Kiddy book level storytelling to take the concept of Assimilation and loosing ones identity (almost exactly like Picard in BOBW) and explain it in broad strokes repeatedly. Except, where BOBW told all of that with a single tear, here we get the convoluted, plain as day "twist" at the end which makes no sense, the Daleks act in a manner which is completely unbecoming of them (Seriously? The cold calculating killers would now build monuments to themselves and "Love hate"? Oh come on) to force drama ("we're scared so we'll get the doctor easy as"). Again, the whole "human dalek" thing was a stupid way of representing the fact they are bad guys and Daleks to the lowest common denominator of viewer - why couldnt they just be brainwashed humans like in the Peter Cushing movies? Maybe not bother with the helmets, but they looked far less silly than growing eyestalks out of their foreheads and guns out of their hands. At least removing any kind of Dalek reference in the beginning would have made the reveal of the parliament of the daleks more impressive - as it stands opening with a shot of a 500ft high ("500 ft high!") Dalek statue kind of robs any subsequent Dalek reveal of any weight.
I enjoyed it, but these were pretty much my exact nits. When the eyestalk grew out of the head, I sighed in a not good way. When the laser gun grew out of the hand, looking like a crappy kit bash instead of something proper looking, I groaned.
Jenna Louise Coleman was alright when she was serious at the end. All her forced and blatant attempts at being super sassy with the cutsey names was annoying. It was like a repeat of Mels all over again. It's trying to hard to be "kewl" and it takes me out of the story. Enough with that shit.
And I could see a sort of meta joke with her playing a different character in one ep, then the companion later. A play on the idea that actors would show up, play a character, impress them enough to get a regular gig...this time it's done on purpose. See Freema.
We've seen enough takes on companions to know that at some point, one of them is going to be "the one who dies". If she is the same character, it would be an interesting and nice use of time travel. Meeting a companion when she dies. It's not quite the same with River as she's not really a regular.
Other than that, this was the first time since the Eccelston years that the Daleks didn't suck. I did like the return to the idea of them using slaves, because there's no way they can build shit without opposable thumbs. The Asylum was nicely done and the Daleks within awesomely creepy.
I rated the ep as "Good", but I was not as blown away by this starter as I was last season. Still, a solid start and I look forward to next weeks eps.
