The Internet collectively praised Peter Capaldi’s portrayal of the Doctor last week – so much so that if you Google his name now your computer makes a little trumpet cheer and ejects a puff of glittery confetti – but the truth is we really don’t know who Twelve is yet.
And neither does the Doctor.
No surprise there. The 21st century Time Lord has suffered one Meta-Crisis but a continued existential crisis. Nine wore a leather jacket like a Time War albatross around his neck as he saved the universe. Ten knew he was a ‘no second chances’ sort of a man but never wanted to show it. Eleven was the man who had so many rules, because good men didn’t need them.
And Twelve? As the trailers have repeatedly told us, all he wants to know is if he’s a good man.
How better to prove whether you’re a good man than by facing ultimate evil, aka the Daleks (aka, Them Again?) And the result… is not what you might expect. ‘Into the Dalek’ is as much a journey into the Doctor’s soul as it is into a Dalek’s mind.
A Dalek has apparently gone good; so broken it’s benevolent. The Doctor is ordered by grumpy-faced gun-folk Zawe Ashton (Fresh Meat) and Michael Smiley (Spaced), both of whom are extremely good at being grumpy-faced gun-folk, to attend to it.
The Daleks always bring out the best and the worst in the Doctor. In their presence he is the hero and the destroyer. The man who asks ‘Have I the right?’ and then saves the day. It is no different here. But while the Daleks haven’t been scary for a long time, between the tin pots and the Time Lords it’s the more stylishly dressed of the two who is arguably the more ruthlessly utilitarian.
As one shocking moment demonstrates, you’ve not seen the Doctor this cold and caustic for decades. It keeps the episode and us on our toes. All the one-liners and unveiled insults are there, but they’re delivered solely for his own amusement.
Even Clara is a target. Lovely feisty Clara who, when she’s not being made fun of, is enjoying flirting with Danny Pink, hunky maths teacher and hunky ex-soldier haunted by his backstory. Samuel Anderson starts off strong and promises to be an excellent addition to the cast, even if the Doctor (when he meets him) may not see it that way.
Phil Ford and Steven Moffat’s script (both are credited) is spiky and fast, starting from a luscious space-set opener and narrowing down further and further into a claustrophobic finale, but lacks much in originality. It’s The Fantastic Voyage meets a Haynes Manual. It’s ‘Dalek’ and ‘Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS’ and ‘Let’s Kill Hitler’ in a ball of wibbly-wobbly ideary-weariness.
And yet, and yet… despite the recycling it’s good to see a different approach to an old enemy through plot rather than Paradigm Dalek shift. That’s a step forward.
It’s new ideas, rather than new colours, that are needed to make the Daleks scary again. Or to at least make them as scary as the Doctor.
Airs at 7.30pm on Saturday 30 August 2014 on BBC One.
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