DW: Asylum of the Daleks--Reaction Post

[amberfocus]

I've been pretty much avoiding anything to do with season 7. I didn't want to be spoiled. I think all I basically did was look at what the new companion looked like, and I think I knew that there would be Daleks sometime during the season, and there would be River sometime during the season, and that the so-called Doctor/River "marriage" would hit us over the head (Thanks, Hulu advertising).

I was expecting to be underwhelmed, confused, annoyed, and have one or two genuinely fun moments. So it actually turned out to be better than what I thought it would be...but not by too much. And I was underwhelmed, confused, annoyed, and entertained by a couple of fun moments.

What I did like about the episode:

Oswin Oswald. So, genius girl. Not impressed with the Doctor. Made fun of his chin (about time, that thing really could cut paper!). Sweetest smile I've seen in a long time. Loved how fast she talked, it reminded me of Blossom's best friend, but that's neither here nor there. Loved her spirit and ingenuity. Kept being distracted the whole time because she kept viewing everything through a round thingy that looked, "surprise, surprise" like a Dalek eye piece, so I knew something was going on there. I suspected she was a humanoid Dalek who had retained her own mind. I did not suspect she was in a regular Dalek machine and had retained her own mind and created a virtual reality for herself, so that was a good twist.

I liked Rory and Amy kissing on the teleport and basically ignoring the Doctor when it was time to beam out or whatever.

I liked that the Doctor has been erased from the Dalek's memories. I think it's going to make things far more complicated in the future. At least it could if the writer's take advantage of it. I have a feeling though it'll just be ignored or never mentioned again.

I like the fact that the Daleks no longer looked like the 8 count little box of fat Crayola crayons. Oh, I'm sure they still do somewhere, but I got to rest my eyes. Also the chained Dalek breaking his chains seemed like a flashback to that scene in Dalek. Humanoid Daleks were, at least, new, but not scary.

I liked the eggs, eggs, eggs, exterminate scene with Rory. Also where he touched the Dalek and it didn't immediately spring to life like when Rose activated the Dalek in the episode Dalek. So much is recycled in the Eleventh Doctor's storylines so I thought that might have been as well. I was glad it was not.

I also liked the questioning of where the milk and eggs came from for the soufflé because it showed that the Doctor was actually thinking. Sometimes it doesn't show that or he simply isn't thinking at all and he's portrayed as dumb. I didn't feel like he was stupid in this episode, or as clueless as usual since the start of this regeneration. Except for not realizing immediately that he was the predator to the Daleks.

Things I didn't like:

It's been another major time jump in the life of the Ponds. I don't like the fact that they don't travel consistently with the Doctor, that he is always dumping them off. I don't like that they never explain or show a glimpse of what was going on in their lives when he careens into it again. I hope we will see more of a constant travelling thing with the new companion. I don't mind them coming home for visits, but I would like a consitent linear story-line for character development to go with all the time travel.

I really do not think that Amy would have been divorcing Rory for any reason. I really don't. Not after everything they've been through and how strong their relationship became. And to not tell him why after everything they had been through together? That was just not in character for Amy. And to have it be because she could no longer have babies after what happened last season and she knew he wanted children? Okay, that's dumb. There are ways to have children without growing them in your womb and as much as Amy and Rory love each other they would have looked into those ways. Adoption and surrogacy if he'd wanted a child of his own genes spring to mind. To me this just felt like a totally fabricated way of tearing them apart so that they could be put back together.

I understand that not being able to have children can put a lot of stress on a marriage, but this is not the way a loving couple would deal with it. And by the end of season six that was the one thing Rory and Amy were without any doubt. I would like to think Amy is dealing with a lot of pain because of having lost the chance to raise River, and because when you can't have children and want them it is a pain unlike any other. And dealing with a body that can't carry or hold onto pregnancies can skew a lot about how you see the world. However, in a loving relationship, it does not make you throw your spouse out. It makes you cling to your spouse for the support you both need and it makes you find a way to get through it together. I hate infertility as a storyline to create drama. It is almost always written by someone who has no idea what the hell they are talking about.

Another thing that bothered me is that sexual experimentation or confusion should not be referred to as a phase or be used as a joke. It just shouldn't. Too many people go through too much pain with that sort of thing before they come out the other side of it knowing their sexual identity, or in some cases, still not knowing. Don't poke fun at that. We've come too far as a culture for throwaway lines like that to be considered funny. Or most of us have, I'd like to think.

Geronimo. Again. Still not a good tag line. I miss fantastic. I miss brilliant. Heck, I miss bowties are cool if I have to put up with Geronimo.

An entire episode written basically to set up what has always been a very bad joke in this show, Doctor Who? is wasteful. And it's been done and done and done and done and done and done ad naseum. There is no subtlety, no tongue-in-cheek humor. It was about as anvil-like as the crack in season 5. Children are smarter than this. They do not need to be hit over the head with things. My kids were annoyed.

Things I don't care about:

Amy is a model now. Big whoop. She's beautiful and she's shown she doesn't mind using that to make money with her kiss-o-gram career. Is it sexist? Probably. I don't care enough to get worked up about it. Could she be doing something better with her life. Yeah. But if she's been going through the pain of infertility than maybe she's overcompensating by being a sex symbol instead of a mother. (Yes, I know you can be both but let's be real, usually you are just to your spouse).

Daleks. Almost never scary. Overused. Tired, trite plot device that pretty much serves no purpose anymore. But then I never cared for the Daleks even back in the olden days of Tom Baker. Can we have something fresh, new and geuninely frightening? Something that will have us clutching the blankets or forgetting that we are actually watching a show on television?

All in all I'd give this episode a 3 out of 5.

Thoughts on the trailer:

I am looking forward to the next episode and hoping that it won't just be a confusing mishmash of people and creatures stolen from their own times and stuck on a spaceship, because who needs a plot when there are dinosaurs! "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship," makes me worry a bit that it'll be handled like those WWII fighters in outerspace were. Yet, I still remain hopeful that they will not screw this one up. Because I really do want to see both dinosaurs and Queen Nefirtiti of Egypt in the same episode. It could be really good. Every once in a while they don't screw things up and a nice solid episode comes out reminiscent of series 1 through 4. Here's hoping this will be one.

Comments

[milly.livejournal.com]

I don't like that they never explain or show a glimpse of what was going on in their lives when he careens into it again.

You may have missed those (ETA: If you were trying to avoid spoilers), but over the last week they released 5 short online episodes called "Pond Life" leading up to this ep.

Ep 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMdBsc5pQ1k
Ep 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQZc9DzneUI
Ep 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm0dqb7rKpk
Ep 4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikv0QbubV7Y
Ep 5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxXAY7LyjcM

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

Yes, but there's no real detail. I mean, she could have just been yelling at Rory for not taking the garbage out in that last one. Okay, a bit more emotion than that, but basically they are fine in the first four and then there's a tiny glimpse of a fight, but nothing so serious as not being able to have kids, or a divorce pending, is all. It still felt like nothing to me.

[milly.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't mean that the episodes explained why they were divorcing, that whole storyline was complete and utter bullshit, I just linked them because you said you wished we got a glimpse of their daily life. That's unfortunately all we have for now :/

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay. Those still didn't feel like much of a glimpse into the Pond's life (well maybe the last Ood ones), they felt more all about the Doctor still. I dunno. But thanks for linking them, because I was ignoring them on f-list.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_thirty2flavors/]

Jenna-Louise Coleman showing up in this ep unexpectedly (I'd been spoiled for things, but not that) was a game-changer for me because suddenly I was really interested in what was happening with Oswin. Generally I think Oswin's story was interesting even if in true DW fashion lots of bits don't quite add up (why do they all hear her sweet girl voice until Eleven sees the Dalek......?) and I am pretty excited to see more of her in the season. She had a lot of the traits Moffat ALWAYS gives his women, and the "just a phase" thing was ICK, but I thought JLC's delivery was charming enough that I was more taken with this character than I otherwise might be.

The Pond plotline on the other hand I thought was terrible. Like you, it just doesn't make sense to me that in apparently a month (in the Pond Life eps they go from happy couple in "July" to screaming in "August") their marriage dissolved to the point of signing divorce papers when neither of them had even had an honest discussion about was going on. Stupid, stupid. It was a cheap ploy for drama to occupy Amy and Rory as characters while the real meat of the episode focused on Oswin and the surprise of JLC being there and all that. But it's just... SO lazy and blah to have your characters break up OFF SCREEN and then resolve their apparently-divorce-worthy conflict in about three minutes of discussion. The first three minutes of honest discussion they'd bothered to have, evidently. Also didn't like Rory using the Lone Centurion thing against Amy. Pretty gross.

But for me, liking Oswin + being surprised by her appearance and generally enjoying her story was enough to make this the Moffat-written ep I've enjoyed the most since s5, so that's a plus.

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

I really, really did like Oswin. I'm not sure where they will go with that, if the Doctor will go into her past and snatch her out (or there is that thing in one of the promos about River changing history), or if this will be a relative. After all it's supposed to be Clara Oswin, not Oswin Oswald. And I know that it is very common in some places for the mother's maiden name to be given to the first born daughter as her first name to sort of carry on matriarchal family name, so it would make sense to me that Clara is Oswin's mother. Or there's always the old twin sister plot line since DW has apparently gone all soap opera on us.

I really liked JLC in this, was happy with the surprise of her, and I agree that she delivered that awful phase line with charm, but shouldn't have had to. I think I'll definitely take to her other character if she's anywhere near as well-developed. I hope so. I mean Oswin had more character development in one episode than Amy Pond did in all of season five, so hopefully Clara will, too.

I didn't really like Rory using that line about the 2000 years either, and it's sad that he thought it was true, because I really thought he'd seen the changes in Amy and knew how much she loved him by the end of season six. In season five Rory might have loved Amy more than Amy loved Rory, but not after season six. Just no.

[susanb03.livejournal.com]

You didnt get to see Pond Life. That set up the Amy and Rory breaking up thing.... It's on the BBC Website.

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

No, I've seen it. I just don't think it does set it up. One angry scene with no dialogue after all that silliness doesn't set up a divorce. It sets up that they might be fighting, but that's it.

[six.livejournal.com]

I didn't really like the erasure of the Doctor from dalek memories. He survived standoffs with them because of the intimidation factor, they feared him, and then all that history just gone.

I have the same feelings about everything else, especially the Ponds' storyline. They had five chances to set it up in Pond Life, but they wasted it.

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

Yes, but without that history he'll have to work harder at trying to stop them. He won't be able to rely on "I'm the Doctor, look me up and run away," he'll actually have to (hopefully) really do some creative thinking to deal with them. I think it gives the chance for them to be more interesting solutions.

[six.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see that Doctor. I liked it when he blew up the daleks to get through that room with Amy, but then he regressed and turned into a baby and just cried for Oswin to save him when faced with those intensive care daleks.

[develish1]

3 out of 5? you found more good points than me then I guess, but my Moffat tolerance levels have been incredibly low now for quite some time

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe 2.5, but I really did like the banter between the Doctor and Oswin and I really liked Oswin in general and she was half the episode, so 3.

[develish1]

she really was the only goof thing about the episode I think, but I'm still very worried about how SM is going to get the Doctor from here to having her on board, and how much timey-wimey messing about he'll do to achieve it, unless as you speculated Clara is a relative