Doctor Who Randomized Rewatch: Dalek

DW "Dalek"

When you're bringing a classic monster back, it's often a good idea to compress the scale and focus on an individual case study. "Dalek" pioneers that move that the new series will use several times: "Cold War" with a lone Ice Warrior. "The Haunting of Villa Diodati" with a lone Cyberman. And, again, a lone Dalek in "Resolution". "Dalek" honors the deviousness, lethality, and psychology of the Dalek, and consistently makes smart choices to complicate the hero/monster dynamic.

The Doctorly compassion for a being in pain comes from companion Rose Tyler, while the Doctor literally slobbers over his hate for the Dalek, for the race that his people fought in the Time War. Christopher Eccleston's Doctor gets a wonderful showcase here, with my favorite moment in the episode coming after the Doctor believes Rose dead. Righteously lashing out at American billionaire villain Henry Van Statten, the Doctor rebukes Van Statten and mourns his companion. "You're about as far from the stars as you can get!" It's a scene that gives me chills.

Van Statten himself is one of the weaker elements of the episode, a broad caricature of an ultimate asshole businessman. Still, he becomes a more tolerable character as panic sets in. One small standout moment is the tragic and noble fate of security guard De Maggio, who tries to hold off the Dalek to cover Rose and Adam's escape, even knowing it's hopeless.

And tragedy suffuses the episode as a whole. Rose's artron energy reconstructs the Dalek's cells, but also corrupts the Dalek with the impure stain of humanity. So precisely because the Dalek can imagine more than killing, it has to die. It just goes to show that you can have your "badass" monster on a rampage massacre scenes, which "Dalek" certainly features, but when you go deeper, you can make something special. 9/10.

Continuity notes:
- This is the second straight episode in this rewatch, after "The Time of Angels", that features a museum of alien artifacts.
- Van Statten's museum features a classic Cyberman head from the 1970s. "The stuff of nightmares, reduced to an exhibit." The Doctor's poignant reaction to seeing it is not exactly brief, showing that real fans are at the reins here.
- "Dalek" takes a few elements from the Big Finish audio story "Jubilee", also written by Robert Shearman. But the details are so different that each story stands on its own.
- Of course, a Dalek went up stairs in "Remembrance of the Daleks", but the showy sequence here was a necessary wake-up call for casual viewers in 2005.