Doctor Who – Resurrection of the Daleks
by Eric Saward
Story # 134, 1984
Peter Davison as The Doctor
Janet Fielding as Tegan
Mark Strickson as Turlough
There are eras during the long run of the original Doctor Who that could seemingly do no wrong, and then there were others that could do no right. The John Nathan-Turner era fell into the later category. It should hardly come as a surprise that I don’t care much for this story.
This is the third story in the “Davros Saga†which began with the exceptional Genesis of the Daleks, devolved into the pathetic Destiny of the Daleks and now finds itself even more muddled and confused.
The “Plotâ€
It is now 90 years after the events of Destiny of the Daleks and the Daleks have lost the war with the Movellans. The Movellans developed a virus which proved fatal to Daleks, wiping out the Dalek armies and scattering the remains across the universe. Their forces depleted, the Daleks require armies of human(oid) soldiers who appear to be cloned and/or genetically engineered duplicates of humans they’ve collected on their raids.
For some inadequately explained reason, they’ve established a time corridor to 1984 Earth, the London Docklands, where they’ve stored several cannisters of the Movellan virus.
The TARDIS gets caught in the time corridor and narrowly escapes, but lands nearby.
Meanwhile, in the future, the Dalek ship attacks a prison space station, which is holding Davros, who was captured at the end of Destiny of the Daleks. Davros has been in a state of suspended animation on the station since then. Hopelessly outnumbered the stationis quickly overrun. The few survivors spend their time in repeated failed attempts to destroy Davros before the Daleks can get him.
The Daleks want Davros to find a cure to the virus, and they also want him to think they are serving him. Meanwhile Davros is plotting to gain control over the Daleks, or, failing that, destroying them and building a new race of Daleks, obedient only to him.
Meanwhile, with all these subplots bumbling along, the Doctor wanders rather aimlessly though the story. At one point, he does take it upon himself to finally go kill Davros, but, he fails.
Davros seemingly kills himself when he releases the virus and discovers that he’s also susceptible to the Movellan virus. (Imagine that, he is the last of the Kaleds, the race the Daleks were made from.) In the end, Tegan can’t stand the carnage and leaves the Doctor.
Analysis
So what’s wrong with this story? Well, if it isn’t obvious from that synopsis, the first and foremost problem is the poor story. Eric Saward’s script has far too many subplots, few of them make any sense, and after a while, it becomes ridiculous at how many people have the opportunity to blow Davros up and save the day, but fail to accomplish it.
This episode is near the end of Davison’s era, and at this point they have been setting the stage for his regeneration. Nyssa recently left, Turlough will leave soon and Tegan leaves at the end of this story. Despite that, she spends almost all of her time lying down on a cot doing nothing. It’s hardly a memorable departure for a companion. Turlough gets far more screen time and all he does is skulk around the sets.
Even if you like Daleks, this just isn’t a good story.
It’s frequently pointed out that Resurrection has a higher body count than The Terminator, and I don’t doubt that’s true. This story has a huge cast and all of them are killed, only the Doctor, his companions and three Dalek agents survive. While I suppose this was some attempt to make the Daleks seem menacing again, it actually just makes everyone appear incompetent.
I often lay blame on Doctor Who’s demise on John Nathan-Turner’s poor handling of the series, equal blame probably falls on Saward’s shoulders as he was the script editor during Davison and Colin Baker’s time on the show, and the scripts show a considerable and inexorable decline during that era.
Back in day there were lots of fans who defended JNT and his team and, at the time, I was willing to concede that outside pressures may have been a greater influence, but these DW DVDs, with all their extras, interviews and production documentaries really show how screwed up this production team really was. It’s a testament to the enduring love of Doctor Who that it survived 8 seasons under JNT’s helm.
I haven’t decided if I’ll break down and watch Recombobulation… er… retread… er… rerun… um… reflux… no, no, no, that’s not it… ah yes, Revelation of the Daleks (the fourth and hopefully final Davros story) tomorrow or I’ll wait and buy Inferno in a week and see a classic Doctor Who instead.
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I can’t really disagree with any of your points here.
The thing I really didn’t like was the whole “clone” thing. It’s too subtle for the Daleks (maybe not for Davros) and surely far beyond their technology. After all, if they are capable of fully animated duplicates, why do they need to wheel their genetically mutated selves around in those awkward, dustin-shaped shells?
However, it was interesting in the light of the Time War to see this attempted strike back against the High Council. And although I couldn’t see the point of it plot-wise, I did like the whole Docklands thing with the sinister policemen at the start. A good opening, pity it wasn’t the start of another story.
I can’t really disagree with any of your points here.
The thing I really didn’t like was the whole “clone” thing. It’s too subtle for the Daleks (maybe not for Davros) and surely far beyond their technology. After all, if they are capable of fully animated duplicates, why do they need to wheel their genetically mutated selves around in those awkward, dustin-shaped shells?
However, it was interesting in the light of the Time War to see this attempted strike back against the High Council. And although I couldn’t see the point of it plot-wise, I did like the whole Docklands thing with the sinister policemen at the start. A good opening, pity it wasn’t the start of another story.
The Daleks in general have always not held up well under a looking glass.
If they are so darned intelligent, why haven’t they redesigned themselves? I suppose the originally programmed racial superiority might refuse to allow them to ackowledge that their ultimate form is anything less than perfect, but at least they could redesign their bodies to be like ATAT walkers from Star Wars or something?
In Remembrance of the Daleks, they had their SWAT Dalek, do it’s not that they are insistent on their exact form.
have to just keep telling myself, “It’s only a TV show, it’s ony a TV show. It doesn’t have to make sense.”
Whilst there have been enough tedious serials featuring long dull exchanges of dialogue in Dalek monotone, I’ve still got a bit of a soft spot for the pepperpots, especially when they are used sparingly. Dalek, although overrated, was very good, and The Parting of the Ways kicked, imho, some ass. So I’m going to mount a bit of a defence.
The Daleks’ primary motivation is their own survival and the complete extinction of everyone else (given that this is the way they were designed by their creator, as a weapon, and in an unimaginably long and destructive war). Their strenght is their weaponry, and generally they will rely on brute force and a complete lack of scruples rather than cunning or intelligence. What is important to them is the functional. Elegance and aesthetics are meaningless to them so there’s no point in redesigning themselves unless they need to (eg. the funny dishes in Invasion of Earth as a power source, hover mechanisms for stairs in Remembrance). Even the SWAT (Special Weapons) Dalek in Remembrance was one of Davros’ “improved” (and therefore “impure”) Daleks. The time-corridor is crude time-travel. A quick and dirty fix for a specific need (or so we must suppose, since the lousy script doesn’t explain what the need is). That fits with the Dalek MO. But the duplication is sophisticated, and so is the idea of infiltrating the High Council. If they’d stolen the technology I might believe it, but develop it themselves? Nah…
So it’s not a good Dalek story because they work best when they are simply powerful+evil+stupid, and are more scary when we see less of them, and more of the Doctor’s terror.
Whilst there have been enough tedious serials featuring long dull exchanges of dialogue in Dalek monotone, I’ve still got a bit of a soft spot for the pepperpots, especially when they are used sparingly. Dalek, although overrated, was very good, and The Parting of the Ways kicked, imho, some ass. So I’m going to mount a bit of a defence.
The Daleks’ primary motivation is their own survival and the complete extinction of everyone else (given that this is the way they were designed by their creator, as a weapon, and in an unimaginably long and destructive war). Their strenght is their weaponry, and generally they will rely on brute force and a complete lack of scruples rather than cunning or intelligence. What is important to them is the functional. Elegance and aesthetics are meaningless to them so there’s no point in redesigning themselves unless they need to (eg. the funny dishes in Invasion of Earth as a power source, hover mechanisms for stairs in Remembrance). Even the SWAT (Special Weapons) Dalek in Remembrance was one of Davros’ “improved” (and therefore “impure”) Daleks. The time-corridor is crude time-travel. A quick and dirty fix for a specific need (or so we must suppose, since the lousy script doesn’t explain what the need is). That fits with the Dalek MO. But the duplication is sophisticated, and so is the idea of infiltrating the High Council. If they’d stolen the technology I might believe it, but develop it themselves? Nah…
So it’s not a good Dalek story because they work best when they are simply powerful+evil+stupid, and are more scary when we see less of them, and more of the Doctor’s terror.
OK, absolutely, Parting of the Ways was the one and only time where I really felt the Daleks were a credible enemy.
They had a huge battle fleet, thousands of Daleks and they were acting a consistent fashion with ruthless killers – they were just shooting everybody down.
For the people that were trapped on that station, the Dalek attack was a credible threat.
They were quite extertaining in Doomsday, at least the “Cult of Skaro” models, but a bit out of character, and not so threatening.
It is interesting that this is “shot two” in the Time War. The first salvo being the Time Lords attacking the Daleks in Genesis, but let’s be realistic – the Doctor failed, but the Time Lords could, at anytime, finished the job after the Doctor left.
It raises some questions in my mind, too. How does Davros, after being frozen since he last saw the Doctor, know much of anything about Time Lords or regeneration. He seems awfully well-informed in both this and the next story.