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DOCTOR WHO SERIES ONE
SERIES ONE HOME - ABOUT THE SHOW
EPISODE GUIDE
DOCTOR WHO CONFIDENTIAL
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CAST BIOGRAPHIES
MARCH-JUNE 2005
(aka DOCTOR WHO SEASON 27)
EPISODE GUIDE
SERIES 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 2009/10 SPECIALS
SERIES 5 | 6 | 7 | 2013 SPECIALS

06 - DALEK (Episode photos below)
 
"...this technology has been falling to Earth
for centuries. The advancements I have made from
alien junk. You have no idea, Doctor..."

PLOTLINE

Somewhere in the United States of America, a solitary Dalek needs stimulation. Festering on Earth without command from its superiors, it must seek help from the Doctor to regain its true purpose.

Will the Doctor become turncoat and help his greatest enemy?

EPISODE SIX REVIEW Spoilers ahead

Here we are at Episode Six and the big guns are finally brought to bear, the episode title demanding viewer attention. This story features a Dalek but with hindsight I wondered if it really could be called a Dalek story?

By way of a teaser, the Doctor and Rose arrive back on Earth drawn by a distress signal and find themselves at gun-point in a museum of alien artifacts. I initially found this worrying for a few seconds because this is very familiar territory for a WHO fan; but placing what I think was a Tom Baker era cyberman head ("An old friend.... The stuff of nightmares reduced to an exhibit") among the trophies was a nice touch. This moment set the tone for me: we do not get a 'classic' Dalek tale -- which I would define in terms of depicting them as a driven collective force -- but rather something that turns into a chamber piece about two beings poisoned by hate.

One of the acid tests for this 21st century version of DOCTOR WHO for me as a fan from the outset was: how will the Doctors greatest foes be presented in the setting of what is very much a stylish revamping of the format, taking it away from JNTs beloved LE coding? Will the iconic image be abandoned on the altar of reinvention for a mass audience? Physically, this is very much one of our old chums, but it's the little chap inside the travel machine that's the issue here.

The solitary Dalek on offer is not presented as a representative of a massive invading force. Rather, it's the lone survivor of what we are told was the final "Time War" between Gallifrey (Home planet of the Time Lords) and the Daleks. Like the Japanese soldier left stranded for years on a desert island after WWII, it's awaiting orders that will not come. In a way, the Dalek is worse off because (as the Doctor announces with wild-eyed malice) its species is extinct by the hand of the last surviving Time Lord standing right in front of it ("I watched it happen! I made it happen!"): in other words, when it really counted, the Doctor was a damn sight better at genocide than the chained-up pepperpot now at his mercy!

We are introduced to the Dalek in what struck me as a powerful tableau: it looks practical, utilitarian (no pretty primary colours here), but in chains, imprisoned 54 floors under ground and tortured by Van Statten, a super rich, powerful, ruthless American businessman (think of a cross between Bill Gates and Donald Trump) whose fortune is based on retro-engineering alien artifacts.

In another nice touch, its gaolers, having failed to get it to talk, have opted to refer too the Dalek as a "metaltron" , which I think would have made for a more appropriate title for this episode because this is not 'about' Daleks or even 'a' Dalek, but rather it is about something which used to be a Dalek: something which has lost its reason for living (given the extinction of its species) and then loses its racial identity after absorbing Rose's DNA. At the end, all it has left is primal instinct: it wants to feel the sun on its skin. Whereas the Doctor wants very much to blast it straight to Hell...

I can easily see how this episode would divide die-hard fans because it is neither fish nor fowl: it is no GENESIS OF THE DALEKS (arguably the best Dalek story of all time), offering a brisk step forward in the evolution of the realization of the classic baddie, but nor does it suffer from plot-heavy flatulence (like THE DALEK MASTERPLAN).

I enjoyed it primarily for the production values, the speed with which the story was told (pace is not a strength associated with classic British telly science fiction) and Eccleston's frankly hateful depiction of the Doctor as an hysterical, gun-toting thug temporarily devoid of humanity, reminiscent of the character as portrayed by Davison and Baker C. This is no criticism of Eccleston, who does a great job here: when the Dalek says, "You would have made a good Dalek", I had no problem in agreeing with it. The Dalek is not being sarcastic, it is a sincere compliment from one antagonist to another. Eccleston's Doctor is very much a loose cannon in this series, there are no Time Lords on the horizon primed to step in if he gets too naughty (who thought we'd ever hear the Doctor ever say - and mean it - "Lock and load!"). Given that this series is named after the lead character and that the main antagonist is never at its best (the Dalek in this episode wipes out many human beings but never seems to be a serious foe worthy of the Doctors's mettle because it is psychologically and genetically crippled by its very regeneration), perhaps the focus should have been less about the Dalek coping with survivors guilt ("This is not life. This is sickness.") and more about the Doctor coming to terms with what fighting a devastating war has done to his soul. As Rose says, on being told that the Dalek is mutating, "It's changing. What about you, Doctor? What are you changing into?" And when the Doctor defines the Dalek as "The ultimate in racial cleansing", I doubt I was alone in noting the irony implicit in the line.

I loved this episode. There were too many highpoints to allow me to feel that I had been short-changed overall. The Dalek battles with Van Statten's guards were realised with a technical flare worthy of STARGATE SG1: when it was bracketed in a corridor (its heat shield represented in MATRIX-style slow motion melting bullets) and methodically switching its mid-section back and forth, systematically blasting its enemies before and behind it, was a fans dream; this Dalek really looked dangerous! So many elements worked for me that identifying flaws is mere nit-picking in the face of the overall satisfaction I felt at having witnessed a job well-done.

RADIO TIMES - ARTWORK BY ANTONY DRY

Things to look out for...

DOCTOR WHO FOLKLORE

 

DOCTOR WHO FOLKLORE

CONTINUTY

 

 

 
An alien museum houses the shadow of the Doctor's past - a cyberman
The hand of destiny - Rose Tyler makes a mistake
The Dalek has the doctor in its sights - ex-ter-min-ate!
Van Statten tortures the Doctor to reveal...
Rose and the Dalek confront the Doctor's morality. The Dalek mutant is revealed in all its glory.
For the first time, the Dalek opens it casing.
The Doctor gets very, very upset, but is he within spitting distance of the Dalek.

Review - Simon Cunnington
EOH RATING

Rated 5/5


CAST
DOCTOR WHO
Christopher Eccleston
ROSE TYLER
Billie Piper
ADAM MITCHELL
Bruno Langley
DALEK VOICE
Nicholas Briggs
DALEK OPERATOR
Barbnaby Edwards
HENRY VAN STATTEN
Corey Johnson
GODDARD
Anna Louise Plowman
POLKOWSKI
Steven Beckingham
BYWATER
John Schwab
De MAGGIO
Jana Carpenter
SIMMONS
  Nigel Whitmey
COMMANDER
  Joe Montana
     
Daleks originally created by
TERRY NATION
 
PRODUCTION CREW
1st ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
Gareth Williams
2nd ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
Sean Clayton
3rd ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
Dan Mumford
LOCATION MANAGER
Lowri Thomas
PROD.
CO-ORDINATOR
Jess van Niekerk
PROD. ACCOUNTANTS
Debi Griffiths
Kath Blackman
CONTINUITY
Pam Humphreys
SCRIPT EDITOR
Helen Raynor
CAMERA OPERATOR
Martin Stephens
FOCUS PULLERS
Mark Isaac
GRIP
julia Robinson
SOUND RECORDIST
Ian Richardson
BOOM OPERATOR
  Damian Richardson
GAFFER
  Mark Hutchings
BEST BOY
  Peter Chester
STUNT
CO-ORDINATOR
  Lee Sheward
STUNT PERFORMERS
  Stuart Clarke
Derek Lea
Neil Finnigan
Tony Lucken
PROD. BUYER
  Catherine Samuel
CONCEPT ARTISTS
  Bryan Hitch
SET DECORATOR
  Liz Griffiths
SUPERVISING ART DIRECTOR
  Stephen Nicholas
STAND-BY ART DIRECTOR
  Julian Luxton
PROPERTY MASTER
  Adrian Anscombe
STANDBY PROPS
  Phill Shellard
Tristian Howell
GRAPHIC ARTIST
  Jenny Bowers
CONSTRUCTION MANAGER
  Andy Smith
ASSISTANT COSTUME DESIGNER
  Yolanda Pearl-Smith
MAKE-UP SUPERVISOR
  Linda Davie
MAKE-UP ARTISTS
  Claire Pritchard
Steve Williams
ASSISTANT EDITOR
  Ceres Doyle
CASTING ASSOCIATE
  Kirtsy Robertson
POST PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR
  Marie Brown
ON LINE EDITOR
  Matthew Clarke
COLOURIST
  Kai van Beers
2D VFX ARTISTS
  Simon C Holden
David Bowman
Jennifer Herbert
3D VFX ARTISTS
 

Andy Howell
Mark Wallman
Chris Potts

DIGITAL MATT PAINTER
  Alex Fort
MODEL UNIT SUPERVISOR
  Mike Tucker
DUBBING MIXER
  Peter Jeffreys
DIALOGUE EDITOR
  Paul McFadden
SOUND FX EDITOR
  Paul Jefferies
RIGHTS EXECUTIVE
  James Dundas
FINANCE MANAGER
  Richard Pugsley
     
     
ORIGINAL THEME MUSIC
  Ron Grainer
CASTING DIRECTOR
  Andy Pryor CDG
SOUND RECORDIST
  Ian Richardson
PRODUCTION ACCOUNTANT
  Endaf Emyr Williams
COSTUME DESIGNER
  Lucinda Wright
MAKE-UP DESIGNER
  Davy Jones
VISUAL EFFECTS
  THE MILL
VISUAL FX PRODUCER
  Will Cohen
VISUAL FX SUPERVISOR
  Dave Houghton
SPECIAL EFFECTS
  ANY EFFECTS
PROSTHETICS
  Millennium Effects
PRODUCTION DESIGNER
  Edward Thomas
EDITOR
  Mike Jones
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
  Ernie Vincze BSC
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER
  Helen Vallis
INCIDENTAL MUSIC
  Murray Gold
PRODUCER
  Phil Collinson
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
  Mal Young
Julie Gardner
Russell T Davies
DIRECTOR
  Joe Ahearne
  Produced by
BBC WALES
WRITER
  Robert Shearman
     
INFORMATION
BROADCAST DATE
30 April 2005
(BBC1 19:00-19:45)
 
REPEATED DATE
  1 May 2005
(BBC3 19:00-19:45)
     
FIRST RUN UK RATINGS (millions)
Unofficial Average 7.83
Unofficial Peak 8.73

Official BARB RATING 8.63
Top 100 rating 14th
DVD RELEASE
15 June 2005 (as part of Volume 2 boxset)
BROADCAST DATE
30 April 2005

 

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