7X01 Asylum Of The Daleks (Grading/Discussion) (SPOILERS!)

Discussion in 'Doctor Who' started by Samurai8472, Sep 1, 2012.

?

Grade "Asylum Of The Daleks"

Poll closed Oct 1, 2012.
  1. Geronimo!

    55.2%
  2. Good

    32.8%
  3. Average

    8.6%
  4. Save us!

    2.3%
  5. Exterminate!!

    1.1%
  1. Candlelight

    Candlelight Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 12, 2000
    Location:
    New Zealand
    No, many stories, like The Power of the Daleks or Daleks in Manhatten indicate the Kaled mutant can be grown in a lab like environment, given the right materials. Add to that a specifically created Scientist Dalek and it shouldn't be too hard. The Progenitor from Victory of the Daleks clearly was designed like a 'seed ship' of sorts that creates Daleks specific for the needs of making a new colony.

    Interesting notion, they could've salvaged what they could from past adventures and kept the sane ones and put the rest in the Asylum in a bid to nurse them back to health. Clearly the size of the population grew too much to handle/stability of the population was deemed to irrelevant to fix and was thus sealed off.

    It's possible they raided past Dalek losses in a bid to gain raw materials for creating their new army and the Asylum became a bi-product. OR during the Time War the Daleks were scooped up from all time zones and those that couldn't fight were dumped in there.
     
  2. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 15, 2000
    Location:
    In the lap of squalor I assure you.
    Something called "Digital spy" made a faux confidential that's about as indepth as a real doctor who confidential, you know, except that it looks like it was recorded on some ones phone, but they had the same behind the scenes access and interviews.

    Caroline Skinner committed the same developmental suicide John Lennon once ran afoul of... She said "I think the Daleks are more popular than Carey Bradshaw."
     
  3. Green Lantern

    Green Lantern Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Jul 3, 2012
    Location:
    The bed of whoever pays for the night.
    No one has been exterminated since Moffat came in. NOW DO YOU ALL SEE THE PROBLEM WITH MOFFAT?
     
  4. Ghost Bones

    Ghost Bones Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Sep 11, 2011
    Location:
    Ghost Blighty
    But then, Doctor Who is a British show for primarily British people, whose understanding of a parliament will be a democratically elected body. And the Chinese wouldn't be calling it a parliament either, because they are chinese.
     
  5. Holdfast

    Holdfast Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 19, 2000
    Location:
    17 Cherry Tree Lane
    No problem.

    If you think about it, it's even cutsier than that since in this episode she's effectively called "Friend of God, and Has the Power of God". The latter pretty much gives her etymological license to be a Deus Ex Machina at the end. ;)

    Then when you realise that she's quite literally a machine at the end as well, you can't help but laugh.

    I refuse to believe all the above is pure coincidence; it works too well in a cryptic crossword-esque manner for that. Combined with the obvious care taken in choosing Habanera (whose lyrics echo parts of the plot/character as well) to introduce her, it really is all quite funny in a cheesy sort of way.
     
  6. chardman

    chardman Vice Admiral In Memoriam

    Joined:
    Sep 5, 2001
    Location:
    The home of GenCon
    NO! I DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH IT, AND GIVEN THE STORIES THE DALEKS HAVE APPEARED IN, THE LACK OF EXTERMINATIONS IS TOTALLY APPROPRIATE.

    (So one of the things that you dislike about Moffat-Who is that there aren't enough people being brutally killed? Seriously? Wow...Classy.)
     
    Last edited: Sep 5, 2012
  7. Rosalind

    Rosalind TrekLit's Dr Rose Mod Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 30, 2005
    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    it's called something in Chinese, but it's translated in English to the chinese parliament. for all we know, the Daleks could call it goobeeegoch, it's just the TARDIS translate it into English to the Dalek parliament. Doesn't have to be a body of democratically elected representatives, just a place for some Daleks to meet and decide things or get their orders.
     
  8. Turbo

    Turbo Changeling Premium Member

    Joined:
    Jun 1, 2004
    Location:
    Florida
    Yes, we've established in another thread that you seem to be all about the blood and guts. Personally, I much prefer the psychological approach to horror which Moffat used here. Much scarier than some nut jumping out at you with an ax. (And we always have the Cybermen for that anyways. :p)

    EDIT: Unless of course you're joking. I still can't tell.

    That's incredibly ethnocentric for a discussion of a show about exploring the universe hosted on a forum created thanks to a show featuring infinite diversity in infinite combinations.

    I completely missed that reference! Awesome.
     
    Last edited: Sep 5, 2012
  9. DarKush

    DarKush Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Nov 18, 2005
    I'm pretty new to Who, but I enjoyed the episode. I did feel that the girl trapped in the asylum was a little bit grating, and the rationale for making the Doctor go into the asylum instead of just killing him outright a stretch, but despite that I still liked the premise. Though from what I thought I understood about the Daleks it also seemed a stretch that they would allow any inferior Daleks to survive, despite the appreciation of the inmates' beautiful hatred. That felt tacked on to me.

    But I thought the Doctor and his companions were all right and they helped sell the tension of the episode.
     
  10. Turbo

    Turbo Changeling Premium Member

    Joined:
    Jun 1, 2004
    Location:
    Florida
    Excellent! Glad to have another fan in the mix.

    I agree that the Asylum was a bit of a stretch as Dalek Caa---er, prime minister, explained it. I have to wonder if they simply weren't tweaking the Doctor, and were in fact keeping these Daleks for study, to find out if they could avoid the mental breakdowns caused in the Daleks.
     
  11. Professor Zoom

    Professor Zoom Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 16, 2004
    Location:
    Idealistic
    If this is a problem, then I don't want to be well. The show is great.
     
  12. Stevil2001

    Stevil2001 Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 7, 2001
    ^ In a general, I don't have a problem with a lack of deaths, but it does make it hard to take them seriously as a threat when they can't hit Rory from three feet away. If they'd exterminated some mooks, that scene could be a little more tense.
     
  13. Rosalind

    Rosalind TrekLit's Dr Rose Mod Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 30, 2005
    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    I actually don't have a problem with these Daleks not hitting Rory in that scene. They just 'woke' up, all the calibrations were probably out of date.
     
  14. Ghost Bones

    Ghost Bones Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Sep 11, 2011
    Location:
    Ghost Blighty
    Well yes, but we're getting away from my point about this. It's to do with the audience seeing it. Anyone likely to see the show will understand a parliament to be a democratically elected body of representatives who legislate, and while technically a parliament does not have to be democratically elected, in almost all notable and civilised cases in the world today it is. This is further demonstrated by the UK parliament being known as the Mother of All Parliaments and a big influence on almost every other, including the fact of its democratic election.

    Of course, this parliament business is possibly the most minor of my criticisms of the episode. It could still be in there and if the rest of the episode had been fine I'd gladly have awarded it full marks.
    Well aside from Doctor Who not actually being about exploring the universe (because they rarely if ever do), I'd have thought it was an uncontroversial statement of fact that all those the show is made for and likely anyone else who'll see it will have a British understanding of what a parliament is and what it entails.
     
  15. Professor Zoom

    Professor Zoom Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Sep 16, 2004
    Location:
    Idealistic
    That's what i was thinking. It is a sort of hospital.
     
  16. Methos

    Methos Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Jan 10, 2012
    Location:
    Hiding under Gaila's bed...
    or we can just accept, the Dalek's there were insane... hence being in an Asylum... and possibly saw Rory as either a vegetable or some sort or dancing tree...

    M
     
  17. The Nth Doctor

    The Nth Doctor Infinite Possibilities... Premium Member

    Joined:
    Jul 20, 2000
    Location:
    Lost in a temporal and spatial anomaly
    I'll be honest. I noticed because someone made a Facebook meme on the reference which I saw prior to viewing the episode. I like to think I would have noticed the reference on my own, especially considering how iconic it is. ;)
     
  18. Rosalind

    Rosalind TrekLit's Dr Rose Mod Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 30, 2005
    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    Indeed. :p
     
  19. Candlelight

    Candlelight Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 12, 2000
    Location:
    New Zealand
    I've always had a problem with Moffat. Can't wait till he bows out.
     
  20. Methos

    Methos Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Jan 10, 2012
    Location:
    Hiding under Gaila's bed...
    To be fair though, this was the first episode by Moffat that has involved the Dalek's directly...

    Episodes by Moffat and the enemies included...

    "The Empty Child" / "The Doctor Dances" - Badguy = nanogenes / creepy children.

    "The Girl in the Fireplace" - badguy = steampunk robots / time

    "Blink" - badguy = Weeping angels

    "Time Crash"- comic relief

    "Silence in the Library" / "Forest of the Dead" - badguy = Vashta Narada

    "The End of Time" - badguy = crashing TARDIS

    "The Eleventh Hour" - badguy = Atraxi

    "The Beast Below" - badguy = human stupidity / ignorance / arrogance

    "The Time of Angels" / "Flesh and Stone" - badguy = Weeping Angels

    "The Pandorica Opens" / "The Big Bang" - badguy = coalition of badguys / unknown enemy causing TARDIS explosion

    "A Christmas Carol" - badguy = time

    "Space" / "Time" - comic relief

    "The Impossible Astronaut" / "Day of the Moon" - bad guy = The Silents

    "A Good Man Goes to War" / "Let's Kill Hitler" - Badguy = River Song / The Silents

    "The Wedding of River Song" - badguy = The Silents

    "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe" - christmas special

    "Asylum of the Daleks" - bad guy = The Daleks

    So talking about him not using the Daleks to exterminate anyone seems a bit pointless... he's used the Dalek's twice in 23 episodes so far... and in one of them, "The Pandorica Opens", a Dalek 'exterminates' The Doctor, hitting him with a blast, that while it doesn't kill him, does some pretty serious damage...

    So using the Dalek's less than 10% of the time, and not killing anyone with them on his first major outing... i'm fine with that, his badguy of choice is the Weeping Angels, which i love anyway... personally I'd much rather see episodes about the Vashta Narada than the Dalek's anyway lol

    M