Day 802: Into the Dalek

I mentioned yesterday about how the Capaldi era focuses more on the prospect of character interaction and character study. Whilst this impression is certainly formed after watching Deep Breath, it's with Into the Dalek that the concept really cements itself with an episode that is strikingly good, because of the way in which it deals with character.

The story is really all about the Doctor facing the prospect of a good Dalek. We go from him being sceptical about the prospect to a quiet joy as he learns more about the Dalek, and discovers that it has discovered beauty in a world of hatred. And that's quite a good concept, because the Daleks are set up to be one-dimensional villains with no care for anything that isn't Dalek. It's part of their appeal as villains; that there is absolutely no reasoning with them, they are just a destructive force of nature. It's all very interesting, but it's fairly expected that the Dalek being revealed as good would just be a defect in the Dalek's programming and it really is bad after all. In effect, then, it renders the first half hour or so of the episode a missed opportunity, presenting us with an interesting concept and then cruelly snatching it away from us before we got to know it.

But then writers Phil Ford and Steven Moffat elect to do something more interesting with it, and have the Doctor try to convince the Dalek to be good. The Doctor does this by hooking his brain up to the Dalek's, reminding him of all the beauty that the Dalek saw, everything which drives the Doctor to go forth and be a good man in the Universe. But the Dalek doesn't just see that, it also sees hatred and anger within the Doctor's mind. There's so much hatred of the Daleks impressed within the Doctor's mind that it inspires the Dalek to go forth and kill all other Daleks in the nearby vicinity, which it does in a very impressive action sequence. But beyond that, we also see heartbreak on the Doctor's face. Because he was presented with this concept of a good Dalek, and he tried to bring it back, but he got it slightly wrong. And he got it slightly wrong because of his own faults as a person, because he has so much anger and hatred within him that he tries to ignore, but he's forced to by the end of the episode.

It's an argument that's summed up by the top and tail of the episode. At the start, the Doctor asks Clara whether he's a good man. At the end, the allied Dalek tells the Doctor that he is a good Dalek. It's a subtle moment, but one that sums up much of the episode in my view. Certainly another good start to this strong series.

Day 754: The Waters of Mars

The Waters of Mars is, in my opinion, the best of the specials. It takes the character of Tennant's Doctor and pushes it to new levels, doing new and exciting things with the character that haven't really been seen in Doctor Who before. To put it simply, it takes the Tenth Doctor and turns him into a villain.

What the story does is it pushes the Doctor to the point of madness. It puts him in a scenario, much like that of The Fires of Pompeii, where everyone but him must die by the end of the adventure. And as he walks away, leaving them to their fate, he contemplates why he has to do this, particularly concerning the Laws of Time that must be obeyed at all costs. And as he hears the screaming of the crew members, he turns around and decides that he is going to save people, because the Laws of Time are his playthings to do with what he will. I think that this is perhaps because, once again, he's travelling alone, so he's got nobody looking over his shoulder. Faced with nobody to question whether what he is doing is the right thing or not, he promptly goes with what his twisted mind has decided should happen.

As can be seen in both of the clips above, we see the Doctor in a situation where we'd normally accept him as the hero. He's there, charismatically protecting people from danger and saving the day. But we don't see him as the hero, instead we see him as something that's altogether more dangerous and frightening. Whilst Murray Gold's music soars heroically to signify that the Doctor is ready to rescue people and Graeme Harper's direction continually places the Doctor against shining bright backdrops, signifying his god-like powers and acting as a call-back to The Fires of Pompeii, which featured a similar scene, we have a nice juxtaposition to represent the Doctor's darker side. Tennant's performance is altogether edgier and angrier, as he shouts his way through the dialogue, angrily breaking the very laws of nature itself because he wants to. Similarly Lindsay Duncan, who plays the base captain: Adelaide Brooke, is far more subdued, seeing what the Doctor is doing as wrong, and quietly attempting to defy him as her fellow crew members blindly obey his orders to desperately try to stay alive. Finally, whilst the script for this scene from Russell T Davies and Phil Ford has all of the usual flairs associated with a heroic action from the Doctor such as his charming way of fast talking, or a moment entirely intended to look cool (in this case, Gadget going to the TARDIS), in context it's seen as the slightly worrying thing that it is, giving a slightly worrying scene overall.

It all ends, of course, with tragedy. Adelaide commits suicide rather than allow the Doctor to bend the Laws of Time to his will, in a moment that forcefully shows that the Doctor's arrogance has gone too far this time. Facing what he has become, the Doctor opts to run away from what he knows must happen next. Because the next story is not a story for a Doctor to heroically save others. Instead, it's a story for a Doctor that deserves to die.