(For my first review,
I decided I should start with something I know well. Here's a Doctor
Who story I've been wanting to write about for some time
now.)
Doctor Who is one
of the longest-running sci-fi shows around. This is down to its very
flexible formula which allows its main characters to wander through
time and space and also through the various genres in fiction. It
also helps that it can change the main character in appearance,
personality, performance and just about every aspect. It's a show
that's all about re-invention, which brings me to today's topic. I
will be discussing a story that's all about re-invention, one which
tried to reclaim the ambiguity of the early show while sending it off
in a completely new direction. Ladies and gentlemen, today we hold a
Remembrance of the Daleks.
Remembrance
(written by Ben Aaronovitch) was the opening story to Doctor Who's
25th
anniversary season, so fittingly it returns to the show's roots as it
were: London, November 1963. The Doctor and his new companion Ace
become embroiled in a brutal fight against the Daleks, who have
landed to seize a powerful weapon created by the Time Lords known as
the Hand of Omega. Things are complicated further when it transpires
that two rival Dalek factions have arrived and have waged a race war
against each other, and a duplicitous human faction also want the
Hand for their own ends. All fairly run-of-the-mill so far. Where the
story diverges from past ones is in the Doctor's role in events, as
it's revealed the Doctor was the one who set this whole saga in
motion in the first place, by planting the Hand of Omega on Earth to
draw the Daleks into a trap. As well as the Daleks, the Doctor has
his own self-righteous mission to carry out, and he shows here that
he can be as ruthless as the tentacled, metal-plated fiends.
Remembrance
aims to recapture the air of uncertainty that surrounded the Doctor
in the far-off days of '63. Nobody was quite sure where he came from
or what his game was. Did he have some secret interest in the Earth,
or was he just slumming it with mere mortals for kicks? The show soon
chose the latter option and fashioned him as an aimless wanderer who
only wanted the freedom to live his own life and sniffed at the
authorities who tried to stop him or anyone else from doing so. But
here, the Doctor is shown in a very different light. The Doctor is
much more calculating and shrewd. He has a plan but he doesn't trust
anyone else to fully tell them what it is. It's quite a sharp
turnaround from Season 24 where the Seventh Doctor was a buffoon who
seemed to blunder in and out of trouble by luck. The Doctor has
become more contemplative as he considers his role in events. There's
a pivotal moment where he discusses cause-and-effect late at night in
a cafe, and how the smallest actions can have the biggest
consequences. It's a nice analogue to Tom Baker's famous “Do I have
the right?” speech in Genesis of the Daleks.
And then there's the notorious ending where the Doctor prods Davros
into destroying Skaro, and then talks a lone Dalek in committing
suicide. The bottom line here is that the Doctor is a force to be
reckoned with.
That's
the idea, anyway, but how well do they pull it off? Well, acting-wise
it's done quite well. Sylvester McCoy is, for me, the most
problematic actor that has ever played the Doctor, as his performance
often fluctuates from marvellous to downright embarassing.
Fortunately, he avoids any major missteps here. He plays quiet and
brooding very well, such as in the aforementioned cafe scene. The
only scene where he's called on to ham it up is his slanging match
with Davros. It helps that it's supposed to look bad, as he's merely
taking the piss out of Davros's megalomanic rants.
But
there's a bigger problem here, one that cripples the story
considerably and means it's only good, rather than an absolute
classic. The problem comes from the Doctor's attitude towards
violence, something which has always been a little grey about the
show. The Doctor usually avoids violence unless absolutely necessary
and looks down on those who revel in it. When it involves a race like
the Daleks, who are filled with murderous bigotry and refuse to
negotiate with anyone, the Doctor takes a very hardline approach and
shows little remorse for wiping them out. Nor do I feel he should,
after all to let the Daleks escape means putting countless innocent
lives at risk. So I don't have a problem with the Doctor killing
Daleks in this story. My problem comes from the way he treats other
people who use violence. For instance, upon meeting a Dalek in
Totter's Yard, the Doctor blows it up with a cannister of Nitro-9.
Later, Mike Smith blows up three of them just as they're about to
kill Ace. The Doctor acts completely shocked that Mike would do such
a thing, saying “There were living beings in there”.
I'm
sorry, what?
The
Doctor, who is currently planning the massacre of an entire race, is
lecturing others for
using violence? He even encourages people to use it at times,
especially Ace. He shows her that Nitro-9 is a very handy deterrent
to Daleks, and also gives her a supercharged baseball bat so she can
whack them to her heart's content. The Doctor is happy enough to use
violence when it suits him, but only
when it suits him. The rest of the time, he has a holier-than-thou
attitude which I find quite irritating. And what's all this about
humanity's “ingenuity when trying to destroy itself”? From the
man who helped build a missile that can blow up a whole
planet? With respect Doc, shove
it up your Eye of Harmony.
This
is the “dark Doctor's” first outing, so I assume these problems
are down to the writers' uncertainty as to how they were going to use
him. He does become much stronger in Season 26, but alas, it holds
the story back from greatness.
The
other elements in the story work much better, thankfully. Ace is far
from a one-note damsel and multiple sides of her character are
highlighted, especially in her relationship with Mike, where her
tentative feelings turning to devastation and then anger at his
betrayal. It plays well off Ace's history, and also foreshadows her
future relationship with the Doctor. Sophie Aldred pulls it off
brilliantly, even if some of her lines feel a little clunky (“They're
retreating, all of them. Wiiiimps!”)
Dr
Jensen and Group Captain Gilmore ground the story well, playing the
ordinary people having their perception of the world turned upside
down. The novelization (also written by Aaronovitch) expands on this
by having sections written from Dr Jensen's perspective, portraying
the Doctor and Ace as utterly alien and even frightening.
But
the most intriguing human characters are Mike and Mr Ratcliffe,
members of “The Association” - a secret fascist militia working
with the Daleks to seize control of Britain. What's striking (and
disturbing) is how normal these characters are. When Ratcliffe talks
about the glorious regime he's going to usher in, he doesn't feel the
need to rant like Davros, he merely states it as a fact. Mike claims
he's not doing this out of some belief in white supremacy, he just
wants to make a more stable future for his friends and family, to
“fair chance”. Even Mike's unassuming mother holds these beliefs.
A sign on the living room window saying “No Coloureds” is there
for all the world to see, not hidden in some secret drawer.
Remembrance shows how easily the seeds of racism and bigotry
can be sown, even without the aid of a police state.
Of
course the Daleks show this belief at its most extreme. The white
Imperials and the grey Renegades hate each other more than they hate
the non-Daleks. This paranoia leaves them open to exploitation by the
Doctor, who allows one faction to obliterate the other. Even those
claiming to be on the same side betray one another – the Renegades
exterminate the Association when they have no further use of them. It
isn't just the Doctor who's re-evalued here. The story focuses on
what makes the Daleks such a terrifying creation in a way the show
hadn't done for 13 years. And it shows why an ideology based on
hatred, fear and violence is ultimately self-defeating. Its
proponents become so paranoid they soon turn on each other.
The
Daleks are at their most spectacular here, blowing up London left,
right and centre. The Imperial ship interior is very well done. The
Special Weapons Dalek is a fine addition which for some reason has
only made one televised appearance (The novelisation adds more here,
showing how it was once a normal Dalek that went insane from exposure
to radioactivity and has since been dubbed “The Abomination”).
One wonders, with all the money poured into the production, why
Remembrance wasn't the “official” Silver Anniversary
story. You'd have to go a long way to find someone who'd say Silver
Nemesis was better. The Daleks also add to the story
symbolically, the colour contrasts of the two sides playing into the
chess motif.
And
then there is the eerie little girl who keeps reappearing. While the
Creepy Child is a fairly tired cliche, it somehow feels completely
fresh, possibly because Classic Who was almost entirely childfree.
Jasmine Breaks's acting is sufficiently sinister (if a little wooden,
but it suits the role) and there's a rather disturbing loose thread
left at the end of the story. We've no idea where her parents are or
what happened to her after this. Did her enslavement to the Dalek
battle computer scar her for life? The lack of resolution adds to the
bleak tone at the end of the story.
So,
Remembrance of the Daleks, if you're unfamiliar with the
classic series or with the Cartmel/McCoy era, it's a very good story
to start with. It's not just a celebration of the show's past, but
also a hint to its future. The mythification of the Doctor would
carry on for the next two years, than into the New Adventures range
and finally into the new series itself.
I'd
also highly reccommend Aaronovitch's novelisation as it has plenty of
extra details that give new depth to the story.
