Dalek

I think this episode is without doubt the episode everyone has been waiting for since the series started, even before. It doesn't matter whether your a fan of the show or not, watched the original or not, because there's not many who haven't heard about the daleks. Even those who are too young to remember the original series have heard about the Daleks, so expectations for this episode were high.

The episode opened with a cameo from another of the Doctor's biggest and famous of enemies-the Cybermen. Luckily enough for the casual viewer the quick climpse wasn't laboured and full with remarks to previous encounters between TimeLord and Machine. Had this been the case many would have soon turned off put off by the constant remarks to events they know nothing off. Luckily the sequence was quickly over and the Doctor was arrested.

He was quickly introduced to the second villian of the piece, an american billioniare who collects alien artifacts. He wasn't the best of characters to be honest. Whether that was due to poor scripting or acting its difficult to tell but he didn't shine out, he just felt like a plot device to introduce the audience and the Doctor the main enemy of the episode-The Dalek. The Doctor stroded agrogantly into the cage expecting he could help the alien and expecting the alien to be greatful of his help. The last thing he expected to see was his arch rival hidden in the dark and the horror on the Doctor's face was plain to see.

The episode quickly picked up some much needed pace so it could be all over and done with in 45 minutes because of the restrictive new format. This episode could have done with being a two-partner to allow events to be spread out instead of feeling rushed. The deaths could have had more of am impact if the Dalek chasing through the corridors was expanded. It slowly hunting down and killing its captors. We could have seen the fear, horror and tension from the other characters as they fought for their lives and the realisation that there's a better killing machine other than mankind. All these themes and others could have been explored more deeply but let it not be said that this was an excellent episode.

The influence of the new Battlestar Galactica could be felt here. The enemies in that series were once chrome robots who hunted down mankind because they had no other purpose. But the new Cylons are humanoid and have emotions, they have evolved and because of it you feel for them. Their are times when you are on their side or at least you understand their motives. This episode had examples of that. The Dalek, by using Rose's DNA to regenerate, developed emotions as a side effect and by doing so the audience began to feel for it. You sympathised with it, more so than with the Doctor. The Dalek was the last survivor of its race and all it could do was follow long programmed orders to kill but desperately wanted new ones. Meanwhile the Doctor almost became the villian of the piece through his determination to kill without listening to reason or letting emotion come in the way. Even the Dalek pointing out the Doctor was acting more like his species than Timelords didn't really stop the Doctor. It took Rose and the mutating Dalek begging to be killed for the Doctor to realise what he had become.

The episode also confirmed my suspsion that the Daleks were invovled with the great timewar and also hinted that if a Dalek survived other Timelords may survive as well.

Once again Billie Piper stole the show with brilliant acting and the supporting cast were better than some so far although perhaps not as brilliant as one was hoping. Christopher Eccelston improved on previous performaces as the Doctor but he still doesn't quiet feel like the Timelord I have come to know and love thanks to UkGold repeats, VHS and DVD releases due to being too young to remember the original series. This episode gives me hope for future episodes after previous ones failed to engaged or to impress me, bar Wolrd War Three that is.