He Who Moans: 10th Anniversary review of Doctor Who: Asylum of the Daleks ft. FiveWhoFans 

God I hate this episode. The divorce subplot is borderline character assassination for Amy and Rory, and this is the story that really solidified how little Moffat gets the Daleks. Asylum honestly would’ve been better off as a Cyberman story.

I think this story would have infinitely better if it was with the Cybermen, hell, I think that’s what Moffat may have originally intended. It makes no sense for the Daleks to set up an asylum, they just kill the impurities, but it makes more sense for the Cybermen with their weird twisted sense of “helping people” it could have been really creepy and atmospheric, dead decaying Cybermen everywhere, and the Clara twist makes more sense. In fact everything makes more sense if you take out the Daleks and strap in the Cybermen. Maybe Moffat did intent this to be a Cyberman story, but because of budget and Closing time a couple of episodes ago series wise, as well as it probably being to disturbing, the beeb made him change it. Idk

Very thoughtful of Stuart to ressurect the FiveWhoFans from the dead for his anniversary, that must have taken a lot of effort.

I want to make a graph showing the level of sexiness in all of Dr Who. It seemed to peak with Paul McGann and has been slowly going down ever since. It's why the world seemed sexy when Moffat was around purely because of Night of the Doctor.

This episode kind of changed my life. It was the first time I recognised how bad a Doctor Who episode was and it led me to discover MrTARDIS's review of it. This in turn led me to discover his other reviews which in turn, led me to other film RU-vidrs like Honest Trailers and Jeremy Jahns. This sparked my interest in film which led me to select film studies for my A-Levels and my BA degree. All because Asylum of the Daleks was that bad.

Stuart, the way that you draw everyone else smiling and excited but yourself as vaguely shocked and upset will never fail to make me laugh.

Wait… we have the same 10 year anniversary month???? Nifty!

Wow, finally a reason to care about the 10th anniversary of Asylum of the Daleks!

12:30 No, I refuse.

The thing that I can never stop hating about this episode, no matter how much I grow out of that initial fan-rage from ten years ago, is that ending with the Daleks chanting 'Doctor Who'. If you're going to erase half a century of built-up history between the Doctor and the Daleks, you'd better have a compelling story to tell with it... but the next time we see the Daleks, it's discarded in a throwaway line that boils down to 'we found out who you are again offscreen'. In hindsight, it's such an unsightly blind-alley of a storyline, that frivolously messes with decades of Doctor/Dalek relationship for what turned out to be no good reason in the end. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and propose that the ending of Asylum of the Daleks is much more egregious than anything the Timeless Child has done, in terms of disrespecting the history. Quality of the idea aside, at least Chibnall had the guts to stay the course, and followed up on the initial shock by telling an actual story with it. Asylum just gave us a hollow shock twist, without the payoff, and the show carried on as if it never happened.

Stubagful review that ends on positive note? Now that's something that definitely was worth waiting 10 years for.

This was such a weird period in Who. I think that, either purposely or subconsciously, Moffatt inserted the whole "souffle girl" trope because her appearance turned Who into a souffle. It looks big and delicious, with great effects and exciting score, etc., but on the slightest critical examination (or poking) it shows itself to be all hot air, no substance.

I double checked. This is a truly rare Stu video even i do not own, and I have all the Herbal Crackpot videos. I do have some Assylum videos (sans the Daleks, those aren't eggs btw) i could share. Kids ask your parents first. Happy ten, Stu! 🍻

They sold this on the old Daleks, but almost all of them are just background filler. Even when they reference Daleks from old stories, they've all been upgraded to the Time War casings. The opposite problem kind of happened in The Magician's Apprentice and The Witch's Familiar where they included a bund of old style Daleks, but didn't have a premise that really supported it.

I remember the fact that this was marketed as "The episode with the Classic Daleks in!" And though I was satisfied, as I was a young teen who just wanted his favourite Daleks (The Time War ones) back on screen again, I always felt so sorry for those who really wanted to see the grey '70s-'80s ones or the blue-globed '60s ones again. Then add in the whole Dalek Parliament thing and the Ponds' Divorce. God, it's worse than I remember it being, and I didn't remember it being particularly stellar...

( 0:22 ) Reminds me of that abrupt ending in Screenwipe! 😂

stu bring the 5wf boys in for more reactions. this and your torchwood ones are hilarious

8:10 - I can't believe you predicted that TARDIS scene in The Giggle

Thank you for your content, your insight and your glorious locks both long and short.

I still reamber finding your channel years ago with those vids where you reviewed all the doctors individually that are no longer on your channel keep it up

You could add the first "He Who Moans" video to your highest tier package on Patreon. Could bring in some good money for you.

Here's my pitch for this episode: Keeping the idea of an asylum prison planet. Instead of snowy, I'd have it dark and muddy with dead trees and old run down buildings, like an old forest mixed with a quarry. (Which would imply the Daleks pillaged this planet, killing the inhabitants.) Instead of facilities underground, they simply let the insane daleks roam free on the surface, looking for "prey", for lack of a better word. Now because the Daleks have mutated overtime, certain daleks consider each other impure, springing off into several rival factions; Genesis Daleks Dead Planet/Invasion Earth Daleks Imperial Daleks Renegade Daleks Bronze Daleks Paradigm Daleks (And the main daleks expect/hope to see them wipe each other out.) Whichever faction wins is mostly irrelevant, but to keep with the current dalek hierarchy of this era, let's say the paradigms start to win. Including Oswin can be optional, but I think for the series arc to work I probably would, here's my pitch for a new character; Oswin was part of a fleet sent to investigate this planet after it's Ravaloxation, every other member of the fleet was killed by a Dalek onslaught. She survived the attack, but her ship was damaged, so she crashed into the planet. When the Doctor and co. land on the planet after receiving a distress call from Oswin, they can be separated from the TARDIS via a nice reference to Destiny (even though its noncery), where a pile of rocks fall on the TARDIS. Throughout the episode, you see flashbacks to Oswin's life on the planet. They find out about the Daleks via seeing patrol Daleks from the main ship and insane Daleks start exterminating each other. The Doctor and his companions are separated when being shot at by a Dalek, the Doctor falls down a hole, while Amy and Rory try to find something to help him out. (Which I thought sounded too much like Destiny again, but then I realized absolutely none of this matters. :) ) While the Doctor has fallen into a cave, he discovers ruins of the civilization that lived on the planet before the Daleks invaded. He finds signs of someone (Oswin) living here after the Dalek invasion. He finds diary entries buried in the ground, but just sticking out enough so he can realize. The entries detail Oswin's life on the planet, leading the Doctor to believe Oswin was here for a year, and the TARDIS didn't arrive as early as he'd hoped. The Doctor reads that Oswin has gathered materials and may try to repair her ship from scrap. Amy and Rory discover Oswin's crashed ship and find neccessary tools to help the Doctor out of the cave. Once they save the Doctor, they show him the crashed ship and discover a final ship's log. The ship's log shows Oswin, old and frail, talking about her survival on the planet, as she recording ends, they discover her skeleton sitting in the cockpit, with her hand on the joystick, and her fist through a cracked window. I was tossing up how the story was going to end, but then I realized I have no obligation to be here and could just finish this in the future. Bye.

Kinda late but some clarification for 6:03 Both this episode AND the prequel to it "Pond Life" both state clearly that it wasn't Rory who left Amy, but rather Amy forced Rory out. Asylum tries to soften the blow by saying Amy "gave him up" but this contrasts heavily with the ending to Pond Life in which Amy screams at Rory while chasing him out (and while we don't hear what she says, the mouth movements feel like "i hate you") as well as Asylum itself having Amy be physically abusive to Rory, which absolutely doesn't feel like two people talking maturely about the problems of infertility and desires for children, but rather it all comes across as Amy being controlling and abusive... Honestly I attribute most of the issues with Asylum on this divorce subplot, even when i first watched the episode the moment it gets brought up I KNEW it was going to be a rough episode... Should have left it on the cutting room floor and given that time to either more Dalek Asylum action, or giving a bit more depth to Clara's character...

I miss those EIghth Doctor videos, not gonna lie. But I prefer for you to make things you like and love as an artist more than "post-modern ironic reviews of radionovellas with no hanky panky"

since clara made her debut in this episode, I feel like its time to give my prediction for the centenary special: Clara's coming back again! thats it

Happy 10 year anniversary!

I feel like the Amy and Rory stuff would have been fine if they hadn't put divorce on the table... like just have them in a rough patch where Amy is being off with him and he doesn't know why, until she confesses her fear that her infertility will affect his future happiness. Them dealing with the fallout of S6 and the fact that their first child was stolen from them makes sense! But Moffat took it too far by making them get a divorce, which just makes them both look immensely immature.

Imagine an alternate story, Asylum of the Cybermen. Like those that couldn’t be fully converted either due to lack of resources or they couldn’t properly have their emotions erased. You could have real body horror of different models of Cybermen and the bodies inside are shown to add some real unnerving imagery.

Ok so... yeah I still feel the need to defend this episode, or at least offer a perspective on why most of what you folks don't like don't bother me. Firstly, it struck me as odd that you pegged it as any kind of mystery story at all, because I always approached this one as more of a rollicking adventure than anything else, which means the early reveal of Oswin never struck me as any kind of flaw. Now the quibbles about the divorce I get a little bit better, and while I don't think it's great it also never really bothered me all that much. So here's my take on it: Moffat opted to go with playing out the very common reality that losing a child frequently breaks up couples. Because honestly it was either that or sink a bunch of time into explaining why they're NOT broken up. Either you play out the grief or it looks like they got over it too fast. And I think the call he made makes sense. That being said, he then ran into something of an attention issue because I suspect he didn't want to sink the time into showing their relationship breaking as a result of this and opted to skip to the end so they could get to the recovery, in theory covering the bases of the impact of Melody Pond being taken from them while being able to retain something close to their usual dynamic in the episodes after this. That's the theory, and admittedly the execution is a bit on the clunky side, but I feel like I understand the intent and agree with the approach enough to be more forgiving of this whole element. Overall I just liked the feel of this episode and Oswin was good fun (in a way that Clara just wasn't for a while). It has a good sense of adventure, fun dialogue ("Don't be fair to the Dalek when their firing me at a planet!"), and I just enjoy it. And just for the record, I honestly never cared about the old school Daleks so the response to that baffled me. I'm baffled by the accusation of fan-pandering because I didn't feel anything positive or negative about their presence and wouldn't have even thought to praise that specific throw away aspect. Maybe it helps that I wasn't wrapped up in fan communities which is probably where the excitement was from the previews.

One surface level positive of this episode has to be that the paradigm Daleks have never looked better. The glossier paint job and much better lighting makes them look much more imposing and realistic when compared to Victory, and they look much more imposing and realistic

Happy 10th Anniversary

Please do more episodes with Five Who Fans, its always fantastic

Congrats on your 10th Anniversary - could you bring together former versions of yourself to save Dr Who being sucked into a black hole?

Assylum of The Daleks was my introduction to the show. Saw it randomly as a replay on Beeb America when I was 10. Thought it was confusing but also neat. Had no idea what anything was but I liked the bowtie man.

10th anniversary of hewhomoans>10th anniversary of asylum of the Daleks

I remember kinda enjoying this episode....in retrospect I think I just had a crush on Jenna-Louise Coleman

happy anniversary

Has it really been 10 years? Blimey. Watching it at the time the one thing that turned me instantly against this story was the ommission of the scene where the Doctor should have twigged it in scene one. Saucy Eastern European Lady in Spike-Heeled Boots: "I've just escaped from a Dalek prison camp" The Doctor: "What? In those shoes?"

You need to do more of theses

Always wished I could have seen your series 7 reviews:(

10 years?! Damn, now I feel old.

I can't wait for the day we can look at the Timeless Children and say "its just eh"

Happy 10th anniversary to your channel. Stu…. Do you have plans to review ravenous?

2016 Stu: “Saving this piece of crap for another video” 6 years later…

Strangely, while I can see how time might've healed all wounds, I can remember exactly why I thought this episode was bad. I think, having gotten into Doctor Who right when Steven Moffat took over, his failings have become ingrained into my mind, swiftly rising to the surface whenever I think of Doctor Who. And frankly, I hear how most people realized Moffat had no idea where he was going with everything only after Time and the Doctor, and wonder if we were watching the same show.

asylum was 10 years ago? oh god

Stu, are you aware that going on the cheaply drawn avatars one of your Doctor Who friends is David Mitchell?

Is that a Morbid Angel shirt you're wearing in that old photo?

I like Asylum, I don't know how much of that is it being one of two episodes to have been broadcast on my birthday

I actually kind of enjoy this episode as a Dalek romp, but the character drama is really freaking flat.

10th anniversary!!!! Omg. Does this mean ... I'm old now?

I... don't think this episode is that bad. I'll concede that the divorce subplot comes completely out of nowhere, and that it feels like the Daleks were shoehorned in to appease the ghost of Terry Nation, but that aside it's really pretty good. Oswin is cool - dare I say it both she and the version in The Snowmen are more interesting than the canonical version of Clara. The horror elements are well done. The idea of converting humans into Daleks was done much better here than in Evolution of the Daleks. And even though Amy & Rory act super out-of-character, it's almost worth it to see the Doctor dealing with their relationship issues. Overall, while there are big flaws in this one, in my view there is still more good than bad. But I still really enjoyed watching you guys snarking at it.

Snuggly Asylum Time

Huh. Neat that you and Council of geeks nearly have the same starting date

This might be a hot take, maybe not here but certainly for many... But I firmly believe that, were it not for the hype of the 50th Anniversary just around the corner keeping people interested, people would not have put up with Series 7. If anything, I'm not convinced that it wouldn't have gotten a Chibnall-esque reaction. Apart from the odd hidden gem ("A Town Called Mercy" stands out to me, but honestly, in most other seasons it would be the standard, not the standout), what does it really have?

This is one of my favourite Dalek episodes :)

So is this to be your punishment now? Revisiting AotD every decade?? Seems harsh...

Hells yea

In a vacuum, I agree that this story is inoffensive and just pointless, forgettable fluff. But in the context of the ongoing narrative, I really dislike it, so watching NuWho in order as I have been makes it so much worse. Bringing Rory and Amy back like this is like if Arc of Infinity had the Peter Davison puppeteering Adric's rotting corpse about and we were supposed to be invested in his moping about Nissa being better at maths than him. Except not like that because that would be hilarious.

WOOO

Nice intro

I prefer Classic Stu over New Stu

Even 10 years later I still don't get why the daleks didn't just destroy the mad daleks (daleks killing daleks isn't new) or why Amy and Rory separated or why they gave the doctor protection against the mind control nanobots or why the daleks abducted Amy and Rory. The only good thing was the Clara twist, and if the Clara idea worked it would have been better but it's weakened by the later stories with Clara and her only getting half a series resultingin a rushed explanation and no character development.

Five Who Fans!! yes :)

Forgot about FiveWhoFans

Hey Stu pmsl

Not to be that person, but if they still want children, couldn’t they adopt?

Oh, I like "grumpyman" as a villan. I don't know how it would work, but there have been far worse.

I know it's not the only reason shows go by the wayside, but I have less compassion for bad writing over the years.

i don't know, i like it. really unpopular opinion but i much prefer moffat's dalek episodes to davies's. davies's dalek episodes just got really repetitive after the first one and moffat's always had some bizarre premise and rarely relied on the daleks to carry the story. Dalek is fantastic, but by the time it got to daleks in manhattan, i was borderline tempted to just skip dalek episodes. victory of the daleks made me lose faith in dalek episodes completely, but asylum of the daleks pulled me back in. i do fully agree that the divorce was really unnecessary and probably my least favorite part of the episode.

This episode solidified for me just how overrated Moffet is as a writer quite frankly. 🤷‍♂️

This is the episode where Doctor Who started going downhill with Hell Bent being the one that killed it.

Never got how some of the old daleks were meant to be here. Real world, fan-service, yes, but In Universe? There was some from pre-Genesis. Genesis was supposed to have completely rewritten their history, so all the earlier ones no longer existed and yet here's the Pertwee-Era ones locked up as failures. Maybe I'm overthinking an episode that barely requires a normal level of thought; let alone over thinking it.

Ps imo even Mel has more of a backstory than Clara 🤣

No. No. Just no. I refuse to accept 10 years of are mortality have past. I was still in secondary school back then.

The Daleks were always shitty villains: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nAVR6wTCY6k.html

FiveWhoFans? Now thats a name I haven't heard in a long time. A Long time