Victory of the Daleks: | ||
– | Just under 3 minutes into this episode, as the Doctor and Amy are in the corridor with Winston Churchill, the Doctor is standing still with Churchill's walking stick under his arm. Watch as a series of dodgy edits make Matt Smith's hands jump from in his pockets to out, to back in again. | |
– | Just before the Doctor and Amy meet Bracewell for the first time, we see a nice CGI establishing shot of wartime London, complete with barrage balloons dotted around the place. Looks good at first glance — unfortunately, the barrage balloons are flying way too low to be of any use. Most of them seem to be flying at or below the height of Big Ben's clock (about 200ft). Bearing in mind, the whole point of the balloons was to damage enemy aircraft when they collided with the cables, so they should have been a lot higher than shown on screen. Dive bombers don't fly that low! | |
– | At least once during the episode (when we first meet Bracewell and he looks at the approaching German planes), we get the classic "movie mistake" of depicting the view through binoculars as a figure-of-8 shape, instead of a circle as it is in reality. | |
– | I think we all agree that the Dalek "To Victory!" poster looks fab. So best not to stop and ask yourself why the British government would commission a poster to promote a top secret weapon...? | |
– | Amy's hair is a continuity-free zone during the episode. One example is about 7 minutes in, when the Doc and Amy enter Churchill's "map room" for the first time. In the corridor outside, Amy's hair is quite wavy at the ends, but once she steps inside the room, it's noticeably straighter. | |
– | After one of the "Ironside" Daleks gives Bracewell a cup of tea, the camera angle changes so we can see about halfway into the cup — which appears to be empty! | |
– | When the Doctor attacks a Dalek with a giant spanner/wrench, the next wide shot shows the tool lying on the floor behind the Doctor, with zero indication that he either dropped it on the hard floor (which surely would have made an audible noise) or that he bent down to leave it there. | |
– | When the two marines enter Bracewell's lab and are immediately exterminated by the newly "confirmed" Dalek, the second marine reacts as if being shot a moment before the special effect is applied. | |
– | When the Doctor leaves in the TARDIS to head to the Dalek ship, Churchill and Amy stand and watch. Notice that Amy's hair is noticeably blown backwards by the wind from the dematerialising TARDIS, but Churchill's (presumably CGI-generated) cigar smoke is unaffected and in fact drifts in the opposite direction, towards the TARDIS! | |
– | In that same scene, notice the change in Amy's facial expression (and the direction of her gaze) whenever the camera cuts from a side view to a front view of her watching the TARDIS disappear. | |
– | When the Dalek ship fires its magic beam to render all light switches in London useless, one of Churchill's staff flicks the switch in the Map Room three times in an unsuccessful attempt to turn the lights off. Which is fine, but later on when the Dalek beam is deactivated, doesn't that mean the lights in the Map Room should then have turned off? (Since they were originally on, and the officer flicked the switch an odd number of times) | |
– | When all the lights in London come on, the CGI wide shot shows every single window in the Houses of Parliament lighting up. In reality, the entire population of London were under strict blackout regulations during the Blitz — including the use of blackout blinds/curtains on every window every night, to ensure no light was visible from outside, whether or not the lights were switched on. Hardly likely that MPs of all people would have neglected to do this!
[MPs breaking the law? Unthinkable!] | |
– | With London "lit up like a Christmas tree" and only 10 minutes before the German bombers arrive, why doesn't Churchill focus on an immediate solution (having soldiers shooting out streetlights perhaps?) rather than relying on untested alien technology to save the day? | |
– | And once our heroes have convinced Bracewell to come up with a solution using Dalek technology, how in blazes do the "gravity bubbles" go from being a theoretical idea on a piece of paper in Bracewell's lab to actual working gizmos installed in Spitfires on an airfield several miles away in under ten minutes...?!?
[And with Bracewell only having one working hand to boot!] | |
– | Finally, assuming you choose to ignore the above plot logic (why??), imagine for a minute that you're Winston Churchill. There are Daleks in orbit. There are German bombers less than 10 minutes from London. You have three shiny new hypersonic Spitfires with gravity bubbles and laser cannons. Do you: (a) Send the Spitfires into space to knock out the Dalek beam, so that London will be dark by the time the German planes arrive? Or: (b) Cut out the middleman and send the hyper-Spitfires to destroy the German bombers directly?? | |
– | After the 'cleansing' of the old Daleks, the white Supreme Dalek starts moving towards the Doctor, and a side shot shows it at least 7 or 8 feet in front of the other Daleks, but then we cut to a front view where the white Dalek is suddenly back in line with the others and immobile. | |
– | Bracewell modifies a radar scanner to "monitor Dalek transmissions" (so they can hear the Doctor's conversation on the Dalek ship). But since it's the only Dalek ship and all the Daleks in existence are on board — why would the Daleks be transmitting anything outside the ship? | |
– | Then, when Bracewell's scanner starts working, the screen shows the Doctor directly facing the Dalek Supreme, and standing so close that the Dalek's plunger is practically touching the Doctor's chest. Cut to the Dalek ship itself, and the Doctor is instantly several feet away from the Dalek... and also with his body now turned at a 45-degree angle. | |
– | Plane nerd alert! The CGI Spitfires shown in the episode were modelled on Mk IX's or later (judging by the two air intakes and protruding cannon). Whereas the Spitfires used in the actual Battle of Britain were earlier Mk I and Mk II models — the Mk IX didn't enter service until the following year (1942).
[Granted, we're clearly dealing with a parallel Earth, so maybe we should allow for little differences like this!] | |
– | Judging by the size and shape of Bracewell's robot chest, it looks like he should have had a bodybuilder's physique, seeing as how the shapely metal torso was only being covered by a thin layer of skin. But no, as we saw only a moment prior when the Doctor tore open his shirt, Bracewell's bod was pretty far from "ripped"! | |
– | After the Daleks have been vanquished and Amy rescues the TARDIS key from Churchill, he lights a cigar, which promptly disappears in the next shot. | |
– | In that same scene, the Doctor tells Churchill he got rid of all the alien technology from the Spitfires (so the Allies can't use it to win the war). But when we visit Bracewell's lab a minute later, there's still a Dalek gun lying around on his desk! | |
– | In the penultimate scene where the Doctor and Amy discuss Bracewell's possible deactivation, all the frontal shots show the Doctor either with his hands in his pockets or clasped together, but in the reverse shots his right hand is seen dangling at his side. | |
– | The end credits mis-spell actress Susannah Fielding's first name as "Susanah" (only one N).
[In case you're wondering, she plays Churchill's War Room aide Lilian — or "Miss Breen" as Churchill refers to her on-screen.] |