The Daleks

This is the story that really brought Doctor Who into the national spotlight, introducting some of the most famous TV monsters of all times, the title villains: the Daleks. Even my own 7 year old nephew is not immune to their allure, and can often be heard muttering "Exterminate!" at any who get in his way (although Parker's plans for universal domination may be somewhat different from those of the Daleks).

The travellers emerge from the TARDIS into a petrified jungle. The trees have turned to stone, the soil barren and dead. A mysterious city lies at the edge of the forest, and the Doctor contrives to explore it despite the protests of his companions. Susan is used to her grandfather's whims of exploring and goes along with him, her own scientific curiosity aroused. Ian and Barbara, having just escaped the barbarism of the Tribe of Gum, now have to come to terms with the fact that they are not only out of their normal time, but now on an alien world as well. When they reach the city, they separate to explore, and first Barbara, then the others, are captured by the Daleks. It is revealed that the Daleks are one of the last two surviving races on Skaro; the other being the Thal people. Both races were engaged in a horrible nuclear war which reduced the planet to ashes generations ago, and to survive the Daleks have retired into mobile casings that house what is left of their bodies. The machines are also powered by static electricity, and as such they cannot move off the metal floors of their city. Not yet. (full details of Dalek design, and lots of images at http://www.daleklinks.co.uk/ ) Our regular cast eventually meet the Thas as well, but the Thals are not the monsters that the Daleks are; indeed, they are perfect humanoids, their mutation process having come full circle. Unlike the agressive Daleks the Thals are not keen to start another war, but the Doctor convinces them that without asserting themselves and attacking the Daleks they will all be destroyed by them sooner or later.

Still the anti-hero, the Doctor can be seen manipulating events to get his own way. He even goes as far as to sabotage the TARDIS as an excuse to explore the city and look for a means to repair, which leads them right into trouble. And when the question of reigniting the conflict between the Daleks and the Thals comes up he sees no reason why the Thals should not be made into an army at his disposal, despite the objections Ian has. A dying Dalek later begs the Doctor for help, or the whole race is doomed, and he coldly stands by and lets it die, saying that even if he did want to help the Daleks, he doesn't know how.

The Daleks. Magnificent monsters. The design of the Daleks does not do much to intimidate these days, and the first thing people can say is how silly they are for not being able to go up stairs. In this day and age of CGI monsters that can melt through walls or climb across ceilings, there isn't exactly much to fear from a small tank that can't go off a flat surface. But the Daleks don't have to run around and shoot everyone; they've already destroyed their world with a neutron bomb once, and they survived, so if letting off another one to wipe out the Thals is what it takes, so be it. They are cruel. They are totally hostile, rabidly xenophobic; traits that almost make them as bad as certain humans in our own history, which is really the fear that they inspire; they're not as alien as all that when they are, in effect, us, to an extreme degree. Terry Nation, who wrote the 7 episode script, went on record once saying that he had modelled the Daleks on the Nazi SS (although in an interview in the early days of the Dalek phenomenon he simply shrugged and said that he needed a villain for his script and poof there they were) and the parallels cannot be missed, right down to the well-known battle shriek of "EXTERMINATE!".

The adventure is made up of 7 standard length episodes, their titles being: The Dead Planet, The Survivors, The Escape, The Ambush, The Expedition, The Ordeal, and The Rescue. My only beef with stories this length, especially in this era of the show, is sometime you can see where things could have been picked up a bit, some bits removed, and maybe even an entire episode's worth of material trimmed to tighten it up. I maintain that episode 6, The Ordeal has more to do with how painfully slow Barbara and Ian's Thal raiding party moves through a cave system trying to find a back way into the Dalek city to attack it; it is an ordeal for the viewer to sit there and watch Ian, then Ganatus, Kristas, Barbara and Antodus all take turns jumping over a chasm, and when inevitably someone slips, you can't help but think "It's about time..." I had a guest viewer for this one; my friend Mark was visiting for the weekend and as usual with him made a lot of heavy sighs and barely-stifled sniggers as we watched the black and white serial. I can't actually spell his reaction out (it involves a wet raspberry sound) but do take comfort in the fact that Parker was here yesterday, and actually said "Exterminate Uncle Mark!" and avenged the Daleks for his criticism.

And once all is done, and the Daleks are defeated, the TARDIS leaves Skaro. The Doctor sets the controls and the ship takes off. All is normal, until there is a thunderous explosion, everyyone is thrown to the floor, and the lights in the console room go out...

NEXT EPISODE : THE EDGE OF DESTRUCTION