Dalek

If you frequent forums, newsgroups and the like without contributing then you are known as a 'lurker'. Many of you reading these reviews will recognise that quality in yourselves, but every now and then something comes along that breaks you out of your apathy. A moment so profound, so life changing that you are forced out of the shadows to yell it from the rooftops and tell everone else about it. In science it's been labelled the EUREKA moment. What event would cause a scientific mind to leap naked out of their bath and run yelling down a public street?

Well no nudity in public for my epiphany. I like to reserve a special place in my tele-visual history for the WOW moments. On Saturday night, a cynical classic Who fan of some 36 years sat down and watched a beloved, but in his view, underachieving, resurrection deliver a WOW moment that registered high on the richter scale. Dalek delivered - in spades.

Let me put this into context.

I've lived WHO from Pertwee to Baker, from Davison through to the other Baker. My enthusiasm was drained by the travesty of... I mean the Trial of a Timelord, only to have it re-ignited by 'Fenric' only to have it dashed by the cancellation when it had just become interesting. I had slim hopes for McGann and the movie... yet the infamous 'kiss' scuppered any creditability it may have gained from me. So it was that the Doctor faded into television history.

17 years and the landscape was changing... Star Trek had a Next Generation, Deep Space Nine came and went, Voyager voyaged and Enterprise confounded original series devotees... Mulder and Scully opened (and closed several times) the X Files, Babylon 5 was the last best hope for peace' before being decomissioned, Buffy was the chosen one, died and was resurrected... as indeed was her vampire love Angel... all contributed in their own way and gave rise to inspiration for others to follow... but you know that...

The US fantasy output had 'raised' the bar - in script writing / dramatic and special effects terms. Nothing the British could do could challenge or compete with the genius of Whedon, Straczynski or Carter... at least that's what we had been led to believe.

I'm not one to deify writers, creators etc, and RTD is a long way off that with his own scripts, but I must congratulate him on the first two non RTD scripts of this new series. Gattiss's 'The Unquiet Dead' invoked nostalgia of Hinchcliffe WHO, and now Shearman's Dalek.... to coin an often used ninth doctor phrase "Fantastic!"

Twenty minutes in, after much promise came the WOW moment. Two minutes of Dalek action in the corridor showdown with the bases forces. Two minutes where I remembered what it was like to be a child again. That wonderful feeling of awe and inspiration where you look at the screen with undiluted pleasure. EUREKA! Te ruthlessness, the brutality... this was a Dalek displayed in it's purest form doing what it does best. The re-invention was realised superbly... with post-Matrix forcefields dissolving bullets, skeleton exposing exterminating rays and the clincher? The 360 degree revolving mid section. Such a simple idea... and a perfect accompaniment to what went before. The aerial POV shot of this new movement was inspired! Yet it didn't stop there... who could watch the movement of the Dalek as it shifts itself into it's next direction post the corridor slaughter and not be chilled by it? This could so esaily have been a static Dalek moves forward shot, so congrats Joe Ahearne for going for a more artistic and aesthetically pleasing viewpoint.

So impressed was I that I had to view BOTH the BBC Three reruns.. just to see if this moment was as good as I thought it was. Could I be being deceived? Was WHO 2005 delivering the goods at last after the abomination that was the 'two parter' that shall remain nameless... (Third World War indeed... waste of a powerful title...Wind breakers would have been better....)? Dalek did deliver and I wasn't being decieved.

Sure I can be critical; Rose could touch the Dalek even though the "last guy that touched it burst into flames"?; the emotionless pre-DNA transfer Dalek could be "glad" that it had met Rose?; the Dalek reasoning that "what use are emotions if you won't save the woman you love"; slightly dodgy CGI in places, the cop out power drain / internet download (some broadband connection!) and the slightly 'too convenient implosion'...(if that's what it was... I'd much prefer it to have been a time jump....) But in counterpoint the episode has such richness... from great atmosphere to stunningly effective use of location (the Millenium Stadum at Cardiff was an inspired choice), tight direction and classic dialogue; "You would make a good Dalek..." ; "If you can't kill what are you good for.. Dalek?" "E-L-E-V-A-T-E!". I can't let my review pass without praising the subtle refrence to classic WHO in the prologue.. "an old friend.. well.. an enemy.. the stuff of nightmares reduced to an exhibit" recited over the image of a blank expressionless "Invasion" Cyber head. How may households rang to the cries of... "Dad what is it?" Well done Mr Shearman for not labouring the point. (Just bring them back and let the new generation really know what they are...)

I hope the new generation of WHO fans will enthuse about this as much as this veteran does. THIS is what it's all about. This is why I love this programme. If there is nothing else offered by this revival then the 2 minutes of WOW delivered here will have made the 17 year wait worthwhile. File with those other classic moments... my first glimpse of a Dalek in Day of the Daleks, the Sontaron reveal in the Sontaron Experiment, the Cybermen appearance at the end of episode 1 of Earthshock, the marshmen in the swamp of Full Circle... and I'm sure you have a long list too...

If Mr Davies wants to learn anything about his audience then he too should become a 'lurker' and realise that he has started something good. As all fledgling shows this new 'infant' will make some faltering steps... but when it learns do do things right (as it has done here) it should do them MORE! Here's one lifetime fan hoping for less 'soap' (exterminate Mickey please) and more WOW in the weeks to come.

As another sci-fi visionary once said; "Faith manages".