The Power of the Daleks

When I reviewed ‘Marco Polo’ I noted that some fans insist that the missing Doctor Who stories cannot be fairly judged on the strength of their soundtracks alone, since the visuals either add to or detract from the original story. This is a debatable point, but the fact remains that when I first heard ‘The Power of the Daleks’ when its soundtrack was released on audiocassette in 1993, it rapidly became one of my favourite Doctor Who stories of all time, and subsequent viewings of the Loose Cannon recon only strengthened my positive opinions of it.

The first notable aspect of ‘The Power of the Daleks’ is of course Patrick Troughton. The manner in which the lead actor was changed in Doctor Who is a work of minor genius in my opinion. It is not unheard of for major characters within series to be played by different actors when the original becomes unavailable; the death of Reginald Tate after The Quatermass Experiment resulted in John Robinson taking on the role for Quatermass II, and he was himself replaced by André Morell (arguably the definitive Quatermass) for Quatermass and the Pit. All three actors however (and later Sir John Mills), were playing exactly the same role; with the transition from Hartnell to Troughton, Troughton is still playing the same character, but the characterisation is very different. By making the change part of the actual storyline, the production team allowed Troughton to literally make the role his own, rather than simply trying to recapture his predecessor’s performance. The new Doctor impresses immediately. The new Doctor is far more energetic than his previous incarnation, and immediately seems more erratic; as soon as he recovers from his transformation, he starts clowning around and generally teasing his companions, who are stunned by his change and (quite understandably) wonder if he is an imposter. Even when he is rooting through the trunk in his TARDIS and reminiscing about the items he finds within it, he refers to his former self in the third person purely for the benefit of Ben and Polly, with an innate mischievousness. Once on Vulcan, he is quick to embroil himself in events even before he knows of the presence of the Daleks (although there are hints that he deliberately steered the TARDIS to the colony precisely for that reason), leaping at the opportunity to impersonate the murdered Examiner and therefore set about finding out who the murderer is. His clowning continues, and it quickly becomes clear to the viewer that this new Doctor is going to be far more erratic and eccentric than his predecessor. Once he discovers the Daleks in the opened capsule however, his manner quickly changes; the scene at the end of episode one when he, Ben and Polly, find the dormant monsters shows Troughton’s Doctor in serious mood for the first time, and he conveys the Doctor’s fears with a superb sense of urgency. When Lesterson and the others find them in the laboratory, he alternates between gravely trying to insist on the Daleks’ destruction and switching back to his habitual air of guileless, almost idiotic, innocence when Ben is in danger of saying more than he wants him to about what the travellers witnessed in the Dalek vessel, and this really establishes the pattern for Troughton’s performance in the future. Most importantly, one of the Doctor’s crucial character traits is re-established; when Ben suggests that they leave Vulcan if the colonists don’t want to heed the Doctor’s warnings, he refuses, explaining that he knows the suffering that the Daleks cause and can’t simply leave the colonists to their fate. Finally, and very importantly to my mind, it is the Doctor alone who proves capable of ending the threat of the Daleks, overloading their power source and blowing them up right at the very end. The Doctor’s recorder, one of my least favourite musical instruments, is quite irritating, but them its clearly meant to be. 

Ben and Polly are excellent here as usual, and play a vital role in helping the viewers to adjust to the new Doctor. Polly is far quicker than Ben to trust the new Doctor, accepting that since they saw him change he must be the Doctor. Ben is far less willing to accept this given that the apparent stranger doesn’t even act like the old Doctor, and their debating over the evidence as they slowly come to trust the Doctor again provides the perfect opportunity for the Doctor to explain (rather obliquely) his transformation. This is testimony to David Whitaker’s skills as a script-writer, as is the fact that within two episodes any doubts the Doctor are dispelled, allowing the viewer to concentrate on the main focus of the plot. Ben’s shocked realization that the Dalek at the end of episode two recognizes his friend and that he must therefore be the Doctor is a powerful moment and one that finally resolves the issue. After the first two episodes, neither Ben nor Polly has much to do, as the new Doctor becomes the focus instead, with both Anneke Wills and Michael Craze taking it turns to sit an episode out, but even with their diminished roles they provide adequate support as usual. The relatively large guest cast is also uniformly excellent. Bragan is a suitably loathsome villain, especially when he orders the murder of his former allies in episode five. I never fail to take satisfaction in his refusal to heed the Doctor’s warnings about the Daleks, knowing that it is they that eventually cause his brief rule of the colony to come to an end. It is also fitting that betrayed ally Valmar, saving the life of Bragan’s nemesis Quinn, eventually dispatches him rather than him being exterminated by the Daleks. The slightly abrasive Quinn is a great character too, as is the cold and manipulative Janley and the pompous but ultimately well-meaning Hensell. But it is Robert James’ Lesterson who steals the best supporting character honours; his initial blind and childlike enthusiasm for the Daleks gradually gives way to uncertainty as they obsessively pursue their own power source, and he finally gives in to blind terror as he discovers the Dalek production line inside the capsule and realises that the Doctor was right all along. James’ conveys his character’s panic incredibly well, especially during the scene in the Governor’s office as he tries to convince Bragan of the danger. In the face of Bragan’s refusal to listen to him, helped by Janley’s lies as she tries to ensure the continued safety of her supposed allies, he gives in to complete abject fear and literally ends up gibbering, before he descends fully into insanity and is eventually mercilessly killed by the creatures he championed so passionately. One of Lesterson’s finest moments is when the Doctor reveals that the Daleks are not robots and adds that they can achieve anything given sufficient resources; Lesterson’s quietly horrified “w- what?” beautifully demonstrates the exact moment at which he realises what he’s done. 

Finally, there are the Daleks. ‘The Power of the Daleks’ is the first Dalek story written without Terry Nation and Whitaker handles them without peer. In ‘The Daleks’ Master Plan’ they were effective because of the magnitude of the threat that the represented. Here, the stakes are much smaller; rather than an army of Daleks threatening the entire galaxy with a super weapon, here we have three Daleks threatening a single colony. And yet, they have never been this scary. It starts with the Doctor, Troughton excellently portraying controlled fear as he tells Ben that one Dalek could destroy the colony. We often saw the First Doctor’s suppressed hatred of his perennial enemies, but this is the first time the Doctor appears to exhibit trepidation in this way. Later, when he tells Lesterson that the Dalek will end the colony’s problems because it will end the colony, the threat is reinforced; the fact that the Doctor truly believes that a single Dalek poses such a threat is very powerful. But what really makes the Dalek seem more dangerous here than ever before is their guile and cunning. The cliffhanger to episode two as the Dalek relentless chants “I am your servant” over the Doctor’s appeals to Hensell is one of my favourite cliffhangers of the entire series. Later, the Daleks continue to consolidate their power by manipulating the colonists, Lesterson in particular, as the viewer is afforded a glimpse into their true natures; a Dalek automatically proclaims its superiority, only to catch itself just in time (“a Dalek is bet- is… not the same as a human being”), and on at least three occasions, their absolute loathing of the Doctor is made clear, particularly when one Dalek comes close to ruining its pretense of servitude to Bragan when he takes up the Doctor’s challenge and stops it from killing him. As the story progresses, we get to see just how much they are anticipating slaughtering the colonists, as they eagerly conspire together in the capsule and look forward to teaching the humans “the law of the Daleks”. The cliffhanger to episode four as Lesterson, and the viewers, first see the Dalek production line, is utterly chilling, the mechanical efficiency of the creatures contrasting horrible high-pitched screeching of the Dalek embryos being bred in their tanks. The Discontinuity Guide lists the Daleks’ endless repeating of “Daleks conquer and destroy” at the end of episode five as a dialogue disaster, but for me it serves as an illustration of why they are such effective monsters; unlike fellow part-machine monsters the Cybermen, the Daleks are not emotionless, they are utterly psychotic and motivated by hatred and xenophobia. They clearly enjoy massacring the colonists in episode six. So thoroughly monstrous are they in this story that their messy and explosive destruction at the climax is enormously satisfying and indeed a relief; the terminal power loss of ‘The Mutants’ would not have sufficed here; by the end of the story, after numerous shots of corpses littering the colony, they really needed to be defeated as utterly as possible. 

I really have no criticisms of ‘The Power of the Daleks’. Based on the recon and telesnaps, the production was impressive, with the mercury swamps and colony buildings looking highly effective (I particularly like the ornate bars of the prison cells that the Doctor and Quinn are imprisoned in). The sparse surviving footage reveals the obvious use of blow-up Dalek photographs, but that didn’t spoil my enjoyment of any of the previous Dalek stories and if ‘The Power of the Daleks’ was rediscovered tomorrow and released on video or DVD, I doubt it would bother me here either. Frankly, Troughton couldn’t have asked for a better debut story.