DOCTOR WHO Dalek Week - Victory Of The Daleks

Christopher Morley enjoys a cup of tea and a Jammie Dodger whilst taking a look at the Eleventh Doctor story, Victory Of The Daleks.

Time to enter the realm of ' tally-ho!' & 'chocks away!' as we find ourselves in wartime London. More specifically, it's the Blitz- & the relatively newly regenerated Doctor (now in his Eleventh incarnation) is off to the aid of a very special, not to mention powerful, friend.

Having taken a phone call from one Winston Spencer Churchill as the machine he'd most definitely one day call 'Sexy' ( 'The Doctor's Wife' ) prepared to take he & Amy off Starship UK ( 'The Beast Below'), they're now off to save Winnie from something so potentially catastrophic it could change the outcome of the Second World War..which won't please anyone unless their name's Adolf.

Churchill isn't entirely unprepared for the worst the Luftwaffe can throw at his Cabinet War Rooms, though! He's got a new secret weapon, developed by one Professor Edwin Bracewell - the Ironsides. And the Doctor is just on time to see a demonstration of their fire-power. If only subsequent British governments could be persuaded to invest for reasons of national defence, eh?

While the Time Lord's happy to see his old friend (previous meetings have taken place in the novels Players-with the Doctor's Second & Sixth selves- & the Sixth solo in The Shadow In The Glass), he's also running a bit late thanks to Sexy's whims. Well, she has just had a bit of a refit after all! The Prime Minister phoned a month ago, but no matter. He's keen to show off these new Ironsides of his, so they proceed to the roof. Eleven is introduced to Professor Edwin Bracewell, the ' creator' of these honestly entirely man-made weapons.

And with a squadron of Germany's finest airmen preparing for a bombing raid, the Ironsides are ordered to do their stuff. Which they do very well by blowing up the men in Stukas in seconds- though the Doctor's not impressed. Whatever technology allowed that to happen most certainly isn't of human design..these bad boys are Daleks! As if to prove the point, when one of the nicely kitted out in khaki Union Jack-wavers is introduced to its oldest foe, it merely presents itself as an honest Tommy.

' I AM YOUR SOLDIER!' seems to be its only means of identification. Does it think it can fool the Doctor again? After all, he once found himself in exactly the same situation while seeking to thwart The Power Of The Daleks ( fresh as a daisy following his first change of face, he donned a fetching stovepipe hat & set off to investigate Vulcan). They were similarly apparently obedient too, bellowing ' SERVANT!' in place of ' SOLDIER!'. But just as his Second self was sceptical of their claims to have turned over a new leaf, Eleven isn't taken in by their claim of wanting to help take down the Third Reich.

Seeking to warn his old mucker that these professed super-weapons aren't what they seem, he heads down to Winnie's office. Churchill is less than impressed by his mate's claims, though- producing hard evidence that they are indeed what Bracewell created them to be. 

Discontinuing their work is unthinkable, & there's a war to win, so if any more roll off the production line then so much the better. So runs our great wartime leader's approach to things. Indeed ' if Hitler invaded Hell' he would ' give a favourable reference to the Devil'.

Not even Lucifer himself could refuse such an accolade, surely? But that's a story for another day ( & indeed self, if you consider The Daemons & The Satan Pit-the Third & Tenth Doctors actually locking horns with Azal & The Beast, who respectively look & sound as if they might actually be manifestions of Beelzebub himself).

While he may have yet to see & indeed stop a Nazi invasion of the realm of fire & brimstone ( come on, Moffat, you know you want to- if we can have Dinosaurs On A Spaceship, surely Nazis In Hell will be a piece of cake?), the Doctor can at least find out what the scheming sons of Skaro are up to.

For which purpose he goes off to see Bracewell, who fancies a nice cup of tea. Luckily he's got someone to do it for him...



It's a clever plan, too. Inundate the plucky men & women of World War II with offers of a warming brew, then wait till they're too busy deciding what if anything to dunk into their mugs of choice & strike at the very heart of operations. Nice.

While Eleven would no doubt love to join them, there are bigger things on his mind. Namely trying to prove to everyone else that while they may indeed have a nice way with a cup of Rosy Lee, they've got an altogether nastier one of invading other planets. Testing the nature of a lone Dalek's claim to be no more than a ' soldier' , he orders it to defend itself while whacking the bejesus out of it with a wrench. You might remember Two's similar suggestion that another seemingly obedient Dalek deactivate itself in Power, as well...

Sadly its currently among the many 'missing' First/Second Doctor stories..but back we must now go to the present, where the newest incarnation of the Doctor is about to make a big mistake. Getting a bit carried away in his anger, he tells them ' I am the Doctor, & you are the Daleks!'. Which was exactly what they needed to hear to set in place a rather grand plan. Having received the ' testimony' they needed they exterminate two soldiers called in by Churchill to help out & return to their ship...

It soon becomes clear that at least one ship survived the events of The Stolen Earth/Journey's End. And as a parting gift they blow off Bracewell's hand- revealing him to be an android. The creator was actually the creation all along! Rushing off to the TARDIS to confront his greatest enemies once more, Amy is under strict instructions to remain behind. In an elaborate bluff his younger & similarly bow-tied self would have been proud of, he materialises inside the Dalek craft brandishing a Jammie Dodger which he claims to be a self-destruct mechanism.

Luckily for the universe's most dictatorial robots, they've got their hands on a Progenitor device- a repository of 'pure Dalek' genetic material. To the machine, though, any of them created by Davros himself aren't of noble enough stock.

So they needed the Doctor to kindly confirm that they were worthy of the honour of using the device to swell their own ranks. Now that that's all been cleared up, the New Paradigm Daleks can be born. Bigger, badder & more colourful than ever before, the five new boys make light work of killing off their 'impure' forebears.

Why are they so radically different from those who came before them? Each different colour denotes a rank in the intended ' officer class'. White means a Supreme Dalek, Strategists are blue, Scientists are orange, Drones are red & the ' Eternal' ( whose function is yet to be explained or explored) is yellow. 

But Ms Pond quickly helps Winnie realise that all is not lost. They can use the creation of the Daleks in the fight against his creators! If, that is, he can be persuaded out of a bout of near-suicidal depression..perhaps soothed by the presence of a fellow Scot, he's persuaded to live at least a little longer.

His ideas will come in handy so its just as well! If they can incorporate his designs for anti-gravity shields into specially modified Spitfire planes, & find a means to equip them with the sort of energy weapons favoured by those who made the good Professor what he is, they might have a fighting chance! In the meantime he has at least knocked something up so that they can all see what's going on at the Doctor's end of things.

Warning that if they proceed to make a go of their threat to blow things sky-high he'll activate his biscuit of death & make them pay for what they did, he's rather curtailed by a scan showing that what he wanted them to believe was a deadly weapon really isn't one in the slightest- he takes it on the chin, eating it & protesting that he was promised tea to go with it. What a hero. And he's not defeated yet, the British are coming (as he'll later warn Adolf himself in Let's Kill Hitler). Targeting the ship, only one of the brave pilots survives the assault on the Daleks.

They'd best move quick- the lights have been turned on, & our fair capital city is a sitting duck for any passing Germans! Luckily the dynamic duo of the Doctor & ' Danny Boy' manage to restore darkness & confuse the Luftwaffe's best boys just in time. It was never going to be as simple as that though, the Daleks ordering them to cease their fire or they'll activate an Oblivion Continuum ( whacking great bomb) built into Bracewell's chest. Stalemate..........

With Eleven having returned to Earth, the race is now on to find a way to stop the Continuum detonating. And the solution proves simple- appeal to his humanity, as Ms Pond does in stirring his memories of the lovely Dorabella. 

The Continuum quickly de-activates & the day is saved, but the Daleks are allowed to run off scot free having promised to return ( which they will in The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang). Churchill, of course, will later rise to the rank of Holy Roman Emperor in The Wedding Of River Song..wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey & all that!