A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 6. The Survivors (The Daleks, Episode Two)

Let’s be honest--if you take this episode on its own, it’s a variation of the Corridor Chase, with the third act being almost exclusively taken up by shaky close ups of a really spooked Susan running to get to the Tardis so she can retrieve the anti-radiation drugs the others so desperately need.  Outside of a little interrogation session the Daleks subject the Doctor to, the rest of the regular cast spends their time in different phases of swooning from radiation poisoning.

But then there are the Daleks.  We don’t see too much of them, but what we see is memorable.  They’re in maybe three scenes, and they’re all kinda expositional.  But it’s undeniable that they are menacing.  I think a major reason why the Daleks captured the imagination so strongly is because they’re totally inhuman--there is nothing even remotely humanoid about them, and it drives home their alienness*.  And their callousness (when asked if Susan would be allowed to give the drugs to the crew, the Dalek in charge says, “They will die anyway.  We need the drug so we can replicate them for ourselves.”) makes their otherness stand out.  The effectiveness of these foes at this time is that these are not obviously men in suits; we have nothing to relate them to, or to relate to them with.

I think another reason that the Daleks literally held Britian in a pop culture mania that almost resulted in a Daleks-only spin-off and tons of toys is because Nation really drives home how high the stakes are.  We need to remember that the lore of regeneration wasn’t made up until Hartnell became too sick to continue in the role (and you can see him stumbling on his lines and taking the first of his ‘DocNaps’ in this episode; it’s remarkable he maintained enough discipline to successfully assay the role for so long), so there’s the real possibility of death when we see the Doctor weaken and crumble. 

There’s also more of the Doctor/Ian member-measuring contest, with the Doctor admitting to his deception and Ian taking him to task for it.  I really like the fact that this crew has serious tension that isn’t handwaved away.  While I admit I like the oddness of Hartnell’s softer, more family-friendly persona he develops late in his run, I like this enigmatic and unpredicatable version even more.

So this is a landmark episode in a landmark serial.  And it still holds up.  I’m looking forward to the next leg of this journey.

*--I think that if you look at all the alien enemies of the Doctor that really took off (in my mind The Daleks, The Cybermen, The Sontarans, The Ice Warriors and, more recently, The Weeping Angels), that ‘inhumanity factor’ is key.  It’s one of the things that NuWho got wrong under Russell T. Davis--it’s hard to be terrified of something when they’re obviously people in cat or rhino or fly or kewpie doll masks.  Even the Cybermen have those immobile, inexpressive faces that keep us for emphasizing with them one hundred percent.