Dalek

“You would make a good Dalek, Doctor.”

Before Saturday 30th April 2005 my all-time top five Doctor Who stories where “The Caves of Androzani,” “Remembrance of the Daleks,” “City of Death,” “Logopolis” and “Genesis of the Daleks,” in that order. After watching Rob Shearman’s action-packed psychological masterpiece “Dalek,” I already feel impressed enough to put it right up amongst such lofty company, if not above it.

Having watched the episode hailed by SFX as “the best episode of Doctor Who ever” twice - I usually review episodes after just one viewing but I just couldn’t resist an immediate replay – I am sure it will remain one of my favourite episodes for many years to come. On the first viewing I actually cried three times. This story was absolutely phenomenal. As someone who has been counting down the days (for about three years) until the cinema release of the “Revenge of the Sith,” I think it will have to be something to beat this TV episode of my favourite-ever TV show. It was chilling, it was moving and in all it’s 16:9 / 5.1 surround glory it was as spectacular as anything you could hope to see at the cinema. More than that, I thought it was an incredibly sad and moving story.

>From the opening scene where the Doctor looks at the head of a Cyberman – “the stuff of nightmares… reduced to an exhibit” – I realised how lucky we were to have the Doctor back. For over a decade our only hope of seeing a Cyberman’s head was in a museum or convention somewhere… and now we were going to get something far better than a Cyberman, an Auton, a Slitheen or the Gelth. A Dalek; no scrap that; not just a Dalek –a Dalek characterised by Rob Shearman. With the sounds of his extraordinary play “Jubilee” still ringing fresh in my ears I held my breath as that distinctive theme began to play.

“Bad Wolf One descending…”

It didn’t take long for the action to begin, and for forty-five minutes (an ideal length for a story such as this one) it didn’t cease. We had only a few minutes to enjoy what we have become used to as “The Ninth Doctor” as he playfully demonstrates to Adam and Van Statten the musical instrument. Of course, as soon as he learns an alien life form is being held in this underground bunker of Van Statten’s he wants to help – just as he did with the Gelth, the pig in the space suit etc. – and ever the optimist, he enters the cage. You could cut the tension with a knife – this scene was fully loaded.

The Doctor we know is gone in the blink of an eye. Previous Doctors have been terrified by the Daleks – most memorably in my mind is the look of the Seventh Doctor’s face as he is backed against the door by an Imperial Dalek at the end of “Remembrance, Part I” – but the Ninth Doctor seemed even more terrified. This scene was scripted, acted and directed beautifully. As those lights on top of the dome lit up I had goosebumps. When I heard “EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE” I felt the tears well up. The Doctor ran for his life – then he realised. The Dalek gun was powerless. In “one second” the Doctor changed from a Timelord scared for his life to a bitter, hateful and vindictive creature. I loved the way he got right in the Dalek’s face. “What are you gonna do?” he yells in his northern accent – although I must admit I am curious as to why the Dalek didn’t “sucker him to death”(only possible niggle I could think of; I had to think damn hard with this episode!!!) – I guess it was probably still too weak prior to it’s DNA infusion from Rose. The following exchange of dialogue was some of the best that has ever graced an episode of Doctor Who. We learn that the Doctor finally completely and utterly destroyed his mortal enemy – and the enemies of the Timelords – leaving them “burning in space.” He brags about this to the Dalek. “What of the Timelords?” asks the Dalek. “The coward survives…” And then it happens. The Doctor tries to murder the Dalek. This is the same man who had the chance to destroy every Dalek forever just by touching two wires together… but he couldn’t do it. He felt he didn’t have the right.

But now his homeworld has gone. He’s “getting old.” All his people are dead; their TARDISes annihilated. He could have prevented it all. How he must regret that decision he made hundreds of years before, in another life. Twisted, bitter and full of hate he wants that last Dalek dead.

“You would make a good Dalek, Doctor.”

After hearing the exchange between the two sole survivors of their respective races, Van Statten wants them both in his collection. The Doctor is strung up and his biology examined and patented. Two hearts. Another revelation for the new viewers, expertly delivered.

When Rose meets the Dalek she is free from prejudice, having never met one of them before. Nicholas Briggs puts in a chilling performance as the Dalek, his voice talent particularly impressive in this scene. There are moments, no doubt done deliberately, where the Dalek sounds practically human. “I am in pain…” The modulation on the voice is cut down and it sounds like weak, pathetic, tortured life form. Like Evelyn before her in “Jubilee,” it is Rose who can sympathise with the Dalek, who can take the role the Doctor should if we were dealing with any other life form that was tortured or in pain. It’s also Rose’s sympathy that leads directly to the death of hundreds of people.

The “torture” scenes earlier on where nowhere near as graphic or brutal as in “Jubilee” though their effect (and purpose) is just the same. I even found myself feeling pity for this malevolent creature. Where “Dalek” primarily differs from “Jubilee” is the pace – instead of a long, drawn-out relationship between Evelyn and the Dalek in the Tower, Rose’s pity towards the Dalek is initially brief as once she touches it all hell breaks loose. Again, wonderfully directed, the Dalek shatters it’s chains and chillingly screams “genetic material absorbed…” or something along those lines.

Then we get what we have been waiting for – a bad ass, unstoppable Dalek. Its sucker can crush your skull in the most horrific way. It can suck all the power out of city in seconds. It can download the entire internet in the same amount of time. It can elevate. It is cunning – the scene where it sets off the sprinkler and exterminates all the soldiers with one gunshot is breathtaking. It’s trunk, base, and dome can now all rotate separately so you can’t hide from it merely by standing behind it. It is a tank. It is a killing machine. It is “the ultimate in ethnic cleansing.” It’s as deadly as the Terminator. You can call it a nazi, a fascist, a racist or whatever; it is worse than all those ideologies combined. It is a DALEK.

“You would make a good Dalek, Doctor.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Rose cried into her phone as she prepares to face her certain death. I absolutely LOVED this sequence. It had all the power of “I could save the world but lose you” but this time there was no cop out – no Harriett Jones to make the call – the Doctor made the call. I’m ashamed to say that as we heard “Exterminate!” and the gunshot went off the tears made their second appearance of the night. It’s not that I thought Rose was dead – I’m not that naïve plus I’m a spoiler-junky – it was just the power of the scene. The Doctor’s face; his reaction. For a minute I thought he was going to punch Van Statten (though that would have been a bit too far).

“You would make a good Dalek, Doctor.”

It was a joy to see the Doctor’s face when the Dalek AND Rose appeared on the monitor – the classic hostage situation (reminded me very much of the scene in “Earthshock” with the Cyberleader and Tegan) – he was simply overjoyed to see her alive. For a moment it was as if he’d forgotten about the Dalek. We saw a faint hit of that “Fantastic” smile; the Doctor underneath.

“What use are emotions if you can’t save the woman you love?”

Not out of place, not overdone or overstated – the Dalek called it as he saw it. Platonic it may well be but the Doctor loves Rose and she loves the Doctor. I’m sure if the Doctor had the chance he would go back and touch those two wires together. Now he had another chance to make the decision to save millions of lives or Rose, and this time he couldn’t bring himself to sacrifice her again, even to save millions of people.

So the Doctor and Adam take off to find the biggest bazooka imaginable, leaving Van Statten at the mercy of the Dalek as it burst in crying “EXTERMINATE!” But the Dalek can’t kill him. ‘Infected’ by Rose’s emotions in the DNA it absorbed to regenerate itself, it begins to questions itself, it’s purpose, what it wants. Like the Dalek in “Jubilee” it is a solider; a solider with no orders to follow. It wants orders, but there are no other Daleks to give them. This Dalek decides it wants ‘freedom.’

The final scene was as beautifully written, acted and directed as every other in the episode. The shot of Rose following the Dalek through the corridor is an image that has particularly stuck in my mind – but nothing in the entire episode was as unnerving as the Dalek looking up into the sunlight (through the hole in had blasted), it’s eye-stork looking up towards the sun. That particular shot seemed almost religious in it’s significance – here is this evil, twisted monstrosity of a creature. Born evil, bred evil. It had no choice other than to be evil. Evil be it’s good. Yet we have it ‘infected’ by human emotions and ideas. To see it looking up into light, as if it has been redeemed, is an incredibly powerful image. Earlier in the episode it had commented “you would make a good Dalek Doctor,” possibly the most hurtful thing anyone has ever said to the Doctor. When we look across from this creature basking in the light to the heavily armed Timelord emerging from the shadows, something just isn’t right. Bazooka in hand, we have a Timelord fallen from grace; the last of his people; and no matter how much he abhors violence he has no other thought in his mind than the cold-blooded killing of the last of the race who killed his people. The tears weld up again for one last time.

“You would make a good Dalek, Doctor.”

The Dalek’s casing gracefully slid open (as opposed to the Dalek getting it’s lid-blown off as usually happens once per Dalek story!) and we saw the most effective realisation of a Kaled mutant to date. It looked ancient. There was also something about it that looked… I don’t know… kinda pathetic. This small, weak little creature encased in a metal death machine. Maybe I’ve just got ‘Star Wars’ on the brain or something but there is something unnerving about the amalgamation of weak flesh encased in an armour of terrors. No matter what evil deeds we see the machine committing, when it is revealed in the flesh there is a sense of pity you can’t help but feel towards the creature. It’s just so unnatural.

The dialogue in this old-fashioned showdown was beyond superb. All those fantastic ideas about the nature of good and evil, the difference between the hero and the villain, the interchangability of the two… somehow it was all encapsulated in this final scene.

It has been forty-two years since that Doctor and the Daleks first graced our television screens. All that history from “The Dead Planet” to “Remembrance” and the destruction of Skaro; all the Timelord history and larger-than-life characters; Rassilon, Omega…; all gone forever. All we have is the Doctor and this one Dalek. It had a horrible finality to it; it felt so incredibly sad. When the Dalek realised it was mutating into something more human… it just couldn’t allow itself to live. Its suicide was incredible feat of CGI; and more impressively it spared the Doctor having to kill it.

”Oh Rose…”

He couldn’t see until it was too late that his hate has blinded him to the fact that, bazooka in hand, he was becoming as bad as the Dalek – and unlike the pepperpot from Skaro who could blame Davros for it’s evil nature, the Doctor had no-one to blame. As in “The Unquiet Dead,” Rose helps the Doctor see something he could never have seen without her, just as he shows her things no-one else has ever seen. That’s their love.

Following the end, we had the beginning, as Adam joined the Doctor and Rose aboard the TARDIS for what will undoubtedly be a fascinating ménage a trois….

After “Dalek” – twice – I am drained. I haven’t enjoyed a TV show that much in a long, long time. I can only hope that somewhere, in some time, more Daleks survived the Time War. I can only hope that this “Bad Wolf” thread gets a good payoff too. More than anything I hope that “Doctor Who” will run every year for the rest of my days!