American Doctor Who fans are a funny lot. We accept that the series is created for children (or "Family audience", if you will..) but most of us old-time fans began watching the series in our teens. I, myself, began a life-long love for the program in the early eighties as a teen sci-fi fan looking for something more fun to watch than Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica. What fun! What charm! It's meant to be ..what?

Scary?

Honestly, I could just never get my head around the idea. Millions of English children diving behind the sofas in sheer terror of the Daleks. The Daleks?

Don't get me wrong, I love The Daleks to bits. Really. I love the single-mindedness and the blind "dislike for the unlike" and those fantastic scratchy/electronic voices....

But I can't imagine anyone being scared of them.

Fast forward. I'm a typical fan with loads of videos and Dapol Dalek action figures and Big Finish audios. I'm also the step-dad of a wonderful young girl named Jessica Jones, who I very much want to enjoy the series with me. Over the years, I tried many different items. Pyramids Of Mars? Yep. Dapol toys mixing with her own toys? Sure, I tried that.

Not much interest.

Over time, she would watch episodes with me. Peter Davison episodes ,mainly. Season twenty. No monsters. Still, her opinion of Doctor Who was pretty low. One night, we were driving home and I knew that the trip would take roughly thirty minutes. "Hey, guys..", I said, "how about an episode of Doctor Who on the cd player? Just so happens I have one in the car." My better half, Teresa, rolled her eyes and sighed that particular sigh (the "what a geek" one) and settled in for some Doctor Who. "Jubilee" episode four played in tandom with a clear starry night as I drove home listening to another class production from Big Finish. That's when I learned something.

Jessica is TERRIFIED of The Daleks. She can't so much as look at them, let alone listen to those evil-filled voices.

Really?

In recent months, I've had the good fortune to see episodes of the new Doctor Who series (lots of squinting, though. Thank goodness I have a multi-region DVD player and DVDs are right around the corner). I have loved the good old mix of cheeky self-reference and adventure, wit and thrills I first enjoyed in Doctor Who mixed with a fresh new breakneck pace. And, boy! Am I enjoying Christopher Eccleston's Doctor Who! By the way, how sad a fanboy am I that I actually cheered when I saw him listed in the end credits as "Doctor Who"?

Jessica watched "Rose" over my shoulder at first, then found herself drawn right into the action. She really loves it, but is most taken with Rose Tyler. Billie Piper's Rose is just heroic enough to be a role model and just normal enough to be an everywoman.

And so we've watched most of the episodes together, when possible.

When the preview for Rob Shearman's frankly brilliant episode "Dalek" started, Jessica froze. "Daleks...", she hissed." I don't like Daleks..." When the Dalek began shouting "Exterminate!" , she began to shake. I told her that there was only one Dalek in the episode.

"oh....that's okay then..."

The Doctor and Rose land in an impressive alien archive, complete with the head of a Cyberman ("Hey! I've seen one of those!"). Suddenly, armed guards take our heroes to visit our villain Van Statton, who seems to have an alien fetish. Along with him, they meet Adam, working for Van Statton ("Ohh...he's british, too. Is that why he thinks they will like each other?") And The Doctor is taken to visit the prize of the collection ("uummmm..."), a living alien life form. All alone in the dark (At this point, Jessica begins to position herself closer to my chair). When The Doctor introduces himself, the lights come on and we see a lone Dalek. The Dalek goes mental at the sight of The Doctor and begins shouting "Exterminate!!" (At this point, Jessica screamed and hid behind my chair. It's true. Kids DO hide behind the sofa.)

When The Dalek realizes that he and The Doctor are the last survivors of a great war, he also realizes that he is all alone in the universe ("Aww", says Jessica. She was pants-wettingly scared of The Dalek and now she feels SORRY for it?) When The Doctor offers to free him from life by electrocuting him, Jessica went ballistic. "What? He can't do that! The Dalek's chained up! That's not fair!"

In the labs, Adam begins making goo-goo eyes at Rose ("They like each other....wonder what The Doctor will think?")

Angered by The Doctor's attempt to kill his prize, Van Statton begins a scan of The Doctor that seems like torture. "You have two hearts", Van Statton coos ("Cool!", Jessica exclaimed)

Thanks to Rose ("No! Rose! Get away from it!", Jessica shouts. This is followed by "I think that Dalek likes Rose. She feels sorry for him.")

Suddenly, The Dalek re-energizes and breaks free. Jessica screams. I cheer wildly.

"What are you gonna do," a doomed man asks, "Sucker me to death?"

It does. Jessica screams. I cheer wildly.

Over the next thirty minutes, we are treated to a massacre the likes of which Doctor Who has never seen. My jaw drops several times throughout as the production team do everything humanly possible to make that Dalek the coolest (or scariest) thing ever.

Jessica picks up the theme of the episode early on, noting that The Doctor is acting like a bigger monster than the monsters! She gasps every time that Rose is in danger (RTD, you've done quite a job with this one..) and cheers when Van Statton gets what's coming to him.

And she feels very sorry for The Dalek at the end.

And, hey! So do I.

She chuckles as Adam finds his way aboard The TARDIS ("Is he going with...ha! ha ha ha! He's only going because he likes Rose, y'know..")

And as the episode ends, she asks "Can we watch again?"

I loved the episode. I got action, suspense, and a great character study of the tenth Doctor. But I also got to see what the show looks like to a nine year old, non sci-fi fan.

I saw the Daleks as children see them. Behind the sofa scary.

RTD, you are on to a winner!

At last they’ve done it. After three entertaining but somewhat flawed stories and one unmitigated disaster, the series new production team have finally delivered an episode which lives up to the potential of Doctor Who in the 21st century, and gave us probably the best story since Remembrance of the Daleks back in 1988.

I have had many problems with this new series of Doctor Who, particularly the inherent silliness and the often middle of the road light entertainment feel that all of RTD’s stories have had, but Dalek is the first which would make me glad to get up and shout its praises from the rooftops. Overall it reminded me of why I was a fan and still sitting in front of the tv screen after almost twenty years of indignities have been inflicted on this series. It proved the old notion that all that is needed is a solid script, some conviction from the cast and the rest would take care of itself.

I must admit the concept of this story appealed greatly, the concept of a private alien museum with one living exhibit sounded a great premise, but I hadn’t dared get my hopes up too much after last weeks contender for worst episode of all time. But from the off, this story moved quickly and assuredly, no moments of camp silliness to jar you out of the reality of it, no problems with pacing or structure that the first three stories suffered from. In short we got 45 minutes of genuinely exciting, moving and well structured drama, in fact the sort of thing I had been hoping for from this series from the outset.

There were some nice surprises, particularly the Cyberman head which brought a smile to my face, and gave us our first direct link to the original series and the Doctor’s almost melancholy reaction to it was strangely moving.

The arrival of the supporting players I thought was slightly overdone and played a little clichйd, but I was glad to see both Corey Johnson’s Von Statten and Anna Louise Plowman’s Diane Goddard settled down within a few scenes and became very credible characters. Bruno Langley’s Adam I am somewhat undecided on, although I must admit being familiar with his character from Coronation Street made it harder to see Adam as a character in his own right. The last minute addition of him joining the Tardis crew however came as a nice surprise, and it will interesting to see how he develops in his role as a (presumably temporary) companion. Perhaps ironically though the best performance came from Nick Briggs as the voice of the Dalek.

While in lesser hands it could have been a disaster, here for probably the first time ever, a Dalek became a rounded character in its own right, rather than just shouting down a microphone, Briggs varied the intonation to the point where you believed there was a living being inside and that there was far more to a Dalek than anyone could have imagined . I had been dreading the humanised Dalek after hearing rumours about it, but to give everyone their credit, it always stayed on the right side of credible and by the end one found themselves almost siding with the Dalek.

Visually too, the creatures have never looked better, thankfully retaining the original design with just a few minor tweaks which bring them firmly into the 21st century.

Just as I moaned in my review of Aliens of London about doing Who villains badly, so Dalek illustrates perfectly how to do them right. The Dalek seen here is an unstoppable force and god if this is just one, think what a whole squadron would be like. Now we can see why they rule the universe. Every joke that everyone has made about Daleks will hopefully now be silenced. From the rotating midsection, to the leviatating, this machine will hopefully have left joe public with their jaws on the floor, and if the remote control Dalek toy isn’t a best seller this Christmas then there aint no justice. The revelation of the mutant was an unexpected surprise and full marks should go to the effects crew who made it look thoroughly realistic.

If I were to raise any quibbles with this story and they are only minor quibbles it would be that the levitating Dalek effect looked a little fake, also I found the Dalek’s revival just by Rose touching the head a little too convenient and lacking a full explanation. After 6 episodes I also still find myself sitting on the fence over Chris Ecclestons portrayal of the Doctor. I have found much to like in his performance, but ironically I still find him very undoctorly in a lot of his confrontational scenes, in moments of this story he came across a bit like Grant Mitchell in space, almost thuggish and too easily emotional. His scene against the Dalek was a masterclass of acting, but failed in the fact that I was never convinced that it was the Doctor actually saying these things . Saying that, I think part of the problem is the inevitable source of comparison, one cant help but compare him to Doctors one to eight, and certainly Eccleston’s Doctor is far removed from his predecessors and I applaud the production team for trying something different. Unfortunately this bold new take on the Doctor’s character which now seems to have developed into him being a shell shocked war veteran is, taking some get used to and with Eccleston leaving at the end of the season I can see him being remembered as the guy who didn’t quite pull it off.

I haven’t quite decided whether this story is a classic, opinion usually takes a while to settle on these things, but it was definitely close. Unfortunately it seems the two scripts most respectful of the old series this season have come from writers other than Russell T Davies, it is shameful that jobbing writers are doing a better job of getting this series right, than the man who was employed by the BBC to revive the show in the first place.

However regardless of what next week may bring, Doctor Who shone bright this Saturday, it may have took an eternity but Doctor Who has finally delivered on 16 years of expectations and promises and for that everyone involved in Dalek should feel very proud.

I come at this not as a hardened Who fan who follows every cough, spit and splutter of everyone who has ever written for, or of, the series and its predecessors, but as a non-nerdy lover of Doctor Who going back to when it began in the sixties. I rather hope it brings a different perspective to what I say about “Dalek”.

Yes, it was excellent, hence my being moved to write my first ever review of a Who episode. “Dalek” worked for me on a number of levels. It helped knowing something of the Daleks – and, I guess, having been one of the team who copy-edited many of the books for Virgin and the Beeb (I even helped to blow up Gallifrey). I realised, though, that, had I not known anything about them other than their cult status, my enjoyment would not have been diminished – it would merely have been made to work at a different level.

A friend thought the episode had sentimentality; I preferred the word “pathos”, not defined as arousing pity but going back to its Greek origin: “feeling”. I “felt” a lot for the Doctor and the Dalek while watching this episode, and could empathise with Rose, still very much an outsider to the Doctor’s world – universe – in spite of her show of being a little more “knowing” as the series has progressed.

We did not need legions of Daleks to summon the idea that this race was one of absolute monsters whose potential for destruction was Armageddon-like. Our minds could do that for us, thanks to the skilful writing of Robert Shearman and the direction of Joe Ahearne. The menace oozed from this understated creature because Messrs Shearman and Ahearne went only so far, and let us do the rest – surely the goal of any writer or director.

>From the single blue light when we were supposed not to know a Dalek was there (but did) to the lighting up of the room, revealing the carapaced creature bound like the Titan who tried to steal the fire (but bound for very different reasons), we were entranced. The wider emotional range Nicholas Briggs brings to the Dalek voice is apparent from the words, “The Doctor?”

Here was the centrepiece of the tableau, imbued somehow with an indefinable quality from the very fact that the episode was called “Dalek”, not “The Dalek”. Some subtlety there, on someone’s part. During this first confrontation between the creature and the Doctor, we found ourselves wanting to look for longer, wanting the dialogue to be more spare, wanting longer gaps between lines, so that we could witness this confrontation between – But wait a minute. It wasn’t between good and evil any more: it was between – well, between the Doctor and the last surviving member (as far as we know) of the Dalek race; between the complexity the Doctor was able to show in this episode and a balancing complexity brought to the Dalek by Briggs and the writer.

Yes, there were comic moments. One was when the Dalek realised its gun wasn’t working, and down went the eye stalk and up went the gun, simultaneously, in an anthropomorphic representation of someone who’s just been told that he’s holding a turd in his hand and can’t quite believe it. But the most telling thing to come from the Dalek was the line, addressed to the Doctor, “You would make a good Dalek.”

This was perhaps where knowing something of the Doctor’s past would have helped those viewers coming to Who for the first time, although perhaps having seen the first five episodes has given them enough of his character and backstory to work out that here we were seeing a “hero” who was not all that the heroes of drama are cracked up to be.

“Dalek” had claustrophobic menace, some classic creature features with much-needed enhancements thrown in, emotional complexity, the gorgeous Billie Piper and equally gorgeous Bruno Langley (Adam) and a Doctor who is forced to question himself. It worked on all these levels and, for this fan, was the best so far in the series.

Absolutely magnificent!

This was not only comfortably the best episode of the new series but, quite possibly, the best Doctor Who story ever - and I know I'm not the only one to say that. In exploring the allegorical potential of science fiction, the episode took up the gauntlet thrown down so dauntingly by the likes of the new Battlestar Galactica and beat them at their own game. We were shown the Doctor as refugee (and, perhaps, war criminal) a man (alien?) struggling to come to terms with his own past and, in his torment, posing some serious questions for our own world.

There is no need to rhapsodise at length about the tautness of the plot, the excellence of the special effects or, even, how well Billie Piper performed as Rose; others have covered that ground and said nothing with which I would disagree. For me, it was the overwhelming sadness of the episode that ensured its classic status. The moment when the Dalek learned that he was all alone in the universe was genuinely moving. And has the series ever produced a finer moment of acting than Christopher Ecclestone's utter devastation in response to the Dalek's "You destroyed us"? The actor conveyed perfectly the Doctor's realisation that he, too, was a mass murderer, no better, and probably worse, than the creature he was so violently taunting.

But even that was topped by the Dalek's melancholy response "You would make a good Dalek" to yet another of the Doctor's bile-filled rants. How easy it would have been to make that line a flippant throwaway, an infantile "one-liner" with an instant, and unsatisfactory, payoff. Instead, it added a bleak resonance to the Dalek's earlier remark that he and the Doctor were alike. The Dalek had meant that their loneliness united them. In fact, as the creature came to understand, the common ground was irrational hatred.

At such moments, the programme was much more than an entertaining piece of fantasy hokum, but a profound exploration of the human condition. Of course, such existential speculation has always been begged by a series with the title Doctor Who; many more episodes like this and they're going to have to start writing it with a question mark.

We're roughly halfway through the debut season of the new "Who" and on the whole I have been pleasantly surprised. Having said that, I don't think it has been a coincidence that the two episodes so far that have been truly top-notch are the two that have not been penned by Russell T Davies. We all owe Davies a debt of gratitude for bringing the Doctor back in the first place, but he might be taking on too much by writing most of the episodes in addition to his duties as producer. Anyway, more on that later...

As a die-hard listener to the Big Finish audios I've had the opportunity to enjoy Rob Shearman's previous work, so the news that he would be writing a television episode featuring nothing less than the Doctor's most notorious enemies filled me with confidence for the show's future. The episode, titled simply enough "Dalek", certainly did not disappoint. I'm leery of the trend that casually throws around the term "classic" before the closing credits have even finished scrolling down the screen, but I'll make an exception in this case. "Dalek" is destined to be regarded in the same vein as "Genesis of the Daleks", and not only because of the parallels between the Doctor's attitude to Dalek life. Shearman's episode brings additional layers to the whole Dalek mythos just like its predecessor but manages to do it in only a fraction of the time.

The above comment regarding the story's length is one of the key strengths of "Dalek"; this is the first of the new series' 45-minute one-parters that seemed to fit perfectly within its limited timeframe. It's a bizarre facet of the "Doctor Who" universe in which any story less than 90 minutes is seen as somehow lacking while virtually every other television show in existence fits comfortably under an hour. Granted, plenty of "Who" stories have featured tons of filler to pad out its length but even so fans have become so conditioned to the traditional length that anything less is seen as less substantial. Even the Big Finish audios and full length novels reinforce that prejudice. At any rate, I was worried about the shorter stories coming into this new series and until "Dalek" my fears had been largely confirmed. All of the previous one-parters left me wanting more; in the case of "Rose" and "End of the World" in a critical "Is that all?" sense. Even "The Unquiet Dead", as great as it was seemed like it could used something more. "Dalek", while I wouldn't have complained seeing even more of such quality writing, nevertheless had a beginning, middle, and end that left me with the satisfied feeling of having seen a complete story.

Another highpoint of this episode was the acting of one Christopher Eccleston. Previously his performances have left me with very mixed feelings; the Doctor's attitude has been way too breezy, flippant and at times downright annoying with the idiotic grin plastered on his face half the time. At times I wouldn't have been surprised if he had broken out the spoons. It wouldn't be fair to blame Eccleston for all of this, however; for one thing almost all the previous doctors went through similar growing pains in their early stories as the actor himself as well as the writers came to grips with the latest incarnation. The tragedy in this case is that Ecclestone already has a much tighter time-frame to grow into the character before he leaves the role. Part of the problem also lies with the writing for the character, more particularly Russell Davies as the primary writer. The goofy, off the wall characterization fits in with Davies' idea of comedy within the series; I've always enjoyed the comedic aspects and sense of fun found in the classic series but at times Davies' writing seems to veer closer to Benny Hill than Doctor Who. Shearman fortunately brings back the dramatic, darker aspect to the Doctor which is especially important in an episode such as "Dalek". The threat would be drastically undermined if the Doctor resorted to an endless stream of one-liners and gags, something that weakened "Aliens of London/WWIII". This episode illustrates how Ecclestone certainly has the ability to be a great Doctor given the right material. He works much better in a serious role with the occasional comedy versus the clownish role with the occasional drama that has been the case so far.

As usual, Billy Piper is excellent in this episode. As an American, I had never heard of her until she was cast as Rose. Learning that her claim to fame was as a pop singer didn't exactly thrill me but she has turned out to be the most consistently enjoyable aspect of the series. The guest stars in this episode also held their own; I was worried that the American setting would mean plenty of caricatures of the "Texas oil tycoon" or brass "New Yawker" variety but fortunately they stuck to a more neutral accent. The Dalek itself certainly earned its starring role, thanks to the work of Nick Briggs as this generation's version of the deadly pepper pot. The script made great use of the creature, from the deadlt use of its sucker to its downloading of everything on the internet! Perhaps my favorite scene was not the Dalek levitating up the stairs, as I'm sure it was for many, but a later scene in which it wipes out an entire room of soldiers using the sprinkler system and electricity. It was a clever and interesting way to demonstrate the Dalek's intelligence and its deadly nature without resorting to yet another generic shootout.

"Dalek" has confirmed my overall belief that the new series has the ability to have just as successful a run as the original show. Even with my reservations for the RTD-written scripts I'm still enjoying the overall progression of the season. The second half of the season seems to contain a more serious and dramatic tone with perhaps more revelations about the mysterious "Time War", one of Davies' overarching storylines that I am enjoying in addition to the ongoing connection with Rose's family and friends back home. At any rate the rest of the season has the potential to set up the Doctor's adventures for many years to come, with or without the ninth Doctor.

If you frequent forums, newsgroups and the like without contributing then you are known as a 'lurker'. Many of you reading these reviews will recognise that quality in yourselves, but every now and then something comes along that breaks you out of your apathy. A moment so profound, so life changing that you are forced out of the shadows to yell it from the rooftops and tell everone else about it. In science it's been labelled the EUREKA moment. What event would cause a scientific mind to leap naked out of their bath and run yelling down a public street?

Well no nudity in public for my epiphany. I like to reserve a special place in my tele-visual history for the WOW moments. On Saturday night, a cynical classic Who fan of some 36 years sat down and watched a beloved, but in his view, underachieving, resurrection deliver a WOW moment that registered high on the richter scale. Dalek delivered - in spades.

Let me put this into context.

I've lived WHO from Pertwee to Baker, from Davison through to the other Baker. My enthusiasm was drained by the travesty of... I mean the Trial of a Timelord, only to have it re-ignited by 'Fenric' only to have it dashed by the cancellation when it had just become interesting. I had slim hopes for McGann and the movie... yet the infamous 'kiss' scuppered any creditability it may have gained from me. So it was that the Doctor faded into television history.

17 years and the landscape was changing... Star Trek had a Next Generation, Deep Space Nine came and went, Voyager voyaged and Enterprise confounded original series devotees... Mulder and Scully opened (and closed several times) the X Files, Babylon 5 was the last best hope for peace' before being decomissioned, Buffy was the chosen one, died and was resurrected... as indeed was her vampire love Angel... all contributed in their own way and gave rise to inspiration for others to follow... but you know that...

The US fantasy output had 'raised' the bar - in script writing / dramatic and special effects terms. Nothing the British could do could challenge or compete with the genius of Whedon, Straczynski or Carter... at least that's what we had been led to believe.

I'm not one to deify writers, creators etc, and RTD is a long way off that with his own scripts, but I must congratulate him on the first two non RTD scripts of this new series. Gattiss's 'The Unquiet Dead' invoked nostalgia of Hinchcliffe WHO, and now Shearman's Dalek.... to coin an often used ninth doctor phrase "Fantastic!"

Twenty minutes in, after much promise came the WOW moment. Two minutes of Dalek action in the corridor showdown with the bases forces. Two minutes where I remembered what it was like to be a child again. That wonderful feeling of awe and inspiration where you look at the screen with undiluted pleasure. EUREKA! Te ruthlessness, the brutality... this was a Dalek displayed in it's purest form doing what it does best. The re-invention was realised superbly... with post-Matrix forcefields dissolving bullets, skeleton exposing exterminating rays and the clincher? The 360 degree revolving mid section. Such a simple idea... and a perfect accompaniment to what went before. The aerial POV shot of this new movement was inspired! Yet it didn't stop there... who could watch the movement of the Dalek as it shifts itself into it's next direction post the corridor slaughter and not be chilled by it? This could so esaily have been a static Dalek moves forward shot, so congrats Joe Ahearne for going for a more artistic and aesthetically pleasing viewpoint.

So impressed was I that I had to view BOTH the BBC Three reruns.. just to see if this moment was as good as I thought it was. Could I be being deceived? Was WHO 2005 delivering the goods at last after the abomination that was the 'two parter' that shall remain nameless... (Third World War indeed... waste of a powerful title...Wind breakers would have been better....)? Dalek did deliver and I wasn't being decieved.

Sure I can be critical; Rose could touch the Dalek even though the "last guy that touched it burst into flames"?; the emotionless pre-DNA transfer Dalek could be "glad" that it had met Rose?; the Dalek reasoning that "what use are emotions if you won't save the woman you love"; slightly dodgy CGI in places, the cop out power drain / internet download (some broadband connection!) and the slightly 'too convenient implosion'...(if that's what it was... I'd much prefer it to have been a time jump....) But in counterpoint the episode has such richness... from great atmosphere to stunningly effective use of location (the Millenium Stadum at Cardiff was an inspired choice), tight direction and classic dialogue; "You would make a good Dalek..." ; "If you can't kill what are you good for.. Dalek?" "E-L-E-V-A-T-E!". I can't let my review pass without praising the subtle refrence to classic WHO in the prologue.. "an old friend.. well.. an enemy.. the stuff of nightmares reduced to an exhibit" recited over the image of a blank expressionless "Invasion" Cyber head. How may households rang to the cries of... "Dad what is it?" Well done Mr Shearman for not labouring the point. (Just bring them back and let the new generation really know what they are...)

I hope the new generation of WHO fans will enthuse about this as much as this veteran does. THIS is what it's all about. This is why I love this programme. If there is nothing else offered by this revival then the 2 minutes of WOW delivered here will have made the 17 year wait worthwhile. File with those other classic moments... my first glimpse of a Dalek in Day of the Daleks, the Sontaron reveal in the Sontaron Experiment, the Cybermen appearance at the end of episode 1 of Earthshock, the marshmen in the swamp of Full Circle... and I'm sure you have a long list too...

If Mr Davies wants to learn anything about his audience then he too should become a 'lurker' and realise that he has started something good. As all fledgling shows this new 'infant' will make some faltering steps... but when it learns do do things right (as it has done here) it should do them MORE! Here's one lifetime fan hoping for less 'soap' (exterminate Mickey please) and more WOW in the weeks to come.

As another sci-fi visionary once said; "Faith manages".