Who Review: Dalek

A mysterious signal draws the TARDIS to a museum-like bunker half a mile under Utah, U.S.A., in the year 2012. The artifacts on show are all alien, including the head of a Cyberman. As the Doctor and Rose soon find out, the collection belongs to Henry Van Statten, a rich and privileged man with little tolerance for anyone or anything that doesn’t follow him. Impressed by the Doctor’s knowledge of alien hardware, he introduces him to his prize specimen, challenging the Doctor to get it to talk. When the Doctor sees that it’s a Dalek, he tries to get away. But the Dalek has been drained of power, and beaten down through Van Statten’s “persuasion” methods. And now that Van Statten knows the Doctor is alien, he subjects him to the same treatment. Meanwhile, Rose pays a visit to the Dalek. In it’s present form, it can’t harm her, or anyone else, at least while its chains hold. All it needs, however, is one touch from someone imbued with time energy to revive it again. Little does Rose realize, as she holds out a hand of compassion, the nightmare she is about to unleash…

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

The long-awaited return of the Daleks, held off until mid-season in the event the series needed a half-way ratings bump (which proved unnecessary), gives us what I think is the best story of the first season. Writer Rob Shearman has contributed to the Whoniverse before with books and audio plays, but this is his first television Who. The concept is simple: the last of the Daleks meets the last of the Time Lords. The Doctor wiped out the Daleks, and until this moment he thought they were all dead. The last thing the Doctor wants is to come face-to-face with a killing machine with an ax to grind. His fear quickly melts, however, when he realizes the Dalek is powerless. Cries for help turn to taunts and mockery. The Doctor even powers up Van Statten’s torture device, ignoring the Dalek’s screams for mercy, before he is dragged away. Powerful stuff.

Of course, the Dalek breaks free, but it’s carrying some of Rose’s DNA from her touch. Not only does that DNA stop it from killing her, but it changes the Dalek. Having wiped out all of Van Statten’s security forces, it makes its way to the ground level and blasts a hole in the ceiling so it can feel the sunlight. All it wants is freedom. But it can feel humanity spread like a virus, giving it ideas, and feelings. This is too much for it. No longer a pure Dalek, it tells Rose to give it one last command: to die.

What’s so good about this story is that we see the Dalek become more human, and the Doctor become more Dalek, wishing nothing but a painful death for the creature. The reveal about the Doctor destroying the Daleks in the Time War is important. We understand that the Doctor’s fear and hatred are not irrational. The Daleks have no other function than to kill or subjugate all life forms that are not Dalek. One Dalek cannot be allowed to live, or the entire human race will be wiped out. But the Doctor’s objective in this story is not simply to protect the people of Earth. We see it at the end, when the Doctor arrives to face the Dalek with a large and powerful gun. He wants revenge, and to express his anger and hatred through this weapon. Meanwhile, the Dalek just wants to feel the sun on its tentacles. The Dalek welcomes death, and if Rose hadn’t ordered its self-destruction, it would have accepted death at the Doctor’s hands. An empty victory for the Time Lord.

But this Dalek is not a misunderstood monster, or a baddie-turned-good–and this is one of the things I think is so good about Shearman’s story. The Dalek stays true to itself right to the end. It cannot accept being a Dalek-human hybrid. It would rather die than feel emotions. Despite its new-found longings and desires, it recognizes impurity within itself, and it’s more than it can tolerate. The death of this Dalek is both heart-breaking, and satisfying. “This is not life,” it croaks, “This is sickness.”

On top of a great story, we have excellent special effects. While the Dalek was enhanced and modified a bit, the effects team kept to Ray Cusik’s original design as much as possible. Perhaps the most notable new feature is a mid-section that turns independently of the top and bottom. This enables the Dalek to fire on people coming behind it without turning around. Also, the suction arm (the one that looks like a toilet plunger), can suck a person’s face and crush their skull. Lovely.

Much was made at the time of the Dalek’s ability to levitate up stairs, overcoming a classic design flaw. This was not a new feature, however. The first Dalek story to feature levitating Daleks was the Seventh Doctor adventure, “Remembrance of the Daleks.” In fact, the skeletal silhouette we see when the Dalek shoots a person is also borrowed from “Remembrance.” And for good reason–“Remembrance” was a darned good story, with some of the best effects of that era!

It’s nice to see that American Van Statten is actually played by an American, Cory Johnson. Not many Brits at this time could pull off a convincing American accent (*cough* Peri *cough*), so this was a wise move to maintain the believability of the story.

At the end, Adam, one of the geniuses employed by Van Statten to catalog his alien hardware, joins the TARDIS team. The Doctor is reluctant to take him on board, but Rose insists. We’ll see what comes of that in the next story…

“Dalek” is hands-down “Must-See” viewing. Superb performances from Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper, and a fitting return for a much-loved monster. Any Dalek story that can make my then nine-year-old daughter cry is worth watching. 🙂