“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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