Revelation of the Daleks

 

“Mr. Jobel. I love you. I’m risking my own life talking to you like this.”
”You’ve spent too many hours alone in this preparation room. Someone as impressionable as you should lavish a little more time on the living instead of fantasising with the dead”
”Look you’ve got to get away from here I could help you!”
”And do what? Do you honestly think I could possibly be interested in you? I have the pick of the women. I would rather run away with my mother, than own a fawning little creep like you. – Tasembeker and Jobel

Revelation of the Daleks, by total contrast to the proceeding story is a strong and well thought out story. The atmosphere of the tale is as bleak as they come. A funeral planet plays host to Davros’ new race of Daleks, sporting rather lovely ivory and gold livery. The script penned by Eric Saward was inspired by the books ‘Soylent Green’ and ‘The Loved One’, so already you know there’s thought here.

Rather stupidly it was BBC policy at the time to not allow script editors to pen scripts whilst in their job. Saward got around this by writing and submitting the story during his time off. It’s a pity he couldn’t pen more stories as the quality of this one really could have kept Who alive had more stories been like it. So, does the death of 20th Century Who owe itself to red tape?

The story takes place on Necros, a planet catering for those ‘resting in suspended animation’. The internment location is a place called Tranquil Repose, a deliberately tacky name under the eye of the quite creepy Mr. Jobel. His complex relationship with Tasembeker is borrowed from the pages of ‘The Loved One’. The performances of Clive Swift ( ‘Keeping Up Appearances’ ,‘Voyage of the Damned’) and Jenny Tomasin (‘Upstairs Downstairs’, ‘Emmerdale’) evoke that of a previous romantic engagement. Tasembeker of course is still chasing after Jobel long after he has rejected her, as such his death is one that is beautifully presented, the opening of the toupé as he falls represents the exposure of the little man as he is brought down by the very woman he publicly belittled. It’s a beautiful piece of television carried off with flair.

A rather similar relationship within the serial is that of Kara and Vogel. At first their relationship would appear altogether more straightforward, that of a business team, however it soon becomes apparent that Kara has altogether more benevolent plans for the galaxy, and her interactions give small hints there may be a romantic entanglement involved. Hugh Walters’ (‘Survivors, ‘Heartbeat’ ) performance is masterful. The role of Vogel is one that could easily stay in the background, but Walters brings in a backstory between his character and Kara that even Saward admits to not having thought of when penning the script. His performance adds an extra layer of depth to an already brilliant serial. The death of Vogel was carefully considered by Walters, as he commented in a 2005 documentary:

“You had to find a relationship between them to get it to work. Eleanor and I managed some sort of subtext going on, ‘Did he love her, did he not?’ Y’know, what was going on between them? […] I had to be killed by the Daleks, and I said to Graeme (Harper) “Well, what do I do?” and he said “Oh it’s like an electric charge going through you, so shiver a lot, shake a lot, wave your arms a lot and we’ll do the rest in post production.” So I did that on the shoot and then tried to get it to go slow motion after it, turning to Eleanor and looking at her sort of thinking “I love you” and “Why did this have to happen to me?”. And then tried to do as slow a fall as possible and try to fall into some sort of artistic pose at the end” – Hugh Walters.

Kara acts as the perfect foil to Davros character. Her makeup gives a startling yet also very attractive look to her, whilst at the same time her character is very cold and calculated. Her scheme involving Orcini is beautifully executed and gives a compelling piece of Drama whilst leaving the Doctor and Peri out of the loop, which oddly makes the tale more compelling as a result.

Davros, played for a second time here by Terry Malloy becomes less of an adjunct of the Daleks and evolves into his own character. His dialogue is elevated beyond mere megalomaniac shouting to altogether more playful conversation as he tries to extort more money out of Kara to keep funding his new Daleks. It’s a pleasure to see this new facet of his character as it makes the whole thing seem more three dimensional and is easily the strongest of Malloy’s three performances as Davros.

The script is infused with dark humour, whether it be from Grigory, Davros or Jobel, the entire thing is underlined with black comedy, making for a more unsettling and adult piece of television. In Grigory’s case it’s his way of coping in terror, as the character is fundamentally an unwilling coward who’s been strung along in this and who’s death is ultimately quite unfortunate and evokes a level of sympathy from the audience. In Jobel’s case however it makes an argument for the acclimatisation to the scenario of death, as he makes fun of the President’s wife, which in being highly disrespectful, shows he both has been working amongst the dead for a long time and further reinforces his character as an egotist.

A somewhat unexpected character for me was that of the DJ, played by the instantly recognisable Alexei Sayle (‘The Young Ones’), the character plays as a counterfoil to the intensely dark atmosphere of Tranquil Repose, by offering a colourful song and dance, as well as some more gossip-like humour, such as his interactions with George on his birthday. There is also a wonderful joke within his character, as it transpires all along he’s being paid to talk to thin air.

All that text and hardly a word about the principle characters, that’s how deep this story is. The Doctor and Peri’s relationship evolves in this story as the two are less argumentative (though there are still hints of confrontation in the nut roast roll scene), this serial is most constructive in introducing a softer interaction between the two, such as the Doctor’s consolation to Peri over the DJ’s death. This serial also sees an honest attempt to hide Colin Baker’s costume, as Saward felt the coat in particular was fundamentally unsuitable for a drama series, hence the blue cloak.

This serial is to my way of thinking not just the strongest the Sixth Doctor had to offer, but also one of the strongest stories of Doctor Who, yet in a recent poll this episode didn’t even rank in the top 30. Maybe people just can’t accept a Colin Baker story could be this good.