EXTERMINATE!!

Ah yes, the inevitable Dalek episode. It was always coming. It would be like having a Star Trek series without Klingons. It just wasn’t going to happen.

It’s hard to remember a time when the Daleks hadn’t been run into the ground. After half a season of new villains, it’s kind of nice to see a familiar face. We are also treated to a few breadcrumbs about the Time War that destroyed the Time Lords.

The Dalek

I do have to admit, I was a little more thrilled at seeing the Dalek than I thought I would be. Even though the species has been retconned and run into the ground, the moment when the lights come on and the Dalek starts yelling “EXTERMINATE!!” is still incredibly exciting. The reveal was done incredibly well and this has helped this episode age pretty well.

It can be hard figuring out a good way to reintroduce an old character to audiences who may not be familiar with the source material. Seeing how genuinely terrified Eccleston looks after handily dealing with a bunch of crises over the last few episodes is one of the reasons this episode is still so effective.

I realized that nearly every Dalek episode from New Who follows the same theme of them finding a Dalek that seems to be different than the other Daleks, one that has feelings and is capable of growth. The companion tries to convince The Doctor that this one is a special, unique snowflake. The Doctor gives the Dalek a chance, only to find out he was right all along. It’s really repetitive. It’s like watching Lucy snatch away the football from Charlie Brown.

I haven’t watched any Old Who, so not certain if this repetitive theme was actually a new idea back in 2005.

The Doctor

Eccleston does a tremendous job of selling The Doctor as someone who can be genuinely menacing. He spends a lot of time in the series being cuddly and adventurous, but this episode really drives home the point that The Doctor is a powerful being who has killed people in the past. He is the sole survivor of a war that wiped out two races of people, one of which was his own. The first few episodes sell him as the lonely god, the last of his kind. This is the episode where you realize that he is the one responsible for him being the last of his kind. His confrontation with the other last member of a wiped-out species is incredibly tragic.

On one hand, you can point to him and say that he made choices. He pulled the trigger that wiped out two species and he survived. What does he have to complain about?

It’s incredibly difficult to make the hard choice and to live with its consequences.

The Doctor’s interaction with the Dalek force him to process and deal with something he’s been running from since “The End of the World.” He doesn’t want to think about how he is responsible for a mass genocide. He wants to heal and explore. He didn’t want to be put in the position of destroying his own people. He wants to forget. This theme is explored in much greater detail during the 50th anniversary special, but it’s bones are established here, in this episode.

Facing uncomfortable reality.

The scenes watching him torture the helpless and ridiculous looking Dalek are kind of disturbing. We’re used to this idea that The Doctor saves people and does impossible things. Watching him sink to a level of torturing a helpless creature and enjoying it is terrible.

I am actually interested in how many times The Doctor does terrible things. I know he’s done many over the course of the new series, but every time we encounter one it’s always disturbing.

On some level we expect The Doctor to be better than us. He’s not a human. He has lived for a thousand years. We expect him to be above all of our petty, meaningless concerns, to be more than we are. Watching him behave like a beast who enjoys tormenting the Dalek is terrible, not just because the act itself is terrible, but because the person doing it should be beyond such behaviors.

Adam Mitchell

We’re going to get into him a little more in the next episode, just wanted to mention that we are going to see him again.

Henry Van Statten

It’s nice seeing what the British think about Americans, but all things considered, if the Daleks were real I could totally see some asshole one percenter being the person who collects extra terrestrial artifacts.

Conclusion

This was an important episode in that it brought an iconic villain back to the Whoverse. I guess I didn’t have as strong of a reaction as I thought I might all things considered. The episode was good, but its impact has been blunted over the years by seeing the same Dalek story over and over again. Supposedly this Dalek and The Doctor are the last of their kind, yet the Daleks keep coming back over and over again. Why is it that the Daleks can keep coming back over and over again, yet the Timelords are irretrievably lost in time and space and meaning? Hell, we found out a year ago that they are still out there and not a peep about them in the current season. Well, except for The Master, but let’s not get into his own problems right now…

Up next, we have “The Long Game,” in which we find out what happens when The Doctor picks up someone who isn’t really meant to be a companion.