Anonus Watches "Dalek"
This is the sixth episode of the 2005 version of Doctor Who. I felt like liveblogging it, rather impromptu.
So far, the Doctor and Rose managed to end up in an alien museum in 2012, get captured by the people who run it, and the Doctor has confronted the titular Dalek, who is, like the Doctor, the last of its kind. The Dalek tries to "EX-TER-MIN-ATE" The Doctor, but cannot do so. The Doctor says that he killed the Daleks when he burned down their ship during the last great time war. The Dalek saying "we are the same" infuriates him to the point that he tries to kill the Dalek by electrocuting it. This is stopped by the people in charge of the museum, to whom the Dalek refuses to speak.
So far, the Doctor and Rose managed to end up in an alien museum in 2012, get captured by the people who run it, and the Doctor has confronted the titular Dalek, who is, like the Doctor, the last of its kind. The Dalek tries to "EX-TER-MIN-ATE" The Doctor, but cannot do so. The Doctor says that he killed the Daleks when he burned down their ship during the last great time war. The Dalek saying "we are the same" infuriates him to the point that he tries to kill the Dalek by electrocuting it. This is stopped by the people in charge of the museum, to whom the Dalek refuses to speak.
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people in charge (I think his name was Michael?) and Rose are talking
about his desire to see aliens and travel through space. He thinks the
Doctor is Rose's boyfriend, and is implied to have a crush on her. He
says the Dalek (which he refers to as "the alien") doesn't do anything
and is kind of useless, comparing it to a "great big pepper pot". He shows Rose the Dalek being tortured.
The scene changes to the Doctor and the people in charge walking into an elevator. He explains that the Dalek's exterior is just armor, and the creature inside was genetically engineered and looks like "a nightmare". The Daleks were engineered by "a genius" to feel no emotions but hatred. The Dalek in question fell to Earth, was sold in a private auction, was passed from collection to collection before landing at the museum, and burned in a crater for three days before it could be reached, screaming the whole time.
The Doctor says that it fell through time, having survived the time war, the final battle between the Doctor's people and the Dalek race. Mr. Van Stanton realizes that the Doctor is too an alien, and the scene changes to several bright lights turning on and the Doctor, shirtless, on a rack. He is scanned, apparently paining him (which is freaky), and it is revealed that he has two hearts. Van Stanton says that he will patent this, and says that he has made many advances off of "alien junk"; for instance, the cure to the common cold was scraped from "the Russian crater", but goes unsold.
The Doctor says that a Dalek is "honest", and it does what it was born to do "for the survival of its species". He then says, with clear desperation in his voice, that the Dalek will kill everyone in the base. The Doctor's warnings are ignored, for with every one he is blasted by the scanner.
A scene change sees Rose be taken into the room with the Dalek. She says that the Doctor can help him, and asks if it is in pain. It confirms this. "They torture me, but still fear me. Do you fear me," it says to Rose, who says "No," in response. It then says that it is dying, welcomes death, but is glad to have met a human who was not afraid of it before it dies. Rose attempts to pat it, leaving a temporary orange mark on it and causing it to become very volatile, breaking free from its chains.
One of the clerks approaches it, and it raises an arm resembling a plunger in defense. The clerk replies "What are you gonna do, sucker me to death?". It proceeds to do exactly that.
The Doctor is released from his cell and proceeds to tell them not to let the Dalek escape the area it is in. One of the workers says that the lock has "a billion combinations" and the Dalek can't get out. The Doctor replies that it is a "genius" and will get out. As the combinations take effect, dramatic music complete with chants plays in the background. The door opens and more workers try to shoot the Dalek, to no effect. The Doctor tells Rose to get out. The Dalek approaches the computer screen the Doctor is communicating through, and smashes it, delivering more electric shocks to it.
In addition to absorbing all the U.S. west coast's power, says a worker, it absorbed the entire Internet, says the Doctor, so now it knows everything. It has somehow regained its ability to destroy, and uses it to zap several objects in the room that appear to be radioactive. It then leaves the room and electrocutes another worker. The others' bullets have no effect on the Dalek, who can destroy them without even touching them. Moving the upper two thirds of its body individually, the Dalek zaps more workers. Mr. Van Stanton says that the workers are dispensable, and the Dalek is not, and should not be shot, fearing it will be injured.
The Dalek has finished killing all the workers in the room. Mr. Van Stanton wants the floor it is on sealed so it can't escape from there. The Doctor does not want this, as he does not want Rose to be harmed. He suggests using alien weaponry to kill the Dalek.
The scene changes as Rose, Michael, and another worker run away from the Dalek and up two sets of stairs. The Dalek cannot ascend them. The other worker points a gun at the Dalek, telling it that its imprisonment may have been wrong, Mr. Van Stanton would be willing to negotiate, that the killing stop, and that it surrender. It says, "E-LE-VATE!", and floats up the stairs.
i get so angry sometimes i just punch plankton --Klinotaxis
So now the Dalek is still floating up the stairs, and the worker with the gun is shooing Rose and Michael out of the room. As per usual, her bullets don't work on the Dalek.
The scene changes and Mr. Van Stanton asks the Doctor if he can reason and negotiate with the Dalek, figuring it must need something. The Doctor disregards this, saying that the Dalek is capable of killing the entire population of Salt Lake City. He says the Dalek kills what is different because it believes it is wrong, calling it "the ultimate in racial cleansing".
A scene change shows more workers (to clarify, I will call them "soliders" from now on) in a gray room in preparation to apprehend the Dalek. The Doctor says that it is surrounded by a forcefield that melts the bullets but that the creature is not indestructible, and that its head and eyepiece is its weakspots. Rose and Michael run through, and the soldiers almost shoot them until letting them pass safely. The Dalek then rolls in, and looks at Rose. She notices this, and Michael says that it wants to kill them, but she says she feels that it knows her. It then approaches the soldiers, who begin firing at it.
The scene changes to a room with the Doctor, Mr. Van Stanton and another worker at a table. They are watching the standoff on a screen. This shifts to full view, and the Dalek then elevates itself, shoots the fire alarm, setting off the sprinklers, waits for the floor to be flooded enough, and shoots the water, electrocuting several soldiers. It fires more shots, and has killed all the soldiers.
The scene changes to the Doctor with a very solemn look on his face. Mr. Van Stanton suggests that they abandon the base, but the only way out is the helipad, which the other worker says there is no power to. Lowering the bulkheads that would seal off the floor the Dalek is on would take too much power, which there is almost none of. She says reactivating the power would require bypassing the security codes, which she says would take "a computer genius", which Van Stanton says he is, and that "I don't want to die, Doctor, simple as that!".
The screen is turned on, and the Dalek wants to speak to the Doctor. The Doctor then says that the Dalek is a soldier without commands, and its desire to follow the primary objective, to destroy, is pointless, as it is the last of its kind. (I can barely make out anything the Dalek is saying, with its computer-ish voice combined with the muffling provided by the screen most of the time it is speaking.) The Doctor commands it to kill itself, to which it responds "The Daleks must survive!". The Doctor then calls the Daleks "filth", shouting "Why don't you just DIE?", to which the Dalek responds "You would make a good Dalek." (you know how the Daleks feel nothing but hate? The Doctor has shown the Dalek nothing but hate.). The screen turns off and the Dalek proceeds to elevate once more.
The scene changes to Mr. Van Stanton sealing off level 49, and then to Michael and Rose running up the stairs. The Doctor tells Rose over the phone to run. The Dalek is after them, and Mr. Van Stanton says that there is not enough power and that the Doctor must close the bulkheads. (Sorry for the confusing wording, if there is any, I can't quite follow what's going on with the power.)
Michael gets under the closing bulkhead in time, but Rose does not, leaving her with the Dalek. Assuming she does not have long to live, she tells the Doctor that her death will not be his fault. The Dalek then says "EX-TER-MIN-ATE" and kills her, offscreen, the scene having been shifted back to the Doctor.
He is very remorseful at Rose's death, and Mr. Van Stanton apologizes, saying that he did not let the Doctor kill the Dalek because it was "the prize of [his] collection". The Doctor is upset by this, asking if it was worth all the deaths caused by the Daleks. He proceeds to say that mankind explores space to be part of something greater, and that Mr. Van Stanton wants to drag the stars down, put them underground, and label them, holding him responsible for Rose's death.
The scene then changes to her, against the bulkhead with tears in her eyes, alive after all. It asks why the Dalek has not killed her, it says a bunch of stuff I can hardly make out (I know it says that it kills for its race, which is by now probably just pride), and fires shots that miss Rose, and that it is "con-tam-in-at-ed".
It takes Rose hostage after a scene change where the Doctor reprimands Michael for his apparent lack of concern for her safety, and it threatens to kill her if the bulkhead is not opened. The Doctor rejoices that Rose is alive and tells the Dalek that the bulkhead will not be opened, to which it responds "What use are emotions if you will not save the woman you love?". The Doctor is speechless, then opens the bulkhead. The tensity of the situation is emphasized by the strings in the background.
After an argument about how to stop the Dalek, the scene changes to another room in which the Doctor roots through the alien weapons. "Broken, broken, hair-dryer" he says. Michael says he kept the weapons around because Mr. Van Stanton wipes his workers' memories as he considers them disposable, and he would need them if he ever needed to fight his way out one day. The Doctor considers the prospect of him in a fight ridiculous, and then pulls out a large gun. "Lock, and, load." he says.
The scene changes to Rose and the Dalek in an elevator, as it begins to question itself. Rose tells everyone in the computer room not to move. The Dalek approaches Mr. Van Stanton, angry at the torture Van Stanton's workers inflicted on it. He says that he was trying to help it, get through to it, and wanted it to talk. The Dalek then says "then hear this. EX-TER-MIN-ATE, EX-TER-MIN-ATE.", but then Rose stops it, begging it to reconsider as it has no need to kill anymore, asking it what else it wants. It doesn't answer, and turns back to Mr. Van Stanton, then back to Rose, and answers "I want freedom.". The scene changes to them going into another room and the Dalek shooting a hole in the ceiling, allowing sunlight to beam onto its eyepiece.
Rose says it is out and she thought she would never feel the sunlight again, and the Dalek asks "how does it feel?". It takes off its armor, and reveals itself as a mass of flesh with a brain atop it, a yellow eye, a mouth, and some tentacles, one of which it extends to Rose.
The Doctor appears, asking her to move out of its way so he can shoot it, displaying almost fanatical devotion to the goal of killing it. Rose tells him not to, but he responds that the Dalek killed hundreds of people and its race killed his. Rose says that the Dalek has changed, and asks the Doctor what he is changing into. This is a sobering thought for him, and he now cannot bring himself to kill the Dalek, which is, like him, the last of its kind, who asks why they survive. He says that the Dalek has absorbed some of Rose's DNA, and is mutating into something new, for which he apologizes. The Dalek says it feels so many ideas, and asks Rose to order it to die. It asks if she is frightened, which she says "yeah" to, and it says it too is frightened. It says "ex-ter-min-ate,", closes its armor, elevates, projects the balls on its armor out to create a spherical forcefield around it, and destroys itself.
subordinate ordering that his memory be wiped that he be left on the
street. He protests, on the basis that he is Henry Van Stanton. She says
that he'll be homeless somewhere like San Diego, Sacramento, somewhere
starting with "S".
A scene change sees the Doctor and Rose are at the TARDIS again. Rose
tries to comfort him with the thought that the Daleks and the Time Lords
survived the war, which he says they did, "in here", pointing at his
forehead. Michael shows up, saying that he needs to leave the base as it
will be filled with cement. Rose tries to convince the Doctor to allow
him along on their adventures, and appears to succeed, as he enters it
as it fades away.
...so we know very well now that the Doctor is definitely not infallible.