The Dalek Emperor comes to Mechanus seeking an alliance…

Setting aside the name change (it’s Mechonoid in the cast list for their only previous official appearance but Time Lord Victorious is in its own bubble so…) this sees some wonderful callbacks to The Chase, the now 55 year old introduction to the inhabitants of Mechanus, originally created to help humans, but now moved far beyond that. The Dalek Emperor says that they’re second only to the Daleks, which, as the Queen of the Mechanoids points out, is almost a compliment, coming from them.

The revelation of the Emperor’s motivations will come as no surprise to anyone who’s been reading their new copy of the original Dalek comic strip – and the Queen’s deductions don’t actually hold up when you think about them (which I have to assume is the point). Inevitably we’ve got some Dalek vs Mechanoid fights (and the return of the weird shaped explosions), but with the introduction of the Queen who can communicate clearly with the Daleks, we don’t have the issues of understanding what the Mechanoids are saying – something which I suspect may explain their lack of regular appearances elsewhere. There are some sharp exchanges between Anjli Mohindra’s Queen and Nicholas Briggs’ Emperor, while the Dalek Strategist (Briggs again!) is sounding increasingly human, at least in his motivations.

Verdict: An interesting rebooting of the Mechanoids that I hope we see more of. 8/10

Paul Simpson