The Parting of the Ways

Ok then, no Davros. Fine. I suppose this makes the second (after the infinitely superior Dalek) true Dalek story since Death to the Daleks back in 1974. Not necessarily a bad thing as arguably the continual returning of Davros since his definitive and never quite equalled debut in the outstanding Genesis of the Daleks eventually became a little tedious and overly predictable (though excellently done in the superb Revelation of the Daleks); I often felt it was a mistake to bring him back at all, and this was painfully clear in his first sequal, the shoddily realized Destiny of the Daleks. Anyway, I think I suspected at the end of Bad Wolf, from the next week trailer, that it was either – as the media seemed to want us to believe – Davros returning as some sort of evolved version, now practically the Emperor of the Daleks first seen in Evil of the Daleks, or just simply the Dalek Emperor without any implication of Davros having evolved into it (which I think would have been a clever evolution of the character: that it had in fact been an evolved Davros who had been inside the Emperor Dalek’s casing way back in 1967’s Evil of the Daleks). Not to be then. Instead we just get the Emperor Dalek with no hint that this is an evolved Davros. What am I wittering on about anyway?

However, the realization of this large squid with swollen cerebrum inside a giant, opened Dalek casing was excellently done and its constant ranting about being ‘the God of the Daleks’ and creating ‘perfection’ and ‘heaven on Earth’ (in the Dalek sense) was all brilliantly done and a satisfying and intelligent evolution of Dalek mythology into the realms of Kaled eschatology, which has never been depicted quite so powerfully before (apart from Davros’s compelling God-like rantings in Genesis). To have the Daleks chanting ‘blasphemy, blasphemy’ in unison was equally compelling and disturbing, particularly as the Daleks are now developing a demonstrably human form of evil in terms of a kind of pugilist, Nazistic religious dogmatism; they are clearly conducting a crusade to destroy all life/societies different from their own – here I think possibly RTD has for the first time succeeded in some genuine satire by surely using the Daleks as a comment on all forms of religious fundamentalism, both Christian and Muslim, which dangerously dominate the modern world on both sides of the Atlantic (personified by Bin Laden on one side and the less obvious, more insidious Bush-Blair evangelism on the other). If this is what RTD was intending, then he did succeed, and very well – there you are, I am willing to praise him when I think he deserves it.

Other good aspects of this story: Joe Ahearn’s typically consummate direction (still not quite Graeme Harper though, more a watered-down Douglas Camfield; what good news Harper’s return next year is by the way!) which maximizes all suspense with suitably intense atmosphere, as well as fairly strong takes on any action (though much of the bull and bluster of this story does remind me of Resurrection of the Daleks which, despite a moral shallowness of plot, did I think still have the edge); some intense speeches from Eccleston, powerfully conveyed – no other Doctor has ever shown such palpable hatred of the Daleks, as epitomized in his initial confrontation with them when he taps into their own dormant fears of him, their nemesis (reminds me slightly of the Master’s hallucinations of the Doctor under the influence of the Keller Machine in Mind of Evil) – as well as this, Eccleston delivered some bits of genuinely amusing humour with his dismissive comments to the Daleks in his initial confrontation and various other shots, including the one of him grinning inanely while trying to rig up the delta-wave (was it delta-wave? or am I think of the augmenter from Kinda?) mechanism later on; some, I have to concede, superb acting from Billie Piper, especially in the scene in the café with her mum and the climax when she is possessed by the soul of the Tardis (rather like Galadriel in Lord of the Rings – much of the incidental music too reminded me of David Jackson’s melodramatic take on Tolkein’s stories – especially effective and dramatic is the brilliantly orchestrated choral chanting in the Dalek battle scenes, first used in the classic episode Dalek). The Daleks flying through space was a brilliant image, though otherwise I am not one to be particularly impressed by fleets of CGI spaceships to be honest. By far the most impressive shot of all, which really did work, was when Lynda was tracked down by flying Daleks coming up outside the window of the space station – that was genuinely menacing. I suppose one has to say this is the best the Daleks have been portrayed since their earliest adventures in the Sixties (though there is still no attempt to duplicate the most impressive Dalek visual effect, only ever used in the black and white stories, of the dilating eyestalks).

Over all though, despite superior special effects, a nice dimension of moral depth, a deepening of the Dalek mythology and some truly intense acting, this story still to my mind falls far short of the dramatic excellence of, say, Revelation of the Daleks; the climax of Parting of the Ways is not on a par with the compellingly directed climax to Graeme Harper’s Season 22 finale (and remember the flying Davros in that story? not only has everyone forgotten that the Daleks first flew in Remembrance, but they’ve also forgotten that even before that, Davros was doing it three seasons before!!! – although the effect was mucked up admittedly). Another similarity to Revelation though was having a robot of Anne Robinson (uncomfortably though almost forgivably bringing the contemporary into the show) shooting at Daleks, which reminded me of the all-too-Earth 20thc. style DJ shooting at Daleks with his ultra-sound laser (we cringed at that at the time I recall, but looking back it sort of works in an oddball way).

Essentially, despite a brilliantly realized and scripted Emperor Dalek and some intense moments of verbal exchange, Parting of the Ways still felt to me to be a George Lucas take on Doctor Who, with its rather over-bearing special effects, gung-ho Han Solo character in Captain Jack, protracted action/battle scenes (though some of these were really well shot admittedly – there’s something about machine guns and Daleks which sort of works) and general reliance on visual spectacle to compensate for fairly good but patchy drama. It’s bull and bluster Who fundamentally, along the lines of Resurrection, which isn’t an entirely good or bad thing, and is significantly inferior to Shearman’s Dalek because that balanced action scenes with truly compelling drama and dialogue (especially Eccleston’s confrontation with the enslaved Dalek – a true classic even by the old series’ standards). Ironically though in Parting the Doctor is in some ways more Doctorish than in Dalek as this time he messes around with the gadgetry, doing the brainwork while Jack dons the heavy armour and Ridley Scott guns (for this reason alone it’s a shame Jack hadn’t been introduced prior to Dalek). One of the really puzzling things about Parting however is the Daleks’ seeming phobia with actually firing at the Doctor: he seems to casually elude them a couple of times when directly in their firing range and they don’t seem to attempt, at least not very successfully, to exterminate it as he just walks away from them! Ironic that while these are arguably the best realized and deadliest Daleks ever, they’re not very good at posing a threat to their real enemy. But then, the Emperor does say at one point he wants the Doctor to become like him, so maybe the Daleks are under orders not to kill him.

A nice touch at the end was the Doctor noticing something different about his hand at the console, and his little speech to Rose hinting at an imminent regeneration – this was very well scripted. The regeneration itself I found rather disappointing and not nearly as satisfying as the old series’ ones, especially the most memorable of all, Davison into Baker at the end of Caves of Androzani (indeed, the McCoy to McGann was ironically one of the best ever regenerations –as was the original Hartnell to Troughton of course). What we do get though is a slight alteration, with the first ever vertical regeneration, and I couldn’t help that old excitement come back watching the Doctor regenerate into a new actor, though in Eccleston’s leather jacket, and with a detectable quiff, Tennant did resemble more a Jarvis Cocker-esque Britpop frontman than a Timelord. Nevertheless, his first speech, mentioning his teeth, was amusingly delivered from Tenant, whose elfin, mischievous demeanour and – at risk of sounding snobby, but not intentionally – more received pronunciation delivery does I feel bode pretty well for his incarnation. The show’s always worked on contrast between Doctors and I think we’re going to get it, and more in the vein of previous Doctors, I hope anyway. Yes I did feel a tinge of sadness at Eccleston’s rather wistful departure I suppose, but I’m afraid over all I found his interpretation disappointingly unsuited to the role, not simply because of his over-emphasized blokey Salford accent and intonations, or necessarily his battered leather jacket, v-neck t-shirt and crew cut, but more because of his lack of eccentricity, occasionally sloppy scripting and far-too-human vernacular, and often misdirected grinning. Sadly Eccleston didn’t have it for me, despite being one of my favourite actors, which makes it all the more disappointing. However, he would not have been one of my own choices for the part – Tennant is certainly more suitable but I would have gone for Rhys Ifans myself.

Let’s just hope next season isn’t mucked up by more commerciality, thinness of plots, contemporaneous intrusions, tedious Tyler family soap opera, farting aliens, inappropriate and clumsy sexual innuendos and snogging among the Tardis crew. That’s another thing – what was all this kissing about? Jack kissing the Doctor was stupid and ridiculous; the Doctor kissing Rose was an unwelcome echo of the McGann film (and reminiscent of Avon in Blake’s 7’s Sarcophagus) but ultimately forgiveable, I suppose. Let’s get back to emphasizing the solitary alienness and eccentricity of the Doctor, now we are given a fresh chance to reinterpret the role with a new actor.