"Those 'lumps of metal' - Daleks - I want them broken up, or melted down. Up, or down, I don't care which, but destroyed!"
TECHNICAL SPECS: Aside from very few clips, the episode is missing from the archives. A reconstruction was used, though I have, of course, listened to the audio CD narrated by Anneke Wills as well. First aired Nov.12 1966.
IN THIS ONE... Lesterson has been experimenting on a Dalek and manages to wake it up. It is our servant.
REVIEW: This script is incredibly clever and I'll hear point to Ben's use of Cockney, calling the Doctor "China" (China plate = mate), an exchange I would have found mystifying if I had never seen Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, but it's representative of the entire serial's theme. Ben is transforming words just as the Doctor has transformed himself. The colonists have transformed the Daleks intoo servitor robots, but only by their perspective. The Dalek is obviously putting on a show, screeching "I am your serVANT!" in the cliffhanger - Victory of the Dakeks owes a great debt to this story - transforming itself, but not sincerely. And you have rebels running around making like they're loyal members of society as well.
Is this the first time we've seen the Dalek point of view? In a circle like that? It feels like it is, and even if it's not, it has an important function - reminding us that they certainly AREN'T robots, that there's a malevolent entity lurking in there, watching, plotting. When it meets the Doctor, it seems to recognize him, which is strange (see Theories), as is the Doctor half-remembering something horrible about the Daleks that he can't quite put his finger on. Troughton's performance is once again a highlight, continually keeping secrets, whether it's refusing to answer Ben's questions directly, or blowing in his recorder to prevent a companion from saying too much. He's quite good as a Columbo-like detective, questioning with enough sharpness, it puts the lie to his more clownish behavior. Even if Ben stays wary (getting a few good wisecracks in, like the Doctor not just being of two minds about something, but of two bodies as well), Polly takes to this funny little man, singing words with him and accepting him completely. She was always the more intuitive and personable of the two. But it's not all a put-on, as the Doctor has always been a character of contrasts. Though he has a darkness about him, he'll still rip a doorknob off by mistake or some other foolishness. He's BOTH the genius and the clown.
The colony's soap opera continues as well, adding to the mystery not only of the real Examiner's murder, but to the sabotage of the communication systems. Who called for an Examiner in the first place, and who murdered him? Could the deputy governor (Quinn) be after the top job, as Ben believes? Or is it all about the rebels? Or Lesterson's experiments? You get the real feeling in this episode that Janley is manipulating Lesterson so that the rebels might use his Dalek as a weapon, and he being a representative of scientific progress devoid of morality, is more than happy to do what she asks. The experiment is all. He doesn't care about "politics". The Doctor represents a more humanistic way to deal with science, a better way. And that's where we recognize him as the Doctor.
THEORIES: How can the Dalek recognize the newly minted Doctor? There's no real date on The Power of the Daleks, but everything points to the earlier days of space exploration, so only a century or two from now. The only other Daleks who met the 2nd Doctor are the ones from Evil of the Daleks which are more or less at the end of their history and have access to time travel. Of course, as soon as he meets them, they're destroyed. So could this be a Dalek who escaped Skaro's destruction in a time ship? This time traveler might have the Doctor's face on file. Rob Shearman's Dalek episode in the new series, like Victory, owes something to this story then. Not only that core idea, but there's even a line about a single Dalek being more than enough to exterminate the entire colony. Once the Daleks start reproducing as if there's a need to regenerate the race, it gives this theory even more credence.
VERSIONS: There are some good effects in the animated reconstruction, like wafting cobwebs and various lighting effects. Pleasantly, they use the classic polarized image trick on Dalek laser blasts, not any kind of modern beam/skeleton effect.
REWATCHABILITY: High - If the change in actors is going to be a sort of mystery, then let's make the entire thing a mystery. And it works! Clever in the way to tries to reimagine everything you thought you knew about the program.
TECHNICAL SPECS: Aside from very few clips, the episode is missing from the archives. A reconstruction was used, though I have, of course, listened to the audio CD narrated by Anneke Wills as well. First aired Nov.12 1966.IN THIS ONE... Lesterson has been experimenting on a Dalek and manages to wake it up. It is our servant.
REVIEW: This script is incredibly clever and I'll hear point to Ben's use of Cockney, calling the Doctor "China" (China plate = mate), an exchange I would have found mystifying if I had never seen Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, but it's representative of the entire serial's theme. Ben is transforming words just as the Doctor has transformed himself. The colonists have transformed the Daleks intoo servitor robots, but only by their perspective. The Dalek is obviously putting on a show, screeching "I am your serVANT!" in the cliffhanger - Victory of the Dakeks owes a great debt to this story - transforming itself, but not sincerely. And you have rebels running around making like they're loyal members of society as well.
Is this the first time we've seen the Dalek point of view? In a circle like that? It feels like it is, and even if it's not, it has an important function - reminding us that they certainly AREN'T robots, that there's a malevolent entity lurking in there, watching, plotting. When it meets the Doctor, it seems to recognize him, which is strange (see Theories), as is the Doctor half-remembering something horrible about the Daleks that he can't quite put his finger on. Troughton's performance is once again a highlight, continually keeping secrets, whether it's refusing to answer Ben's questions directly, or blowing in his recorder to prevent a companion from saying too much. He's quite good as a Columbo-like detective, questioning with enough sharpness, it puts the lie to his more clownish behavior. Even if Ben stays wary (getting a few good wisecracks in, like the Doctor not just being of two minds about something, but of two bodies as well), Polly takes to this funny little man, singing words with him and accepting him completely. She was always the more intuitive and personable of the two. But it's not all a put-on, as the Doctor has always been a character of contrasts. Though he has a darkness about him, he'll still rip a doorknob off by mistake or some other foolishness. He's BOTH the genius and the clown.
The colony's soap opera continues as well, adding to the mystery not only of the real Examiner's murder, but to the sabotage of the communication systems. Who called for an Examiner in the first place, and who murdered him? Could the deputy governor (Quinn) be after the top job, as Ben believes? Or is it all about the rebels? Or Lesterson's experiments? You get the real feeling in this episode that Janley is manipulating Lesterson so that the rebels might use his Dalek as a weapon, and he being a representative of scientific progress devoid of morality, is more than happy to do what she asks. The experiment is all. He doesn't care about "politics". The Doctor represents a more humanistic way to deal with science, a better way. And that's where we recognize him as the Doctor.
THEORIES: How can the Dalek recognize the newly minted Doctor? There's no real date on The Power of the Daleks, but everything points to the earlier days of space exploration, so only a century or two from now. The only other Daleks who met the 2nd Doctor are the ones from Evil of the Daleks which are more or less at the end of their history and have access to time travel. Of course, as soon as he meets them, they're destroyed. So could this be a Dalek who escaped Skaro's destruction in a time ship? This time traveler might have the Doctor's face on file. Rob Shearman's Dalek episode in the new series, like Victory, owes something to this story then. Not only that core idea, but there's even a line about a single Dalek being more than enough to exterminate the entire colony. Once the Daleks start reproducing as if there's a need to regenerate the race, it gives this theory even more credence.
VERSIONS: There are some good effects in the animated reconstruction, like wafting cobwebs and various lighting effects. Pleasantly, they use the classic polarized image trick on Dalek laser blasts, not any kind of modern beam/skeleton effect.
REWATCHABILITY: High - If the change in actors is going to be a sort of mystery, then let's make the entire thing a mystery. And it works! Clever in the way to tries to reimagine everything you thought you knew about the program.
Comments