Resurrection of the Daleks Part Two

The one where Tegan leaves...

It's great that the Fifth Doctor's first encounter with the Daleks on screen sees them rush into the room from off-camera and pin him to the wall, screaming "Exterminate!" over and over like crazed lunatics. That's the Daleks of children's nightmares! The strange thing is that the Daleks want him dead instantly, because he is their sworn enemy, but in truth their boss, the Supreme Dalek, wants him alive so that he can be duplicated (we'll come on to that). As Lytton says: "They'll kill anybody, even if they need them." Did these bloodthirsty Daleks not get the Supreme Dalek's memo?

Meanwhile, devious Davros is recruiting like there's no tomorrow, having first converted Kiston to his side, who then converts an unnamed chemist, followed by some of Lytton's troops and eventually, two entire Daleks. They willingly flip their lids up to allow Kiston to inject them with Davros's mysterious toxin, and I love the disgusted expression on Leslie Grantham's face as he peers inside the Daleks' innards.

Part 2 (or the original part 3) is where Resurrection of the Daleks begins to unravel. So far I've just about managed to follow what's going on and tried to explain away as many of the plot inconsistencies as I can, but as Eric Saward continues to pack more and more plot in, everything becomes less and less logical. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the Supreme Dalek has a plan to infiltrate Gallifrey by duplicating the Doctor and his companions and having them assassinate the entire High Council of the Time Lords. This plan is as well as the plan to rescue Davros to get him to cook up an antidote to the Movellan virus. Somehow it feels like the Supreme Dalek is trying to spin too many plates at once.

Something else that doesn't make sense is how the Daleks already have duplicates of Tegan and Turlough stashed away. While Turlough has been "roaming freely" around the Dalek ship, he's never been captured, and Tegan's spent most of her time in bed in 1984. At which point did the Daleks manage to capture and process duplicates of the companions? These two duplicates are proudly shown off by the Daleks, and then completely forgotten about for the rest of the story. It feels like Saward is panicking now, randomly throwing ideas into the story without very much forethought or reason.

The Daleks attempt to duplicate the Doctor's memories too, and we see him regressing back through his lives, remembering the friends he had along the way (except for poor Leela!). Interestingly, when he remembers back as far as the First Doctor he screams out in agony, as if it hurts to remember any earlier than that (and of course, we now know why: his existence as the Timeless Child is blocked off to him).

Despite my initial misgivings at Rodney Bewes' casting, I must confess I reckon he puts in a creditable performance as Stien, a man torn between his true, compassionate self, and the version of him conditioned by the Daleks. It seems he's not a duplicate of Stien at all, but the original Stien brainwashed. But the conditioning is wearing off, and throughout the episode we see Stien weaken and worsen as he tries to battle the confusion in his mind. In the end, of course, he redeems himself, selflessly activating the prison ship's self-destruct system and blowing up everything in sight. It's a great moment, with some nifty special effects.

Along the way, there's an awful lot of death. And I mean a lot. Uncredited extras die, Daleks die, Mercer dies, Stien dies, the bomb disposal squad and their duplicates die, Lytton's troops die, the Supreme Dalek dies, Styles dies. Styles was an odd character anyway, a doctor that looked like she was off to the gym, played by a high-profile guest star who never actually meets the Doctor. Her entire narrative is heading towards oblivion as she spends most of her screen time trying to activate the self-destruct system, but ends up getting killed before she can do it. Pointless really.

Another character who feels pointless is Commander Lytton. Although played adequately by Maurice Colbourne, Lytton's place in the story seems unnecessary, and another who barely interacts with the Doctor at all. I don't think they exchange a single word in this story, and the Doctor has very little to do with him (the most contact they have is right at the end when Lytton tries to shoot the Doctor, but that's pretty much it).

Some further observations:

• Chloe Ashcroft is awful. She's another example of unusual casting, but her cosy image as a pre-school TV presenter backfires on director Matthew Robinson because, when it comes down to it, the woman cannot act. There's one moment where Ashcroft tries to engender a sense of rising urgency ("This isn't going to deceive anyone for very long, not unless there's someone here to help it along with a little bluff. Now you're wasting time. Go! Go! And good luck!") but she delivers the dialogue in such a rush that it's an unconvincing, garbled mess. Again, Professor Laird is a character without a reason, she's not given anything to do of any importance, and when her death comes, it's not soon enough. Actually, maybe the most important thing Laird does is to die...
• Why are the Daleks storing the Movellan virus in a disused warehouse in London, on Earth in 1984? Stien suggests it's because they're "safer" there (ie, not near any Daleks), but the convoluted reasoning seems overcooked. The Daleks planted the canisters there so that they could be unearthed by builders, who then called in a bomb disposal squad, who were then duplicated by the Daleks so that the canisters could be guarded by Dalek agents. My head hurts (maybe Saward's did too).
• I rather like the sequence where Tegan is chased by the armed policemen, although it does paint her as something of a pathetic damsel in distress, clacking along Shad Thames in high heels and short skirt, chased by corrupt figures of authority in a remote location (which sounds distastefully misogynistic and also disturbingly prescient). Tegan spies a possible saviour in an innocent mudlarker on the beach, but when he is cold-bloodedly shot dead by the policemen, Tegan is rightfully horrified. That's the first of two unnecessary executions Tegan witnesses which may provide fuel for her ultimate decision...
• Why does everybody in Resurrection of the Daleks die so melodramatically, screaming from the very bottom of their lungs to their very last breath? Some of the deaths, particularly of the supporting players, are comically OTT. Everybody is in SO MUCH PAIN!

One thing we do get in part 2 is the Doctor's showdown with Davros, who he's decided he must kill in order to prevent future bloodshed. This is about as out of character for the Fifth Doctor as it's possible to get, which means either the Doctor's being pushed into situations he's not used to, or Eric Saward just does not understand. To me, it's a serious misstep, because the Doctor should never come to this conclusion, and to see him pointing a gun at Davros's head, even if he doesn't end up firing it, makes me uneasy. After that immortal final line of Warriors of the Deep ("There should have been another way"), you'd have thought this Doctor would be desperately searching for humane alternatives.

Nevertheless, the confrontation between Peter Davison and Terry Molloy is well written and acted, and the Doctor comes out of it looking rather naive and easily led. Davros tries to convince the Doctor that he intends to re-engineer the Daleks to appreciate (but not utilise for themselves) the benefits of compassion and understanding. The fact the Doctor cannot bring himself to shoot Davros is a welcome outcome, but the fact he was pushed to that point feels unpleasant. I suppose this is a world where unpleasant things happen, and the Doctor can't carry on turning a blind eye to it, or trying to solve everything with kid gloves. "The universe is at war, Doctor," says Davros. "Name one planet whose history is not littered with atrocities and ambitions of empire. It is a universal way of life." The Doctor croaks that he does not accept that way of life, to which Davros ripostes: "Then you deny what is real." This is a nasty universe, and the Doctor needs to 'man up'. At least, that's what Saward is trying to tell us.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Dalek's having something of a crisis as the plates he's been trying to spin begin to crash down. After going to all that trouble of employing Lytton and his men to help the Daleks board the prison ship, reawaken Davros and persuade him to help find an antidote for the Movellan virus which is decimating their race, the Supreme Dalek orders that Davros be executed, as he is "unreliable, he cannot be trusted". When Lytton fails to kill Davros, the Supreme Dalek instructs him to destroy the two Daleks that have been converted to Davros, but having been assigned this task, it's barely any time until the Supreme Dalek orders that Lytton and his men are wiped out too. I'm struggling to keep up with the Supreme Dalek (maybe Saward did too).

I could go on... It seems Saward has completely lost the plot, and the story's like a runaway train that he can't get back under control. It descends into a bloodbath, perhaps the only way Saward can think of to get himself out of the corner he's backed into. It's a clever idea to have civil war break out between the Daleks (something that will be picked up on again in future Dalek stories), but there are far too many questions left unanswered, such as how the Supreme Dalek has managed to duplicate humans in strategic positions around the planet, and where the originals are (I presume they're heads of state and military organisations, so pretty important people to go missing).

What about the clean-up at the warehouse, which is now littered with the corpses of humans and Dalek debris (and technology)? How much of Davros is actually Dalek, if his life support tech is affected by the Movellan virus (complete with silly shaving foam eruptions)?

Stop. I've got to stop picking, otherwise I'll fall through one of Saward's plot holes into oblivion. Let's concentrate on that sobering final scene, in which Tegan rather suddenly reveals her decision to leave. "I'm not coming with you," she says, stopping the Doctor in his tracks. She's seen far too many innocent people die for her to carry on justifying the lifestyle she has aboard the TARDIS. She says it's stopped being fun, but it's hard to think when it started being fun for her? Maybe in that curious pause between Seasons 19 and 20 when she lost her job and decided that life with the Doctor was worth it after all? But that life always was one full of death, destruction and danger. Maybe the concentration of loss in this adventure has focussed her thoughts. Witnessing the slaughter of Professor Laird and the mudlarker brought home to Tegan that this should not be normal, and she must remove herself from such a lifestyle, to save herself.

It's an understated farewell, Tegan stretching out her hand to shake the Doctor's, but standing as far away from him as possible (no hugs, please). She says she'll miss the Doctor and Turlough, but cannot wait to get out of there. As with most companions, she doesn't think to take anything with her from the TARDIS, she just goes. But she does look back - "Brave heart, Tegan. Doctor, I will miss you" - suggesting the possibility of second thoughts. But it's too late, the Doctor's gone, the enormity of the life he leads brought painfully home. "It seems I must mend my ways," he concludes. Maybe, but that's not going to happen is it? Not with another two years of Eric Saward at the helm and a more heavy-handed incarnation just around the corner...

Resurrection of the Daleks has an awful lot of potential, but it also has an awful lot of plot and an awful lot of death. It's a grim, depressing vision of Doctor Who which has an oddly numbing effect, tempered by Tegan's departure at the end. After three years as the Doctor's most outspoken and relatable of companions, Janet Fielding's departure from the show will be felt. By this point, she's almost part of the furniture, but it's only the first in a string of changes which will end with Season 21 looking very different to how it began. Different companions, different Doctor, different titles, different direction...

And it all started here.

First broadcast: February 15th, 1984

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The showdown between the Doctor and Davros.
The Bad: The random introduction of the Dalek duplicates, and planned invasion of Gallifrey, is a plot innovation too far.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ (story average: 8 out of 10)

NEXT TIME: Planet of Fire...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part One

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.

Resurrection of the Daleks is available on BBC DVD as part of the Revisitations 2 box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Revisitations-Carnival-Monsters-Resurrection/dp/B004FV4R9A/