After eight months of waiting, the Doctor finally returned to our screens in Asylum of the Daleks - the first episode of Doctor Who's seventh series since its return in 2005. And what a return it was! The episode opens on the dying planet of Skaro - the home world of the Daleks - giving us an incredible CGI landscape (complete with giant Dalek statue!) that instantly delivers on showrunner Steven Moffat's promise that this series will be made up of blockbuster, movie-sized episodes. Then comes the mysterious encounter between the Doctor and the hooded Darla Von Karlsen, a woman apparently desperate for the Doctor to save her daughter from the Dalek prison camps. But all is not as it seems and within the first two minutes, the episode has revealed its first big surprise as a Dalek eye-stalk extends from Darla's forehead and a gun from her hand. The shock revelations don't stop there, as we see Rory and Amy Pond's impending divorce, their similar encounters with 'Dalek puppets', the Parliament of the Daleks, the Dalek Prime Minister and a plea the Daleks have never made of their arch enemy before - "Save the Daleks!" And that's all just in the opening sequence!
The biggest shock of this episode though, comes straight after the opening titles when we are introduced to Oswin Oswald, played by Jenna-Louise Coleman who has already been announced as the Doctor's next companion. Until now we had been led to believe she wouldn't be appearing until Christmas, so her first appearance here was a more-than-pleasant surprise for the fans. And her performance is wonderful, promising the Doctor's future is in safe hands when she returns in this year's Christmas special. Just how she returns though is another of Moffat's trademark mysteries, as a big revelation about Oswin's character at the end of the episode - followed by some Dalek nastiness - seemed to imply returning could be something of an issue for her...
The writing was as brilliant as it always is from Mr Moffat, combining heartbreak (Amy and Rory's troubled marriage), humour ("Don't be fair to the Daleks when they're firing me at a planet!"), excitement (the Doctor using the Daleks' self destruct mechanism against them) and edge-of-your-seat terror (the Doctor, cornered by advancing insane Daleks). Moffat had said he wanted to make the Daleks scary again, and he achieved it brilliantly with the Asylum - a planet filled with the most insane and uncontrollable members of the Dalek race.
The episode was stunning, though it would have been nice if the older Daleks that featured (designs from as far back as 1963) had a more prominent role. But maybe the problem here lies more with the episode's promotion, which seemed to promise much more from the "Daleks from every era". Overall though, the Doctor was brought back in incredible style, the Daleks were more terrifying than ever and hearing those grating metallic voices giving mixed cries of "Exterminate!" and "Doctor who?" was the icing on the cake! How would I rate the series-opener then? In the Doctor's own words "Out of ten? Eleven!"
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