Dalek

The Unquiet Dead excepted, this week's instalment of Doctor Who seemed like a different programme altogether to, in particular, the comparitively appalling two-parter preceding it. Dalek is certainly the most convincing, compelling and dramatic episode of Who since, well, Ghost Light 1/Curse of Fenric 4/Survival 3. But I would go even further than that to say - despite one or two quibbles which I will mention in a bit - Dalek compares to some of the latter classics of the old series such as Curse of Fenric, and in its unusual intensity, pace and edginess, harks back to the inimitable direction of Graeme Harper's Revelation of the Daleks (with which it has much in common including Gothic-angle on the Daleks and noticeably similar incidental music) and, more importantly, the iconic Caves of Androzani: of course Dalek is still some way from being as superb as the latter story, but is very much in a similar vein, especially regarding intensity and pace, and more importantly, a quite vulnerable Doctor at the mercy of ruthless, capitalistic humanoids in a very gritty and overwhelmingly dark scenario. We also have a convincingly brutal torture scene with the Doctor chained up in almost crucificial posture, strongly reminiscent of the Fourth Doctor's interrogation by Hildred in The Deadly Assassin (though this time the direction goes one stage further from Tom Baker's open neck shirt and has Eccleston with naked, sweaty Ben-Hurish torso as he undergoes torture via a mechanism obviously modelled on the Dalek's eyestalk). Further harking back to the past series, we have easily the grittiest and most intellectually orientated study of the Daleks since Genesis of the Daleks (Revelation being focused solely on their creator, whereas Genesis split this analysis between the creator and, crucially, his creation); there is also, obviously, a very well written and realised echo of the Troughton classic Evil of the Daleks, in which the Human Factor seminally played a part in the Daleks survival-inhibiting downfall as it does, once more and arguably even more poignantly, in Dalek.

By the end of World War III I was seriously starting to think the consummate Unquiet Dead was perhaps just a one-off aberration in this new series of generally diluted and dumbed down, formulaic Who. One only needs to compare Aliens/War III with Rob Shearman's brilliant contribution to now see very clearly how RTD's writing credentials are seriously under dispute: so far he has only really offered one episode, End of the World, which, in (too few) places, could compare to some of the - more average stories - of the old series, but which was overall ruined by some highly inappropriate gimmicks. For my part, Rose and Aliens/War III are not worthy of the cannon, and this conviction has been strengthened by Dalek, a truly riveting episode which harnasses Who traditions with sharp reinventions, most obviously the most compelling and substantial portrayal and realisation of a Dalek since Genesis (or arguably since Evil back in 1967). Hats off to - the normally grating - Nick Briggs for an exceptional vocal performance as the Dalek - also worthy of note, the convincing and surprisingly quite restrained visual beefing-up of said entity.

This for me is the first episode in which Eccleston presents us with a truly compelling Doctor and in especially the one-on-one scene with the Dalek near the beginning, Eccleston's acting is quite literally superb; arguably no other actor has played the Doctor as intensely (in an emotional sense - Tom Baker's more subdued alien intensity being something else altogether, as well as his angry outbursts in Seeds of Doom and, ironically, the otherwise shabby Invasion of Time re his shouting at Borusa; and Colin Baker in the opening scenes of the even more shabby Twin Dilemma) as this before, displaying an almost unadulterated show of hate-fuelled emotion which re-cemented my thoughts on him prior to Who as sometimes being very similar to Ralph Fiennes, in facial characteristics and mannerisms - in this scene particularly Eccleston demonstrated he could have been an equally good choice for the Nazi character played by Fiennes in Schindler's List.

Ironically however it is on Eccleston's extremely powerful and memorable performance that I wish to briefly touch with regards the very few concerns I have with this episode: whilst this sort of face-contorting, angst-ridden acting from Eccleston is highly impressive and in some ways welcome, the tangibly violent nature of his verbal confrontation with the imprisoned and powerless Dalek is extremely disturbing to say the least when issuing from the mouth of a traditionally (bar some abberations in the past such as the pugilistic Sixth Doctor) pacifistic character and again the braun over brain syndrome of this latest incarnation manifests most worryingly in his ultimate confrontation of the Dalek, wielding a Ridley Scott-esque anti-tank gun; this scene is made all the more alarming due to the Dalek having become humanised by this point and evidently more vulnerable than ever before. Of course, thankfully, the Doctor finally assimilates this, partly due to Rose's influence, and lowers his weapon, then displaying a very tormented and confused emotional response regarding his grief for his dead race. I suppose then in the end these emotionally aggressive outbursts of the Doctor are finally reconciled as he comes back to his senses, however, there are shades of the Vietnam-vet approach to the Ninth incarnation which should perhaps be toned down more. Ultimately the magic of the character is his cerebralness and other-worldly ability to see through and around things which to human minds might seem less ambiguous - I find his earlier attempts to electrocute the captive Dalek particularly uncomfortable to watch. Yes, even the impassive Fifth Doctor did hold a gun at Davros in Resurrection, but this was softened by his lowering it during Davros's manipulative speech in an attempt to convince the Doctor he had mended his ways and was planning on doing good deeds with his creations; ultimately Davison's Doctor was taken off guard in this scene and missed his opportunity at carrying out the assassination of Davros, which I suppose was Saward's cop-out clause - detectably, there is something of the Saward blood and thunder approach to Who creeping in to the new series and the other scene in this vein which I really disliked was the Doctor mocking Adam with the - admittedly very amusing line- 'What are you going to do? Throw your A Levels at him?', then picking up the monstrous weapon and wielding it like a bloodthirsty weapons expert. Certainly the Ninth Doctor's uncompromising aggression towards the Daleks is light years away from the very moral ruminations of the Fourth Doctor when contemplating destruction of the Daleks in Genesis; and thus lacks the profound sophistication of his predecessor's compelling angst.

Another note is why is the Doctor feeling such a weight of grief at the destruction of the Timelords who in the past drove him away due their fascistic parochialism, exiled him to Earth (War Games) and took away his knowledge of piloting the TARDIS, continually manipulated him to do their dirty work (Genesis of the Daleks) so as not to spoil their 'lily white hands' (Brain of Morbius), turn his heroism on their behalf into ungrateful spurious propaganda cover ups (Deadly Assassin), attempt to execute him (Arc of Infinity), put him on trial (Trial of a Timelord) and generally piss him off throughout time and space? Perhaps a hint of grief at the loss of his own race, yes, but not to the point that he wishes to annihilate the last, humanised member of their special nemeses. The Doctor also says 'he has nothing left' now Gallifrey is gone - this seems odd considering his voluntary exile from the Timelords in pursuit of desired independence and his general contempt for them in previous years (especially the Fourth Doctor's almost irrational attitude towards them and anything related to them). A nice touch though was the Doctor saying he knew he was the only one left in his mind: hinting at the Prydonian telepathic ability.

Apart from the more overtly aggressive tendencies of the Doctor in Dalek, and two irritating lines, 'God, I can almost smell the testosterone' (Rose between the Doctor and Van Statten) and Van Statten's line about '...the girl you love' when referring to Rose - why not just 'a girl you love?', or better still, 'a human girl you love/a human you love', which would take away emphasis on Rose being a girl the Doctor is conceivably in love with - this episode was otherwise brilliant and very much definitive Doctor Who in plot, style and direction. An obviously nice touch was the Cyberman head at the beginning - it was great to have that first initial link to the past, leading up to something even more integral to the show's origins, as well as refreshing to see a circa Invasion Cyberman, quite possibly salvaged from the Mondasians's invasion of 1968 London (for me this echoed of the mini-scope teaser in Carnival of Monsters).

Also worthy of note are all the incidental characters who were as well realised as one might expect in only 45 minutes. Adam promises to be one of the more likeable male companions of the cannon, if he is to stay, which I think would be good and certainly preferable to the more tedious and superfluous Mickey. Nice also to have the first male companion since the superbly charismatic Turlough predicted to also be of ambiguous motivation (and not forgetting the equally turncoat-ish Adric, much less convincing a character though than Turlough). During the Colin Baker and McCoy eras I always wanted there to be a third, male companion, as I think this always gives the best dynamic and ideally gets someone else to do the testosterone-charged action bits while leaving the Doctor to be the more cerebral one.

Other brilliantly directed scenes in Dalek for me include the highly disturbing shots through the screaming Dalek's eyestalk as one of Van Statten's men tortures it - brilliant stuff, truly unpleasant to watch and reminiscent of some of the more gritty Troughton stories; the Dalek fighting the soldiers in the rain; and of course, the beautifully directed and genuinely moving final scenes in which the very convincingly realised Kaled reveals itself to the sun for the first time (its eye looked very real, though I did feel it should have had the hint of a second eye too in order to detract from the accidental and (as we know from Genesis) specious implication that Kaleds, prior to mutation, were Cycloptic).

The underground museum sets were brilliant; all production standards were A1 and even the CGI Dalek was convincing; another nice aescetic touch was the Art Deco-esque painting of Van Statten behind his desk. Clearly a lot of thought had gone into the set designs and visual details.

This is also only the second episode (Unquiet Dead being the other) to perfectly fit 45 minutes with absolutely no padding whatsoever, nor conversely any feeling that it needed more time to develop/to flesh out characters/to flesh out storylines (or in the case of Rose, actually include a storyline) - significantly in this sense, it and Unquiet Dead are the only two episodes so far to not be tediously interrupted by pointless domestic scenes (yes, even End of the World was with the brief Aerial commercial of the paroxide blond Miss Tyler bundling clothes into a washing machine whilst nattering to Rose on the phone near the beginning). There you are RTD: just cut out the domestic tedium and you have time to fully utilise the 45 minute time slots for the good of the storylines, which is supposed to be the point after all.

Dalek is undisputably a classic (in both the new and old sense), and has even exceeded the superb though more traditional and less dramatic Unquiet Dead as by far the best and most compelling episode of the new Who so far, and one which, unlike the RTD episodes, I will return to again and again on video, which is how the series should always be made: with layers and layers of detail.

9/10.