Doctor Who Season 7: Episode 1 - Asylum of the Daleks (SPOILERS)

Brendan Stepladder

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The new girl was awesome, Ironically, I was hoping (hoping, not thought) that Amy was going to be the one morphed into a Dalek. Very nice twist with the Dalek-girl.

Still, Amy and Rory are going to have to learn to be Amy and Rory again. This pisses me off to no end. Why, you apathetically muse? Because that means A) ANOTHER season of Amy, and B) MORE GODDAMN SEXUAL TENSION. I AM SICK OF THE GODDAMN SEXUAL TENSION. RAAAAAAAAGGGGGEEEEE!
 

Innegativeion

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Feb 18, 2011
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It was an alright episode. Not amazing. Not terrible.

Good:

-New girl was good
-Twist makes sense in hindsight but isn't blatantly obvious, though not extremely subtle either
-Good episode concept
-Some clever and humorous dialogue

Bad:

-Daleks forgetting the doctor. Isn't the universe already supposed to think he's dead? This seems like overkill. Takes away from the emotional history behind the daleks and the doctor. Detracts from their characters.
-Oswin being able to hack the non-insane Daleks is utter bullshit. The Daleks are overconfident but not stupid. If they have an asylum they acknowledge they are fallible. If they acknowledge that, they would not allow peons uninhibited access to the whole Dalek memory bank.
-The Rory-Amy bit was over-emotional, considering the circumstances. I mean... like... adopt. Okay?
-Doctor's lapse in competence, regarding the mentally handicapped Daleks. It's not like he's outrun and outsmarted ELITE fully capable ones, or anything.
-Potential of "insane daleks" not fully realized

I'm not overly disappointed. The next episode looks like it has a ton of potential.
 

Encurtidos

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Flamezdudes said:
So the first episode of the new series has started, what did everyone think of it?

I personally thought it was quite good, although I was expecting the girl to be the new companion for later on so erm... THAT was a surprise.

The drama between Rory and Amy I felt was kinda forced however, just because she couldn't have a child she kicked him out? What.

Also kinda sucks the Daleks no longer remember the Doctor... I want them to be angry at him!
I agree, it was a really good episode, its definately shaping up to be a better series then series 6 was.

Amy did not kick Rory out because she could not have a child, she was giving him up. I interpeted this as - Amy was being kind to Rory and allowing him to have a family. The touch near the end where Amy says she loves Rory more was nice, it finalized their relationship with no questions left on whether or not Amy loves the Doctor.

The Daleks should always remember the Doctor as their greatest enemy, it makes the time war seem very deadly. The part with the infirmary where all the Daleks where the ones that the Doctor faced was very clever. However, the writers could think of a way to bring back old Daleks, therefore re-instating the anger the Daleks feel towards the Doctor.

However, I was disapointed that the Daleks were 'afraid' to go into the asylum. Daleks do not have feelings!! They are removed..their is no hatred or fear, they just EXTERMINATE (Thats what I have seen in the last series anyways, correct me if I'm wrong)

All in all - I loved it!! I really miss Doctor Who when its not in season and this just enforced my inner geek!! :D
 

DionysusSnoopy

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james0192 said:
Main question is how are they going to bring Oswin back? as I'm fairly sure that Jenna-Louise Coleman is confirmed to play the new companion. It either be solved by the fact that she plays a different character or, you know, Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey stuff!
Yea she is playing the new companion starting christmas special and her characters name is Clara Oswin according to the the Mirror. http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/doctor-whos-new-companion-character-1263595

I was rather enjoying the chemistry between her and the doctor it looks like xmas special and 2013 episodes will be interesting.
 

JackandTom

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Y'know, I'm tired of the people on The Escapist living in the past. David Tennant is gone and he's not coming back. Asylum of Daleks was great, and I was prepared to be disappointed. I always seem comments like "It used to be better" or "It's going down hill", and not just with Doctor Who. The Escapist community doesn't seem to like anything new. It was a good episode and I seriously doubt anyone saw the twist coming.

Anyway, I liked it. It was awesome.
 

CommanderL

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JackandTom said:
Y'know, I'm tired of the people on The Escapist living in the past. David Tennant is gone and he's not coming back. Asylum of Daleks was great, and I was prepared to be disappointed. I always seem comments like "It used to be better" or "It's going down hill", and not just with Doctor Who. The Escapist community doesn't seem to like anything new. It was a good episode and I seriously doubt anyone saw the twist coming.

Anyway, I liked it. It was awesome.
Your the first person to bring up tennat I love mat smiths stuff but this episode was a disappointment The amy and rory stuff was just thrown in
 

Encurtidos

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CommanderL said:
JackandTom said:
Y'know, I'm tired of the people on The Escapist living in the past. David Tennant is gone and he's not coming back. Asylum of Daleks was great, and I was prepared to be disappointed. I always seem comments like "It used to be better" or "It's going down hill", and not just with Doctor Who. The Escapist community doesn't seem to like anything new. It was a good episode and I seriously doubt anyone saw the twist coming.

Anyway, I liked it. It was awesome.
Your the first person to bring up tennat I love mat smiths stuff but this episode was a disappointment The amy and rory stuff was just thrown in

I agree with JackandTom, it was a good episode! People are just analysing and finding the faults because they can't just sit down and enjoy television anymore. However, many have been critisizing Matt Smith in other threads on the Escapist web sites, but yes, its the nature of the show..move on!!
 

Loop Stricken

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JackandTom said:
Y'know, I'm tired of the people on The Escapist living in the past. David Tennant is gone and he's not coming back.
You... you fiend. Q_Q

Eh, episode was alright. Don't like daleks though.
 

Innegativeion

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Feb 18, 2011
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Now that I think about it, erasing the daleks' memories was EXTREMELY pointless. Painfully so.

The beauty of Doctor Who is, if a writer happens to not like that the daleks forgot the Doctor, the writer can simply have the Doctor encounter daleks from the future with a NEW eternity's worth reasons to hate him (because of COURSE he's going to give them new reasons), or daleks from before ms. dalek erased their memories.

The daleks are a time-traversing race after all, so any given group of daleks could be from any given moment of time ever. In fact, it's more likely for the doctor to encounter daleks that still remember him, given that the dalek race extends (theoretically) for eternity into their relative future, and the Doctor will remind them that they hate him (theoretically) an infinite number of times.

I honestly can't possibly conceive of why this plot point was introduced at the last minute, other than to make the escape seem more dramatic than it was. Oh... I, answered my own question. Not that it ruined the decent episode or anything. It just... sticks out so much egh...
 

Berithil

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Mar 19, 2009
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Meh, it was alright. I hate that they keep bringing up the whole love subplot. That part at the end of Closing Time made me cringe. Also, I don't like it that they removed the Doctor from the Daleks memories. They've been enemies since, what, the very second serial? And they just need to get rid of Amy and Rory, and preferably River Song. River Song had potential to be an interesting character in season 4, but now she's just a huge Mary sue.

I think Moffat needs to just stick with individual stories. He had some of the best episodes in RTD's run (Girl in the Fireplace, Blink), though hopefully the series will start looking up after Amy and Rory leave, and the Doctor gets his new companion
 

gigastar

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Sep 13, 2010
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Baron von Blitztank said:
Now onto my barrage of questions:
Challenge accepted.

How did these Daleks survive the Time War?
As with all the Daleks (outside of the Cult of Scara) so far in the series, when the Doctor set off his doomsday device not all of the Daleks were in the instant kill radius. The survivors rebiult, but did it tentatively as to avoid the risk of attracting the Doctor's attention again.

How did the Daleks capture Amy/Rory onto their ship from Earth? (Sure they were KO'd but someone would have seen the ship)
Teleporters, cloaking devices. Daleks may be warriors but they sure know how to be subtle. Especially since the Doctor's doomsday device.

Why were the Daleks afraid of entering the Asylum?
As mentioned in the episode, Daleks treat hatred like art, art which they would like to keep if possible. For regular Daleks to go down would run the risk of stirring up the hornets nest and resulting in them destroying thousands of pieces of "art".

Not to mention alot of the Daleks on that plannet were still armed, pretty much making it a war of attrition.

Why were the Daleks in the Asylum still in their armour?
Cheaper than biulding a whole new life support platform for the sole purpose of containing insane individuals and a method to transfer them. I would think.

How did Dalek-Oswin still think she was human?
Oswin's conversion occured completely under automated supervision, so its probable that something went wrong because of this.

Why would a Dalek have access to deleting memories for the ENTIRE Dalek race?
The Doctor comments that she was a genius while she was still human. After she was converted she then had access to the immense processing power available to all Daleks, plus a direct link into thier hivemind.

Why create an Asylum planet if they're just going to blow it up?
Daleks see displays of hatred as art. The Asylum is pretty much a museum for keeping this art intact.

Why haven't the Daleks been shown blowing up whole planets before?
Im pretty sure they have, but then i havent seen the old series.

Either way, in the new series so far until now, blowing up plannets was either completely counter-productive or not the point of their presence there.

Why does a Dalek have access to classical music? (From EARTH nonetheless)
...Fucked if i know.

Why did The Doctor hear Oswin as a human through the intercoms despite being a Dalek?
Speaking through intercom, in this case directly from its mind thus bypassing the usual... accent associated with the Daleks.

Or could have rigged up a vocaloid to do the job for her.
 

gigastar

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Sep 13, 2010
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Sleekit said:
and if he lifts her off the ship prior to the crash or thereabouts the whole episode (in which the Daleks pull Amy and Rory back into his travels for the next 4 episodes...even though he dropped them off to keep them safe...) is thusly made null and void and the timeline becomes invalid because its her presence, as noticed by the Daleks, that kicks the whole thing of.

in doing so he returns Amy and Rory back to their life on Earth because their Dalek abduction didn't happen, saves Junior Entertainment Manager Oswin (nice lowly "no one is really going to miss you" rank there) and very possibly the rest of the good ship Alaska too and gains her as a replacement companion.

its no secret episode 5 is Amy and Rorys last episode or that it features The Weeping Angels.

[small]the only confusing thing is the fact that The Angels don't actually usually kill people...[/small]
Ill have to contest that. The series universe doesnt take kindly to attempts to rewrite time (shown during Ecclestons stint as the Doctor, Rose attempted to save her father, results in the universe basically going into meltdown) and time travellers ultimately have no effect on the space-time canon because the space-time canon accounts for thier time travelling antics.

So basically, Oswin is doomed by canon.

Also the Angels might not usually kill people, but that in no way means they cant.
 

gigastar

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Ok, im just going to answer to account for your missing lore knowledge.

Abandon4093 said:
Remeber that episode a while back when the creators said "This will be last time we see the Daleks, we're not using them agian." How many Dalek centric episodes ago was that? Because I don't watch this show religiously and I think I've seen about 5 of them.
I dont recall the writers ever saying that they would permanently put the Daleks under. In fact the entire last season was completely devoid of Daleks, and with the opening of the new season being the best Dalek story since possibly the reboot i fail to see a reason to complain.

-Too many inconsistencies regarding how the nanobotchangeamathinga worked or what it did.
The series as a whole relies on schizophrenic tech for everything from plot requirements to one-shot gags. Its hardly a surprise now.

-Why did they pluck the Doctor and the Ponds out of time when it was obviously set at a point when humans were in Space. I'm sure the Doctor would have been roaming around at that time somewhere.
If they plucked him out of wherever/whenever when he was doing something important, it would have altered the timestream and have caused the universe to go into meltdown. Yes, the universe accounts for time traveller antics and everything and if something goes wrong at any 'set event' the universe literally goes into meltdown.

-How did the Daleks get Dalkified humans on present day earth to capture the Ponds.
Likely converted from afar, and without thier knowledge. The unnamed black man on the Asylum world was Dalekified and he didnt even know it himself.

-Aren't Daleks obsessed with homoginy to the point that they eradicate slight mutations even if they're beneficial. So why would they go to the effort of converting humans and leaving them both looking and acting human.
That changed with the introduction of the latest generation of Daleks in series 5. Alot of things seem to have changed with the Daleks since then but this is the first episode that had actually demonstrated any of them.

-Why did the Doctor have a veritable break down because a few angry geriatric Daleks with no weapons decided to edge towards him at tortoise speed.
Daleks can kill with thier plungers too. Its considerably less clean than thier lasers.

But from a standalone episode point, these things made no fucking sense.
One of the reasons why the series remains popular is because it doesnt do sensible. Think about that.
 

Elgnirp100

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I saw the Oswin twist coming miles away.
The "subtracting love" thing was ridiculous.
And I really don't like how Moffat appears to be trying to retcon everything from the classic series. First the regeneration limit, now this.
Other than that it was really good.