Since then, I've created a Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/ExcitingGuide) which will link only to those parts of my blog devoted to the Exciting Guide. And I've decided to do it in order after all. So last week I re-posted the Unearthly Child blog, which means this week it must be time for The Daleks.
For those with no idea what's going on, the introduction is here: http://chapwithwings.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/watching-every-tv-adventure-of-doctor.html
Story Two
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Story Code
B
Title
The
Daleks
The alternative titles on
offer are The Dead Planet, which is simply the title of the first episode, and The Mutants.
Although this last is apparently the more historically accurate title, I
discount it for two reasons. Firstly, it
may cause confusion. Secondly, The
Daleks is the title by which most of us
have always known it. However, I don’t
intend to go the route of the David Whitaker novelisation and call the story Doctor
Who in an exciting adventure with the Daleks.
“Friends” Title
The
One With The Daleks
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Episode Titles
The
Dead Planet
The
Survivors
The
Escape
The
Ambush
The
Expedition
The
Ordeal
The
Rescue
Current availability
All
seven episodes exist.
Source
BBC
Video release.
This is complete other than
the cliffhanger that leads The Rescue into the following story.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date
2350.
There
is no way to place this story within an Earth time-scale, so I have picked an arbitrary date.
Genre
Alien
War
Plot synopsis
1. The Ship lands in a petrified
forest. The crew explore and discover a
huge city. They return to the Ship, but
on the way Susan is frightened by a hand which touches her. She is not believed at first, but from inside
the Ship everyone hears a scratching sound.
The Doctor is apparently persuaded to leave, but he announces that the
fluid links are empty. The TARDIS will
not move unless they try to get some mercury from the city. The next morning, they leave the Ship to find
a small container outside full of glass vials, which they leave in the
Ship. At the city, they split up. Barbara is confronted by something that
causes her to scream.
2. The others find a lab, and the
equipment there tells them that radiation is beyond the danger point, which is
why they are all feeling ill. The Doctor
admits there is nothing wrong with the fluid link - it was a deception to get
them to the city. They are suddenly
faced with four or more metal creatures, who fire at Ian and paralyse his legs
when he tries to make a break for it.
The companions are reunited in a cell.
The creatures, known as Daleks, send Susan to the Ship to collect the
drugs, secretly wanting them for themselves.
She reaches the TARDIS after a terrifying journey, then has to start
back.
3. Susan is intercepted by Alydon, a tall
blond member of the Thal race. He gives
her an extra supply of the drugs to hide from the Daleks - they find it but
allow the prisoners to use them. Susan
agrees to send a message to the Thals inviting them to the city for peace
talks, not realising it is an ambush.
The prisoners manage to disable a Dalek by insulating it from the floor
and its supply of static electricity.
They remove the revolting creature from its metal shell and Ian climbs
inside,. They escape from the cell.
4. The companions barely escape the
city. Ian tries to warn the Thals, but
their leader, Temmosus, is killed in the ambush. The travellers try to persuade the Thals to
fight for themselves, but they will not hear of it. The crew make to leave, but realise that the
Daleks have the fluid link.
5. Ian convinces the Thals to fight to
protect themselves. The Daleks discover
the Thal drugs are fatal to them, as they have become conditioned to
radiation. The Thals split into two
groups. The Doctor and Susan remain with
Alydon and the main group to distract the Daleks, while Ian and Barbara go with
a smaller party, led by Ganatus, to mount a sneak attack through the swamp and
over the mountains. One of the Thals on
this expedition, Elyon, fills water bags from the lake and is attacked by a
mutant creature.
6. The Thals fox the Daleks’ cameras using
light reflection so that the Doctor and Susan can sneak into the city. They manage to short-circuit some of the Daleks’
power, but are instantly captured. The
Daleks reveal their plan to bombard the planet with radiation from their
reactor in order to keep up the radiation levels. Meanwhile, the expedition, minus Elyon,
continues and reaches a chasm inside the mountain. They all leap across, but Ganatus’ brother
Antodus falls: he hangs suspended,
dragging Ian down with him.
7. Antodus severs the rope and plummets to
his death. The rest of the group reach
the city, and meet Alydon and the other Thals, who have mounted a full-scale
attack. They all reach the control room,
and cut off the Daleks’ power two seconds before the countdown for the nuclear
bombardment ends. The Daleks all perish: the last to die claims this is the end of the
Daleks. The Thals begin to use the
inherited technology to rebuild the planet.
The TARDIS crew leave, but shortly after take off there is an enormous
explosion.
Pitch
The Time Machine with metal robot creatures.
The Money Shot
Barbara
is confronted by an unseen creature, and screams. (Episode 1)
The Doctor and his kind
•
The Doctor claims he was once a pioneer amongst his own people.
•
Ian says that the Doctor is the only one who can operate the Ship. Susan does not object, so he has presumably
never taught her fully.
•
Susan describes the Doctor as “forgetful” and says he likes to “go off
and...work on his own.”
•
The negative aspects of the Doctor come very much to the fore in this
story. He stubbornly refuses to leave
until he has seen the city, despite the potential danger, and even deceives
everyone to get his own way. When he
discovers the Geiger counter in the city, he seems willing to abandon Barbara
and Ian on an irradiated world to save himself.
He is also unwilling to help the Thals at personal risk to himself, just
as he refused to help Za.
•
The Doctor is a massive egotist: “With
me to lead them the Thals are bound to succeed.”
•
The Doctor claims he never gives advice.
I suspect this to be a porky.
•
The Doctor appears to know the food machine code for bacon and eggs off by
heart!
The TARDIS log
•
There is a meter in the Ship which can take over the controls and take you
wherever you want to go as long as it’s fed with the right information.
•
Part of the console’s workings involve small mercury-filled vials called fluid
links. The Doctor claims not to carry
any spare mercury, and later discovers that this is true.
•
The Ship’s Fault Locator displays codes to indicate what is wrong with the
Ship. The Doctor is able to immediately
remember that K7 indicates the fluid links, but to be fair he has just
sabotaged them.
•
Susan’s explanation of the TARDIS lock makes it seem an incredibly complicated
device. There are 21 holes inside it,
and only one right one. If you make a
mistake, the whole lock melts as a defence mechanism. She also states that the whole lock comes
away from the door when the key is used.
What this means is unclear, as it certainly has not been in evidence.
•
The Doctor is willing to use the TARDIS key to short-circuit the Dalek
electrical system, claiming he can always make another one. What, without being able to get into the
Ship? How does this sit with Susan’s
comments about the complexity of the locking system?
•
The TARDIS’ food machine can mix tastes like primary colours and produce small
bars which taste exactly like the real thing.
The code for bacon and eggs is J62L6.
•
It is again proved that the TARDIS is not soundproof: the crew can hear Alydon scraping the Ship’s
exterior.
Alien Worlds
•
Skaro is the twelfth planet in its solar system.
•
The forest is petrified into stone. The
soil is also held to be dead, but the Doctor suggests it is less so than it may
appear.
•
Amongst the fauna of Skaro is a metal animal held together by magnetism and
possibly able to use it. Dyoni calls this
creature a Magneton.
•
A suspicious landmark is the enormous Dalek city, apparently intact after the
nuclear explosion. It has a distinctive
angular design with low doors, seemingly endless corridors and a great many
lifts, leading to the lower levels underground.
•
At the rear of the city are mountains, swamps and a lake full of dangerous
mutations.
•
There is a great rainfall once every four or five years, which is a couple of
years overdue at the time of the TARDIS’ visit.
Script Heaven
•
Ian [about the Doctor] “We’d better keep an eye on him. He seems to have a knack of getting himself
into trouble.”
•
Ian “My bacon’s a bit salty.” The Doctor
“Well it shouldn’t be, it’s English.”
•
Alydon “If they call us mutations...what must they be like?”
•
Dalek [to Susan] “Stop that noise!”
•
Alydon “Look at our planet. This was
once a great world, full of ideas and art and invention. In one day it was destroyed, and you will
never find one good reason why we should ever begin destroying everything
again.”
•
Dalek “The only interest we have in the Thals is their total extermination.”
•
Ganatus “If only there’d been...some other way.”
Script Hell
•
Ian “We must find a way of getting down.” The Doctor “Yes, but how, dear boy?” Barbara “Isn’t this a door?” Ian “Yes!
Doctor! Open it!”
Catchphrase
•
Dalek “Ex-ter-min-a-tion, then?”
•
Dalek “They are to be exterminated. You
understand? Exterminated.”
The Doctor’s Achievement
He
appears to have aided in the destruction of the Dalek race, allowing the Thals
to reclaim their planet.
Body Count
A
sharp rise from the first story, as every single Dalek is apparently killed
here. Deaths amongst the Thals include
Temmosus and Tokanda at the ambush, Elyon and Antodus on the expedition and
three unnamed Thals during the climactic battle. So let’s call the on-screen total:
12.
Chekhov’s Plot Device
Chekhov’s
Fluid Links. But this one doesn’t really
count. Really, Chekhov’s narrative
structure would dictate that the method used to destroy the Daleks in episode 7
would be somehow linked to the Fluid Links or something else mentioned early
on. But no, they find a handy off switch
instead.
Dalek history
•
The Daleks are mutated creatures, disgusting to the Human eye, which reside in
dome-shaped metal machines with knobbly protrusions on the lower section. They have an eyestalk, a weapon and a third
arm that ends in a sucker - they use this arm to carry items, presumably
through magnetism. It seems very
unwieldy. They have a harsh, grating
voice, made more so by the machines’ microphone system.
•
From what we see of the Dalek creature in the cell, we know it is light and
small enough for the Doctor and Ian to carry, but we do not see enough to
determine what it is we see emerging from the cloak.
•
The Daleks are powered by static electricity, and leave an acrid smell as they
move, like fairground dodgems. This
means they can only move on metal.
•
The Dalek weapons can fire to kill, but can also temporarily paralyse. They can seriously damage walls, too.
•
Kristas is hit by a presumably lethal blast, yet survives. It is not clear whether this is a failure in
weaponry or some special strength in the Thal.
In any case, it proves the Daleks are not infallible.
•
Oddly, considering how ruthless they are later shown to be, the Daleks do not
threaten to kill Ian at first, but merely to make his paralysis permanent.
•
The Daleks have not always been this way.
According to the Thals, they were once known as Dals, and were teachers
and philosophers. The Thals were the planet’s
warriors.
•
Five hundred years ago, the Daleks/Dals and the Thals fought a neutronic war,
which petrified the surface of the planet in a single day, leaving it intensely
radioactive. The Daleks sheltered in
their city and their machines, while the Thals remained outside as small-scale
farmers and apparently mutated. The
Doctor speculates that mutation has come full circle with the Thals, but has
not yet with the Daleks.
•
The Thals carry around a history of their people going back half a million years,
all stored in a big drum.
•
The Thals do not know the Daleks are still alive until Susan tells Alydon.
•
Ian suggests that the Daleks’ hatred of the Thals stems from “dislike of the
unlike.”
•
The five hundred year conflict is apparently ended by the destruction of the
Daleks’ power source, killing them all.
Dudley!
•
The composer has a trick of starting an orchestral swell when something
dramatic is mentioned, waiting for the camera to pan across all four time
travellers then letting rip with an enormous CLANG! This is first notable after the Doctor says
“Unless we get treatment, we shall die” in episode two.
Notes
•
For the second time in as many stories, the travellers are startled by finding
a dead animal in the middle of a forest.
•
The series’ first alien monster is the dead Magneton.
•
The series’ first really dreadful performer is Virginia Wetherell, playing
Dyoni.
•
The Doctor admits to suffering from the generation gap with regard to Susan.
•
Ian wonders how the city’s inhabitants use their intelligence, and the Doctor
fobs him off, saying it doesn’t matter.
One suspects he quickly learns his error.
•
The Thals seem a very sexist race - even Dyoni says it would have been better
to give the drugs to a man.
•
During the false argument scene in the cell, the Doctor proves that he is a
rotten actor.
•
What exactly is the large object that they lob onto the lift car?
•
Antodus’ cowardice in the tunnel is foreshadowed early on by Ganatus’ denying
that his brother is afraid of the dark.
•
Ian uses the phrases “human” and “human being” quite freely, and no-one objects
or questions.
•
Likewise, the use of the phrase “solar system” suggests that this refers to any
system of planets orbiting a sun, and not just that of Sol.
•
The Doctor mispronounces Ian’s surname as “Chesserman.”
•
There is a wonderfully surreal scene where a Dalek is adversely affected by the
Thal drugs and starts wailing pitifully.
•
The action of this story takes place over several days, yet, with exceptions
such as Barbara’s adoption of Thal trousers, the TARDIS crew do not seem to
change their clothes throughout. Come to
that, they’re the same clothes they wore in the previous story! They must smell a bit by now.
•
Quite a close, potentially romantic relationship forms between Barbara and
Ganatus, culminating in a very tender kiss on the hand.
•
Alydon asks where the Doctor is from. He
skilfully dodges the question.
Queries
•
How did the war start?
•
Is the Fault Locator also indicating the faulty device for disguising the
TARDIS exterior, and everything else that’s wrong with the Ship?
•
Why has it taken the Thals so long to approach the city? Or have they coincidentally arrived here at
the same time as the TARDIS?
•
Did the Daleks really start doling the anti-radiation drugs out to their
workers in droves without testing them out first?
•
We are told the Thals once travelled in space:
so, presumably, did the Dals.
Have they lost this technology despite keeping that for neutron bombs
etc? Otherwise why are they trapped in
their city?
•
Is it not possible that there are members of the Dalek and Thal races out there
in space somewhere from the days when they did have space travel?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On-screen Credits
CAST
Dr.
Who - William Hartnell, Ian Chesterton - William Russell, Barbara Wright -
Jacqueline Hill, Susan Foreman - Carole Ann Ford, Dalek voices - Peter Hawkins;
David Graham (2-7), Daleks - Robert Jewell; Kevin Manser; Michael Summerton;
Gerald Taylor (2-7), Temmosus - Alan Wheatley (3-4), Alydon - John Lee (3-7),
Dyoni - Virginia Wetherell (3-7), Ganatus - Philip Bond (3-7), Antodus - Marcus
Hammond (4-7), Kristas - Jonathan Crane (4-7), Elyon - Gerald Curtis (4-5),
Thals - Chris Browning; Katie Cashfield; Vez Delahunt; Kevin Glenny; Ruth
Harrison; Lesley Hill; Steve Pokol; Jeanette Rossini; Eric Smith (7).
CREW
Written
by Terry Nation. Title Music by Ron
Grainer with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
Incidental Music by Tristram Cary.
Costume Supervisor - Daphne Dare (7).
Make-up Supervisor - Elizabeth Blattner (7). Story Editor - David Whitaker. Designer - Raymond Cusick (1-5,7); Jeremy
Davies (6). Associate Producer - Mervyn
Pinfield. Producer - Verity Lambert. Directed by Christopher Barry (1-2,4-5);
Richard Martin (3,6-7).
Familiar Faces
SF
aficionados may recognise Dalek voice man David Graham as the voice of Brains
from Thunderbirds, and his colleague
Peter Hawkins as one of the mice from The
Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.
Writer
Terry Nation was later to move on to creating his own TV series, namely Blake’s Seven and Survivors.
Review
This
has never been a story I’ve been able to warm to especially. Maybe this is down to having seen the
decidedly inferior Peter Cushing version first.
Still, there’s no denying its importance in establishing the series as a
hit. The Daleks come across well, and
the Thals make for an effective, if wet contrast. The running time is a little long, but no
individual episode seems to drag too much.
The design deserves especial note, the Dalek city’s interiors being very
distinctive and memorable. The storyline
is open to criticism - it takes a very simplistic view of the effects of
radiation, and ignores several fairly obvious holes - but it’s impressive how
much information is crammed into the story about the history of Skaro without
ever seeming like it. The climactic
battle, unfortunately, is farcical, and the Daleks are destroyed far too
easily. In its favour, though, the mass
death of the evil creatures is made to seem tragic, and this bodes well for the
series’ future moral stance. On the
whole, a flawed batch of episodes, but largely enjoyable and crucial in gaining
popularity with the audience.
Rating
7 / 10
