Doctor Who S8 Ep 2 – Into the Dalek

Now that the big, high-pressure 12th Doctor intro episode of Doctor Who is out of the way, it’s time to see what the new Doctor is really about. If “Into the Dalek” is a good representation (and, of course, that remains to be seen), the era of 12 is all about going back to basics.

Journey Blue

It seems funny to say that “Dalek” is a “back to basics” episode – it opens with flashy outer space special effects, as a military fighter pilot named Journey sends out a distress call as her fighter ship crashes during a space battle with the Daleks. But it really is – it feels more like a 9th Doctor or even a 4th Doctor episode, with slicker visuals. As much as I really did enjoy Matt Smith’s 11th Doctor (especially in the hands of writers Toby Whithouse, Gareth Roberts, and Richard Curtis, who penned some of my favorite Doctor Who episodes ever: “The God Complex,” “Closing Time,” and “Vincent and the Doctor”), it was rare that you’d get an adventure that really felt like a good old-fashioned Doctor Who episode. I acclimated to Steven Moffat’s style and creation of far-reaching, twist-filled arcs, but when an episode like this comes along, I realize how much I missed those classic-style episodes.

“Into the Dalek” is, among other things, an homage to the 1966 sci-fi film The Fantastic Voyage, only instead of shrinking people down and injecting them into a dying human, the Doctor, Clara, Journey, and a couple of ill-fated soldiers are shrunk down and injected into a sick Dalek. You know the Dalek is sick because it says things like “The Daleks must be destroyed.”

They’re not injected into the Dalek’s living matter, but into the spaceship-like caverns of its metal casing. They learn quickly that the metal exterior is not simply armor; mess with it from the inside and robotic antibodies appear and destroy the attacker. The Doctor communicates with the sick Dalek, whom he dubs Rusty, and learns that it witnessed the birth of a star, the beauty of which stirred him into embracing life over destruction. It doesn’t take long to find the source of the illness, a tear in the interior that caused a radiation leak that was slowly poisoning Rusty. Two seconds of sonic screwdrivering repaired it, cutting off the poison to Rusty and the crew. As his faculties returned, Rusty, of course, goes into true Dalek mode, turning on the soldiers monitoring the mission and going on a rampage, and the Doctor and Clara have to stop him, with the help of Journey and the remaining soldier Gretchen.

Dalek attack

The 12th Doctor, in this, his second episode, is still working out the kind of man he is. His experience facing a Dalek under its skin left him disturbed – if a Dalek sees hate in you, how good can you be? Even Clara can’t assure him that he’s a good man, and not just because she’s only known the “new” Doctor for a short amount of time. She really didn’t know. Early in the episode, she dubs herself the Doctor’s “carer,” and the Doctor agrees. “She cares,” he says, “so I don’t have to.” In two episodes, their dynamic has become more defined than in all of Clara’s time before.

This episode also introduced Danny Pink, veteran and math teacher at Coal Hill school, where Clara teaches English. Danny is struggling with his demons and a likely case of PTSD, but he’s affable, if a bit nervous, on the outside, and the ladies love him. Including Clara, who tries to ask him out and gets awkwardly shot down, only to find him banging his head on his desk for not agreeing. We’ll be seeing a lot more of Danny.

Danny Pink

I’d like to see more of Journey, too. When the Doctor and Clara left, she asked if she could come. The Doctor refused, saying “if only [she wasn’t] a soldier.” We already knew his feelings about the military, but his attitude toward Journey, who helped save the day with Clara, should make his future interactions with Danny interesting.

Next week: The Doctor and Clara are off to Sherwood Forest and a Robin Hood adventure.