Doctor Who: 'Revelation of the Daleks'

From the blog...
 
 
Gaius:
"It's as if the plundering of the series' own past is finally catching up with the present until there's nothing left to eat anymore."

Oh, that's good. "SOYLENT GREEN IS MADE OUT OF PEOPLE!!!!"

I loved Orcini in this. Had totally forgotten William Gaunt, in another life, was one of the stars of THE CHAMPIONS, a fun short-lived show that mixed spies and sci-fi. He is, in effect, a vastly-better version of Lytton, a mercenary with an unshakable moral code, who thrills to the idea of being hired to kill the most evil man in the entire galaxy. But of course, he doesn't trust his employer (and for good reason). He was by far the best character in the story, and I loved the bit where he crosses paths with Colin Baker, by slamming a door in his face (almost exactly as happened in "STATE OF DECAY"), then, instead of teaming up, warns The Doctor that if he tries to follow him, he'll kill him. As if everyone else on the planet wasn't already trying. "Only I would be stupid enough to attack a Knight of the Royal Order of Oberon!" Well, look what he's wearing and how he's treating his gorgeous companion. Of course he's stupid!

Eric Saward actually had the nerve to say he hated "RESSURECTION" (and he wrote it, what a blithering idiot), but that it was something he "had" to get out of the way, because of The Daleks' confusing history. WHA'...? So, this was the Dalek story he really wanted to write. Why didn't he just write this one, first? (The whole of "RESSURECTION" could have been compressed into a single line of dialogue. News that a Dalek task force attacked the prison where he was being held to free him, but it got blown up in the process and no one's sure if Davros escaped or not. There, see? Actually, if that had been the entire story, without ALLLLLL the stupid, pointless sub-plots, that might have been a better story than it was.)

I love this story. And I've got a copy of "THE LOVED ONE" hiding around here somewhere I've been meaning to dig out for the last 2 years to watch again and compare... if I could just find the damned thing. Yes, The Doctor is reduced to doing nothing, because Saward doesn't care about him. The one thing he does is at the very end, where he suggests turning the planet into a farm to feed the starving billions. My main problem is, after Saward creates such a wonderful character as Orcini, not only does he fail to kill Davros, but Saward KILLS him off-- just like Lytton-- and doesn't even allow him the satisfaction of taking Davros with him when he blows himself up. That's just monstrously stupid. You don't just throw away a terrific character like that. Why was this idiot still working on the show at this point? Nobody else wanted to hire him, maybe?

Eleanor Bron is terrific in this. Wouldn't it have been so funny if her sidekick had been played by John Cleese? Or would that have been too weird even for this story?

Finally, it's often overlooked that THIS was the first TV story to show Daleks had anti-gravity hovering ability. Why? Because despite the skill and artistry of Graham Harper, the one shot you see it in is SO badly done, I saw the story 3 times and never noticed it, and had to read about it in the magazine, then watch the story again to verify that they didn't just make it up. Yep, it's there, but boy, what a botched shot. No wonder most people thought TV Daleks couldn't hover until Sylvester came along.

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  • Watched again tonight. As always-- WOW!

    But I really wish the music and sound mix wasn't totally botched. And it only got worse from here onward.


    Philip Sandifer:
    "not being recognized by the Daleks is a cutting insult to this version of the show"

    It also stands in rather odd contrast to the fact that, somehow, Davros DOES recognize The Doctor, in fact, has spent considerable time and effort to lure The Doctor there, by somehow letting him know of Arthur Stenglos' death (how DOES one contact a Time Lord who flits thru time and space at random, anyway???), and set up the fake statue of Colin Baker that falls on him. It's almost like "SON OF FRANKENSTEIN"-- you feel as though there's an entire "Davros" story in between the last one and this one that's missing.


    "he even comments that it looks like this will be his last regeneration, which, to be fair, it very nearly was"

    The silly thing about that scene is, Peri worries, "If you die here, what happens to me? I can't fly the TARDIS!" Apart from that being a concern at all times, wherever they go, in this case it seems silly because, if The Doctor were actually dead when that statue had been set up, it would have happened in the past, NOT in their current present. So they would have had to have left and gone somewhere into the past, first, before he could be killed.


    Tantalus1970:
    "Isn't there a scene in a corridor where he runs into two Daleks and simply gets out of their way?"

    One of my favorite bits. "Ah! There you are. They went THAT way!" "YOU WILL COME WITH US!!!" (He was almost Tom Baker there.)


    Just a thought: watching Hugh Walters (Vogel, Kara's secretary), who played "Runcible The Fatuous" in "THE DEADLY ASSASSIN", it struck me his voice reminded me of Michael Wisher's. A shame HE didn't play Davros in these stories.


    "It even affects the Daleks who arrive from outside - who instead of destroying the impurities, simply intend to absorb them."

    Shortly before being killed, Arthur Stenglos, while in "Dalek" mode, rants about eliminating impurities. Yet, by Dalek standards, what could be more impure than turning humans INTO Daleks?

    It's kind of pathetic as Davros is led away how he tries to order the Daleks to obey him, because he's their creator, and he can make them "all" supreme.

    Oh, and I really took note if the brief scene where Davros hovers. Orcini's right leg is seen in back of Davros, yet, the perspective is all wrong. Davros is too small, he's too far away for Orcini's leg to possibly reach that far! Who screwed that shot up???

    As usual, everything connected with The Daleks, and especially Davros, is sick and diseased, and should be put down like the mad dogs they are. Will we ever see a true "final" Dalek story? I'd like to hope so...

    Once again, Orcini is the best thing here. Every scene he's in, I can't take my eyes off him. His every word, every gesture, is sheer poetry. What a shame he blew himself up, but Davros got away.
  • Watched this again earlier, a few thoughts:

     

    1)On the commentary track, Saward claims that JNT heard that Olivier wanted to play a small part in the show, and tried to get him to play the mutant in this. I always wonder about this. It does sort of sound like something JNT would do.

     

    2)I never really thought before about the fact that the Doctor spends most of the first part of this just trying to get into Tranquil Repose, while everyone else gets up to various shenanigans.  On the commentary track, Saward says that this was not deliberate on his part, just the way story worked out. Uh-huh. Even if it's true, it just shows why the writer of a story shouldn't be his own script editor.

     

    3)On the commentary track, Saward also says that he had not even seen Soylent Green when he wrote this.  He also pronounces it "Soyyent Green", for some reason.

     

    4)Clive Swift does an excellent job of being unlikable as Jobel. I liked him much better as Mr.Copper in "Voyage of the Damned".  The woman who played Tasambeker (whose name escapes me at the moment) manages the neat trick of being even more irritating than Jobel - far more irritating than the part calls for. Saward calls her the one bad casting choice in the whole story, and I'm inclined to agree with him.

     

    5)Trevor Cooper as Takis looked sort of like he could be a third Anderson brother, after Arn and Ole.

     

    6)As a big fan of The Young Ones, I was happy to see Alexei Sayle in this. I thought his patter as the DJ was a little too overdone, (which it was supposed to be, I imagine), but I liked his quiet moments with Peri. I do wish they could have filmed his death scene in such a way that he didn't ook like a complete idiot, coming out from behind his sound cannon before checking to see whether there were any more Daleks coming.

     

    7)Very nice work from Eleanor Bron and Hugh Walters as Kara and Vogel - I especially liked Vogel's death scene, the way he looked into Kara's eyes before collapsing.

     

    8)I thought this was Molloy's best work as Davros - I liked seeing Davros as the master manipulator, not always ranting all the time.

     

    9)Stengos' head was sufficiently gross.

     

    10)Excellent job from William Gaunt as Orcini.

     

    11)I like that Peri didn't know a Dalek the first time she saw one. If you didn't know what one was, you wouldn't automatically think it was a threat.

     

    12)"If you're gonna die here, what's gonna happen to me?"  Instantly thinking of herself.

     

    13)Some fun quotes:

    • "I killed him, and he forgave me. Why did he have to be so nice about it?"  Very nice work from Bryant, here.
    • "Please accept my apologies." "I would rather accept your money."
    • "I am a 900 year old Time Lord."
    • "Watch it, Porky!"
    • "Assassins, like debt collectors, are rarely welcome."
    • "America doesn't have a monopoly on bad taste." No, but we're better at it than anyone else.
    • "You're like a double act."
    • "It would take a mountain to crush an ego like yous."
    • "A Knight of the Grand Order of Oberon. Only I would be stupid enough to attack such a person."  Never liked that line - after all, he didn't know who Orcini was until after he'd attacked him.
    • "May I ask what you're doing here?" "You may, but only a fool would expect an answer."
    • "This is a highly-directional ultrasonic beam of rock and roll. It kills."
    • "There is little that is common about Orcini."
    • "Do you never do anything but kill?"
    • "But did you bother to tell anyone they might be eating their own relatives?" "Certainly not. That would have created what I believe is termed 'consumer resistance'."
    • "Such a foolish waste of energy." "No 'arm in trying."
    • "You are to be taken back to Skaro to stand trial for crimes against the Daleks."  Daleks bother with trials? I always figured a Dalek "trial" would consist of: "You are an enemy of the Daleks. You will be exterminated. Exterminate!"
    • "I shall return." Davros MacArthur?
    • "I have a bomb ans I would like to explode it."

     

    14)Cliffhangers:

    • Part One: The Doctor's statue falls on him!
    • Part Two: "All right, I'll take you to Blackpool..."

     

    Overall:

    A flawed but entertaining story.Really, not bad as long as you ingore that fact that the Doctor is supposed to be the main character. How I would love to visit the parallel universe where they made the next season the way it was originally planned...

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • "Clive Swift does an excellent job of being unlikable as Jobel."

    Last month or so, I finally found my copy of THE LOVED ONE.  I had completely forgotten that Rod Steiger was in that, as "Mr. Joyboy", who is a MUCH more disturbing character than Mr. Jobel in this story!!

    The character equivalent of Davros in the original was played by Jonathan Winters. He acts like some kind of holy preacher-man, but running the world's most expensive cemetery is just a racket to him. And once he realizes he about to run out of space for new graves, he tries to figure out how to get rid of the bodies so he can turn the entire place into a retirement home.  (It's a very, very sick movie. The screenplay by the same guy who did DR. STRANGELOVE, THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN, BARBARELLA, and others.)

    "Very nice work from Eleanor Bron and Hugh Walters as Kara and Vogel - I especially liked Vogel's death scene, the way he looked into Kara's eyes before collapsing.:

    I always remember her for Ahme, the high priestess of the death-cult of Kali in the movie HELP!  "I can say no more."

    "I thought this was Molloy's best work as Davros - I liked seeing Davros as the master manipulator, not always ranting all the time."

    Yes.

    "Excellent job from William Gaunt as Orcini."

    I've also seen him in a Cathy Gale episaode of THE AVENGERS.  I really wish Orcini hadn't gotten killed in this. I could see him & The Doctor crossing paths from time to time, and contrasting their different approaches and attitudes. He would have been a much more interesting recurring character than Anthony Ainley's Master was.

    "I like that Peri didn't know a Dalek the first time she saw one. If you didn't know what one was, you wouldn't automatically think it was a threat."

    Wouldn't you have thought he'd have asked her "What did it look like?" "I don't know, some kind of giant salt-shaker..."  (I actually have salt-shakers that look just like that!)

    ""A Knight of the Grand Order of Oberon. Only I would be stupid enough to attack such a person."  Never liked that line - after all, he didn't know who Orcini was until after he'd attacked him."

    Just more of Eric Saward trying to make The Doctor look stupid and useless.

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