Doctor Who review: The New Counter-Measures: The Dalek Gambit

With Movellans on one side and Daleks on the other, the Counter-Measures team find themselves in the middle of all-out war in The Dalek Gambit!

Continuing directly from where The Movellan Manoeuvre left off, The Dalek Gambit – as I’m sure you can guess from the title – brings in Doctor Who‘s most iconic monsters against the Counter-Measures team!

Of course, it’s not the first time that they’ve had to face them – after all, our introduction to these characters was the classic Seventh Doctor story Remembrance of the Daleks. But it is the first time that they’ve had to face such a dangerous enemy without the Doctor’s help.

Even worse is that the Daleks aren’t the only threat in this one. In fact, while they do have a major role in the story, the Daleks are almost superseded by the Movellans. Oh yes, despite suffering a major setback in the previous story, the Movellans aren’t done with Earth just yet. And when the Daleks arrive, they’re not giving up without a fight…

More from Winter is Coming

• For All Mankind finally gives us information in Episode 405, “Goldilocks”
• Watch a stunning VFX breakdown of The Wheel of Time season 2
• Of course Steve Toussaint (Corlys Velaryon) thinks Eve Best (Rhaenys Targaryen) should rule Westeros
• Confirmed: The Last of Us season 2 will air in 2025
• Final season of Star Trek: Discovery will have “a lot of action, a lot of adventure, a lot of fun”

Movellans vs Daleks

While The Dalek Gambit is closely linked to The Movellan Manoeuvre – so much so that you definitely need to listen to the preceding story first – they are very much two distinct episodes. With Manoeuvre, writer John Dorney has a lot of fun with not just buildup and mystery, but also with subverting some major tropes.

Roland Moore’s story, on the other hand, is more straightforward. That’s not a criticism, as focusing on a simple plotline – Daleks versus Movellans with Counter-Measures caught in the middle – achieves two things.

First, it allows the story to have a fast, thrilling pace, and that’s exactly what the fans want from a story with two classic Doctor Who monsters fighting each other. There are a lot of exciting action sequences, sequences that are extremely easy to visualize. It helps that the main characters are less trying to battle both armies at once and more just finding themselves constantly caught in the middle, as the stakes feel so much higher as a result.

The end?

But more than that: one clear benefit of keeping the story simple is that it leaves plenty of room for more emotional moments between all of the major characters. Moments that examine the dangers they’ve faced, the lives they’ve lived, and the chances they’ve never taken. This is especially true of the ending. Expect to go through a huge range of emotions during the episode’s final scenes…

This might be the end of Counter-Measures for good. It might not be. But if The Dalek Gambit is the final story of the series, then it’s certainly not a bad one to end on. With epic action and strong emotion, it’s a thrilling story that I’m sure many fans will enjoy.

Do you think it’s a good time for Counter-Measures to end? Or do you think it should continue? Are you glad that the team are once again facing the Daleks? Let us know in the comments below.