Genesis of the Daleks - Episode 2

As the second episode starts I thought that it was odd that we don’t get a reprise in this episode but it just carries on. This immediately puts the viewers on the back foot because they would have been expecting to be reminded what happened in the previous episode. The first thing that strikes me is that the bleakness continues and in fact at times it seems to get worse.

The Kaleds are much better in this episode.

The scene where Davros enters the room after his brief first appearance at the beginning of the episode is the one which I thought was his first appearance. It’s such an iconic scene in the show because it brings a Mark 3 travel machine in and it looks like it’s going to kill the Doctor before Ronson intervenes. Ronson starts the episode as being just like one of the other Kaleds but very quickly becomes someone that the Doctor and Harry can trust and as a result the viewer can trust.

Michael Wisher is fantastic in this episode. The scene where he is yelling at Ronson for interfering in the experiment is a great moment and is perhaps the most animated character in the entire serial. Quite ironic considering how restricted he is in movement.

The model of the rocket that we see from Sarah’s POV is quite an impressive model and does a good job in making us believe that this is actually what Sarah is seeing. I was thinking that maybe Sarah was being left out of the action in this story but after what could be considered a rather light involvement in proceedings, this was improved in this episode. Whilst I wish that Harry was the one that was separated from the Doctor instead of Sarah, I think that Harry would have benefited from being the one forced to work on the rocket.

There is a great shot when we see Harry and the Doctor looking through into a lab which has the most marvellous noises coming out of it. It’s a great bit of directing from David Maloney because it leaves the viewer with the responsibility as to what they saw. Maloney is one of the best directors that Doctor Who has ever had and one of the longest serving directors on the show. I think his best work is yet to come but does well in maintaining the drama and increasing the bleakness.

The final few minutes are the best of this episode because not only are the Doctor and Harry in a relative amount of peril, it is Sarah that gets the cliffhanger which shows that Terry Nation hasn’t forgotten about her. It’s something that I didn’t realise until I saw this bit was that at this moment in time, there aren’t any other female characters apart from Sarah. I suppose by 2014 standards it would seem wrong now to just have one female speaking part but I would hazard a guess that even in 1975 this wouldn’t have been ideal. The decision to end the episode with a freeze frame is something that had never happened before on the show and whilst it might become more common in future stories, it’s a great way to end an episode and they’ve used it in a good way. This is another great episode and the good form of the twelfth season continues.