(Van Statten. "Of the States," perhaps? Just a theory.) The Dalek waves its arm helplessly, like an insect, blustering and screeching: "You are an enemy of the Daleks! You must be destroyed!" And like a kid with an insect, the Doctor breaks into a grin: "It's not working!" The Dalek's eyestalk swivels down to its arm, as the Doctor laughs cruelly: "Fantastic! Oh, fantastic!" There's relief in the joy. It turns into something else: "Powerless! Look at you. The Great Space Dustbin. How does it feel?" The Doctor lunges, and the Dalek begs him to stay back, but he leans in tight, and there's no Doctor here; he's unrecognizable: "What're you going to do to me? If you can't kill, then what are you good for, Dalek? What's the point of you?" The Doctor circles it, angry and dark, and it watches him, afraid, as he goes: "You're nothing." I could almost believe it's trying to get him to touch it, goading him and using his fears and guilt against him, but the weakness of dialogue in this and other scenes makes me think that's multiplying entities. Better to think that. "What did you hear, Clarice?"

Van Statten, Goddard, and Simmons watch the proceedings. "What the hell are you here for?" the Doctor asks the Dalek. It replies that it's "waiting for orders," and that it is a soldier, bred "to receive orders." Anything, anybody else, that would be the saddest thing the Doctor ever heard. But there's no pity in him for this thing: "Well, you're never gonna get any. Not ever." The Dalek's voice rises: "I demand orders!" Half of what makes Daleks scary is the voice: that combination of nearly-insane hysteria and obsessively logical repetition. Saying terribly sane things in a terribly insane way. "They're never gonna come!" screams the Doctor. There's a little bit of Method spit dribbling. It's really hard to watch. "Your race is dead! You all burnt, all of you. Ten million ships on fire!" He's talking about the Daleks, sure. "The entire Dalek race wiped out in one second." The Dalek calls him a liar. "I watched it happen," the Dcotor says, and leans in. "I made it happen." The Dalek is a creature well acquainted with destruction. It still can't comprehend: "You destroyed us?" And that's the thing that snaps the Doctor out of it. Just a little -- he's still scary as hell -- but enough that he can turn his back and answer honestly, in a dead voice, "I had no choice."