Resurrection of the Daleks [Doctor Who, Story 133]

 Resurrection of the Daleks by Eric Saward
8 - 15 February 1984​

How far are we now from the days of the Hartnell Doctor, when the Daleks appeared multiple times a season? It has "only" been a five year wait, same as the last one, but because of my various delays it feels much, much longer. As much as I like the Daleks - when they are used well - I have not missed them terribly, considering what a dud Destiny was. Accordingly it was with a mixture of tentative excitement, and slight trepidation, that I saw the first Daleks appear through the space station airlock in episode one.

This story is positioned as a sequel of sorts to Destiny, showing the aftermath of the war with the Movellans. In that regard it does a decent enough job, carrying on with Terry Nation's final story direction for the Daleks, and also introducing a new direction which shows some promise. I also must point out the irony of the Movellans using a contagion to defeat the Daleks; the Daleks have shown no shyness about using pathogens against their enemies before, but now the tables have been turned.

It's quite a thing to see the relatively pathetic state they're in now, reduced to very small numbers and relying on human mercenaries and their replicants (last seen in The Chase, a very long time ago indeed!) which must be humiliating for them. This is an interesting position of desperation to see the Daleks in, uncommon as it is.

There is so much here that I want to like, that it makes the overall effect of this story somewhat harder to stomach. It's impossible for me to really excavate a story that I would enjoy out from under the sheer weight of the misery that Resurrection wallows in.

I don't want to come across as pearl-clutching about violence in Doctor Who. That's an inherent element of all adventure stories, and more often than not, Who remains on the right side of that fence. I didn't blush and fan myself during The Deadly Assassin, and I only flinched a little at the bloodied windshield in Spearhead from Space. Some amount of violence is only to be expected.

So it's not the level of violence in Resurrection that bothers me, per se, but its constant reliance on it for shock value. The merciless and pointless killing of all the side characters, the bodies dropping left right and center, just wore on my nerves until they were gone entirely. It gave me a grody feeling that didn't dissipate until the last episode was well past over.

Leaving a taste in my mouth that was altogether worse, was the Doctor's out-of-place transformation into an action commando, gritting his teeth as he tells us "Once before I held back from destroying the Daleks... It is a mistake I must not repeat." Him gunning down a Dalek mutant in the warehouse or pointing a blaster at Davros (now played by the really very good Terry Molloy, on whom more another time), threatening to destroy him once and for all, is completely out of place not just for this version of the character, but really for the character as a whole.

When I consider Terry Nation's avowed pacifism, and distress at being compelled to write violent solutions to issues like that of the Daleks in his stories, which I covered at some length a few years ago now, this just turns doubly gross. It can't have been calculated, but it does add just another layer of wrongness over the whole thing.

It's telling that Tegan evokes her own murdered aunt when she says:

TEGAN: My Aunt Vanessa said, when I became an air stewardess, if you stop enjoying it, give it up.
DOCTOR: Tegan...
TEGAN: It's stopped being fun, Doctor.

I'm quite inclined to agree. Eric Saward isn't a bad writer, but so far, between the oddly grubby and violent end of Earthshock, the ending of Warriors of the Deep, and now this, I have to say that I am not very enamored with his vision of Doctor Who.

Don't go anywhere. Our latest diversion into the world of audio is arriving at the station shortly with Loups-Garoux.

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 5 May 2024.)