002. "The Daleks" part 3

002. "The Daleks" Part 3: The Escape (January 4, 1964)

The episode begins with Susan stepping out of the TARDIS and immediately taking fright with some off-screen menace. It must be that walking thermal blanket from the last episode.

That's not a blanket, that's a man, baby.

Here we get our first full glimpse of a Thal. And it turns out the Thals aren't hideous mutations. Turns out they're space hunks. Turns out the Daleks are a bunch of goddamn liars. They break the ice pretty quickly and Susan describes space hunk as "perfect" and proceeds to gab on with him about their predicament of being prisoners in the city.

Space hunk introduces himself as Alydon of the Thal race. He charms Susan instantly with his dashing looks, offering her his thermal blanket. Susan tells him all about being set free only to retrieve those anti-radiation gloves...drugs. Alydon wonders if the Daleks want the drugs for themselves and gives her a second batch to hide on her person. Then, like a gentleman, he walks her to the edge of the forest.

Back in the city the Daleks are already hatching a plan to use the four prisoners to draw the Thals to them. We don't know the reasons yet, but it's obvious these Daleks are shady as fuck, so we can probably assume its for something nefarious.

We cut to the cell. The Doctor is still out of it, but Ian is back on his feet. They ponder why the Daleks let Susan keep the hidden case of drugs (I can't imagine where she even hid that thing, it's the size of a Subway footlong). The conversation switches over to dreamy Alydon and how friendly the Thals seems to be.

He gave me his blanket and his class ring. We're going steady now.

Susan won't shut the hell up about how wonderful and amazing Alydon is. Susan's horny ramblings are interrupted by the Doctor, who declares that they have to get back to the ship.

But the dingus doesn't realize they're still in a prison cell. When this information is shared with him he promptly falls back asleep. Maybe this was just to change the topic to anything other than Alydon, Alydon, Alydon. Susan, wrapped in her new boo's blanket, begins a history lesson on the Thals and how they wish to forge an alliance with the Daleks for survival because they're on the brink of starvation.

As per usual, the Daleks are listening to every word with their clearly visible CCTV.

These security camera transitions between the cell and the Daleks are tight. It's the kind of stuff you come to see in The Matrix or most Tony Scott films. While great filmmakers like David Fincher utilize computer graphics to make these movements more fluid, I'll always appreciate a well-edited sequence like this that uses smart cuts to travel through a camera into a circuit board in order to move from one room to another.

Here we get to see the complexity of the Dalek's strategies. They formulate a plan to let the Thals starve to death, but then decide that luring them into the city using the prisoners is more advantageous. Furthermore, they concoct a plan to lull the four into a false sense of security through kindness and time.

And oh boy is Dalek false kindness charming.

Dalek hospitality.

A Dalek brings a tray with water, thus achieving the false sense of security they desired. They take Susan, but inform the rest that it's only so that they can help the Thals "which is what you wanted".  The three are confused as to how the Daleks figured this out. Apparently they've yet to notice the camera. Even though its the only thing other than the bench in that whole room.

We then cut to one of the greatest shots of anything:

I can see farther when I stand like this.

Here we meet the rest of the Thals, who are Aryan supermen straight out of a Leni Riefenstahl, but dressed up in the garb from a William Cameron Menzies film.

The race of super hunks gives us something to look at while we get an information dump: Thals used to be warriors, but have changed their ways for survival. They hope and wonder if the Daleks have also changed. Daleks used to be teachers, they say.

dreamy af.

Even though there's a large crowd of Thals, we only focus on four: Alydon, an elder leader of some benevolence, a childishly jealous super fox, and another dreamy hunk who makes lots of sexual innuendos (pictured above).

Meanwhile, our pal Alydon incurs the jealousy of a woman when he tells their elder that he met with the young girl (Susan). The jealous women lashes out by criticizing Alydon for not giving the extra drugs to a man. Nice, lady. Real nice.

Alydon tells them they are prisoners of the Daleks and that the Daleks seem to be a highly suspicious people. This is cause for alarm.

Then they switch back to the whole jealous woman thing, spurned on by a debate over whether Susan is a woman or a child. The logic of the elder is flawless: if Susan is a child than Alydon can't get his dick wet, so jealous Thal woman has no cause to be jealous. Seriously, this is what they talk about. This will most likely come into play later if and when the Thals meet up with the four prisoners.

Susan better watch her back.

But after the Thal men finish discussing who owns which pussy they turn to the plan Alydon made with Susan: she will bring their case to the Daleks and send word. If the word is not signed by Susan then they will know the Daleks are hostile. It assumes a lot, but it translates to a short 24 minute episode pretty well.

Back in the city the Daleks dictate their phony message for the Thals to Susan. But before it's sent out they must examine it.

Their examination of the note raises several questions that I've been holding off on. Namely, if they clearly cannot use pen and paper then why do they have it? Their little toilet plunger arms seem severely limited as tools, but they seem to posses a number of things that require fingers and opposable thumbs to operate. Just one of the many mysteries of Doctor Who I suppose.

While there are a few more moments with the Thals (showing them receiving the false note) and some more moments of the Daleks, the rest of the episode is really devoted to watching the four hatch an escape plan and execute it.

There are too many details for me to get into, and my account of them would be rather pedantic, so what follows is a condensed summary. They finally discover the camera and pretend to get into an argument so the Daleks think they're divided. This diversion is also used to destroy the camera without seeming so deliberate.

Once it's broken (and the Dalek's don't believe for a second that it was an accident) the four begin scheming. This inaugurates a truly ingenious sequence that plays out in real time. It starts with the four deciding to observe a Dalek from every possible to angle so as to gain contextual clues as to how to best them.

I recall reading somewhere that the initial idea for Doctor Who was conceived as an educational program for children. With the exception of fire-making in the previous episode, that concept hasn't really been apparent up until this point, when the show suddenly takes a real time survivalist feel rooted in direct observation of the immediate surroundings. All four of the characters participate in drawing conclusions from immediate observation and then devising a simple plan for escape. The Dalek's must run on static electricity so by using Susan's blanket they can immobilize one. They can mix food and dirt with water to make mud and blind the Dalek's periscope. They can strategically place the macguffin in the door to prop it open. It all has a sort of Magic School Bus feel, with the Doctor as Ms. Frizzle.

Give it a rest, Arnold.

But what makes this sequence so thrilling is its utter lack of didacticism. It plays out with a heart-pounding attention to the passage of time. At any moment their plan could fall apart or an army of Daleks could appear. The emphasis on their limited real world surroundings makes the drama even more thrilling: what I could never stand about Flash Gordon or Star Wars is that there is always some magical deus ex machina to help them out of a jam. Here it's just the brains and tenacity of two school teachers and a sociopath space doctor and his granddaughter.

The sequence is also helped by the minimalist soundtrack of thumping percussion. When they capture the Dalek, its frantic cries for help make it sound even more terrifying. It's not just an evil robot but an animal willing to do anything to survive. Once captured, the Doctor and Ian open its lid.

And the look of putrid revulsion on Ian's face really sells the the imagined Dalek.

Who put meat in the compost?

With Susan and Barbara standing guard, the Doctor helps Ian remove whatever is inside with the thermal blanket (that prop is getting a lot of mileage here). Once removed, Ian gets inside the Dalek casing and the four of them slowly proceed down the hallway, after Ian practices his best Dalek impression.

The image of the four pensively moving down the hallway would have been cliffhanger enough, but the episode cuts back to the cell to reveal the faintest glimpse of the Dalek hand, revealing both its anatomy and the fact that it's alive IT'S ALIVE.

I might be getting in the habit of saying something like this after every episode, but this shit keeps getting better and better. The entire escape sequence from planning to execution is easily among the highlights of this project so far (I know, I know I'm only like seven episodes in, but whatever). I'm really starting to wonder about all those people who warned me about the "slowness" and "roughness" of the early show.

UP NEXT: The Daleks Part 4, "The Ambush"