The Daleks by Terry Nation
21 December 1963 - 1 February 1964
Episode One - The Dead Planet
Hesitantly, the TARDIS crew shuffles out of the ship and into a world they don't recognize, under the misapprehension that conditions outside are hospitable. As they look away, the needle on the radiation meter swings into the red, and things get a lot worse...
It's probably not possible for me to speak a word about The Daleks without sparing a thought to just how stupendously important it was in the history of the show. The story of the ratings bonanza that let Doctor Who keep going through the 1960s and further still to the present day in some form or another is already well known. (Not to mention the story of how Terry Nation was set for life off the back of one story and Raymond Cusick, erm, wasn't.) So hey. There's that.
I'm more interested in talking about the story itself since its cultural relevance has already been belabored by more gifted writers than I. At the very least, I have something novel to give in the form of my own opinions. Where was I then? Something about the TARDIS crew trundling into a curiously familiar-looking forest. No boars this time, just metal chameleon sculptures livening up the place. The atmosphere is appreciably creepy from the start, but not without moments of levity, such as when poor Susan, who unlike the Doctor seems able to stop and appreciate the beauty of the places they visit, has the flower she finds inadvertently crushed when Ian rushes off to become the square-jawed hero he so clearly desires to be.
The Doctor is content to manipulate the rest of the cast into indulging his scientist's curiosity, something which would jar for sure with the character as we know him today, but seems entirely believable in the context of the mere four episodes that have come before this one. At the very least, through this story he seems to grudgingly fall into the role of an adviser to the locals (the tall ones, not the tin cans) mostly helped along by that same scientist's curiosity. It's tempting to see in this another fleeting glimpse of the hero the Doctor may someday grow to be, but I'm hesitant to apply hindsight too much to these old stories.
At any rate, once the four reach the echoey, creepy halls of the abandoned city below, the forces of Plot contrive to split them up, leaving Barbara to frantically search for her fellows alone, hopelessly lost in the maze of endless sameness. She sees something coming that we don't - an inhuman thing reaching for her as she screams in terror...
Episode Two - The Survivors
Maybe that last segment seemed a little paint-by-the-numbers. I don't think this is misplaced. The Dead Planet exists entirely as setup to maneuver the main characters into the story's central conflict. I'd maybe go so far as to call its job of setup strong, even if it feels a little stiff and mechanical. The best moments of the story are yet to come. A couple of them are even in this episode. The first that pops out to me is Ian's shouting match with the Doctor. His and Barbara's joking about the Doctor's behavior is more light-hearted, but once Barbara goes missing, Ian is leaning into him, exasperated, and demanding answers. As well as being wonderfully acted by Russell, it shows just how little the Doctor has done to earn the trust of his passengers thus far.
Oh, and those weird robots who were menacing Barbara last we saw her appear fully on-screen, at last. I think they're called R2-D2s or something.
In my last review post I remarked on the juxtaposition of the otherworldly and the ordinary which formed the core of An Unearthly Child (the episode, not the story). Something in the inexplicably charming design of the Daleks hearkens back to this, I think, namely the oft-belittled plunger and egg whisk. Maybe part of their ineffable appeal is that same quality that made the show's first episode so magical - taking an everyday object and turning it into something unreal, and in this case, something evil. The fluctuating light in the eyepieces, missing from later models, sort of evokes a blinking eye, which is a properly creepy touch.
It isn't only in the aesthetics that these Daleks are unlike the ones we know now. Far from rampaging war machines, these Daleks are sniveling, underhanded tinpot dictators who only go on the attack when they can execute an ambush, and try to trick others into doing their bidding. If these guys are allegorical for Nazis (though direct parallels in at least this first story are few and far between) then they are appropriately cowardly, shifty ones indeed. Their most chilling moments are ahead of them - sometimes far, far ahead of them.
Before I depart this corner of the serial, I want to comment on the final scene, which stuck with me for a while after it ended. Susan tears off through the jungle toward the TARDIS in search of the anti-radiation gloves which were left behind. This is one of the most phenomenally shot sequences so far, claustrophobic, plants whipping around as a storm rages. Susan's flailing around does leave, uhm... a bit to be desired. But in sheer terms of composition it's worth admiring, particularly the ending shot when, clutching the box close, she steps back out into the thunder and rain of the jungle before the credits fade in.
Episode Three - The Escape
At last, we meet the Daleks' counterparts on this supposedly dead planet - the Thals. A uniformly tall, picturesque group of blonds, their appearance is doubtless meant as a cheeky subversion of the fictional Aryans of Nazi lore. (Admittedly, this does make Susan's exclamation of "But you're perfect!" when she meets Alydon just a little bit awkward.) Unaware that the Daleks think of them are mutants, the Thals are indeed surprised to even learn that they still exist, having thought them to have been destroyed in the neutronic war between their peoples hundreds of years earlier. Once he's done handing a shower curtain over to Susan, Alydon confers with his people about what to do next. Their leader Temmosus, bless him, shows a remarkable lack of wariness despite the bloodied history between the Thals and Daleks, and the treacherous existence his tribe likely leads. Somehow failing to spot the title of the next episode, they agree to head for the city of the Daleks as directed in the letter Susan was carrying.
Back at the ranch, the shower curtain proves of great use to the TARDIS gang once reunited, having devised a way to fool the Daleks and escape their cell. When they open a Dalek casing to squeeze one of their number inside for a disguise, we don't get much of a look at just what the human-like Daleks have mutated into, but the looks that Hartnell and Russell give one another more than communicate just how grotesque they find it. Wrapping it in Alydon's cloak, they set it aside and wheel the casing off, something hideous half-crawling out from underneath when their backs are turned.
This is the peak of the serial for me, between the fine acting turns most of the cast gives, and a further evolution of the plot in the form of the Thals and their inevitably grisly rediscovery of the Daleks. The downside of a peak, of course, is that what comes after can sometimes underwhelm.
Episode Four - The Ambush
Thankfully, that effect isn't really immediate. The Ambush is fairly pacey, too. We get the funny beat early on of hearing Ian's voice through the ring modulator as he takes the Dalek disguise for a spin. Susan actually gets a good moment, too, and it's sort of charming when she turns to send her fellows a conspiratorial wink while they're bluffing their way past the real Daleks. The ruse doesn't go on for long, a small squad of Daleks just barely missing them on their way up to a higher level. I rather like the effect of the door being cut through - it's obviously tin foil or something, but the transition to when the heavy block of steel falls in as a result sells it quite well.
Alas, the heroes are still too late to help poor, trusting Temmosus, who's shot in the back by the Daleks when he arrives to claim the food they promised. Still, Ian's warning shout is enough to save the rest, with whom they retreat to the jungle. It would have been easy to end things here after a fun little history lesson from the Thals, but as they're about to enter the TARDIS, Ian remembers an inconvenient plot extender - the fluid link he snatched from the Doctor earlier is back in the city. Oh dear.
Episode Five - The Expedition
And so things rumble on. Managing to convince the Thals that "pacifism only works when everybody thinks the same," they take advantage of their local knowledge to take a route that the Daleks won't expect - through a fetid swamp at the back of the city. I can't decide whether I like the design of the place or not - it doesn't look awfully different from the rest of the jungle, and the noises are a bit overpowering. Still, when one Thal's sucked into the water, the bubbling effect does come across as rather menacing. I can't exactly remember whether that moment comes during this episode or at the start of the next, since in my recollection until the end of episode six the serial just kind of blends together in my mind with more Daleks plotting behind the scenes, the Doctor and Susan being captured again, and a bunch of hapless Thals wandering through the wilderness. Can you tell it's getting late at night as I write?
Digression: those cardboard cutout Daleks are a well-known example of a prop that doesn't quite work, but I think they look fine. It's hard to see that their depth isn't all there on the black-and-white picture, especially if you aren't focusing on them, which is exactly what you're not supposed to do. They make a decent piece of backdrop.
Episode Six - The Ordeal
At the risk of sounding unoriginal, never has an episode title been more depressingly accurate. This is when The Daleks hits full slump, and when I started to lose focus mid-viewing, which really isn't conducive toward paying close enough attention to write these little excerpts well. While the Doctor and Susan continue to languish in Dalek captivity throughout this episode, menaced by prodding plungers, Barbara, Ian, and the Thals spend the whole time trudging through a chasm. This doesn't really qualify as gripping drama for me, especially when its chief effect on me is to make me glance at the clock. Padding is, I'm told, something I'll just need to get used to. C'est la vie.
All I have to say is that if we end up in another cave anytime soon, I'm going to have myself a good groan.
Episode Seven - The Rescue
So in this one, we meet a young girl named Vicki...
Eh, what? My mistake. In this one the least impressive of the Thals so far at least gets the distinction of a heroic death, cutting the rope to save Ian but doom himself. A more important symbolic victory is won when the group leaves the chasm behind for good shortly after. Huzzah. Thus succeeding in their scheme to take the back way into the Dalek city, the mazelike corridors pose the next challenge, including a wonderfully tense scene where Barbara is nearly crushed by a dead-locked door. At last, their wandering comes to an end and they find their way into the command center, subduing the Daleks and saving their captives.
As a last coda, the TARDIS crew and the Thals reconvene back in the jungle, spending some pleasant words before it's time to go. Ganatus, who I've somehow failed to mention in all the paragraphs previous, shares a sigh with Barbara that their promising rapport can't develop any further. I suppose TARDIS travel just isn't conducive for finding romance along the way. After a kiss, Barbara joins the others as the ship lurches off to yet another tense-looking scrape with death...
Overview
So there was Doctor Who's first breach of its stated mission - no bug-eyed monsters, no tin robots. In the future, trips to alien worlds and brushes with destruction at the appendages of all the strange, strange creatures of the universe will become the bread and butter of the series, but here I'm forced to look at it as a new phenomenon, one which took Britain by storm and ensured that such a future would even come to pass. Maybe I got a little hard on its flab by the end - on the whole, at least The Daleks is a solid story, but nothing more than solid. It hit all the right beats, but only in the same way that a piece of clockwork does. I'm more interested to look at it for its innovative place in the show's formative days and tip my hat to it for that alone.
The Edge of Destruction is up next.
Unforgettable Dialogue
[Susan laughs.] "Stop that nooooise!"
"My truth is in the stars, and yours is here."
Dialogue I wish I could forget
Again, it has to be "But you're perfect!"
(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 1 September 2017.)
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