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Daleks To Be Given 'A Rest' From Dr. Who
donberryman writes "Steven Moffat told the BBC 'There's a problem with the Daleks. They are the most famous of the Doctor's adversaries and the most frequent, which means they are the most reliably defeatable enemies in the universe.'" And so, 400+ encounters later, both the Doctor and the daleks will take a break from each other.
Moffat has clarified that he was only talking about the current season: https://twitter.com/#!/steven_moffat/status/75506136593338368
At the start of Tom Baker's time the sonic screwdriver couldn't even reliably get the Doctor through a locked door, but now it is a magic wand that can do just about anything. Good to see it got written out of the plot recently.
It's been destroyed a couple of times since the reboot, and another one has been made, usually popping out the TARDIS console. He used it in the last scene of the last episode that was aired (unless you're talking about future episodes...). It is a fairly simple to use plot device though (need to move plot forward = use screwdriver to open door, otherwise, need to keep characters where they are = door is deadlocked)
Yeah, they should kick these bad writers with names that nobody knows like Neil Gaiman,
i think a lot of this comes down to the quality of the writers not the tools at the disposal of the characters. A bad/mediocre writer will wave the magic wand to get past the problem the writer has put the character in. To create tension they'll have the magic wand not work. This is fine and an audience will put up with this provided the rest of the story is enough to keep them interested.
A good writer won't need a sonic screwdriver or a deadlock seal, the traps and problems will be those of circumstance, character traits and morals. But like any tool they can be overused too, there's only so many times the lock of the doctor being a pacifist being opened by a companion sacrifice can be used; but we're back to the good vs bad writer stage again...
So I've no problems with the Daleks being used a lot, used in every episode even as long as they are used well. That does seem to worry me about the new Dr Who that they're not being used because they have a good story but used like the sonic to up the tension and that just doesn't work long term.
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
Unfortunately the Daleks aren't the only thing that needs a break. So does the Doctor. He has become a bad charicature of himself.
This new season is sort of like being forced to watch a Jerry Bruckheimer film every weekend, with all of the ludicrously over-dramatic theme music and gag-me-with-a-spoon melodramatic themes. Already last season the new Doctor was a little too full of himself, but I was quite shocked to find that it got infinitely worse this season. And the ridiculous "mysterious" River Song character that keeps being forced into every episode for some unknown reason just makes me want to vomit. Every time she smugly says her signature line I want someone to punch her in the mouth.
The plots, and the Doctor himself, are so incoherent that even I barely know what the hell just happened at the end of an episode, and I'm normally the guy in the room who is explaining the plot twists to others. The new episodes make almost zero sense, like they're using some random plot element generator to write the stories for them. The behavior of the characters no longer rings true, so the stories fall flat. The new Doctor comes across as a gibbering moron who doesn't pay attention to anyone or anything besides himself and yet magically finds his way out of every possible situation without seeming to have the slightest clue what he's doing.
I've managed to find and watch nearly every episode of the old series (thanks Pirate Bay!) and thoroughly enjoyed almost every single episode, from the first Doctor right up through all the David Tennant seasons. But this newest stuff has pretty much made me stop wanting to watch the show, at least until they get new writers. It takes some real talent to screw up a show that has been pretty entertaining for decades already using a very simple formula. They should really just rename the show to "The Something Horribly Bad Happens to the Tardis Every Week Show" which seems to be the common theme now.
But honey, how would you feel if I rescued you from an inner city estate?
EXTERMINATE.
Well ok, how about if I hoisted you out of a killer taxi in a wedding dress?
EXTERMINATE.
Waited 2000 years by your side?
EXTERMINATE.
Flowers?
EXTERMINATE.
This was a big problem with the Russell T Davies episodes. He used spectacle as a substitute for plot. Huge fleets of Daleks or Cybermen as a substitute for character interaction. In contrast, the best episodes have been things like Blink, that have kept the atmosphere with relatively little emphasis on special effects.
The original problem with the sonic screwdriver was that, after being used a few times, writers either had to use it, or have the audience thinking 'why didn't he use the sonic screwdriver?' With the deadlock seal, good writers can just say add a line of dialog saying 'oh, doesn't work', and move on. Imagine 42, for example, without the deadlock seal. Either there would have to be some contrived way of losing the sonic screwdriver at the start, or the audience would have sat there saying 'why don't you just use the sonic screwdriver on the doors?!?!?' Just mentioning the word 'deadlock' meant that we all knew that the magic wand wouldn't work, so there was tension that didn't seem artificial.
With a good writer, the sonic screwdriver is a substitute for technobabble. Put on the glasses, wave the magic wand, and something involving technology that the audience doesn't need to care about just happened and you can return to the plot. No need to go into long explanations. We all know the sonic screwdriver does complicated things with technology, and we don't need to know the details.
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I think the problem is that R.T. Davis wrote the Daleks to be the ultimate, unstoppable enemy of the Time Lords because they were one of the most well-known elements of the brand and useful for marketing..
There's a far better plot-driven reason: in the classic "Genesis of the Daleks" Doctor #4 was sent back to wipe the Daleks out before they were created. So, basically, he fired the first shot in the Great Time War.
This just doesn't fit well with their retro design.
But the Daleks are also fanatical racial supremacists, so they would never accept that the design cobbled together by Davros in a bunker was anything but perfect.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
What I think works particularly well with the sonic is the fact that it's used so much, but much of the time appears to do little or nothing. The doctor will quite often point it at people or things and take a "reading" that he doesn't do anything with or about, which is a nice way of saying "this tool is always here but it's not always useful" - they've made mention in the past of how flaky it can be. The doctor uses it almost as an extension of his sense to probe situations in the same way as a human might use smell and sound to augment sight (and still sometimes come up with the wrong answer). Conversely using it less but only using it in situations where it always works to save the day would turn it from a tool into a miracle device. What we need is more of the screwdriver but not always more of it saving the day.
This strikes me as a somewhat sensible decision.
I mean, I like the Daleks and all that, but they seemed to pop up an awful lot in the new Who series (since 2005) to the point where you got the impression that people forgot Who wasn't all about them. They appeared fairly regularly in the "classic" series, but not quite as frequently as peoples' memories would lead them to believe.
Then again, I realised a while back that my earliest (and *very* faint) memories of Doctor Who at a very young age are of watching it mainly to see the Daleks- not the Doctor!- and being disappointed when they weren't on. And it's easy as an adult to forget that. But I still think that they've made the right decision- just easing off the Daleks a bit for a while. If kids want to see them, the "old" "new" episodes are still repeated countless times on BBC3 anyway!
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They appeared fairly regularly in the "classic" series, but not quite as frequently as peoples' memories would lead them to believe.
Indeed, Doctors 5 through 7 only met them once each on-screen. 2 & 4 encountered them in two televised stories each, 3 bumped into them in 3 stories and 1 holds the record (if you count modern two-parters as single stories) at 5 televised meetings. I'm ignoring short "guest" appearances here, like the few minutes in the 5 doctors, and counting the last segment of Frontier in Space as a run-on to the full Dalek story that followed.
The fact that they didn't appear often heightened the excitement for the fans when they did and I agree with many that they have perhaps been overused in recent series, so giving their narrative a break for a bit certainly makes good sense to me.
The Daleks went from being a feared nemesis to being a laughing stock.
Exactly as what happened to The Borg in the Star Trek universe. It got so bad on Voyager that I wouldn't have been surprised to see The Borg beaten in an episode by cream pies in the face as Captain Janeway spun around on the floor yelping "Woop woop woop!" like Curly.
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Cost. Even galaxy conquering space monsters have accountants.
[Cut scene to a dimly lit counting house in the outer reaches of the of Sol galaxy.
Pan down to a green blobish looking fellow behind a raised desk and a Dalek gliding into the room]
Dalek: HERE IS MY REQUISITION FORM FOR DEADLOCK DOORS!
Vogon Accountant: Get stuffed! We can't afford it. The Galactic Economy is complete in stook thanks to you lot failing all the time!
Dalek: THE LOCKS ARE EFFICIENT! THE LOCKS WILL KEEP OUT THE DOCTOR ! WE WILL NOT FAIL!!!!
Vogon Accountant: I can't get money from nowhere! Can't you conquer something?! How about the Cybermen? They keep hording gold away like their lives depend on it.
Dalek: CYBERMEN ARE NOT THE PROBLEM! THE DOCTOR IS THE PROBLEM! WE WILL EXTERMINATE HIM WHEN THE DALEK RACE IS SECURE!!! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!! EX-TER-MIN-NATE!!!!!!
Vogon Accountant: Oh Hells Bells! [Accountant pushes a button on his console] Imelda, another Dalek 'client' has turned foaming mouth mental again. Bring out some of my . . . poetry. [Imelda hands him a large leatherbound tome which he unlocks] Yes, now then! Fie gorlble sond on one summer day. Tise doc! Doc doc! Tise doc!
Dalek: Naggggg! MY SENSORS ARE IMPARED!! Narrrghhh!! MY PLUNGY THING CANNOT REACH MY BRAIN!!! AAAAAAGGHHHHH!!!
[Dalek explodes. Two Vogon janitors in coveralls come by and wheel the remaining Dalek stump away.]
Vogon Accountant: Shoulda used a Sonic Screwdriver. Stupid blobby git.
I think the Daleks will be back, but probably not before season 7. I suspect the rest of this season will involve Amy, her baby, and what ever alien race is involved.
Part of me thinks the Amy-having-a-timelord-baby story arc is borderline jumping the shark. I hate it when shows use babies as plot devices. It just feels too much like a cheesy soap opera gimmick. The other part of me is going to give it a chance because I can sort of see an overall theme emerging. Either her baby is a genetic experiment or it is hers and Rory's but since it could have been conceived on the TARDIS then due to all the time energy it could be part time lord.
We've seen TARDIS-like consoles in two episodes. The first was in the Lodger, in the "upstairs apartment" where people were being zapped while being forced to try to power the ship. The second time was in The Day of the Moon, in the sewers with the Silence. I do not think the Silence are responsible for the TARDIS-like ships, and we will see a new, different enemy that is trying to build a TARDIS and has kidnapped or engineered Amy's baby so it can power the ship. This is just my speculation.
I can see this story arc spanning many more episodes, so there isn't really any room for Daleks. I do think we can use a proper break from Daleks and Cybermen, so that it'll actually mean something again when they are re-introduced.
As for the 11th doctor, I like him more than I thought I would when I heard David Tennant was leaving the show. Matt Smith plays a very quirky doctor and the 11th doctor feels more vulnerable, quirky, and child-like. He makes mistakes and his technology is more fallible (e.g.: the sonic screwdriver doesn't work in every situation). As much as I love the 10th doctor, the writers made him too powerful and god-like and near the end I never really felt he was in much danger (with few exceptions). Moffat either had to tone down Doctor Who's invincible awesomeness, or he had to introduce ever-more-powerful enemies. There is more wiggle room if he weakened the doctor, so I think that was a good decision. My only real complaint about Matt Smith as the doctor is that he needs to be more intense at times. I love his quirkiness, but if he can add in some intensity to the mix then he has potential to be one of the best doctors.
I also like Rory, because he is a stand up guy that does the right thing. He is the best of humanity. I think he is a better person than Amy. He is a bit insecure, but wouldn't we all if we were standing next to the Doctor? I am happy the writers ended up making Amy and Rory be together and love each other without making her another wide-eyed lovesick Doctor groupie. I hate love triangles and I am glad that plot device is not being used ... for now.
Somewhere the Daleks will be a spa.... EXFOLIATE EXFOLIATE
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