- Title: Doctor Who – Dalek
- wiki: link
In honor of the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who we continue to look back at some old episodes of the series. When Doctor Who returned in 2005 it was in the wake of the last Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks. The Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) arrived on Earth believing he was the sole survivor but when a mysterious signal reaches out pulling the TARDIS off course and 52 levels down into a Utah millionaire’s bunker, he discovers the last thing he expected: a captured Dalek alone in the universe.
The alien-obsessed billionaire Henry van Statten (Corey Johnson), who makes his fortune scavenging and appropriating alien technology, uses The Doctor’s appearance to get the Dalek to talk, realizing his “pet” is far more valuable than he originally assumed. When he learns The Doctor is also the last of his race Stanton decides to add the Time Lord to his collection as well.
Meanwhile one of van Statten’s assistants, Adam (Bruno Langley), tries to impress Rose (Billie Piper) by showing her the Dalek . Her tocuh, containing the extrapolated DNA of a time traveler, reinvigorates the Dalek which allows it to escape and begin killing the scientists and soldiers who have been torturing it under van Stanten’s orders.
After draining all but the emergency power in the bunker to completely heal itself, the Dalek begins coldly murdering its way up the bunker forcing The Doctor to seal the vault with Rose still inside. To Rose’s surprise, however, the Dalek chooses to use her to force The Doctor to release it from the vault rather than kill her. Using a alien weapon from Adam’s secret stash, The Doctor sets out to murder the Dalek when it hits the surface. but Rose’s mercy stays his hand.
“Dalek” shows us a different version of The Doctor, the warrior of the Time War, the soldier who sacrificed his own race to rid the universe of the Dalek menace. Only when he sees both himself and the mutating Dalek through Rose’s eyes does he eventually agree to stand down. The Dalek commits suicide rather than continue it’s useless existence alone in the universe leaving The Doctor once again the sole survivor of the Time War (at least until the Daleks are reintroduced again at the end of Series Two).
I think they have overused the Daleks in the new series but this episode is really good and might be my favorite Eccleston episode.
With only a single weak Dalek this episode makes it scarier than any of the other later episodes with entire ships and armies of the them.
I agree with Bryan. This is my favorite Dalek episode from the new series and sometimes I wish they would have left the Daleks alone after it was over but then we wouldn’t have gotten Asylum of the Daleks and I really like that episode.