The Survivors (The Daleks Episode 2)

The one where the Daleks appear for the very first time...

Considering Terry Nation's episode titles would later become so ostentatious, the individual titles for The Daleks are magnificently dull! Proceedings in The Survivors, however, are far from dull, as this is where Doctor Who went from being a run-of-the-mill Saturday teatime adventure serial to a runaway phenomenon - and all because of the Daleks!

We're sadly not treated to a reprise of Jacqueline Hill's glass-shattering scream, but instead follow the Doctor, Ian and Susan as they explore the city in search of Barbara. They try various doors (some of which slide open seamlessly, others only half-open; some of them with the relevant opening mechanism sound effect, others not!) until they find a starkly lit laboratory where they learn they've been exposed to radiation poisoning on the planet's surface. They also learn that the people who inhabited the city must have been intelligent, and Ian wonders what form their intelligence took. "What does it matter?" snaps the Doctor, obviously not thinking about the safety of the group, merely the excitement of scientific discovery. Again, the Doctor shows a critical lack of judgement.

This lab is also where Ian finds out that the Doctor lied about the TARDIS's fluid link. The Doctor did not, in fact, purposefully drain the mercury out of the fluid link; he just lied. There's nothing wrong with it at all, he admits. "You fool. You old fool!" scorns the somewhat ageist Ian. The Doctor then insists that they return to the Ship at once, and is unmoved by the idea of doing it without Ian and Barbara. Again, we're seeing a pretty selfish, ruthless and thoughtless Doctor here, one willing to abandon his guests to preserve his own safety. This is a far cry from the Doctor who claimed to have a duty of care to his friend Clara 50 years later...

The three of them leave the lab and then... WTF!? A look of terror on sensitive Susan's face, the camera zooms out to reveal a group of Daleks flooding in to surround them. Great camerawork from director Christopher Barry here. It's a well-crafted moment, but it's worth taking time here to consider just how downright startling it is.

It must have taken the viewers of 1963 a good while to process what they were seeing. The Daleks are literally like nothing else seen on British television before. Raymond Cusick's unusual, legless design makes them look like robots, but they're far from the humanoid type people were accustomed to seeing. The gruff, staccato voices are strange, alien and unnerving, like throat microphones. The speech is emotionless and flat but has an undercurrent of danger. And then when they move, it's unexpectedly graceful and elegant, gliding across the room, their heads turning one way, their weird arms constantly twitching, insect-like.

They demonstrate arms of a different definition when they shoot down an escaping Ian. Luckily he is merely paralysed, and the negative effect used to illustrate their gunfire is simple but suitably strange. The Daleks may be over-familiar icons of popular culture these days, but back then, on Saturday, December 28th, 1963, at 5.20pm, these things were terrifyingly weird.

The TARDIS crew is reunited in a cell, where Ian and Barbara waste little time catching up on each other's thoughts and feelings, Barbara largely ignoring Susan and the visibly ailing Doctor. She only has one thing on her mind, and that's Ian, the only familiar thing she has to grab onto. No wonder these two have such a strong bond, because they certainly cannot trust the Doctor! Barbara wonders if there are people inside the machines (beautifully second-guessing the viewer), which provokes a precocious laugh from Susan. It's no laughing matter, Susan. As you will find in time...

The scenes set in the Dalek control room are quite unusual by today's standards in that we get to see the creatures having conversations. These Daleks are quite verbose and chatty, conversing like humans would, but the modulated voices mean it can be tricky to tell what they're saying sometimes. The production team would later realise that less is more when it comes to Dalek chit-chat, but here they're still in full-blown debating mode. The turns of phrase Nation uses are yet to be refined and pared back too: "A few questions will reduce the mystery" indeed!

The Daleks' interrogation of the Doctor is chilling. They demand that he stay in the spotlight, sit on the floor and answer their questions, although they're also more than willing to info-dump on request. In the background, their control banks appear to show that they've been watching Doctor Who on telly as you can clearly see the title sequence playing back on their monitors!

William Hartnell does well in this scene, but in the episode as a whole he seems to be struggling, as if he really is suffering from radiation sickness. He certainly pretends to be ill very well! There are a few fluffed lines ("anti-radiation gloves"!) which can be excused by the fact the Doctor is supposed to be dying, but it is the Dalek operators who steal the show here, while the voices continue to hit the creepy button: the line where the Dalek refers to the Thals as "dis-gussstingly mutated" chills the blood, while their triumphant "Yes! At last we have a chance!" is laced with menace.

Back in the cell it must be decided which of our four heroes will go back to the TARDIS to get what they assume to be the Thals' anti-radiation drugs. Susan drops the bombshell that Ian cannot access the Ship alone because the TARDIS lock has 21 holes inside, and if he operates the wrong one, the entire inside of the lock will melt! Whaaaat?! Is that a sensible defence mechanism against burglary? It's tantamount to Semtexing your house if a cold caller comes knocking!

Nevertheless, it serves to put our teenage heroine in danger ready for the climax of the episode, and we see Susan running through a storm-lashed petrified forest, well... petrified! Nobody can accuse Carole Ann Ford of lacking energy and enthusiasm in her performance. We get a repeat of the appalling running-on-the-spot effect also used in The Firemaker which is nowhere near convincing, and we glimpse a strange-looking figure stalking her through the trees. Personally, I'd assume these "dis-gussstingly mutated" Thals are probably quite friendly chaps, seeing as they left a life-saving canister of anti-radiation drugs on the TARDIS doorstep, but Susan assumes the worst, as ever.

She reaches the safety of the Ship, scoops up the drugs, and then realises she's got to run all the way back to the city to get them to her grandfather in time. The doors swing open and a thunderclap of lightning floodlights the control room, shining like an alien abduction through the roundels. It's a beautiful lighting effect by Geoff Shaw, and gently suggests that the light from outside can shine in through the police box windows into this separate dimension.

Next week is called The Escape, so we can pretty much guess what's going to happen. Thanks for being so perfunctory, Terry!

First broadcast: December 28th, 1963

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: It's got to be the Daleks! Even today they remain unique and pioneering designs, and their execution, both vocally and physically, is uncanny.
The Bad: Carole Ann Ford pushes the 'blind hysterical running' act just a little too far, again.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★☆☆

NEXT TIME: The Escape...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: The Dead Planet (episode 1); The Escape (episode 3); The Ambush (episode 4); The Expedition (episode 5); 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