Serial 104: The Destiny of the Daleks

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)
Companion: Romana II

Written by: Terry Nation
Directed by: Ken Grieve

Background & Significance: With two years of Doctor Who under his belt, it's only fitting that producer Graham Williams would choose to bring in The Daleks for a turn. It's weird. There's not REALLY a producership or era that happens without eventually doing a Dalek story (the Troughton seasons are a notable exception, but then again, Troughton is more era than producer, methinks, and he did get two kick ass Dalek stories up front).

But this is the Graham Williams submission to the Dalek canon, and as you might expect it is deliriously problematic.

For a start, this is the last story Terry Nation wrote for Doctor Who, so that's something to look forward to. It's also the first of many, many returns for Davros and a great posterchild for all the Davros stories moving forward, teaching the people who do the stories a great number of things about how Davros should and should not function in a story. Perhaps the greatest mistake was replacing David Wisher with David Gooderson, and it's not that Gooderson is bad, it's just that his interpretation is impossibly way too Hitler-on-the-nose if you know what I mean. It's also the only Doctor Who story directed by Ken Grieve. So that's a thing.

It's also with this story that we get the introduction of the second incarnation of Romana. In the previous story (the unfortunate "Armageddon Factor") Mary Tamm stepped down and decided to pursue other interests, leaving Lalla Ward to step in and be the "real Romana" or rather, the Romana that we all know and love. And it's not that Tamm is bad, she just happened to get stuck in "one big story" that people can't ever seem to really parse out and examine as six separate stories. So people seem to remember her as in a whole lot less Doctor Who than she actually was. Ward had a season and a half. Tamm had "only one story". It's inaccurate, sure. But it does mean that we get a regeneration that is impossibly controversial and helped along by the ever so cheeky Douglas Adams, who has also taken over as script editor. So that happened.

To sum up: we have Douglas Adams and Lalla Ward and the return of Davros and Terry Nation. What could possibly go wrong?

So let's get to it!

Serial 142: Revelation of the Daleks

Doctor: Colin Baker (6th Doctor)
Companion: Peri Brown


Written by: Eric Saward
Directed by: Graeme Harper

Background & Significance: In a lot of ways, "Revelation of the Daleks" represents the end to a number of eras in Doctor Who. Coming at the end of Colin Baker's initial season (which is problematic, to say the very least), this story really signified an ending to the first twenty two years of Doctor Who. From here on out, Doctor Who would be on borrowed time, always under the threat of cancellation. Always with a far abbreviated season than what it was typically used to.

It's also the end culmination of four years of Eric Saward as script editor. How fitting, then, that he should be the fellow to write it.

Because the Daleks always elevated the show's ratings, Producer John Nathan-Turner sought to bring them back for another season after their success in the previous one. Despite the fact that script editors weren't allowed to commission themselves to write for their own show, Saward somehow managed to wriggle his way around the legal workings of this by writing the scripts in the six weeks leading up to the renewal of his contract as script editor for the next round of Doctor Who. It's underhanded, sure. But he wanted to write The Daleks and Davros, and he'd be damned if he'd let any other "unexperienced" writers go out and write them in his stead.

To direct, the production team brought back the excellent Graeme Harper to handle the proceedings. So that's a plus.

But really, it's just the end result of the show's direction over the course of the previous four years. It effectively kills Colin Baker as The Doctor and is his last proper televisual adventure ("Trial" is a more complicated animal and not exactly the most proper of adventures where every "week" he's somewhere new) and is the last time location shooting for the show was shot on film. Location shooting in the future would all be shot on video tape. It's also the last script written by Eric Saward and is very... Sawardian in all its proper respects. As I'm so wont to say, Doctor Who writers only ever seem to get more themier (Moffat only seems to get Moffatier just as Davies only ever seemed to get more Daviesier) and "Revelation" proves itself to be the Sawardiest script of all the scripts he ever wrote for the show.

Wonder how that'll turn out.

So let's get to it!

Serial 151: Remembrance of the Daleks

Doctor: Sylvester McCoy (7th Doctor)
Companion: Ace

Written by: Ben Aaronovitch
Directed by: Andrew Morgan

Background & Significance: The Doctor has to face Daleks. Always. It's like a rule, and if it isn't, I'm of the opinion that it should be. That's not to say that I approve of Dalek overexposure. I don't. But at least once per Doctor (more possible if he's got a long run), methinks.

It's interesting to see how each Doctor handles the nefarious little buggers. Whenever I think about The Doctor facing off against The Daleks, I always think about that moment in "Doomsday" when The 10th Doctor strides into the room and starts dialoguing with the suddenly scared Cult of Skaro. More than anything, it just reinforces the notion that The Doctor is not your typical hero. Think about the heroes of other science fiction programmes (Malcolm Reynolds in Firefly or Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica) or even from a big-budget action movie/show (John McClane in the Die Hard movies or Jack Bauer in 24) and the difference is stark. That is not how any of them would handle The Cult of Skaro in that scene.

No. The Doctor's a guy who's all British and talky and can stride into the room full of the evilest creations in the universe and talk them out of shooting him. Not every Doctor handles them in that specific way (and oh boy will we see him act other ways), but the Doctor's approach to a solution to a problem is never the "I'm going to shoot them and blow them up"method (although remind me I said that next month). His response is always one of appealing to intelligence and arguing in favour of diplomacy and his reliance on his words and language. That's The Doctor's weapon. That's how he fights the evilest creations in the universe.

"Remembrance of the Daleks" is the 7th Doctor's turn to take them on.

Now, I know it's been quite a long time since we've done a McCoy story, but let's be honest. There's very little of him around (he out-serials Colin Baker by ONE story), and what there is hasn't been widely DVD'ed [yet]. And, because I really, really liked him when we talked about him last time and am all about delayed gratification, we're only doing two stories of him this year, and a "bunch" of him coming up on the other side of January.

But enough about blog politics! Let's focus on Dalek and Doctor Who politics! Much more interesting!

"Remembrance of the Daleks" is written by Ben Aaronovitch and came about because they wanted to give McCoy's Doctor a chance to go up against the Daleks. Producer Jonathan Nathan-Turner commissioned the story and then sent the drafts to Terry Nation to review for his approval. Nation was most pleased with the story, except for one element (which certainly merits discussion but we'll talk about that in part four) which he asked to be excised. Nathan-Turner "took his comments into consideration" and then politely never sent Nation another draft for perusal. The worst part is, "Mad Man" Terry Nation? He was... not wrong.

Ah, Jonathan Nathan-Turner. So consistently self-righteous. So disappointing.

"Remembrance of the Daleks" is considered one of the best McCoy stories and it shows a really nice Dalek vs. Dalek story with some pretty neat graphics and special effects. It's also a really great look at The Doctor and does a bit of a retcon of the first ever Doctor Who story, in a move that is.... questionable? Shall we say? And of course the ending to episode one is famous because it's uh... pretty frakkin badass. Even by today's standards.

Unfortunately, it suffers a bit from the poor storytelling that happened during the Jonathan Nathan-Turner years, but I'll overlook most of that in the light of other really great things about the story, which is thrilling and exciting and pretty damn solid. Also, Daleks vs. Daleks with The Doctor and Ace in the crossfire. What's not to love?

Well, there is that one choice at the end. But we'll talk about that later.

So let's get to it!

Serial 133: The Resurrection of the Daleks

Doctor: Peter Davison (5th Doctor)
Companion: Tegan Jovanka, Vislor Turlough

Written by: Eric Saward
Directed by: Matthew Robinson

Background & Significance: For Doctor Who's 20th Anniversary season, producer Jonathan Nathan-Turner sought to bring back old foes for The Doctor to face. We already talked about "Arc of Infinity", but what would a twentieth anniversary be without the return of The Doctor's oldest and most popular foe?

Unfortunately, while it didn't quite work out as planned, it did manage to make it in for Davison's third and final season, which I find fortunate, but I'll discuss the why I think that a bit later.

One of the most interesting things about this story, I find, is that it did have the blessing of Terry Nation while not being written by him. This is unusual, perhaps, because Terry Nation traditionally HATED Dalek stories that weren't written by him, which is sad, because "Power of the Daleks" is really stupid good.

(For the record, I recently listened to that one and god damn that one's fantastic awesome. Seriously really really fantastic awesome.)

What we have, then, is a a classic Daleks/Davros story with tons of the early 80's Star Wars sci-fi zeitgeist and such. We get the departure of Tegan (which is fortunate because I am a huge not-fan of Tegan) and a solid story starring Daleks and their interesting little plan that is interesting.

So let's get to it!

Serial 78: Genesis of the Daleks

Doctor: Tom Baker (4th Doctor)
Companions: Sarah Jane Smith and Harry Sullivan


Written by: Terry Nation
Directed by: David Maloney

Background and Significance: When Jon Pertwee abdicated his role as The Doctor after five seasons, he did it having the longest run as the character by at least two years. (Honestly, I find it incredibly cool that he was on the show for about the average length of a fairly successful TV show.) He left the show as a serviceable Doctor, his era coming with some new innovations (color, more action, more and cooler special effects) and a long, healthy run some very good Doctor Who stories and some new innovations (not the least of which was the introduction of The Master).

And then he got replaced.

Not only that, but the run of his replacement, Tom Baker, would be nothing short of positively legendary. Playing The Doctor for seven years (two years longer than Pertwee, and more than Hartnell and Troughton combined), he is an incredibly iconic Doctor, from costume to mannerisms, and the show was never more popular in its original run. Tom Baker's Doctor is widely considered to be the best and most widely known (although David Tennant fans might disagree) of all time, and with seven years under his belt, it's very easy to see why.

With the Fourth Doctor, the show became nothing short of a phenomenon and incredibly exciting as this goofy looking chap with a giant scarf and a silly mish-mash of clothes took center stage and showed the world what Doctor Who was really capable of.

But enough of that, what about this episode?

This episode, "The Genesis of the Daleks," is one of only two times The Fourth Doctor went up against his greatest foe. Shocking as that might sound, especially given the rampant popularity of The Doctor before and since, it's a mark of Baker's era that he wasn't *crutched* by Daleks and they weren't a foe for The Doctor to fall back on.

"Genesis of the Daleks," however, is perhaps most notable because it is the introduction of the incredibly iconic creator of The Daleks.

Davros

And really, that's the entire reason I wanted so desperately to see this episode. I loved him in the most recent series when The Tenth Doctor and his multitude of Companions ran up against him in "Stolen Earth/Journey's End," and the appearance of Davros and the backstory that comes with him is the thing that really grabbed me and sucked me into wanting to watch "The Old Stuff", which means it's really his fault that I'm doing this blog in the first place.

So I owe it to the Daleks' creator to talk about his introduction.

Oh. And it's about the creation of the Daleks. Who doesn't love that?

Let's get to it!