The episode really gets going from the very beginning with
the Imperial Daleks leaving the shuttlecraft. I won’t go on about the fact that
the size doesn’t look big enough to house everything that’s in it. After
waiting for what has felt like an eternity we get some Dalek vs Dalek fighting.
The first big scene between the two Dalek factions is fantastic and I love
everything about it. One of the Imperial Daleks is destroyed in another huge
explosion. That was until the Special Weapons Dalek appears and blow a Renegade
Dalek up. I love the idea of a Special Weapons Dalek and this that this isn’t something
that Terry Nation would have come up with.
There is a huge explosion at the base of the Renegade Daleks
which is one of my favourite explosions in Doctor Who. I don’t know if you have
a top 5 explosions in Doctor Who list but I sort of do and this one would go in
at number one. I have gone on for most of these episodes about the explosions
but it really does seem like a lot of effort when into making these explosions
as big as possible after two and a half decades of rather limp bangs that its
nice to have something to be wowed by.
The death of Ratcliffe does seem a bit of a shame really as
he’s struck down by the girl. The death which is slightly more effective is
that of Mike’s. His death seemed inevitable from the very beginning but he too
is killed by the girl but it’s a far more violent and effective death. The girl
is quite good in this episode and manages to rack up quite the body count. It
is perhaps the wisest thing that she doesn’t die but stops being under the
Dalek’s control.
The Doctor has his big scene with the Emperor/Davros in the
basement. It’s quite unusual that the Doctor and Davros wouldn’t be in the same
room but its because of Terry Molloy and Sylvester McCoy that this works as
well as it does. McCoy shows us again why his Doctor is underrated as a Doctor in
my humble opinion. Sophie Aldred really does go through all the emotions in
this episode because she starts off quite loved up with Mike and then goes back
to her normal self before being quite sad at the end.
Davros makes his return after last appearing in Revelation
of the Daleks. In that story he had his hand blown off and so now all that
appears is his head. Davros wants the hand of omega to transform Skaro’s sun
into a source of power and over power Gallifrey. His appearance doesn’t come
until the midway point of the episode. It’s short but sweet, he is tricked into
using the hand of omega by the Doctor. Once he realises that the hand of omega is
heading back to his ship he manages to live another day. It would be twenty
years before Davros would appear in Doctor Who or mid-June in my marathon.
What the Doctor has done is effectively commit genocide and
that is something that would have earned a trial two years before. It’s fair to
say that this story doesn’t have the happiest of endings as pretty much
everyone is dead and the final scene takes place during a funeral. No one can
accuse the show at this time of being comedic.
As a story, this has been rated as the best Dalek story ever
and at the moment it’s the third best story ever and only the third story to
ever get in the 8’s. Only Inside the Spaceship and The Deadly Assassin have
managed this. It has been a wonderful adventure and its remarkable how my faith
has been restored in the Seventh Doctor in just four episodes. This
is the final appearance of the Daleks in the classic era. They have undeniably been
a fantastic aspect of the show and a reason why the show is still going on in
2015. If the show hadn’t come back in 2005 then no monster could have asked for
a better story than this one. It is perhaps the last good Dalek story but maybe
time will tell.
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