'Asylum of the Daleks' (Story Code 7.01) by Steven Moffat

“Who killed all the Daleks?” – Rory Williams

”Who do you think?” – the Doctor

Skaro: home-world of the Daleks; a world now in ruins. Amidst a shattered city stands a gigantic stone statue of a Dalek – and inside its hollow eye stalk waits a red-haired woman dressed in a black, hooded cloak. The woman, Darla Von Karlsen, ruminates on the legend of the Daleks’ greatest enemy: a man known as the Doctor, a man now dead – although some believe that he will return… Hearing a sound the woman turns to find the Doctor standing before her. He has come in answer to her message, to help her rescue her daughter, Hannah, from a Dalek prison. However, the Doctor is suspicious, believing the summons to be a trap. And he’s right. Suddenly a Dalek eyestalk emerges from Darla’s forehead, its lens glowing blue – and from the woman’s palm extends a Dalek gun-stick, which promptly blasts down the Doctor. As a huge spaceship arrives outside, the voice of the Daleks declares that the Doctor has been acquired…

Elsewhere, on present-day Earth, Amy Pond is busy posing for a photo-shoot. She is interrupted by the arrival of her estranged husband, Rory Williams, who has brought divorce papers for her to sign. Clearly unhappy, Rory leaves as soon as Amy has complied, leaving his ex-wife feeling shaken and unsteady. Amy allows her assistant, Cassandra, to help her to a chair – but then a Dalek eyestalk and gun-stick emerge from Cassandra’s body, and Amy is shot down… Outside, Rory steps onto a bus – and is quickly blasted by the driver, another of the Dalek-hybrids…

Rory awakes to find he is lying on the floor of a white room, along with Amy; rushing to the window he sees that they are in space, in the middle of a huge armada of spaceships. The door opens and Doctor enters the room, flanked by two Daleks – it seems they are in very big trouble… The floor of the room elevates, taking the three time-travellers through an opening in the ceiling and into a huge circular chamber crammed with hundreds of Daleks, the TARDIS standing nearby under heavy guard. Realising that they are in the Parliament of the Daleks, the Doctor challenges his enemies to kill him – but instead of exterminating their greatest foe, the Daleks demand that he save them!

Elsewhere, a pretty girl living inside a cramped spaceship records a birthday message for her mother; the girl has been trapped for three-hundred and sixty-three days, busying herself with decorating and making soufflés. Hearing the sound of Daleks outside, she turns up her music and covers her ears…

Back at the Parliament, Darla and the Daleks’ Prime Minister – a mutant encased in a protective glass jar – explain why they need the Doctor alive: the Daleks do not kill their own, instead they have a planet-sized asylum in which they imprison those of their race that are battle-scarred or have gone insane; a strange signal has recently started transmitting from the heart of the facility, but the Daleks are too afraid to enter the Asylum to investigate. Listening to the signal the Doctor instantly recognises it as the opera ‘Carmen’, a particular recording in which he played the triangle; reversing the transmission, the Doctor speaks to its source: the young girl, Oswin Oswald, Junior Entertainment Manager of the crashed starliner Alaska ,who has spent the last year shipwrecked inside the complex. Their conversation is interrupted by the White Dalek Supreme, to allow Darla and the Prime Minister to explain how they want to send ‘The Predator of the Daleks’ and his trusty companions to deactivate the Asylum’s impenetrable force-field, so that they can then destroy the planet. Before the three time-travellers can object, protective wristbands are strapped onto them and they are then shoved through a hole in the floor, sending them plummeting straight down a gravity beam, through the force-field, and onto the snowy surface of the planet far below. Amy is soon found by a man named Hector, who mistakes her for a rescue mission. Meanwhile, the Doctor awakes to find himself facing the eyestalk of a reprogrammed Dalek, which sticks up through the thick snow on which he is lying; the creature’s speaker relays a communication from Oswin, but cuts out just as Amy and Hector arrive on the scene. Together they search for Rory, only to discover that he appears to have fallen down a very deep hole nearby… Inside the bowels of the Asylum, Rory comes to in the middle of a rubble-strewn room filled with many different-looking Daleks: Bronze, Grey, White, Special Weapon and Paradigm, variations from throughout the creatures’ long history – and all of them badly damaged and apparently inert… Hector takes the Doctor and Amy back to the Alaskaescape pod where he and his four crew-mates have been living for the last two days; however, it quickly becomes apparent that Hector’s comrades are all dead – and have been for some time. As the Doctor and Amy watch, a Dalek eyestalk emerges from Hector’s forehead – he died a year ago, and has somehow been converted. Grabbing a fire extinguisher from the wall, the Doctor forces Hector into another compartment and seals the door on him. The Time Lord then deduces the function of the wristbands he and his companions were given: they protect their wearers from the nano-cloud in the atmosphere, which turns people into Dalek puppets as part of the Asylum’s security system. At that moment eyestalks burst out of the four corpses – even the dead can still be used by the Asylum! Fighting their way through the zombie-Daleks, the Doctor and Amy reach the safety of the cockpit, sealing seal the door behind them. Oswin contacts them through the ship’s comms system, and after flirting with the Doctor, instructs them to escape via a floor hatch. After noting that she is actually enjoying herself, Amy tells the Doctor that he cannot fix the fact that she and Rory have split up; she then looks back at the monitor showing the four hybrids, and is shocked to see that the corpses have her wristband… Inside the Asylum, Rory’s clumsiness inadvertently causes the Daleks to awaken; as the creatures open fire on their intruder, Rory flees for his life – and then he hears Oswin’s voice ordering him to make for the door she is now opening for him. Getting to safety in the nick of time, Rory finds himself in a narrow corridor, talking to a very flirty disembodied voice… As he and Amy make their way down a wire ladder, the Doctor explains (for the fourth time) how the nano-cloud has already begun to affect his friend’s mind and body. Reaching the bottom of the shaft, the Doctor calls out to Oswin, who sends a map to a nearby screen that shows the location of the chamber that Rory has just reached. While the Doctor talks to his new friend, Amy looks into an adjoining chamber and sees a number of well-dressed men, women and children, who beckon her to join them. Seeing Amy stepping inside the chamber, the Doctor rushes after her and urges her to pull herself together: she actually standing inside a room full of Daleks! Fleeing back down the corridor, the Doctor and Amy are pursued by one of the Daleks – but luckily for them, its gun-stick is damaged. With no fire power, the Dalek resorts to self-destructing to kill its mortal enemy, but the Doctor just opens its casing’s dome and uses his sonic screwdriver to send the creature’s motor system into reverse – sending it careering back into the chamber, where it explodes, taking the rest of the Daleks with it! Hearing the massive explosion, Rory rushes back into the chamber where he is reunited with the Doctor, now carrying an unconscious Amy in his arms… Sometime later, the Doctor leaves Amy resting on the floor of the chamber and speaks to Oswin; the Time Lord is puzzled as to why Oswin has avoided being turned into a Dalek hybrid, and how a mere entertainments officer can be so good at hacking Dalek systems; he also wonders where she got the eggs and milk for her soufflés. The Doctor then stuns his two friends by asking how fast Oswin can drop the Asylum’s force-field. Knowing that as soon as the planet is vulnerable the Daleks in orbit above will destroy it, the Doctor has a plan: he, Rory and Amy are in currently standing inside a teleport room, and by boosting its system he can use the four-second delay after the force-field is deactivated to transport himself, Amy and Rory back to the Daleks’ Parliament ship. Oswin agrees to the plan, on the caveat that the Doctor rescues her first; the Time Lord reluctantly agrees, and Oswin sends him a map of her location. As the Doctor leaves his friends in the safety of the teleport chamber, he urges Amy to use her love for Rory to slow down the effects of the nano-cloud; he then departs and makes his way through the wrecked, Dalek-infested facility... Rory tells Amy that he will give her his wristband: he loves her more than she does him, so the nano-cloud will take longer to affect him; in Amy’s resulting fury the reason for the argument that led to their split comes out: Rory wants children, but the events at Demons Run has left Amy unable to bear children. As the estranged couple realise how stupid they have been, they discover that Amy now has a wristband on too: the Doctor’s… The Time Lord in question has nearly reached Oswin’s cabin, but first he has to get through ‘Intensive Care’, the unit in which the survivors of various wars are imprisoned – wars in which the Doctor was the victor. Hearing the Doctor’s voice, the comatose Daleks awake and break free of their bonds. As Oswin attempts to find the release code to her cabin, the weaponless Daleks close in on the Doctor, preparing to sucker him to death. Luckily Oswin buys time by hacking into the Daleks’ telepathic web – their electronic ‘group mind’ – and deletes all record of the Doctor from their memories; no longer recognising their mortal enemy, the Daleks retreat, just as Oswin finally gets the door released. As Oswin rushes about her room packing her things so that she can finally escape, the Doctor makes a shocking discovery: he is not inside Oswin’s hiding place – he is in a white, circular chamber, facing a Dalek in chains: Oswin. As the girl listens with mounting horror, the Doctor explains the terrible truth: after the Alaska crashed Oswin made her way down the shaft into the Asylum, where she was captured by Daleks; identifying their captive as a genius, the evil creatures carried out a full conversion on her: Oswin became a full Dalek, and has since been merely dreaming of her humanity. As Oswin’s programming begins to assert itself her Dalek form breaks free of its chains, with all the intentions of exterminating the Doctor. But inside the remnants of Oswin’s human mind, her former identity reasserts itself – and she turns off the Asylum’s force-field. In orbit, the Dalek spaceships in orbit immediately commence their bombardment of the planet below. The Doctor races through the burning Asylum, reaching the teleport room where Rory and Amy are kissing obliviously; grabbing the control from Rory’s hand the Doctor activates the teleport – just as the entire planet is blasted into oblivion…

Aboard the Parliament ship, the Daleks detect an incoming teleport beam; preparing to face their attacker, the evil creatures hear the Doctor’s voice, but cannot see him – and then the Time Lord pops out of the TARDIS. It seems he set the teleport with pinpoint accuracy, transporting himself, Amy and Rory to safety! However, the Daleks no longer recognise their ‘Predator’, and when they hear his name they ask “Doctor Who?” It seems that Oswin’s legacy lives on…

Later, after dropping a happily-reunited Amy and Rory off at their home, the Doctor sets off once more in his TARDIS. Setting the ship’s controls, the Time Lord enjoys the sound of his new title: ‘Doctor Who’…

“Run, you clever boy. And remember…” - Oswin

Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams), Jenna-Louise Coleman (Oswin Oswald), Anamaria Marinca (Darla Von Karlsen), Naomi Ryan (Cassandra), David Gyasi (Harvey), Zac Fox (Photoshoot P.A.)++, Nicholas Briggs (Voice of the Daleks), Barnaby Edwards (Dalek 1), Nicholas Pegg (Dalek 2)

Directed by Nick Hurran
Produced by Marcus Wilson
Executive Producers Steven Moffat and Caroline Skinner
A BBC Wales production

TX (BBC 1 & BBC 1 HD):
1st September 2012 @ 7.20 pm

Notes:
*Featuring the Eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory, and introducing Oswin Oswald

*Running at fifty minutes, this episode features a redesigned title sequence with an updated logo (studded bronze, like a Dalek) and typography

*This episode was premiered at an exclusive screening at London's British Film Institute on 14th August 2012; somehow the press and early-viewers managed to keep the appearance of Oswin a complete secret until the episode’s actual transmission!

++Zac Fox is credited as 'Photoshoot P.A.', but he doesn't appear in this episode, he is in 'The Time of Angels'

*Music heard in this episode: 'Feel the Love' by Rudimental featuring John Newman

*Why does the Doctor have a plaster on one of his fingers..?

*As well as ‘Pond Life’, another prequel to this story was made available exclusively in the U.S., to season pass subscribers on the US iTunes store and Amazon Instant Video. Written by Steven Moffat, it featured Matt Smith as the Doctor as Barnaby Edwards as the mysterious figure, and rand for two and a half minutes: The Doctor is enjoying a quiet cream tea in a café when he is interrupted by the arrival of a mysterious hooded figure, who instructs him to contact someone called Darla Von Karlsen, who needs his help. The Doctor refuses and makes to leave, only to find himself in an ancient stone chamber, on a planet that he knows only too well. Realising that he is in a telepathic dream, the Doctor forces himself to wake up; however, his relief at appearing on a sunny beach is crushed as the figure’s voice tells him that he is still dreaming, and he is transported into the midst of space. After receiving space-time coordinates of the rendezvous, the Doctor wakes up for real this time – and he sets the TARDIS on course for Skaro...