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| The Doctor confronts Davros (Michael Wisher), the evil genius who created the Daleks! |
6 episodes. Written by: Terry Nation. Directed by: David Maloney. Produced by: Philip Hinchcliffe.
THE PLOT
While transmatting back to Nerva, the Doctor and his companions are intercepted by the Time Lords. They have taken him to Skaro, to a time before the Daleks' development, in order to either avert the Daleks' creation or affect their evolution to make them less aggressive.
However, they have dropped the Doctor in the midst of a brutal, generations-long war between the Daleks' ancestors, the Kaleds, and their enemies, the Thals. The Kaleds are brutal, militaristic fascists whose society has become dominated by Davros (Michael Wisher), the scientist whose experiments seem to be only tangentially related to the actual war. The Thals are little better, hostile and suspicious, with no qualms about literally working prisoners to death. Separated and scattered between the great, domed cities, the time travelers will need all their wits and luck just to survive.
And that's before Davros unveils his greatest achievement - the subject of the Doctor's mission: The Daleks themselves...
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: Tom Baker was an engaging presence in his earliest stories, but Genesis adds an extra layer: a seriousness of purpose that we only really saw hinted at in The Ark in Space. The humor is still there, as when he distracts two guards by introducing himself as a spy, but it's a light veneer. He is disgusted by what he sees on Skaro long before he sees Davros's first Dalek, and there are moments in which this most dominant of Doctors becomes still, heavy with despair when it seems all is lost.
His best remembered scene is the "do I have the right" speech. Its fame is justified, Baker superb as the Doctor agonizes over whether killing the Daleks would truly be the right thing to do. Discussions of the moment, however, often miss that the Doctor doesn't refuse to destroy them. His decision is interrupted when he's told that Davros has agreed to introduce compassion into the Daleks' make-up. It's a ruse - but it's one that he is grateful to believe, is desperate to believe - precisely because had he not been given hope, he almost certainly have done it.
Sarah Jane Smith: Separated from the Doctor and Harry, and captured by the Thals, she once again takes on the Doctor role, organizing the prisoners into an escape attempt. The attempt fails, but it comes reasonably close to success and gives the doomed prisoners a last, fragile hope. After that, she recedes into the background, but she does act as the voice of pragmatism when the Doctor is mulling the moral dilemma of committing Dalek genocide.
Harry Sullivan: This serial provides Harry with a number of good moments. He takes decisive action early on, rescuing the Doctor from a land mine. When the Doctor's Time Ring is confiscated, he keeps the Doctor from protesting, pointing out that it would be bad for the Kaleds to realize how crucial the bracelet is. I can't help but lament his short tenure as a regular, given that Ian Marter's laid-back presence makes a natural foil for Tom Baker's dominance.
Davros: I'd have to agree with fan consensus that Davros's debut remains his best television appearance. Long before the phrase, "God of the Daleks," was ever uttered in a television episode, Wisher's Davros is basically that. He has created them in his own image, gliding along in casings that look exactly like the life support/travel unit that sustains him. He has purged his Daleks of pity and compassion, just as those same emotions were burned away from him. He is a Dalek in all but name.
He is also a highly formidable opponent. It is worth noting that the regulars never actually defeat Davros. The Doctor is left to flee for his life, while the only justice Davros meets is a poetic one - doomed by his own insistence on barring compassion from the Daleks. The scenes between Davros and the Doctor are uniformly excellent, with Davros's musing about using a virus that would destroy all life being a particular highlight. Wisher is compelling, as hypnotic in his quiet moments as during his rants. Tom Baker is outstanding in this story - but Wisher is even better.
Nyder: Peter Miles delivers his best-ever Who performance as Nyder, the Kaled security chief. Miles' facial features are well-suited to his role. Dressed entirely in black, Nyder lurks in the background, watching hawk-like. In Episode Four, he briefly pretends to be betraying Davros to gain information from a dissenting scientist. Miles makes it plausible that the scientist believes Nyder, softening his tones and speaking urgently. On first viewing, I was fooled. Abruptly, his voice hardens and sharpens, allowing the chilling realization to sink in for both scientist and viewer. It's a fine performance in a fine part. It's a testament to this story that this secondary villain is more memorable than most other serials' primary antagonists.
THOUGHTS
Genesis of the Daleks is rightly regarded as one of the series' all-time classics. Even as a child, watching each story with no knowledge whatever of a given serial's reputation, I recognized that there was an extra dimension here that hadn't existed in the previous three stories. That's not to say it's flawless: Like most six parters, there's padding, and detractors within Who fandom take great pleasure in pointing out that and "B" movie silliness such as giant clam monsters.
I used to sympathize with this viewpoint, simply because the faults are real. A good chunk of Part 1 is devoted to a narratively pointless capture/escape/recapture. So many trips are made between the Thal and Kaled Domes that I started to wonder if someone had installed a tram line, and those domes appear to be ludicrously close together for a war that's ravaged an entire planet. But successive rewatches have made me realize that I don't care about these issues. The bits of silliness exist, but they never threaten to disrupt the overall sense of an inevitable, unfolding tragedy.
I'd also note that much of the so-called "padding" is rather good drama. Sarah Jane's escape attempt doesn't actually advance the story. But it provides not only a memorable Episode Two cliffhanger, but quite a good sequence in general, ending with a memorably sadistic bit in which a Thal guard dangles her over a chasm. Could you lop it out of the story without hurting anything? Of course. But doing so would not improve the story; it would instead just make it "smaller." Could you tell the story of Genesis of the Daleks in four episodes? Of course you could. The 90-minute repeat version of it proves that. However, though it's tighter paced, I don't find the 90-minute version to be an improvement in dramatic terms.
David Maloney's direction is exceptional. The serial begins with a striking visual image, gas masked soldiers being gunned down, then disappearing into the mist, before the Doctor is revealed within that same mist. The serial is lit more effectively than any other story this season, with a good mix of lighting effects for the different settings. This is a serial that, in places, looks like a feature film. Rarely has Who brought a setting to life this vividly, which is all the more impressive when you consider how relatively few in number the sets actually are: a bit of corridor, a few rooms, a cave set, and a trench.
THE DALEKS
This story's treatment of the Daleks is effective. In the first three episodes, we barely see them. Davros is the villain, Nyder his henchman, and the Daleks are used as weapons (an interesting parallel with their use in The Power of the Daleks). In the second half, they are unleashed more and more, until at last they emerge as a force unto themselves.
The two forces forming a person's identity are nature and nurture, and both are made to play a part in the Daleks' development. Davros has carefully expunged compassion and pity from his creations. We see, in the Dalek's first speaking scene, that it recognizes aliens and desires to exterminate them. It shows no such desire to exterminate the Kaleds, however, recognizing them as "conforming."
Here's where nurture might come into play. Davros uses the Daleks against any of his own people who dissent, until the Daleks grow accustomed to killing Kaleds. By the end, it likely seems only natural to turn on the remaining half. From the Daleks' perspective, the Kaleds loyal to Davros are exactly the same as the Kaleds they've been ordered to destroy. If the term "enemy" includes Kaled dissenters, then it includes all Kaleds - who are not, after all, Daleks. Davros created the Daleks in his own twisted image, and he succeeds all too well.
OVERALL
Genesis of the Daleks offers some of the series' all-time great moments. It also boasts polished, almost cinematic direction by David Maloney, who was to '70s Who what Douglas Camfield had been to '60s Who. A few nit-picks about padding and giant clams aren't remotely enough to interfere with the Fourth Doctor's first genuine masterpiece, a 6-parter that remains one of Doctor Who's highlights.
Rating: 10/10.
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