The Review – Doctor Who episode 6 - “Dalek”

Well, I know I’ve been harping on about this for a few weeks now, but the truth is that if you’ve missed this series in favour of anything other than fantastic sex, bloody good booze up or because your TV has packed up then you’re a twat. If you’re bored by Doctor Who (or at least by my comments on it) then fuck off and read another blog.

(Jack waits while the fools who are bored go and read something less/more interesting)

This weekend saw the 6^th episode in the continually high quality, well written return of this iconic TV series. Like a lot of people I am often dubious about the merits of re-vamping old TV series, but in this case the scope for imaginative and compelling storylines was always massive. I described the series as iconic, and within the series there are probably a handful of iconic villains – the Cybermen, the Ice Warriors, the Silurians and The Master spring to mind, but none are as iconic or as popular as The Daleks. Ever since their first airing back in the days of the first Doctor (?) played by the now deceased William Hartnell these metal machines of death and hatred have always been a welcome part of each series, and in some cases have positively been the saviours of the series in terms of ratings.

So, on Saturday we had a single episode simply titled “Dalek”. The premise of the story was that the Doctor’s TARDIS is pulled off track by a distress signal into a former nuclear bunker in Utah. They are 53 levels below the surface allegedly, lending credence to growing view that the TARDIS is an organic and distinctly maverick “time horse” that goes where it wants. Sometimes the Doctor is the rider, and sometimes he merely hangs onto the reigns as it bolts off to wherever it fancies. Anyway, the bunker is a museum of alien artefacts (including the arm of a Slitheen from Episodes 4 and 5, and the head of a Cyberman) bought and displayed by Henry Van Statten, a megalomaniac entrepreneur who owns the internet, and uses his endless wealth to determine who is President and to invent cures for the common cold and withhold it. He has, of course, one living specimen, and this turns out to be a Dalek. The Dalek has fallen from the last great Time War and is being tortured by drills etc in order to please its “owner” by talking.

The first scene with the Doctor was chilling and superb, with the Dalek becoming aware of its mortal enemy in the same (locked) room. The Doctor is patently petrified by his nemesis and tries to get out of the room, but the Dalek is “impotent”, its weapon does not work because of its depleted state of life. Some cracking acting from Eccleston ensues with superb dialogue between the mutual enemies, joy from the Doctor when he realises the Dalek’s impotence followed by his taunting of the captive hate machine of stories of how he destroyed the Dalek Empire, with his own race, presumably for what he believed would be the greater good. He then tries to kill this last Dalek, but is pulled from the room by Van Stattens henchmen as he tries to preserve his exhibit. I will not relate the whole story suffice to say the Dalek escapes thanks to Rose, rejuvenates courtesy of the US National Grid, downloads the whole internet, and then proceeds to negotiate stairs and kill 200 people with stunning ease before undergoing an identity crisis and questions it existence.

The Dalek upgrade from the BBC is wonderful, a real mean chunky beast with armour impervious to any human weaponry, computing power vaster than the sum of anything on Earth combined and seperate swivelling head and torso, giving it a mini-tank like action. What they have also added is its ability to logically reason and plan the most effective death policy with no hysteria or screaming its intentions. This Dalek no longer resorts to just hysterical hate filled screaming, this Dalek plans and thinks. It takes its time. Its chilling cry of “Exterminate” is still there, but the scene where it is taunted about its lack of stair climbing ability becomes chilling when it swivels its eye and ponders for a second, before simply stating “Elevate”. The view then switched to the Dalek eye view used throughout the episode (very nice touch) as it slowly ascends the staircase in pursuit of its prey. Other nice touches were the new deadly use of the sucker to kill someone by shrinking their head, and the use of it to calculate a combination code to break an electronic lock in 2 seconds.

But the story itself was made by the superb script, and the excellent dialogue between the Dalek and the Doctor, between the Dalek and Rose, and a fantastic moment of realisation by the Doctor on his feelings for Rose, highlighted to him ironically by The Dalek. At one point the Dalek actually says to the Doctor “You would make a good Dalek” and the horror of this truth etched on the Doctors face was superbly portrayed by Eccleston, an actor who in this one episode bought more gravitas to the Doctor than any predecessor. Another scene where Rose believes she is about to die, but absolves the Doctor was both powerful and emotional. Billie Piper is an actress with a very big future in my view. The story had an ending which actually made you feel sad for the Dalek as it realised its lonely existence, and its changing feelings on its existence as it mutated from Roses DNA. This was in any context a very dark episode, but worthy of high praise indeed from being both well written and well acted, to superbly filmed in very convincing surroundings.

If you missed it then you missed a genuine TV treat. Once again the BBC have justified every penny of the licence fee by producing good drama that can be genuinely watched by the family, although no doubt some younger children would have been massively frightened by the Dalek. Cue the complaints form the moronic bleeding heart, sandal wearing, leaflet distributing shitneck parents with fuck all better to do than complain about the potential long term psychological damage to little James and Arabella OakTreeLemonGrass.

Wankers.

Marks out of Ten though for this episode, the Beeb and everyone involved?

Ten!

Later, GrocerJack