Into the Dalek (TV story)

 was the second episode of the eighth series of Doctor Who produced by BBC Wales, and marked the Twelfth Doctor's first encounter with the Daleks.

Synopsis
Surrounded by his greatest enemies, the newest Doctor will journey into the most dangerous place in all of the universe. With the limits of his compassion being tested, the Doctor will be forced to ask a question about himself that he doesn't know: "Am I a good man?"

Plot
Journey Blue's ship is being shot at by a Dalek ship, and her brother Kai is unconscious. As it explodes, she appears in the TARDIS console room. She points her gun at the Doctor, demanding that he take her back to her command ship, the Aristotle. He waits for her to ask nicely before complying. The TARDIS materialises and they step outside.

The pair walk onto the Aristotle, a base for Combined Galactic Resistance, the Galaxy's united front against the Daleks; while the other soldiers initially plan to kill the Doctor (out of paranoia that he may be a Dalek spy), Journey points out they have need of a physician.

Journey's uncle, Colonel Morgan Blue, takes the Doctor to a dying Dalek, later nicknamed Rusty, that they have managed to capture. At first the Doctor is uninterested in helping the creature, until stunned when the Dalek voices its desire to slaughter the rest of its own kind!

Meanwhile at Coal Hill School, a new Maths teacher Danny Pink, a war veteran, meets with some students, the Coal Hill Cadet Squad, in the courtyard. Clara Oswald and he briefly catch each other's eye. Later, Danny is ending a class when one of his students asks if he has ever killed anyone. The rest of the students groan, and Danny implies that as a soldier, he may have killed enemy soldiers. The student persists by asking if he ever killed anyone who was not a soldier. Danny does not answer, but a lone tear appears in his eye as he dismisses class. Sometime later, Danny is introduced to Clara, one of his fellow teachers. She recalls having seen him in the yard earlier. She then asks if he is going to another colleague's event later, which he indicates that he is not. Having awkwardly turned down her subsequent invitation for a drink, he verbally berates himself later once he has returned to his classroom. Unbeknownst to him, Clara has overheard him. Given another chance, he now accepts her invitation to have a drink.

Returning to her office, Clara discovers the Doctor standing there with the takeaway coffee she sent him for three weeks ago. The Doctor claims he needs Clara's help urgently, explaining the situation on the way. He then takes the liberty of asking her to tell him - as honestly as she can - if she thinks he is a good man, to which she answers that she does not know.

Back on the Aristotle, the Doctor explains that a malfunction that is also killing it has given the Dalek a conscience and he, fascinated by the idea, has agreed to help it. The group, consisting of the Doctor, Clara, Journey and two other rebel soldiers (Ross and Gretchen), are shrunk down: they are inserted into the Dalek through its eyestalk and begin exploring the upper levels.

The Doctor takes the liberty of introducing the group to Rusty's artificial memory drive which filters out good memories and reinforces bad ones, calling it "evil refined and turned into a machine". The Doctor then asks Rusty what made it turn on its own kind. It turns out that it witnessed the birth of a star, which made it realise the futility of the Daleks' mission of destruction.

Realizing that they have to go down, Ross sets up a zip line which inadvertently damages Rusty's body and triggers the release of antibodies. Realizing that he cannot save Ross, the Doctor has him swallow a pill that allows him to track where the antibodies store his obliterated remains so that they can hide there. From there the group makes its way to the lower regions where they find the batteries.

Discovering a crack in one of the batteries that is leaking deadly radiation that is both killing Rusty and now them, the Doctor seals it off. Now that Rusty is fixed, it immediately returns to its programming and begins slaughtering the station's soldiers. The Doctor, however, is ecstatic as his belief that there is no such thing as a "good" Dalek is restored.

Clara is enraged by the Doctor's apathy to the point of slapping him - hard - and points out to him that what they have learned is not that there is no such thing as a good Dalek, but that it is indeed possible. Inspired by Clara's words the Doctor instructs her, Gretchen, and Journey to make their way back to the memory drive and try to restore Rusty's memories of the star while he tries to reason with Rusty.

Gretchen sacrifices herself to set up a zipline to get Clara and Journey to the memory core while she fends off the antibodies coming after them. Dying from the antibodies, Gretchen finds herself in Heaven, where Missy introduces herself. Meanwhile Rusty calls for backup from the Dalek fleet and plots to join in their slaughter of the rebels.

Clara is able to deduce how Rusty's memory core works and reactivates all of his suppressed memories. With this the Doctor is able to form a psychic link with Rusty and transfer all of his memories. However instead of reawakening its good side, Rusty is inspired by the Doctor's own "Divine Hatred" to instead try to wipe out the rest of its kind, whom it once again sees as evil.

Rusty slaughters the rest of the Daleks on the station and the Doctor, Clara and Journey returned to their proper size. Rusty has broadcast a signal to the rest of the Daleks voicing the Humans' (completely fictional) intention to set the station to self-destruct, leading them to retreat. Rusty leaves to rejoin its kind, stating it will continue to sabotage them.

Before it goes Rusty disagrees with the Doctor's assessment that there is no such thing as a good Dalek: it says that the Doctor himself would make a good Dalek. The Doctor also views it as something of a hollow victory: someone looked into his soul and saw nothing but hatred.

Journey attempts to see the Doctor off when he reluctantly says an unemphatic farewell to the Aristotle personnel. She wishes to join him on the TARDIS as a companion, but the Doctor turns her down. While he recognises the good in her under the battle-hardened exterior, he just wishes that she wasn't a soldier. Journey accepts his refusal and gives him a subdued smile, knowing the Doctor is only doing what he feels is best.

Clara is returned to Coal Hill School 30 seconds after the Doctor had picked her up, changing into new clothes for her evening with Danny on the way. As she leaves, she at last answers the Doctor's question about whether or not he is a good man - while she cannot say for sure that he is a good man, he tries to be one, which is the important thing. This clearly reassures the Doctor. She joins Danny for their date, trying not to adopt the Doctor's policy against soldiers.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Peter Capaldi
 * Clara - Jenna Coleman
 * Journey Blue - Zawe Ashton
 * Colonel Morgan Blue - Michael Smiley
 * Danny Pink - Samuel Anderson
 * Gretchen - Laura Dos Santos
 * Ross - Ben Crompton
 * Fleming - Bradley Ford
 * School Secretary - Michelle Morris
 * Mr Armitage - Nigel Betts
 * Courtney - Ellis George
 * Dalek - Barnaby Edwards
 * Voice of the Daleks - Nicholas Briggs

Uncredited cast

 * Missy - Michelle Gomez

The Doctor

 * The Doctor keeps count of the stars destroyed by the Daleks.

Story notes

 * The conclusion of this story is similar to the conclusion of the Big Finish audio story Jubilee, where a lone Dalek notices the error of its comrades and stops an invasion.
 * While this is the Twelfth Doctor's first proper encounter with the Daleks, he had previously appeared briefly in both the episodes The Day of the Doctor and The Time of the Doctor, which also featured the Daleks.
 * Footage of the extermination of security guard Bywater in Dalek and the Dalek attack on the Valiant in The Stolen Earth is seen in 'Rusty's' Dalek memories, and the destruction of the Daleks and the Crucible in Journey's End is seen when Rusty looks into the Doctor's mind.
 * This is the first episode since The Waters of Mars to have two credited writers. Like The Waters of Mars, it is co-written by Phil Ford and the show's head writer (then Russell T Davies, now Steven Moffat).
 * The Vent joke exchanged between the Doctor and Clara is a reference to the vent scenes from The Ark in Space between the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith. It also reflects a similar exchange between Rose Tyler and Toby Zed in The Satan Pit.
 * This is the first full episode since Part One of The End of Time in 2009 to not feature an appearance from Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor, and the first episode since Nightmare in Silver to feature a single incarnation of the Doctor.
 * The Radio Times programme listing was accompanied by a small colour head-and-shoulders shot of Peter Capaldi as the Doctor, with the accompanying caption "Doctor Who / 7.30 p.m. A chance to dabble with the Daleks' future gives the Time Lord pause for thought".

Ratings
5.2 million (overnight)

Filming locations

 * Holton Primary School, Barry, Wales - Coal Hill School

Production errors

 * A bouncing cushion is visible inside the remains of an exploding Dalek.

Continuity

 * The Doctor greets Clara with the coffee he got in Glasgow, three weeks late; he claims to have been distracted. (TV: Deep Breath)
 * Clara is still getting used to the new Doctor following his regeneration. (TV: The Time of the Doctor, Deep Breath)
 * The Doctor states that morgues are easy to break out of. The Eighth Doctor previously broke out of a morgue shortly after his regeneration. (TV: Doctor Who)
 * Colonel Blue suspects the Doctor of being a Dalek duplicate. (TV: Resurrection of the Daleks)
 * As revealed by the Doctor, Daleks feed on protein, occasionally harvesting it from their victims. Davros previously converted the bodies of Tranquil Repose, those which were not used to create loyal Daleks, into a synthetic protein food source. (TV: Revelation of the Daleks)
 * 'Rusty' tells the Doctor that he is a "good Dalek". The 'Metaltron' encountered by the Ninth Doctor previously told him that he "would make a good Dalek." (TV: Dalek)
 * Rusty sees the destruction of numerous Daleks and also the Crucible when looking into the Doctor's mind. (TV: Journey's End)
 * This is not in fact the first time the Doctor has encountered the use of shrinking for medical purposes. At that time, clones of the Doctor and Leela were miniaturised and injected into the Doctor himself, where they also had to fight off antibodies. (TV: The Invisible Enemy)
 * The miniaturisation technique used to enter Rusty is not unlike that of the Teselecta. The Dalek also houses defensive antibodies just as the Teselecta did. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler)
 * The Sixth Doctor met a Dalek that notices an error in the Dalek race, with his then-companion Evelyn Smythe helping the Dalek to find this. (AUDIO: Jubilee)
 * Rusty's epiphany concerning his people and its adamance that the Daleks must be destroyed mirrors that of Dalek Caan after he lost his mind following his breaking of the time-lock. (TV: Journey's End)
 * The Second Doctor once made "good Daleks" by converting them with the Human Factor, even giving them names. Due to the introduction of human thought processes, they questioned the other Daleks, leading to a riot after which the Daleks were destroyed. (TV: The Evil of the Daleks)
 * The Doctor again expresses a dislike for soldiers. (TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians, The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky, etc.)
 * Clara is still teaching at Coal Hill School. (TV: The Day of the Doctor, Deep Breath)
 * Journey refers to the TARDIS as being "smaller on the outside". The Victorian splinter of Clara was the first to make that remark. (TV: The Snowmen) The Doctor tells Journey it's much more exciting when experienced the other way around. (TV: An Unearthly Child, The Three Doctors, etc.) Donna Noble also first encountered the TARDIS from within, and then marvelled at its external dimensions. (TV: The Runaway Bride)
 * The Doctor recalls his first encounter with the Daleks on Skaro, (TV: The Daleks) and comments on how that experience shaped his identity.
 * Rusty somewhat mingles the ideas of beauty and hatred, a similar comment having been made by the Prime Minister of the Daleks. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks)
 * After Gretchen is apparently killed by the Dalek antibodies, she encounters Missy, who welcomes her to "Heaven". (TV: Deep Breath)
 * Despite her request, the Doctor refuses to allow Journey Blue to travel with him, much as he did when Lady Christina de Souza asked the same. (TV: Planet of the Dead)
 * Danny Pink retiring from the army and teaching maths is much the same thing that Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart did upon retiring from UNIT. (TV: Mawdryn Undead)
 * The Doctor berates Ross with, "You idiot!" after he uses a weapon to act without thinking and jeopardises everyone else's safety. The Eleventh Doctor did the same to when Lieutenant Stepashin used a cattle prod on Grand Marshall Skaldak. (TV: Cold War)

Home video releases
to be added