So we're off to a new episode, and Daleks! DALEKS! Their episodes in the most recent Who have either been awesome, or terrible -- which one will this be?

The answer: pretty OK, I guess. Let's make a list or something.

AWESOME: Russell T. Davies is gone! Well, that's sorta good and sorta bad, but it means his favorite awful cliches are gone too! There's a moment early in the episode where Amy is walking with Churchill and sees a young, female officer who gives her a nod. Had RTD been in charge, that nod would have been a wink, and that officer would have been sure to let Amy know that she was a lesbian later in the episode. I have no problem with gay Doctor Who characters, but during RTD's run, everyone and their mother was gay, so it was nice to see somebody actually avoid the 'random minor character is gay, how progressive' trope Davies was so damn fond of.

NOT SO AWESOME: A few terrible lines of dialogue. A type 40 TARDIS? Great callback to the original series, but it seems out of place here. The absolute worst line of the night, however, goes to The Doctor and, "The end... the final end." What a stupid line. Let's talk about all those un-final ends. Or, let's start singing songs by The Doors. What a stupid line, ugh. "This is the second to the last end, Daleks..." or, "This is within the last ten the ends you'll ever have."

ON THE FENCE: The new Dalek designs. Nothing indicates that the show has changed hands from one creative to another like blowing up the previous version's Daleks and saying they were inferior. Some of the cosmetic changes to the Daleks could go either way -- their eye being all slanty and yellow, for instance, and the fact that they seem to be much fatter. I do like the paint job, though, but we'll discuss that in a few paragraphs. Will Nick Briggs still be doing all the Dalek voices himself? Will their voices change from Dalek to Dalek as the series goes on? Time will tell, I guess...

AWESOME: Jammy Dodgers! When he first held up the 'self-destruct key', I thought, 'Wait, is that a cookie?' Turns out, yes. There's something whimsical about holding genocidal aliens hostage with a cookie. It's silly, but completely within character, and I like it.

NOT SO AWESOME: The Doctor and Amy talk a bomb out of exploding by making it get all twitterpated over a girl. Even that sentence was stupid to type. I'm all for saving the day, but the whole 'We'll just convince the completely mechanical device in his chest to stop exploding thanks to some goooood feelings' twist was both out of left field, and kinda lame. And then they just sorta leave a world-shattering bomb to hang out for a while? Little careless, are we, Doc?

ON THE FENCE: Dalek hierarchy. See, I did like the color schemes, but I'm not 100% sure on the whole 'All Daleks are great, but some Daleks are a little greater' thing. It does fit with their insane fascist thing, but it could be either really great, or really awful. There's always been subdivisions within Daleks (like The Cult of Skaara, or the Emperor Dalek), but it's never been so prevalent. Hopefully it won't be a dumb copout.

AWESOME: Flying karate kick to a Dalek's chest. Totally out of character, but sort of a funny 'Wait, really?!' moment. This should probably be under 'Not So Awesome', but whatever, this is my blog, so it's going here.

NOT SO AWESOME: "Fancy someone you shouldn't?" Tee hee, now you look over at The Doctor and give a smile to the camera. Rose is in another universe, and you were 12 hours away from being married, so quit being a skeezemo and flirting with The Doctor. You can have a crush, you can maybe even light flirt, but when the subtext becomes the text, we've gone too far.

ON THE FENCE: Amy Pond saves the universe! Again! Actually, she seems to be making a trend of that. Not that there's anything wrong with it, since she's certainly nice to look at. It just seems like she's smarter than The Doctor occasionally, which makes it weird that she was a Kiss-O-Gram a couple of episodes ago.

ON THE FENCE: That stupid crack. We get it, plot significant! Maybe you should make it even more obvious than you already have. This could be redeemed by the ongoing 'Hey, how come Amy doesn't remember Daleks and stuff' plot, but come on, quit beating us over the head with it.

All in all, I wasn't disappointed. Not fantastic, but certainly not terrible. Side note, BBC: I do want to see more Spitfires in space. Make this happen.

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