Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

"You're looking morbid."

First of all, I'd like to apologise for the fact that this review is a week late. I've just got a new temporary job over the holiday period and I've been so busy I simply haven't had time. Thankfully, I got this weekend off, so you get two reviews from me this evening. Lucky you.

And with that said...

This is Colin Baker's best episode(s)? Oh dear - hardly a golden moment in television, is it? And I do SO enjoy him in the Big Finish audios. Ah well. On with the show and all that.

I did a bit of research (IE: I read it on some website) and this went out at 5:20 in the afternoon. Which is somewhat surprising when you consider how dark and violent it is - people are killed left right and center, there's an alcoholic, unrequited love (with a right old bag, thus ruining what would have been a much more sympathetic role), jokes about incest and no sympathetic characters at all (Takis seems to torture people just for fun). But enough of that - what's wrong with this?

For a start, the Doctor hardly does anything. Although that's not so much a bad thing as it is a relief, given that Colin Baker isn't the nicest Doctor - he makes some rather nasty jabs at Peri in the first episode. There's numberous detours, dead ends and one-scene subplots, an annoying DJ who, when he drops that irritating accent, is actually kinda likeable, an awful cliffhanger at the end of episode one and far too much reliance on cheap jokes and sudden shocks.

I really didn't like this. I kept waiting for something good to happen, but it never really did. Quite frankly, if faced with the choice of watching this again or viewing the teaser for the Christmas Invasion looped for an hour and a half, I'd take the Invasion anyday. Which is funny, since that teaser probably cost about as much as the whole of Revelation...

And before I forget... Someone, somewhere, wrote that Nicola Bryant is our revenge on the Yank's Dick Van Dike - something I think we can all agree on, hmm?

Hang the DJ

This review is a little late because I've been quite ill this week. Now, this wouldn't usually stop me, but when you are recovering from food poisoning the last thing you want to be faced with is the sixth Doctor's coat of many colours. It's been known to induce nausea at the best of times, and if you're feeling a little peaky then it can bring on projectile vomiting and, in extremely rare cases, death.

I agree wholeheartedly with Sean: Revelation of the Daleks is Colin's finest hour as the Doctor - bar none. The really sad addendum to that statement is this: Revelation is merely "OK". In any other era of the show it would have been remembered as an above-average romp, but for the sixth Doctor it is a shinning beacon in a sea of misjudged tripe.

There are several reasons why Revelation manages to rise above the usual mid-80s rut, and here they are in all their glory:

1) Eric Saward has been to some 'Write Like Robert' classes. This story boasts more double-acts than an Opportunity Knocks semi-final! Then there's the gallows humour, the pervy villain, the body horror, the sadistic violence: all the ingredients of a classic Holmes story, filtered through the gung-ho pessimism of Eric Saward. And it works.

2) Part one is extremely coat-lite. The Doctor's blue cloak looks fantastic; then again, a hessian sack would have looked great compared to the test-card that Colin was normally saddled with. The moment where the Doctor gets out of the cold and throws his blue coat off-screen should have been the cliffhanger in my opinion (it scared the crap out of me!).

3) Graeme Harper - one of the few 'Who' directors who actually gave a shit. While his low-angle shots of Colin Baker grabbing onto his crotch is probably a step too far, Graeme always manages to find an interesting angle or technique to bring the story to life.

4) It's packed full of tasty death scenes. In fact, almost everybody gets killed in this story. Saward appears to be falling back on his tried-and-trusted 'Earthshock' template (which he managed to reheat in such an underwhelming manner for 'Resurrection' the previous year). Simply take a reoccurring villain, sprinkle liberally with a concoction of bizarre and larger-than-life characters - and then kill them all. Mercilessly. The more disturbing the death the better.

5) The Daleks. Given that they are hardly in this story the Daleks certainly make a good impression when they finally turn up. I like their new whiter-than-white livery (the BBC has spent some money on them!) and the civil war angle is both intriguing and unexpected. The glass Dalek is an interesting (and chilling) addition to the pantheon of 'Doctor Who' nastiness, and barring a terrible mis-step (see below) they come out of the story reeking of evil.

6) The Supporting Cast. Almost every member of the cast gives an above-average performance. William Gaunt is particularly impressive as the philosophical hit-man, Orcini (The Equaliser meets Shakespeare), but Eleanor Bron and Clive Swift are also incredibly memorable as the human manifestations of greed and evil. Again, you are left suspecting that this has more to do with Graeme Harper than anything else.

However, there are plenty of reasons to relegate Revelation to the dustbin of history:

1) It features the ugliest woman on the planet. A woman so difficult to look at, she could give Pauline Quirke a run for her money. At one point we are supposed to feel sympathy for Taramasalata but she's so damn pig-ugly you just want to slap her.

2) The DJ. Yet another excuse for JNT to indulge in some tabloid-friendly stunt casting. Now don't get me wrong, I love Alexi Sayle - his TV show 'Stuff' was groundbreaking in its use of postmodern comedy (especially the episode that begins with a BBC apology and ten minutes of what appears to be an episode of Juliet Bravo) - but he's just a pain in the arse, here.

While it's a nice idea to subvert his annoying Americanisms and over-the-top buffoonery with the reality that he is just a normal guy, it doesn't cut the mustard because we still have to endure endless scenes of the DJ chewing on the scenery, as he plays whooshy (it must be the future!) music.  It's hardly surprising that Peri wants to meet him - his accent is almost as unconvincing as hers!

This all leads to the cracking concept of destroying a Dalek with pure "rock n roll". Read it and weep.

3) Davros. I don't normally mind Davros per se. Back in the day he was the only Dalek you could really talk to, and Terry Molloy always manages to inject just the right amount of venom and madness into his performances. But why does he spend most of the story as a swivelling head in a tank? I wouldn't mind quite so much but it turns out that the head in the tanks is just a decoy! Does anyone here actually buy this? Why not make a decoy of him in his bath chair? I just don't get it. Oh and Davros flies for a bit. Not that anyone will ever remember.

4) One of the the worst cliffhangers in the entire history of the show. And if you watch the syndicated version of this story you get three of the worst cliffhangers ever seen in the history of the show. That has be some kind of record, surely? Everything about this scene is wrong - the execution, its relevance to the plot, and the "clever" reveal that it was all a  fake. I mean, where does all the blood come from - and why? Furthermore, why bother to lure the Doctor to Necros with this monument when he was coming to the planet for a completely unrelated reason anyway? However, it is very telling that Davros constructs a statue of the weakest Doctor (so far). He probably didn't have the nerve to commission a likeness of Tom Baker...

And there you have it - a mixed bag of invention and irritation. Just think - if all of Colin Baker's stories had displayed this level of wit, imagination and level of commitment then all the other flaws might have been ignored for a little while longer. They may even have made it to Blackpool...

The Bumper Book of Blah Blah Blah has this to say about 'Revelation of the Daleks': David Gooderson was busy.

Evelyn Waugh of the Daleks

Surprise, surprise: the Doctor’s not been crushed by his own head after all (though Colin Baker’s rampant egotism is threatening to bury the show by this point, admittedly). While Jobel - the latest in a very long line of creeps (be it masked or, in his case, wigged) trying to get into Peri’s pants - is preparing another interment, up pops the Doctor with nary a scratch. Although that ‘fake’ blood’s a bit of a mystery - I mean, if the statue’s made of polystyrene then where does the blood (fake or otherwise) come from?

Apparently reinvigorated following his brush with precognition, this Doctor’s got a mystery to solve: who made the statue and just where did they find all that material to make his fat head? Not to mention finding out who thought casting Jenny Tomasin was a bright idea (surely not Harper; I detect JNT’s hand here…). Col’ does at least try to make up for her lacklustre chemistry by rifling through the mental thesaurus that must have proved handy in his Crosswits days (exactly how many synonyms for ‘burial’ was that again?). And anyone notice how the whole suspended-animation-entertainment thing has just the whiff of Tom Cruise-starrer Vanilla Sky about it (itself a remake of a far superior Spanish original; just as Saward‘s script here is a car-crash between The Loved One and Soylent Green)?

Let’s hear it for Clive Swift, shall we? One of the most overlooked gems of this story (and his constant putdowns to Tasambeker - as with Grigory and Natasha’s sniping in episode one - prove rather complimentary to the leads’ own fraught relationship). Amidst the rather gratuitous series of stabbings and dismemberments this episode offers, it’s only Jobel’s death at the hands of his former admirer that has the requisite pathos required (every other death scene is perhaps a little too full-on for what is nominally a children’s show). And the scenes beforehand showing Davros whispering Iago-like in Tasambeker’s ear reminded me a lot of Palpatine and Anakin in Revenge of the Sith (but then, as an Episode III apologist, I probably would be).

Meanwhile Peri’s getting to know the DJ (who quickly spots Nicola Bryant’s twang for being as fake as a six dollar bill). I don’t really know what to make of Alexei Sayle’s performance in this story, to be honest (stunt casting, to be sure; but I’m not sure if he’s just taking the piss or whether his manic meanderings is a way of saying that - even in death - there’s no escape from that certain type of motor mouth). And he does only just beat Vogel for most ridiculous extermination in this episode.

I can remember thinking when I first saw this episode twenty years ago that - at twenty minutes in - it was time for most of the cast to get culled (pretty much every story that year had already inured me to the fact that rarely did secondary characters in Season 22 make it to the final reel). So when everyone starts getting stabbed, exterminated and blown up left, right and centre then it hardly comes as a surprise (and besides, Grigory and Natasha’s presence in this story is largely pointless, so it’s fitting they die pointlessly). The only thing that still surprises me is just how gratuitously this gets done, seeing as this went out at about 5.20 on a Saturday tea-time (Kara’s stabbing, for one, is particularly visceral). And am I the only one who recalls a similar scene in Robocop when Davros has his hand blown off (a film strongly condemned only a couple of years later for its levels of graphic violence; yet still made explicitly for an adult audience)?

And like pretty much all the post-Genesis Dalek stories (at least until ‘Remembrance’) the metal meanies’ presence here is almost superfluous (and as if to reinforce this change in attitude to the show’s most notorious creations, here the Doctor shows no compunction towards blowing up a laboratory of incubating Daleks; whereas in ‘Genesis’ it was a subject of great moral debate). And the cloned Davros thing is a bit of a cop-put (while being symptomatic of the show’s then preponderance to recycle its own recent past; copying the Borad’s plan from ‘Timelash’ to a tee).

But William Gaunt is very good, Terry Molloy gives easily the best Davros since Wisher (shame David Gooderson was ‘busy’, ahem) and there’s a pace and vigour that the show wouldn’t experience until the next Dalek story three and a half years later. But again a Saward script reeks of clumsy moralising (how can Takis and Lilt - vicious, torturing thugs for much of the duration - suddenly become nice guys who just want to enjoy their jobs again?) and the failure to make the Doctor a moral figure in an increasingly immoral universe. Perhaps Lord Michael of Grade had a point when he said the show had ‘lost its way’ after all..?

Still, time for a holiday after all that - how does eighteen months grab you, Peri eh?

(‘The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts’ has this to say about the 1985 hiatus: the real reason for the show’s ‘suspension’ was Philip Segal’s plans to make a transatlantic version of Captain Zep)

Being Keith Chegwin

Revelation of the Daleks - Episode 2

Stoke City 7 Arsenal 0. Yes, that sounds as about as unrealistic as a half decent outing for the much maligned sixth incarnation of the Doctor but here it is never the less. And, as Cilla Black would have it, surprise surprise, the Doctor wasn't actually flattened under the polystyrene tribute act to him in the Garden of Fond Memories. Now there's a thought, given the current raft of lookie-likies taking to the stage as tribute acts it has to be only a matter of time before there's a professional sixth Doctor turn on the circuit. Imagine the shear depth and breadth of the possibilities; shouty and loud as well as loud and shouty.

This episodes sticks in my mind for three of the most ludicrous deaths in the history of the programme. We shall tackle each one in turn. For the time-being, Jobel pops up to console a barely distraught Peri, who still thinks the Doctor's been squashed flat into a multicoloured disk of blubber and fabric. But alas, it's not quite time to put the viewing public out of their collected misery, as the hero of the minute pops up with only a little monkey's blood damage on the threads. Who could tell? One more hue's not going to make anyone cry. Hue. Cry. Geddit?

Whilst Lilt's busy torturing people with his totally tropical taste, Takis is tracking the Presidential ship. The President's called Vargos. How many alien names end in 'rgos? There must be some sort of Icelandic vibe going on with alien names. Gos, meaning son, of Var. Or some such nonsense. Orcini and Bostock have arrived on Necros and have had one confused conversation about bastic bullets and then muller a Dalek. Bastic or plastic? Perhaps only RTD knows for sure.

With the checklist of plug'n'play Doctor Who plot devices in hand Saward separates the Doctor and Peri to advance the story. Peri gets the guided tour from Jobel to the DJ, who reveals that he doesn't half get on the Great Healer's tits, whilst the Doctor runs into a couple of pepper-pots, voiced by Zippy and George from Rainbow. I'm afraid I just can't listen to Roy Skelton's Dalek vocalisation without thinking of that zip faced little booger. Just think, right now, in some parallel universe, there's a company called Big Finish producing original episodes of Rainbow with Nick Briggs providing the voices for Zippy and George. Now that's something to ponder...

Bad Death #1 Starts a few scenes ago, when Davros reveals that he's sent some muscle to protect Kara. Some muscle that's not susceptible to bribes. I'd imagine that a mob-styled Dalek protection racket could turn many a pretty penny in bribes and other pecuniary inducements. And so to the death, if the sight of Kara and Vogel entwined arms wasn't enough to make you wretch then Vogel's death will tip you over the edge. Not so much the arcing of his body to the Dalek death ray, but the reaction just before he crumples to the ground as he looks, for one last time, into the eyes of his lord and master. Still, to be fair, it's a textbook fall to the ground.

To off set the bad deaths we have the on-going soap opera between Jobel and Tasambeker which ends in a double tragedy that Shakespeare would be proud of. That's Wayne Shakespeare, class 4A. Davros has offered Tasambeker the chance of immortality via the gift of becoming a Dalek, which is kind of like saying that you can become famous but you've got to become Keith Chegwin. Actually, is a little known fact that there's a portal leading directly into Keith Chegwin, circa 1978, at the height of Cheggers Plays Pop. The favourite destination is that Tuesday afternoon he and Maggie Philbin... Where were we? Ah yes, Davros offering up the chance of becoming a Dalek as if it were the star prize on Bullseye. But she's got to kill Jobel. All fairly pedestrian until Jobel's Irish jig flops off onto the floor at the end of his death scene. The wig would later go onto win the best supporting hair piece in that year's DWM poll.

Bad Death #2 The DJ, thank the lord, snuffs it next. After some quite frankly ridiculous stupidity about highly direction, ultrasonic beam of rock and roll. Wonder what would do the most damage? The entire Bee Gees back catalogue compressed into a nano-byte stream and fired directly into the Dalek's iPod might just do the trick. With the result that the Dalek doesn't know whether to strut his funky stuff down at the local Discotheque or just start slowly gibbering.

And so to the grand finale. Some touching scenes between Orcini and Bostock attacking Davros then eventually dying in each others arms. The Doctor pops up again, he really has had very little to do here, and spouts some tripe at Davros who counters with some of his own brand offal about the truth of his scheme would create consumer resistance. When did Davros turn into an advertising executive? His scheme, to waste nothing - turning only people of status and ambition into Daleks whilst the lesser ones are turned into concentrated protein - has apparently received great acclaim. I assume he's done the usual circuit of afternoon talk shows, been reunited with his wayward son on at least three of them, battled with white trailer trash on another 6 and appeared in photo-shoot spreads in Hello and OK!. It wasn't until I saw the CGI enhanced version of this story that I realized what that Dalek was up to in the catacombs. Yes, he was levitating the same as Davros.

Special effects - Helping Daleks up stairs since 1985.

And that's sort of it. All ends on a bit of loose end, which brings me to...

Bad Death #3 The programme itself basically keeled over at this point. Fatally wounded. Probably should have never come back 18 months later. Could have had a decent rest and been resurrected properly in the mid 90's instead of limping painfully onwards to an inevitable end. I suppose, that like poor old George Best, it's a minor miracle it hung on for as long as it did.

The Bumper Book of Made-up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about part two of Revelation of the Daleks: controversial historian David Irving doesn't believe that there were any more incarnations of the Doctor after his sixth body and doesn't recognize anything existed after season 22.

Revelation, not Revolution

Okay, let’s get the obvious out of the way first - ‘Revelation of the Daleks’ is by far the best Colin Baker story; which admittedly is rather like saying the TV Movie was McGann’s finest hour (and a bit). But just because what came before (and more notably, after) was largely such dross doesn’t mean that this story has attained any spurious accolades by default. In fact, the sheer style, verve and tenacity of these two forty-five minutes is all the more remarkable given it’s book-ended not just by ‘Timelash’, but the whole of Season 23.

Though don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s all perfect. For like every story preceding it this year, it represents all the faults of the production team’s then creative attitude in microcosm. The Doctor and Peri spend half the story getting to the action; it’s filled with so-called ‘adult’ violence that attempts to ape ‘Caves’ and just looks gratuitous in comparison and - last but not least - secondary characters are brutally killed off once they’ve served their purpose (or, in the case of ‘grave-robbers’ Natasha and Grigory, their lack of). And the irony of it all is that, all these faults aside, ‘Revelation’ represents arguably the ethos of Eric Saward’s concept of Doctor Who: adult, film-noirish and very, very gritty.

And of course it also has the one director of this time who was willing (not to mention able) of taking the show’s then rather pedestrian attitude to camerawork by the neck and produce something very interesting instead. Had Graeme Harper directed more than the two near-masterpieces that he produced of this era, then perhaps the show’s mid-eighties decline would have been arrested (though it’s hard to see how anyone - even Stanley Kubrick - could have made anything out of the likes of ‘Twin Dilemma’ or ‘Timelash’) And while Harper’s direction here doesn’t quite match some of the arresting visuals of his debut outing, there’s still enough on offer to show how he was truly the last of the auteur directors the original show had (making his return behind the camera for four of next year’s offerings all the more salivating).

And the other thing about ‘Revelation’ that bears pointing out is how it’s really a series of little vignettes making up a larger whole. Pretty much any of the several plot elements work independently of one another; filled by individual groups of characters whose fates converge (and, as so often in this era, do so largely independent of the Doctor’s involvement). As already pointed out, even the Doctor and his companion seem to be having their own adventure for the duration of this opening episode (while the converging plot elements elsewhere - again, as in ‘Caves’ - wind their way to individual conclusion).

But at least keeping the Doctor and Peri isolated means that for once this year the two aren’t bitching away like a pair of stressed-out hams (though Peri’s reaction to the Doctor’s ‘How do I look?’ should of course have been ‘Bloody Awful, as always…’ On which point, is the fact that you hardly see that costume (at least in this episode) perhaps a contributory factor towards the story’s success?). But Baker - though clearly more settled and allowed to play the part the way he wants here than in his early ‘regeneration-troubled’ stories - is still insisting on repeating certain words with OTT emphasis. On the plus side, that unscripted snow as he and Peri trudge their way through Necros does add immeasurably to the location shooting’s ambience. And I can’t help but think of that oh-so marvellous story of how no less than Lawrence Olivier himself was apparently offered the part of the doomed mutant that attacks the two of them with an onslaught of make-up and bad teeth (and I for one would pay real money to have heard Olivier’s uncensored answer).

 

Given the allegedly strong relationship that the two had forged the previous year while making ‘Caves’, it’s no surprise to find Robert Holmes’ fingerprints all over Saward’s script. Not least in the several sparring double-acts this episode alone throws up (and to Saward’s credit, none of these pairings - be it the unrequited infatuation of Tasambeker for her boss Jobel, or the obsequious fawning of Vogel for his mistress Kara - would look out of place in a Holmes script). Elsewhere, this is like a Saward Greatest Hits: sniping, ancillary characters carrying real guns; underlings torturing prisoners more for pleasure than information and (perhaps most indicative of the whole Holmes/‘Caves’ influence) a Shakespearian-style monologue to camera from a character seemingly outside of the story itself (and the DJ - playing music to the clinically dead - is perhaps the most striking element of Saward’s script).

It’s not all good, of course. Twenty years on, Jenny Tomasin’s Tasambeker still has you reaching for the nearest cushion; so cringe-worthily amateur is her delivery of virtually every line. And it’s annoying that - like ‘Destiny’ and ‘Resurrection’ before it - ‘Revelation’s title seems to pander to some kind of worthy, biblical subtext that simply doesn’t make sense (what exactly is ‘revealed’ about the Daleks, anyway?) Also, Davros clearly hasn’t learnt from mistakes of the past, as his rather elaborate (not to mention pointless) plan to lure the Doctor to Necros with Stengos’ death has all the ‘just kill him, already’ stigma of a James Bond villain.

But in its defence ‘Revelation’ has one of the show’s wittiest, most Douglas-Adams-style scenes outside of Season 17; as Kara and Vogel invite Grand Knight Orcini and his squire to accept one, last great opportunity for chivalrous blood-lust (with William Gaunt excelling in a perfectly tongue-in-cheek depiction of ‘oldie-worldy’ gallantry). And there’s much more besides: Roger Limb’s score evokes ‘Caves’ with its mix of militaristic drum-beats and synth strings, while Grigory and Natasha’s constant bickering is a rather sly nod to the then leads’ own somewhat volatile relationship. And we can’t leave without mentioning Harper’s signature piece of direction this episode: the glass Dalek reveal of Stengos’ disembodied head; with the rising screech of his conditioned voice providing this era with one of its most disturbing images.

And at least when Colin Baker’s face - as it always seemed to for this Doctor’s stories - comes crash-zooming towards us for the cliff-hanger, it’s in a rather more memorable way than usual…

(‘The Bumper Book -f Made-Up Doctor Who Facts’ has this to say about ‘Revelation of the Daleks’ Part One: Terry Molloy got into character as the disembodied Davros by sitting in a top-loading washing machine during rehearsals).

When Singing Detectives Attack

Revelation of the Daleks - Episode 1

Terry Nation himself could have written this one. After all, his planets were usually the product of a fairly literal naming convention. The desert planet of Aridius. The jungle planet of Mechanus, home to the Mechanoids. It's an unbelievable mystery how we ended up with the Dalek home world being called Skaro and not Pepperpottica. So to Necros, the planet of perpetual instatement. And the Doctor, who's perpetually loud statement, that is his coat of many colours, is temporarily filtered out by the donning of a large, blue cloak. You see because, as Chelsea fans would have it, blue is the colour, mourning is the game.

Professor Arthur Stengos has died. Apparently. And this has come as a great shock to the Doctor. How exactly did he find out of Stengos' death? Read the small ads in next Thursday's edition of The Temporal Times? So much of this story just seems to be there to offer up continuity holes, so large that Big Finish could drive an articulated lorry through them, park it up, and use the cavernous interior of the trailer to perform and record audio plays to fill the gap. Just think how many possibilities exist in this short introduction alone:

• Doctor's checkered past with Stengos - how, in their youth, they used to goose naive undergraduates from the University of Maxi Factor during Spring Break.
• Where the Doctor learned to make Nut Roast Rolls and, more to the point, why he's taken to making them given that the TARDIS has some sort of Zanusi-style food machine.
• Why Necros should have such a ludicrous colour as the official colour of mourning.
• What is a voltrox and a speelsnape and why hasn't David Attenborough produced a 13 part series on them yet?
• etc. etc. etc.

We're then introduced to a phalanx of grotesques. There's Mr "You Can't See The Join" Jobel, Tasambeker - played here by a young Nora Batty, Takis - of whom I'm sure someone referred to him as Teletakis "E'oh" and his inconsequential sidekick Lilt who appears to swing rapidly between disinterested and psychotically active for little discernible reason. Early plans to add to the ranks of attendants with characters called Tizer, Vimto and Um Bongo fell foul of the product placement rules governing television. So the production crew had to settle for plugging Lilt and receiving a year's supply of Lilt. Yes, as much Lilt as they could drink - in a year. If I mention it enough times during this piece I too might be in line for some totally tropical Lilt. Lilt!

The recipient of Peri's discarded nut roast roll staggers from out of a near by Singing Detective convention, passing through a Messy Porridge Eating Competition, and proceeds to grapple with the Doctor, including going for a roll down a nearby hillside. There's even an excellent dribble from the diseased one as he lands up on top of the Doctor. Just before croaking he reveals that he's a product of the Great Healer's experimentation. And a failed experiment by the looks of him. Although it's an excellent makeup job - psoriasis turned up to 11.

And to my main problem with this story. The DJ. I'm not too sure which angle I've got more problems with; the stunt casting of the DJ or the concept of the (or any, for that matter) DJ. Alex Sayle I love, I was a massive fan of his Stuff series but he's just misplaced here. And annoying. And, inexplicably, shot in soft focus for most of the time. As for the character, I can't stand him. Probably for the same reason that I despise all local, particularly commercial local, radio disk jockeys. Mindless and superfluous pap'n'prattle merchants who you know would kill their own mother's poodle to get on in the business and make it to the big leagues of national radio. You just know they're all ready to just stick the knife in - and usually whilst introducing the travel news from Chepstow Ring Road and the latest track from Tony Christie. I hate them with a passion unsurpassed in nature. The national ones aren't much better, but then these are supposed to be the créme de la créme. Which doesn't say much for the rest of the gene pool. And why, exactly, are they polluting the airwaves around the terminally dozing with this inane distributor of chatter? Although, I suppose we have something similar on present day Earth, it's called ITV1.

This Great Healer is revealed to be Davros who, for the moment at least, is merely a head in a jar. Again, not too sure that we're expected to fully understand what's happening here. But hey, temporally speaking we've just sat through Timelash so let's see what pans out... He seems to be offering immortality left, right and centre, just like the Ambassador with his tray full of Ferrero Rocher at an embassy reception. In close up the director appears to have found the side of Davros that most resembles Zelda from Terrahawks. Meanwhile, on an industrial planet modeled on Teesside we have Kara and Vogel. He's the sycophantic Smithers to her Burns. He's even got the ambiguous sexual orientation of Smithers as her reveals himself to be a master of the double entry.

Tranquil Repose - an everyday story of burying folk - has another problem to content with, if Davros/Daleks, conspiratorial galactic business leaders and a chubby Timelord weren't enough to content with there are now body-snatchers in the building and have found their way down to the Pat Coombes and stumble across human brains in jars and, more horrifyingly, Stengos in a Dalek. It's another superb makeup job. But it makes no sense, why not mutate him before being put into a Perspex casing? And why a Perspex Dalek casing. See. Analyze it for a microsecond and the concept it falls apart.

Meanwhile, back at the industrial plant, Orcini arrives with his Batman, Bostock, being played by Baldrick. If he smells of rotting flesh then he'd not be out of place at a scifi convention full of socially impotent men, with B.O., in tight lycra costumes. They later reveal that legend has it that Orcini only has to breath on a victim and he dies. Surely this is more Bostock's shtick? Orcini also talks about if he smells treachery, which again must be difficult over Bostock's own brand of fragrance. Orcini's obviously well past his prime and has come out of retirement for one last big score. Kind of a white Shaft. Kara reveals herself to be the evil genius behind Pot Noodles as she talks about something that taste's horrible although has solved famine. Whatever it is, one thing is for certain, it's given Vogel the Pot Noodle Horn.

Full funerary makeup in Tranquil Repose appears to comprise of getting tarted up in cast offs from a Ziggy Stardust stage show, complete with Human League style makeup. Tasambeker's been summoned down to see the Great Healer, now played by Compo with one of Nora's wrinkled stockings pulled over his face, who is attempting to woo her. What on Earth do they think to this head in a jar giving out the orders? I mean, they're used to cadavers but surely people should be asking questions about all this?

And then this chap called the Doctor re-appears to remind the audience who he is. How he didn't actually see that Dalek I'll never know. And I know that Peri hasn't seen them but surely the Doctor discussed them with her during all those long dark lonely nights the pair of them have spent in the TARDIS? They're fairly distinctive and ridiculous at the same time. And then we have what might be the 'Revelation' of the title as the Doctor discovers a statue to him in the Garden of Fond Memories. The Garden of Fond Memories might be more suitable for the fourth incarnation of the Timelord but certainly not the sixth. Was the Garden of Painful and Repressed Abuse Episodes full? Quite possibly. And then we get a fairly horrific cliffhanger. Horrific, that is, for all the wrong reasons. People were left with the sight of that face bearing down upon them for a whole 7 days...

The Bumper Book of Made-up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about part one of Revelation of the Daleks: this is the only Doctor Who story to contain the good bacteria, LC Immunitas.