Doctor Who: The ambush

The story:

The doctor and his companions take forever to escape from the Daleks while the Thalls get ambushed and Ian takes way too long to warn them.

Thoughts:

This episode moved very slowly. Everything takes ages to do. It takes the Dalek ages to get through the door and then ages to stop the lift. It even takes ages for the Daleks to attack the Thalls in which time Ian could have easily warned them.

He’s stood right there watching them. He could have signaled to them. I don’t think he likes them very much. I don’t think the writers do either. Or at least they don’t like pacifism and they’ve set the Thalls up to lack common sense.

The Thall with the hat turns out to be the biggest idiot ever (I refuse to learn his name). He thinks the best weapon against war is going unarmed and that being cautious is an unreasonable response to an enemy you know has wanted to kill you in the past. He had his death coming.

The problem is they make the Thalls very easy to argue against. I don’t like the argument being so one sided.

I’m not much a pacifist. Like Ian says I think pacifism is only effective when everyone is a pacifist or if your enemy is reasonable. Otherwise your enemy is getting their own way or killing you rather easily.

Pacifism vs. Unreasoning hatred. Pacifism loses. It’s like in Xena you’ve got the nice warriors so the pacifists can be pacifists (I’ll have to look that episode up to remember the title).

That being said I think you need to represent both sides fairly or you’re just setting up a strawman to defeat. There’s no challenge to winning an argument when the other side doesn’t have it’s full argument. I don’t think pacifism means you’re stupid or lack self preservation.

How they escape from the first Dalek in their cell is a bit silly. But I’m looking back at the Daleks from a place where they are the Doctor’s most feared enemies. Instead of this new alien species that runs on static electricity and can be defeated by a coat and some mud. Everyone has to start somewhere, even the most evil species in the universe.

The doctor manages to continue his being mean streak this episode by not wanting to warn the Thalls even after they gave them the radiation medicine.

Ian is still acting like the doctor and is the one who reasons with the Thalls. But then they realise they’ve got to go back to the city and I love that moment. At least it’s Ian messing up this time and not the doctor screwing around with them.

The writers do like their cliffhangers.

This episode moved too slowly at the beginning and then all the discussions of pacifism felt one sided. It didn’t feel like a true discussion. More like propaganda. But I guess they’d have different attitudes back then considering the war wasn’t that far away.

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