Doctor Who review: Asylum of the Daleks

© BBC; Image credit: BBC

“Is it bad that I’ve really missed this?”

“Yes!”

“Good.”

“I know.”

Oh, Doctor Who. I’ve really missed you, you know that? I feel like I always say that when a new series starts, but it’s especially true this time. Apart from a brief, lovely respite at Christmas in the form of ‘The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe’, we’ve had no new Doctor Who on our screens for a whole 11 months, which is even longer than we had to go during the specials year. Thankfully, ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ was, in rather fact, worth the wait.

Things were both exactly as you’d expect, but also completely not at all what you’d expect, right from the get-go. Eerie woman who’d summoned the Doctor to a desolate place to ask for help turning out to be a trap? Exactly what you’d expect. The woman sprouting some Dalek appendages and capturing the Doctor? Not so expected. The Daleks nabbing Amy and Rory in a similar manner? Pretty standard. The Daleks then dumping them all at the Parliament of the Daleks and asking them for help? Pretty darn unexpected, actually.

In fact, this particular twist didn't affect the events of the episode all that much; rather, it just set the episode up. Once they'd arrived on the planet, ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ was just what you’d want from a top-notch opening episode of Doctor Who: fast, fun and thoughtful, with more twists and turns than you could shake a stick at.

Not least of these twists was the arrival, several episodes earlier than expected, of new companion Jenna-Louise Coleman as Oswin. And not just a little cameo; she was an integral part of the episode, driving the plot forward by guiding the Doctor and the Ponds around the Asylum. But the twists with Oswin didn’t end there. I should have seen it coming; there was something slightly unreal about her from the beginning of the episode, the way she had exactly the right comeback and exactly the right ideas at exactly the right moment to save the day. Of course she wasn’t what she seemed, but the image of a character we’d seen as so bright and vivacious speaking in a Dalek voice was still pretty heartbreaking. I have no idea how Moffat is going to bring her back (or if it will even be Oswin coming back), but based on Jenna-Louise Coleman’s performance in this episode, I can’t wait to see how they pull it off.

© BBC; Image credit: BBC

That’s not to say I won’t miss the Pond/Williams crew. We’ve had two full series of them as companions with the same Doctor; I know they’re not everyone’s favourites, but the way they’ve developed over the longer time period has surpassed any other new Who companions. All this made the one bum note in the episode, the revelation about the reason for their divorce, even more difficult to swallow. Sure, I believe that Amy would think divorcing Rory because she can’t have children would be the kind thing to do, and I can even consider that she would try to avoid telling him. But I don’t believe that Rory would take it so easily; that, after just a couple of months (as implied by the timeline in Pond Life), he would have the divorce papers ready to sign. This is the man who waited 2000 years while he was plastic outside a box to keep her safe; Amy kicks him out without explanation and he just takes it? No way. Still, even if the first part of their scene together felt far too much like an info dump, the reunion was sweet and the Doctor’s quiet smugness at saving them was really quite lovely.

Ah yes, the Doctor. Matt Smith, with his gloriously glorious face, running around, saving the day, fixing marriages and playing the triangle and adjusting his bow tie and wondering about the eggs and milk. It still amazes me just how much he fits into this role, just how much he completely convinces as an ancient alien, who’s at once the most mature and immature person in any room. His joy at being back adventuring, his heartbreak when he realised the truth of Oswin’s state, his delight as he realised just what she had done for him with the Daleks: it was all beautiful to watch.

And Oswin wiping the collective Dalek memory of the Doctor was an absolute stroke of genius. It certainly implies that the makers of Doctor Who are planning to stick with the universe thinking the Doctor is dead, at least for a while, and allows him to encounter the Daleks again in a fresh way, without the baggage of nearly 50 years of Doctor Who hanging over the story. In one moment, Steven Moffat has proved he can do the big strokes just as well as he can do the little strokes.

The moment Rory said, “What colour? Sorry, there weren’t any good questions left”, I thought, “Doctor Who is back.” And by the time all the Daleks were screaming "DOCTOR WHO?!", I knew it.