Doctor Who - Dalek

Okay, details. A Dalek has been captured by a collector of alien artifacts. The first moment that The Doctor gets to see it is great, he's been jolly even under armed guard until then, cracking jokes, acting cocky. (There's a great bit near the start where he sees a Cyberman's head in a glass cage). Then he talks to the darkness where the Dalek is hidden, except he doesn't know that it is a Dalek until it says <DalekVoice>The Doctor</DalekVoice> and the lights go on. And then The Doctor is scared, the first time we have ever seen that, he's really scared. Fortunately the Dalek is broken.

The big reveal was about the Time War. It was between the Daleks and the Timelords aswe had all guessed. But the cool thing was that The Doctor ended it by killing everyone, including the TimeLords.

The episode is great because it holds a mirror up to The Doctor and the mirror is the Dalek. Is The Doctor as bad as the Dalek? Is is hatred too consuming? All The Doctor cares about is killing the Dalek, because otherwise, he says the Dalek will kill everyone. But fortunately the Dalek is broken....until Rose goes and touches it. Doh! Maybe absorbing DNA to regenerate is a bit of a crazy plot device but I'll forgive that one misdemeanour for the coolnes that follows. Because suddenly the Dalek becomes very nasty.

The Daleks never did seem that scary to me (except for Davros), they seemed a bit slow and cumbersome. But this new Dalek is mean. It's a genius. Its sucker can kill. It has a force field to stop bullets. It is a mean shot with its laser gun thingy. It looks cool. And...Rose, running away from the Dalek, runs up the stairs where they proceed to take the mickey out of the Dalek. Then the Dalek says <DalekVoice>EL-A-VATE!</DalekVoice> and it starts flying. Brilliant. And of course we get to hear the classic phrase a few times. <DalekVoice>EX-TERM-I-NATE!!!</DalekVoice>

Oh and Rose gets locked in a room again, except this time it's a nuclear bunker, with a Dalek.

The final showdown between The Doctor, Rose and The Dalek is great. The Doctor is forced to question himself. We see another side to him. In fact the episode as a whole reveals a dark, single-track-mind, determined, soldier side to The Doctor, far removed from his wise cracks. Christopher Ecclestone is great again, as is Billie Piper.

And then at the end they pick up another stray. Companion number 2!

Great stuff.

The BBC Doctor Who episode guide for Dalek has lots of stuff as we've come to expect, including a Dalek game, video diaries about the episodes creation and some photo stories.