A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 10. The Ordeal (The Daleks, Episode Six)

This episode is almost entirely made up of Ian and Ganatus leading their expedition across a chasm.

You think I’m joking, but it’s true.  About two thirds (maybe a little more) takes place in a cave, and follows Ian, Barbara and our three Thal friends as they traverse it.  It’s obvious very early on that one of the Thals is Not Going To Make It and, since he is the Third Thal who jumps, he follows the Rule of Three in Coming Up Short and endangering Ian in our cliffhanger.  That’s not to say there aren’t any grace notes to this.  I continue to be charmed by Ganatus’ crushing on Barbara (there’s a moment when he asks her ‘Do you do everything Ian tells you to do?’ and it comes off exactly like someone asking ‘Is he your boyfriend?’) and his palatable joy at discovering a possible trail into the city.  But the fate of that one Thal is so telegraphed that I kept wondering why it took so long before he reached his Ian-endangering fate....

...especially since what little we see of the Doctor and Susan is kinda more fun.  You see, with some other Thals consciously tampering with the Dalek’s television with some big-ass reflecting plates focusing sunshine on their cameras, Doc, Susan and Alydon sneak into the city and sabotages some of the power lines.  And when Alydon goes off to tell the other Thals to keep moving and Susan suggests they hightail it out of there, the Doctor is too busy praising his own handiwork to notice the Daleks have snuck up on them.  I like how the Doctor's own failings has caused much of the complications for this story, because it makes him more 'human' and not the super-hero he becomes when the series is rebooted in 2005.

(This is also, incidentally, the first time Hartnell does his weird 'hootyowl' chuckle to himself in a primitive form.  As this chuckle gives me great joy, especially when the Hartnell Doctor's character is softened in later seasons, I was most excited to hear it.)

We also learn that, since that neutron bomb the Daleks want to detonate will take too long to build, they’re just going to vent radiation from their nuclear reactors into the atmosphere.  Not surprisingly, our crew is horrified by what the Doctor insists is murder, but the Evil Mechanical Nazi Pepperpot insists is ‘extermination.’

While watching this half hour, I once again thought about how this serial could be streamlined into four or five episodes.  Yes, there are significant plot points here, but Nation’s script is strolling rather than rushing to its conclusion.  And that’s the only thing that really bugs me in this otherwise Essential Story.