaminated by the crack, living next to it for so long, and she's now spreading that, or is the truth crazier still? Did she somehow open the first crack? Does she have strange temporal properties that are also behind the TARDIS getting back to her at the wrong time?
Duck Pond Universe: Let's go further still, because Moffat is quite capable of it, and think of Leadworth itself. I mean, what else fell through the crack? What if, for Amy, there never was any Dalek attacks on 21st-century Earth. She's from a parallel universe to the one we watched evolve for the last 5 years and the TARDIS fell through the crack to her world. In the same way that Pete's World teetered on the edge of the apocalypse because of travel between the dimensions, is it possible that Amy's World is becoming more and more fragile, cracking like an egg wherever time travel occurs? If we've been in a parallel universe for the last three episodes, it might explain not only why Amy's never heard of the Daleks, but just who those Daleks are in Victory. How many unaccounted for Daleks are there - with a saucer no less! - at this point? And if this scenario seems to contradict the recent announcement that Doc11 would guest star in Sarah Jane Adventures, remember that no such announcement was made about Amy... a side-adventure while he was running the TARDIS in (to the moon and back by the scenic route?). Well, not sure about that, because it'll be a bit late to show him in the wrong costume. Maybe it's only Leadworth that's out of phase with the proper universe, and that's why the mail and the ducks can't get in. The inhabitants of this micro-universe are somehow oblivious (perception filtered) not to notice or something.
Timey-Wimey Finale: Then there's the possibility of Moffat revisiting each and every episode in the finale for some honest-to-goodness timey-whimey bits of business, Back to the Future Part II style (not a good pedigree, I admit). Perhaps the cracks have to be manually closed, making the characters cross their own timelines and forcing the Doctor to mindwipe Amy to keep the paradox monsters at bay. These holes in her memory might be a side-effect. Evidence? Well, there's this moment in Victory where the old guard on the roof turns to someone opening the door behind him, telling them to shut the lights off. We never see who it is. On the surface, it's just to establish the necessity for lights off during the blitz, but should we read more into that moment? Will we revisit that moment and find out the Doctor opened that door? I'll have to check if there are similar moments in the previous (and upcoming) episodes. Certainly, stuff could happen during Amy's forget button moment...
More stuff to watch out for!
Victory of the Daleks is pretty great until the point where it more or less becomes complete rubbish. Around the time the Daleks accept the Doctor's testimony in fact. We start with the excellent Ian McNeice as Winston Churchill, the great "Ironsides" Dalek design, and keeping Daleks at bay with a Jammie Dodger ("I was promised tea!"). After "TESTIMONY ACCEPTED!!!", we have big fat, candy-covered Power Rangers Daleks, the somehow disappointing spitfires vs. Dalek saucer dogfight, and the Doctor leaving a massive Dalek bomb free to roam the Earth. It was all better in the trailer, wasn't it? Had the Dalek re-design been better, I think all would have been forgiven, quite frankly. After all, that's a nice moment when Amy makes professor Bracewell connect to his humanity, and the dogfight remains excellent eye candy. No, it's the promise of these Daleks' return that specifically grates. Aside from allowing taller actors to play them, and maybe the more intimidating voice, there is nothing advantageous about the new breed. They are just plain ugly. Cumbersome, colod-coded tanks that don't so much remind me of the Peter Cushing Daleks as they do the naff ones from the Dalek porno. I don't want to see them return.
As for the rest of the story, it's a silly enough romp. Good guest-stars, an initially interesting plot, and the regulars are good as ever. Bit indulgent in its patriotism. Despite the antagonists of the piece, it's a "light" episode. That is, until you consider one particular reveal that has the internet abuzz with speculation: Amy doesn't remember the Daleks (specifically the events of Doomsday - possible - and The Stolen Earth - not so easy). Why? The obvious link is to the crack(s) in spacetime that have been appearing in each episode since The Eleventh Hour. Has history been changed? Or is there more going on here? With Steven Moffat at the helm, the latter is entirely possible. Here are a couple of possibilities that come to mind...Cracks in History: The obvious solution is that the cracks in time have somehow changed history. Erasing the attack on Canary Wharf and the Day the Earth Was Stolen has the advantage of making sense of the Who timeline, not just in terms of the Dalek Invasion of the mid-22nd century, but of the new series itself (such as when no one knew what a Dalek was in "Dalek"). On the other hand, I'm not sure fans would like it if the RTD era's key points were undone. In fact, how would that work? Does Rose fall into the parallel universe without the events of Doomsday? Does Donna ever stop traveling with the Doctor without "Journey's End"? And wouldn't the Doctor be aware of such massive distortion in his own timeline.
Amy as Catalyst: Perhaps there's something wrong with Amy herself. After all, the cracks are appearing wherever they go. It is doubtful there's a crack everywhere in space-time, and barring silly coincidence, the easiest explanation is that the TARDIS is attracted to them. EXCEPT! The one in The Beast Below formed after the TARDIS left. While we might think its travels are leaving cracks in its wake, the true common element is Amy herself. There was a crack in her room long before the TARDIS showed up. Has she been contaminated by the crack, living next to it for so long, and she's now spreading that, or is the truth crazier still? Did she somehow open the first crack? Does she have strange temporal properties that are also behind the TARDIS getting back to her at the wrong time?Duck Pond Universe: Let's go further still, because Moffat is quite capable of it, and think of Leadworth itself. I mean, what else fell through the crack? What if, for Amy, there never was any Dalek attacks on 21st-century Earth. She's from a parallel universe to the one we watched evolve for the last 5 years and the TARDIS fell through the crack to her world. In the same way that Pete's World teetered on the edge of the apocalypse because of travel between the dimensions, is it possible that Amy's World is becoming more and more fragile, cracking like an egg wherever time travel occurs? If we've been in a parallel universe for the last three episodes, it might explain not only why Amy's never heard of the Daleks, but just who those Daleks are in Victory. How many unaccounted for Daleks are there - with a saucer no less! - at this point? And if this scenario seems to contradict the recent announcement that Doc11 would guest star in Sarah Jane Adventures, remember that no such announcement was made about Amy... a side-adventure while he was running the TARDIS in (to the moon and back by the scenic route?). Well, not sure about that, because it'll be a bit late to show him in the wrong costume. Maybe it's only Leadworth that's out of phase with the proper universe, and that's why the mail and the ducks can't get in. The inhabitants of this micro-universe are somehow oblivious (perception filtered) not to notice or something.
Timey-Wimey Finale: Then there's the possibility of Moffat revisiting each and every episode in the finale for some honest-to-goodness timey-whimey bits of business, Back to the Future Part II style (not a good pedigree, I admit). Perhaps the cracks have to be manually closed, making the characters cross their own timelines and forcing the Doctor to mindwipe Amy to keep the paradox monsters at bay. These holes in her memory might be a side-effect. Evidence? Well, there's this moment in Victory where the old guard on the roof turns to someone opening the door behind him, telling them to shut the lights off. We never see who it is. On the surface, it's just to establish the necessity for lights off during the blitz, but should we read more into that moment? Will we revisit that moment and find out the Doctor opened that door? I'll have to check if there are similar moments in the previous (and upcoming) episodes. Certainly, stuff could happen during Amy's forget button moment...
More stuff to watch out for!
Comments
I guess I opened the door.
(Possibly leading into a finale that gratuitously explains UNIT dating in a single thrown-off line?)
I'm on the Amy's-the-anomaly train myself; she's got an intriguing background with her lost parents and still-unseen adoptive aunt. We've not heard more on that for SOME reason...
Well, I don't know about that. This was, what the third time in as many episodes where the Doctor shows up at his destination significantly later than he intended, with no sense of how badly he's missed the mark until it's pointed out to him. And remember that little jumpy edit toward the end of The Eleventh Hour, starting at 60:41, when he turns off the monitor. We see him looking at the screen, then reaching up to turn it off. The circle at the center of screen lights up bright blue, and then we see the Doctor, his hand still on the knob but now looking away from the screen, for 0.01 of a second, then we cut back to the bright blue circle for another hundredth of a second, then back to the Doctor, with weird electronic crackle on the soundtrack as it all happens. Clearly something happened at that moment, and the Doctor seemed to take no notice of it.
You've just reviewed pretty much every Dalek story ever, haven't you?
Have I?