Doctor Who/Recap/S31/E03 Victory of the Daleks

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
< Doctor Who‎ | Recap‎ | S31
BEHOLD, THE RESTORATION OF THE DALEKS! THE RESURRECTION OF THE MASTER RACE!
—The last three Time War Daleks

Doctor: Call 'em what you like - the Daleks are death.
Churchill: Yes, Doctor! Death to our enemies! Death to the forces of darkness, and death to the Third Reich!
Doctor: Yes, Winston, and death to everyone else too.

The Doctor and Amy arrive at The War Room under a Blitz-torn London at the behest of Prime Minister Winston Churchill (albeit one month after Churchill had called the Doctor). As a Luftwaffe squadron approaches London, Churchill takes the Doctor and Amy to the roof to meet Dr. Bracewell, a Scottish scientist who has invented a secret weapon called an "Ironside". These Ironsides obliterate the Nazi fighters and the Doctor recognises the weaponry used. He demands to be shown the Ironsides, which are revealed to be Daleks, dressed in tank-green paint and claiming to serve the British war effort. Bracewell claims to have invented them, along with many other technologies far beyond the capabilities of World War II-era Britain (or any country for that matter). The Doctor becomes more and more agitated by the Daleks' claims of servitude and lashes out at them, calling them by name. Which is exactly what they wanted.

High above, hidden behind the Moon, a battered Dalek saucer which somehow managed to escape the Tenth Doctor clone's genocide and fall back in time records the Doctor's recognisance of the Daleks, activating a device called the Progenitor Device. The Daleks on Earth transmat back to their ship, but not before revealing Bracewell as an android created by them. The Doctor gives chase, leaving Amy on Earth. He catches up with the last three surviving Daleks and threatens to blow up their ship with a TARDIS self-destruct remote. The Daleks respond by turning on all the lights in London, making the city a nice, bright target for the German air force. The Daleks reveal that the Progenitor Device contains original Dalek DNA to recreate the Dalek race but due to the remaining Daleks being born out of Davros' cells, their DNA was not recognised by the machine. Thus they needed the Doctor's testimony that they were Daleks in order for the machine to work. On Earth, Churchill and Amy stop a grieving Bracewell from committing suicide and get to work on shutting down the Daleks' radio-control dish in order to darken London.

The Progenitor Device opens and churns out five new, brightly-coloured Daleks, who promptly decide to exterminate their inferior predecessors.[1] Said inferior predecessors response to this? "We're ready."

The new Daleks attempt to exterminate the Doctor (discovering the self-destruct button to be only a Jammie Dodger), but are stopped as three space-worthy, laser-spitting Spitfires attack and destroy the radio dish, shutting off the London lights. The Doctor manages to escape to the TARDIS and orders the last remaining upgraded Spitfire to take out the Dalek ship, but is stopped by the Daleks, who reveal that Bracewell is a bomb powered by a contained wormhole. The Daleks threaten to destroy the Earth unless they go free. The Doctor has no choice but to order the Spitfire to call off the attack, and speeds back to Earth anticipating that the Daleks are going to activate the bomb the moment they are out of danger anyway. There, the Doctor and Amy get Bracewell to recognize his own humanity, cutting off the Daleks' control over him and deactivating the bomb. The Daleks time-travel back to the future as the Doctor angsts over losing to his greatest enemy again, a funk shortly ended by Amy's good cheer. The Doctor destroys all alien tech (much to Churchill's displeasure) and leaves, but not before allowing Bracewell to live out a full human life. Before departing, the Doctor and Amy have a chat about how Amy should remember the Daleks from their invasion on Earth, but she doesn't. This disturbs the Doctor greatly, meaning something is wrong with the flow of time. The travellers depart, with another Crack revealing itself in the wall behind the TARDIS...

See also "The Power of the Daleks", which has a similar plot.

Tropes

  • Ace Pilot: Danny Boy. In space!.
  • Affectionate Pickpocket: Attempted by Churchill on the Doctor (in order to get the TARDIS key). Amy calls him on it.
  • Amnesia Danger: Amy, owing to the cracks in the wall...
  • Badass Boast: Subverted with; "I defeated you time and time again, I defeated you. I sent you back to the Void, I saved the whole of reality from you. I am the Doctor and you are the Daleks!" The speech itself would be pretty awesome, but the effects of the last line end up being anything but badass for the Doctor.
  • The Bad Guy Wins: The Daleks are almost completely triumphant. The Doctor Amy does manage to get London's lights turned off, and does manage to disarm Bracewell, but the Daleks only enacted those scenarios in the first place to get him off their ship. Which worked perfectly. And he was only there in the first place because they wanted him to be.
  • Batman Gambit: Why are the Daleks posing as robots created by a human in World War II? Why, for no other reason than to create a situation where the Doctor will come to investigate and end up saying "You are the Daleks!" in a loud, clear voice.
  • Bittersweet Ending: The Doctor fails to prevent the five new Daleks from escaping to rebuild the Dalek race, but he Amy manages to save Earth and allow Bracewell the chance to have a normal life free from Dalek control.
  • Civilian Villain
  • Color Coded for Your Convenience: The new Daleks - White Daleks are Supremes, Reds are Soldiers, Blues are Strategists, Oranges are Scientists and Yellows are Eternals. Probably.
  • Call Back / Continuity Nod:
    • The concept of Daleks pretending to be servants goes all the way to the Second Doctor's seasons in "The Power of the Daleks".
      • Specifically the line "I AM YOUR SOL-DIER" is a direct Shout-Out to the Dalek's sycophantic "I AM YOUR SER-VANT" in that episode.
    • The Progenitor Device itself was first introduced in The Power of The Daleks, as another one had crashed on Vulcan. This episode clarifies its intended purpose.
    • The Doctor declares that this encounter will be "the final end" for the Daleks.
    • "The progenitor has fulfilled our new destiny. Behold, the restoration of the Daleks. The resurrection of the master race."
    • Hmmm, the Doctor conversing with a Dalek in black and white? That seems... familiar, somehow.
    • The Doctor beats a Dalek with a long wrench, comparable in length to a baseball bat.
    • A Dalek using its toilet plunger to carry a tray full of nibbles for people? Surely this has never happened befo- oh wait, they did it in their very first episode.
  • Cliffhanger Copout: Sort of; the end of "The Beast Below" has Churchill urgently calling the Doctor while a Dalek looms omniously in front of him, with the suggestion that he's in fairly immediate danger. The resolution? Apparently, that call was months ago, and Churchill's gotten used to having the 'Ironsides' around.
  • Cool Plane: Spitfires IN SPACE! WITH LASERS!
  • Comically Missing the Point: A more heartwarming example than usual; when the Doctor and Amy go to say goodbye to Bracewell, they find him in his lab, preparing to Face Death with Dignity as he assumes that the Doctor and Amy are planning to deactivate him as a potential threat to the timeline. The Doctor, rather surprised (since they were actually just popping along to say cheerio before leaving), agrees but says that he has to go and do some stuff first, and it'll probably take him a while, hint hint. It takes Bracewell rather longer than it probably should to realize that the Doctor isn't going to be coming back.
  • Creator Cameo: Episode writer Mark Gatiss as the Spitfire pilot, uncredited.
  • Death Seeker: Of a sort. The last three Russell T. Davies-era Daleks aren't looking to die per se, but they clearly realize that the resurrection of the pure Daleks would end in their extermination.
  • Diabolus Ex Machina: And lots of it.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: The Supreme Dalek has a much deeper voice than the others.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Daleks have an important victory here.
  • Genius Bonus: Dr Bracewell is a sort of Bracewell Probe
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: It's George Castle! And Baron Harkonnen!?!
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Look at the Power Rangers Dalek jokes above on this page. Now consider the Power Rangers Lost Galaxy episode "Green Courage", in which the space station Terra Venture passes through a meteoroid field at coordinates which should ring a bell with classic Who fans: those of Gallifrey as stated in "Pyramids of Mars"...
    • Furthermore, the three-part finale of Lost Galaxy is named "Journey's End" and of course, our "Journey's End" just happens to involve Daleks.
  • Historical Domain Character : Winston Churchill.
  • Just Plane Wrong: The Spitfires used in the episode were Mk. IX's, which were introduced in 1942. They should have been Mk. I's or II's, which flew in the Battle of Britain. Then again, they were IN SPACE!
    • Fridge Brilliance: Maybe they were prototypes, and thusly incomplete and easier to modify?
      • Alas, no. Not quite. Although to be fair, the fact that they've been upgraded for space combat makes this relatively minor inconsistency handwavable.
    • Fridge Brilliance: Considering Bracewell was inventing high-tech gizmos left right and centre, isn't it at least feasible that some of the other work he did somehow accelerated the development of Spitfires and made them arrive earlier than they did in our universe?
  • I'll Do What I Have to Do: Churchill repeatedly brushes off the Doctor's warnings with this.
  • Kick the Dog: Forcing all the lights in London to turn on at the height of the Blitz? That's an impressively dickish move, even for the Daleks.
  • Kill'Em All: Subverted, surprisingly for a Dalek episode, this has a relatively low explicit body-count (two soldiers, about 12 planes shot down, and 3 Daleks). Compared to the decimation of Torchwood One, this is very low.
  • Large Ham : Winston Churchill again.
  • Light Is Not Good - Don't be fooled by the bright, shiny new paint jobs. The Daleks are still total bastards.
  • Love Imbues Life: Bracewell.
  • Metaphorgotten: "There isn't a sincere bone in your body. ...There isn't a bone in your body."
  • My Greatest Failure: The Doctor considers his inability to stop the Daleks to be his, lampshading the ridiculous number of ways in which they always come back, but in a cruel way. Doesn't help that he just let five escape with a Dalek creating machine.
  • Mythology Gag: The new Dalek designs were inspired by those of the Peter Cushing movies (the technicolouring in particular).
    • One of the Spitfire pilots has the call sign "Jubilee". Part of "Dalek", the first Dalek story of the new series, was inspired by the Big Finish story Jubilee.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:

The Doctor: "I am the Doctor and you are the Daleks!"
Dalek: "CORRECT."

  • Noodle Incident: It's never revealed how Churchill and the Doctor met or became friends, but they appear to have a friendly rivalry/RunningGag going regarding Churchill's attempts to get the TARDIS key from the Doctor.
    • Unless you factor in the Doctor Who Expanded Universe, in which case Churchill was acquainted with the Sixth Doctor in the novels "Players" and "The Shadow in the Glass".
  • Old School Dogfighting: Did we mention Spitfires IN SPACE!?
  • The Power of Love: It's Bracewell's memory of the woman he loved that enables him to break free of Dalek control and assert his humanity.
  • Punctuated Pounding: While the Doctor beats on one of the Daleks with a giant wrench.

The Doctor: "YOU! ARE! MY! ENEMY!"

  • Real Life Writes the Plot: One reason for the Dalek redesign was that the RTD Dalek props were built with Billie Piper's height in mind, so the new Daleks were built to match Matt Smith's height. Karen Gillan even says in the Confidential episode that they're taller than her.
  • Reality Subtext: The new Daleks exterminating the last three RTD Daleks in existence. Old props out, new props in.
  • Robotic Reveal: Bracewell getting his hand shot off.
  • Rule of Cool: Spitfires in space.
    • The names of the new Daleks. Originally, Moffat and Gatiss didn't know which Dalek had what name, but dammit they sounded awesome.
  • Sadistic Choice: Save the Daleks, save the world. Naturally, after being saved, the Daleks try to detonate their bomb anyway.
  • Schizo-Tech: Remote surveillance of the Dalek ship displayed on a black-and-white monitor, and obviously, 1941 Spitfires that fly in SPACE!
  • Shout-Out: "Broadsword Calling Danny Boy", a reference to Where Eagles Dare.
    • The Doc says Bracewell's memories and personality was uploaded to a positronic brain. Can't be a very good one, though, seeing as the man designs war machines.
    • That whole Spitfires-in-space scene came across more than a little Star Wars to some reviewers...
      • In particular, a scene that was in turn inspired by the movie The Dam Busters
    • Also on Star Wars, Robotic Reveal by loss of a hand, later replaced with a classic Red Right Hand. Which makes approximately seven references in the first three episodes of the season.
    • Not to mention the climactic scene of Independence Day, in which a lone human aircraft takes on a large alien spaceship.
    • "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil."
      • Amy, near the end of the episode, says to the Doctor: "So you have enemies?" This is part of a famous Churchill quote: "So, you have enemies? Good. That means you stood up for something once in your life."
    • The new Dalek design is one big shout out to the old Doctor Who movies starring Peter Cushing, according to Word of God.
  • Somebody Set Up Us the Bomb: Subverted. Bracewell turns out to be a bomb, but the Doctor and Amy encourage his burgeoning humanity to deactivate the bomb... somehow.
  • Tomato in the Mirror: The scientist, Bracewell, who didn't make the Daleks... the Daleks made him, an android. Another revelation exposes Bracewell to also be a bomb, which the Daleks threaten to detonate (and try anyway) to make the Doctor return to Earth. Turns out they made him too well; his self-awareness and genuine emotions turn out to be the key to stopping them from destroying the planet.
  • Trailers Always Spoil with a twist: Radio Times spoils new Daleks on a cover again. Unlike "Daleks in Manhattan" though, the new Daleks' cover appearance was explained away as the cover being themed around the 2010 British Elections[2] rather than them being an important development in the episode.
    • Played straighter in a BBC news report which featured behind the scenes footage of the filming of the scene where the new Daleks are revealed the day before the episode actually aired.
  • "V" Sign: It's a Winston Churchill episode... Although it's actually done by the Doctor, and he seems to use it to wave at people.
  • Unwitting Pawn: The Doctor falls for the Dalek plan twice throughout the entire episode.
  • The War Room: The Cabinet War Rooms really existed during the Second World War, although they weren't used for fighter control (an old emergency bunker in Swansea was used for filming). They're open to the public and are pretty awesome anyway.
  • Wearing a Flag on Your Head: Two of the last three RTD Daleks have them in place of their usual identity tags.
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?
  • Weirdness Censor: Subverted; the Doctor quickly asks Amy to fill Churchill in about the Daleks, only to find she has no memory of them or the whole "planets in the sky" incident. He's very disturbed by this, and at the end of the episode declares that they need to find out what's wrong with her memory.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: Amy assumes that the bomb will contain a Wire Dilemma, but her panicked babble just confuses the Doctor.
    • Bracewell assumes the Doctor is there to deactivate him at the end. It takes him a while to catch on to the Doctor's mercy.
  • The X of Y
  1. ↑ Thus symbolically scrapping the Russell T. Davies Dalek props as new Steven Moffat props roll in.
  2. ↑ With the red, blue and yellow Daleks representing the three main parties; the orange and white ones understandably do not appear on it.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Doctor_Who/Recap/S31/E03_Victory_of_the_Daleks?oldid=1886582"