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I thought the story was merely okay. The best parts were when the Doctor just loses it when talking to the Dalek; you really got a sense that the Time War had affected the Doctor psychologically, making him act in ways we'd never seen him behave in the past. When the Doctor starts ranting and the Dalek tells him he'd make a good Dalek, it was one of those eek moments!

However, I disliked how the writer kept pointing out the sillier aspects of the Dalek design, such as the plunger arm ("What are you going to do, sucker me to death?") and the lack of legs ("Ha ha, defeated by a flight of stairs"). It seemed like too much of a nod to the audience, which I found distracting. A Dalek has been shown levitating over stairs before (Remembrance of the Daleks), and in that story, the person running up the stairs didn't bother to turn around and say "ha ha, can't catch me now!". Not too keen on the Dalek healing itself by being touched by Rose, either (yeah, there was a silly technobabble explanation about absorbing the energy of a time traveller, but I wish they'd come up with an explanation that was a little less bizarre).

Despite my criticisms, I think the strong dramatic performance by Eccleston outweighs the problems I have with the script. Overall, I'd rate this a 4 (out of 5).

Yeah, one aspect of that episode that always got me was that...if the dalek only needed a human to touch it to heal itself why did it burn everyone else? I'm sure there's a line in there about how nobody could get near it because it burned them...mind you I suppose that 'could' be because it was still cooling down after crashing to Earth but...eh...something definitely wasn't right there O.o

I liked the episode a lot though, it's exactly the way they needed to play it to make it work for a modern audience I believe. The truth is, in this day and age Daleks just ain't scary...so they made it human. And suddenly it was again. What a profound moral statement could be teased out of that if I wasn't too tired to actually find it xD

I rather liked that episode. The idea that the Doctor would actually go so far as to torture a Dalek showed a dark side we haven't seen in a while.

Plus, when he finds himself trapped in a room with the Dalek, the outright fear he shows is very credible.

Equally, I had to applaud the Dalek when it set off the sprinklers and then electrified the floor. That was unexpected cruelty and was beautiful!

DW

I loved the bit with the flying dalek... That made me so happy... And a tiny bit scared too. Like if you meet a dalek then what can you do to disarm it (a discussion on this is going on here- http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds/viewtopic.php?t=2715860 ). But this had to be done as the whole building is a series of staircases basically.

I really despise the compainion they pick up in this episode. Seriously, what a suck up...

I liked the eppisode and some of my favourite things was the bits Hairy hated razz

Ack! The Ark of Infinity is the story I'm downloading right now. I need to catch myself up. xd

The episode is so old, saying omega comes back is like saying everyone dies at the end of Hamlet or Frodo goes nuts and ties to take the one ring in Mount Doom. whee

So, no sweat.