Doctor Who Season 7, Episode 1: Asylum of the Daleks Review (SPOILERS)

With this start of Doctor Who Season 7, Amy Pond and Rory Williams are at a crossroads in their marriage. Amy Pond is more concerned with her modeling career, and Rory is, well, concerned about Amy. However, the Daleks have other plans. While on the original planet of the Daleks, Skaro, the Doctor is abducted by Darla, a human-Dalek conversion. Amy and Rory are soon abducted by the Daleks as well, whereby they meet the Parliament of the Daleks. The Doctor believes he is facing his end (again) but the Daleks want the Doctor to save them by destroying said Asylum planet. The Daleks both love and fear these “abominations” as they are their extremes. One thing of note, the Dalek commented that they could not destroy the Doctor because he is the embodiment of hatred. Irony upon irony…

Ultimately, the three are transported to the Asylum somewhat unwillingly to help the Daleks from themselves by obliterating their outcasts and rescue Oswin Oswald, the survivor of the Alaska that crashed on the planet. However, the nanogene cloud converts both her and all of her crew. Oswin Oswald, however, was fully converted to a Dalek immediately because of her genius. Her genius helped save the Doctor and her companions and ultimately destroyed the Asylum. A catch though is that the Daleks have no memory of the Doctor anymore as a result of her tinkering.

This episode brought out more questions than answers. The human-Daleks have demonstrated that the Daleks may have indeed cooperated with the Cybermen or minimally stole their techniques for full-conversion, as in the case of Oswin Oswald. It would appear from that the Evolution of the Daleks have come to fruition.

Again, the question resurfaces from Season 6: “On the fields of Trenzelor, at the fall of the Eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a question will be asked—one that must never be answered. And Silence must fall when the question is asked.” In this episode, the Daleks shouted “Doctor Who”…but this is not the question, merely a reference. The Daleks mentioned the Doctor’s duality as both the Pro-tec-tor and Pre-dat-or. What do both of these sound like — when spoken quickly? Hmmm…Pre-Doctor. What…or more precisely, who came before the Doctor? I believe this the question…