*WARNING SPOILERS*
When the most famous Doctor Who enemy has been around for more than 5 decades and has been featured in over 100 episodes, it must be hard to come up with new, original and fresh ideas. So writers Phil Ford and executive producer and writer Steven Moffat can be forgiven if series 8's first 'proper' episode, 'Into the Dalek' might be sort of very similar to previous Dalek stories. Yes, 2005's, series 1 'Dalek' I'm looking at you. So, the best position to put yourself in here is to completely forget about other Dalek stories, and just enjoy it for what it is.As an episode within itself, 'Into the Dalek' was a much needed episode to show what this 'new' Doctor was really life as a man, was he compassionate , sensitive moral? The theme of morality was a huge player in this episode and highlighted in great detail and was a perfect theme to introduce this new Doctor, in order to fully decide for ourselves if this he "is a good man" as The Doctor asks companion Clara himself. Companions are supposed to be the audiences eyes and ears and when Clara replied "I don't know" this was exactly what the audience was thinking. Of course, we thought we had fully figured out who the Doctor was, in the guise of Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor, but now with Capaldi at the front, we are back to square one.
Of course, the only 'thing' possible of telling The Doctor what kind of man he was is a Dalek. And in true Doctor Who style, we delve even deeper inside a Dalek than ever before, quite literally. And while the episode wasn't quite as good as writer Phil Ford's previous, in the shape of 'The Waters of Mars' in the Tenth Doctor special in 2009, it certainly was a very clever idea, shrinking the principal characters to be able to go inside a Dalek, or as The Doctor affectionately called it 'Rusty'. The idea behind this episode is, can a Dalek ever be good? Well it turns out, it was actually due to a radiation leak, but can a Dalek actually stay good? In this sense, it was companion Clara who saved the day in this episode and not The Doctor as we might have expected, this makes such a refreshing change to allow Clara the chance to make intelligent decisions that will determine if they live or die. She succeeded, and they lived, hooray! But, as is always in Doctor Who, at a massive cost, 2 lives lost, but 'Into the Dalek' didn't linger on these sad parts as it was quickly brought back by a snappy and quirky comment from the Doctor. "Is Ross in here? [dead soldier-pile of gunge]" "Top layer if you want to say a few words." This is what cemented a big love of the Twelfth Doctor already to many, the one liners are fast and funny, even if this Doctor may be a bit darker, there is that humour that has always been present in Doctor Who.
But what of the rest of the episode I hear you cry! Although new character, Danny Pink's character played by Samuel Anderson introduction may have seemed a little out of place in a Dalek-out-of-space episode, especially in a normal surrounding of Clara and Danny's workplace Coal Hill School (uber fans control yourselves), yet his introduction was superb. Something Doctor Who fans crave in could-be companions is a backstory, and here we already had one carved out in barely 20 minutes of screen time. We learned that he was a soldier and that he possible killed someone in the past, I hope that this will be revealed in the coming episodes. At present he seems to be a genuinely nice character and his relationship with Clara is already looking to be one of a very lovely and blossoming. But... as always in Doctor Who relationships, this presents problems. Danny Pink is/was a solider... and the Twelfth Doctor hates soldiers,I mean he's always hated guns, but here, so much so that the Twelfth Doctor actually rejected soldier Journey Blue (played by a fabulous Zawe Ashton) request to travel in the TARDIS with him. It will definitely be interesting to see how this relationship between The Doctor and Danny Pink develops.
All in all, although this episode may not be considered of the greats and a classic any time soon, it was a great follow up episode to the series opener, and I'm sure it will continue to get better from here. I suppose this great new episode and the new man the Doctor is can be best summed up by the lone Dalek to the Doctor - "I am not a good Dalek, you are a good Dalek". Here's to episode 3!
P.S - just who the hell is this Missy?!
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