{"id":209,"date":"2013-11-11T14:24:32","date_gmt":"2013-11-11T20:24:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/keithgoodnight.com\/blog\/?p=209"},"modified":"2013-11-11T14:24:32","modified_gmt":"2013-11-11T20:24:32","slug":"dr-who-destiny-of-the-daleks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/keithgoodnight.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/11\/dr-who-destiny-of-the-daleks\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr Who: Destiny of the Daleks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"dod1\"<\/a>The TARDIS lands on Skaro, where the Doctor and a brand-new Romana (see below) discover the Daleks have returned to their home planet and are digging down into the ruins of the old Kaled city (destroyed in Genesis of the Daleks).<\/i> To do the work for them, they have a slave labor force of prisoners captured in raids on planets and ships around the galaxy as part of the ongoing Dalek wars. They\u2019re callously working the prisoners to death as they drive the excavations down into the old city.<\/p>\n

Landing on the planet soon after the TARDIS arrives, a force of Movellans\u2014 another power at war with the Daleks, and locked in an ongoing stalemate. The Movellan ship has been sent to find out what the Daleks are up to, and at first it seems like they\u2019ll be the good guys, allies of the Doctor against his old enemies, as the Thals have been in older Dalek stories. But the Doctor soon discovers the truth: the Movellans are a race of robots, as aggressive as the Daleks themselves, and the stalemate in their war with each other has spared the galaxy the ravages of both. The Doctor has to find a way to make sure neither side finds a way to break that stalemate\u2014 which involves discovering what the Daleks are after and preventing either them or the Movellans from getting their hands on it.<\/p>\n

For the first half of this story, we get a glimpse of the classic Daleks, as they were in their heyday in the sixties. Following the tradition for Dalek stories, their first appearance is saved for the episode 1 cliffhanger and dramatically treated as a surprise (even though the episode title gives it away from the start) but their presence is felt throughout episode 1 as we see signs of what they\u2019re up to: the ominous, pervasive sound of underground drilling, glimpses of a party of starving prisoners burying one who\u2019s died, the arrival of the Movellans and their talk of a terrible enemy they\u2019re fighting. In episode 2 the Daleks take center stage, playing their old role of \u201cSpace Nazis\u201d to the hilt as they interrogate Romana, then put her to work among the prisoners, chase the Doctor and the Movellans around the underground passages of the Kaled city, and finally reach their goal which, typical of the Daleks, is simultaneously brilliant and unbelievable: they\u2019re trying to dig up their creator, Davros. It was the Daleks themselves who killed him, but they take it for granted they\u2019ll be able to revive him and that, when they do, he\u2019ll invent something new for them to break the stalemate.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the moment Davros does wake up, it all falls apart. The revived Davros is a far more one-dimensional character than he was in Genesis.<\/i> His megalomania is all that\u2019s left of him, and he spends his time talking about his own inevitable supremacy over the universe, and not much else. Meanwhile, the Daleks are instantly reduced to mere henchmen, meekly promising to obey him and showing no trace of their own initiative from that point on\u2014 even sending messages to their war fleet to dance to Davros\u2019 tune, and not arguing when he declares there\u2019ll be no such title as \u201cSupreme Dalek\u201d any more.<\/p>\n

You\u2019d like to imagine that they\u2019re just playing up to him, all the while planning to betray him once again just as soon as they get what they need. This would fit well into the great Dalek stories of the past: at their best, they were master manipulators and strategists, and were more dangerous for that than for their ray guns (The Power of the Daleks<\/i> is a prime example, convincing a colony of humans that they are faithful servants). Unfortunately, we\u2019re given no hint of that in the story, or ever again in the Classic series until their final appearance in the Seventh Doctor episode Remembrance of the Daleks.<\/i> From now on, the Daleks are nothing but Davros\u2019 redshirts, which is too bad.<\/p>\n

That aside, the story is enjoyable enough. It keeps moving, and the addition of the Movellans prevents the \u201cDecline of the Daleks\u201d from dragging it down\u2014 they\u2019re revealed as villains at the same time as the boringly one-note Davros takes over the Daleks, and they provide interesting villains to keep the story going. Defeating them turns out to be the trickier and more exciting climax than stopping Davros and the Daleks (although blowing up a whole lot of Daleks is also, always, a satisfying moment).<\/p>\n

Romana<\/h4>\n

\"RomanaMeglos\"<\/a>At the end of last season, Mary Tamm decided not to return to play Romana for another year. Producer Graham Williams remained convinced that he could talk her into changing her mind and so did not include any departure scene at the end of The Armageddon Factor, <\/i>and when commissioning scripts for the next season he had the writers still using Romana as the companion. When Tamm remained firm, that created a problem. Someone eventually came up with the solution: Romana\u2019s a Time Lady. She can regenerate, just as the Doctor has done.<\/p>\n

Tome Baker suggested Lalla Ward, who played Princess Astra in the previous story, to take over the role, and new script editor Douglas Adams wrote a scene in which Romana regenerates into her new form. There\u2019s two things to talk about: the scene itself, and Lalla Ward\u2019s take on the character.<\/p>\n

The regeneration itself is controversial among fans, because it seems to contradict what we know about regeneration. First, there\u2019s no evident reason for it. Romana walks into the console room looking like Princess Astra, and explains she\u2019s regenerated. But why? What we\u2019ve seen before is that regeneration is a traumatic near-death experience (treated explicitly as<\/i> a kind of death when the Third Doctor regenerated to the Fourth). What happened to Romana to cause it? Fans who like \u201cplaying the game\u201d and so need to explain it suggest that perhaps it was caused by the torture she suffered at the hands of the Shadow in the previous episode, but she seemed okay after that. Or perhaps there was some off-screen accident, but the Doctor doesn\u2019t seem remotely alarmed or worried. He doesn\u2019t ask \u201cwhat happened?\u201d In fact it\u2019s treated as something she just decided to do.<\/p>\n

The best \u201cwe must have internal continuity\u201d explanation is to attach it to the feature of Romana\u2019s character we\u2019ve seen before: she\u2019s big on the book learning, but not on experience. Perhaps Time Lords living on Gallifrey, where they\u2019re unlikely to ever meet with any trauma severe enough to force regeneration, sometimes do choose to regenerate just to make a change. But this isn\u2019t very satisfying. Even if they can do that, we\u2019ve already introduced the 12-regeneration limit and by now Romana\u2019s had enough life-or-death adventures that she should be smart enough to think she ought to save her supply of new lives for an actual emergency.<\/p>\n

Following on, we get a comedy scene where the Doctor says she can\u2019t go around looking like Princess Astra, so she goes off to try a series of other bodies in a sort of version of the Doctor\u2019s traditional costuming scene, deliberately choosing ridiculous ones until the Doctor relents and lets her look like Astra as she wanted in the first place. Douglas Adams, writing the scene, intended it to be another example of Romana\u2019s \u201cI got better grades than the Doctor\u201d attitude\u2014 we\u2019ve seen her know more about TARDIS navigation than him, here we see that while regeneration is a haphazard practice for the Doctor, Romana has the skill to carefully select her own new appearance. Unfortunately this isn\u2019t communicated to the viewer properly. Neither she nor the Doctor comments on the superior ability she\u2019s showing, they both act like this voluntary body-shopping is entirely routine\u2014 as if the producers knew or cared nothing about how regeneration had been presented before<\/p>\n

So the regeneration itself is controversial among fans, most of whom would like to pretend it never happened (it\u2019s an opportunity for missing-adventure fan fiction: write the unseen adventure in which Romana was injured, regenerated, and said something to the Doctor like \u201cdon\u2019t worry, I\u2019m much better at this than you are, it won\u2019t be a problem\u201d right before the scene we saw on screen).<\/p>\n

But what about Lalla Ward taking over the role? She becomes the only actor in the series (and Romana the only character) to face the challenge of every new Doctor: show us a character who is still the same person as before, but also different. (The Master\u2019s regenerations are a substantially different case, and although we\u2019ll eventually see the Doctor\u2019s old teacher Borusa played by a different actor every time he appears, nothing much is ever made of it.) Ward is helped by having a script written for Mary Tamm, so the essence of Romana is there in the writing, but she immediately plays it in a very different way than Tamm.<\/p>\n

\"183788\"<\/a>The new Romana is far more playful, replacing the First Romana\u2019s aristocratic coolness, and as such make a better friend and partner for the Doctor. She and the Doctor have genuine chemistry from the start (off screen as well as on: Tom Baker and Lalla Ward eventually got married, although the marriage didn\u2019t last and she\u2019s now married to Richard Dawkins). In this first outing, she costumes herself in a sort of \u201cgirly version\u201d of the Doctor\u2019s own costume: all in pink and white, with the same long scarf and frock coat (and that\u2019s after convincing him to let her look like Astra by wearing a fully-identical costume to his for a short while).<\/p>\n

When she first encounters the Daleks, she\u2019s briefly overwhelmed and terrified, but doesn\u2019t take long to regain her nerve and stand up to them (and the other perils of the story) with as much bravado as the Doctor himself. She finds a very clever way to escape from their slave labor camp, and in general shows herself to be an adventurer ready to be an equal partner with the Doctor.<\/p>\n

Romana II and the Doctor will make an interesting pairing in the episodes to come.<\/p>\n

Details<\/h4>\n