Story 148, Episodes 668-671, Season 25 Episodes 1-4
Doctor: Seventh Doctor
Companions: Ace McShane
Doctor Who‘s drought of great stories finally ends with a taught, well-paced return to 1963 for one final showdown with the Daleks.
The Review
The girl and the black Dalek
It’s hard to believe this is the same show that only two stories ago gave us the silliness of Delta and the Bannermen. After a season of just being a rather generic silly guy, the Seventh Doctor snaps into focus as a sharp manipulator who carries an air of bored superiority. Several plot points seem to be missing, the Daleks have followed the Doctor back to Coal Hill School in 1963, we scarcely remember why there are two factions, and suddenly the First Doctor had this Hand of Omega thing lying around? Still, it absolutely works due to the confidence of the script, directing, and acting. The Doctor is suddenly unknowable, not just an arrogant git like the Sixth Doctor, but he’s playing a game we barely understand and don’t quite approve of. Still, the Doctor isn’t sure himself, he tells a deli clerk about the ripples decision makes, and wonders at the end of the story if he did do good.
Ace is gorgeous and beats up Daleks with bats and RPGs, what more could you want?
Ace immediately makes the best impression of a companion in years, no more being annoyed at the Doctor or terrified, Ace is bold and confident and it rules. She falls for an Agent Smith, who turns out to be fascist working with the Renegade Daleks. Setting side that she’s only 16, it’s cute until it’s heartbreaking. The simple discovery of a ‘no coloreds’ sign in Smith’s house is a dark moment. We have a tall not-Brigadier and two capable female physicists which is a delight, making a well-rounded (white) cast. Davros shows up late as the Dalek Emperor, but much more interesting is the brainwashed young girl at the heart of the Renegade faction. She has force lightning! Ultimately, the Doctor tricks the Daleks into destroying Skaro, which is a surprisingly dark. Although failed by the Daleks sometimes wobbling and bland sets, it’s a great adventure story and reminds me that, yes, the classic series can be good.
There are a few too many cheap references, and it feels like we’re missing some backstory, but Remembrance gives us a new mysterious Doctor and a young but capable companion with a smashing supporting cast. Will stories improve from here? Time will tell, it always does.
9.25/10 Seriously, the Dalek props look cool but are very unconvincing trundling along uneven roads.
They really should’ve taken more photos of Paul McGann
Time Lord Victorious Part 1
Doctor: Eighth Doctor, Tenth Doctor, Thirteenth Doctor
Companions: Brian
The first third of Time Lord Victorious stars the Dalek Empire and the Eighth Doctor as they try to uncover why everything in the universe has changed.
The Review
The Dalek Emperor
For a story as expansive as Time Lord Victorious, it helps to have the story order guide divide it into categories. The first section involves a mystery: there are changes in time, and we learn from the opening short story that a lone Dalek claims the Doctor is responsible. This leads into Daleks!, an animated series whose highlights are Nicholas Briggs’ hammy performance as the Dalek Emperor and sly one as the Dalek Strategist. Having a story built around the Daleks is a lot of fun as they encounter the Mechanoids running from an extra-dimensional entity. It does seem to drag a bit watching it all in a row, but it was my third or so time watching it so I knew most of what happened. Next up is Defender of the Daleks, a short graphic novel of the Tenth Doctor getting recruited by the Daleks to help save them. While it has some excellent art, this is the most disposable piece of the whole saga: it is an earlier Tenth Doctor than who will show up later on and honestly could be skipped. The Thirteenth Doctor shows up which is fun, but it does tie into other Titan comics which I can’t in good conscience recommend.
The Masters and the Kotturuh
Although as inessential as Defender of the Daleks, I still wholeheartedly recommend Master Thief and Lesser Evils, two stories about the classic series Masters on the periphery of this crisis. Jon Culshaw’s impressions of both Delgado and Ainley are excellent, and the stories are well-written and atmospheric. In the first, the Master ‘devolves’ his enemies but turns them into ancient creatures that feed on his personality and guilt. In the second, we first meet the Kotturuh, an ancient species who judge races and change their lifespans. The Master has been exiled to a jungle planet and tries to pull a fast one on the Kotturuh but ultimately fails. Just as quality is the Eighth Doctor’s side of Echoes of Extinction, where he beats back a psychic entity accidentally turned into a genocidal monster. Big Finish’s reputation for quality is well-earned, and it shows in their contributions to this epic.
On the planet Arthana with Brian
Paul McGann in his work gives what I would call an excellently restrained performance. Through He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not and The Enemy of My Enemy he never gets totally furious or has a big ‘Doctor moment’, but is quick to do everything he can to help whatever predicament he’s been thrown into. The first of these two stories I think is maybe the weakest but still good Big Finish entry, too much reliance on weird accents trying to recreate an old west gunfight. Silas Carson returns to voice the Ood assassin Brian, and is absolutely a delight as Brian is history’s most polite killer. In the latter, the Dalek time squad picks up the Eighth Doctor and they investigate Wrax, a planet that has devolved hundreds of species using their devolving gun (the same one the Master will knick). The scope is excellent, and we get more Briggs voicing the Strategist leading to the cliffhanger where the Doctor and Daleks mutually take the plunge to the Dark Times to find the source of the time distortions.
The upcoming star: the Tenth Doctor
A final short story shows the TARDIS reacting to the shocking events of The Waters of Mars sending the Tenth Doctor to the Dark Times along with the Ninth and Eighth incarnations. Time Lord Victorious had horrible timing releasing during the pandemic, causing much to end up releasing out of order. Listening to everything for the first time in order, the build-up of the mystery around time is a lot of fun. I like the Master stories for their quality even though they don’t really matter, but Defender of the Daleks is just a weird fit, especially with how it’s a pre-Waters of Mars Tenth Doctor versus who we’re about to get. I also enjoyed getting different Dalek varieties, we also have the Time Commander, Executioner, and Scientist, all given different voices by Briggs. Overall, it’s a quite enjoyable time even if we still don’t know what’s going on.
Questions abound about mysterious distortions to time as the BBC attempts a multi-platform epic. Unsurprisingly, Big Finish continues to be the crown jewel in quality.
9/10 Some well-placed connections and great audio design bump this up just to a 9.
The Thirteenth Doctor makes this really annoying to place in the overall show watch order
Story 36, Episodes 162-168, Season 4 Episodes 38-44
Doctor: The Second Doctor
Companions: Jamie McCrimmon, Victoria Waterfield
The intended final appearance of the Daleks delivers with a winding intricate story that starts in yesterday’s England and ends back on the Dalek city.
The Review
Maxtible and Waterfield briefing the Doctor upon arrival in 1866.
Despite having little to do with the Daleks, the opening two episodes are a cracking mystery. The TARDIS has been taken, but by who? It seems to relate to an antique shop owned by one Mr. Waterfield, who seems to be a bit too in-character as a Victorian grandfather. This gives us a great deductive moment where Jamie reasons that if the things Waterfield is selling are truly genuine but also new…then he must be a time traveler. Though the name of the episodes were quite apparent, revealing the Daleks as Waterfield’s masters so soon was perhaps a bit of a mistake. But soon we leave 1966 behind and are in 1866 at a sprawling country mansion. We meet its owner, Dr. Maxtible, who claims the Daleks are forcing him and Waterfield to act under them. They want Jamie for some unknown test.
Jamie and Kemel in the most stereotypical dress for a Scot and Turk imaginable.
The reasons are unclear, but soon we see that the Doctor has already seemingly agreed to the test and Jamie is off to save Victoria. Jamie is now fully developed as a character, his strong sense of morality and quickness to question make him such a good foil for the shifty Second Doctor. Jamie has help from Kemel, a silent Turk dressed like he’s out of the Crusade. Let’s just say an un-nuanced portrayal like this one would look extremely dated today, but avoids being extremely racist. They first fight each other but Jamie saves Kemel’s life. We learn that the Daleks, frustrated by their failure to defeat humanity time and time again, wish for a ‘human factor’ to understand humans better. There’s even a C-plot with Maxtible’s daughter and her fiancee, Terrell, who is controlled by the Daleks until the Doctor frees him. These machinations build up to the strong conclusion.
The Dalek City in ruin.
The Doctor injects three Daleks with the human factor and they become childlike and questioning, leading him to give them names. The Daleks immediately transport them to Skaro where the Emperor (a figure the Doctor suggests has been behind all the Daleks’ atrocities) explains that no, in fact the TARDIS will be used to spread Dalek factor across human history. Maxtible is finally (supposedly) shown that transmutation of iron to gold is possible, and is tricked into being injected with the factor. The Doctor swaps a tube of human factor and pretends to be infected, suggesting Daleks all receive a dose of the Dalek factor. His wink at Jamie, apparently on surviving footage, is legendary stuff. The human factor Daleks do something they never have: question. This starts a civil war that topples the Dalek city, sending it into ruin. Kemel is killed by Maxtible, and Waterfield sacrifices himself to save the Doctor. Jamie, Victoria, and the Doctor then escape.
The Daleks approach the Doctor to play some games with him.
This story sits in extremely high regard with the fanbase, and its easy to see way. It is a sprawling, multi-part epic not seen since The Daleks’ Master Plan. The Doctor and Jamie hold this story together, with the glee in Troughton’s voice upon seeing the Daleks are ‘taking him for a ride’ being infectious. Victoria doesn’t have much to do here being in captivity, but is presented as perhaps the youngest companion yet. She does get a moment of resoluteness as the Doctor says he’d sacrifice all the humans in the room if it would save human history by agreeing. Really what makes this story so great is that humanity is shown to triumph over Dalek authoritarianism. Once the Daleks start questioning, start having friends, start thinking, no power can stop them. It shows that the human factor is the most potent of all. At the end of the story, as the stillness sets over you, you agree that, yes, the testing was successful. Humanity 1, Daleks 0.
Animated Daleks
2021 UPDATE: It is now 2021 and the six missing episodes have been animated! I think some of it may come down to the quality of the story but I think it’s the best animation to date. Everything was so perfectly realized it’s easy to forget this was an episode filmed in the 60s in live action. These animations have been such an incredible benefit for the series, and it was seriously a treat to see this story in a method other than a reconstruction. Oh, and they kept in the Doctor’s wink in part seven. Full marks.
This would’ve been a fitting end to the Dalek story, showing the insidiousness and awfulness of their ideology once and for all. Of course, we should all be thankful it wasn’t. There will always be more Daleks, and we will always be in need of a human factor to bring them down.
9.25/10 Season 4 wraps on a high note, concluding a very strong season that established that the ideals of Doctor Who are more important than any one person.
Story 166, Episodes 708 and 709, Series 1 Episodes 12 and 13
Doctor: The Ninth Doctor
Companions: Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, Mickey Smith, Jackie Tyler
Still one of the best finales to a series of Doctor Who, Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways provide a haunting and emotionally effective conclusion to the Ninth Doctor’s time on the show and showcase the terrors of the Daleks the way few stories have.
The Review
“You are the weakest link. Goodbye.”
Oh, what a ride this episode is. It starts off with the Doctor being tossed in the Big Brother house unexpectedly, Rose finds herself in the Weakest Link, and Jack is in What Not to Wear. Quickly the games are revealed to kill the losers and randomly select participants from across the planet in a horrifying arrangement. The story is quite entertaining at this point, but gains steam as the Doctor deduces whatever got him hear wants him alive. The ‘disintegrator’ that losers face stops, and he and plucky would-be companion Lynda escape. Then we see: this is Satellite 5 from The Long Game, but 100 years in the future and the Doctor shutting off the news opened humanity to be fed these game shows. Seeing horrific repercussions of a Doctor adventure a century later is still affecting.
“Rose?” “Yes Doctor?” “I’m coming to get you.”
Captain Jack gets out of hilarious predicament, meets the Doctor and Lynda, and the arrive too late to save Rose from getting disintegrated in a tense sequence. The palpable horror that falls is astonishing as the Doctor is silently arrested and imprisoned. He does not speak again until he breaks out and storms Floor 500 to learn the now Game Station’s controller snuck him aboard to help fight her masters. Of course, Rose isn’t dead, but like all losers on the games teleported to a ship…run by Daleks. The fury in Christopher Eccleston’s performance is incredible, and that scene, oh man, that scene where he tells the Daleks no is on of the greatest moments in the show’s history. You have no doubt that yes: he will blow every last stinkin’ Dalek out of the sky, and you’re going to witness it.
“Do that for me Rose. Have a fantastic life.”
The Doctor does extract with her, and faces the fearsome Dalek Emperor. As the episode starts, he banishes Rose to 2005 in a heartbreaking scene, leaving him to try and beat the Daleks with Jack. A few volunteers help defend against the Daleks but everybody on board is massacred one by one. Lynda’s death with a Dalek flying in space blinking ‘EXTERMINATE’ silently and shattering the glass is horrific. The continents are misshapen from bombing Earth. The Dalek Emperor taunts the Doctor as he assembles a delta wave to fry the Daleks…but he doesn’t have time to spare Earth from it. An incarnation ago, the Doctor killed every Time Lord to kill the Daleks…and it didn’t even work. Even Jack has now been gunned down, and the Doctor simply stands. “Coward every time.” And finally, he is redeemed.
The Doctor sacrifices himself for Rose
Rose could not sit idly by while the Doctor died in the future, and she convinced Mickey and her mother Jackie help her rip open the console to peer in the Heart of the TARDIS. The energy of the time vortex creates Bad Wolf, who dissolves all the Daleks to atoms. She even resurrects Jack. But this can’t last, and the Doctor sacrifices his tenth life to save her. As they fly away the Ninth Doctor finally is at peace with himself. He isn’t a killer and a murderer. And as he thanks Rose, he tells her that she was fantastic…and so was he. Then he becomes David Tennant in front of her eyes.
The Daleks straight up murder everybody but Rose in this story
Wow, just reading through all that…it’s poignant. Look, the reality show games are kind of divorced from the finale, but it’s amazing how the Weakest Link is an effective precursor to freaking Daleks. And the Daleks, how terrifying are they? After one in Dalek massacred a base, 500,000 are legitimately unstoppable. Jack and Rose have great beats, two runners of the games who atone for their sins, but the real story is the redemption of the Doctor. As he presses his head on the TARDIS door hearing the screams of Exterminate, to finally accepting that he would be a coward over a killer, it’s moving. This story made me a super Doctor Who fan, and Eccleston is pitch-perfect. This finale also builds on almost every previous episode in the series, making Series 1 one of the best plotted as far as the overall arc goes. Overall, it’s a classic.
The first regeneration story of the new series gets it right. It’s shame Eccleston only stayed for a season, but it makes his arc feel defined in complete in the way others would stumble (looking at you Eleven). And as a finale to Series 1, it makes perfect sense. Well goodbye Christopher Eccleston, and thank you so much.
10/10. Only docked points for cohesion issues as well as the reality show part being honestly completely unneeded, but it still manages to take a beat from the middling Long Game and turn it into something special. And you know what, I’m changing my mind, screw docking points, this is a stone cold classic and you know it.
Reviewing Doctor Who from Start to Finish 