Doctor Who Unlocked: Into the Dalek

Every episode of Doctor Who has much more than meets the eye so I like to put together a little post exploring links to the past and other things you might not have known about! 

WARNING: Contains Spoilers

Into the Dalek is the first Doctor Who story since 2010’s The Waters of Mars which hasn’t featured Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor. Coincidentally, that episode was also written by Phil Ford, who wrote Into the Dalek. 

We see Clara meeting new teacher Danny Pink at Coal Hill School. The school featured in the very first episode of Doctor Who back in 1963 where teachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright taught the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan. The school reappeared in 1988’s Remembrance of the Daleks when daleks had built a transmat system in the school’s cellar and last year’s The Day of the Doctor when we saw Clara working there.

Using miniaturization to treat a patient has happened before in Doctor Who. In The Invisible Enemy the Fourth Doctor and his companion Leela went inside the Doctor’s own head to fight a virus.

Other cases of miniaturization include a TARDIS malfunction in First Doctor story Planet of the Giants and the Doctor hiding in the Teselecta to avoid his death in The Wedding of River Song. Like Rusty, the Teselecta had robotic anti-bodies.

Rusty grates “Death to the Daleks” at one point, which is a title of a 1974 dalek adventure featuring Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor.

When the Doctor opens his mind to Rusty, images from past dalek stories are seen. We see an extermination from Dalek, the dalek attack on the Valiant from The Stolen Earth and the destruction of the daleks and the crucible in Journey’s End.

The Doctor then mentions meeting the daleks on Skaro, referring to the second Doctor Who story The Daleks. Skaro was destroyed by the Seventh Doctor in Remembrance of the Daleks but has since been seen (in ruins) in Asylum of the Daleks.

The attacking daleks shout “SEEK! LOCATE! DESTROY!”. Whilst nowhere near as famous as “EXTERMINATE!” these dalek calls have been heard regularly in Doctor Who, right from The Daleks onwards.

The scene where Clara and Journey are climbing was actually filmed by the actors crawling along the floor!

The new Doctor makes his dislike of soldiers clear, a character trait which was particularly clear in the Tenth Doctor.

Michelle Gomez reveals her character’s name to be “Missy”. Gretchen is the second character to have made it to “Heaven”, after the Half-Face Man in Deep Breath.