Doctor Who - Recap: The Good Dalek

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The Doctor (Peter Capaldi) is still as alien and mercurial as he's always been, and what I loved about Peter Capaldi's take on the character in "Deep Breath" is what I loved about his take in "Into the Dalek" (and what I imagine I'll love about his interpretation as the series rolls on). He's a man who doesn't seem to entirely get himself. Sure, the universe is a place of irreducible beauty and complexity, but it's a system he can understand. He's not barred from seeing the beauty and depth of what's there, even if he can't always explain it. However, he doesn't have the same ability to understand himself. He can't always explain his actions, even if he can usually rationalize them. This leaves him feeling conflicted about how he should judge himself. In a poignant moment in "Into the Dalek", The Doctor asks Clara (Jenna Coleman) if he's a good man. "I don't know," she answers, honestly. And it's the exact same answer that's been rolling around his head all this time, as he tells her that he doesn't know either. The Doctor is a man who is, at all times, conflicted about his desire to do good, and the harm he must sometimes inflict in order to do it. In many ways, the name The Doctor is almost ironic, in that there is no such "Do No Harm" code in The Doctor's vocabulary, only "Do What Must Be Done."

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For example, in "Deep Breath", he bails on Clara (Jenna Coleman) in what would seem to be a coldhearted move, except that we know he isn't really abandoning her. Of course, trusting her to be able to handle herself in the situation doesn't change the fact that she's still being put in harm's way. Yet he can justify the necessity of having to do so, as he needed to gather intel from the ominous machine/man in last week's climax. Similarly, "Into the Dalek" finds The Doctor putting both himself and Clara in harm's way, but for reasons he believes to be justifiable: The Doctor has a compulsive desire to answer the question of whether there's such a thing as a good Dalek. Finally, The Doctor has encountered something as difficult for him to wrap his head around as his own morality: the morality of a Dalek. What had once been a black-and-white scenario now suddenly becomes more complicated than he could have possibly imagined.

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The story is actually pretty simple, all things considered: The Doctor is transported aboard a ship after saving the life of one of its soldiers, a woman named Journey (Zawe Ashton). Unfortunately, in saving Journey, The Doctor was unable to rescue her brother, who died in the spaceship they were piloting. It turns out that this squad is in the middle of a hectic battle against Dalek forces -- a battle so intense that neither side even employs medics, since Daleks leave none wounded, and the human resistance takes no prisoners. Well...except for one. The soldiers have come across a Dalek that is different than other Daleks, in that it seems to...hate Daleks?! The Doctor is utterly puzzled by this concept of a "good" Dalek, one who understands that the Daleks are bad and must be destroyed. Yet that's exactly what appears to be standing in front of him. It's damaged, seemingly beyond repair, although it's still aware of its existence, and still exhibits a desire to help the humans destroy the other Daleks. In speaking with The Doctor, the Dalek -- whom he names "Rusty" -- explains that what changed his mind was the discovery of beauty. He saw a star being born, and it created an entirely new kind of consciousness in him -- a morality, of sorts. The Doctor still doesn't understand, however, and so he decides to accompany Journey and co. on a shrunken expedition to the center of the Dalek, to discover what, exactly, is wrong with him, and whether a good Dalek is something that can actually be said to exist.

Credit: BBC

All in all, it's a solid adventure, with a compelling sense of urgency. Once the Dalek "antibodies" begin fighting against the "infection" represented by the shrunken Doctor, Clara, Journey and co., things get pretty intense. But it gets kicked up to a whole other level once The Doctor fixes a radiation leak in Rusty's system...which inadvertently reverts him back to being the classic, human-hating, "EXTERMINATE!"-ing brand of Dalek we've always known. Now, the mission isn't so much to fix Rusty, as it is to fix Rusty and escape before the soldiers destroy him from the outside -- or, rather, before he destroys them. The plot, such as it is, is more interesting in a thematic context than it is in execution, as it dwells on the nature of goodness, and whether evil is encoded into the DNA, or whether a person can actually change. And that's a poignant theme to tackle in the early aftermath of The Doctor's regeneration, as he's still wrestling with his own identity. Is he the same man he's always been? And if so, is he even a good man at all? "Into the Dalek" suggests that good and evil aren't inherently set in stone, that we all have the capacity for change. Clara helps Rusty to realize that by kickstarting his memories, and reminding him of the birth of the star. The Doctor then joins minds with Rusty, showing him the universe as he -- The Doctor -- sees it.

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Unfortunately, Rusty also sees The Doctor's hatred of the Daleks, leading to complicated emotions that illustrate to Rusty the complexity of the universe and the beings who populate it. It's crazy to think of The Doctor being able to part on relatively good terms with a Dalek, but that's what happens here, as Rusty exterminates his Dalek companions on the human spaceship, before leaving to return to his kind, presumably to continue carrying out his mission to exterminate his brethren. It's a strange note to end on, but not quite as strange as The Doctor rejecting Journey as a potential companion after she asks to come with him. He likes her and all, but it turns out he has a deep aversion to soldiers...which will probably make things awkward when Clara introduces The Doctor to her new love interest, a teacher at her school named Danny Pink (Samual Anderson), an ex-soldier who's killed before (but not without teary-eyed regret). Of course, it's kind of silly that the Doctor even has this sudden aversion to soldiers, since he worked closely with U.N.I.T. for so long, to say nothing of his long-term friendship with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. But regenerations generally allow for these sorts of inconsistencies in character, I suppose. As long as a good story is written around the inconsistency, it's hardly anything to get upset about.

All in all, "Into the Dalek" was a fun episode that managed to serve as a fitting follow-up to last weekend's premiere. It also continued the overarching mystery of the season, as one of Journey's dead companions, a soldier named Gretchen (who sacrifices herself to give Clara and Journey time to escape from the Dalek antibodies), awakes in "Heaven" with the mysterious Missy. Who is Missy? Where/what is Heaven? It's an intriguing hook as we continue what's shaping up to be an exhilarating season.