Resurrection of the Daleks

The Daleks are dead! Long live the new Daleks!

Davros

Synopsis

Davros is held captive on a prison ship, but his creations are coming to rescue him.

Review

I have a bit of a soft spot for Resurrection of the Daleks. It is amongst the first five stories I ever saw of the original run of Doctor Who, and whilst it is possibly the weakest of the 1980s Dalek stories, it is still a good story in its own right.

It does, however, struggle with perhaps too many plotlines and none of them get the attention that they deserve. By my reckoning, there are at least three: the Daleks’ plans to assassinate the Time Lord High Council, Davros’ plans to make a new race of Daleks who are loyal to him and the Daleks’ duplicates to infiltrate and destabilise the Earth. I think that any one of these could be the main premise of a story by themselves, but this takes the approach of almost throwing everything at the screen and seeing what sticks. Whilst that might be able to work normally in a typical four part serial, this is a slightly shorter story by ten minutes and it feels as though Eric Saward would have benefitted from that extra time to bring at least one of those plots to a satisfactory conclusion. One thing that doesn’t feel out of place is the grittier tone that has crept into every corner of the show since the start of this season. The Daleks are possibly one of the few Doctor Who adversaries who really feel as though the justify a darker and grittier tone, especially in a story where so much of the guest cast are indiscriminately killed off. It’s just not a tone that needs to be present week in, week out, but there is an element of this tone that really works well for Resurrection of the Daleks. There are truly horrific elements of Resurrection of the Daleks, like the gas the Daleks unleash on the soldiers on Davros’ prison ships and the Movellan virus at the end of the story.

The story continues to highlight the escalating tensions between the Daleks and their creator, Davros. Whilst the Daleks believe that they have outgrown Davros, they are compelled to rescue him again following them being on the backfoot after their defeat in the Dalek-Movellan War and the unleashing of the Movellan virus. There’s almost a sense of shame for the Daleks having to come back to their maker to save them. It’s a relationship that has seriously deteriorated, necessitating Davros to bring two of the Supreme’s Daleks to his side and there is something a little bit entertaining about watching Davros bring more and more people to his side, realising how fragile his position is. Physically, Davros is weak himself, believing that he cannot be moved from the spaceship he was kept prisoner on due to his life support failing. This is the first appearance of Terry Molloy as Davros, and he does not disappoint as the insane creator of the Davros, delighting as he uses his drugs to control others over to his cause. This story kicks off a Dalek civil war of Davros versus his creations which would run through the remaining two Dalek stories in this final decade of the original run of the show. Meanwhile, this is also the first appearance of Lytton, who would go on to team up with another of the Doctor’s iconic villains in Attack of the Cybermen, although I must say that there is so much going on here that he doesn’t get a chance to make much of an impression.

With much of the guest cast, apart from Lytton, being killed off the guest cast do not get much of a chance to make an impression or for the audience to become attached. One who does last most of the story is Rodney Bewes’ Stien, who gives the infamous line about the confusion in his mind as the Doctor tries to beat his Dalek programming.

Brave heart, Tegan. Doctor, I will miss you.

Tegan Jovanka

I appreciate that Tegan is not everybody’s cup of tea, but she has one of the most mature and thought-through departures of any of the companions. There is perhaps an argument that Tegan was never having fun, but she did leave at the end of Season 19 and return to the TARDIS at the end of Arc of Infinity and has stuck around since. Tegan does go through a lot in this story, being surrounded by Dalek duplicates of the bomb disposal squad. These scenes are almost ripe with tension, waiting for the Dalek duplicates to make their move.

It’s strange. I left Gallifrey for similar reasons. I’d grown tired of their lifestyle. It seems I must mend my ways.

The Fifth Doctor

Tegan’s departure comes as a revelation for the Doctor that he perhaps needs to take a look at himself and try to change. It is a revelation that could be seen to be speaking for Season 21 as a whole, which is notable for a grittier tone. It seems unfortunate, then that Saward doesn’t really heed a line that he wrote about the Doctor trying to change his behaviours, not only leading up to the end of the Fifth Doctor’s era, but into the Sixth Doctor’s. It almost feels as though Doctor Who thinks that it is too big to fail, when the reality is that the cracks are already showing.

Resurrection of the Daleks is an interesting story for the Fifth Doctor. This incarnation of the Doctor is perhaps one of the most flawed and capable of making mistakes, as can be seen in Earthshock and generally in his relationship with Adric. This story almost puts him in an unwinnable position and pushes him to the point where he sees his only option as killing Davros. Whilst the Doctor’s general antipathy towards guns tends to be more for show and he will use them if it is absolutely necessary, here there is a sense of uncertainty as to whether Davison’s all-too-nice incarnation will actually do it. Of course he doesn’t, but I think it is a good performance from Peter Davison in capturing the Doctor’s anguish and torment. I am slightly surprised that Big Finish haven’t done more with Davison and Davros, but maybe I missed something that meant that they haven’t met before and will not meet again. Turlough is a victim of the story’s reduced running time and it does not feel as though he does anything of note, but I can perhaps understand that Tegan is a priority in her departure story, so I can’t really quibble at it, given how many times a companion hasn’t been a focus in their last story!

Verdict: A story that feels as though it could have done with another ten minutes or losing a plot element, Resurrection of the Daleks is messy but enjoyable. 6/10

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan Jovanka), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Terry Molloy (Davros), Rodney Bewes (Stien), Maurice Colbourne (Lytton), Rula Lenska (Styles), Del Henney (Colonel Archer), Chloe Ashcroft (Professor Laird), Philip McGough (Sergeant Calder), Jim Findley (Mercer), Sneh Gupta (Osborn), Roger Davenport (Trooper), John Adam Baker (Crewmember), Linsey Turner (Crewmember), William Sleigh (Galloway), Brian Miller and Royston Mills (Dalek Voices), John Scott Martin, Cy Town, Tony Starr and Toby Byrne (Dalek Operators) & Les Grantham (Kiston).

Writer: Eric Saward

Director: Matthew Robinson

Producer: John Nathan-Turner

Composer: Malcolm Clarke

Parts: 2

Original Broadcast Dates: 8th – 15th February 1984

Behind the Scenes

• The story had the working titles of The Return, Return of the Daleks and The Resurrection.
• This story was split into two forty-five minute parts, something which would briefly come into place in Season 22, and then when the show returned in 2005 would become the norm.
• It has been suggested that the attempts of the Daleks to assassinate the Time Lord High Council was one of the first skirmishes in the Last Great Time War by Russell T Davies.
• In the mind analysis scene, only Leela and Kamelion do not feature. Leela was intended to feature, with a clip from The Face of Evil prepared by omitted by mistake. This sequence also features six companions who never faced the Daleks on screen, Dodo, Zoe, Liz, Romana I, Adric and Nyssa.
• This story has a body count of 76.
• This story was the first of a trilogy of stories that saw one of the main characters leave the show.
• This is the last Dalek story to feature the TARDIS console room until Bad Wolf & The Parting of the Ways.
• Peter Grimwade was originally intended to direct this story, however, when the serial was postponed, he took members of the production out to dinner, except for John Nathan-Turner, intending to take him out separately. Nathan-Turner felt slighted by this and refused to let Grimwade direct this when the story was a part of Season 21.
• The story is notable for confirming that Davros knows about the Time Lords, which was not confirmed in his previous appearances.
• The Dalek voices from this story until the end of the Classic series were provided by Royce Mills and Brian Miller.

Cast Notes

• Maurice Colbourne would go on to reprise his role as Lytton in Attack of the Cybermen.
• This is the first story to feature Terry Molloy as Davros, who would go on to reprise the role for the next two Davros stories, Resurrection of the Daleks and Remembrance of the Daleks, as well as for Big Finish.

Best Moment

I do really like the scene where the Doctor, Tegan and the bomb squad soldiers are searching for the Dalek mutant in the warehouse. It is full of tension, subverts expectations with the cat and then has its cake and eats it with the mutant strangling one of the soldiers.

Best Quote

If I were you, I’d be dead.

I lack your practice, Davros.

You are soft, like all Time Lords. You prefer to stand and watch. Action requires courage; something you lack.

Davros and the Fifth Doctor

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