Running Through Corridors: Rob and Toby's Marathon Watch of Doctor Who (Volume 1: The 60s)

by Robert Shearman

  The whole of this episode, though, is perhaps encapsulated in the confrontation between the Doctor and Jamie – a stand-off that’s sparked by the Doctor’s Machiavellian and shifty behaviour, plus Jamie’s eavesdropping. Jamie is quite unlike the guileless Jacobite we’re used to – Hines makes the most of this opportunity to show his dramatic chops, and Troughton is at turns patronisingly funny (“You’re in a temper”) and darkly manipulative in dealing with him. It’s like watching an old friend being blackmailed by a clown. It’s a surprisingly uncompromising exchange, and if it leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, it aptly demonstrates that there’s nothing safe or cosy about any of this.

  The Evil of the Daleks episode four

  R: As ever – the test that Jamie undergoes might be very dramatic and exciting, and it’s hard to tell by soundtrack and telesnap alone. (I’m betting it looked great; this is Derek Martinus directing, after all.) As it is, it all seems a bit strange, all these peculiar deathtraps of falling axes in a Victorian house. The Doctor spends the episode watching the events with great interest (so he’s one up from me, then), and pointing out moments of bravery and compassion to a watching Dalek. Once you underline them the way the Doctor is doing, these moments feel a bit flat and obvious, really.

  What works far better is that there’s so much of humanity in all its forms on display in the rest of the episode. There’s callousness in the scene where Arthur tyrannises Molly – but there’s a surprising tenderness too, as Ruth Maxtible tries to find out why her fiancé is so altered, and Arthur himself clearly despairs at the inhuman brute he’s turned into against his will. There’s self-deception in Maxtible’s efforts to persuade himself he’s a partner to the Daleks; even as he’s being physically forced to the ground, he’s convincing himself that their insistence he’s their servant, and not their ally, is just some cultural misunderstanding. And, best of all, there’s the debate between Waterfield and Maxtible about their own morality being the “sleeping partners” of the Daleks. It’s as unforced and as cogent a discussion on guilt and responsibility as we’ve ever seen in Doctor Who – and it’s the turning point for this story about what makes a human and what makes a monster. Maxtible’s insistence that he cannot be blamed for the deaths in the house is not unreasonable... but the moment he picks up a gun so he can murder his partner, he’s resigned all moral standing. Whereas Waterfield is haunted by the chaos and tragedy he’s unwittingly produced, and his eagerness to shoulder the blame is his redemption.

  T: It’s at this point that the cracks start to appear in fandom’s received wisdom about this story – i.e. that it’s an intelligent, action-packed and flawless epic – and we have to face the reality that we’re now watching a plucky Scotsman and a Turkish wrestler evading lethal traps in a mansion. I don’t know about you, Rob, but this isn’t exactly what I watch Doctor Who for. And while we can give this some benefit of doubt because Martinus is too skilled of a director to have let the action get clumsy, there’s a palpable sense of the story killing time when Jamie pulls Kemel to safety twice in the same episode. There are moments where I feel as though I’ve been put on hold so much, I half expect them to start playing Greensleeves.

  That said, at least Whitaker has thought much of this through – this episode is a hymn to decent human behaviour, and shows admirable thematic rigour. The Human Factor may be scientific nonsense, but it has a moral core that isn’t just reflected in the compassion shown between Jamie and Kemel, it’s also in the interaction between Waterfield and Maxtible. The former embodies the Human Factor with his contrition and decency, whilst Maxtible has gone the Dalek route by selfishly wanting to ensure his own prosperity. To put it another way, this story’s heart is in the right place, in more ways than one.

  I said that Whitaker has thought much of this through, but I can’t swear that he’s given due consideration to all of it. To be entirely honest, it’s getting a bit hard to reconcile Whitaker’s classy characterisation and dialogue with the fantastical, almost childish, touches that he insists on throwing in; I’d accept Maxtible’s belief in something as ridiculous and fairytale-inspired as alchemy as a sign of the character’s avarice and stupidity, except I’m not entirely convinced that Whitaker doesn’t believe in it too. How much of this stems from Whitaker’s own views on science, and how much of it is just him writing to the sensitivity of a children’s fable? That’s one of the oddest things about The Evil of the Daleks: it feels as if Whitaker has written The Forsyte Saga, but felt the strange need to occasionally include a scene with the Billy Goats Gruff.

  But if nothing else, Whitaker resolutely and absolutely knows the Daleks. Their repeated inspection of Victoria – the way she’s wheeled out and callously scrutinised – is pretty horrid, and it’s a real shock when a Dalek pushes Maxtible to the floor. You might expect that they’d be a bit more manipulative and cunning with him, but they don’t need to be – they know that dangling a financial carrot in front of this deluded, greedy man is enough to make him do the most wicked things. Perhaps they understand the Human Factor better than we think...

  March 26th

  The Evil of the Daleks episode five

  R: Jamie tells the Doctor he’s too callous, and that their friendship is over. Now, we know with hindsight that Jamie’s not about to leave the TARDIS, and Frazer Hines will be debagging beskirted companions until they exit the show together. But in the context of how the series has been treating its main cast over the past year, dropping them suddenly and at a whim, there’s a real force to this. Against the odds, there’s a fine dramatic pay-off to the way that Innes Lloyd has treated Dodo or Ben or Polly – you can really believe that the producer may have tired of the little Scots boy.

  It’s so obvious that at the moment Doctor Who is looking about for a new companion, that it’s all change in the TARDIS once more. The biggest surprise about spunky Sam Briggs is that when she and Jamie kissed goodbye at the end of The Faceless Ones, she didn’t jump at the prospect of adventures in time and space with him – as a character she seems entirely conceived to be someone who can be brave and loyal, get captured a lot and help the Doctor with his plans. By the end of episode five of The Evil of the Daleks, it’s also pretty clear who the new companion will be... Mollie Dawson, the cheeky maid. She gets to flirt with Jamie, she shows wit and courage, she gets knocked out and bullied by the villains. She’s the one who actively helps Jamie in his plans, and she’s the one who delicately suggests she has no present worth living for. What about Victoria Waterfield, the real new companion, you might ask? This is her fourth episode in the story, and it’s only this week that she even meets another human being. So there’s no chance for a rapport to be established – and from the moment Jamie meets her, he puts her on a pedestal. She’s an idealised portrait of Victorian gentility (hence the name), and not someone you can imagine mucking in with Cybermen and Yeti. You just know that Mollie Dawson will give the monsters what for, and that Sam Briggs would have done the same. I’m not in any way criticising Deborah Watling, who gives the right sort of despairing anger to her scenes where she’s interrogated by the Daleks, but at this stage of the adventure she’s not the one you’d expect to be under contract for Season Five. That’s all I’m saying.

  It’s a peculiar episode. David Whitaker is very clever – he wrenches the story into such a position that we have a scene where Edward Waterfield considers murdering the Doctor, just to prevent him from giving the Daleks what they demand. It’s an utter reversal of where we’d expect the plot to be – just compare the steely resignation Troughton shows as he gives in to the Daleks’ demands here, to his horror that Lesterson was prepared to give the Daleks any power at all. The debate that he set up so skilfully last week about morality continues here; the Doctor coldly telling Waterfield that it’s too late to have a conscience is truly surprising. And it’s why Jamie’s outburst against the Doctor here feels justified. We’re genuinely touching on aspects of his character we haven’t seen before; the series is treading n
ew ground. In the same way, the compassion the story shows Arthur Terrall is very welcome, not giving him the comeuppance we’d expect but a chance for redemption. The episode keeps on throwing us unexpected twists – until, in the final minutes, we see the Daleks as children playing games with the Doctor. It’s all very fresh, and new, and not a little unnerving.

  T: You swine! I wanted to use my word count suggesting Mollie as the next companion. She doesn’t even reveal what she was doing up and about when she heard Victoria’s voice last episode. Was she being curious, using her initiative to investigate strange goings on, before getting captured and hypnotised? Oh, she’s definitely through to the final of Companion Academy.

  Otherwise, the Doctor’s scenes in this story again demonstrate why he’s such a fascinating character... “All forms of life interest me,” he says, as if he’s constantly observing what makes the universe tick – not just scientifically, but because he’s empathic as well. He’s gentle and understanding when Waterfield tries to attack him, in a fine scene where our sympathies fly about all over the place. And there’s a moment of deep, deep foreboding, when Waterfield talks of the destruction of a race and Troughton mournfully states, “I don’t think you quite realise what you’re saying, but it may come to that – it may very well come to that.” He’s very mercurial, this Doctor – for all of his compassion, intellect and sense of justice, he’s definitely prepared to contemplate the genocide of the Daleks.

  There are some other good bits here. Maxtible insists that the Daleks are his colleagues, and thereby sets himself up for a mighty fall, the marvellously bewhiskered old loon. Gary Watson (as Terrall) and Brigit Forsyth (as Ruth) impress again in what are hardly the most rewarding roles. John Bailey (as Waterfield) has a timbre to his vocals that gives the impression he could break at any moment. And yet, he also manages to ooze conscience and goodness; Waterfield could so easily have been a dull, snivelling wretch, but Bailey gives him massive dignity. And I love the episode ending, in which the humanised Daleks are so playful and childlike, they take the Doctor for a ride; it’s much more interesting than your run-of-the-mill piece of random jeopardy.

  But I wish they would stop mentioning “the power of the Daleks” (they’ve done it three times now, I think!), as it only serves as a reminder of how good that adventure was. So far, I’d even rate it a bit better than this story – which is strange, because before we started this marathon of ours, I’d have ranked Evil higher. Nonetheless, I’m splitting hairs a bit – whichever of them is better, it’s a crying shame that both aren’t available for us to watch and appreciate.

  The Evil of the Daleks episode six

  R: The three Daleks endowed with the Human Factor are wonderful, their ordinary monotones replaced with excitable inflection. The joy they take from their new names is infectious – chanting them with utter delight. Then there’s a moment, just a beat of silence – and they tell the Doctor in their childish sing-song voices that they’ve been recalled to Skaro. And a chill blows through the scene as the Doctor loses control of his new pepperpot friends, and you realise that for all their humour and curiosity these still are Daleks, and they’re still receiving orders. The reminder of that is really chilling.

  By taking the Daleks and tweaking what they stand for, both here and in his earlier story this season, David Whitaker is making them what Terry Nation couldn’t – genuinely iconic. In The Chase, you’d get the odd thick Dalek who stuttered a bit, and that was simply because the production team hadn’t cemented what truly represented a Dalek yet. But by writing stories which play directly upon what sounds entirely wrong coming from a Dalek voice – “I am your servant,” “Alpha, Beta, Omega!” – David Whitaker is ironically able to define what a proper Dalek should be: callous, sly, pitiless and entirely inhuman. And it’s therefore only right, after having the Daleks look so incongruous against the trappings of a Victorian house, that they’re now transported right back to where they fit in entirely. We’ve barely seen Skaro since that very first season, and by now even its name is part of that iconography. (And it’s great that Maxtible, still insistent that he’s on an equal level to the Daleks, pompously refers to it as “Skarros” – brag about his importance all he wants, but the joke’s on him, because even we as an audience know more about what’s going on than he does. It’s like Mavic Chen all over again; the more he claims superior knowledge of the Daleks, the more the viewer knows he’s going to get a terrible comeuppance.)

  As soon as you’ve made the Daleks icons, though, there’s really nothing else you can do with them except play off that. It’s why this is entirely right that this was intended to be the final Dalek story – once you’ve played with the characters as freely as Whitaker does here, it’s time to bring things to a close. (And it means that when the Daleks do return, in five years’ time, it’ll have to be done on first principles again, going back to telling very archetypal stories, reminding the audience of what the Daleks represented at grass-roots level. When the series starts to feel confident enough to play with their iconography again, it veers into another direction altogether, and introduces Davros.) It’s why, with things coming to a head, that it’s great we get the introduction of the Dalek Emperor; with the Doctor saying he’d always wondered whether they’d ever meet, this creature – who has before now only been mentioned within the spin-off merchandise, and never on screen – elevates this adventure to one of a new importance. Not only does The Evil of the Daleks riff off our expectations of what Daleks should be and subvert them, it also tells us at the same time that everything we’ve ever seen before was just a disposable preamble for this: the confrontation at last between the Doctor and his true nemesis. To take either stance is daring; to do both in the same episode is not a little breathtaking.

  T: At times you’re a master at seeing the sub-text in a piece of work, Rob – and yet, I can’t believe you’re actually trying to pass off Marius Goring’s fluff as a deliberate insight into the psyche of his character. If you’re going to play that game, why did he call Waterfield “Whitefield” in episode two? Does he have a subconscious Aryan supremacist streak, which makes his eventual transformation into a Dalek an obvious thematic payoff?

  Nonetheless, Maxtible is a terrific character – he’s a real prat, mind you, but a very interesting one. What’s most curious about him is his overriding obsession with turning metal into gold – has he not realised that he’s invented time travel? With mirrors? In the nineteenth century? Has he not thought of the financial implications of that? He could earn a fortune... except that, hang on, he’s rich already; he said he was in episode two. It’s a ridiculous scenario, and it looks like those making this episode have begun to realise it – Goring goes a bit bonkers (repeatedly shouting “murder” when Waterfield attacks him, and bumbling about looking for the Doctor like he’s a geriatric in a farce), whilst Simpson augments the man’s escape with comic plinky-plonky music that is quite at odds with the deep, portentous score used so effectively elsewhere. There’s an utterly superb moment, though, where he demands to know what right the Daleks had to destroy his house, and one sarcastically repeats the question “right?” over and over again as he blusters, then pushes him to the ground whilst they all start yelling at him. Like Mavic Chen before him, Maxtible just doesn’t realise that he’s not in control of the situation, but his presence allows us to see the Daleks as cruel and threatening.

  But then events work towards a belting climax, as the Dalek Emperor orders the Doctor to take the TARDIS and spread the Dalek Factor throughout history. The design work on the Dalek Emperor is obviously stunning, and this scene is such a profound and terrifying moment, especially as it marks such a whacking great change in tone from where the episode started, with playground Daleks using childish speech patterns. The opening bits with the humanised Daleks could have been utterly ridiculous, but they serve as such a stark contrasts to the non-augmented ones, who even prior to the revelation of the Emperor’s masterplan have underlined their callousne
ss by sterilising the area surrounding Maxtible’s house with a bomb.

  This is a superb episode, one that’s full of dramatic impact. It’s powerful, and, yes, as iconic as its reputation suggests. And surely, this is the only Dalek story in which the title of its prequel and sequel are both mentioned, as Troughton talks here of “the day of the Daleks”. It’ll have to be very good to be better than this.

  March 27th

  The Evil of the Daleks episode seven

  R: In The Power of the Daleks, David Whitaker posed the question, why do human beings kill human beings? And in The Evil of the Daleks he asks, how would you get Daleks to kill Daleks? The answer’s simple – turn them into human beings. It’s interesting that the first thing that the human-factored Daleks do is to rebel, to turn against authority. The great triumph of humanity is its ability to question – but as Whitaker shows, it leads immediately to dissent, and then to war, and then to annihilation. I’m not sure that this story is quite the celebration of mankind that people think; as in Power, there’s something very impressive about the unanimity of the Daleks – the chaos that we see destroy Skaro is entirely alien to them. And I can’t help but feel there’s something unavoidably cruel about the Doctor’s plan – no sooner does he give the Daleks consciousness, and make them vulnerable and likeable, than he allows them to be destroyed. It leaves a nasty taste in the mouth – deliberately or otherwise.

  But what the episode does very cleverly is make it clear that the Doctor is fighting not only the Daleks as a race, but the Daleks as a concept. When Maxtible becomes imbued with the Dalek factor, and when a whole army of Daleks become humanised, the whole struggle becomes blurred; no longer is it simply that looking unhuman and having grating voices can be the focus of our revulsion. Now we can be horrified instead by the instinct to conform. It is that which makes these Daleks the strongest metaphor for Nazism in the programme – certainly more suggestive than in any Terry Nation story. And it’s perhaps Whitaker’s fascination with it, that it is efficient, that it does look attractive, which gives the drama such power. Humanity is confused and eccentric, but there’s something rather wonderful in that. If we look over the colourful cast of characters we’ve had over this story, it’s their Dickensian individuality that has made them so memorable. On any logical level, someone who’s had the ability to invent time travel obsessing over the secrets of alchemy seems preposterous – but that silliness is what makes Maxtible so appealing. And it’s typically cruel of the Daleks that it gives him the formula he craves... just before turning him into a Dalek drone who wouldn’t find it worth having. Maxtible may be capricious and selfish and corrupt, he’s the very worst presentation of humanity on offer in this story – but he’s also bizarre, and that wide-eyed larger-than-life performance he gives is so much more appealing than the efficient automaton he’s turned into. There’s no more disturbing moment in the entire story than hearing Maxtible chant “kill” over and over again, not as a Dalek but as a human who has no longer the imagination to think of anything else.