Doctor Who #623: Resurrection of the Daleks Part 2

"So, they have returned to their creator. Like an errant child, they have come home once more, but this time they will not abuse me. This time, I shall take my rightful place as their Supreme Being, and under my control, the Daleks shall once more become triumphant!"
TECHNICAL SPECS: First aired Feb.8 1984. Because of Olympic coverage, it was edited into a double-length Part 1.

IN THIS ONE... The Doctor pushes a Dalek out a window and Davros is defrosted.

REVIEW: Terry Molloy is the new Davros and a monstrous improvement over Destiny's David Gooderson! For one thing, the mask actually FITS. But more than that, Molloy gets Davros' insane ranting, and can get quiet and creepy too. Right away, he's smarter than he was in Destiny, insisting on staying put so he can control his environment, and not trusting his creations after the previous episode's events. (But Davros! There's some great red lighting in the Dalek control center!) And he's right too. The Daleks want to use, not serve, their creator. Davros has a creepy moment where he gains control of the engineer working on his chair, Kiston. He can also be funny! When he finds out the Daleks not only lost their war against the Movellans, but are now using human troops, he basically chokes on it. How Davros knows the Doctor is involved isn't explained (Lytton opened his big mouth?), which is a recurring problem in the script. People seem to know things without getting briefed (the army taking the Daleks at face value for example, if only they were UNIT).

The Daleks themselves don't make as good an impression (to be fair, they are described as losers). The one that appeared at the end of the last episode gets its eye shot off and is defenestrated by the Doctor. The mutant survives and acts like an Alien face hugger (add another SF franchise rip-off to Resurrection's already thick criminal case file) and provides a lame scare involving a heavy-breathing cat. The Daleks up top decide to leave Turlough alone because he'll drawn in the Doctor, but that's something that would have been true had he been captured as well, so why risk sabotage? And then they don't tell their troops who are soon shouting about killing the ginger companion. There's a lot of shouting "Exterminate!" followed by no exterminations, or even extermination beams. I guess they really are in a bad place right now. It's all up to their human agents, and looks like Stien snowed the Doctor but good.

While the villains and the Doctor are fairly active, it's a padding episode for the companions. Tegan gets a nasty bump on her head and spend half the episode in bed, though she shows some nice powers of observation when she spots the fake army captain. Turlough is allowed to roam aboard the Dalek ship and roam he does, and roam and roam and roam. It feels like their time is given to the guest "heroes", the well-meaning Mercer and the absolutely hateful Styles. This character puts my teeth on edge. How about killing her off in one of those terribly-choreographed fire fights soon...

VERSIONS: A scene deleted from the broadcast program had a "bigger on the inside" scene between the Doctor and Stien.

REWATCHABILITY: Medium - The Doctor gets up to some exciting things and the new Davros is cool and creepy, but the Daleks suck.

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