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

by Robert Shearman

  This is a superb episode, shot through with a comic irony as black as anything ever seen in the programme. The episode depends upon the audience’s familiarity with the Daleks in a way that perhaps wouldn’t have worked before this story, as you want to cry out to the scientists innocently working around one of the machines to take care. It is a heart-stopping moment when the colony’s chief scientist, Lesterson, bends down and looks into the gun stick and says, “Can’t imagine what this short stubby arm is for...” And it’s telling that the one person who feels disquieted by the Daleks is the one that gets suddenly exterminated – it’s as if the Dalek can sense fear. You’re only safe from them if you don’t realise they’re a threat – and that’s a great pity for all the kids watching at home, because that puts them next in line of fire. And the Doctor too, of course – at the climax of the episode he’s genuinely frightened (and we’ve barely seen that before) trying to shout down a Dalek, who mockingly grates it is a servant. It’s one of the best cliffhangers yet.

  And through all this, Troughton is magnificent. Here is a Doctor who can suddenly be distracted from deadly earnest by a bowl of fruit or an accidental tongue twister. Special note must also be made of Robert James as Lesterson, whose eagerness in reanimating the Daleks is so boyish that you feel both sympathetic and revolted at the same time.

  I love the way, too, that Ben makes mention of the Daleks as something the Doctor is always going on about. It conjures up this delightful image of him standing around the console room, boring all his companions to death with his anecdotes about The Chase. “They were my only recurring monsters, you know – I thought there was a chance with the Zarbi or the Mechonoids, but it just never happened.” But the reason it has an impact here is twofold. Firstly, it suggests a Doctor who is genuinely obsessed by these creatures – and yet to the audience, the Daleks are far more familiar than this Doctor is. It’s not that we side with them, not exactly, but they may feel oddly safer. And yet, the way that the Dalek clearly recognises the Doctor, even though his human friends cannot, does so much to give Troughton the proper credentials.

  T: Remember how the Daleks treated the raving Mavic Chen with silence in The Daleks’ Master Plan, and how eerie I found them? Well, the same trick is employed here. Much as I love the Dalek voices, the impression one gets is that the Dalek seen here is observing, conniving and planning its next move. The scene where it observes Lesterson’s assistant Resno is spectacularly creepy (aided in no small part by a really menacing soundtrack), and the POV shot of his face in the Dalek’s eyeline sends a shiver down the spine. There’s something incredibly unnerving about being watched, and all the scenes with the Dalek ooze with menace – with us, the audience, more aware than most of the characters involved in this adventure just how deadly these creatures are. It’s like watching kids playing with a hand grenade, but being stuck behind soundproofed glass and unable to issue a warning.

  Troughton does absolutely sterling work making the silent Dalek as terrifying a threat to the oblivious colonists as possible – he’s still a very shadowy presence, this new Doctor, with Troughton speaking in throaty, hushed tones and still not communicating in anything like a normal fashion. His namedropping is interesting, though – Saladin and Marco Polo are figures that at least some of the audience will know that the Doctor has met, but Ben and Polly don’t. Quite why he’s playing around with his companions is anyone’s idea, but it certainly keeps the viewer intrigued. So long as he doesn’t get out a projector and do a planet Quinnis slideshow, this should be fine.

  And then there’s that terrific line that sums up this new Doctor perfectly: “I want [the Daleks] broken up or melted down – up or down, don’t care which.” He’s a bundle of contradictions – he’ll give orders (but in a quirky way) and he’ll articulate his fear (but mask it with funny phraseology). I don’t know quite how they alighted on this particular characterisation to follow on from Hartnell, but at this stage it’s somehow reinforced the “Who?” if not always “the Doctor”.

  I particularly love the cliffhanger here, as the Dalek seems to eyeball (or, rather, eyestalk) the Doctor just as it did Resno – whom it brutally exterminated. Had I been watching this episode back in 1966, I’d probably have finished it still unsure about what they’d done to the titular character, and wondered if this was still the series I knew and loved. But I’d definitely be back next week, because on its own terms, this is something quite special.

  March 11th

  The Power of the Daleks episode three

  R: Oh, this is absolutely wonderful. This is the longest story we’ve had in almost a year – ever since, oh, that last Dalek story. (Odd that.) And it means that with a six-parter there’s actually the space to explore characters that would be pretty functional otherwise. And they’re a funny bunch, this lot on Vulcan – backbiters and politicians, the lot of them. I love the way that Bragen is able to manipulate Governor Hensell, just as Janley does Lesterson. The vanity of them all with their trivial little power games seems so especially banal when they can’t see the real threat of the Daleks right under their noses. The irony is that the character who’s in greatest opposition to the Doctor is Lesterson – and he’s the one man there who’s honestly likeable. Listen to his excitement about his new robotic servants – it’s always the genuine good of the colony that interests him, not his own personal glory. Robert James plays the part a little like a bumptious child; I love the smarmy way he insists upon a guard being posted outside his laboratory once he’s won his argument with the Doctor. That’s what’s so damning about the way this story treats its humans. Let Bragen and Hensell and Janley and Quinn fight it out and destroy themselves, and there wouldn’t even be a threat from the Daleks; they’d still be sitting at the bottom of a mercury swamp, no doubt. But with Lesterson – poor well-meaning and socially concerned Lesterson – there’s a real danger for evil to emerge.

  It’s the Daleks and the Doctor who are the stand-outs of the episode, mind you. The humiliation that the Dalek puts itself through answering feeble chemistry questions even I could get right, the way that it pretends to immobilise itself because the Doctor demands it proves it’s servile – you can hear the contempt in its voice as it flatters and fawns at Lesterson. It means that the sequence where it resurrects its two Dalek compatriots feels almost like a relief – now, you think, it’ll show its true colours – and then it has their guns removed. That’s what’s really chilling, that it’s willing to abase itself still further; its ambitions must be so much more lethal than we supposed. Patrick Troughton is excellent playing a man so obsessed by his hatred that he utterly disregards Ben’s concern for Polly. He’s something of a clown, it’s true, but he’s a dangerous clown. Hartnell may have been more cantankerous, but his Doctor was always more concerned with the safety of his companions than his apparently foolish successor.

  T: Lesterson also struck me as the most likeable guest character – which is funny, as his actions have caused this entire mess. But this man is far from being an idiot – he’s smart enough to ask the Dalek why it disobeyed orders, and he doesn’t stumble blindly in the face of logic. It’s telling that it’s the glimmer of doubt he exhibits towards the Daleks that marks the ending of this smart and nuanced episode.

  Indeed, the devil’s in the detail in this clever script. It’s profoundly ironic that Lesterson mentions that the Daleks have “a certain intelligence”, since we know that they’re much smarter than any of the humans present. Along the same lines, it’s great that the Dalek stutters when the Doctor tries to outwit it. This isn’t a round of cack-handed humanising like you’d find in the Richard Martin stories; instead, it’s a battle of wits between two formidable opponents, both of whom have to keep their cards close to their chests. What’s fascinating about this is the degree to which you sense that the Dalek is desperately trying to hold its composure in public, rather than rely upon its usual trick of yelling and shooting everyone in sight. Thanks to Peter Hawkins (another unsung hero of the
60s), this Dalek becomes a character who exhibits guile and cunning, rather than just being a one-note monster. It’s great seeing a Dalek under such pressure, and it helps us delve into its Machiavellian psyche. I especially adore the moment where it fires its empty gun, either as a reflex or in frustration.

  And it’s also interesting that the Doctor has to turn on the charm to get access to Lesterson’s lab – despite his clowning, this new Doctor has plenty of guile. And then he tries to electrocute the Dalek! This story really was an influence on your TV script wasn’t it, Rob? It clearly wasn’t just the war-scarred Christopher Eccleston who would go to those lengths when confronted with his greatest enemy!

  The Power of the Daleks episode four

  R: Influence on my Dalek episode? Oh, I’m not telling. Yet.

  Truth to tell, the rebel storyline isn’t really as interesting as the Dalek one. But that’s rather the point. We watch these arrogant little humans plot against each other, and all the time there are Daleks there – serving drinks, trundling down corridors. The gall of these colonists, to think that they’re the ones who are the main plot! The scene where Bragen establishes himself in the Governor’s office as a master criminal, only to be surprised by a Dalek ever so politely inquiring whether he’s finished with his liquid refreshment, is chilling and very, very funny.

  It’s all quite clever, and the first time the series has unleashed on us so much subplot just to test our patience. We know the Daleks are marking time. We know that the rebel storyline is very soon going to be irrelevant. Director Christopher Barry and writer David Whitaker are playing a game of nerves with us. They’re giving us padding, and lots of it – just so that sooner or later, the Daleks can start firing a blast a hole clean right through it.

  That sequence in the Dalek capsule, where Lesterson sees Skaro’s finest reproduce themselves, sounds absolutely extraordinary. On the one hand, it looks like a parody of all that merchandising the audience are well used to from a couple of Christmases ago – see the happy little Daleks pour down the conveyor belt! On the other, it’s the only time in the show’s history we see Daleks being born, scraped off bits of foam and goo and stuck inside metal containers. It’s horrific and utterly alien. No wonder Robert James begins to lose his mind.

  T: To talk of the slow pace that you mention isn’t to damn this story with faint praise... Ben and the Doctor wander down a corridor, and we realise when they do that there might be an extra Dalek; Lesterson’s doubts increase, but Janley manipulates him; Janley herself shows she isn’t just a clichéd villain by bravely offering to be the guinea pig when the rebels test the Dalek. There are so many subtle moments of colour here, which are augmented by carefully placed shades of grey, and it’s all the more remarkable how the programme-makers flesh out the society of this colony without benefit of the vast canvas afforded to modern television. I particularly like the fact that Hensell is away because he’s doing a bit of work outside of the few sets we’re obliged to see; it helps to provide a sense of real people doing real jobs with real, mundane obligations.

  Meanwhile, it’s wonderful how Troughton brilliantly undermines the pathetic trappings of power on display here, especially with his childish glee as he says “I would like a hat like that.” Just as he’s playfully prodding at authority though, a Dalek enters with a tea tray and the special sounds creepily erect the hairs on the back of our necks. The whole situation is played brilliantly, hinting that everything’s just a little bit... wrong. The sense of impending doom is probably more palpable than in any other story up to this point.

  What I’m getting at is that it’s remarkable how this show, which is understandably so unaware of its mythic status at this point, still manages to make its first new leading man’s debut so astonishingly special – not by doing anything terribly grandiose, but by establishing a realistic setting, and then having the man-who-claims-to-be-the-Doctor confront a situation with the Daleks that’s unlike any he’s faced with his old adversaries before. It wouldn’t have been out of order for us to expect Troughton’s debut to have been an inconsequential four-parter with some aliens called Steve and Trevor trying to invade Grimsby. But for all that Hartnell’s departure seemed abrupt and low key – and for all that the series of late has been declining to mark its “big moments” (such as having companions depart halfway through a story) – the production team has really put the effort into making Troughton’s debut adventure something extraordinary. We’re only to episode four, and you can tell that The Power of the Daleks was, and remains, one of the most crucial and successful revamps in Doctor Who’s history.

  March 12th

  The Power of the Daleks episode five

  R: One of the Daleks asks: “Why do human beings kill human beings?” Good question.

  Quick digression. The night that my Dalek episode went out on the BBC, I had a few friends over to celebrate – most of them other people who’d been working alongside me on the revival. After the end credits, and a few glasses of champagne had been drunk, I had a phone call. When I answered, a female voice on the end enthusiastically told me how much she’d loved the story, well done, and welcoming me to the Doctor Who family. She was so bubbly it took me a little while to get a word in edgeways and ask who she was. “Oh, sorry!” she laughed. “I should have said! I’m Anneke Wills!” It turned out that she was at a convention, had watched Dalek go out live with some fans – and one of them had my phone number. I was thrilled, obviously – I’d never spoken to Polly before. And I began to tell her that it was all because of the work she’d done with Patrick Troughton. That my episode had been inspired by The Power of the Daleks, that it was the best Dalek story written, and I was just trying to pay homage to all their efforts. It was great. I actually out-enthused Anneke.

  What I tried to capture in Dalek – not nearly so well as David Whitaker did, I know – was that sense that however evil a Dalek might be, it has at least its own moral code and personal integrity. In contrast to all those wonderful scenes of efficient Dalek unity on the conveyor belts, you get mankind here at its most base and mendacious. When a Dalek asks Bragen why as a fellow human he would want to kill Hensell, it suggests that we’re baser. It’s a far cry from the last story, in which the Cybermen were offered as an alternative to all that characterised Man; when at the cliffhanger the Daleks announce they’re now ready to wipe out the colonists you feel some sort of relief, because these human beings deserve all that’s coming to them. The scene where Bragen has Hensell exterminated is quite superb. It’s so wonderfully petty; it starts out as a bit of an office argument, with Bragen refusing to stand up when talking to the boss. Ultimately, Bragen only gives up Hensell’s chair so that Hensell can be killed in it. It’s very tense, and blackly comic – and the Dalek servant ends up looking as the most mature character in the room. I only wish I could have written a scene in my episode that was halfway as profound as this one.

  T: Ooh – can I come and watch your next episode at your house? I’ll bring champagne! And Anneke’s wonderful isn’t she? She once stroked my face and called me cute, and (I thought) pretended to be interested in seeing my stage show, requesting a copy. I sent her a DVD, and to my surprise by return of post got a wonderful, enthusiastic and jolly letter back, with some signed piccies for my boys. Moments like that still make me pinch myself!

  I have an anecdote about this episode too, but it’s slightly more bittersweet. We’ve been discussing how Robert James is astonishing as Lesterson – and it happens that when he died in 2004, I got commissioned to write his obituary for The Guardian. When it failed to appear, I began to make enquiries, and they kept telling me it was going in – only to rescind after about a month. I subsequently offered it to The Independent (who at that time had more space and a broader remit), and frustratingly was told that they would have run it, but that too much time had now passed since his death. The most galling aspect of this was that I’d spoken to James’ wife, Mona Bruce, and read her the piece, and it never materialised. She
died a short time ago too, and I feel like I let her down (it was a nice article too, but I lost it when my computer committed suicide). I can’t help but think about this while re-experiencing this story, because James gives one of the best guest turns we’ve yet seen in the show; the script demands excellence in so many areas, and he delivers in every one.

  For a story that reformats Doctor Who in so many ways, it’s the little things – the little choices – that continue to elevate this to greatness. Governor Hensell’s popularity among the mine workers on the perimeter is something we’re only told about, but lends some texture to a world that we couldn’t actually see (even if the video existed) beyond a few rooms. Later, Quinn’s reaction to Hensell’s death (in a programme where murder is an everyday event) helps to sell the importance of the governor’s killing on both a human and political level. Top marks though, go to Bernard Archard as Bragen – having ordered and witnessed Hensell’s death in a cool, villainous manner, he sounds audibly shaken after the event, so much so that he hurriedly shoos the Dalek away. It’s a very credible moment, and an unusually psychologically sophisticated acting choice.

  And is it wrong of me that I adore that Bragen’s got himself a uniform and hat? It’s always the meaningless pomp that seems to turn on the power crazed; that the Doctor looks like he’s raided a jumble sale and kipped on a bench is the ultimate antidote to such sartorial posturing.

  The Power of the Daleks episode six

  R: And, really, this is much better than it needed to be. After five episodes of ratcheting up the tension to breaking point, all this episode actually had to do was set the Daleks loose on a rampage and I’d have been satisfied. And it certainly does that, of course. In fact, this does what as a kid I always imagined all Dalek stories did – it has the pepperpots exterminating every human in sight, chasing people up and down corridors, and killing without warning or mercy. After the slow build-up, the carnage is overwhelming, and even in telesnap form you can see that Christopher Barry spends a fair bit of time emphasising the dead bodies. It’s all very grim. We have sequences where, to foil the Daleks, the Doctor and Quinn have to lie still amongst all the corpses. And there’s an extraordinarily callous scene in which the Doctor seems quite happy that all Bragen’s guards get slaughtered just to buy him some time doing something clever with a plug.