Phil Ford and Steven Moffat penned a tight, action-packed, adventure which bears more than a little resemblance to a computer game. It also nods back to the film that’s now probably the grandfather of Sci-Fi (Star Wars, I am looking at you) and takes Twelve into the heart of his own darkness. Peter Capaldi is brilliant (Yes, I can probably cut and paste that sentence into each and every episode meta/review from this point forth) Jenna Coleman is eminently likable (for all that I can’t help feeling this more mature Clara Oswald is a different woman to the girl she used to be) and Samuel Anderson is quite lovely as the new, or soon to be new, member of team TARDIS: Danny Pink.
A solid well-paced adventure episode. And that’s only what’s happening on the surface. Within? It’s a whole other matter.
Moffat and Ford juxtapose romantic comedy with action, and more than a dash of horror. Boy meets girl in the staff room. Boy makes an arse of himself, but somehow endears girl to him anyway. Is that on the page? Or on the screen? Anderson does play Pink as endearing. From the head-desk moment every teenage male can probably relate to (and may have actually done) to the self-deprication, he is rather lovely. Danny Pink comes across as a warm, friendly, likable and a little haunted. Here, another of Moffat's soldiers who have trudged across the dirt in Helmand. Was that a minor limp I saw in his first two scenes? Being as fine and fit as Anderson is, it's amusing to see him play someone who is supposed to be an awkward geek. Then again, geeks have inherited the Earth. Next stop the universe. And it can be said that the Doctor (and particularly Ten) is the ultimate geek-boy; so it's fitting.
What I really like about Danny Pink's introduction, and the way he meets Clara, is that it grounds us back into the real world. Thank you Coal Hill School, and the nod back to the original 1963 series. School takes up so much of a child's life that it's almost its own universe, or microcosm. For many it's a prison they're trapped in, from first bell to last. Thus, it's the ultimate wish-fulfilment to imagine you could step into the school stationary cupboard, behind a shiny red door, and find a blue double-doorway to everywhere and every-when.
Next stop the universe.
I could mention the ham-fisted subtext here; subtext about school being a place of learning and learning opening up new worlds to pupils, but I shall back away from that one sharpish. There's enough of it in Clara's dialogue, in her remembrance of how anti-bodies work and how brains carry electric impulses, as she crawls over Dalek brain synapses. Yes, those moments did seem clunky to me. I assume children who've learnt such things in biology were thrilled to play along and shout the answer out at the TV screen.
"Brilliant idea for a movie. Terrible idea for a proctologist." The movie, of course was "Fantastic Voyage" later novelised by Isaac Asimov, so the Science Fiction pedigree is well established going in. But I can’t help feeling that the non romantic comedy portion of this episode nods as much to Joseph Conrad, as it does to Asimov or Lucas. There’s darkness in the heart of Timelord, and Dalek. As Conrad writes "We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness."
Clara, the Doctor, and the troops supporting them, move into the carapace of the Dalek through a sea of blue. A forcefield, or membrane, of gorgeous CGI. When their hands reach forth through what looks like a gaseous expanse of blue, the stunningly beautiful visual heightens the sense that these characters are entering a nightmare world. Its a very dream-like scene which reinforces the look Twelve casts down at the Dalek, as the capsule they're in inches closer, muttering under his breath. His reaction, and eye-roll, a lovely juxtaposition to Clara who is all wonder and enthusiasm.
It's telling both visually and symbolically that the forcefield around the inside of the carapace of the Dalek is as blue as the TARDIS. Why? Well, firstly because the episode is about opposites. And secondly, because it's about similarities. We meet a male soldier named Pink, and a female soldier named Blue. Two solider's both meet a teacher, and only one will become a companion. A being considered the height of evil, who only brings forth death and destruction, finds its own moral conscience because it sees the birth of a star. Destruction itself thus destroyed, or altered by the act of creation. And, a being who prides himself on having a universe-sized moral conscience, realises that conscience and sense of self isn't as inviolate as he believed.
The nightmare and the battlefield are both within and without; the real battle taking place inside the mind - the Dalek's and the Doctor's. When the Doctor first looks upon the later named 'Rusty', captured and tortured by humans who were trying to dismantle what they thought was an inorganic robot, his is a look of horror. But it’s nothing to the look on his face, later in the episode, when he’s forced (by Rusty) to acknowledge the horror lurking in his own subconscious: the hatred in his own heart.
And the mirroring continues.
'Rusty' exterminates the Daleks as they board what was once a hospital ship, and is now a battlecruiser. It's then implied he'll return to his kind, a trojan horse, or virus in their midst. Or, maybe, Rusty is simply a rebel figure in the mould of the Doctor himself. For hasn't the Doctor long been considered a rebel amongst his people? I really like the way Capaldi, Moffat, and Twelve are drawing the narrative back to the classic series. There's a lovely sense of cohesion and history coming through. Fitting in the Fiftieth year celebrations. I am, of course, referring to Twelve telling Rusty that his sense of purpose was shaped after he went to Skaro, and first met the Daleks.
The nods to Star Wars in this are, most noticeably, the fight sequence in space at the top of the episode and the fact that they hide in the feeding pit (belly) of the Dalek. It's a scene which immediately calls to mind Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie and that garbage compacter. Where Star Wars had attack droids, here we have anti-bodies, that happen to look rather like attack droids. And the self-sacrifice which saves the day and enables our heroes to escape? No wise man Magician/Jedi/TimeLord here. Instead, just a brave soldier who wants her death to count for something. That moment, when Gretchen steps into the line of fire and is disintegrated, it really, really, encapsualtes the futility of war, for me. The battle within Rusty is won, but the war continues, in space (with the retreating Dalek fleet) and, it is implied within both the Doctor, and Rusty.
I adore the juxtapostion of the next shot though, the way they intercut from Gretchen screaming to her realisation that she still has consciousness, and a sense of self. She's been transported to an elegant tea room. She's been saved. And we're back in a Matrix, or on another level in a computer game. Gretchen dies and is saved, it is implied, by Missy. I can't help but wonder if Missy is the Master. Or if Missy is some form of consciousness akin to Cal, and the database in the Library.
With each life saved, each pawn if you will captured on a chess board we cannot as yet see, the writers sprinkle teasing hints of things to come.... I hope.
From the start of his episode the futility of war and the fact that young lives are the ones most often lost, is made very, very, clear. Journey's brother dies. Danny Pink sheds a tear and so strongly implies (by his silence and some damn fine acting from Anderson) he's seen collateral damage, first hand. It has to be this series' theme. For although the Doctor's companions aren't soldiers (not yet for this regeneration, anyway) he leads them into battle more often than not. He does make soldiers of them. Yes, Rory the Roman I am looking at you. Plot-arc-wise it cannot be coincidence that the Doctor saves a soldier and rejects her as companion when we know he'll soon accept another soldier aboard the TARDIS. Moffat's writing (and the TARDIS helmic regulator being what it is) I won't be at all surprised if/when the Doctor changes his mind and travels back ask Journey Blue to "Run!" Does Twelve run?
Originally I thought Clara would follow in Jo Grant's footsteps. Now, I'm not so sure.
Zawe Ashton was good from the first moment the TARDIS rematerialised around her. I loved her incredulous surprise when she realised the Doctor wanted her to stop waving a gun and ask nicely. Blue seems to tick all the companion boxes, for all the Doctor's current prejudice against soldiers. And, given her name - Journey - how can we have seen the last of her?
NuWho viewers may have been shocked, or appalled, that the Doctor lies and manipulates the first solider, to his death. Personally, I rather like that frisson of darkness and danger coming to the fore - again. It calls to mind Rory's passionate speech in The Vampires of Venice where he tells the Doctor "You have no idea how dangerous you make people to themselves, when you're around."
And, talking of older or Classic Who; Danny Pink reminds me of the little I know of Harry Sullivan. A Surgeon-Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, he travelled with Four and Sarah Jane Smith. Though, to be fair, I wonder if Pink reminds me of Harry because I can't shake the sense that Jenna Coleman is playing a lesser version of Sarah-Jane here. What was it the Doctor said to her? Do a clever thing? Clara is brilliant, thoughout. Yes, for slapping the Doctor out of his sulk and blinkered prejudice, but also for guiding the younger viewers through the body of the Dalek and the body of the episode. Plus, she saves the day by switching on the dormant memory in the Dalek Cortex vault.
Are the costume department trying to tell us something with the shirt Jenna wore? Covered as it was in eyes? Or is it pure coincidence Clara 'sees' Pink's possibilities, and the fact that Rusty may be more than just evil?
In terms of linearity, I can't help but wonder if the Doctor was gone a lot longer than three weeks, between this episode and the last. In coming back, in needing Clara, I hear resonances to his time with the Ponds. I wonder if he isn't travelling back to an earlier time, after he's already lost Clara. That would imply he knows why she's smiling, even if Clara herself doesn't yet know. Twelve seems far more prickly than he did last week. The Doctor does get that way when he travels alone.
As regards the Daleks, war, and conquest I admit to being confused about the Timewar. If Gallifrey is in a pocket universe, do I assume the Dalek destruction, at Arcadia (each battalion by the other) wasn't genocide? Is Journey Blue somewhen, fighting a battle in the Timewar?
There are some wonderful acting moments in this, thanks to Peter Capaldi. The slightly operatic delivery on the wonders of the universe wasn't one of them. I rather felt he missed a note there, or went an octave too high. His silent horror at the end of the episode was phenomenally well acted though. And, while younger viewers may not have realised the depth of Twelve's sorrow, I thought that brief brush of his hand at the corner of his eye as he leant on the TARDIS console was exquisite. Here is a TimeLord devastated by what he saw reflected back at him, in a Dalek's mind's eye.
Into the Dalek is a solid, fun, episode with a dark poignant centre. And, it stands up well on re-watch, though the less said about the massive continuity error of sliming all your actors and then have them appear, clean, dry and unmarred, the better.
From the next episode's trailer, I'd say we're heading for more light-hearted, pantomime fare. And I'd also say we get a chance to see Capaldi's Twelve buckle his swash.