 "Into the Dalek" stars Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman and introduces Samuel Anderson as Danny Pink - a recurring character for this season a teacher at Coal Hill School along with Clara Oswald. This story also features the Daleks who are once again voiced by Nicholas Briggs.
Aside from mini-stories this is the first story, since the 2009 Tenth Doctor story "The Waters of Mars", not to feature Matt Smith as The Doctor.
Samuel Anderson is best known for his work in 2006 movie The History Boys, ITV soap opera Emmerdale (where he appeared alongside Jenna Coleman between 2007 and 2009), and BBC One sitcom Gavin & Stacey.
Michelle Gomez makes a brief uncredited cameo as Missy, a mysterious woman described by Steven Moffat as ‘The Gatekeeper of the Nethersphere’.
Written by Phil Ford and Steven Moffat, this is the first story since the 2009 Tenth Doctor story "The Waters of Mars" to have two credited writers.
Previously Phil Ford also wrote "The Waters of Mars" with Russell T Davies. He also wrote the animated adventure, "Dreamland", again featuring the Tenth Doctor.
Phil Ford was also the lead writer for the Doctor Who: The Adventure Games, that was launched in 2010, writing; "City of the Daleks", "Blood of the Cybermen", "Shadows of the Vashta Nerada" and the epic "The Gunpowder Plot".
Phil Ford has also written many stories for The Sarah Jane Adventures, including "The Curse of Clyde Langer" which scooped the Writer’s Guild of Great Britain’s ‘Best Children’s TV Script Award’ in 2012. More recently he co-created and has written many episodes of the CBBC hit, Wizards Vs Aliens. His other writing credits include Coronation Street, Torchwood and Captain Scarlet.
Ben Wheatley, who directed the first story of this season, "Deep Breath", also directed this story. His previous credits include movies such as Down Terrace, Sightseers and A Field in England.
The read through for this story began shortly after the read through for "Deep Breath" finished on the afternoon of Tuesday 17th December 2013.
The main recording commenced on the 25th January 2014 and finished on the 18th February. Gretchen’s final scene, however, was recorded on the 23rd May, the same date that the Half-Face Man’s moments with Missy, in "Deep Breath", was shot.
Several scenes involving the interior of the Dalek were filmed at Uskmouth Power Station in South Wales. This location was previously used in a number of stories including "The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe". Location filming also included scenes at St Athan and in Newport. The scenes for Coal Hill School were filmed at Holton Primary School, Barry in Wales.
The miniaturisation technique used to enter Rusty through via the eyestalk is not unlike that of the Teselecta. The Dalek also uses defensive antibodies just as the Teselecta did (see the 2011 Eleventh Doctor story "Let's Kill Hitler").
The Doctor is heard calling the idea of shrinking people and injecting them into a patient a ‘fantastic idea for a movie", a reference to the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage.
This is not the first time The Doctor has encountered shrinking for the use of medical purposes. In the 1977 Fourth Doctor story "The Invisible Enemy" The Doctor was cloned and his duplicate shrunk and placed inside his own body in order to fight a virus. The Doctor and his companions were also miniaturised in the 1964 First Doctor story "Planet of the Giants" but on that occasion the shrinkage was caused by the TARDIS malfunctioning.
The Doctor again expresses a dislike for soldiers which is very similar to the way the Third Doctor disliked them in the 1970 story "Doctor Who and the Silurians" and the Tenth Doctor in the 2008 story "The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky".
The Doctor is heard to state that morgues are easy to break out of. The Eighth Doctor previously broke out of a morgue shortly after his regeneration in the 1996 film "Doctor Who: The Movie".
Colonel Blue suspects The Doctor of being a Dalek duplicate (see the 1984 Fifth Doctor story "Resurrection of the Daleks").
Rusty tells The Doctor that he is a ‘good Dalek’. The Dalek, the Ninth Doctor encountered in the 2005 story "Dalek", told him that he ‘would make a good Dalek’. The Eleventh Doctor also once stated that there was no such thing as a ‘good Dalek’ in the comic story "The Only Good Dalek".
In the 1967 Second Doctor story "The Evil of the Daleks" The Doctor made ‘good Daleks’ by converting them with the Human Factor. He actually gave them names. Due to the introduction of human thought processes, they questioned the other Daleks, leading to a riot that resulted in the destruction of the Daleks and the Dalek Emperor.
The Doctor is seen greeting Clara with the coffee he got in Glasgow albeit three weeks later in "Deep Breath".
In this story Clara is asked to wrestle with the apparently simple question: is The Doctor a good man? This is similar to the first line of dialogue in "The Day of The Doctor" where Clara’ quoting Marcus Aurelius’ words’ is heard to say: ‘Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one’. She also alluded to the Emperor in "Deep Breath" when talking with Madame Vastra about the change The Doctor had undergone.
Clara is again seen working at Coal Hill School. This school featured in the very first story, the 1963 First Doctor story "An Unearthly Child". This is not the first return visit to this school: The Seventh Doctor, with his travelling companion Ace, went there in the 1988 story "Remembrance of the Daleks" where they discovered the Daleks had created a secret transmat station in the school’s cellar. Clara is also seen teaching at Coal Hill School in "The Day of The Doctor" and "Deep Breath".
While this is the Twelfth Doctor's first proper encounter with the Daleks, he had previously appeared briefly in both the "The Day of The Doctor" and "The Time of The Doctor", which also featured the Daleks.
The Doctor recalls his first encounter with the Daleks on the planet Skaro (see the 1963 First Doctor story "The Daleks"), and comments on how that experience shaped his identity.
At one point Rusty is heard chanting, ‘Death to the Daleks!’. This is the title of a 1974 Third Doctor story .
We hear the distinctive Dalek heartbeat sound several times in this story. It was originally used in the very first Dalek story, "The Daleks", and has featured in many subsequent stories including "Destiny of the Daleks" and "Victory of the Daleks". In fact we heard the Dalek heartbeat before we heard their iconic battle cry of ‘Exterminate!’.
In the Big Finish Productions Doctor Who audio story, "Jubilee", the Sixth Doctor also met a Dalek that notices an error in the Dalek race, with his then companion Evelyn Smythe helping the Dalek to find this.
Rusty's epiphany concerning his people and that the Daleks must be destroyed mirrors Dalek Caan after he lost his mind following his breaking of the time-lock in "The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End".
Rusty is heard referring to the persistence of life using the phrase ‘Resistance is futile’, a phrase used in various science fiction works throughout the years, including by the Vogons in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the antagonistic Borg race of the Star Trek franchise.
Rusty somewhat mingles the ideas of beauty and hatred, a similar comment having been made by the Prime Minister of the Daleks in the 2012 Eleventh Doctor story "Asylum of the Daleks".
When The Doctor is accessing Rusty's memories we see some memorable moments from previous Dalek stories including: the extermination of security guard Bywater in "Dalek" and the Daleks attack on the Valiant and their subsequent destruction in "The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End".
The girl who jokes ‘She wishes!’, when the School Secretary is trying to flirt with Danny Pink, is called Courtney. Played by Ellis George, this is the same character who had a very brief cameo in "Deep Breath" during the scene where Clara recalls becoming flustered whilst teaching an unruly class.
Journey Blue is heard to state, on leaving the TARDIS, that: ‘It’s smaller on the outside!’, unwittingly quoting Clara who said these exact words in the 2012 Eleventh Doctor story "The Snowmen" when she realised the TARDIS is dimensionally transcendental. On that occasion The Doctor called the statement ‘a first’ as the standard response is usually, ‘It’s bigger on the inside!’. In this story The Doctor tells Journey it's much more exciting when experienced the other way around (see for example "An Unearthly Child" and "The Three Doctors"). Donna Noble, in the 2006 Tenth Doctor story "The Runaway Bride", also first encountered the TARDIS from within, and then marvelled at its external dimensions.
After Gretchen is apparently killed by the Dalek antibodies, she encounters Missy, who welcomes her to ‘Heaven’, like she did to the Half-Face Man in "Deep Breath".
It seems that soldiers called ‘Ross’ tend to be unlucky in Doctor Who. The last person called Ross encountered by The Doctor, a UNIT soldier from the 2008 Tenth Doctor story "The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky", was killed by the Sontarans and the first solider to perish inside the Dalek in this story is called Ross. Unlike Gretchen, we never see Ross reach what Missy calls ‘Heaven’.
The ‘Vent’ joke exchanged between The Doctor and Clara is a reference to the vent scenes from the 1975 Fourth Doctor story "The Ark in Space" between The Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith. It also reflects a similar exchange between Rose Tyler and Toby Zed in the 2006 Tenth Doctor story "The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit".
It is discovered that a Trionic Radiation leak is the cause of the malfunctioning Dalek.
The conclusion of this story is similar to the conclusion of the Big Finish Productions’ Doctor Who audio story "Jubilee", where a lone Dalek notices the error of its comrades and stops an invasion.
Like the previous story, "Deep Breath", during the title sequence this story's name is not in capitals, as has been the norm for previous stories in the show.
Two clips from this story were featured alongside an interview with Peter Capaldi on BBC News on the 7th August 2014. On the 25th August, a ten-second clip was released showing The Doctor's reunion with a lone Dalek. The same clips were then re-released on the 27th August in slightly extended form.
As part of the Season Thirty Four (New Series 8) leaks, both the script and a rough cut of this story were leaked online from a server in Miami. Despite the fact that the initial online copy of this story contained a glitch, that prevented people from downloading it, a workable version found its way online by the second week of August 2014.
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The Firsts:
Samuel Anderson's first appearance as Danny Pink.
The first story since the 2009 Tenth Doctor story "The Waters of Mars" to have two credited writers.
The first story, since the 2009 Tenth Doctor story "The Waters of Mars", not to feature Matt Smith as The Doctor.
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(Position = 8 out of 12)
