Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

I, Dalek

I have probably watched this episode more than any other of the first series episodes. I am not sure whether this is because my girlfriend is a big fan of this episode (she likes the scene where Eccleston is topless) or because it is probably one of the best episodes of the first season. I would say that it is a bit of both, but more often that not it is because my girlfriend could watch this episode a million times and not get bored of it – well that one scene anyway.

Dalek is, in essence, a rather traditional base under siege storyline and is an episode that is truly perfect for the single episode format that this series is mainly in. There is not a moment wasted in the episode and this episode, on its own, proves that the single episode format works.

The pre-titles sequence is good and it is nice to see a Cyberman head there. Quite why a Revenge of the Cybermen head (wouldn’t an Invasion style Cyber Head be more likely?) found its way to Earth I don't know, but it was nice to see.

Of course the best thing about this episode was the Dalek and, boy, what a Dalek it was.

One thing that this episode also did that you would never expect what that is genuinely made you feel sorry for the Dalek and who can say they have ever felt for a Dalek? You actually felt sorry for it when it was being tortured. Even though it was a Dalek. Weird.

There were plenty of action scenes where the Dalek was being what a Dalek truly is: an unstoppable killing machine. The way the middle section of the Dalek and its eyestalk can spin round 360 degrees made the Dalek's seem more invincible than ever before. It was almost as if before you could surprise them by approaching them from behind, as it could not see you. Not this time.

I also loved the scene on the staircase when Rose, Adam and that women soldier are so glad that they have eluded the Dalek only to discover that it could elevate itself. It was very tense as the Dalek stopped at the bottom of the staircase for what seemed like an age before showing what it could do. Brilliant. A shame then really that Blue Peter had already showed the scene the week before the episode.

The first scenes with the Doctor meeting the Dalek are classic and, for once, the Doctor seems genuinely afraid of them and when he discovers that it cannot hurt him he is elated. Christopher Eccleston gives a really excellent performance in these scenes, and in the episode as whole, probably his finest as the Doctor at the time of first broadcast.

Billie Piper is also excellent in this episode, her scenes when she is trying to protect the Dalek are great and she makes you believe that she thinks it has changed and is not a killing machine like before. It also struck me as strange that the Dalek’s eyestalk was in the perfect position to be in direct line with Billie’s eyes for their scenes together.

Bruno Langley gave a good performance as Adam (good name by the way) but didn't strike me as that interesting a character and not potential companion material at all. You sort of hoped that he would not appear again but the next time trailer scotched that idea. I was pretty glad that he was got rid of by the end of the next episode.

Corey Johnson was ok as the Bill Gates-a-like Henry Van-Statten but could be a little over the top and melodramatic at times but still good.

Nicholas Briggs was superb as the voice of the Dalek and it was through his performance (and the writing obviously) that the Dalek had a character of its own and that you sometimes felt for it. Indeed my girlfriend got a bit misty-eyed near the end when the Dalek allowed itself to feel the sun for the first time.

To put it simply Dalek was an excellent episode and is definitely one of the best episodes of Doctor Who. Not just of the first season but of all time.

It’s that good.

 

 

Regeneration

During the past four decades of television broadcast, several Gallifreyans (and if memory serves *only* Gallifreyans) demonstrated the knack of this regeneration thing. Before one could say "contract renegotiation" or "leaving for personal reasons", characters changed *bamf* into entirely different persons (with the exception of the Mary Tamm regeneration, which went more like *bamf* *bamf* *bamf* *bamf* ow *bamf*).

Then, last Saturday, along came the new "Dalek" episode. It threw the proverbial monkey wrench--or at least a very flexible sink plunger--into the mix. Our TV viewing world rocked. Within twenty minutes or so of its appearance, the wee little pepperpot tasted new companion Rose's handprint and *whoomph* it regenerated into an entirely reborn dalek.

Color me stunned.

In an incident that wavers between "huge stonking plot device" and "what the frell was that", the episode's eponymous death machine was reborn.

The regenerated dalek took a look around, and then upgraded the decor while sucking down the Internet and the US west coast power grid at the same time. (At times, engineers need to remove their reason circuits during narrative Who leaps.) After killing a few hundred people, it tried to manfully reassure itself (and the Doctor, whom it forced to watch voyeuristically) that it still was the same Dalek it always was. But it wasn't. "I FED OFF THE D. N. A. OF ROSE TY LER." (This week's "Ho Yay" for those keeping score.) "EX TRAP O LATE ING THE BI-O-MASS OF A TIME TRAV EL LER RE GEN E RA TED ME."

Regenerated him?

Fantastic!

I don't know about you, but the name "Time Lord" always makes me giggle. I couldn't ever imagine saying "I am a Time Lord" with a straight face. It's just so...silly. But here, and not for the first time, we get a hint of what it means to be one of those guys when a single touch of its time traveling companion--not even of the old Gallifreyan himself--provides enough BI-O-MASS power to regenerate another creature.

Is Davies writing his way out of the 12 regeneration "limit"? Only (apologies) time will tell.

The Repositioning of the Daleks

"A ribald knockabout funfest as Doctor Who meets his oldest and silliest enemies, those pioneers of accessible building legislation, the Daleks are back. A race so stultifying stupid that they're defeated by a flight of stairs" © All Gak'ed up journos. All newspapers

If after this anyone, anywhere, prints anything about Daleks and their stair phobia then you should be well within your rights to be able to pluck their eyeballs out using a horse chestnut projectile device. In fact, I'm going to pass a law now. It's a little known fact that whilst Parliament's suspended you can get any old turgid legislation through without anyone batting an eyelid.

Now, where was I. Ah yes, Dalek. There is a reason why I'm digressing left, right and centre here. It's because it's almost perfect. Fantastic, as the Doctor would say. The one that we were all waiting for hasn't disappointed. From the moment the TARDIS lands in Van Statten's museum of alien artifacts and you witness the Doctor's reaction to a Cyber helmet you just know that you're in for something very, very special. By the way, what was the toothy alien worm that the camera alighted on for a few seconds. Is it important?

And in Van Statten we have a Bond-esque bad guy. Recently graduated, with honours, from the Tony Almedia school of bad facial hair, did everyone else notice that his chopper (© Carry on up Westlands, 1984), as it was coming into land, had the callsign Bad Wolf 1? The entire tone of the piece has benefited enormously from having a "proper" playwright writing the thing. Rob Shearman's work for Big Finish has been superb, and if they are only remembered for introducing the world of Doctor Who to Rob then that'll be a job well done (although they have done much, much more). Eccleston's performance is wonderfully strong, he's really coming into his own here. Let's hope that the gurning Doctor has gone forever. There's one exchange later on where the Doctor's actually spitting with rage at the Dalek.

The initial Doctor/Dalek scene is particularly satisfying. And throughout the episode the direction and action when there's any long exposition scenes involving the Dalek they concentrate on the eyepiece of the Dalek, very much like HAL in 2001. Kind of "Talk the eyepiece cos the sucker don't wanna know." This leads to there being much more meaningful conversations happening with the Dalek and really starts to hammer home the fact that there is a living, albeit homicidally violent, thing inside there. And the, well emotion, for want of a better word, that they manage to wring out of the damn thing is testament to the improved direction and Nick Briggs' Dalek voice. Plus the fact that like a sock puppet, everytime the Dalek appears to express remorse and self pity it hangs it's eyestalk in shame. The Dalek itself, once it regenerates itself is splendid. Real heavy metal. Gives you the impression that this is capable of carrying out some serious damage. From the use of the sucker to suffocate, the independent rotating of sections of its body and the sound of the servos as the Dalek moves - it's all wonderful stuff.

The strip scene is a little strange, a little ill fitting with the rest of the piece and too similar to Vengeance on Varos to be entirely healthy. Although it's probably the first time the Doctor's appeared bear chested since William Hartnell's trip into the intergalactic brothel, on Vorshoc Beta,  in 1964.

The music is much improved and very unobtrusive, unlike previous episodes. I actually didn't notice it for most of the story. It often breaks into Farscape-style chanting but even this seems to fit well with the overall tone.

I just loved the fact that this episode also rips off The Matrix, after it in turn ripped off The Deadly Assassin. The bullets melting as they approached the Dalek forcefield was an absolute joy as was the next scene where it doles out death to all in the corridor was nice and violent. Turn and shoot and turn and shoot, like Partridge re-enacting Michael's army stories. Especially the shot from the top of the Dalek where you can see it rotating. And finally - well it you discount everything from 1988 onwards as most amebic life forms who work in the Fourth Estate seem to - you get to see a Dalek glide gracefully up a flight of stairs. Who'd have thought that all it needed was the aid of some fluorescent blue lights normally to be found beneath the chassis of many a Chava's P reg Vauxhall Nova. There's also evidence that it's using some of its genius level intelligence as it slaughters as many soldiers as possible by electrocuting them after starting the fire sprinklers (although is that possible, they're all wearing non-conductive shoes!).

The reveal at the end when we see the Dalek creature was also nicely done. One or two ET moments as the frail creature lifts is tentacles and points out of the casing. Who'd have thought that all it actually wanted was a nice tan. If it's not too careful it'll turn into Kilroy-Silk.

The Daleks are back. More violent and intelligent than they've been for decades. File this under marvelous, majestic, miraculous. Something beginning with "M"...

Renaissance of the Metaltrons

Let me get this admission straight out of the way - Dalek is the best episode of Doctor Who that I have ever seen. Period. And yes, that includes the episodes I made up in my head when I was ten. You can stop reading this now if you like. I'm about to gush like I've never gushed before. It's pathetic, really.

I think I can safely say that if I ever meet anybody who claims to "hate" this episode (beyond a good natured debate about the usual nitpickery) then I won't be able to share any oxygen with them. It's up there with 'Jaws' and 'The Empire Strikes Back' as far as I am concerned. Either you've got a modicum of taste or you haven't. Show me a self-respecting Who fan (unless that's a contradiction in terms) who doesn't embrace this episode and I'll show you a closet Stargate fan.

And if that makes me sound like a tunnel-visioned dalek - tough!

From a Whovian's (god, how I hate that word) perspective it's like having an a syringe of unbridled joy injected directly into your eyeballs. We've got references to Davros, ominous sounding Time Wars involving Gallifrey, and a whacking great close-up of a cyber-bloody-man! And not any old cyberman; oh no, they go for the 'classic-look' instead. This isn't so much a kiss to the past as a full-on snog. With tongues.

In short, they had me at the opening titles.

But let's cut to the chase: the dalek kicked arse. Having the plunger finally mean something was great, the telescopic eye-peice was sweet, and the force-field shielding was long overdue, But when I saw its mid-section swivel I actually dropped to my knees. And the very best upgrade of all? Debunking the myth that the only dalek you can talk to is Davros. Nick Briggs deserves a bloody BAFTA.

This is the mythical version of 'adult Who' some of us have been bleating on about for years. While the traditionalists get a classic 'base under seige' story with plenty of thrills, spills and eccentric wit (including the brilliant "hair-dryer" gag), and while the nostalgic rubberneckers are rewarded with a tautly directed thriller, we, the fans, can finally revel in a dream come true.

And as for the kids - well, they get the scariest creature they'll probably ever see on television. The Doctor.

The confrontation between the dalek and the Doctor was a powerful as anything I've ever seen on prime time television. The Doctor's anger, guilt, and madness was palpable, and as the lines between aggressor and victim blurred I could feel the moral high ground shift beneath my feet. The Doctor didn't even think twice about executing his enemy - with glee, no less! - and the sarcastic and mocking tone he takes with his neutered nemesis made for electric, and extremely uncomfortable viewing. I don't know about you lot, but I was bloody terrified.

And yes, I almost shed a tear. Not for the dalek - for the series as a whole. We've come a long way, baby.

Unfortunately, Dalek isn't perfect. Murray Gold's score still manages to engage and irritate in equal measures, and I would have liked to have seen a smidgen of urgency from the dalek during its escape attempt (if Rose wasn't so fond of chips, it would have been screwed). Finally, its demise is a little too ambiguous for my taste (leading as it does to some unnecessary interpretations about sympathetic daleks a la Hugh Borg. Which is just silly). But forget all that and simply revel in the fact that the best television show in the world just got that little bit better.

This was Doctor Who with knobs on. Detachable, death-dealing knobs, no less.

Sympathy for the Dalek (Part II)

How can I put this as plainly as I can?

Magnificent. Simply magnificent.

I hated ‘Rose’. ‘End of the World’ and ‘The Unquiet Dead’ - whilst not classics - showed definite signs of improvement; a building momentum. And even after the waste of ninety minutes that was ‘Aliens of London/World War III’, you sensed that this new series was going to strike gold pretty soon; new Dalek gold, if you like.

And, boy, did it do just that.

Right from the moment the TARDIS touches down in what, at first sight, seems to be the old Blackpool exhibition, ‘Dalek’ is forty-five minutes of Who that you simply never want to end. It’s one of those oh-so rare occasions when the combination of performance, script and direction marries together to produce a magnificent whole. I’ve watched it twice and I’m still breathless that the show could ever be that good again. And even if the rest of the series doesn’t live up to the - admittedly high - standards this episode sets, then it was still worth all the years of hope and disappointment that sixteen years brought us; because here, in this episode, is some serious payback time.

Where do I begin, because a dozen reviews simply wouldn’t provide enough copy to capture how punch-the-air proud I feel right now to be a Who fan? How about starting with that beautiful Cyberman helmet, or that first reveal of the caged Dalek (for shiver down the spine moments, that’s about a ‘10’). Or how, for the first time in the programme’s entire history, we have a Dalek that is a living, breathing character; and not just a monotonous stooge for tired old press hacks to dismiss as childish indulgence. There are many, many things to praise ‘Dalek’ for; but let’s get our priorities right and thank Robert Shearman first for simply the best script we could have hoped for. Clever, scary - even witty when it needs to be (the Doctor’s gag about the gun that’s really a hairdryer works on so many levels) - ‘Dalek’ showcases a writer who absolutely understands what makes great Doctor Who. And the only disappointment is the knowledge he’s not on board for series two.

Okay, we’ve covered the script - what about performance? Let’s leave Eccleston and Piper for later, shall we (they deserve at least a paragraph each, after all) and concentrate on the guest cast. Bruno Langley’s okay - and will make an interesting, albeit temporary, addition to the TARDIS crew. In an episode absolutely teeming with great bits, it’s nice to see he’s given some character development by essentially taking on Rose’s role from the first episode. Likewise, Anna-Louise Plowman (as the career ladder-climbing Goddard) and Nigel Whitmey (whose memorable ‘death by sucker’ deserves added plaudits) are both memorable turns. But man-of-the-match must go to Corey Johnson, whose Henry van Statten is a marvellous blend of Gordon Gekko ruthlessness and Bill Gates omnipotence. In an episode which largely highlights how humans - and even the Doctor - can be worse than the Daleks, his descent from callous industrialist to cowardly primate is an undisputed highlight.

And as for Eccleston? Well, following five episodes where he lurched, often alarmingly, from compelling to contemptuous, here is at last ample evidence of what a magnificent actor - and Doctor - he is. And while he still walks a dangerous tightrope between intensity and arch frippery, in ‘Dalek’ he barely puts a foot wrong. Highlights? Well, it would be almost churlish to pick out only one, but contenders have to be his one-on-one with the Dalek in its cell (never before have the Doctor and his arch-nemesis, as sole survivors of their respective races, been so inextricably linked) or his tirade against van Statten about how Mankind was meant to explore their galaxy, not lock it up and bury it beneath the sand. And do I really need to say that this is all achieved without even a hint of pandering to his northern roots?

Billie Piper? Well, she just goes from strength to strength. And surely has become the template by which all modern Who companions will be judged. Even when the show has badly faltered this series, Piper has never been less than a revelation. And in ‘Dalek’ she rewrites the rule book on how Doctor Who companions are supposed to behave and react to the wonders and horrors that confront them. Never thought a human could have empathy for a Dalek? Think again.

But what ties this all together - as it did some twenty-odd years ago for ‘The Caves of Androzani - is some simply magnificent direction. The production team really should check what Joe Ahearne has got in his diary for the next ten months - and cancel it. ‘Dalek’ shows how a good script can become a great story in the hands of someone with the vision and style to pull it off. Thrilling action scenes - you’ll even forgive that shameless Matrix rip-off with the bullets - marvellous visuals (the Dalek’s POV, the first reveal in the cage, that beautiful death scene; I could go on…) and an equal propensity for adventure and emotion, Ahearne is by far the best director on this new show yet. And I’ve got a gut feeling I’ll be saying the same thing come the end of June.

And the star of the show? Well, no coincidence the episode’s called ‘Dalek’, is it? Remember when Terry Nation created Davros to give the Daleks a somewhat less laborious nature to their universal threat? Well, if he’d had Rob Shearman around he may not have bothered, because thanks to him this Dalek is as cunning, ingenious and downright believable as any Dalek you could ever have possibly hoped for. For the fans there’s the wonderful debunking of oh-so many myths - the stairs, the pepper pot, the sucker (oh boy, the sucker) - that have littered these creatures’ history this past forty years. But best of all is the sight of that poor, pathetic creature enjoying its first rays of sunshine in millennia. And that whole moving, ethereal scene as the Doctor, Rose and the Dalek mutant reach some sort of understanding will literally leave you with a tear in the eye.

There’s so much more, but you’ve got to call it a day sometime (okay, as you insist, how about the Doctor aiming his gun at the Dalek through Rose? A more arresting sight in Doctor Who it’s currently hard to imagine). Some will no doubt say it rips off Alien and The Silence of the Lambs to a frequently shameless degree (for me, Star Trek’s ‘I, Borg’ bears strongest comparison). But at its best, Doctor Who often took liberties with its source material; and made something truly wonderful instead.

I can’t even begin to tire of saying it: Magnificent. Simply magnificent.

Sympathy for the Dalek

This could well be the best of the series so far.  At no point during the episode did you feel like you had to make allowances for moments designed y'know for kids.  No farting or burping here.  This was a story sleekly designed to frighten the bejesus out of everyone and was all the better for it.  Arguably, for the first time, the series held its back story on its sleeve throwing references for long term viewers and fans all over the place, to Davros and Cybermen, without needing to name any names.  But new mythology was created for new fans, with the adversaries in the Time War spelt out for the first time and The Doctor's part in it.

Ironically the scariest moment for me were the scenes in which this story was told as The Doctor confronted the Dalek.  He just ranted at it, face red with anger, veins popping out all over.  We've seen Eccleston do comedy in the series, but this was the first time we saw his out and out anger and I just sat clutching the armrests of my chair.  I jumped as we saw The Doctor's face bending around the Dalek's line of sight.   Hartnell smirked, McCoy underplayed, Eccleston boiled over.     Billie Piper was at it again too bringing even more dimensions to her work.  The moment when we were led to believe the Dalek had killed Rose, even though having seen spoilery clips of later episodes we know she'll still be around, was heart breaking because the histrionics and screams which could have greeted her end are replaced with a quiet seeya to The Doctor.

But it wouldn't have worked if Nick Briggs, in his voice work as the Dalek, hadn't been there giving as good as he got.  I've been following Briggs' Daleks for years in the Big Finish audio dramas but I haven't witnessed anything like the performance he gave tonight.  In the diary in this month's Doctor Who magazine, he talked about how he was asked to loosen his intonation slightly and he comments that he'd been wanting to do that for years (perhaps constrained before by expectation).  It really showed.  This Dalek had an emotional range which made it even creepier -- as it tricked Rose into caring for it to the extent that she would touch and reinvigorate -- with that quiet whisper.  Terrifying.

Much like The Unquiet Dead the episode benefited from having a small number of humans.  It's tricky for the main guest cast to make an impression in circumstances such as this, but Corey Johnson's Henry van Statten had just the right level of smarm, Anna-Louise Plowman (who was previously in the Stargate tv series) oozed charisma and Bruno Langley had to just the right amount of charm without you wanting to throttle him.  I like that he'll be travelling to another adventure -- he's a good counterpoint to the now slightly darker Doctor.  Also want to mention Jana Carpenter who I think was the guard on the stairs who stood her ground against the Dalek -- along with Beccy Armory who played Raffalo the plumber in the second episode its an example of someone really making you care in only a few moments of screen time.

But again, to demonstrate what an intricate jigsaw this episode was, none of their work might have been as good had Rob Shearman not produced another gem.  I'd thought it would be a more traditional work than Big Finish's Chimes At Midnight and particularly Scherzo.  So it was with all the action and chase sequences.  But there was still something else going on.  You have an episode with a Dalek.  What to do with it.  I mean you could just drop it in a city and letting it go on a killing spree, and that might be exciting and scary (and expensive) but what would be the point we'd need to do something new.  And as has been the case with this new series and Shearman's past work it was bound to subvert expectations.

They've invaded Earth, the universe and time on countless occasions.  We've seen their beginning and now and then their ultimate end.  What next?  Make us care for them.  Actually make them the wounded and The Doctor the aggressor, wanting their ultimate destruction.  No crouching on the floor with two wires debating whether they should be destroyed.  They just needed to die at all costs, the hero standing almost over one with a giant gun hoping to finish the job of wiping out their race for the final time. And we didn't want him to. Actually the Daleks have been given feelings before, way back in the Troughton era in The Evil of the Daleks when they were infected with the human factor leading to them inploding in on themselves in a civil war.  Then it was a cool way of ending the adventure in some excitement.  We never heard of that faction again (give or take a comic strip). 

The programme makers knew that if you gave them feelings it took away the one thing which made them different.  That they just wanted to kill everything else. Watching tonight I was reminded of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode I, Borg in which that series' version of the unstoppable killing machine was drawn away from its kind, spent time with humans and started to question its purpose.  In that series it had the ultimate effect of weakening the foe for years afterward, because we knew that under their organo-metal exterior they still had the capacity to care.  And even when it returned to its own kind there was that little wink at the end that it had taken the experience with it.  They became too human.

Doctor Who didn't make that mistake.  The Dalek might have absorbed some of Rose's DNA and was beginning to have new ideas, thoughts and feelings but it didn't know what to do with them.  It could have gone either way and made it even better at its job.  Instead it just wanted to die.  And there it went, imploding in on itself.  But we know its just that Dalek and no matter what The Doctor says it was the last of them, in our heart of hearts we know they'll back, and judging by all the flying, plungering and electricuting, deadlier and scarier than they've ever been.

Some will question whether its right that our hero would go on the offensive in that way -- all of the jellybabies and telling Leela to put away her knife out the window.  But we've seen this kind of thing already this series from this incarnation with anti-plastic, withholding moisturizer, gas explosions and hunking great missiles.  What people probably won't like is how direct it is, in a moment when the enemy is already effectively defeated.  Which is an idea entirely inkeeping with Shearman's canon -- the deconstruction of what we know -- in previous cases through the restructuring of story, this time the audiences reaction to a Doctor who becomes an anti-hero bent on revenge.

The jigsaw continues with Joe Aherne's direction.  His vampire series Ultraviolet was one of the best looking and written genre series of the past twenty years so I was delighted to hear he was directing some Who.  In television series like this, it's less easy to see the individual contributions of the director, editor, photographer and producer.  But for me this show seemed to flow much better than the rest.  It had a fairly linear story, certainly, but the pacing seemed perfect, and it didn't throw in a camera angle to be flashy.  Everything seemed in service of the story.  I'd include in this Murray Gold's score which demonstrated what he is capable of, pulling back when he needed to in a very Howard Shore way.

But, finally what of the realisation of the Dalek?  Considering the horror stories in the past of Spider-Daleks and humanoids I was amazed and overjoyed at actually how respectful this design is.  There is something of the Battle-Dalek  from their last tv appearance about it, all gleaming metal.  The rationalising of the sink plunger as part of its killing armoury worked very well, as did it's new approach to the electronic keypad.  The CG effects really demonstrated how far tv has come, especially as the exterminated not only went negative but also transparant, shocks flying through skeleton.

After the disappointment of the film version of The HitchHiker's Guide To The Galaxy, I feel blessed that my actual favourite franchise is being rendered so perfecting in the next century.  It took that familiar jigsaw, all of the icons of the series, and cut its own pieces out to fit.  Our perception of The Doctor and those Daleks will never be the same again, and that's an extraordinary thing.