Asylum of the Daleks: 3 Years On

Guest contributor Harry O’Driscoll revisits the 2012 Dalek opener.

Asylum of the Daleks gets a bit of a rough ride among fans, including some from the cult of Moffat. I’ve certainly not been shy to criticise Moffat lately, but actually I kind of like this story.

The thing is after Series 6 I felt slightly burnt out. Moffat’s attempt at an arc heavy season just left me feeling bored with the show. I find it hard to seriously believe that Moffat had things planned from the start and he dropped the ball massively. By the time of The Wedding of River Song I just wanted to get it over and done with, and hoped we would not see River Song again.

The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe only made things worse. It felt like a knee jerk reaction from Moffat, trying to respond to criticisms that Series 6 was too dark, or that he was a misogynist. But it was just nonsensical and inane, after that it felt hard to feel good about the show anymore.

With all that in mind Asylum of the Daleks feels remarkably confident. The new series has often suffered from the 45 minute format making it difficult to tell a fully formed story, but here Moffat decides to make a virtue of the format. Have a series of big, exciting, self-contained stories, after the bloated story arc of Series 6 this feels refreshing. And the Daleks have benefited from being given a rest, so now their presence does actually feel like something to get excited about.

And that’s the thing with Asylum of the Daleks, simply that this is exciting, its good fun. Nick Hurran is put to good use to create some pretty compelling set pieces. Which is quite an achievement as given we know none of the main cast is going to get killed off, which makes it hard to create a sense of jeopardy. But Hurran manages to constantly keep things engaging; the scene with Rory and the Dalek waking up in particular is very good.

It’s received quite a bit of flack for its plot holes, some of which are admittedly rather bad. But then Genesis of the Daleks has some massive plot holes, a Doctor Who story does not necessarily live or die based on the number of plot holes they have.

What Asylum of the Daleks does is whenever a plot hole crops up it makes sure there is something to divert the viewers attention. For instance, we don’t stop to wonder how Oswin can have been talking in her normal voice earlier because we are focusing on the morbid horror of her being turned into a Dalek.

Which is a very good scene, it genuinely comes unexpected. The early impression of Oswin is that she is a two dimensional character incapable of saying anything that is not a quip, so the revelation about her comes completely out of left field. And it is brilliantly acted by both Smith and Coleman.

That is the way to make the Daleks seem formidable, not just by them killing people but what they do to people. Turn their corpses into puppets to do their bidding, turn a young woman into one of them. This is all sinister stuff and it helps convey the evil of the Daleks in a way that just exterminating people doesn’t. It also helps to paint a picture of a wider Dalek Empire that exists beyond what we see on the screen.

Amy and Rory’s divorce was pretty controversial, undoubtedly it was clumsily done and it seemed pointless to have them divorce only to get back together again. However as Thomas Cookson has pointed out, after A Good Man Goes to War we never saw Amy having emotional repercussions from what had happened to her at Demon’s Run, which is even harder to swallow and much more crass. So this feels like Moffat is addressing that, albeit in a very reductive way. Showing that Amy was emotionally damaged after what happened and that has consequences. This is what he should have done in Series 6 but the fact that he is doing it at all shows he does still care about Amy and Rory.

So Asylum of the Daleks definitely has flaws, but they are the sort of flaws which could be fixed if Moffat had a script editor or a longer run time. They don’t undermine the whole; this ultimately does everything you want from a season opener. After the rocky ride of 2011 I went away from Asylum of the Daleks actually feeling positive about the show again.