Resurrection of the Daleks

I am very difficult to kill. You should already know that.

Resurrection of the Daleks is a fairly well known story both for it being Tegan's final story and for also being the most death soaked story in Doctor Who history. You could argue that other stories (such as Logopolis) had greater death tolls with the destruction of planets, but this story gets up close and personal with all the deaths. From what I've been able to tell, it seems to have a fairly good reputation although some fans find it a bit too grim to full enjoy.

Plot Summary

A group of soldiers and scientists attempt to escape from an abandoned warehouse in London in 1984. Almost all of them are gunned down by guards dressed as police men who then vaporize the bodies. Two men escape but one is later found by a patrol and also killed, leaving Stein as the sole survivor.

The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough try to fight their way out of the time corridor that sucked the TARDIS in at the end of Frontios. The Doctor is able to perform an emergency maneuver that gets them out and they materialize outside the warehouse where Stein has collapsed. They tend to him and he takes them inside when the Doctor asks about the time corridor.

Elsewhere, a dilapidated prison ship is holding location in space as a new junior officer, Lt. Mercer, rotates on. While he is on duty, the ship is attacked by a Dalek battle cruiser. The Dalek ship overwhelms the defenses but the initial boarding wave is repulsed. A second wave, led by a mercenary named Lytton, overwhelms the defenses and they secure the primary prisoner, Davros, who has been held in suspended animation.

While exploring the warehouse, Turlough is accidentally sucked into the time corridor and finds himself on the Dalek ship. He hides as a Dalek is dispatched from the ship down the corridor to recover the Doctor, whom they have detected at the other end. The Dalek materializes just as the Doctor, Tegan and Stein are confronted by a small group of army personnel who had heard the Doctor shouting for Turlough. The Doctor directs the soldiers to shoot the eyestalk of the Dalek. Blinded, the Dalek is unable to defend itself as the soldiers push it out the window where it explodes upon crashing to the ground.

Tegan is injured in the fighting and is taken to a makeshift hospital area. The man in charge, Colonel Archer, leaves the warehouse to call in for reinforcements as well as medical supplies to assist the wounded. The outside phone has been disabled but he finds two police officers and asks to use their radio. They however, are the same policemen who killed the escapees and attack Archer.

On the ship, the Daleks are aware of Turlough but leave him alone, hoping to use him as bait to lure the Doctor. Turlough instead runs into the last of the crew who killed a group of Dalek-allied humans and stole their uniforms. They interrogate him but finding he knows nearly nothing about what is going on, take him with them in their plan to destroy the ship.

Davros is brought out of suspended animation and informed that the Daleks lost their war with the Movellans due to the implementation of a virus. Davros is being brought back to concoct a cure, although neither Davros nor the Daleks trust the other. Davros agrees but only if he can set up a lab on the prison ship. He manages to inject the engineer who had been repairing his chair with a serum that brings him under his control and then takes him with to the lab.

The Dalek mutant survived the explosion and crawls out of the wreckage. It attacks a soldier, injecting him with an agent. The Doctor and soldiers find the creature and kill it. The Doctor and Stein then head to the TARDIS to trace the time corridor to find Turlough. The Doctor locates the source when a group of Daleks travel down the corridor and invade the warehouse. The Doctor materializes the TARDIS on the Dalek ship but once on board, Stein turns his gun on the Doctor as he is a Dalek agent.

Stein and the Daleks take the Doctor into a lab where the Daleks have made duplicate versions of the soldiers on Earth and of the Doctor's companions. They intend to make a controlled copy of the Doctor to infiltrate Gallifrey and murder the High Council. The machines are activated and they begin to copy the Doctor's thought patterns. The Doctor appeals to Stein, who's copy is beginning to fight the control and reintroduce his original thought patterns.

The team with Turlough make their way to the self destruct mechanism. The Daleks become alerted to this development and dispatch Lytton and his team to deal with them. Before they arrive, Turlough and Lt. Mercer leave to see if they can access the time corridor and escape before the prison ship blows up. They map the access but upon returning, find Lytton's men have overrun the position and killed the rest of the team.

On Earth, Tegan and her nurse, Professor Laird, come to the conclusion that Col. Archer and his men have been taken over by the Daleks. Laird sets up a covering that makes it look like Tegan's asleep and then has her run out. Archer discovers the ruse quickly and orders a search. Tegan is apprehended by the two Dalek allied policemen outside, killing a local fisherman whom Tegan tried to flag down for help. She is taken back inside to be transported through the time corridor to the Dalek ship with Laird. Laird tries to fight and is shot by Archer.

Davros works quietly in his lab requesting samples of Dalek tissue and a sample of the Movellan virus. However, as new people come in, they are injected with the same serum and brought under his control. He takes control of a technician, one of Lytton's men and two Daleks, with whom he plans to reform the Dalek race in an image loyal only to him.

Tegan is sent to the Dalek ship on her own where she is nabbed by Turlough and Mercer. They enter the room where the Doctor had been held to find he has been set free after Stein fought off the Dalek's programing of him. The Doctor destroys the information recorded and the whole group heads to the TARDIS. Inside, the Doctor orders Tegan and Turlough to stay while he goes to kill Davros. Mercer and Stein come with him.

Davros, unaware that the Doctor was captured on the Dalek ship, sends his Daleks and converted soldiers down through the time corridor to capture the TARDIS. He also sends out his technician with a sample of the Movellan virus to kill the original Daleks. The Supreme Dalek becomes aware of the Doctor's escape as well as Davros' plans. He dispatches Lytton and his men to kill Davros and his converts.

The Doctor arrives to kill Davros but hesitates as Davros explains his plan to change the Daleks. However, even after learning that they will still be killing machines he still hesitates in pulling the trigger. He is distracted by the sounds of gunfire in the hall. Stein and Mercer have killed four of Lytton's men but Mercer was also killed and Stein is finding the Dalek control reasserting itself. Davros locks the Doctor out and the Doctor is forced to flee for the time corridor.

With Davros barricaded in, Lytton and his men are sent down the time corridor to deal with the renegade Daleks instead. These have already destroyed Colonel Archer and his men. Lytton and his men manage to kill the humans with them but are massacred by the actual Daleks, though Lytton only feigns death.

While all this is going on, the TARDIS is transported back through the time corridor to the warehouse based on a preset timer. Deciding to help as best they can, Tegan and Turlough sneak through and steal a canister of the Movellan virus that had been placed in the warehouse for safekeeping. They carry it back to the TARDIS and wait for the Doctor.

With the failure of Lytton's men, the Supreme Dalek sends Daleks to deal with Davros. They break through the doors but Davros smashes a vial of the virus, infecting and killing them. He begins to make his way to an escape pod but shows signs of the virus infecting him as well. Another group of Daleks kill the technicians who had been carrying the other sample of the virus.

The second group of Daleks is sent to the warehouse to destroy the renegade Daleks and they begin to fight. The Doctor follows them down the time corridor and destroys one with a makeshift bomb. He then takes the virus canister and sprays the virus into the air. Those Daleks that survived the initial battle are killed by the virus. In the carnage, Lytton kills one of his own men and sneaks out. He disguises himself as a police commander and then meets up with his two remaining men, the police officers from earlier, and slips away.

On the Dalek ship, Stein, still fighting with the Dalek control, finishes priming the self destruct mechanism begun by Mercer's group originally. The Supreme Dalek becomes aware of this and sends a third team of Daleks to deal with Stein. They kill Stein but he falls on the control panel, activating the mechanism. The explosion destroys the prison ship and the Dalek ship still docked with it.

The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough exit the TARDIS to survey the damage and Tegan breaks emotionally. Unable to enjoy the experience and surrounded by death, she informs the Doctor that she is staying behind. She shakes their hands and then runs off. She comes back for a brief glance as the Doctor and Turlough depart in the TARDIS.

Analysis

This is the first story that Eric Saward wrote on his own since Earthshock and it is rather obvious that he is trying to recapture what he had there in this story. This time however, it is with the Daleks and he increases the body count dramatically. He doesn't get the splash this time of killing a companion, but he does send one off (I wouldn't be shocked if he didn't have at least one draft where Tegan did get killed) and it's almost as despairing as if she were killed given the tone of the goodbye. I'm of a rather mixed mind on this one as it moves along nicely, there's a lot of action and a dark tone. But at the same time, it doesn't feel like there is much depth to the story and it is nothing more than a slog to see when each person is going to die.

If I had to peg a single problem with the development of this story it is that there is very little time for explanation. Earthshock waited until the end of Episode One to reveal the Cybermen and in that time there was development of the other characters. What's more, the teams were relatively small with just the one military team and then a small freighter crew. Here you have the space prison ship crew and a rather sizable crew on the ground. None of them are given much time to develop except for Stein. Styles and Mercer are given a bit of development but it doesn't stick that well. I didn't even remember Styles' character's name and know her only as Rula Lenska due to the number of references made to her by the fans.

Another problem of this story compared to Earthshock is that some of the guest cast survived there. Even with Adric's death, there was the redemption that took place through the survival of the crew. After all, it was Adric's own stupidity that got him killed rather than any direct actions of the Cybermen (despite one blowing up the control panel). Here, there are no survivors except Lytton and two of his men. If any one other person of the forces allied with the Doctor had survived, whether on the ground or the prison ship, it would have felt like there was something else that was gained, but instead we get only the Doctor and his companions surrounded by the dead. That's a bit too much hopelessness for me.

The performances were good. I enjoyed the Doctor for the most part and even liked that he got his hands dirty with the killing of a Dalek. However, he was the wrong choice for trying to kill Davros. Nearly every other Doctor you could believe in taking that step, but the steps the Fifth Doctor takes to avoid killing, despite the exceptionally high body count that surrounds him, just makes his threat to kill Davros feel false. Davros was quite correct when he pointed out that the Doctor's failure to pull the trigger did represent a level of weakness. Because it didn't suit the Fifth Doctor, it just felt like something that had been tacked on for drama rather than a genuine outgrowth of no other choice.

In the same vein, I do wish the Fifth Doctor didn't have such an inept feel about him in this story. The Doctor has been trapped and needed to be rescued by his companions or others before. But I don't recall specific instances where it felt like the Doctor was in such a weak position. If he was in some sort of death trap or it might be a form of noble sacrifice, that's one thing. But here, he is going to be stripped of his mind to create a weapon to be used against his own people. That seems like something he should be fighting harder against. I realize he was working on Stein's mental conditioning the whole time, but it still felt like the Doctor was completely helpless and I would have liked a stronger vein of resistance from him.

Tegan and Turlough were pretty good. Turlough actually seemed braver here than in other stories and I can't fault him for always looking out to save his neck. I would have appreciated a scene showing him transported to the Dalek ship as that was a little confusing but otherwise he worked fairly well. Tegan was also alright although she was rather whimper-y in this story. There had been stories in the past where she felt stronger but this was more of a fearful and off-put Tegan. Some of that was probably part of the performance given that she was supposed to be recovering from a concussion, but having had good performances from her, I would have liked something a little stronger: a grim determination that breaks at the end perhaps.

I think I also would have liked a stronger breakdown at the end. In the end, you had Tegan trying to hold it together but it seemed a bit stilted. I think I would have liked a bit more raw emotion and even more crying breakdown by her. She is crying as she runs off but could you imagine her beating her fists on the Doctor's chest and screaming about how their all dead and that she can't do this anymore? He tries to comfort her but she shoves him away and runs off. I think I would have cut the "Brave heart, Tegan" line as well. That cuts away at the emotional rawness of the running off scene, like she had a change of heart or wistfulness rather than the emotional trauma that she is supposed to be dealing with. It's a good leaving scene, but not as good as it had the potential of being.

The Daleks worked pretty well and I thought they worked well as villains. I think my biggest appreciation was that they were well aware of most of the goings on and either dismissed them or tried to turn it into a trap. Granted, they should have been a bit more aware of Davros' schemes but that's a small niggle. What makes less sense though is why the Daleks were so bent on staying on the prison ship. Lytton continuously pointed out that he had planned for a get in/get out operation. But the Supreme Dalek seemed all too eager to go along with Davros' plan to stay. It's a small flaw, but one that you can't help but feel is a little too convenient for the plot.

This was a very good Davros in my opinion. Still not up to Michael Wisher in Genesis of the Daleks but a close number two. He appears a bit more thoughtful and resourceful. He does go on a rant at one point and near another when talking about remaking the Daleks, but those more underlie his madness. He has a number of quiet moments and it is in those moments that he has that strong level of menace and where he is so threatening. The only real undercut to him is that he was so short-sighted as to not foresee that his Kaled DNA would make him susceptible to the Movellan virus designed to kill Daleks. Davros should be smarter than that and that was just a bit of lazy writing to offer the possibility that Davros was killed in the event that the character was to be retired.

Under normal circumstances, Lytton would be ignored or just lumped in with the generic bad guys evaluation but given that he returns in Attack of the Cybermen, he needs to be looked at a bit. I was rather surprised because many fans seem to think of Lytton undergoing a vast character change in the two stories, aided by the Sixth Doctor's harsh reaction to him. But the Doctor never actually meets Lytton so that's a bit odd to start with. Second, I saw almost no difference in Lytton's characterization between the two stories. Lytton is a mercenary who has been hired by the Daleks and who has a strong inclination towards self-preservation. He was cold toward the crew of the prison ship but that was his job. His hire job in Attack of the Cybermen allows him to show a bit more compassion and selflessness, but it's not different when you get down to brass tacks. I liked Lytton both in Attack of the Cybermen and here. He was the person who had the brain to think in the long term and about how to outwit the enemy rather than just try to overpower. It's rather a shame that he was killed off in his second story as he would have been an interesting character to bring back on occasion. Sort of a darker Captain Jack if you were.

Speaking of darker, it should be pointed out that not only did this have a darker tone in the volume of bodies stacked around but the manner of those deaths was pretty gruesome in some cases, especially with the gas attack. As I recall, both the nature of the violence and the fact that two police officers are shown murdering people (including an unsuspecting fisherman) caused quite a stir in Parliament, which actually fed the idea of going more violent in Season 22 to garner the shock watcher. I for one didn't mind the violence and I'd rather see violence in war portrayed more brutally since it takes the romantic veneer off this type of violence. It was more the overall feeling of hopelessness and death of all involved that bothered me. It gave it a "what was this all for" feel and that was where I had a problem rather than the grim nature of it.

Of the three R. Dalek stories that make up the 80's, I would rank this as #2, behind Remembrance of the Daleks. All three are pretty good but that one had a depth that I enjoyed. This one worked fairly well although it was not without it's faults. It's entertaining but not a lot of fun which is something that Earthshock did manage to capture, despite it's grim nature. A little levity, a survivor on the good guy side and an even more emotional Tegan leaving and I think this would have been one of the best of the Fifth Doctor stories. But I do have to downgrade it as such.

Overall personal score: 4 out of 5