Who Reviews Asylum of the Daleks by S.F. Cambridge

 

The Doctor: “I got your message. Not many people can do that—send me messages”

Darla Von Karlsen: “I have a daughter. Hannah. She’s in a Dalek prison camp. They say you can help.”

The Doctor: “Do they? I wish they’d stop” 

The Doctor, having been led into a trap by a woman called Darla who claims her daughter has been taken into the Dalek prison camp, is then himself kidnapped by her as she turns out to be a sleeper agent of the Daleks and knocks him out with a gun stick that erupted from her palm, and he is taken away by a Dalek ship to the Parliament of the Daleks. 

Back on Earth, Amy Pond is working as a model and is on a shoot when her secretary tells her that her husband wants to see her. She states that she doesn't have a husband any more but joins Rory in her makeup room where he asks her to sign the divorce papers. As he leaves Amy’s makeup artist, Cassandra, comes in to prepare her for her next shoot but it turns out she is also a sleeper agent and she teleport Amy away in the same way The Doctor was taken. Meanwhile, Rory gets on a bus, but the bus driver turns out to be yet another sleeper agent, and he too teleports Rory to the Daleks. They are reunited with The Doctor and wonder why he has chosen now to contact them after such a long absence when it wasn’t him at all. 

Convinced they are all there to be killed, The Doctor is surprised when the Daleks ask him for help instead. Apparently, a star liner called The Alaska has crashed into a planet the Daleks called the Asylum. A place they are all terrified to go to as it is a prison for the most insane and dangerous Daleks that have fought in wars and become damaged beyond their own comprehensions. The Starline, had ruptured the planet's force field, thus risking escape of the insane Daleks. To prevent this, the Daleks try to destroy the planet and remove the threat but the force field is still too strong to allow that. The Daleks task the Doctor, Amy and Rory with deactivating the force field from the planet instead. Music suddenly plays through the Dalek ship’s sound system and The Doctor starts a conversation with the only surviving crew member of the crashed star liner, a girl called Oswin who says she is trapped inside the ship and needs rescuing. She doesn’t know how long she’s been there but she is passing the time by making souffles, earning her the name, souffle girl. 

After arriving or rather crash landing themselves onto the asylums surface, the Doctor once more makes contact with Oswin and Amy becomes upset when she can’t find Rory who has landed elsewhere, surmising that the Daleks will destroy the planet as soon as he deactivates the force field, The Doctor plots an escape via a nearby teleporter which will transport them back to the Dalek ship. (Which is probably as dangerous as the planet they are currently on). 

All 3 are given bracelets to wear which will stop the nano clouds within the asylum converting them all to Daleks. It is a race against time to deactivate the force field and return to The Dalek ship but Amy loses her bracelet half way round and her memories become distorted by the visions she is seeing and is told by The Doctor that soon everything she knows will be erased and all she will know is anger. Rory finds them both after being guided by Oswin from inside her ship and refuses to leave Amy’s side, saying that he’ll stay with her in the asylum. 

Oswin, agrees to deactivate the force field in return for the Doctor coming to rescue her. Meanwhile, Rory and Amy reconcile their marriage and as The Doctor finally reaches Oswin, he is met with a heart-breaking scene. At this point I won’t reveal what that is as it is a major spoiler of the episode and one that a viewer should see for the first time of watching. 

Oswin: “Day 363. The terror continues. Also, made another soufflé. Very nearly. Check defenses. They came again last night. Still always at night. Maybe they’re vampires. Oh! And it’s my mum’s birthday. Happy Birthday, mum. I did make you a soufflé but it was too beautiful to live”

Daleks outside the door: “You will let us enter! We will enter!” 

Oswin saves the Doctor from the Daleks by removing any memories of him from the Daleks' collective telepathic hive minds and deactivates the force field, making her final request that the Doctor remember her, leaving him with the immortal and poignant words of:

“Run you clever boy, and remember me” 

The Doctor returns to Amy and Rory just in time as the planet is destroyed, and they teleport back to The Daleks who fail to recognize him.

Dalek: “Identify yourself! Identify! Identify!”

The Doctor: “Well it’s me. You know me. The Doctor. The Oncoming Storm. The Predator”

Darla: “Titles are not meaningful in this context. Doctor who?”

Dalek: “Doctor who?”

The Doctor: “Oh, Oswin. Oh, you did it to them all. You beauty!”

Dalek: “Doctor who! Doctor who!”

The Doctor: “Fellas, you’re never gonna stop asking” 

It would seem from an outside point of view that without The Doctor in their lives, Amy and Rory’s relationship started to suffer, either because they could ignore the problems they were having in their marriage whilst they had the diversion and thrill of travelling with The Doctor, or that they both could not cope with being left behind to live normal lives and so rather than come together, they suffered in silence on their own as to not worry the other one and ended up drifting apart. 

The fact that the revelation that Amy could die on an alien planet alone and scared was enough for Rory to confess his love for his wife and save their marriage opened up the revelation that Amy didn’t want to leave him in the first place, she wanted to save him because she couldn’t give him children after the baby, they had was stolen from them.  

Unbeknown to them, The Doctor had given Amy his own bracelet so she wasn’t in fact going to die and so it became clear that he forced them both back together in a dire situation so they could remember how much they loved each other, once again proving that his influence is very much a key factor in their marriage. 

This episode introduces us to The Doctor’s new companion, Clara Oswald, the young woman who called herself Oswin, and with her immortal words on her lips that would follow him around for years to come much as Bad Wolf followed Rose and her Doctor, her importance in his life would soon become apparent, but would also signify and ending to his life with Amy and Rory. 

On the whole, a great episode although in my opinion, I’m unsure how to take the Dalek’s reaction to being scared of the Daleks in the asylum. Daleks should show no emotion or fear so wouldn’t they be proud of their insane race and use them to wage war upon The Doctor, the man they feared the most?! It’s a question to be asked, I think.