Remembrance of the Daleks

[Leah Betts]

I'm afraid I'll be upsetting a lot of people out there by saying that I
don't think I like it much - REMEMBRANCE OF THE DALEKS feels very overrated.
I can almost see what people rave about when they see this story, there's
the whole nice balance they've given McCoy's serious and humorous side (in
Season 24 they had a tendency to go to extremes), a plot complex enough to
be worthy of a classic, a bright, blockbuster look (some of these effects
and the shooting style is very new to Doctor Who) and a general increase in
quality all round from the previous season. Yet while I was watching it,
while Daleks suddenly rolled up and blew things up every few minutes, while
the Doctor and Ace ran about from set-piece to set-piece, I couldn't really
get excited about it. Instead of getting something worthy, I merely saw
lots of flashy visuals and loud explosions.

My biggest problem is that things seemed to keep happening for no other
reason than it gave the production team an opportunity to do something
flashy. We have a skirmish with a Dalek at the start in the infamous
junkyard in Totter's Lane, but there's no reason why the Dalek happens to be
shooting things in there, besides the fact that Totter's Lane has that
historical element to it that makes fans sit up and go "ooh" (not to mention
it effectively throws together three different fanboy points in one - Daleks
in Totter's Lane, 1963, shooting at what may as well be UNIT). After that
point, the plot suddenly changes to be focusing on getting the Doctor down
into the cellar for no other reason, it seems, but to finish the episode by
ruining the myth that Daleks can't go up stairs (and while on the way, we
hit a few more AN UNEARTHLY CHILD notes when we wander through Coal Hill
School). After that, the Doctor wanders around a bit while supposedly
pushing around a great secret masterplan (though why he makes it a secret to
the likes of Ace is a mystery to me), so we can get to scenes like the cafe
scene and so Ace can get something to enable her to beat up a Dalek with a
baseball bat. After that cliff-hanger, all I recall from the plot is a load
of running back and forth from Daleks either around the school or the
streets of London while the Doctor finally gives a bit of an explanation of
what's going on. Episode 4 is much the same, building to the Doctor ranting
at Davros and blowing up Skaro, then a quiet moment to end on as if they'd
just been through a very deep and meaningful adventure. Only I didn't see
deep and meaningful. I just saw running about from set piece to set piece,
with little actually linking any of it together.

Another thing I didn't like is the way we seemed to be literally thrown into
the story with little or no build up. For some reason we lost all that
stuff with the Doctor and companion land somewhere, find a big evil then
defeat it. The Doctor already knew about the evil, and worse, he wasn't
telling anybody. Which in a way makes the Doctor more mysterious and more
aloof, but to me it just made things difficult to get a handle on. The
story was being told, effectively, from the Doctor's point of view - or at
least that's how I saw it. When things happened, the story followed the
Doctor's exploits rather than showing Ace's reaction to it, which is
understandable since the series is called "Doctor Who" and not "Dorothy
Who". But when you have the Doctor already knowing what's going on and he
isn't going to tell anybody, well, it's almost a repeat of the reasons why
Barry Letts and JNT got rid of Liz and Romana respectively, the audience
needs the Doctor to explain the plot to them, and he couldn't do that to an
intelligent companion. Here we have the problem of the Doctor not
explaining things to his companion since he's being aloof and mysterious,
which has the same result, the audience not getting the information they
need. I think if the story had been reworked to be from Ace's perspective
rather than the Doctor's, with Ace being central to the story with the
Doctor pushing buttons elsewhere, then it may have been more effective.

Actually, the Doctor not explaining things didn't stop at just Ace, he
didn't explain anything to anybody, which meant we spent four episodes with
the guest cast constantly playing catch up to the plot along with the
audience. To start with it looked like we had a group of rather interesting
guest characters - Pamela Salem, who manages to stay inconspicuous at the
school by wearing her hair like Barbara Wright, Mike Smith making an
interesting boyfriend for Ace, Captain Gilmore showing us a Brigadier
without being *the* Brigadier, all of whom are fairly intelligent and
interesting individuals (well, Gilmore wasn't, he was actually quite thick,
but I think there's a cosmic rule that all military people are). But once
the first Dalek is blown up, they become nearly inconsequential, merely a
group of people there who keep asking "what's that, Doctor", which then
becomes pointless when he won't answer. This sort of thing reached its peak
in the last episode where the Doctor had a party of about five following him
around the school and various places like his own personal groupies, while
he did things he may as well have been doing alone, for the amount they
interacted with them. It got so bad that it made it's way into the
dialogue - the biggest thing he wants them to do is carry a TV down to the
cellar. Alright, it was a funny moment, and Pamela Salem's many little
moments where she'd turn to Alison and mention how redundant they've been
made for this adventure were cute, it doesn't stop the fact that they've
still been made redundant.

Ace, at least, wasn't anywhere near as annoying as she was in DRAGONFIRE, which
I suppose is some improvement - perhaps escaping from Season 24 gave her a
bit of gravitas she needed and toned her down. I'm still not enthused with
her, though, she's not near the Romana or Evelyn level yet. I can see her
gung-ho "I want to come too" attitude wearing thin very soon. I'm trying to
recall anything she actually did for the story, besides suddenly think she's
Jo Grant and wander off after the Doctor specifically told her to stay put,
only to find herself in danger from a group of Daleks (for what? A tape
player? Yeah, she was bored, but even she'd have to remember that the
school isn't safe when there's a transmat in the cellar). I haven't made up
my mind about her yet, I don't hate her but I'm not impressed by her either.
We'll just have to wait until next week to see what she does next.

And there's the Doctor. As I said, while the script tends to turn the
Doctor into an irritating little schemer not telling anybody (including the
audience) anything, McCoy still managed to make the part enjoyable to watch
anyway. He had a really nice blend of the humorous and the serious, the
same type Troughton used to do. I loved how one story could have scenes
like the cafe scene while later on have him get his umbrella stuck in the
Dalek Shuttle door while he yells childishly "I can do anything I like!". I
don't like the style of an omnipresent Doctor, but I do like this new
balance of the silly and serious, which was missing before (then we just had
silly with vague attempts at serious). Let's hope it keeps up.

I really thought I'd enjoy REMEMBRANCE OF THE DALEKS more, since by its
reputation it's supposed to be a exactly what I've been looking for in
"Doctor Who". Only, instead of a thoughtful, Buffy-like episode full of
rich characterisations, all I saw was a lot of Daleks blowing more and more
things up, while the Doctor ran from nostalgic set piece to nostalgic set
piece without any care to explain away the plot, the rest of the cast
following along behind, suddenly finding they're there to make up the
numbers. It all looks very nice on the surface, but despite the morbidity
and message of the final scene, surface is pretty much all that's here.

[Si Hunt]

I can't really see what the problem is. You don't like the flashy set pieces but say there is no build up. Well, the Dalek at Totters Lane being uncovered by the Army and then captured is build-up.

As far as I can see the plot is quite involved for a Doctor Who story - the Doctor has hidden an ancient Gallifreyan weapon on Earth many years before, he's now returned to trick the Daleks into capturing it and using it, when he has pre-programmed it to destroy them. Meanwhile a second set of Daleks arrive and try and steal it. It's quite complicated by Doctor Who's standards. This plot is built up gradually over the four episodes.

Yes, the Doctor keeps secrets, but that's where they were going with the character at the time. They were trying to freshen him up after twenty five years of the Doctor not really knowing anything until he arrived at the time. Making him a manipulator, and even a traitor to his companion was something new they were trying.

At the time, we'd had many years of slightly sledgehammer continuity which seemed to push all but ardant fans away; cliffhangers announcing that "Omega is taking over the Matrix!" and so forth. The nods to the past here are far more subtle; a book sitting innocuously on a counter is a reference to the first story but only if you recognise it. Totters Yard likewise isn't anywhere in the plot such that the viewer is expected to know it was in the first adventure.

At the time, inventive and spectacular set peices were very welcome. There was, again, the feeling that Doctor Who was stuffed with continuity for the fans but not much spectacle for the kids. Coincidentally, I showed it to my 4 year old nephew the other week and he was riveted. We wanted to see Daleks with claws reaching out of their casings, and a Tank Dalek, and Daleks being blasted with guns. It was something Doctor Who may have forgotton how to be for a while: fun. Many of us grew up with the story, and still have fond memories of being thrilled by such giddy scenes.

As for rich characterization, I think for Doctor Who there are some belters in the mix: Ace is shown horrified at the attitudes towards racism at the time. Mike is a fascist who has betrayed the Army, and Ace gets into a relationship with him before being appalled when she finds out he betrayed her. There is a scene where, loved up, she flirts with him over breakfast before being repulsed by his sexist attitude. Consider that a few years before, we had characters like Hedin, Stein, even Ikona, about whom we found out nothing. They were often Saward-drawn action ciphers, defined by a single characteristic; bravery, cowardice, nobility. We could only of dreamed of scenes where the characters conflicted over points of personal prejudice or principle.

I think even now, let alone then, this is a story with some cracking action set pieces and some memorable characters thought worthy, incidentally, of a spin-off series 25 years later. Can't have been that forgettable.

Si.

[SiHart]

I always thought the Dalek was at Totters Lane because they knew the Doctor had been there. It's not stated on screen, but you can probably infer as much from the Doctor's "I've been here before" and a junkyard might be a good place to hide The Hand of Omega.

[Si Hunt]

But surely to the fans, it's cute because it's Totters Lane, and to the non-fans, they'd never know the place had been in it before anyway.

So who exactly is it offending?

Si.