002. "The Daleks" part 6

002. "The Daleks" Part 6: The Ordeal (January 25, 1964)

My prayers have been answered. The failures of Part 5 are not repeated here, proving that the last episode was just a sloppy anomaly. This installment returns to basics: well-grounded scenes built on character relationships and creating tension and drama from simple obstacles. And what an excellent example of those features this episode turns out to be.

The Thal filling the water bags was sucked in to the vortex and the episode gets under way with a powerful image of empty water bags swirling in the water.

We then linger for several beats on the whole crew mourning this loss, adding some weight to the first life lost in this whole endeavor. Already this episode has slowed down to give gravitas to its small moments. Also, this dude is taking the loss real bad:

 
This will come into play later as he develops into a more distinctive Thal extra, as with the visual motif of mourning death.

Meanwhile Team B (Susan, the Doctor, Alydon, and his lady) are spying on the city and drawing a map. Their plan is to disrupt the Dalek's radio and television frequencies.

Inside the city the Daleks give a report on the neutron bomb option. Turns out it will take almost a month to build, which is time they do not have with the impending Thal attack. Here we return to the terse Dalek sequences that avoid flatness by giving too much dialogue and exposition in those robot voices. Just a quick update and a little more insight into how their calculating minds work.

Cut to Barbara and the Hunky Brother "exploring the caves" together. They are looking for ways into the city, but this becomes a tender moment between the two characters whose relationship was hinted at in the previous episode. The intimate scene leads to them discovering the sound of running water. More importantly, we got some good Barbara moments. Consider the following exchange, in script format, you see:

BARBARA

Remember what Ian says, we're not to take any chances.

HUNKY BROTHER

Do you always do what Ian says?

BARBARA

No. I don't.

This is some saucy stuff. Barbara is easily one of the most dynamic characters of the four. Ian could be, but he's too self-righteous and chauvinistic at this point in the series. Until we get moments of his failures he'll never seem as human as Barbara, Susan, or the Doctor.

Barbara's also into some kinky shit.

Barbara and the Hunk find a hole and decide to spelunk that shit. Hunk goes through on a rope and Barbara ties it to a rock, albeit poorly, as it gives way and Hunk falls to his potential doom. But just as things were getting heavy with Barbara and Hunk, Ian shows up with a cadre of Thals and decides to take over. Turns out it was a small drop into a big cavern with many tunnels.

Back in the city the Daleks are alarmed at the "great movement among the Thal people" and the fact that their images are not working.

The Thals outside are using large reflective sheets to blind the video towers.

The Doctor, Susan, and Alydon have now entered into the city walls, ending in a close up of a giddy (or vindictive) Doctor who promises, "we'll show them a thing or two."

We then cut to an incredible shot of the side of a tunnel with Ian, Barbara, Hunky, and the Thals walking through it. It looks like a diorama or the cross section of a location from a Wes Anderson film.

Here we get a scene of one of the most prominent Thal extras, let's call him Chicken Shit, arguing with Hunk about wanting to go back. He goes off about how they'll never defeat the Daleks and all this is hopeless. Hunk won't let him leave, but before anything can happen there is a convenient rock cave-in that knocks Chicken Shit out and blocks the way they came.

Can't go back now, loser.

A quick scene of Daleks shouting emergency and saying that they can track the attackers with vibrations, thus taking them by surprise (a pretty neat piece of technology that probably could have been established sooner).

Back outside the city Susan, the Doctor, and Alydon arrive at a fuse box thing mounted on the wall. Somehow the Doctor determines this is the power source for the static electricity that powers the city...or the radio towers...or something. The Doctor tells Alydon to go command the Thals to redirect their light beams at a different tower while the Doctor proceeds to smash the fuse box and uses the TARDIS key to redirect a current into another fuse box for something (I'm unsure of the details here).

Before Alydon leaves he implores them to hurry, but the Doctor is too proud of his accomplishment not to revel in it for a spell. Low and behold he and Susan are descended upon by ambushing Daleks.

Back in the cave Ian and Hunky arrive at a deep crevasse. They male-bond over trying to figure out a way to pass it (it's too deep to climb down and can't be circumnavigated). As they brainstorm the sound of the running water adds a nice touch to this slow, quiet sequence. Ian decides it has to be jumped and goes first.

With a rope tied around his waste he makes the leap and the action editing is actually pretty good. Hunky jumps next.

We return to the Daleks one last time. They have the Doctor and Susan sitting like school children on the floor while they Bond villain monologue their plan. We get a brief rehashing of how the Daleks need radiation to survive and are going to overload their reactors and flood the atmosphere with radiation.

discussing the final solution to the Thal question.

The Doctor calls them murderers, but they says its extermination! They go into some weird heil Hitler chant that is difficult to make out.

I'm not sure why they didn't kill the Doctor and Susan immediately. I mean, they're going to kill everyone with radiation so it doesn't seem like they need them to set a trap. Also, why would they explain their plan to them? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Back at the crevasse Barbara makes the jump. Then a Thal, leaving Chicken Shit as the final member. He stares down the crevasse. Ian throws him the rope and talks him through the process while Chicken Shit mumbles that he can't do it.

 best shot in the whole serial.

He jumps and falls, almost taking Ian with him as the rope connects them. Chicken Shit dangles and screams while Ian barely holds on to the slippery rock. The episode ends in a literal cliff hanger.

UP NEXT: The Daleks Part 7, "The Rescue"

002. "The Daleks" part 5

002. "The Daleks" Part 5: The Expedition (January 18, 1964)

Truth be told, this is the weakest episode of the serial thus far. It's focus is on maneuvering the various players into position for more dramatic action to come. This is necessary narrative work, but it seems tired and it's the most traditional in terms of a generic adventure serial installment. Half of the episode is devoted to rehashing familiar debates from previous episodes with very little expansion and the rest is given over to laying out strategy with almost no character work. And it's been the character work that has made the show so incredible up to this point, so its conspicuous absence makes for a rather dull experience. It's not terrible by any stretch of the imagination, but, well let me show you.

Things begin well enough with an establishing shot of my beloved model city.

We then start things off with those scheming Daleks, who've successfully duplicated the anti-radiation gloves...drugs and have begun administering them to sections of Daleks at a time. They move to their screens to examine some processed images that they've taken of their escaped prisoners:

worst commemorative plates ever.

These images are pretty muddy and set a precedent for this episode of foggy effects that are difficult to make out at times. The third image shows Ian with Alydon, leading the Daleks to suspect an alliance that could pose a threat to them:

However, there is a nice cut here, when the Dalek says, "It is logical that they will try and attack us" the show cuts to this very image with Alydon curtly dismissing Ian's previous suggestion that they fight the Daleks, as if it were one continuous conversation.

A problem with the Daleks is that their belabored mode of speech is hard to dress up, so when we get an information dump like this it tends to be really dry. So far the show has smartly limited their speech, but here all bets are off. The filmmakers do their best to make the sequence visually interesting, but it's pretty flat stuff. Yet the smooth cut to a different location keeps the episode moving forward.

What follows is the beginnings of a protracted sequence of debating the ethics of war. It's all pretty smart, but it occasionally gets a little muddled and goes on for too long. It starts with Ian's frustration that he cannot convince the Thals to fight, then suddenly Barbara starts giving him shit because Ian now refuses to convince the Thals to help them fight the Daleks to get their macguffin-fluid injector thing back from the city. Barbara's point is clear: the Daleks will kill them (which was Ian's point last episode), but now Ian is caught in an ethical dilemma that he didn't seem to have a moment ago.

But before the conversation can go one we get a nice little interlude tying up some loose ends that have been of particular interest to me and this blog. First, Ian corrects the Doctor in telling him that his name is Chesterton. The previous times that the Doctor called him Chesterfield now feel less like flubs and more like subtle characterization of the Doctor's arrogance. That, or they writers have a sense of humor regarding previous flubs. Second, the Doctor admits that he's put them in this jam by lying about the macguffin fluid link. Those Brits don't miss a tick, do they. Anyway, back to the protracted argument about the ethics of fighting.

While the points they raise are all great, the execution here is a little drab. Ian cannot ask the peaceful Thals to fight and die for him, even though he tried to convince them to defend themselves. The Doctor calls the Thals a "ready made army" that must be convinced to attack the Daleks so they can retrieve their fluid link. Barbara is vocally on board with the Doctor and views Ian's attempt to rationalize convincing the Thals as mere semantics. For Barbara, if the Thals don't help them then they're just as responsible for the deaths of the four mains as the Daleks (because apparently they'll die on this planet?). But just as the Doctor and Barbara feel confident in their position Ian sinks a slam-dunk: how can we convince the Thals to fight and die for a tiny piece of machinery that only benefits us?

Again, the ethical debate is layered, but it plays out like a monotonous shouting match. It ends only when Ian says he's devised a plan. This moves the sequence into a new phase, one that is much more engaging.

Ian picks up the Thals' canister of space records and makes a show out of saying that he bets the Daleks would trade the fluid link for valuable history on the Thals. But Alydon wont budge. He says he doesn't believe Ian would do it and he wouldn't stop him if he did. Ian ups the ante by grabbing Alydon's sexy jealous Thal babe and says the Daleks would trade for a specimen to experiment on, prompting Alydon to suckerpunch Ian in the jaw (finally).

 eat shit Chesterfield. 

Ian rubs his jaw and boasts: "So there is something you'll fight for." Prompting a look of disdain in Alydon:

I'm a monster.

Fade out on remorseful Alydon and cut to a Dalek psychedelic freakout:

The sequence cuts between the kaleidoscopic vision of a Dalek and a wide shot of its body spinning in circles screaming for help. Turns out the anti radiation gloves....drugs are poison to the Daleks, who've become conditioned to radiation. They receive word that all the Daleks who received the drug are dead. But then this becomes a "disease" as one of the Daleks in the control room starts freaking out, causing one to mournfully inquire: Is this the end of the Daleks?!

The sequence is pretty well composed and utilizes a lot of fluid camera movement to give some visual weight to the breaking drama of the Daleks. But again, its a bunch of slow robotic voices having involved conversations. But we do get a crucial piece of information: the leading Daleks decide that they need more radiation to survive and fixing the planet is not an option for their survival. They must detonate another neutron bomb!

We cut back to the "good guys" in the woods. Alydon and his foxy girlfriend ponder the big questions: what is better, to fight and live, or to die without fighting? I don't know, Alydon, but fucking pick one already.

We then move to Barbara and Alydon's dreamy hunk of a brother. While they await Alydon's decision, his brother gives a crucial bit of geographical exposition that will shape the remainder of this episode and the next.

Alydon's brother explains to Barbara (and us) about the lake full of mutant monsters that forms a perfect natural defense behind the entire Dalek city. The camera zooms in on the model city to show the mountain behind it (and I guess the lake?) with the voice over "Only a fool would attack the city from the lake."

Let that linger 'cause it's probably gonna matter real soon...

The zoom in cuts to the Daleks. This sequence is 90% dull with a snappy ending. First, the entire scene is a conference of leading Daleks explaining procedure: what to do with the dead Daleks, how to treat the ones not yet dead, what chamber to treat them in. Who fucking cares?

The scene ends with one Dalek saying that if it's true they now require radiation then they can never adapt to the recovering planet. But the leading Dalek replies that they shall adapt the planet to their needs! While the serial has done an interesting job exploring conflict and intolerance, it is now setting up the classic pro-violence scenario where the enemy cannot (for whatever reason) be reasoned with and must be destroyed. I'm typically uninterested in such plots of 'pure evil', but the Daleks remain a fascinating piece of cold war pop culture. Despite claims that they are modeled after Nazi's, they now seem like a body-horror cautionary tale of nuclear war: it wont just destroy us, but change us into something inhuman.

We cut back to the Forrest. Aww yiss. Mother. Fucking. Decision Times.

Alydon gives a grand speech worthy of the anti-pacifist World War 2 films of yore.

He goes with the whole "We face death now!" and something about being afraid to truly live. He says if the Thals don't like it to let him go help the humans and Alydon will help the Thals elect a new leader. But those Thals are a plucky folk and all the men decide to join him.

Hunky Brother pulls out a map and they begin to strategize.

Interestingly there is no single leader here. At times it's the Doctor, at others Alydon or his Hunky Brother. The plan is simple: they split into two teams. One will distract the Daleks from the city wall side and the other will go around back through the mountains and the perilous lake/swamp area full of perils. The lake side should be unguarded because of the mutant monsters.

We then cut back to a very strange Dalek sequence.

why would you make ticker-tape if you have plungers for arms?

The scene starts with two Daleks looking at a video screen. They notice the Thals and the four break into two groups and wonder why. But then it goes into a long winded sequence about the results of the radiation treatment on the sick Daleks infected with the drugs. They then determine for certain that they need radiation to survive.

The problem here is an uncharacteristic plateauing of information. They already told us that the drug is a poison to them and they need radiation. They literally said this in the first scene of the episode. Furthermore, the last Dalek sequence ended with a dramatic close up on a Dalek saying they will detonate a neutron bomb to survive. So why do we get a whole scene of Daleks reading ticker-tape results? If the show slowly revealed the situation and moved from mysterious confusion to absolute knowledge than this would have been effective and lead to a startling revelation about the show's key antagonist. But instead we get three scenes more or less saying the exact same thing in slight variations.

We cut to the bubbling swamp and some really awesome ambient swamp music.

The sequence features a number of bizarre inconsistencies. First, Hunky Brother and another Thal get into an argument over whether or not to tell the others about the monsters. But everyone already fucking knows about the monster, so what the fuck are they on about? Is there a different, super-secret monster?

Then after some more worthless exposition about how long they've walked (4 hours) and how long they have to go (2 days) Barbara asks for a rest and Ian says no. But seconds before Barbara enters the frame Hunky Brother told Ian they're going to take a rest?! They literally walk from this conversation to camp. So far Doctor Who has been surprisingly tight, but this episode is filled with these insignificant contradictions. I wonder if during the script revision process the writers failed to catch some hold overs from previous plot lines.

Ian then washes his face in the radioactive swamp.

This man teaches chemistry.

Ian then sees a swamp monster that sounds like an old engine trying to turn over:

They spend the night in camp and the next morning they take a look at the lake.

Here they debate whether or not to cross the lake itself. I don't really know why this is up for discussion since they've established again and again that THE LAKE IS FULL OF MONSTERS.

Then a Thal goes to refill their water bags, but some kind of vortex opens up in the water.

 

Back at camp we hear his scream and Hunky Brother goes to check it out telling the others to stay there. The episode ends on a shot of Barbara's frightened face. That's all folks.

Hopefully this episode was just a momentary lapse and things pick up in the next one. I don't mind a slow episode to lay out the pieces, but the execution here is pretty sloppy and when everything is a debate it gets pretty tedious.

UP NEXT: The Daleks Part 6, "The Ordeal"