Doctor Who is back … finally! Season 7 is here and boy am I excited. We know that a lot of changes are afoot this season with the exit of Amy and Rory around mid-season and the entrance of a new companion around Christmas time. This premiere episode is called Asylum of the Daleks and was a great start to the season. Lots of action, great plot and of course wonderful acting. Here’s how it went down.
Our favorite trio started out the season apart. Right off the bat we find the Doctor talking to a woman on the desolate planet Skaro (the homeworld of the Daleks). This woman turns into a Dalek and the Doctor is captured. Back on Earth we see Amy working as a model and Rory is there to see her. Unfortunately this isn’t the happy couple we ended season six with. Their marriage is on the rocks and Rory asks her to sign divorce papers (sad). Daleks show up and capture them too.
All three of them end up in a cell on a Dalek spaceship. When Rory asks how much danger we’re in the Doctor says 11. Of course they’re in danger – they’ve been captured by homicidal cyborgs from space. The floor of their cell starts to rise and they find themselves in the parliament of the Daleks surrounded by what looks like 1000+ Daleks. Scary.
Here’s where we find out why they’ve been kidnapped. The Daleks need the Doctor’s help to save them and he needs his companions to compel him to do so. Turns out a ship crash landed on a planet that serves as the asylum of the Daleks (hence the episode name). This asylum is where the Daleks put their own which can’t be controlled. Think of Arkham (from Batman) but with killer cyborgs from out of space. They’re scared because if something can get in, then these Daleks can get out and their government doesn’t want that.
A signal is emanating from the planet and it’s a human from the crash landed ship. Her name is Oswin and she’s been living there for a year. She goes about her day saving herself from Daleks making souffles. Interesting … They need to cleanse the asylum. So then the Daleks strap them all with these protective bracelets to protect them from a nano cloud and sends them down to the surface. Their mission is to shut down the protective force field and then escape the planet.
Side note: Apparently the Daleks call the Doctor “the predator” and they know he needs companions.
The three of them don’t make it down together. Rory is sent underground. Amy and the Doctor end up on the surface and find each other with the help of a human presumably from the crashed ship. Turns out he wasn’t so human after all. He was also a Dalek. How’s that you ask? It seems that the nano cloud turns anything biological (living or dead) into a Dalek puppet. That’s why they needed the protective bracelet. Now they’re running away from zombie Daleks – ahh!!
Rory is under attack from some rusty old Daleks and he is thankfully saved by Oswin. Amy and the Doctor make their way down into the underground as well though in the process Amy’s protective bracelet is damaged. She’s starting to turn into a Dalek puppet herself. Nooooooooo! They eventually all regroup with the help of Oswin and make their way to a teleporter. Oswin says she can take the force field down but wants to get rescued first. The Doctor ultimately obliges giving Amy his bracelet to save her before he goes after Oswin alone.
Rory and Amy start to make up (after the Doctor drops a hint they should do so). Their marriage has been on the rocks because Amy is upset she cannot give Rory children since the episode at Demon’s Run. It really took its toll on her and the hardest thing she had to do was give up Rory (the centurion who waited).
In order to get to Oswin the Doctor has to face some of his old foes in the intensive care unit of the asylum. He’s viciously attacked and came very close to being killed. Oswin saved him by deleting him from the Dalek’s memory. Then he was able to open the door to find her.
Seems that Oswin isn’t quite who she claimed to be. She’s a chained up Dalek. She used to be a human but was fully converted after she crash landed. She’s been hallucinating everything. No wonder she’s been able to hack all the Dalek systems. She’s also in disbelief though ultimately understands and comes to terms with the fact that she’s a Dalek and ultimately helps them escape. She takes the force field down and they’re able to escape.
I bet she was chained up because they couldn’t control her – they couldn’t wipe out all the humanity out of her. Oswin actually said a great line of how they make a Dalek. She said “subtract love and add anger,” maybe they couldn’t take away the love or make her angry even after converting her into a full Dalek. She wondered why the Daleks hate him so much – why do they call him predator? He says that they’ve fought many many times over the years. In turn the Daleks have grown stronger in fear of him. Interesting social commentary on fear and the build up of arms. They had reason to be afraid, then the cycle just keeps going …
So they teleport off the planet right before it’s destroyed. Not before Amy and Rory made up with a deep kiss. They make their way right into the TARDIS. When the Doctor confronts the parliament they can’t remember him (thank you Oswin) and they all end up chanting “Doctor Who?” until the TARDIS disappears. Everybody is back home, the Doctor is happy they don’t remember hi and the episode ends.
I thought it was a great start to the season and I am pleased. I wonder how the Daleks not remembering him will play out this season? I think they’re going to be a part of Amy and Rory’s exit. Maybe when they go to try to find out who he is sets off a series of unfortunate events. There was something innately scary about Daleks being human puppets (the human form with Dalek parts). There’s something dark about the way a human could be like a Dalek under their skin. There was also something innately scary about being able to turn a human directly into a Dalek (not new to the Who world). However it was good to see that they couldn’t eradicate all their humanity.
Next episode has dinosaurs in space. Ooooooh. Watch Doctor Who on BBC America at 9:00PM on Saturday nights.