Asylum of the Daleks (TV story)

 was the first episode of the seventh series of Doctor Who produced by BBC Wales. It was the first television story to prominently feature the Daleks since 2010's Victory of the Daleks, following their deliberate side-lining.

Synopsis
Kidnapped by his oldest enemies, more powerful than ever, The Doctor is forced on a mission - to a place even the Daleks are scared of... the Asylum. A planetary prison confining the most terrifying and insane of their kind - The Doctor and ex-companions Amy and Rory must find a way to escape. But with Amy and Rory's marriage in meltdown, it is up to the Doctor to save his oldest enemies... and his friends' marriage.

Plot
On Skaro, a woman called Darla meets the Doctor in a huge Dalek statue. She asks the Doctor to save her daughter from a Dalek prison camp, and she says she escaped before. However, the Doctor realises that this is all a trap: unbeknownst to Darla, she has actually been converted into a sleeper agent of the Daleks. Right as he says this, her programming becomes active, and she stuns the Doctor, and a Dalek saucer arrives.

On Earth, Amy Pond is posing for the camera when her secretary tells her that her husband wants to see her. She remarks that she doesn't have a husband anymore. She walks in to a makeup room, where Rory asks her to sign the divorce papers. Once she has done so, he leaves as Amy's make-up artist, Cassandra, enters. Unfortunately, it turns out she is also a Dalek puppet, and she teleports Amy away. Meanwhile, Rory gets on a bus, but the bus driver turns out to be yet another puppet, who in turn teleports Rory to the Daleks.

He wakes up in a cell with Amy, and looks through a small window to see they are in space, with an armada of Dalek saucers accompanying them, wondering how much trouble they are in. The Doctor then enters, escorted by a pair of Daleks, saying "Out of 10? 11." They are then taken to the Parliament of the Daleks, where the Doctor says it's finally Christmas for the Daleks because they managed to capture their greatest enemy. Much to the Time Lord's surprise, the assembled Daleks don't exterminate him. Wondering for what other reason they could have captured him, the Doctor is met with a surprise; the Daleks want the Doctor to save them.

The Daleks bring them to a planet they call the Asylum; a place that the Doctor has heard of only in legend: it's a place where the Daleks dispose of those of their kind who go wrong: the insane, the battle-scarred and the uncontrollable. The Daleks kidnapped the Doctor's in-laws because their records show he is always accompanied by companions. The whole planet is automated and surrounded by an impenetrable shield, but the Daleks have detected a signal of unknown origin on the planet: The Doctor traces the signal to a woman called Oswin Oswald, who has been hiding out on the remains of the crashed starliner Alaska for a year.

The Doctor realises that when the Alaska crashed, it ruptured the planet's shield, leading to the risk of the inmates escaping. A planet's worth of insane Daleks roaming free is something that scares even the Daleks, who captured the Doctor and his allies to deal with the threat. The shield is still strong enough to resist an assault from orbit, so the Doctor and his companions will be sent down to the planet to deactivate the shield so the planet can be "cleansed". The three are given protective bracelets so they will not be affected by the "Nanocloud" that surrounds the planet, and are unceremoniously sent down.

Amy is the first to come to after landing... And sees a man in a white coat approaching her. Panicking, she runs away, with him chasing after her. The Doctor is next to come to, finding a Dalek eye watching him; Oswin has discovered visitors. Speaking to her via the radio, the Doctor decides to look for Amy and Rory first. Eventually, he and Amy run into each other, and the man, Harvey, reveals that he was a crew member of the Alaska. Reaching the ship, they discover the rest of Harvey's crew dead and decomposed; the Doctor reveals to the confused man, who claims they were alive and well not two hours ago, that they have been this way for a long time. However, matters get worse when Harvey remembers he died as well; the cold preserved his body, but the nanocloud turned him into one of the Dalek puppets charged with keeping the Asylum running. He then attacks the Doctor and Amy, but they quickly shut him into the storage unit of the ship.

While the Doctor rambles on about how the nanocloud will transform anything living or dead not protected by one of the Dalek bracelets will become one of the "staff", Amy points out the second part of his explanation; even the DEAD are converted... Including the dead crew members surrounding them. As the decayed husks of the crew suddenly come to life, the Doctor and Amy flee to another part of the ship. However, the undead attackers grab Amy for a minute before the Doctor pulls her free and locks them out. They then notice, on the monitor, that the zombies have a bracelet; Amy's is missing. Oswin contacts them, informing them of a rope ladder leading down from the ship; it's the only way out now.

Elsewhere, Rory awakes to find himself underground. Oswin contacts him and leads Rory through the facility, where several deactivated Daleks litter the halls. Rory accidently trips on a piece of metal, making a loud noise that awakens one of the Daleks. Oddly, it repeats "Eggs..." over and over again, making Rory think it wants the orbs that have fallen out of its casing. However, the Dalek's voice finally manages to unscramble; it's been trying to say "Exterminate." Rory runs through the room and locks himself in the teleport room on the other side. After Oswin makes a flirty joke, she tells Rory that she'll guide the Doctor and Amy to him.

In the tunnels below the ship, Amy questions the Doctor about what will happen to her, since she is missing her protective bracelet. The Doctor regretfully explains that the Nanocloud will erase her memories, "replace her love with hate", and transform her into a Dalek puppet. Memory is the first thing to be affected, and worse, it's already begun; he's told her this four times already. When Amy says she's scared, the Doctor encourages her to embrace the feeling; Daleks don't fear. They head for the exit, but the sound of the Daleks yelling "Exterminate" forces them to back away and shut the door. The Doctor converses with Oswin to learn the number of the Daleks ahead of them, not noticing Amy walking away; she sees people in the room ahead. However, the Doctor, having noticed her, informs Amy that her perception is now being affected; she's looking at Daleks. One of them advances on them and identifies the Doctor. However, its death ray is damaged beyond use, and once the Doctor taunts the Dalek for not having the firepower to kill him, it activates its self-destruct program in the hopes of taking him with it. Instead, the Doctor sends it flying in reverse, straight into the other Daleks as it explodes.

Rory hears the explosion and leaves the teleport room to find several charred Dalek casings. Wondering who killed all the Daleks, Rory sees the Doctor carrying an unconscious Amy. With a smile, the Doctor rhetorically asks Rory, "Who do you think?" Once in the teleport room, the Doctor explains the situation to Rory, and discovers the teleport has enough power to get them back to the Dalek ship in orbit once the force field is down. Oswin points out that hostility, something Amy displayed by slapping Rory, is the first sign the conversion is becoming permanent. Amy jokes that it's because she's Scottish. Accepting this, Oswin asks to be taken along, but the Doctor questions her about how she keeps getting the ingredients for her soufflés.

His companions tell him to put the matter aside; they need to leave the planet before they lose Amy for good. The Doctor then wonders how Oswin is not being affected by the Nanocloud, and learns that she shielded herself from it. Leaving Amy and Rory behind, the Doctor sets out to find Oswin, as she refuses to turn off the shield until they come to rescue her. Rory offers to give Amy his bracelet to keep her human longer; he claims that it would take longer for the Nanocloud to transform him into a puppet. He reasons that since it transforms love into hate, he would last longer because he always loved her more than she loved him, referencing the two thousand years he spent protecting her inside the Pandorica as an Auton. As they argue, it's revealed Amy can no longer have children because of something the Silence did to her at Demons Run; while Rory thought that Amy suddenly left him, in truth, she knew he had always wanted children, so Amy "gave him up" so he had a better chance at having them with someone else, saying that her sacrifice in doing so was far greater than his two-thousand year vigil. They then realise the Doctor put his bracelet on Amy while she was out cold; being immune to the Nanocloud to begin with, he'd tricked them into working out their relationship problems.

In the meantime, the Doctor reaches "Intensive Care"; it houses Daleks defeated in battles with his first, second, and third incarnations. Once the Doctor mentions they "survived" him, the Daleks (missing their guns) come back to life and corner him against the door leading to Oswin. Luckily, Oswin hacks into the Daleks' shared information network, and erases all data on him, effectively making them forget the Doctor, and making the deranged Daleks quietly go back to their cells and go back to "sleep". The Doctor says it's impossible to hack that network; even he couldn't. Oswin invites him to meet the person who did. However, once the Doctor enters her room, he discovers, to his infinite sadness, that Oswin is also a Dalek; the room she'd been seeing only exists within her imagination. The Doctor explains that the rope ladder he used to get into the facility was originally used by her when she was human; Owsin had been captured by the Daleks, and because of her genius, had been fully converted into a Dalek instead of simply made into a puppet.

When Oswin refuses to believe him, the Doctor points out that she wouldn't have been able to get eggs and milk for her soufflés for an entire year because there'd be a limited supply. The shocking truth causes Oswin to revert to a Dalek personality, yelling "Exterminate!" The Doctor yells for Oswin to regain control of herself, seemingly working as Oswin is next heard crying. She tells the Doctor to remember her, explaining that the shield around the Asylum has been dropped. The Doctor thanks her, and - on her order - runs for his life. In the teleport room, Rory wonders how long they can wait for the Doctor. Amy says for the rest of their lives and they kiss. The Doctor arrives and, despite being annoyed that Amy and Rory pick the worst times to kiss, activates the teleport.

On the Dalek Parliament ship, the Supreme Dalek reports that the destruction of the Asylum has been successful. However, the alarm goes off; a teleport from the Asylum has occurred. The Doctor's voice is heard over the loudspeaker, saying that he is very good with teleports before popping his head out fo the TARDIS, calling them "suckers". They demand that he identify himself, shocking the Doctor, who tells them who he is. However, he then realises that Oswin erased all information on him, not just for the Daleks in intensive care, but for every last one, everywhere; the Dalek race no longer has any idea who the Doctor is. He leaves, dropping Amy and Rory off in Leadworth; Amy has taken Rory back.

In the control room, the Doctor laughs to himself that the Daleks never stop asking "Doctor Who?", repeating it himself to his own amusement.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Matt Smith
 * Amy Pond - Karen Gillan
 * Rory Williams - Arthur Darvill
 * Oswin - Jenna-Louise Coleman
 * Darla - Anamaria Marinca
 * Cassandra - Naomi Ryan
 * Harvey - David Gyasi
 * Voice of the Daleks - Nicholas Briggs
 * Dalek 1 - Barnaby Edwards
 * Dalek 2 - Nicholas Pegg

Daleks

 * The Daleks have a Prime Minister.
 * The Daleks refer to the Doctor as the "Predator of the Daleks".
 * The Daleks have the ability to turn people into their puppets, via the use of nanogenes. Time Lords are immune to this technology.

The Doctor

 * The Doctor described himself as "the Oncoming Storm".

Individuals

 * Amy is now physically unable to have children due to the events on Demons Run.

Foods and beverages

 * Oswin says she's been surviving in her crashed ship by baking soufflés; this troubles the Doctor, as she has no access to milk or eggs.

Music

 * The music played by Oswin Oswald is from the opera Carmen.
 * The Doctor claims to have played the triangle for the recording of "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle" that is heard in the Parliament of the Daleks.
 * The music playing during Amy's photo-shoot at the beginning of the episode is Feel the Love by Rudimental ft. John Newman.

Planets

 * Skaro is the original planet of the Daleks, it still exists with the remains of a large Dalek-shaped building.

Transport technology

 * The Doctor brags that he has exceptional aim with teleports after he teleports himself and the Ponds into his TARDIS.

Story notes

 * The presence of Jenna-Louise Coleman in this episode was successfully kept secret, despite the episode having several preview showings prior to broadcast. After broadcast, Coleman and Moffat both issued statements thanking fans and the media for keeping Coleman's debut - months before her official first episode, the 2012 Christmas special - a secret.
 * This story premiered in Australia on the 's on-demand and catch-up service at 5.10am AEST; immediately following the UK broadcast. This was the first time Doctor Who had debuted on Australian TV in this way. A traditional free-to-air screening on ABC1 will follow on the 8 September.
 * This story marks the first appearance of a new title sequence. It contains the same music and time vortex animation as the sequence used for the two previous seasons, but the font of the opening credits and the style of the logo have changed. The sequence appears to have some colour adjustments as well - the vortex has hints of green, while the TARDIS itself is a slightly darker blue with vibrant yellow lighting emanating from the TARDIS windows. The footage also has less-sharp focus, casting a more dream-like atmosphere to the sequence.
 * The production team have confirmed that the title sequence for every episode in series 7 will have slightly different opening titles, including stylized versions of the Doctor Who logo. For this episode the logo appeared to have a bumpy texture, as though covered in Dalek "eggs."
 * A prequel was released on iTunes shortly before the release of the episode.
 * The two depicted survivors of the Alaska crash have the forename Harvey and the surname Oswald. Doctor Who premiered with "An Unearthly Child" on 23 November 1963, the day after American President Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald. The event was referenced in "Rose" and "The Cambridge Spy" which also references Oswald directly.

Ratings

 * This story was initially seen by 6.4 million people in the UK.
 * It was watched by 1.555 million people in America, and become the most watched item on BBC America.
 * In Canada, a total of 620,000 people watched the episode on Space, and was the second most watched item on the cable.

Filming locations
to be added

Production errors

 * The first Dalek Rory approaches inside the asylum has indicators on both sides from his perspective, but when the camera is behind the Dalek the light on the right hand side is missing.
 * The Doctor has a plaster on his finger that keeps disappearing and reappearing.
 * In the ending scene where The Doctor is in the TARDIS, you can see the overhead camera reflected in the glass floor next to the console.
 * When the Doctor, Amy and Rory are in the Dalek Holding Cell, the circular platform they are standing on lifts. on one shot, it shows them and the Daleks looking all around them - the Doctor is looking towards 'us' - but in the next shot, the Doctor is looking upwards into the Dalek Parliament.
 * When the Doctor says "It's Christmas!" in the Dalek Parliament, the shot shows bronze RTD era Daleks and a few Paradigm Daleks. Except the shot has been reversed and the suckers are where the guns should be, and the guns are where the suckers should be.
 * The wide shots of the Dalek Parliament do not match the close-up shots.
 * When Oswin runs to the screen to talk to the Doctor for the first time, the flower in her hair falls to the floor. Once she reaches the screen it is in her hair again.
 * When Rory is being sent to the Asylum, upside down, he yells "Wrong way up!" twice. His mouth only moves to him saying "wrong way!"
 * On Oswin's screen it shows real colour despite being converted into a bronze Dalek which have blue vision.

Continuity

 * The Asylum is stylistically similar to the city in DW: The Daleks.
 * The Doctor's death is public knowledge across the Universe. (DW: The Wedding of River Song)
 * Rory mentions waiting outside a box for two thousand years. (DW: The Big Bang)
 * On the Dalek Asylum, Nanogenes turn people both living and dead into Daleks. The Doctor has come across nanogenes which altered humans into hostile creatures before. (DW: The Empty Child, The Doctor Dances)
 * Various models of the Daleks from different points in the series are visible in the Asylum. These include many of the bronze, post-Time War Daleks, (DW: Dalek onwards) one Strategist Dalek and one or more Supreme Daleks of the New Dalek Paradigm, (DW: Victory of the Daleks onwards) a Special Weapons Dalek, (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks) several Renegade Daleks, (DW: Resurrection of the Daleks, Remembrance of the Daleks) several of the earlier silver Daleks, (DW: The Daleks, The Evil of the Daleks) the grey wooden-looking Dalek models, (DW: Day of the Daleks to DW: The Five Doctors) and a black Dalek identical to Dalek Sec. (DW: Doomsday, Daleks in Manhattan, Evolution of the Daleks)
 * The Daleks in the intensive care section of the Asylum are survivors of encounters with the Doctor on planets such as Spiridon (DW: Planet of the Daleks), Kembel (DW: The Daleks' Master Plan), Aridius (DW: The Chase), Vulcan (DW: The Power of the Daleks), and Exxilon (DW: Death to the Daleks).
 * The Doctor is seen on Skaro. The planet was last seen on-screen in Doctor Who (despite its destruction in DW: Remembrance of the Daleks). It has also appeared more recently in the Adventure Game City of the Daleks, in which it looks the same as it does in this episode, complete with acid rain.
 * The Doctor says that when the force field is taken down, the entire planet will get "explodey-wodey." (DW: Blink, The Doctor's Wife, The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe)
 * The Doctor brags that he has exceptional aim with teleports after he teleports himself and the Ponds into the TARDIS. Rose Tyler had previously remarked that the Doctor was "good with teleports." (DW: Boom Town)
 * The chair Oswin sits in appears to be identical to the chair in Jenny's spaceship. (DW: The Doctor's Daughter)
 * The closing scene mirrors that of DW: The Wedding of River Song.
 * Dalek prison camps are mentioned, and the Doctor expresses some familiarity with them. (DW: Genesis of the Daleks)
 * The Doctor's taunt to the Dalek about it being useless without a gun as being echos a similar line said by the Ninth Doctor in DW: Dalek.
 * This is not the first time that the Daleks request help from their most bitter enemy. (BFA: The Juggernauts)
 * When Amy is hallucinating she sees a classic Dalek as a ballerina. This is a reference to the Dalek base originally being inspired by a ballerina's skirt.

DVD releases
to be added

Blu-ray releases
to be added