Series:
4
Episodes:
6
Doctor:
Patrick Troughton
Companions:
Ben Jackson (Michael Craze), Polly Wright (Anneke Wills)
Synopsis:
The TARDIS Lands on the
Planet Vulcan (shall we get the jokes out of the way now?), an Earth
colony in… the future. (BAH! Dates! Give me dates!!!). Inside, Ben
and Polly are dealing with the appearance of a strange younger man in
the place of their familiar Doctor, one awfully fond of playing the
recorder. This man also claims to be the Doctor… Polly believes
him, but Ben remains skeptical and suspicious. (Note from Sarah: YAYY!!! From that moment on...I knew I t'would love this mysterious Second Doctor.)
Exiting the TARDIS, the
still somewhat-disoriented Doctor encounters an Earth Examiner… who
is promptly shot by an unknown assailant in the distance. The Doctor
takes his identification, intending to use the greater authority
granted by the credentials to track down the murderer within the
nearby colony.
When he, Ben, and Polly
arrive there, they encounter Lesterson, a scientist studying a
strange capsule from space found crashed in one of the mercury
swamps, and his assistant Janley. Lesterson has not had much success
in opening the capsule, (NFS: Make sure when you read that word you are reading it in the proper british way "Cap-see-ooull"..yes it's important.) but believes its technology and alloys may
contain untold breakthroughs for mankind. They also meet Governor
Hensell, his deputy Quinn, and Bragen, the head of security. The
colony is in rough times, as a group of rebels is causing unrest.
The Doctor manages to
open the capsule that night, in secret, and discovers even worse
trouble for the colony- a pair of Daleks, currently inert and
inactive. The Doctor immediately goes to the colony leaders and
insists that the Daleks must be destroyed, that even a single one
revived would surely spell doom for them all. Lesterson, however
brings in a third Dalek, having secretly gained entry to the craft
previously… the Dalek speaks, declaring itself to be humanity’s
servant. The colonists, enthralled by the prospect of (to their
eyes) robotic labor drones that can increase production and do their
jobs for them, ignore the Doctor, who is terrified of the machines…
but the Dalek lies and flatters smoothly, and the Doctor has no
evidence. (Just like 'The Smugglers.' Evidence, always looking for
evidence… the Doctor clearly just needs Batman as his next
companion, so as to skip straight to the ‘taking the law into our
own hands’ step.)
Quinn is implicated as
the murderer of the Earth Examiner (which the Doctor claims as an
unsuccessful attempt on his own life as part of the fiction, though
the real murderer would, of course, know better)- but Polly believes
that he is not the real culprit.
Quinn admits to having
been the one that called Earth to dispatch an examiner, but his
reasons are undermined by security-head Bragen, who spins his words
and actions to look like an attempt to push aside and usurp the
position of the governor. Bragen is made Deputy Governor in Quinn’s
place. When the governor leaves on an inspection tour, Bragen…
pushes aside and usurps the position of the governor. Huh. Didn’t
see that one coming.
As the Doctor tries and
fails repeatedly to warn people of the danger of the Daleks, he is
further and further marginalized. Sabotaging the power transfer to
revive the other two Daleks in an attempt to destroy them, he is
caught and forbidden from the lab and the Daleks by Bragen, now
wielding the governor’s authority. However, the Dalek weapons have
been removed as a safety precaution… the reason for their
subservient act, gaining trust until the weapons can be reinstalled.
Lesterson’s assistant,
Janley, is sent by Bragen to the rebels to deliver them a powerful
Dalek gun- she is a leader in the rebellion, and Bragen has been
using the rebels to create a climate of fear which will allow him to
reach this level of power. In other words, he’s Emperor Palpatine.
Under orders, Janley also kidnaps Polly. She also blackmails
Lesterson, who is becoming wary of the Daleks, seeing their true
nature seep through their actions, into giving them all the building
materials they want… which they promptly use in secret to construct
more Dalek casings for the many Dalek-mutants still secreted aboard
the capsule. (NFS: Wow...I can't remember what it looks like but this is obviously a rather large capsule.) The Daleks also order cables laid to convey static
electricity power for them (as seen in The Daleks and The Dalek
Invasion of Earth… and ignored ever since, until now) throughout
the base so that they will no longer be dependent on the colony
power-transfers that Lesterson doles out to keep them under his
control.
While spying on the
rebels, Ben is taken, and the Doctor is imprisoned by Bragen for interfering. He sees now that Quinn, also in jail, was falsely accused. He
begins work on using a wet-finger-on-the-rim-of-a-drinking-glass
instrument to simulate the sonic lock on their cells.
Within the laboratory,
Lesterson sees dozens of completed and armed Daleks emerge from the
capsule- ordering that no more than the three that are supposed
to exist leave the lab at one time, lest the colonists discover their
reproduction. Lesterson, horrified, runs to tell the Doctor, and then
begins running through the colony, shouting hysterical warnings to
everyone.
The governor returns,
confronts Bragen, fails to play along, doesn’t recognize incredibly
obvious threats (“I will give you one last chance…” says the
man with all of your power, whom you have no authority over, are
threatening to oppose, and who is holding a very powerful gun in a
room with no witnesses…) and is promptly killed.
Quinn and the Doctor
escape, and free Polly, but are captured by Bragen’s gaurds… just
as the Daleks break lose in full force and numbers to begin their
extermination. Ben likewise escapes, as do the Doctor, Polly, and
Quinn, in the chaos. Humans are slaughtered all throughout the colony
as the Daleks invade. Sheltering in the lab with the now-insane
Lesterson, the Doctor sabotages the static-electricty power hub,
destroying the Daleks… but not before they inflict a heavy death
toll, killing Lesterson (who sacrifices himself to give the Doctor
time to complete his task), Janley, Bragen, and nearly all of the
rebels.
Quinn is now in charge of
what remains of the colony, and begins the monumental task of
rebuilding, as the Doctor and his companions- now firmly convinced
that he is the Doctor- sneak away, back to the TARDIS.
Review:
This is a very different
Dalek story, to its benefit. Rather than the standard "They are unstoppable they will kill you you must run run away!!!!" story
of fleeing unstoppable juggernauts, this is a more psychological tale-
watching the near-helpless Daleks slowly growing in power until they reach their standard juggernaut levels... a story of greed and folly, and a story
of desperation, as the one man who knows what's coming tries in vain
to battle the lies of the Daleks- spoonfeeding their new 'masters'
everything they want to hear- and warn people of the danger that's
coming.
The Daleks, proverbial serpents in a not-very-much-of-a paradise, spin their lies, gather power (gritting their teeth all the way- as exemplified in numerous near-slips, such as when a Dalek is compared unfavorably to a human being and the outraged exterminator responds with "DALEKS ARE-" *long pause* "-different from humans." (NFS: It's been interesting watching these earlier Doctor Who's when the Doctor is more or less out of control a lot of the time. I'd gotten used to the newer shows, and how it's kind of a rare situation when the Doctor is kind of helpless; this is something you experience quite often in the older shows and it makes for hard watching at first, but then it gets more and more interesting to see the lengths at which he has to go to prove himself half the time.) Quenching the use of the word 'superior' probably took more self-control than has been exercised by any Dalek in all of history. From the Dalek perspective, this is equivalent to a starving, weakened man being chained up by a colony of sewer cockroaches, and forced to cater to their every whim, until you've built up enough strength to escape and crush them like the vermin they are...) and pull the wool over everyone's 'eye-stalks'... until it's too late.
The Daleks, proverbial serpents in a not-very-much-of-a paradise, spin their lies, gather power (gritting their teeth all the way- as exemplified in numerous near-slips, such as when a Dalek is compared unfavorably to a human being and the outraged exterminator responds with "DALEKS ARE-" *long pause* "-different from humans." (NFS: It's been interesting watching these earlier Doctor Who's when the Doctor is more or less out of control a lot of the time. I'd gotten used to the newer shows, and how it's kind of a rare situation when the Doctor is kind of helpless; this is something you experience quite often in the older shows and it makes for hard watching at first, but then it gets more and more interesting to see the lengths at which he has to go to prove himself half the time.) Quenching the use of the word 'superior' probably took more self-control than has been exercised by any Dalek in all of history. From the Dalek perspective, this is equivalent to a starving, weakened man being chained up by a colony of sewer cockroaches, and forced to cater to their every whim, until you've built up enough strength to escape and crush them like the vermin they are...) and pull the wool over everyone's 'eye-stalks'... until it's too late.
If you can't tell, I
liked this one. Sure, the whole 'rebels/governor usurping' bit was a
tad annoying to me- and superfluous- as was the 'false acusation'
plot, but other than that, I greatly enjoyed the serial. The new
Doctor was likable, but doesn't really come into his own (and really
make me into a fan of his) until the next serial, The Highlanders.
Partly, this is because the Doctor
is so low-key here. Suffering from (as yet unnamed and
unconceptualized, but clearly present) post-regenerative madness, he
is a little more of an amnesiac blank-slate, displaying few of the
traits- save for a built-in silliness and a fondness for playing the
recorder- that would eventually come to define him. (NFS: I still liked him. :-D )
The post-regeneration
scene is vague and slow- befitting of post-regenerative madness, but
otherwise just slightly aggravating. The mirror trick with Hartnell is
clever, but other than that... it doesn't have much. Not such a great
introduction for a new Doctor.
Ben and Polly are...
well, let's put it this way. Ben disappeared somewhere around the 3rd
Chapter. It took us until the 6th to realize he was gone and wonder
what had happened to him, and when he re-appeared, we had no
recollection of seeing anything that showed him leaving or being taken
to where he was. Both companions get kidnapped as leverage. They are
utterly superfluous- this is the Doctor's story. And as a
psychological 3-way battle between the Doctor, the Daleks, and the
played-for-fools colonists, there isn't really room for the
companions anyhow. (NFS: Unfortunately Ben and Polly are not really interesting companions and feel kind of like stand ins with recycled lines.)
They do have a nice initial post-regeneration shtick, though- with Polly immediately
accepting the new Doctor while Ben remains suspicious that it's a
trick or impostor. It's a very nice touch. After the story gets
going, though, they discreetly exit stage left to give the new Doctor
a chance to prove himself.
The colony members are...
well, they would seem at first blush to have the combined
intelligence of a mud/dung brick... that's had a lobotomy... that was
botched. In fact, I was, at one point, wondering out loud if
Lesterson had actually achieved a level of idiocy to outdo our old
friend Mavic Chen. However, as my wife wisely pointed out, Chen knew
who the Daleks were and what he was getting himself into.
Seen from their
perspective, while I believe the actions of the colonists in this
episode are still slightly trusting and moronic... they are somewhat
justified. The Daleks spin a web of very convenient,
exactly-what-they-want-to-hear lies, while the Doctor, without any
credentials as an extraterrestrial expert in his assumed disguise,
merely seems to be an ignorant alarmist who fears the unknown and
wants to destroy it... much like the kind of paranoid Luddite fool
that the Doctor himself confronts on a regular basis, especially in
the modern program; the standard
it's-different-so-we-fear-it-and-want-to-destroy-it-(and-by-the-way-by-this-we-mean-ethnic-and-sexual-minorities-we-do-that-to-them-too,-see?)
sci-fi message that's been driven into the ground in science fiction
since the days of the Twilight Zone is here inverted- making an
expert without proof of his expertise appear to the characters as
just the kind of paranoid imbecile that must be opposed- which
transforms it into another sci-fi cliche, the 'Invasion of the Body
Snatchers' story, in which one man knows the danger but can't find anyone
who believes him, creating a quiet desperation in us, the audience,
who likewise know the danger... funny how that role reverses the reason-ability of the positions depending on which one the protagonist
holds at the moment, eh?
However, in this case, it
is not a fear of the unknown driving an individual to urge
destruction of the alien visitors... but fear of the known. And an
audience awareness of what the Daleks can do, building on past appearances, serves this story well- even though their power and
capabilities are not demonstrated, we as the audience know what those
capabilities are... and so it becomes a tense countdown, a feast of
anticipation, as the Daleks move ever closer to what we know is
coming- the cynic in us well aware that they won't be thwarted
because then we won't get to see another display of power, and they
wouldn't make a show that anticlimactic... even as the optimist in
us, caught up in the story, is desperately rooting for someone to see
the light and help the Doctor to stop them before it's too late! It's
a fine psychological thriller, and while a cynic might find it
predictable ("These people are petty, foolish, and expendable-
the Daleks will clearly succeed and many colonists will die before
they stop it... it would only be if the Daleks had a doomsday weapon
that could destroy the planet or plans to blow up the TARDIS or
something that they'd be stopped before they could reach full
capabilities... since their capabilities are something they love
showing and won't affect history drastically, they'll be loosed, no
doubt about it."), the writing is of such quality that, even in
still-picture-reconstruction version, with a weak Doctor character for this serial, a
near-absence of companions, and an annoying supporting cast, it
remains an engaging, attention-sustaining, and entertaining story
that draws you in enough to block that cynicism (which only
re-asserts itself in retrospect) and maintains suspense.
((((The Reconstruction we
watched, meanwhile, was yet another NON-LOOSE CANNON reconstruction,
which I want to clarify- NOT LOOSE CANNON, THEY DON'T SUCK.)))) This
reconstruction, on the other hand, does. Badly. Muddy sound,
incompetent framing (cutting off the bottom half- during the shots of
the ring lying by the Doctor's foot, all we could see were apparent
closeups of the Doctor's foot), no action captions- it was about the
worst possible way to watch the story... fortunately, we were able to
jump on youtube and enjoy the audio recreation with linking narration
describing the action for a few of the middle chapters. Honestly,
though... if we can still enjoy it after this utterly horrendous
presentation, you KNOW it has to be good.
Overall, a strong opening
for the Second Doctor... even if he is not very strong IN it.
Great moments:
Not so much a moment as a
rising plot thread, as the menace of the Daleks is more and more
fully revealed in each confrontation with the Doctor.
Rating:
I have to give this one
4.5 out of 5 Deadman's Keys- it wasn't perfect, despite my rave
reviews- the start was slow and meandering- but save for that, it was
flawless. I can't give it a perfect rating (and it seems there are
few that I do...) but like Keys of Marinus, Myth Makers, and the
Aztecs, a few flaws do only a little to tarnish an otherwise
excellent tale.
0 out of 5 Deadman's Keys for whatever pathetic piece of tripe that supposed 'reconstruction' we were watching was... and to whatever dead animal carcass apparently vomited it up from the bowels of Heck to torment innocent Internet viewers with it's ubiquitous incompetence and rank shoddiness. Loose Cannon, come back, and wash the bad taste away...
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