After a remarkably short cold open, the Doctor (Matt Smith) and Amy (Karen Gillan) find themselves in the Cabinet War Rooms of a heavily-blitzed London. Winston Churchill (Ian Paisley) has recruited Professor Edwin Bracewell (Bill Paterson) to deliver a secret weapon that will win the war against the Nazis.

There's only one problem. Only one, slight, teensy-weensy problem.

Mark Gatiss presents "Victory of the Daleks", the third episode in the 2010 series of Doctor Who. It's the first episode of the series that was not penned by showrunner Stephen Moffat, and sees the Doctor pitted against his oldest and deadliest enemies, the Daleks. This time, however, the Daleks have Union Jack identity tags under their eye-stalks, and instead of barking orders and killing everything they see, serve tea, carry files and promise to win the war against the Nazis: "I am your sol-dier!".

It's a remarkable feeling seeing the Daleks and humans working together, instead of the humans firing at the Daleks, running scared from the Daleks, or being exterminated by the Daleks. The Daleks, in turn, are given great lines (delivered with their barking, grating staccato by Nick Briggs again), such as "Can I be of assis-tance?", "Please ex-cuse me; I have du-ties to per-form", and the instant classic, "Would you care for some tea?" The Daleks have been on our screens since 1963, terrorizing generations of children, sending sofa sales through the roof and killing hundreds of redshirts; to hear them act so against character (and to see a Dalek delivering the aforementioned cup of tea) is a great moment for Doctor Who.

Matt Smith still manages to capture that otherworldly , ancient aura in his portrayal of the Doctor, but he, too, acts against character. We saw a bit of his Angry Doctor last week in "The Beast Below", but he delivers his version of Christopher Ecclestone's Crazy Doctor rant from 2005's "Dalek" (this time armed with a huge wrench). Interestingly, the Doctor had earlier asked Amy what "hate" looked like, before telling her that "it looks like a Dalek". During a brief pause from his literal Dalek-bashing ("Please de-sist from striking me!"), he tells the Dalek that it is everything he despises. It's a good development for the Doctor, who in 1975 couldn't bring himself to destroy the Daleks when he had the chance ("Genesis of the Daleks"), and who, in 2007 and 2008, offered the last remaining Dalek and their creator asylum ("Evolution of the Daleks" and "Journey's End"). 

We also see the development of the Daleks, with the tank-like machines of Russell T. Davies' tenure giving way to the taller, larger, more colorful, deeper-voiced "new paradigm Daleks". Fandom will debate from now until the end of time whether these Daleks are an improvement or not, but the fact remains - we have new Daleks, who take off down a time corridor, vowing to return and that the Doctor will never defeat them. It sets the scene for their next encounter: previously, when the Daleks had vowed the same thing, it was always the same Daleks returning (albeit with slight changes). Now, the Daleks are refreshed, stronger, smarter, deadlier (check out the moment when they "Dis-in-te-grate!" the original Daleks). 

(contd.)