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?!
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:
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"
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