Resurrection of the Daleks

The TARDIS is snared in a time corridor and dragged to a derelict warehouse on Earth. The corridor is actually part of a Dalek trap, but while they are chasing the Doctor around they are also raiding a prison ship in space to free Davros, hoping he will help them recover from their humiliating loss to the Movellans in their latest war. The Daleks were so decimated by a virus that the Movellans used against them that they have bolstered their numbers with humanoid troops - duplicates of beings they have captured before. And with the Doctor in their power, they have a nasty mission for the duplicate they want to make from him.

Very atmospheric this one; from the opening shots of the rundown and abandoned docklands of 1984 London (area which now house trendy condos and businesses and are used as backdrops to fist fights in Bridget Jones movies) to the broken down neglected space station where Davros is serving his time, there is menace in every shadow and a creepy atmospheric score. The Dalek ship, by contrast, is brightly lit and very white, and looks a lot like some pagoda interior in Japan.

How do the Daleks fare? They're desperate after their loss, they're teetering on the edge of extinction, but after what happened to him before, Davros is no fool and knows they'll turn on him again so he plays for time, quietly gaining control over those around him and building a secret army. His is a bit of a ranter this time around, too, but I suppose 90 years of "mind numbing boredom" in a block of ice might do that to a guy. This time around he is played by Terry Molloy, his mask redesigned once again for a new actor, but it's just not the same. Molloy goes on to be the longest serving Davros (three times on television and in several Big Finish audios) and his performance does mellow over time, but nothing is going to come close to Michael Wisher's original grating nasty voiced Kaled scientist.

The cast of this one are apparantly well known actors in the UK, but neither Jay nor myself really regonized anyone. The truth is as the Daleks had not been in the series since Tom Baker's time, producer John Nathan-Turner wanted their return to be a star studded cast, and apparantly this was achieved. I guess. The return of the Daleks, though, is balanced against it being the final adventure for Tegan as played by Janet Fielding; her departure scene is handled quite well and her reasons for leaving are made very clear, and the Doctor even tries to stop her from going, eventually equating her choice with his own decision to leave Gallifrey. Oh yeah, speaking of Gallifrey there is this bit about using the Doctor's duplicate to go back there and assassinate the High Council of Time Lords; being a very insular society it's not as if they have drawn attention to themselves, so it's more likely that it's really the Doctor's fault for picking fights with the Daleks and having them track him back to his home eventually. It's a plot point that doesn't really go much farther - although the duplication process that the Doctor is put through allows for some nifty montage of past Doctors and companions, bringing up faces from years ago - it will be of great importance in the show's future, say in 2005; 21 years after this episode was broadcast.

At Jay's request we did something different this time: we watched the DVD with commentary running. Peter Davison and Janet Fielding are joined by director Matthew Robinson to pretty much talk through the show (something that Jay and I think we'd be good at, so we want to win a contest or something and be guest commentators) and make fun of not only themselves but pretty much everyone else in the cast, including poor Mark Strickon as Turlough who doesn't really do a lot except look over his shoulder and get his face all shiny. There's this bit where the comments are all disclaimed too, where everyone says that they are proud of the work they did and they do enjoy it; Jay has visions of whoever is producing the commentary running out of the booth and telling them to smarten up. Hm. I think I actually have had to go back and reaffirm my own enjoyment of the show once or twice here.

I like Doctor Who, I really do.

So Tegan is gone and it's just the Doctor and Turlough now. Theirs is a Doctor/companion friendship that was never really explained properly, given that Turlough originally came along to kill the Doctor at the Black Guardian's behest, and then out of nowhere changed his mind about going home. With his past never really alluded to at this point outside of encounters with Tractators, Turlough would be one of the most enigmatic companions to serve on board the TARDIS as the next televised episode would be his last as well. In the years since then, though, there have been several other adventures set after Tegan's departure with just the Doctor and Turlough together, so let's take a side step and look at those and see how the guys get along without a girl on board...

NEXT EPISODE : LORDS OF THE STORM