Day 199 — July 18th 2021
Genesis of the Daleks Parts One and Two
Genesis of the Daleks — Part One
Genesis of the Daleks is one of those towering Doctor Who stories with a pretty unassailable reputation. It topped the Doctor Who Magazine poll in 1998 and while it’s slipped from that position in 2009 and 2014 it’s remained within the Top Five. I can’t remember what I thought of it during my last viewing, but I think I enjoyed it, which pleased me because I wasn’t all that bothered when the DVD first came out in 2006.
Watching today I’m mostly struck by just how solid the direction is. Last season I spent both days of Death to the Daleks complaining that the direction lacked any energy and that the design of the whole production was flat and lifeless, really letting the side down. I should have known we’d be on safer ground here because David Maloney is back in the director’s chair for the first time since Planet of the Daleks and it makes all the difference.
The biggest strength of this opening episode isn’t the story itself, but rather how gorgeous it all looks — and I say that despite it also looking like possibly the bleakest Doctor Who story we’ve had so far. The opening shots of the foggy planet surface are beautiful and haunting. They take the sort of images seen in The Mutants and take them to extremes. The first time the gas masked figures emerge from within the mist it’s really striking, and when Doctor Who similarly emerges a few minutes later it looks no less impressive. I think this might be the most effective alien planet we’ve had yet — I can see it was filmed in a quarry as per usual, but it never feels like that’s the case.
Maloney is using a number of other clever tricks to make all of this feel strange and alien. He’s often praised for the slow motion sequence of the soldiers being gunned down (well, I say praised; Mary Whitehouse wasn’t keen), but it really is an incredible sequence. I can’t recall him doing similar in The War Games, but with the trench warfare setting you could easily imagine it.
We’re given plenty of time to really appreciate all this location work, too, because we don’t reach a studio scene for almost ten minutes. From the soldiers doing battle, to Doctor Who’s mission briefing and the sequence with the land mine we spend ages out in the fog and it gives us a chance to really breathe it in. Having spent the first three stories of the season either studio-bound or filmed entirely on videotape it’s nice to see a location on film again — it’s remarkable how much more expensive this looks compared to Dartmoor yesterday, even though the views here probably aren’t as striking.
There’s a model shot of the Kaled Dome at one point here and I don’t know if it’s just being shot on film which helps it to match up with the location work, but it fits in so well I honestly wondered if they’d shot it on location using a glass shot. A quick check of The Complete History told me otherwise. Sometimes it’s little moments like this — where things look so good that you can’t tell how they were done — which really make an episode shine.
When we do move inside it’s not a hardship, though. One of my major complaints about Death to the Daleks was that the corridors were very plain and over lit. You could argue that the corridors here are plain, too, but they feel so much more real. And they’re lit so well that they could be the same sets from the last Dalek adventure for all I care — because the drama is already baked in. There’s some gorgeous sequences where characters are in almost total darkness for ages, and they really stand out. They make the episode look far more grown up.
I’m not going to talk very much about the characters in this one yet — we’ve got another five episodes for that — but I do want to highlight how brilliant Nyder is right from the beginning. His confrontation with Doctor Who is incredible, and I think it’s obvious why he’s so well regarded among Doctor Who baddies.
Nyder: ‘I’ve heard Davros say there is no intelligent life on other planets, so either he is wrong or you are lying.’
Doctor Who: ‘We are not lying.’
Nyder: ‘And Davros is never wrong about anything.’
We even get a twist on the traditional ‘End of Part One Dalek Cliffhanger’ this week. Yes we get to see a Dalek for the very first time (again it’s beautifully shot and hidden almost entirely in the shadows), but the moment is shared by the first reveal of Davros. He’s been built up as this powerful figure already, and when you see him it’s proper striking. I know what he looks like, and even I was impressed by seeing him for the first time!
A good start, 8/10.
Genesis of the Daleks — Part Two
If there’s one thing which annoys me about this story, it’s that the Daleks just look like… well, Daleks. Don’t get me wrong, they do look pretty good here — when the grey colour scheme debuted a few seasons ago I said I wasn’t a fan, but it ties in really nicely with the colourless world in which this storey is set.
No, my issue comes from the fact that we’re supposed to be right back at the start of the Daleks’ development;
Doctor Who: ‘A Dalek.’
Harry: ‘What?’
Doctor Who: ‘A Dalek. Very primitive but undeniably a Dalek.’
Ronson: ‘You’re mistaken. It’s a Mark Three travel machine.’
Doctor Who: ‘If you say so.’
It’s just a very unusual thing for Doctor Who to say, given that the Dalek he’s looking at here resembles almost identically the ones he saw in Planet of the Daleks. I’m not saying that I’d want to see something completely different for this story, but perhaps lose the neck rings, or the hemispheres, or just make some modification to make it look like an early draft of the idea.
Still, it’s only a minor quibble, because there’s plenty of other stuff to enjoy in this episode, and among those things is the scene in which Davros demonstrates the Dalek to his stunned colleagues.
There’s a moment when Nyder attaches the Dalek’s gun stick and it’s genuinely a bit frightening. I wonder if it’s because it reminds me of a similar scene in The Power of the Daleks? Whatever the cause, the moment it recognises Doctor Who and Harry as people who don’t belong there and starts on the familiar battlecry of ‘exterminate’ is incredibly effective, and I’m pleased to see that after last season’s blip, the Daleks have been made effective again.
I wonder if part of that success is because they’re not an overbearing presence in this one? We get a Dalek here for a single powerful scene, and then it’s gone again, leaving us to deal with some more grown-up ‘human’ (well, you know what I mean) drama instead. The world of Genesis of the Daleks feels very genuine, so when our enemies come crashing into it it has real impact.
Something I was going to complain about with regards to Season Twelve is how little interest there is in letting Doctor Who and Sarah spend any time together. One of the highlights of the last season was the camaraderie between Pertwee and Sladen, and I know that there’ll be a great rapport between her and Tom Baker whenever they decide to let them share the screen. As it is, she goes off to investigate on her own in Robot (and then spends the last episode and a half captured by the baddies / clinging to a chimney), she’s sent off to be cryogenically frozen in The Ark in Space before Doctor Who sends her out of danger (although, in fairness, they do get some lovely moments together on the main set), and she spends almost all of The Sontaran Experiment either running away from or being a prisoner of Styre.
In this story she gets to spend the first eight minutes or so with her friends before being separated off to do her own thing — and when she’s captured they take her to an entirely different city across the wasteland. I’m not sure I can complain about it all too much, though, because it’s actually making Sarah a stronger character in her own right. She gets to see Styre before Doctor Who does, and she encounters Davros first in the last episode. She feels more independent than almost any companion we’ve had before.
Heck, here she even single handedly starts up a revolt!
It also means that we get to have some quality time in the company of Doctor Who and Harry, too. I’m especially thinking of their flippancy when captured;
Doctor Who: ‘Good. Well, now he’s gone, any chance of a cup of tea?’
Tane: ‘What?!’
Doctor Who: ‘Or coffee. My friend and I have had a very trying experience. Haven’t we had a trying experience, Harry?’
Harry: ‘Very trying, Doctor.’
Tane: ‘Step into the security scan.’
Doctor Who: ‘What? No tea?’
Tane: ‘Let me point out to you that you have no rights whatsoever. I have full authority to torture and kill any prisoner who does not comply absolutely with my orders. That is your first and last warning.’
Doctor Who: ‘No tea, Harry.’
Harry doesn’t get a lot of involvement in that exchange, but he refers back to it later on in a moment which made me genuinely laugh out loud. I always sort of forget about Harry when it comes to Doctor Who companions. I don’t know if it’s because he’s only around for a handful of stories or what, but I’m really enjoying having him around. Ian Marter and Tom Baker get on so well and that just shines through on screen. An unexpected favourite.
7/10
