The Expedition (The Daleks Episode 5)

The one where Ian tricks the pacifist Thals into fighting for their cause...

For saying the Daleks are supposed to be sophisticated beings, intelligent and scientifically advanced, their technology is pretty antiquated. When they want to look at photos taken by their laserscopes, the clunk-whurr of the projector is like something out of a Heath Robinson laboratory! The image reproduction (on Frequency 6) is pretty low-res too, although they're still able to make out the "elderly prisoner", "the girl" and the "young woman", and show great interest in whether the "young man" is dead or injured. The fact their third photo answers their question, showing he is still alive and well, seems to pass them by.

Despite this clunky tech, the Daleks are adept at operating it. Just look at the ticker-tape read-out they examine. The Dalek operators manage to pass the paper string to each other expertly, but I am left wondering how they manage to replace the paper roll when it runs out.

The Expedition is a very talky episode, with lots of debating and moralising among the humanoids while the Daleks crack on with their survivalist experiments and make plans to nuke the planet again. But this dialogue-heavy episode allows the characters to be fleshed out even more.

Ian and Barbara discuss the Thals' unwillingness to fight the Daleks, but Ian still finds time to tell Susan off for climbing trees (once a schoolteacher, always a schoolteacher!). Ian and Barbara have a bit of a ding-dong here, and Barbara in particular seems quite stroppy, warning that unless they engage the Thals, the Daleks will "find us and kill us, you know they will". She berates Ian and the Doctor for "wasting time with small talk", and shoots down Ian's diplomacy with a snarled: "All you're doing is playing with words!" It's the first time we've seen Ian and Barbara at odds with one another, and coupled with this episode's exploration of a developing bond between Barbara and Ganatus, it all makes for an interesting fracturing of the core group.

When Ian applies himself to trying to get the Thals to fight on their own terms, we get a nice reflection of the scene in The Firemaker where the Doctor convinces the tribespeople to turn against Kal. Here, Ian tricks Alydon into punching him when he appears to drag Dyoni off to give to the Daleks. "So there is something you'll fight for," he says, rubbing his chin. But this is hardly a crushing defeat of the Thals' universal pacifism. The Daleks are trapped in their city, at least for the time being, and pose no direct threat to the Thals outside. The Daleks are not an active aggressor to the Thals as long as they stay apart, so forcing Alydon into violence to defend his girl in the heat of the moment is hardly an adequate comparison. Nevertheless, it seems to convince Alydon that they should help the TARDIS crew. William Russell is a livewire in this scene, obviously relishing the chance to shine.

In the city the Daleks have been testing the Thals' anti-radiation drugs on test subjects to see if they're safe, and it seems they most definitely are not. Christopher Barry gives us a surreal, imaginative Dalek POV shot as it seems to go dizzy and disorientated after taking the drugs. It screams and panics and pleads for help. Curiously, it feels unsettling to see a Dalek emotional like this. Barry uses the Dalek POV trick again a bit later in the control room, when it's even more impressive, panning in to the set and regarding the other Daleks before it. You can kind of tell he was pleased with this effect!

This episode also marks the debut of the soon to be ubiquitous cardboard cutout Daleks, lining the back walls to make it look like there are many more of them than there are. Sadly, in these post-Restoration Team days of DVD, the pretend Daleks are painfully obvious, although you might explain them away by saying it's simply Dalek wallpaper... As the Daleks ponder what they will do without the anti-radiation drugs, they realise that they actually need more radiation to survive, not less. "What are we to do? Is this the end of the Daleks?" frets one. But no, a new and frankly horrifying course of action occurs to them: "We do not have to adapt to the environment. We will change the environment to suit us!" Chilling.

And so at last our heroes set out on their expedition to infiltrate the Dalek city and get their fluid link back (do the Daleks even still have it? They might have thrown it away by now). After Ganatus woos Barbara with tales of mutations and crossbreeds in the lake, they head for the lake. Antodus is very wary of going to the lake because of the loss of life the last time the Thals went near the lake, but Ganatus still insists they go to the lake. This is bound to go wrong, isn't it?

When we see one of the "horrors of the swamp" rear up and menace Ian, I just cannot decide whether it's brilliant or appalling. It's certainly ingenious, but again, on crystal clear DVD, you can plainly see and hear the rubber ring inflate beneath the lake monster. It looks great, I just wish you couldn't see why it looks great! Brian Hodgson's sound effects work wonders too, because it really does sound pretty wild out there. It's the first of many Terry Nation jungle settings, of course.

The Thals bed down for the night very close to the edge of the lake. Whose wise idea was that? Ah yes, Ganatus again! And talking of Ganatus, look at him getting all familiar with Barbara, using her leather-clad thigh as a pillow, without even asking! To be fair, she seems quite comfortable with the idea too, and who wouldn't be? Ganatus is lush.

The cliffhanger's an odd one. The whirlpool special effect used to depict something rising out of the lake of mutations is spectacular - perhaps the best yet seen in the series - but the episode actually ends on Barbara's face looking quizzical, wondering what it is that made Elyon scream so much. A better sign-off would've been Elyon being dragged into the lake (which we do see a little earlier), but at least we've got rid of actor Gerald Curtis, who is, to put it bluntly, appalling.

First broadcast: January 18th, 1964

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: William Russell is marvellous in his scene with Alydon and the Thals, and you can tell he's grateful to get his teeth into something meaty for once.
The Bad: Cardboard Daleks and rubber ring monsters wouldn't have been very obvious back in 1964, but Gerald Curtis's wooden performance sticks out even today.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆

NEXT TIME: The Ordeal...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: The Dead Planet (episode 1); The Survivors (episode 2); The Escape (episode 3); The Ambush (episode 4); The Ordeal (episode 6); The Rescue (episode 7)

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/the-daleks-aka-dead-planet-mutants.html

The Daleks is available as part of the Doctor Who - The Beginning box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Beginning-Unearthly-Destruction/dp/B000C6EMTC