Victory Of The Daleks - Gaz

This week, with Trinny and Susanna we try something a little retro, a last look at the original before something new and bold... oh hold on that's the wrong damn show. I've been waiting weeks for this Daleks in Space episode and it's bloody, what not to fucking wear, give me a break!

Don't get me wrong, it's a huge improvement over any other recent episode, (bar the seminal Dalek), featuring Terry Nation creations since the BBC re-launched Doctor Who. It missed out on emergency temporal shifts, musical numbers, squid-headed half-Daleks and Cybermen, all good things not to have. Positively it picked up Winston Churchill, World War II, the blitz, space-faring Spitfires and tea trays.

Should the Daleks have come back... err yes, they are just too much part of what Doctor Who is, something in which all your fears can be summed up in, something that looks like you could fight it off with a packet of soggy rice crackers and the cat, but in reality, they chill you to the bone and you really need to make sure you lock the doors before bed. They are nonsensical, but unstoppable.  They spout rubbish and explain everything, but keep surviving and I love to fear them.

What got my goat this episode was the introduction of a raft of shiny new Daleks, in colour no less. Some how I keep thinking they have become my running joke of new MINI vs. new Doctor Who, brought to life where they are bigger and brighter than the original, but somehow just a bit softer with air-bags and air-conditioning. I have this sinking feeling their presence is tied to the big smiley crack in space and time and we may drown in a final episode of technicolour Dalek nonsense or it's the Joker!

Daleks aside, I loved Ian McNiece as Winston Churchill, a grand, but silly take at the man who held Britain together during a terrible time, if he'd had Daleks he would have used them to stop the Axis Powers. Meanwhile the Doctor moves up a couple of notches in not quite holding back his anger, but whimsically holding off death-machines with a Jammy Dodger... mmmm must be time for tea. Amy still seems to be a bit ahead of everybody for most of the episode, though her lapse of memory about the Daleks clearly points to trouble ahead.

I liked:

Daleks serving tea with Union Jack badges

Spitfires in space... or were they Hurricanes?

Doctors goes bat-shit at Dalek

I disliked:

New, new Daleks, now available in a range of colours to suit your urban lifestyle

Crack in space and time is beginning to give me the shits

I need to be convinced:

The Daleks are not this years "big bad"

Next week, the return of Professor River Song and The Weeping Angels, should be all giggles I guess.