The Daleks - The Ordeal

The penultimate episode is where the trek really gets interesting. The long pause before the they react has been cut down which I’m glad because it was a really odd moment. Now we get to see the other party but at the beginning all they don’t seem to achieve as much in this episode as Ian’s party. I prefer the Doctor’s party because no one is annoying. The party that Ian and Barbara are with is filled with slightly annoying people. I’m not a big fan of Antodus. I think he always been a bit wet and does nothing but bring everybody down. It just gets worse when part of the cave comes down. It’s not necessarily the fault of Marcus Hammond but the character doesn’t really serve a purpose. His falling off the cliff and having trouble to hold is the beginning of the end for the character and Antodus isn’t a Thal that will be missed. Ganatus and Barbara’s romance continues to grow. When he has fallen to the bottom of the cave he seems more concerned with Barbara’s wellbeing.

 

There are something’s in this episode which make me go mmmm. I always find the line “We wont use one of the customs on your planet…..ladies first!”. We never hear anyone use it so it’s a bit odd that someone from Skaro knows this. Either it was in a deleted scene or other people from earth have been on Skaro. Another thing that I find odd is the scene where the Doctor and Susan are shortening out the circuit and whilst the Doctor is praising himself at what he has done, they don’t seem the Daleks coming towards them.  The Daleks are tiny things that blend into the background so it’s a bit hard to believe that they didn’t see them coming.

The Daleks are menacing in this episode as their plan to nuke the planet for their own ends starts to gather pace with the only issue being time. There is a moment where they are doing the Nazi salute and it’s a powerful image and one that matches up with their opinions on the thals. This doesn’t come until near the end of the episode but at least we don’t get the cardboard cutout Daleks.

William Hartnell is great in this episode, his particular gem of a scene comes when the Doctor and Susan have are sitting on the floor and the Daleks tell them the plan and he says “That’s sheer murder”. After a couple of episodes where he’s not had much to do he finally gets given something good from the start of the episode to the end and he very good. Even his hair has calmed down since the early episodes. William Russell doesn’t have much heroic things to do but he is still a good presence in the episode. Leading the party through the caves he has become the leader of the ‘B Team’. Carole Ann Ford is good in what is becoming a wildly inconsistent character. Susan doesn’t come across like a child and instead acts perfectly normally. Granted she does spend a large portion of the episode attached to William Hartnell’s arm but as a performance it can’t be faulted. Jacqueline Hill has some more stuff to do in this episode and its not just to become love interest but there’s a nice moment where she says that Ian told them something and Ganatus says “Do you always do what Ian tells you to?” and it’s the reactions that she gives which seems to suggest that she has been blindly following his orders and Ganatus has made her realise.

Some clever directing shots where the shot of looking down at Ganatus is done by placing a mirror above the actor at the appropriate height and just moving the camera and filming up. Then there the shot of Ian’s party walking through the cave, the shot is simple but still impressive. The cave scenes are wonderfully dark and atmospheric. I thought that it was a Christopher Barry episode but it was actually a Richard Martin episode and he does very well.

The cliffhanger is literally a cliffhanger. The last shot is of Ian struggling to keep a grip of a tiny rock. It’s the best cliffhanger since ‘The Dead Planet’. As an episode it’s a lot more active than the previous episode. Whereas in ‘The Expedition’ there was a lot of sitting around talking, here they are always on the move and the plot seems to move on a lot more than in previous episodes. The writing and directing were all very good in this episode. Looking forward to the final episode.