If you found yourself in front of your television set at 6:30pm on Saturday 17th April 2010 then you were about to enter the realm of ' tally-ho!' & 'chocks away!', and be transported back to 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.
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!
