The Archive of Islos

"The Daleks value knowledge."

Writer: James Goss

Format: Animation

Broadcast: 12 November 2020

Series: Daleks! 01

Featuring: Dalek Time Squad

Synopsis

The Daleks invade the Archive of Islos – but will its guardians surrender?

Verdict

The Archive of Islos was a very impressive start to the Daleks! animated online series as part of the ongoing Time Lord Victorious range. I am watching these episodes after all five stories have been released to complete the series as I thought they were a little short in length to watch on a weekly episodic basis and personally would prefer to watch it all in one successive go over a couple of days, and I liked the start here. I will admit that I was a little sceptical prior to watching this episode and when the series itself was announced that with it being on YouTube only, I didn't think the animation was going to be too good but I was left pleasantly surprised with what I watched here! The visuals were really impressive and I think it was definitely the best visualisation we have had of the Dalek Time Squad across all of the formats thus far. Obviously, it's great to hear them in the Big Finish audios and read about them, and Defender of the Daleks was a close second as the artwork on that comic strip was terrific, but there was something about their movements here that was superb. This really did make me feel like I was a child again as it has been a very long time since I have watched animation like this. I thoroughly enjoyed. It's just great to have the Daleks as their own stars in a show, even if it is exclusively online and perhaps not getting the viewing figures it might have done if it were on a children's television channel. The premise of this episode was terrific and I really liked how devastating the attack on Islos was. The Daleks pretty much ravaged it and I thought the dark and space-like setting made for excellent visualisations and set a good tone for the episode. The robotics archivists were a good match for the Daleks and the Chief Archivist in particular was not shy to stand up to their attackers. The Daleks not regarding the artificial life as valuable or even worthy of their acknowledgement was fantastic and I enjoyed the visual meeting between the Chief and the Dalek Emperor. The humour that came with the former asking the latter if he wanted a membership card for the Archive was great and the bluntness in which the latter declined and wanted it handed over instead was really good. I thought the interaction between the Emperor and the Dalek Strategist was brilliant and I really loved the design of the latter and how it was battle torn. The sense of age there was superb and unlike any other Dalek we have come across before, at least in my opinion. The talk of the archivists' creators was intriguing and I look forward to them coming into proceedings in the next episode if the cliffhanger is anything to go by. That has definitely kept my interest and I think I will be watching episode two right after concluding this blog entry! The archivists refusing to hand over the Archive to the Daleks, at least initially, was very good and the Emperor's desire to destroy what he couldn't have was excellent. Of course, there was a quick u-turn and the Daleks soon lost their ability to gloat with it turning out that the Archive, once handed over to them, had lost its records with empty shelves. The population and the archive records had gone through the portal which seemed oddly reminiscent of the Gateway in Ascension of the Cybermen. The Daleks were obviously angry about this and exterminated all of the archivists, excluding the Chief, who revelled that their reward was handing over the Daleks to their creators. Overall, a fine start! 

Rating: 8/10