"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Sunday, March 17, 2019

Doctor Who: Season 4, Episodes 9-14 – “The Power of the Daleks” (1966)


“The Tenth Planet,” which immediately preceded this story, lit the spark for Who’s incredibly longevity, but it was up to “The Power of the Daleks” to carry the torch.  Bam – regeneration!  New actor, new face, new personality.  If Patrick Troughton hadn’t been able to convey that, as different as he was, he was still the Doctor, Who wouldn’t have made it past four seasons and it would’ve been a quirky footnote in the British equivalent of “We Love the ‘60s.”  Whether your Doctor is Tom Baker, David Tennant, or Sylvester McCoy, you can thank this story for their existence.



Ben and Polly are understandably freaked out when the First Doctor regenerates before their eyes, something they hadn’t known he could do.  The Beatle-haired little cosmic tramp who rises in his place doesn’t seem like he could possibly be the same man, and the Doctor’s friends try to process what’s just happened.  Meanwhile, there’s an off-world colony with leadership issues and a monomaniacal scientist who’s pretty sure he can control the Daleks (at this point, whenever anyone thinks they have the Daleks – or the Cybermen – under their thumb, I just laugh and laugh.)  Naturally, it’s up to the newly regenerated Doctor and his companions to figure out what everyone’s favorite fascist pepper pots are really up to.



The major headline for this story is, of course, our introduction to the very first new Doctor.  To be fair, since the episodes are all lost and for a long time, the story was only available on audio (though it’s since gotten the animated treatment,) I’d already seen plenty of Two by the time I listened to this one.  So, I already knew I loved him, but I still think he’s terrific here.  I like the bits of him exploring the capabilities of his new body, the recorder makes its first appearance, and we see (or rather, hear) him opening a sonic lock for the first time, pre-screwdriver (hint:  it involves a glass of water.  How awesome is he?)  Overall, he’s smart, weird, and terrific.  In other words?  He’s the Doctor.



At the same time, Ben and Polly do wonder if they can trust him, not sure that he’s really who he says he is.  That makes sense to me – it’s believable that they’d be in doubt, but it doesn’t carry on so long that either loses my sympathy (see how much restraint I’m showing in not mentioning the names of any other companions in post-regeneration episodes?)  But while both bring up different positions along this story thread, they don’t have quite as much to do in the main plot.  Part of the problem is that Michael Craze and Anneke Wills both used their vacation time during this story, so each is captured separately to facilitate a one-episode absence.  Additionally, between the Daleks and all the focus the Doctor gets after his regeneration, there’s just not much time left to devote to Ben and Polly, and so much of their memorable screen time is in service of the “Who’s this guy, and can we trust him?” plot.



The Dalek story is fairly dark.  Even before they get their suckers on the colony, there are a lot of problems and conflict, and naturally, the Daleks exploit an unstable situation and make it worse.  Not to mention, there’s something so creepy about a Dalek pretending to be good to further its own agenda.  Dalek plots can sometimes feel a dime a dozen, but I think this one is pretty interesting and exciting; this was a good era for creative storytelling on the show in general.  Also, the audio recording/screencap method – and later, the slightly-jerky-animation method – of watching the story obviously makes it harder to tell, but I think the visuals are fairly decent, too.  There’s a scene of Dalek operations that’s pretty cool.

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