The Daleks

My foremost feeling when beginning this next adventure was exhaustion. I hadn't slept well the night before and I'd had a great deal of difficulty obtaining this story. The excitement was dulled but still present. The Daleks begins immediately right where An Unearthly Child left off. With the radiation danger light flashing. There is a brief pause and then we leap into the story proper. Part one, The Dead Planet. The Doctor begins to take command of the party this time around and all is better off for it. Susan is established as quite cheerful and a bit naive and she continues to grow in leaps and bounds. The world outside, our heroes discover, is as the title would suggest, dead. Trees are brittle and crumble under presure. There is no animal life and the Doctor and Susan run tests. Barbera seems tired and eager to go home. Ian is acting "rough and ready" and is able to deduce that they aren't on Earth. They exchange a few quips about how silly they thnk the "old man" is as Susan finds a flower. Ian crushes accidentily it when they find the series first bug-eyed monster that also is made of metal. Unfortunately it's been killed by whatever killed the forrest. The Doctor guesses a neutron bomb wrecked the world. They discover a deserted looking city that is obviously designed by a sentient race. The Doctor wants to investigate but Ian forces him to return to the ship and on the trip back, Susan is tapped on the shoulder by some unseen man who sends her into a panic. Back at the ship Ian and the Doctor argue and Susan insists she's not (as the old cliche goes) imagining things. And since this is television, she isn't. The Doctor offers his first sign of caring for his companions by offering them food which he cooks using a highly unusual machine that the story labors on, but is still interesting. Someone raps on the outside of the TARDIS and no one is visible on the scanner. Ian tries to force the Doctor to leave, which he pretends to do. But he endearingly and sneakilly breaks the fluid link in order to force the crew to visit the city. Outside they find a metal box containing glass vials that Susan leaves in the TARDIS. The story intensifies as the characters reach the city and begin to feel ill from the radiation that they are still ignorant of. They foolishly split up and (naturally) Barbera is lost in the winding corridors. She is trapped by metal doors that seal her in as the world gets it's first glimpse of a dalek. No one in the world would have delibrately missed the next episode.

Unlike the caveman's shadow, the Dalek teaser does not disappoint in this second part, The Survivors. The director leaves us in suspense as the characters realize that the atmosphere is polluted with radiation. Ian demands they find Barbera and return to the ship saying "the Doctor needs to accept his responsibilities." This characteristic of the Doctor's indicates just how young he really is. The Doctor is yet again forced to agree and in a superb shot, the daleks are revealed. They are a good bit shorter then one would expect and their voices are broken in to a syllable-emphasis robotic style that makes them hard to understand and tell apart. They wave their plunger like hands threateningly and use their weapons to temporarily paralyze Ian, a function not used in later stories. The prisoners are all placed together and they understand they are dying. The very original looking daleks are monitoring the Doctor from their less then original control room. They question the Doctor in a good interogation scene where we learn the name of these machines and the name of the people who live on the surface via anti-radiation drugs. Thals. The Doctor requests that one of his party return to get the glass vials when he learns the daleks are trapped inside their city due to the fact that they rely on their mechanical bodies for radiation protection. There was a war 500 years previous that they say mutated the thals and forced the daleks into their housings. We learn the TARDIS has a complex locking system and that Ian cannot walk. Since Barbera and the Doctor are not well, Susan is forced by the Daleks to go and get the medicine herself. The daleks decide to allow the prisoners to die and use the drug for themselves in order to destroy the thals once and for all. Susan is given a briliant sequence where she races through the dangerous forrest in order to get the drugs. The episode closes with the poor cliffhanger of her facing the TARDIS doorway before her return. However it still runs briliantly into part three, The Escape.

One of the "mutations" finds Susan and there is a remarkable tension between her and the thal who tries to help her by showing her how to use the drugs. When she returns, the daleks conveniently let their prisoners survive to learn more information which they get from Susan by monitoring the cell. It is clear the daleks want the thals dead for no obvious reason and they force the Doctor's granddaughter to right a letter proposing peace in order to lure the race into an ambush. Meanwhile the thals discover the daleks and a shining moment in the history of the whoniverse is shown. It is the first time we see totally useless and completely stupid looking alien costumes. Yes indeed the thals are horrible fashion victims and that removes great chunks of believeability monumental performances. The prisoners get their act together and destroy the security camera. Then they deduce their adversaries are powered by static electricity run through the floor. They execute a clever plan and capture their guard. Removing the shell's occupant they discover the daleks are the mutants. Ian climbs into the machine and pretends to be the dalek. The closing scene allows us are only look at the dalek's mutated body.

Part four (the ambush) begins with the enthralling narrative of the Doctor's plan in motion. A great escape sequence with effects that rival those of today is displayed. The thals come to meet with the daleks and Ian makes his best attempt to warn them while the Doctor takes the women to regroup with the thals. In a suspense filled scene, the daleks murder the thals who can't escape. The Doctor reads through the history of the planet known as Skaro and Ian argues with the leader of the thals that they must battle the daleks. The thals are hopeless pacifists because of the war but out of necessity for the story must eventually overcome this. The Doctor thinks they should leave immediately but in a truly horrifying moment, they realize the daleks have the fluid link.

Without this additional boost the story would have ended there and would have worked well although many things are not resolved. In part five (the expedition) there is a great deal of argueing as Ian tries to convince the thals to abandon pacifism in order to defeat the daleks. This is where the engrossing story grows thin. We wander through arguements upon arguements as the daleks realize that the anti radiation drug is deadly to their mutated forms. As they peice that puzzle together, the thals decide to attack from behind through a dangerous swamp while the Doctor distracts the daleks from the front. The swamp is a wonderfully alien enviroment filled with gorgeous aliens and bubbling, smoking lakes. Their voyage is absolutely enchanting. A splended ending involves a thal being sucked into a whirlpool. This part is decidedly weaker the the first four but returns to full steam by it's end.

The group finds a trail of pipes leading through a system of caves. That group wanders through the caves as the doctor sabotauges the dalek power system. Unfortunately he and Susan are caught and a large stone blocks the cave's entrance so that Ian, Barbera and thals can't go back. Surely Terry Nation could have come up with something more clever then that. There is another too long sequence as they press on and try to cross a pit in their path. The last thal falls in and is about to pull Ian with him as another chapter closes. Episode six, The Ordeal, IS an ordeal.

The climactic seventh part begins with the honorable thal sacrificing himself to save Ian because Ian is a series regular. The Doctor learns that the daleks plan to unleash all the radiation from their nuclear reactors across the surface so that the planet will be uninnhabitable by all but daleks. In a desperate attempt to stop them, the Doctor informs them that he would be willing to sacrifice his ship in order to save the thals. This is important for two reasons. The first is that it is the dalek's first time realizing that they deserve to galactic conquerors. The second is that it is the first time the Doctor has ever tried to become involved with a people group he has visited in time. Compassion has finally seeped into his rebelious heart. Ian and company break in and just moments before the daleks unleash unlimited radiation on their world, the thals attack. Their is a great battle and the commanding dalek has a perfect death scene. The Doctor decides to move on and not stay as always. He is asked where he comes from but brushes neatly over the question and leaves them, encourageing them to search for truth. Barbera has a brief farewell scene with a thal she has become attatched to and we see the TARDIS dematerialize. A neat resolution. Suddenly the ship begins to malfunction and the Daleks comes to an end.

This serial is a spectacular improvement on An Unearthly Child and the characters are perfectly solid. The villans are timeless and the thals had horrible costumes. All in all a great story.

Four out of five TARDIS.