Day 313 – November 9th 2021
Resurrection of the Daleks Part One
Resurrection of the Daleks – Part One
Ooh, I agonised over which version of this story to watch. Do I go with the two-part version which was originally broadcast as a result of the schedule being disrupted, or with the four-part version which was originally intended? It might not sound like much of a decision, given I’d be watching the same amount of material each day, but both formats have their champions and detractors. In a poll on my Instagram, the four-part version narrowly scraped to victory (with 51% of the vote), but the ultimate deciding factor is that I’m still unable to play DVDs at the moment, and it’s the two-part one on BritBox.
I usually watch both of my day’s episodes back to back, often over lunch. But oddly I felt the 45-minute format here made the episode feel long. That’s something I’ll have to keep an eye on when I start the Colin Baker episodes next week, as his entire first series is structured like this. Something else which surprised me is how much of a nostalgic rush this episode gave me. I first saw it in the spring of 2005, when the return of Doctor Who to telly has turned me from someone who’s seen odd bits here and there into a card-carrying fan of the series. This was the first 1980s story I saw, and my first exposure to the ‘classic’ Daleks. Watching the camera move down Butler’s Wharf in the opening scene here gave me a proper vibe of 2005 in a way I really can’t explain… but which was great. It was like a flutter of remembering what it felt like watching Doctor Who before my head got filled up with facts and figures about it all.
It probably helps that the opening scene is fantastic. Everything about it pulls together so well. The location is beautiful (Tegan later describes it as ‘a load of crumbling bricks’, but that’s exactly why I like it!), the direction is superb. The way the camera moves along the street, looking up at the walkways above before coming in to focus on a man feels light years away from the standard fare. And then there’s the content of the scene, as a load of people from the future flee in terror before being gunned down by the police. It feels bold, and different. When I first saw this story I came away with the impression that 1980s Who was grim and bleak and serious… and it’s not hard to see why. By the time the man on the street has been killed and falls to the ground cluthing his stomach it’s hard not to be hooked. I know this is a silly thing to highlight but something else I really enjoyed about this opening sequence? All the lining up on the cross fades is perfect. Characters fade out of shot and nothing else on screen moves, even if there’s people in the background. It’s a tiny thing, but they don’t always take the time to get that right, so it really stands out as some attention to detail.
If the direction in that opening scene is brilliant, then I have to say it’s a little hit and miss elsewhere. There’s times where it really stands out as something special. Great close ups of character’s faces – Doctor Who in particular – make you feel more like you’re in there as part of this story than is often the case. But then you get some really bizarre choices like the moment they reveal Davros. There’s been some nice build up, with various mentions of ‘the prisoner’ and how the Daleks absolutely mustn’t get their hands on him. I suspect the fact that it’s Davros is supposed to be a surprise based on those, but then we first see him… just sort of in the background while two other characters have a chat. He does get a great reveal later on, when the screen to his cryogenic chamber is raised and the smoke comes pouring out, but by then it’s too late.
As for the Daleks themselves… they do get a great introduction. The airlock is closed and they blast right through it with a hell of an explosion. It looks spectacular, and when they come gliding out of the smoke and into the attack it’s brilliant. They feel more powerful than ever before. The problem is that it only lasts a few seconds, because almost as soon as they’re on the ship, two of them get blown up, and the others decide to retreat and come up with a better plan. Most fearsome creatures in the universe? I don’t think so. They only make it onto the ship eventually because they send one of their human servants in with some gas.
The same is true for the Dalek who goes off to the warehouse to confront Doctor Who. It doesn’t take much for the soldiers to fend it off, aiming for the eyestalk and then pushing it out of a window. Don’t get me wrong; the explosion as it hits the ground is brilliant, and I love the idea of it all, but it doesn’t make them seem particularly threatening in the long run.
The best moment for the Daleks in this one comes in the form of the mutant, which escapes from the debris of its destroyed shell and goes on to attack people. There’s something genuinely tense about the scenes of our heroes searching the warehouse for the creature, and the moment it leaps onto a soldier’s neck to attack is properly shocking. Is this the first time the mutants have been presented as scarily as this? In all the previous occasions I can recall them slithering around, or poking a claw out from under a blanket, but this feels properly scary.
There’s only one thing I don’t like about that mutant sequence, and that’s the sight of Doctor Who firing a regular Earth weapon at it. We’ve seen Doctor Who use weapons from time to time, even this incarnation, but somehow it feels more wrong to see him with a gun like this. That’s not the hero I usually watch. I suppose there’s an argument to be made that it adds to the gravity of the situation, but it’s just not for me.
I’ve ‘hummed’ and ‘hared’ about the score for this one, and I think I’m going with a 6/10.
