Asylum of the Daleks

Run you clever boy and remember.

Asylum of the Daleks is mostly remembered for impressive direction and a very clever twist near the end. But if you know that twist already and watch the episode again, it doesn't quite measure up to the praise it originally garnered.

Plot Summary

The Doctor is abducted by a Dalek agent and brought, along with Rory and Amy, to the Dalek parliament spacecraft. There they are given the assignment of going down to the Dalek Asylum planet and disengaging the force field protecting it. The shield has been damaged and the Daleks are afraid that rogue Daleks will escape. When the shield is down, they will destroy the planet.

They are sent down but Rory is separated from the group during transport. He makes contact via the radio with a survivor from a crashed Earth ship named Oswin. She has been hiding from the Daleks for over a year on the planet. The Doctor and Amy meet other survivors from the crash but are attacked when they are revealed to be Dalek puppets. They escape with help from Oswin who reunites them with Rory. In the melee though, Amy lost a bracelet which will protect her from the atmosphere, designed to convert any intruders into Dalek puppets.

Prior to their kidnapping by the Daleks, Rory and Amy were in the process of finalizing a divorce and the Doctor encourages Rory to try and awaken the old feelings of love they had to slow the conversion process. Unknown to either Amy or Rory, the Doctor slips his bracelet on Amy to protect her. He then goes to rescue Oswin who says she can deactivate the force field from her terminal. The Doctor suspects that the Daleks will destroy the planet with them on it but Rory had found a teleport pad which will take them back to the ship. This will allow them all to leave at the same time the shield drops.

The Doctor discovers Oswin in a remote section of the asylum and confirms that which he had suspected: that she had been converted into a Dalek but was in denial of that fact. Confronting the truth nearly allows the the Dalek conversion to take over her mind but she fights back. She agrees to lower the force field if the Doctor promises to remember her as she was before conversion. She also initiates a program that erases the Doctor from the Dalek memory. The Doctor returns to the teleport to find that Rory and Amy have reconciled and they teleport up just before the planet is destroyed. The Daleks now have no memory of the Doctor and they escape in the TARDIS as the Daleks ask who he is.

Analysis

Coming to the party late as I did, I was already aware of the twist where Oswin turns out to be a Dalek. But I think that even I hadn't been aware of that, this episode started off on the wrong foot for me. Series Five and Six demonstrated the devotion Rory and Amy had for each other, especially Rory's. To start the episode off with the idea that they were separated and preparing for divorce rang very hollow to me; a trumped up plot point for the convenience of this particular episode. Once put off by that, it was difficult to fully get invested in the rest of the episode.

In fact, there were several of points that just didn't quite gel. The idea of a Dalek parliament seemed wrong, especially since the Dalek emperor was still there in charge of everything. It felt like an excuse to just have a thousand Daleks in a single shot.

Things improved when the team got onto the planet. The artistry of the shots was very nice and the direction involved with the mad Daleks, especially when Amy's perception of them began to change, was very good. Oswin playing guide also was quite entertaining and a nice foreshadow of what was to come with Clara and the Doctor.

Unquestionably, the best scene of the entire episode was the face-to-face meeting between the Doctor and Oswin. Seeing the reality dawn on her of what has happened is crushing. It's even worse in the form of the vitriol the Doctor barely containing in confronting her with the reality of the situation. You feel the Doctor almost deserves it when Oswin starts saying "Exterminate!" and advances on the Doctor, only to stop at the last second. Your heart goes out for her and her situation and the sacrifice at the end, albeit predictable, is touching.

It is unfortunate that the episode couldn't leave that touching moment as the tone to end on. Instead they had to indulge in the "Doctor Who" gag as the final shot. That the Doctor is reveling in the presence of the Daleks while they shout this is even more galling. In addition to just looking silly, if the Daleks had forgotten the Doctor, why would they bother to ask who he was? Wouldn't they just see an intruder and shout "Exterminate" with a thousand Dalek guns firing at once?

This is a hard episode to evaluate. The look and the parts that are good are really good and I love watching those clips. But the other stuff just takes it down such a notch. It's never cringeworthy as some episodes are for me with their poor acting or other flaws. But the flaws are significant enough that I don't feel like pulling it up to watch again with any regularity.

Overall personal score: 3 out of 5