To Make a Soufflé

It's back! Doctor Who has finally, after a tantalizing eight-month wait since the last episode, we finally get more of our favorite eleven-faced time travelling hero. 

So what will this episode bring? A new companion? The return of our old friends, Amy and Rory? Everyone's favorite combination musical number and body of water, River Song?

(By the way, I should warn you, I will answer that question in its entirety, so if you haven't watched the episode, you should leave this page and go watch it now, because this article contains SPOLERS)

Well, the miniseries, which aired during the past week, Pond Life, gives us at least some glimpse of what is to come, as well as answering one very important question that has been plaguing me since the episode about Satan

Ood poop goes through toilet seats.

 And one question that it didn't actually occur to me to ask.

She's holding back a really strong belch.

So with Amy and Rory having domestic issues, the Ood being returned to the hive mind, and the Doctor being legally dead (there were five witnesses; four if you only count River once), where will an episode called Asylum of the Daleks take us?

..well probably to a place where they keep crazy Daleks, although two bonus points to you if you guessed it would look like this:

Anyway, this episode begins with the Doctor meeting a woman inside a giant Dalek on the planet Skaro. The meeting seems to go well, with the person that the Doctor is meeting with seeming to... you know... be a person.

"I am so human I'm even wearing a hood."

 But then she changes her mind, literally, and "Exterminate"s the Doctor.

"Just kidding"

Except that we can assume, since the show didn't immediately end, that she had her death-beam on a lower setting.

The next minute or so features Amy, Amy's hair, and Rory, all of whom get "acquired" by the Daleks.

This is Amy's hair. He is very pleased to meet you.

And then we find out why they were acquired.

All in favor say "Exterminate"

The Doctor needs to save the Daleks, and this will be achieved by them launching him and his companions at a planet (the Asylum) and hoping they will turn off a force field shield thing so that the Daleks can destroy said planet.

In other news, new logo:

It has little Dalek beads

So this episode revolves around a few different subplots. First and foremost, we have Soufflé Girl, who is, despite her name, not very good at making soufflés.

Perhaps it's because I'm color-blind, but I can't tell the difference between a burned soufflé and a good one.

She helps Amy, Rory, and the Doctor find their way around the Asylum, sort of like a benevolent GladOS. Oh, and did I mention that she looks like this?

This is going to be a good episode.

We find out that she's quite the brain, hacking away at Dalek technology for the past 363 days, and amassing such resume items as learning how to control all of the cameras and the speakers in the Asylum, and rewriting the "Parth Web" so that all of the Daleks forget who the Doctor is. Like all of us, the Doctor is impressed with her abilities, but he seems much more concerned with her grocery logistics. 

Tragically, we learn that the reason she always has milk to make her souffles is that her milk, like her souffles, and the rest of the life she's been living for the last year are about as real Mitt Romney's taxes. In other words, she doesn't look like this:

But like this:

Really, Steven Moffat? Are you really implying that any attractive woman who is good at hacking is really a Dalek hallucinating that she's a human?

Another subplot revolves around Amy losing her don't-turn-into-a-Dalek wristwatch thing. Before launching them into planets, the Daleks give the Doctor, Amy, and Rory one wrist-thing each that saves them from turning into Dalek puppets like the woman that the Doctor met in the first scene.

In three minutes, it will be not-becoming-a-Dalek PM.

Unfortunately, Amy loses hers and starts to go insane. Thankfully, some stuff happens, or doesn't happen, and she doesn't turn into a Dalek. Her marriage is also saved, because the Doctor tricks her and Rory into having what is apparently the first intelligent conversation they've had about their relationship.

Note to self: If my wife and I ever have potentially marriage-ending problems, we will find a way to resolve them that does not involve having to choose which one of us turns into a Dalek.

So that's pretty much what happened. Overall, I was really conflicted about the episode. The pacing was fast and exciting, and we got a fascinating storyline that was filled with twists that I was genuinely not expecting. 

But there were a few things that I really did not care for in this episode, and if the show is taking a large turn towards the direction of this episode, I will be really disappointed.

1. Skaro

The show promised us Skaro, the home planet of the Daleks, and we got about ten seconds of a rainy background and a giant Dalek.

It was cool to look at, but probably a waste of special effects time and budget. I'd say the inclusion of Skaro in this episode was about as irrelevant as the inclusion of Hitler in Let's Kill Hitler, except that that was kind of hilarious, while this was just not quite as dramatic as it could have been.

2. The Daleks

I'm tired of them. They had a brilliant introduction into the revived series as this terrifying completely inhuman thing, extremely powerful and hellbent on nothing less than the destruction of every human they can find. But they've become so washed up, so easy to defeat, so pathetic that they are just boring.

This episode promised to "make the Daleks scary again". But when we find out that a) they have a non-kill setting on their exterminate beams, and b) they are begging the Doctor for help, that made them even more pathetic.

Okay, the Zombie Daleks were kind of creepy.

And yes, I understand that Oswin turning out to be a Dalek was supposed to be scary, and while it was certainly shocking and really sad, I wouldn't classify that as frightening.

So, Mr. Moffat, please stop with the Daleks. Their potential has been achieved and they are used up. Time to move on to new and more interesting bad guys.

3. The Ending

After finding out that Oswin Dalekwald has erased the Daleks' memory of him, the Doctor proceeds to go right back and tell them who he is. That seems like a stupid thing for him to do - potentially give them back all of the information on him that they lost.

"Here's my schedule for the next thirty years, and just in case you need to abduct me again, I'll be on Skaro next Thursday."

Fortunately, the Daleks still don't remember him, even though he tells them exactly who he is. The remaining dialogue for the episode is just "Doctor Who?" repeated over and over again, first by the Daleks who are trying to figure out whether he came to cure their chronic lack of extermination, and then by the Doctor, who jubiliantly repeats the question to himself for several hours after the cameras stop rolling.

Oh yeah, and the divorced Pond-Williamses are doing just fine now. (See the next section)

Just fine, except that Rory got constipated.

4. Amy and Rory

There really wasn't much about Amy and Rory that I liked in this episode, and the only reason that they didn't ruin the episode for me was because they played virtually no part. I made an offhand remark earlier, but it really bothers me that their marriage ended the way it did and was so easily patched up.

Amy kicked Rory out because he wanted kids that she couldn't bear. She kicked him out rather than have an intelligent conversation about her issues. Sadly, a lot of marriages end like that (not necessarily over children, but because people won't communicate with one another), but Amy and Rory were supposed to be smarter than that. And from the way that this episode went, it was obvious that even one conversation, even one sentence, really, would have saved their marriage.

Maybe they think that if they die here, they don't have to have another serious conversation about their relationship.

Also, I have to ask. Did both Amy and Rory forget about the daughter that they already have?

Spoilers!

5. The Doctor

This is probably my biggest complaint about this episode, for obvious reasons. He seemed different in Asylum, and that was probably the most off-putting thing about it. He was not confident, he was not erratic, he was not kind. He panicked when Daleks were approaching him, literally calling out for help, just to save his own life. That's not the Doctor that we know and love. 

"I'll do anything! Anything! Just don't make me unclog the toilet! It was the Ood!"

His unkindness this episode manifested when he told Soufflé Girl that she was a Dalek. This image doesn't quite convey the level of disgust carried in his voice, but just imagine your doctor giving you a fatal diagnosis with this expression on his face.

"You and your bubonic plague disgust me."

It just didn't feel like he was the same. I hope he returns to more like what he used to be, because I don't like the Doctor of this episode.

Other Random Observations

Look at these two images, screenshots from the episode taken less than a minute apart.

Notice how there's no way that these two could be the same place. The second image shows that the Doctor, Amy, and Rory are completely surrounded by specators, but in the first image, there's an obvious gap, which is part of the story. Oops...

Also, why does anyone bother putting Daleks in chains?

So as I said, overall, this episode was okay. The story was good, but the characters (with one exception) were pretty feeble, and most of the humor in Asylum fell flat. The only reason that it wasn't a complete disaster was Jenna-Louise Coleman, who played Oswin Oswald, and played her magnificently.

Don't look so surprised. Well, I guess you can - I like your surprised face.

She completely stole the show with her hilarious lack of concern about her surrounds at the beginning of the episode, her flirting with Rory, and her cavalier way of saving the day about eight times. Now it did seem a bit weird to me that after finding out that the last year of her life was a fantasy and that she was a Dalek, she cheered up so quickly and was willing to help the Doctor, but...

I changed my mind. This doesn't bother me at all.

Favorite Quotes:

Doctor: "How many Daleks are in there?"

Puppet: "A count has not been made. Millions, certainly."

Doctor: "All still alive?"

Puppet: "It has to be assumed. The Asylum is fully automated: supervision is not required."

Amy: "Armed?"

Puppet: "The Daleks are always armed."

Rory: "What color?"

*Silence*

Rory: "Sorry, there weren't any good questions left."

Doctor: "How can you hack into everything? It should be impossible. You're in a crashed ship!"

Oswin: "Long story. There a word for total screaming genius that sounds modest and a tiny bit sexy?"

Doctor: "Doctor. They call me 'The Doctor'."

Oswin: "I see what you did there."

Oswin: "Loving this! With the nose and the chin, you two could fence!"

NEXT EPISODE: DINOSAURS ON A SPACESHIP

Argus Filch comes to clean the TARDIS