By Roy Mathur, on 2024-04-28, at 22:46:10 to 23:33:42 BST, for Captain Roy's Rusty Rocket Radio Show
Welcome to another extremely personal revisit/recollection of classic Doctor Who.
The last spurt of the Peter Davison is down to a dribble, thanks to my over-ambitious, unsustainable schedule. I'm still planning on finishing before the Ncuti Gatwa season begins, albeit with larger gaps between episodes. After that, expect a great big update of all the geek things I've been enjoying in one zine episode.
Notable Cast: Fifth Doctor: Peter Davison, Tegan Jovanka: Janet Fielding, Vislor Turlough: Mark Strickson, Stien: Rodney Bewes; The Likely Lads with James Bolam, Styles: Rula Lenska; Space: 1999, Osborn: Sneh Gupta; Angels, The Far Pavilions, Kiston: Leslie Grantham; mostly known as Den the publican of the Queen Vic in EastEnders after having served 10 years for murdering a cabbie during a robbery
Director: Matthew Robinson; Attack of the Cybermen (1985)
Writer: Eric Saward; Doctor Who script editor and scriptwriter (1982 to 1986); The Visitation, Earthshock, Resurrection of the Daleks, Revelation of the Daleks
Producer: John Nathan-Turner
Location: Shad Thames and Butler's Wharf in Bermondsey and Studio TC8 BBC Television Centre (1983)
Broadcast: Story 133, serial 4, season 21, following Frontios covered in 536, 2 x c. 46 min, first broadcast 8 February to 15 February 1984 due to BBC coverage of the 1984 Winter Olympics, Sarajevo, Yugoslavia
Media: Due to rights issues with Terry Nation, copyright owner of the Daleks, the BBC Books novelization by Eric Saward didn't arrive until 2019, Target paperback in 2021, VHS (1993), DVD (2002), DVD box set with The Dalek Invasion of Earth and Remembrance of the Daleks (2003), DVD box set with Genesis of the Daleks, Destiny of the Daleks, Revelation of the Daleks and Remembrance of the Daleks (2007), DVD Issue 34 of the Doctor Who DVD Files (2010), DVD Revisitations box set with The Seeds of Death and Carnival of Monsters (2011), BBC iPlayer's Whoniverse since 2023
Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Relax was the UK number one song for the second week running.
Policemen shoot some men, though two escape. One of the policemen returns to his spaceship as it attacks a prison space station holding Davros.
The TARDIS is sucked down a time corridor to London.
The prison station crew lose to the Daleks, who are using biological warfare, and Davros is freed.
The Doctor, Tegan, and Turlough meet Stien, the survivor of the attack by the police. With his help, they return to the time corridor and are met by an army bomb disposal team, though Turlough falls through it and onto the Dalek spaceship.
Alerted to the Doctor's presence, the Supreme Dalek orders his capture, but fails when the Dalek sent on the mission is destroyed by the army bomb team, with the Doctor's help.
Davros learns that the Movellans (pod 426 Destiny of the Daleks) deployed a bioweapon to win their war against the Daleks and that the Supreme Dalek wants him to find a cure.
The Doctor and Stien take the TARDIS to the Dalek ship, where Stien turns a gun on the Doctor and says he is a Dalek agent. The Doctor is taken to the duplication room to create a copy of him and his companions, who will assassinate the High Council of Gallifrey. Stien's brainwashing breaks and they escape. The Doctor says he will kill Davros, but fails when Stien falters.
All this time Davros has been accruing a personal army through brainwashing. They leave for Earth to fight those not loyal to him, while Davros uses the Movellan virus to kill those not under his control on the spaceship.
The Doctor returns to London, realises that the bombs found earlier by the UXB squad are Movellan bioweapons and surreptitiously activates one killing more Daleks.
In space, Davros is killed by the Movellan virus and Stien activates the self-destruct button, destroying the prison station and the Dalek ship.
Tegan decides to stay and the Doctor and she abruptly and painfully part.
The bomb disposal team were so reminiscent of UNIT, I wonder if that was the original idea?
The bespectacled UXB scientist, Professor Laird (Chloe Ashcroft), reminded me of New Who UNIT scientists Malcolm Taylor (Lee Evans) in Planet of the Dead and Petronella Osgood (Ingrid Oliver); brave, clever, and wildly eccentric. It's a pity she died; I liked her a lot.
The Earth arms in this adventure were more realistic than usual. I spotted bang up-to-date (for the time) suppressed American MAC-10 machine pistols wielded by the fake coppers and an Austrian Steyr AUG Carbine used by a member of the bomb squad.
While hunting for the shell-less Dalek, they instead found a cat. That scene was right out of the Brett's hunt for the alien on the Nostromo in Alien, when he was startled by Jones the cat, just before snuffing it.
The Likely Lads' wimpy Rodney Bewes played a softy---the cowardly, timid, and out of shape, Stien---but suddenly subverted our expectations, when he turned, shock horror, ruthless Dalek agent! It's was a nice piece of stunt casting and a great cliff-hanger at the end of episode one. Stien, however, fought his programming and had a redemption arc.
The hideous effects of biological warfare weree shown in great detail, when some of the prison guards died horribly; face and extremities melting away. The make-up crew are to be commended. Later, we also witnessed foam spurting from the Daleks' and Davros's casings as they succumbed to the Movellan weapons.
Davros! New Davros actor Terry Malloy played a more maniacal, than subtly evil, Davros. He was hilarious as he frequently lost his temper.
Den from EastEnders played creepy Kiston, Davros's pet lab tech.
During the extraction of the Doctor's memories, we saw past regenerations and companions. It's was a nice piece of fanservice.
The Doctor crossed his personal pacifistic line, when he picked up a gun and said, "Davros must die." Later, there was a brief philosophical discourse between the two, when the Doctor wavered in his intentions.
We saw a Dalek civil war between those brainwashed by Davros and those loyal to the Supreme Dalek, incidentally rather fetching in black with white bubbles.
Murderous Dalek agents disguised as British police didn't seem at all at odds, wedged somewhere between the Blair Peach murder in 1979, antagonism with the miners in the 80s, and the Battle of the Beanfield in 1985. Near the end, the leader of the Daleks' human agents polished the badge on his London Metropolitan Police peaked cap, indicating that he would be joining the force as a sleeper agent. That made me laugh.
There was a surprisingly diverse cast with some British Asian and Black characters, and women in non-screaming roles.
There were a few amusing scenes in which minor cast members death throes were vastly exaggerated. Ham it up and get noticed for further employment, once supposes? It is hard being an actor.
Grumpy script editor Eric Saward got to show what he could do the penultimate time, and delivered! This was the first of his two Dalek scripts.
I remember watching this in 1984, particularly the iconic opening with the trio of murderous coppers and Rodney Bewes in this good, fast paced, and very grown-up adventure. It is highly critical of WMDs, with an exceedingly high body count, and a dramatic goodbye to another companion, though, thankfully, not as dramatic as Saward's Earthshock, which polished off Adric. Tegan Jovanka! You were a great companion, you put up with a lot, saved the Doctor, and looked stylish doing it. We salute you.
Have we addressed the actors who have played Davros yet? We've done K-9, so maybe it's about time. The lunatic fascist mad scientist's physical design was based loosely on the Dan Dare comic strip's Mekon from Eagle. Appearances in classic Who: Michael Wisher in Genesis of the Daleks (1975), David Gooderson in Destiny of the Daleks (1979), Terry Molloy in Resurrection of the Daleks (1984), Revelation of the Daleks (1985), Remembrance of the Daleks (1988). His injuries were sustained by a Thal bomb hitting his laboratory in the Kaled Dome, according to the Big Finish audio drama Corruption, so whether that remains canon is really at the whim of New Who's showrunner.
In the past, I have frequently mixed up Rula Lenska with Doctor Who's The Rani (Kate O'Mara) and Kinvig's Miss Griffin (Prunella Gee). None look alike, although all seem tall on screen and tend to play strong women.
Join me again for more Old Who soon.