Moffat Era Rewatch: Notes on "Into the Dalek"

·      There’s a sense that “Into the Dalek” is written as something of an obligation - the Dalek story for the new Doctor that Steven Moffat wanted to get out of the way as soon as possible. But for all that, it’s a lot better than it needs to be, succeeding at its basic function while also being a lot smarter and more inventive than it’s often described as amongst fandom.

·      I’d like to take a moment to praise Ben Wheatley’s direction: it’s methodical and none too flashy, but with just enough flair to make the viewer see why he’s a genuine catch for Doctor Who. The Dalek eyestalk sequence in particular stands out as a marvelous piece of inventiveness: Wheatley’s direction doesn’t define an era’s visual style like, say, Nick Hurran’s, but it does set the tone (just as “The Eleventh Hour” does for the Eleventh Doctor).

·      The writing’s pretty darn good too, although you can feel the switches between the functional Phil Ford writing - “There’s no way that door’s gonna hold, but I’ll be damned if I’m making it easy for them” growls the embattled space marine – and Moffat’s little sparks of inventive dialogue – “Don’t be lasagna” warns the Twelfth Doctor. It’s not quite as textured a script as deep Breath, but there’s some admirable craft here: the twelfth Doctor’s line “morality as malfunction” nicely seeds the reveal that Rusty’s damage is what turned him good, and the the cortex vault’s importance to the conclusion is seeded nicely in the first act. Plus, the basic premise – the TARDIS crew get miniaturized to journey inside a Dalek – is genuinely inventive.

·      Because this episode is genuinely inventive, in spite of its often (and overly) criticized similarities to “Dalek”: there are a couple, but those are largely superficial. It’s a Dalek story that chooses to focus on a single Dalek rather than an army of them, and has the “You are a good Dalek” line that echoes a similar moment in the Eccleston story, but those similarities really only highlight the differences between the two episodes.

·      One thing that definitely isn’t comparable to anything from “Dalek” is the introduction to Clara and Danny’s relationship. This continues the trend of the “real world” returning to Doctor Who in a big way, through both the companion’s domestic life, and the setting of Coal Hill School. Our world, and its politics, are starting to be addressed more head on than Doctor Who has for a long time, here through the episode’s exploration of what it means to be a soldier, and the Doctor’s uneasy relationship with soldiers in general.

·      Samuel Anderson is instantly charming as Danny, who is a genuinely underrated character, in my opinion. I like the way the receptionist and the teacher who introduces Clara and Danny both assume he’s a “Ladykiller” when he is, in fact utterly hopeless at responding to Clara’s advances. We get a nice return to Moffat’s “Coupling” roots, with a two minute non-linear meet cute, as we see Danny reactions intercut with his complete failure to respond to Clara openly flirting with him. And Clara and Danny’s relationship represents something new for Doctor Who: instead of getting an established relationship for the companion as part of her life outside of the TARDIS, we see her starting the relationship, and trying to make it work as the relationship moves on and develops.

·      “Trying” being the key word here, as the seeds for the problems of Clara and Danny’s relationship are sown alongside their genuinely sweet meet cute. Clara’s “Ah, you kill people and cry about it afterwards?” joke is genuinely insensitive here, and the brief misunderstanding – Danny is genuinely baffled as to why she would consider that to be a joke – is the basis of their out and out argument in “Listen”.

·      The eye motif that ran through “Deep Breath” is once again in evidence here. Particularly notable visuals are Clara’s shirt, covered in eyes, and the eye-shaped Dalek “antibodies”: our heroes have to evade their detection: to be seen by this part of the Dalek’s system is to consign yourself to death. This aspect of the antibodies subtly foreshadows the Doctor’s “eye to eye” confrontation with Rusty, where being seen by Rusty results in the Doctor’s failure to succeed in making a good Dalek. The Doctor’s intention is to make Rusty see the universe the way he does, but instead gets an uncomfortable reflection of his own morality reflected back at him. “I see into your soul, Doctor, and I see hatred”, says Rusty: he is more drawn to the Doctor’s hatred of the Daleks than the Doctor’s wonder at the beauty of the universe, and as a result, the Doctor cannot fully turn him.

·       Which is a nice note on which to lead into big similarity between Rusty’s final conversation with the Doctor, and the lone Dalek’s confrontation with the Ninth Doctor in “Dalek”. I am talking, of course, about the parallels between the lines “You are a Good Dalek” and “You would make a good Dalek”. The former has been accused of being a straightforward lift of the latter to try and imitate an impactful moment from a beloved episode, but the subtle differences in wording and the context of the different episodes would suggest otherwise. The lone Dalek is telling the ninth Doctor he would be good at being a Dalek, whereas Rusty tells the twelfth Doctor he fits his own definition of what a good Dalek would look like, in a way that Rusty cannot.

·      All of these themes are nicely framed by the “Am I a good man” TARDIS scenes that (more or less) bookend the story. The first of these two scenes comes shortly after the opening credits, and show a Doctor in a new regeneration, and a new life cycle, still trying to figure out who he is, with Clara unable to tell him, still being uncertain around this new Doctor herself. By contrast, in the final scene, Clara gives a second “I don’t know” in answer to the Twelfth Doctor’s question. But this time, it is a reassurance: knowing you’re good isn’t the point – frankly, people who “know” that they’re “good” tend to actually be awful people: the types who try to impose their idea of goodness on others. Asking the question, and trying to be, is the point: our goodness is defined by our actions, not by some idea we have of who we are “underneath it all”. And so we have a thesis statement for this new version of Doctor Who: a key aspect of the morality of the Twelfth Doctor’s era is formed here.