Day 201 — July 20th 2021
Genesis of the Daleks Parts Five and Six
Genesis of the Daleks — Part Five
I’ll tell you what, Davros is bloody good isn’t he? I’ve never been a massive fan of the character, truth be told. The Daleks never needed anyone to boss them around before, and after this one he’ll be a shackle to every subsequent Dalek story in Old Testament Who. I feel like there’s just no way to win — if he’s in charge of the Daleks then they’re weakened as a result. If the Daleks are holding him prisoner then the effect is reversed.
Perhaps he’s at his very best here simply because he’s so removed from the Daleks? I’m not sure he shares the screen with a single one in this episode, so he’s got the opportunity to be a rounded character in his own right instead? I also feels as though the over-the-top ranting — which will very much become a character trait in later adventures — is believable in this instance. This feels like a man suffering a bit of a breakdown as he struggles to hold on to everything.
All the same, he’s at his best here when being cool and calm, manipulating events without having to shout. I love the sequence in which he listens to the terms presented to him by the rebellion, and then uses their words against them to orchestrate the situation into his own favour. It helps that Davros gets all the best dialogue in this episode, and some of it is really rather lovely;
Nyder: ‘Feeling against you is rising. Many of the scientific corps are openly speaking against you. Even some of the military are joining them.’
Davros: ‘As I expected. They will take action soon.’
Nyder: ‘Almost certainly. They outnumber those of us who are loyal. Davros, why don’t you let me take a squad of Elite men I can trust? In an hour, I could wipe out their leaders.’
Davros: ‘You think like a soldier, Nyder. Rebellion is an idea in the mind. Suppress it, and it hides away and festers. No. My way is best.’
Nyder: ‘As you wish.’
I have to wonder how much of all this really comes from Terry Nation, and how much is the result of Robert Holmes’ script editing. The Ark in Space has already shown us this season that he’s not against a wholesale rewrite of the material, and as much as I may have enjoyed Planet of the Daleks, there’s a lot of dialogue and ideas in here which feel perhaps a bit too good for a Nation script.
It’s not all about the dialogue, of course. Michael Wisher became something of a regular during the Pertwee era, but this is the best performance he’s ever given the programme. It’s clear just how much he’s enjoying the part, and it’s a shame that he was never able to reprise the role. Part of me feels like I should be criticising the mask — the lack of proper eyes means that we don’t get the kind of ‘blending’ which made the Draconians and Linx so effective — but it really works, and again I’m not sure it was ever bettered in the Old Testament. The design of Davros as a whole, from the mask to the chair and the headgear, is so iconic now that you almost forget how striking it must have been at the time.
Now something I’ve been wondering about in this episode is the validity of Doctor Who’s discussion of Dalek defeats. He starts off by referring to The Dalek Invasion of Earth, and although he gets the date wrong (he says it took place in the year 2000) he seems to be giving the right answer in saying that the Earth’s magnetic core was the cause of their downfall. After this, though, the other events he mentions aren’t referring to any stories that we’ve seen play out on screen, which made me wonder if he was simply making them up to trick Davros. I mean, the man’s not going to be able to go and check, is he? I came to the conclusion that they were all fabrications, but before the episode is over, Doctor Who is worried about getting the tape back because it risks altering the future.
This feels like pure Terry Nation fodder — the idea that the characters need to be forced to stay involved in the narrative. We’ve already had an instance of that in this story by having the Time Ring confiscated. Without it, there’s no escape for our heroes, so they’re forced to sit tight. It harkens back to Nation’s very first serial, where they couldn’t leave because the Fluid Link had gotten lost inside the Dalek city. Thing is; I’m not sure I buy it. In those early days, yes, Doctor Who did tend to need prodding into helping to save the day. Now, though, I’d believe that our heroes are getting involved because they feel it’s the right thing to do. Or, at the very least, because they still have a mission to perform on behalf of the Time Lords.
7/10
Genesis of the Daleks — Part Six
I suspect this isn’t the right thing to say, but while Genesis of the Daleks is undeniably a very good Doctor Who story, I really don’t understand why it’s so often considered to be the best one. I’ve liked it well enough — the first five episodes have all scored sevens and eights — but I’m just not sure it’s ‘incredible’. I wonder if this is one of those occasions where it originally got popular because it was a solid story at the time of broadcast (and Genesis lived on more than most Who stories did, with the release of the LP in 1979 and a repeat in two parts in the early 1980s) which then became untouchable because of the reputation it had built up?
I have to admit that while I’ve enjoyed it, this last episode was a bit of a let down for me, and it’s my lowest-rated episode of the serial with a 6/10.
So let’s talk about the bits of this final episode which I didn’t like, and then we can move on to the bits that I did. The main thing for me is that the destruction (or otherwise) of the Daleks is a bit of a cop out. I say ‘bit of a’ when I really mean ‘massive’. We get that great scene right at the top of the episode where Doctor Who wrestles with his conscious about destroying his greatest enemies once and for all, and when he finally decides that he’ll probably have to do it… a Dalek does it for him by accident.
It takes all the agency away from Doctor Who, and I think it honestly cheapens the moral dilemma he’s already faced. I know they probably weren’t keen to show a children’s TV hero committing genocide, but having it happen by accident completely separately of Doctor Who… no, I’m not a fan of that. I’d totally forgotten that it was what happened until about ten seconds before it did, which annoyed me even more.
I think I’d have bought it had we watched Doctor Who actually make a decision. If he’d definitively said that he couldn’t go through with it — that he didn’t have the right — then it happened all the same without him moments later. I’d go along with that. There’d be a certain irony in that. As it is, it feels like a real cop out at the end of six brilliant episodes of build up.
Oh, and it’s a tiny thing, but Sarah Jane tells Doctor Who that he ‘must complete your mission for the Time Lords’… only I think we’ve been with them for the entire adventure with very little time unseen, and I’m not sure he’s actually told her anything about it. Certainly she wasn’t expecting the Daleks to be there by the first cliffhanger, and surely the time to mention it would be as soon as they rocked up somewhere other than Nerva and wanted some explanations?
The next thing that bothers me; the number of Daleks in this final episode. There’s seven of them packed into the main room of the bunker at one point… but you only see it for a single shot. Everywhere else in the episode you only ever see three Daleks together at any one time, and it feels distinctly as though they’ve only got three Daleks. A quick look at the ever resourceful Dalek 63:88 blog confirms that there were only three fully operational Daleks present in the studio, augmented by four ‘goon’ props, which perhaps explains what happened.
It just means that the whole thing feels very flat to begin with (‘they’ve cut away so the three Daleks can go back to the start of the corridor’) and then when you get the money shot of them all together you wonder what took them so long, and why more isn’t being made of it.
One final Dalek-based complaint. Genesis of the Daleks introduces the ‘ray gun’ effect for the first time, and pairs it with the classic ‘shot flipping into negative’ to illustrate the extermination effect. I don’t think it works very well when you put the two together like this. They feel like completely disjointed effects, and that’s a shame. I think you could get away with one of the other, and perhaps for nostalgia’s sake I’d have gone with the negative.
Right then, my next complaint. Oh, I am sorry. I know I’m probably being overly harsh, but when a story has a reputation as soaring as this one it’s hard not to be disappointed when the last episode is a bit rubbish. It’s the Time Ring that’s been bothering me here. I complained in the last episode that they’d only had it confiscated to force them into the narrative, and the use of it here comes down to sheer padding.
Our heroes retrieve the Time Ring pretty quickly (after a brief, forced, moment of it not being where they expect it to be) and then minutes later it’s dramatically lost in a skirmish with Nyder. Once Doctor Who realises it’s gone and laments that they won’t be able to escape without it they dramatically… return to the corridor where it’s sat there waiting for them. I don’t buy it, and it’s certainly not as cleverly written as the rest of the story is, which makes me question again hoe much was Nation and how much was altered by Robert Holmes…
On the subject of which… let’s have some positives, shall we? There’s some real winning dialogue in this episode, and it’s probably home to the best bits of writing in the entire story. I know I’ve had a moan about Sarah Jane’s interjection above but Doctor Who questioning his role in the destruction of the Daleks is a brilliant bit of work, and Sarah Jane is vital to the moment;
Doctor Who: ‘Just touch these two strands together and the Daleks are finished. Have I that right?’
Sarah: ‘To destroy the Daleks? You can’t doubt it.’
Doctor Who: ‘Well, I do. You see, some things could be better with the Daleks. Many future worlds will become allies just because of their fear of the Daleks.’
Sarah: ‘But it isn’t like that.’
Doctor Who: ‘But the final responsibility is mine, and mine alone. Listen, if someone who knew the future pointed out a child to you and told you that that child would grow up totally evil, to be a ruthless dictator who would destroy millions of lives, could you then kill that child?’
Sarah: ‘We’re talking about the Daleks, the most evil creatures ever invented. You must destroy them. You must complete your mission for the Time Lords.’
Doctor Who: ‘Do I have the right? Simply touch one wire against the other and that’s it. The Daleks cease to exist. Hundreds of millions of people, thousands of generations can live without fear, in peace, and never even know the word Dalek.’
Sarah: ‘Then why wait? If it was a disease or some sort of bacteria you were destroying, you wouldn’t hesitate.’
Doctor Who: ‘But I kill, wipe out a whole intelligent lifeform, then I become like them. I’d be no better than the Daleks.’
I’ve lamented a bit this season that Tom Baker and Lis Sladen haven’t been given a lot of time to share the screen together, so it’s absolutely right that they get this truly iconic moment to shine together. Harry is left a little on the sidelines but it doesn’t matter, because we’re watching two actors at the top of their game. No wonder people think so highly of this bit…
I also love the Daleks once they find their voices and turn against Davros;
Davros: ‘You must obey me! I created you! I am the master, not you. I… I… I!’
Dalek: ‘Our programming does not permit to acknowledge that any creature is superior to the Daleks.’
Davros: ‘You cannot exist without me. You cannot progress.’
Dalek: ‘We are programmed to survive. We have the ability to develop in any
way necessary to ensure that survival.’
For all my moaning that the introduction of Davros relegates the Daleks to being mere machines this is a brilliant twist of events, turning on their creator because that’s exactly what he’s built them to do. It’s the perfect way to end the story, and it almost makes up for the creatures having such a back seat in the narrative until now. They’ve been largely quiet and subservient, biding their time and waiting until this moment.
I almost want to see and extended edition of this story, in which the Daleks plot and scheme in secret — as in The Power of the Daleks — so that we can follow their narrative too.
So there we go. One of Doctor Who’s very best stories? Well, not for me. The final average score of 7.17 puts it in the top third of the stories I’ve watched so far, but I’m afraid it just didn’t quite do the trick for me.
