This is New!

Let's start off with the “Pond Life” prequel to Season 7. It was a cute little filler (an Ood on the loo!) to introduce Season 7 that lead up to Rory leaving Amy and setting up their antagonistic feelings for each other (more on that later).

And if you want to see what I-tunes customers were treated to as a prequel to "Asylum of the Daleks", check this out:

For anyone imnterested in the ratings for "Asylum of the Daleks", it pulled in a 29.3% share wiht 6.38 million people tuned it and it was Number 1 on the iPlayer.

SAVE THE DALEKS!

WHAT I LOVED

Well, that's pretty simple. DOCTOR WHO IS BACK!!!!!

Jenna-Louise Coleman! It was really cool that there was no hint, that I know of, that she would be appearing in this episode.  She is not even listed on IMDB.com as being in this episode.  She is listed for all of the episodes from Christmas on for Season 7, but Moffat and Company totally snuck her in on this one, which in hindsight, since hers was a one set shoot where she interacted with the other actors only through video/audio hook-ups, it would have been easy to film her parts with no one outside of the show knowing.  VERY cool move Mr Moffat!

Best Line - from The Doctor - "Without a gun you’re a tricycle with a roof!"

WHAT I LIKED

A return to Skaro! The home of the Daleks, first seen in the second ever Doctor Who story, in 1963, called “The Daleks” and last seen in the 7^th Doctor episode “Remembrance of the Daleks” (in which the first flying Dalek is seen, the scene is recreated somewhat in the 9^th Doctor episode “Dalek” when the Dalek follows Rose and Adam up a flight of stairs.)

Souffle Girl!

Oswin swinging in a hammock! What's not to like there??

Eggs!  This was cute and sooooo very much a Rory scene.

It finally hit me on my second viewing of this episode what Oswin's hideaway reminded me of.  Anyone who was a fan of LOST will remember Desmond, the Scotsman who was "down the hatch" in the underground Dharma station.  This had been bothering me the first through but I just couldn't grasp what it reminded me of.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE

The new logo and opening sequence. While I agree with their dumping of the (I thought unnecessary) Amy voiceover opening, which they would have had to have dumped by the Christmas episode anyway, there was no reason to re-do the opening graphics.

A bit of inconsistancy, Oswin wonders about her nightly visitors, who are obviously Daleks, if they are vampires and then later on says that, of course she knows what the Daleks sound like.

All of a sudden the Daleks have a Prime Minister and a Parliament?!?!?!?!!?  Was the Dalek Supreme's creation in World War II England responsible for this somewhat democratic version of the Daleks???   Since when was the Emperor Dalek the Prime Minister????  Was this because there was no Dalek Empire??? 

Eggs - it was funny the first time with Rory and the Daleks, Oswin all of a sudden remembering her Dalek training when The Doctor asked her where she was getting her  eggs for her souffles, that was just silly.  I know this is supposed to be a kids show, but is it really anymore???  Nothing wromng with being silly, but let's be adult about it  LOL

Zombies! The crew of the Alaska (yet another American reference) dead for a year suddenly come back to life because of some Dalek nano-technology – great visual – lame, overdone, idea. That and they had been there a year and in that year they didn't tun into Dalek-ombies???? It took the Doctor and Amy to get them cranked up? I guess The Doctor let the Nano whatsits in when he opened the hatch (eye roll).

What exactly was the problem with Amy and Rory?  We see Rory leave in "Pond Life" and then he shows up at Amy's modeling gig with divorce papers, leading me to belive that he wanted out of the marriage, which was all well and good, but then he acts like a little boy at the end when Amy calls him into the house, like she's the one who kicked him out instead of him leaving on his own.  I may have missed something in between the explosions of the Daleks blowing up the planet.

WHAT I HATED

"Oh for god's sake!"  Seriously???  Would The Doctor, who ahs had religions created based on his actions on various planets, invoke the name of the Judeo-Christian god of Earth in frustration?????  I seriously doubt that.  If he yelled out "Oh for Rassilon's sake!" I would believe that.

I am tired of Moffat, etal, messing with Doctor Who canon.  Rory died and he come sback as an Auton, only to come back as a Human because, at Amy's designing, she reacreated the Universe and brought The Doctor back -  and now the Daleks, THE FLIPPIN' DALEKS of all of his enemies, now forget him???

OK I am not alone in the loathing here.  The joke is getting old and really over used, especially after Season 6's finale where you had the head of Dorium Maldovar babbling on about the buggest question in the Universe and it turns out to be "Doctor Who?"  Then Moffat ends "Asylum" with Oswin wiping any trace of The Doctor from the Dalek databases and them all carrying on about "Doctor Who?"  It was a bit of a joke in last season's finale - to tread - no - stomp that field again is ridiculous.  OK Moffat - we get the joke - enough already.  

FINAL ANALYSIS

"Remember me Chin Boy . . . . . . ."

The question that arises here is whether throwing Jenna-Louise into the premier was a way to introduce her, the actress, to a foreign audience (i.e. us Americans and those in other countries) who is unfamiliar with her previous work or whether this was another play at a main character knowing about the end of another major character and being unable to tell them about it, which seems to be a favorite topic of Mr Moffat's. I'm not sure I want to go through any more angst with having the Doctor look on Oswin sadly, knowing she's going to die in a Dalek casing, as they travel the universe. I'd rather see them travel the universe, he with a new companion who just happens to look like the former Oswin to us, but not to him. One mention of “Chin Boy” will blow that out of the water.

OH NO!  The Dalek Nano-whatsits have gotten to Wellzy!