Victory of the Daleks

Well, something had to give somewhere. After two pretty good and original episodes for the revamped and regenerated new series of Doctor Who, the Mark Gatiss story Victory of the Daleks proved to be a huge disappointment. Although Gatiss is a lifelong fan, with numerous writing connections to the show, for me, both stories of his, have been rather crap. Victory of the Daleks was perhaps THE most rushed and fast-paced story in the show's history - blink, and you missed it. This made it difficult to follow and it spent no time at all building up any kind of tension. And not just that - the actual storyline was absolute rubbish too. The rehashed old tale of one race of Daleks beating another, all wrapped around a corny plot to get to the Doctor via implanting an android professor, claiming to have invented the Daleks, in Winston Churchill's war cabinet. I'm sorry, it just did not work. The Daleks deserve a genuinely original story - and not one that's necessarily earth-bound either. There are only so many ways you can re-tell The Dalek Invasion of Earth, and they've all been done twice over! But it gets worse. According to Steven Moffat, as just about everything else in the series has change, why not change the Daleks too? Because there's no need, that's why! The change in the Doctor, the companion and the TARDIS is all normal with a new Doctor, season and production team, but a design as genuinely classic as the Dalek? Surely people want to see Daleks which look like Daleks, not an oversized, hunchback obese Dalek. Despite some nice colour schemes and some interesting details, such as the eye-stalks, the new fat Daleks looked utterly stupid, more resembling the various mis-shapen Dalek toys that came out in the 60s, barely resembling a Dalek. This was one step too far in my book, which has undoubtedly raised my concerns for the rest of the series. I think at times the production team are so involved in the show, and wrapped up in their exclusive little Doctor Who bubble, that they easily lose focus and forget some of the most important things that just make the show work.