Who Review: Remembrance of the Daleks

The Doctor takes Ace to England, Shoreditch, 1963–a location not entirely unfamiliar to him. Investigating a van with an antenna leads him to Professor Jensen, and a military unit that are looking into some strange magnetic fluctuations around nearby Coal Hill School. But they are called away to another disturbance, one that has led to the mysterious death of two soldiers in a junk yard in Totter’s Lane owned by “I. M. Forman.” The assailant turns out to be a grey Dalek, whose weaponry is capable of scrambling the victim’s insides without leaving any external marks. When conventional artillery fails to stop the armored alien, the Doctor uses a couple of Ace’s cans of Nitro-9. Upon examining the remains, the professor is convinced that the Dalek is alien, and insists on the Doctor’s participation in their investigations. But the Doctor already has an idea why the Daleks are there. Before leaving Earth in 1963, he left behind a powerful Time Lord artifact: The Hand of Omega. He had intended to return for it, but got waylaid. Now, it seems, the Daleks have followed him to try to secure the Hand for themselves. But they are not alone. Another old enemy of the Doctor is anxious to get hold of the Hand, which could result in a vicious war, with Earth as the fragile battleground, and a devastating victory to the side that wins…

SPOILER ALERT!! My comments may (and likely will) contain spoilers for those that haven’t seen this serial. If you want to stay spoiler-free, please watch the story before you continue reading!

When Doctor Who returned for its 25th season in the Autumn of 1988, it was felt that some kind of twenty-fifth anniversary celebration was in order. There is that undercurrent throughout the season, but it is played out most vividly and explicitly in “Remembrance of the Daleks.” One of the fun things about Ben Aaronovich’s magnificent debut story is looking for all the references to past Doctor Who stories. More of that later.

Aside from the excellent script, another thing that sets “Remembrance” apart is the fact that, for once, they actually spent some money on it. Indeed, the director overspent significantly (at least for a 1988 BBC budget), but it was worth it. The Dalek shooting sequences (with skeletal shadows in the green flare–an effect picked up in the New Series), the space craft landing in the school yard, serious explosions, and so on elevate the show and make it feel like it was being taken seriously. Even today, I think the effects stand up pretty well. The only oversight was not giving the Hand of Omega some ground shadow when it was being transported. Aside from that, I find little to fault.

Perhaps the lasting contribution to the Whoniverse from “Remembrance” is the Part 1 cliff hanger, where the Doctor runs up the stairs only to look back and see the Dalek levitating after him. It had long been a standing joke in Doctor Who that you could easily escape from a Dalek by going up stairs. Not any more! Though the New Series story, “Dalek” is often credited with overcoming the stair issue, it actually happened here first.

The story centers around the Hand of Omega, which the Doctor explains was a device used by Omega, one of the founding Time Lords, to engineer stars. It was through this that Omega discovered the power source needed by the Time Lords for time travel and their time experiments. After his exile (see “The Three Doctors” and “Arc of Infinity”), he left behind the “Hand,” and the Doctor took it to Earth in 1963, with the expectation that he would return for it. However, he got a bit side tracked. Now he has come back for it, but the Daleks are on his trail. They also want the Hand so they can take their crude time travel technology and raise it to the level of the Time Lords. To Ace’s surprise, the Doctor doesn’t want to keep the Hand away from the Daleks. Indeed, if it will get them off of Earth, he’s willing to let them have it. What he didn’t count on, however, is the fact there are two Dalek factions, the white Imperial Daleks and the black Renegade Daleks. While the Renegades want to use the Hand for their time travel experiments, the Imperial Daleks want to use the Hand to make them more powerful and able to conquer the universe. Now the Doctor must not only prevent the Daleks from duking it out on Earth, but also stop the Hand from falling into the wrong mutant protuberances.

In a nod to the 1979 Fourth Doctor story, “Destiny of the Daleks,” the Renegades recognize that to win the battle, they need creativity and intuition to compliment their cold, and predictable, logic and reason. To that end, they use one of the young girls from the school who they put under Dalek control, and hook to their battle computer. In a nice late-story reveal, the Imperial Daleks have Davros, depleted to little more than a head in a dome, but still his old megalomaniac self. The Daleks sought out their creator in “Destiny” to give them that creative edge, and in “Remembrance” he serves much the same purpose, as well as commanding the Imperial Daleks to galactic domination.

I have to say, the “Special Weapons” Dalek was a superb addition to the Dalek arsenal. This Imperial Dalek has his gun and plunger replaced by a single laser cannon in the center of his body that can take out two or three Daleks in one blast. Or blow large doors to smithereens. Both of which it does to great effect in the course of the story. Regular Daleks are more than a match for humans and human weaponry. But for other Daleks, some heavier firepower is necessary. “Special Weapons” takes care of business quite handily.

Although human weapons are usually no match for Dalek guns, in this story, a couple of cans of Ace’s Nitro-9 was sufficient to take out a Dalek. A rocket launcher at close range also seemed to compromise Dalek head-armor quite effectively, too. I guess the logic is that, on the whole, human weapons are like knives against guns. But if you know Dalek vulnerabilities (e.g., the eyepiece), even feeble man-made arms can do damage.

Perhaps the thing that bugs me the most–though this is a general complaint, not only aimed at “Remembrance”–is the fact the Daleks spend so much time shouting “Exterminate,” you wonder why they don’t get on and put the poor quivering person out of his or her misery. Ace’s escape from her episode two cliff hanger, where she is surrounded by Daleks screeching “Exterminate!” was helped greatly by the fact they didn’t immediately shoot her, but yelled long enough for help to arrive. I know there are many other narrow escapes from certain death that were greatly aided by the Daleks’ love of their own voices.

I also wonder at the Daleks’ reticence to let loose their full potential against humans, at least in this story. There’s a scene where a group of Daleks are shooting at soldiers behind sand bags. While the soldiers take useless pot-shots, the Daleks concentrate on trying to pick off the soldiers. Are they just toying with them? We know they could have blasted away the sand bags with one shot, and blasted the soldiers with another couple, without suffering so much as a bullet scratch. I’m not quite sure what to make of that.

Some past Doctor Who story references to watch out for: The junk yard (“I. M. Forman’s”) and the French Revolution textbook, both as seen in the first Doctor Who story, “An Unearthly Child.” The Doctor referring to the Group Captain as “Brigadier.” Also, references to “Terror of the Zygons,” “The Web of Fear,” and “Planet of the Daleks.” That last one’s a bit obscure, so bonus points if you catch it. 🙂

“Remebrance of the Daleks” deserves “Must See” status. Certainly, if you watch any Seventh Doctor stories, this is the one to watch. It is regularly placed in the top ten of fan favorites, and rightly so. Might we see Ben Aaronovich write for the New Series? I hope so!