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Original Transmission
Cast The Doctor Matt Smith
Crew Written by Mark Gatiss
Art Dept Co-ordinator Amy Pope
Plot Outline from Wikipedia The TARDIS materialises in the Cabinet War Rooms during the Second World War, one month after Winston Churchill (Ian McNeice) called for help at the end of "The Beast Below". The Doctor (Matt Smith) is greeted by the Prime Minister and recounts their past experiences. An arriving Luftwaffe squadron approaching London allows Churchill to show the Doctor his latest weapon, a high-precision energy weapon controlled by the "Ironsides", designed by Professor Edwin Bracewell (Bill Paterson), a Scottish scientist. At the Doctor's request, Churchill and Bracewell show the Doctor an Ironside, in reality a British-army-green-coloured Union Flag-wearing Dalek. Despite the Doctor's protests about the Daleks' omnicidal past, Bracewell insists that he invented them and they are docile and readily performing menial tasks such as serving tea. The Doctor tries to ask his companion Amy Pond to tell Churchill about their invasion of the Earth in "The Stolen Earth", and is visibly unnerved when Amy has no recollection of the incident.
Intent on proving the Daleks' evil, the Doctor interrogates Bracewell and learns that the Daleks were one of several futuristic inventions. In response, the Doctor repeatedly strikes a Dalek with a heavy spanner and recalls his battles with the genocidal race and finally exclaims "I am the Doctor and you are the Daleks!". The Dalek finally acknowledges this sentence prompting him to transmit this "testimony" to a Dalek ship orbiting the Earth while all the other Daleks turn hostile. Bracewell protests claiming he created the Daleks causing the latter to proclaim "No. We created you." and destroy his hand, exposing him as an android. The Doctor runs to the TARDIS, telling Amy to stay behind as it is too dangerous. He then materialises in the Dalek ship. The Doctor pretends to be brandishing a TARDIS self-destruct control (a Jammie Dodger biscuit), so that the Daleks do not exterminate him. The Daleks reveal that one ship survived the destruction of the Dalek race in "Journey's End," and that it went after the last remaining Progenator Device, a capsule containing pure Dalek DNA, from which the Dalek race could be rebuilt. The Doctor figures out that they built Professor Bracewell because the Progenator Device did not recognise them as Dalek, since these Daleks were grown from Davros' DNA. If the Daleks became part of the army, Winston Churchill would lure the Doctor in, and the Doctor would confirm them as Daleks. The Progenator accepted this as proof, because the Doctor is the Daleks' greatest enemy.
The Daleks then tell the Doctor to leave, or they will destroy London. The Doctor says they do not have that power. The Daleks then fire a ray turning all of London's lights on, making them an easy target to the incoming Luftwaffe bombers, and rendering London's blackout efforts ineffective. Then the Progenator completes its process, and creates a "new paradigm" consisting of 5 "pure" Daleks (identified as "Scientist, Strategist, Drone, Eternal and the Supreme"), larger, more imposing, and presumably more powerful than their antecedent, which disintegrate the original Daleks, who willingly offer themselves for extermination. In the Cabinet War Rooms, Amy and Churchill realise they can use Professor Bracewell to fight back against the Daleks. Stopping him from committing suicide, they convince him to help them send some modified Spitfires to the Dalek ship, equipped with Dalek laser cannons and anti-gravity technology. The Daleks discover the Doctor has not really got a self-destruct device, just as the Spitfires begin their attack. The Spitfires destroy the Dalek transmitter, assisted by the Doctor. The Daleks then tell the Doctor to stop the attack on their ship or they will destroy the Earth using an "oblivion continuum" bomb concealed inside Professor Bracewell.
The Doctor hurries back to Earth, in order to stop the detonation but leaving the Daleks to escape. He reveals the bomb inside Bracewell, realising that the only way to stop it exploding is to convince Bracewell that he is a human, not a bomb. He tries to remind the Professor of all his memories and how they hurt, but he cannot seem to stop the countdown. As the Oblivion Continuum approaches detonation, Amy steps in and asks him if he has "ever fancied someone [he] shouldn't". While dwelling on this, the countdown retreats to zero, cancelling the detonation. The Doctor immediately dashes to stop the Daleks, but he is told by the Professor that they have escaped. For a few moments, he feels that he has lost, but Amy reminds him that he saved the Earth. After bidding farewell to Churchill and his staff, the Doctor remains puzzled that Amy did not remember the Daleks from the events portrayed in "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End". As the TARDIS dematerialises, a crack with a light shining through is seen behind the spot where it stood, as in this series' previous episodes.
Analysis by Cuisle I don’t like Winston Churchill. He is far more than an amiable, slightly eccentric patriotic Englishman who led the country in its finest hour. He is also a thug, a bully, a bigot and sectarian and racist, too. Anyone with more than a basic knowledge of British history knows that. Mark Gattis obviously knows it. He said as much in the Confidential, without bringing serious, heavy political history into an inappropriate setting. He created a caricature, ably acted by Ian MacNeice, of one aspect of Churchill. And as such he is just about bearable for this one episode of Doctor Who. The war room with the big table where girls in WAAF uniforms push model planes, boats and Daleks around a map is a caricature, too. So was the scene with the spitfires. And frankly, I thought the Danny Boy to Broadsword stuff was just annoying. Everyone over the age of 20 must recognise that as being the first line of Where Eagles Dare. It got really irritating after the first time.
But once it is established that this is not a serious historical story, but a tongue in cheek homage to every war film made since 1941, it is fine. The only problem this story really had was lack of time. It could have done with the extra fifteen minutes that the first episode had. In fact, I think that could have been said of last week’s episode, too. A few more things could have been explained about the Smilers and Winders with more time. but this story needed more time. After all, it had to be Battle of Britain, Dambusters, 633 Squadron and Genesis of the Daleks in only 41 minutes. With a double episode, the apparently benign Victory Daleks making tea and sporting Union flags could have been teased out a bit more, and there might have been more of the spectacular spitfires in space, which was a cross between Dambusters and the original Star Wars. We might also have had a bit more time to sympathise with Lilian after Reg’s plane went down. Her story was never more than another homage to all those brave heroines soldiering on despite their grief in the aforementioned films.
And with more time to spare, the beautifully played scene with Bracewell and the bomb might have sat much better. In the middle of a hectic 41 minutes, the scene went on too long and slowed the pace jarringly. In a two parter there would have been time to indulge this question of whether an android can be Human inside further. Incidentally, add Blade Runner, I Robot, Pinnochio and Data from Star Trek TNG to the list of homages at this point. Of course, the ruthless new colour-coordinated Daleks will be back for the finale. That was probably the reason why this wasn’t a double episode, of course. It would give too much time to Daleks when we want to see some new stuff. Even another fifteen minutes would have been enough to make it feel less cramped. But what was achieved wasn’t bad at all. This will go down as one of the memorable Dalek stories.
It will also go down as a classic moment for The Doctor as he saves the world with a Jammie Dodger. Is this the first sign of product placement in Doctor Who, by the way, or are Jammie Dodgers completely generic, now? Either way it was brilliant. It took the Daleks a very long time to work out that the TARDIS destruct button was a biscuit. That’s the weakness of Daleks. They don’t understand the simple things of life. And it is a strength of The Doctor that he does. How many new toys will come out of this, though? Will the multicoloured Daleks come in a box set of all five, or will we have to collect them separately. If so, which one will be the rare one that costs £28.99 plus P&P from an online collector while the rest are £7.99 in Argos? Most episodes these days I find myself wondering what characters are going to end up as action figures and how much longer my Amazon wishlist is going to get!
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