Asylum of the Daleks (Doctor Who, Series 7 Episode 1) - Episode Guide

The Doctor - Matt Smith
Amy Pond - Karen Gillan
Rory Williams - Arthur Darvill

Oswin - Jenna-Louise Coleman
Darla - Anamaria Marinca
Cassandra - Naomi Ryan
Harvey - David Gyasi
Voice of the Daleks - Nicholas Briggs
Dalek 1 - Barnaby Edward
Dalek 2 - Nicholas Pegg

Stunt Coordinators - Crispin Layfield, Gordon Seed

First Assistant Director - Fay Selby
Second Assistant Director - James Dehaviland
Third Assistant Director - Heddi-Joy Taylor-Welch
Assistant Director - Danielle Richards
Location Manager - Nicky James
Unit Manager - Geraint Williams
Production Manager - Phillipa Cole
Production Coordinator - Claire Hildred
Asst. Production Coordinator - Gabriella Ricci
Production Secretary - Sandra Cosfeld
Production Assistants - Rachel Vipond, Samantha Price
Asst. Production Accountants - Rhys Evans, Justine Wooff
Assistant Script Editor - John Phillips
Script Supervisor - Steve Walker
Camera Operator - Joe Russell
Focus Pullers - James Scott, Julius Ogden
Grip - Gary Norman
Camera Assistants - Meg De Koning, Sam Smithard, Cai Thompson
Assistant Grip - Owen Charnley
Sound Maintenance Engineers - Ross Adams, Chris Goding
Gaffer - Mark Hutchings
Best Boy - Stephen Slocombe
Electricians - Bob Milton, Gareth Sheldon, Matt Wilson
Supervising Art Director - Paul Spriggs
Set Decorator - Adrian Anscombe
Production Buyers - Charlie Lynam, Adrian Greenwood
Art Director - Lucienne Suren
Assistant Art Director - Richard Hardy
Art Department Coordinator - Donna Shakesheff
Prop Master - Paul Smith
Prop Chargehand - Bernie Davies
Set Dresser - Jayne Davies
Prop Hand - Austin J. Curtis
Standby Props - Phil Shellard, Helen Atherton
Dressing Props - Mike Elkins, Ian Griffin
Graphic Artist - Christina Tom
Graphic Designer - Chris Lees
Petty Cash Buyer - Helen O'Leary
Standby Carpenter - Will Pope
Standby Rigger - Bryan Griffiths
Props Makers - Penny Howarth, Alan Hardy, Jamie Thomas, Tom Belton
Props Driver - Gareth Fox
Construction Manager - Terry Horle
Construction Chargehand - Dean Tucker
Assistant Costume Designer - Fraser Purfit
Costume Supervisor - Carly Griffith
Costume Assistants - Katarina Cappellazzi, Gemma Evans
Make-Up Artists - Sara Angharad, Vivienne Simpson, Allison Sing
Casting Associate - Alice Purser
Assistant Editor - Becky Trotman
VFX Editor - Joel Skinner
Dubbing Mixer - Tim Ricketts
ADR Editor - Matthew Cox
Dialogue Editor - Darran Clement
Sound Effects Editor - Paul Jefferies
Foley Editor - Jamie Talbutt
Graphics - Peter Anderson Studio
Online Conform - Mark Bright
Online Editor - Jeremy Lott
Colourist - Mick Vincent

Daleks created by Terry Nation

With thanks to The BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Conducted and orchestrated by Ben Foster
Recorded and mixed by Jake Jackson

Original Theme Music - Ron Grainer
Casting Director - Andy Pryor CDG
Production Executive - Julie Scott
Post Production Supervisor - Nerys Davies
Production Accountant - Jeff Dunn
Sound Recordist - Deian Llyr Humphreys
Costume Designer - Howard Burden
Make-Up Designer - Barbara Southcott
Music - Murray Gold
Visual Effects - The Mill
Special Effects - Real SFX
Prosthetics - Millennium FX
Editor - Jamie Pearson
Production Designer - Michael Pickwoad
Director of Photography - Neville Kidd
Script Producer - Denise Paul
Line Producer - Diana Barton

Executive Producers - Steven Moffat, Caroline Skinner

Kidnapped by his oldest foe, the Doctor is forced on an impossible mission - to a place even the Daleks are too terrified to enter... the Asylum.

A planetary prison confining the most terrifying and insane of their kind, the Doctor and the Ponds must find an escape route. But with Amy and Rory’s relationship in meltdown, and an army of mad Daleks closing in, it is up to the Doctor to save their lives, as well as the Pond’s marriage.

On Skaro, a woman called Darla meets the Doctor in a huge Dalek statue. She asks the Doctor to save her daughter from a Dalek prison camp, the camp she escaped from. However, the Doctor realises that it is all a trap: unbeknownst to Darla, she has actually been converted into a sleeper agent of the Daleks. Right as he says this, her programming becomes active, and she stuns the Doctor, as a Dalek saucer arrives.

On Earth, Amy Pond is posing for the camera when her secretary tells her that her husband wants to see her. She remarks that she doesn't have a husband anymore. She walks in to a makeup room, where Rory asks her to sign the divorce papers, joking that Amy was just "pouting at a camera". Once she has signed the papers, he leaves as Amy's make-up artist, Cassandra, enters. Unfortunately, it turns out she is also a Dalek puppet, and she teleports Amy away. Meanwhile, Rory gets on a bus, but the bus driver turns out to be yet another puppet, who in turn teleports Rory to the Daleks.

He wakes up in a cell with Amy, and looks through a small window to see they are in space, with an armada of Dalek saucers accompanying them. They are then taken to the Parliament of the Daleks, where the Doctor says it's finally Christmas for the Daleks because they managed to capture their greatest enemy. Much to the Time Lord's surprise, the assembled Daleks don't try to exterminate him. Wondering for what other reason they could have captured him, the Doctor is met with a surprise; the Daleks want the Doctor to save them. "Well, this is new."

The Daleks bring them to a planet they call the Asylum, a place that the Doctor has heard of only in legend. It's a place where the Daleks dispose of those of their kind who go wrong: the insane, the battle-scarred and the uncontrollable. The Doctor learns, to his disgust, that the Daleks didn't destroy their insane brethren because they find "Divine Hatred" to be beautiful. The whole planet is automated and surrounded by an impenetrable shield, but the Daleks have detected a signal of unknown origin on the planet: The Doctor traces the signal to a woman called Oswin Oswald, who has been hiding out on the remains of the crashed starliner Alaska for a year.

The Doctor realises that when the Alaska crashed, it ruptured the planet's shield, leading to the risk of the inmates escaping. A planet's worth of insane Daleks roaming free is something that scares even the Daleks, who captured the Doctor to deal with the threat. The Daleks explain they kidnapped Amy and Rory because their records show he is always accompanied by companions. Because the shield is still strong enough to resist an assault from orbit, the Doctor and his companions will be sent down to the planet to deactivate the shield so the planet can be "cleansed". The three are given protective bracelets so they will not be affected by the "Nanocloud" that surrounds the planet, and are unceremoniously sent down.

Amy is the first to come to after landing... And sees a man in a white coat approaching her. Panicking, she runs away, with him chasing after her. The Doctor is next to come to, finding a Dalek eye watching him; Oswin has discovered visitors. Speaking to her via the radio, the Doctor decides to look for Amy and Rory first. Eventually, he and Amy run into each other, and the man, Harvey, reveals that he was a crew member of the Alaska. They decide to find Rory first. The Doctor tracks the reading coming to a hole in the ground; Rory is below them, in the actual facility. Because they cannot get to Rory at the moment, the Doctor and Amy decide to help Harvey

Reaching the ship, they discover the rest of Harvey's crew are dead, having decomposed into skeletons. The Doctor reveals to the confused man, who claims they were alive and well not two hours ago, that they have been this way for a long time (a year at least). However, matters get much worse when Harvey remembers he died as well... The cold preserved his body, and the nanocloud turned him into one of the Dalek puppets charged with keeping the Asylum running. With his programming activating, Harvey tries attacking the Doctor and Amy. They quickly shut him into the storage unit of the ship.

The Doctor explains that the nanocloud will transform anything living or dead not protected by one of the Dalek bracelets into one of the "staff". Amy points out the second part of his explanation; even the DEAD are converted... including the dead crew members surrounding them. As the decayed husks of the crew suddenly come to life, the Doctor and Amy flee to another part of the ship. However, the undead attackers grab Amy for a minute before the Doctor pulls her free and locks them out. They then notice, on the monitor, that the zombies have a bracelet; Amy's is missing, meaning she's in danger of being converted. Oswin contacts the Doctor and Amy, informing them that there's a rope ladder leading down from the ship. It's the only way out now.

Elsewhere, Rory awakes to find himself underground. Oswin contacts him and leads Rory through the facility, where several deactivated Daleks litter the halls. Rory accidentally trips on a piece of metal, making a loud noise that awakens one of the severely rusted Daleks. Oddly, it repeats "Eggs..." over and over again, making Rory think it wants the orbs that have fallen out of its casing; Rory offers an orb to the Dalek in confusion. However, the Dalek's voice finally manages to unscramble; it's been trying to say "Exterminate." Rory runs through the room and locks himself in the teleport room on the other side. After Oswin makes flirty jokes, she tells Rory that she'll guide the Doctor and Amy to him.

In the tunnels below the ship, Amy questions the Doctor about what will happen to her. The Doctor explains the Nanocloud will erase her memories, "replace her love with hate", and transform her into a Dalek puppet. Memory is the first thing to be affected, and worse, it's already begun; he's explained four times already. The Doctor encourages Amy to embrace fear to keep herself human; Daleks don't fear. They head for the exit, but upon hearing the Daleks outside the teleport room yelling "Exterminate", they're forced back. The Doctor asks Oswin how many Daleks ahead of them as Amy walks off; she sees people in the room ahead. However, the Doctor, having noticed her, informs Amy her perception is now being affected; she's looking at Daleks. A Dalek advances on them, identifying the Doctor. However, once the Doctor taunts the decaying Dalek for having a damaged death ray beyond use, it simply activates its self-destruct program in the hopes of taking him with it. Instead, the Doctor sends it flying in reverse, straight into the other Daleks as it explodes.

Rory hears the explosion and leaves the teleport room to find several charred Dalek casings. Wondering who killed all the Daleks, Rory sees the Doctor carrying an unconscious Amy. With a smile, the Doctor rhetorically asks Rory, "Who do you think?" Once in the teleport room, the Doctor explains the situation to Rory, and discovers the teleport has enough power to get them back to the Dalek ship in orbit once the force field is down. Oswin points out that hostility, something Amy displayed by slapping Rory, is the first sign the conversion is becoming permanent. Amy jokes "Someone's obviously never been to Scotland," implying she's normally hostile. Accepting this, Oswin asks to be taken along, but the Doctor questions her about how she keeps getting the ingredients for her soufflés. His companions tell him to put the matter aside; they need to leave the planet before they lose Amy for good.

The Doctor then wonders how Oswin is not being affected by the Nanocloud, and learns that she used her genius to create a shield to block it. Leaving Amy and Rory behind, the Doctor sets out to find Oswin, as she refuses to turn off the shield until they come to rescue her. Rory offers to give Amy his bracelet to keep her human longer; he claims it would take longer for the Nanocloud to transform him into a puppet. He reasons since it transforms love into hate, he would last longer because he always loved her more than she loved him, referencing the 2000 years he spent protecting her inside the Pandorica as an Auton. As they argue, it's revealed Amy has become sterile because of something the Silence did to her at Demons Run; while Rory thought Amy suddenly left him, in truth, she knew he had always wanted children, so Amy "gave him up" so he had a better chance at having them with someone else, saying her sacrifice in doing so was far greater than his two-thousand year vigil. They then realise the Doctor put his bracelet on Amy while she was out cold; being immune to the Nanocloud to begin with, he'd tricked them into working out their relationship problems.

In the meantime, the Doctor reaches "Intensive Care"; it houses Daleks defeated in battles with his first, second, and third incarnations. Once the Doctor mentions they "survived" him, the Daleks (missing their guns) come back to life and corner him against the door leading to Oswin, intending to enact revenge. Luckily, Oswin hacks into Pathweb (the Daleks' shared information center), and erases all data on him, effectively making them forget the Doctor, and making the deranged Daleks quietly go back to their cells and go back to "sleep". The Doctor says it's impossible to hack the Pathweb; even he couldn't. Oswin invites him to meet the person who did. However, once the Doctor enters her room, he discovers, to his infinite sadness, Oswin is also a Dalek; the room she thought she was in only exists in her imagination. The Doctor explains the rope ladder he used to get into the facility was originally used by her when she was human; Owsin had been captured by the Daleks, and because of her genius, had been fully converted into a Dalek instead of simply made into a puppet.

When Oswin refuses to believe him, the Doctor points out that she wouldn't have been able to get eggs and milk for her soufflés for an entire year because there'd be a limited supply. The shocking truth causes Oswin to remember her exploration of the facility, her capture by the Daleks, and her conversion. Repeating "Eggs", she reverts to a Dalek personality, yelling "Exterminate!" The Doctor yells for Oswin to regain control of herself, seemingly working as she is next heard crying. She then asks the Doctor why the Daleks hate him so much, learning that he always prevents them from achieving large victories. Content with her fate, Oswin (still imagining herself in the fake room) tells the Doctor to remember her, explaining that the shield around the Asylum has been dropped. The Doctor thanks her, and - on her order - runs for his life.

Amy and Rory reconcile as the Asylum explodes around them.In the teleport room, Rory wonders how long they can wait for the Doctor. Amy says for the rest of their lives and they kiss. The Doctor arrives and tries getting their attention - "for God's sake!" Annoyed that Amy and Rory always pick the worst times to kiss, the Doctor activates the teleport.
On the Dalek Parliament ship, the Supreme Dalek reports that the destruction of the Asylum has been successful. However, the alarm goes off; a teleport from the Asylum has occurred, possibly meaning they are under attack. The Doctor's voice is heard over the loudspeaker, saying that he is very good with teleports before popping his head out of the TARDIS, calling the Daleks "suckers". They demand that the Doctor identify himself, shocking him; he tells them who he is, only to be met with confusion. The Daleks all then starts asking "Doctor Who?" Realising that Oswin erased all data on him, not just for the Daleks in intensive care, but for every last one, everywhere, the Doctor laughs "You're never going to stop asking."

Despite their demands to stay there and elaborate on his identity, the Doctor takes off. He deposits Amy and Rory back at their house. Waving good-bye, Amy smiles to Rory and enters the house; she's taken him back. Rory smiles himself and whoops with joy. Rory then calms down when Amy says "I can see you." In the TARDIS control room, the Doctor is laughing to himself about how the Daleks will never stopping asking "Doctor Who?", repeating the question himself several times, with joy, as he sets the TARDIS on course for his next adventure.

[Source: TARDIS Wikia]