Resurrection Of The Daleks: Ranking - 269

  Resurrection Of The Daleks

(Season 21, Dr 5 with Tegan and Turlough, 8-15/2/1984, producer: John Nathan-Turner, script editor: Eric Saward, writer: Eric Saward, director: Matthew Robinson)  

Rank: 269

In which its (boom!) everything keeps (bang!0 blowing up (smash!) without a by your leave (whallop!) every few (neeeeow!) seconds... 

The 1st of my truly controversial rankings maybe? Brave heart reviewer...Anyway, I can understand why so many fans love this story. It's Peter Davison at his most 5th Doctory and the Daleks at their most Daleky. In other words they're scheming, evil and nasty and he's a goody-two-shoes who after lots of moral debating vies up and kills them all anyway. This isn't one of those thoughtful, cerebral Who stories, it's more of a whizz bang whallop action affair where everyone is doing something in every scene -more often than not with a loaded weapon in their hand. After a season of pontificating after the Black and White Guardians and Timelords in funny hats I can see why this one stood out as much as it did. The problem is, watched in isolation there's not much chance for either much reflection or explanation and all the characterisation comes from what we've seen these characters do in stories past (or future), not necessarily what they do here. There's not much humour in this one either, the saving grace of many a dark DW story. As a matter of fact its pretty much all grim from the moment everyone steps out the Tardis. No wonder Tegan leaves at the end with the line 'it's stopped being fun Doctor'. I kind of know how she feels. Now, there is definitely a place for stories like this in DW. Looking at my top 20 they're not always a fun bunch either. It's interesting the difference between them and what's here though. Reading interviews with writer Eric Saward and he's keen to tell you how inspired he was by the past political heavyweights of DW, men like Malcom Hulke and Robert Holmes who seemed to like the alien monsters and sympathise with their ethics more than the human's half the time. His work too is supposed to be anti-war, but that's not always how it comes off on screen. Instead it feels more as if this story (and Earthshock) glorifies war, giving us battle after battle each one of them fought because someone somewhere thought they were a good idea. The men who fight them seem like 'heroes' in the afterglow of missiles and gunfire, even if ultimately most of them sacrifice themselves for nothing. All that said, though, at least these fight scenes are integral to the plot, unlike some of the gratuitous ones from earlier years, and they're done noticeably better than in the 1960s and 70s. The Daleks don't get a lot of screen time but they're done 'right' too, they're properly evil and calculating in this one even if the characterisation of Davros is a tad wonky (Stan Mitchell’s mask looks great though if you’re reading this Rita!) . This story also makes a lot more sense if seen as the climax to season 20 (when it was written) in 25 minute bursts rather than midway through season 21 in 45mins (when it was screened, a combination of industrial strikes and Olympic coverage). For all that, though, this is a well made bit of television that for all its big set scenes and budgets still ends up feeling as empty as the London warehouse its set in.

Positives + Throughout her time on the Tardis Tegan's been the fall-girl, the only Human in a crew of four with a quick temper that's mocked and misunderstood and who quickly becomes a pale shadow of the feisty, bolshie character she started with, by the end so far out of her comfort zone you wonder why she stays travelling in the Tardis at all. Here in her last story she's back to being our human representative and conscience again, the way she always should have been, the only person who isn't numb to all the needless death and destruction. The moment she calls the Doctor out on it and leaves comes suddenly but is still the perfect end for her character as Tegan uses her short temper and outrage in all the right ways, standing up even to those she loves.

Negatives - By contrast the Doctor himself is at his soppiest here despite exterminating more people than usual. This incarnation spends a lot of his time talking about peace while preparing for war and never more so than here, although he spends a lot of time looking sad at what he has to do then doing it anyway. Davros, meanwhile, just looks weird. terry Molloy does his best in an ill-fitting mask but between him and the script Davros ends up being just a caricature of Michael Wisher's chilling original. And whoever decided to cast comedians Rula Lenska and Rodney Bewes in this, of all DWs, needs their heads examining even more than Davros does.