I was in my sitting room the other day, pondering life and blog over a bowl of cornflakes and staring idly at 'Destiny of the Daleks', which I was disappointed by and couldn't quite place why. It wasn't that I'd had high expectations, much the opposite, but it just left me feeling... deflated. I didn't like Douglas Adams' kitsch script, nor the sketchy structure of the story, nor even the Daleks themselves, nor Davros. I thought that it was rushed and hacked by Terry Nation, I thought that Tom Baker was stroppy and way too Tom Baker, I thought that the direction was dull and that the Daleks' 'big new enemies' the Movellans were, at best, uninteresting sideshows. And it made me sad to think about the Daleks, nay the Daleks and Davros, weakened to quite this point, a stellar comedown after the epic morality tale of 'Genesis of the Daleks'. It made me want to know if this ever got better - if the Daleks ever recovered. Surprisingly, they did, a bit, and following the viewing of 'Resurrection' and 'Revelation of the Daleks', I felt, at the very least, happy that 'Destiny' did not herald the end of the Daleks' relevance as villains.
But I was still left with that empty feeling inside. It was the kind of empty feeling you get after watching 'Planet of the Daleks', and seeing Terry Nation back on the scene with more of his uninspired ideas about how Daleks should be done. It was the kind of empty feeling you get seeing 'The Twin Dilemma' straight after 'The Caves of Androzani'. It was the feeling that the Daleks would never, ever be as good as they had been before 'Destiny'. And it made me sad to think that such iconic monsters, there since the beginning, should go out of Doctor Who in such a sad, unfulfilled way.
And then I remembered this story.
'Remembrance of the Daleks' opened the 25th Season of Doctor Who, which is a big old thing in itself. A hallmark of Doctor Who is its staying power, and a quarter of a century is a huge achievement for anything on telly or film, let alone a small-budget British science fiction from the sixties. By 1988, Doctor Who was showing the world what it could be, given time, and how it had evolved over the years of its broadcast. The Doctor had a new companion, one who would be remembered for her deep backstory and rich character, he had new adventures, and, behind the scenes, a brand new and mysterious background. Never before had Doctor Who expanded as much as it was doing in 1988. Which was a shame, as the next year was to be its last.
The show that had come so far was on its way out, and, though the production team was not certain that the end was in sight, a general air of finality carries through the last two seasons of the classic series. Whether it be the shocking conclusion to this story, 'Remembrance of the Daleks', or the revelations hinted at and played out in 'Silver Nemesis' and 'The Curse of Fenric', Doctor Who knew it was going, and to celebrate the magic it had made in the last twenty five years all the stops were pulled out. 'Survival' was to be the final story of Doctor Who.
Twenty-five years later, we know that this was not the case. Since the show abruptly concluded itself in 1989, it has been revived twice, once failing to take hold, and the other time, as all children of the millennium will tell you, to unprecedented success. In 2005, the Doctor returned, a new TARDIS and a new companion under his belt, facing enemies new and old, fighting once again to save the Universe from the monsters under the bed.
In 1988, none of the above had happened yet. The people behind Doctor Who were still fighting to keep going, still pumping out fantastic stories as if the success and future of the series was to be based on the quality of the viewing it produced. 'Remembrance of the Daleks' served almost as a foreshadowing to the inevitable closure of Doctor Who, and with it came the wrapping up of a story arc unnoticed for nearly twenty-five years. The Doctor was going up against his deadliest foes one last time. And nobody was going to come out the same. Roll the commentary.
So the opening shot of this story is unforgettable. It's involving, and majestic, and hugely, hugely powerful. Earth, alone among the stars in space, and we can hear something. A voice, a crackly transmission of somebody. And we're drawn in... but what are we hearing? Kennedy? President Kennedy?
And then suddenly it isn't the only voice - more and more crackly speeches, one by Charles De Gaulle, then Martin Luther King, all overlapping, all embodying some of the basic good of mankind, big moments. All from 1963, the year it all started. And then we pull out further, and the Earth distances itself as the camera moves back, and then out of nowhere over our heads comes the harshly angled shape of a battlecruiser, moving forwards in space, towards Earth, hanging in the blackness. It's a really, really amazing moment, seeing all we know threatened like this. And the Earth's been threatened before, many times. But this is the big one. This is the endgame. My god. I'm such a romantic.
And so we roll to credits, and down to Earth with the Doctor and Ace and a big spaceship hanging in the sky above us, although now we can't see it. There is banter between the pair, Ace with her new boom box (ha, eighties), and the Doctor berating her for carrying anachronisms. The Doctor gets involved with a van that he says shouldn't have the complex aerial that it has, which is another anachronism. Ace goes to get some food, and we learn that it is the sixties - yeah, 1963. It's the twenty-fifth anniversary year, we're allowed. Continuity. It's all part of the magic.
Anyway, Ace goes to a café, the decor and sound design and tone of which I find really lovely and world-building and totally sixties, and there's a lovely underplayed beat in which she puts her boom box on a table and this guy in the corner stares at it in alarm. This guy is a man called Mike Smith, a sergeant and a main player in the Doctor's endgame, although neither he or the Doctor yet know it. He sees Ace struggling to attract the attention of the proprietor and gives her some help. He introduces himself, she introduces herself, there is a little flirtation. Who cares if the acting isn't the best it could be? Alright, me a little bit. But apparently it's shipping time.
The Doctor, meanwhile, has got into the back of the van, where a woman called Professor Rachel Jensen is adjusting some very funky-looking equipment. Fans of the series will notice that Professor Jensen is played by everyone's favourite Pamela Salem, who also had the role of Toos in 'The Robots of Death', another of the series's most popular stories. She's got a good track record, and shines in this as a put-upon scientific advisor to the Counter-Measures team, which is like a pre-UNIT group that works with the Doctor in this story. Mike's part of it, and as Rachel receives some bad news over the airwaves, he and Ace appear round the corner, talking about money and how many shillings are in the pound. It's sort of charming, but we'll come back to it. For now, Ace and the Doctor are hitching a lift with Prof. Jensen and Smith to the 'secondary source, Totters Lane'. Wait - Totters Lane?
And then in the blink of an eye we're here, back at the very beginning, Totters Lane and Foreman's Yard. Where the first Doctor stored the first TARDIS in the first Doctor Who ever. And it's wonderful to be back after all this time, properly. I mean, yes, we came here in 'Attack of the Cybermen', but that story isn't near any kind of anniversary celebration and the continuity in it sticks out like a sore thumb. Here though... there's something prophetic about the Doctor returning, after all this time. Why now? Why here? Is there something we don't know about what's going on? Yeah. And, having read the novelisation of this by Ben Aaronovitch, I now know that, apparently, the reason for the Doctor originally being here in 1963 was to lay the trap he springs now. And that... yeah. So that's a long, long story arc. The Doctor has returned, after all this time, to see to the job he left unfinished all those hundreds of years ago. Which... like, why did he not return sooner? Did he forget? I mean, he has a time machine, perhaps he just put it off and went gallivanting off in the TARDIS instead. But McCoy's Doctor is a Doctor who gets things done, and get things done he will. And it's happening now.
And is it happening. It's - wow. There's a Dalek on fire. The stakes start creeping up. Two men die here. The Dalek is on fire. There is a huge explosion, and Ace is allowed to blow stuff up. The Daleks get a new heads-up-display, something very new series, and the extermination effect is that of green translucency with the skeleton of the victim showing. This is really the pool of resources the new series picked their favourite bits from, and moreso at the end of the episode, you'll see. The only problem is that if the Doctor knows, as he states, that the Dalek is in there from the beginning of the scene, then does that mean that the Dalek was hiding, dormant, all the time Barbara and Ian were talking to the Doctor in 'An Unearthly Child', and that the Doctor knew this? Also that he knew the Daleks before he met them on Skaro?
Oh. Fuck it. Who cares. The Dalek was on fire.
It's here also that we're introduced to two more main-ish characters, the austere but good-hearted Group Captain Gilmore and the young and intelligent Allison Williams, seconded from Cambridge and assistant to Professor Rachel, and kind of quite attractive but, um, you didn't hear it from me. In the novelisation, a romantic history between Rachel and Gilmore is expanded on, but onscreen the connection is less obvious, unfortunately. Because we like a good coupling.
Dalek destroyed, the Doctor decides to take Ace and make for the nearby Coal Hill School (the one Susan attended, yeah) in the scanner van, better to commence investigations. Along the way, the Doctor explains to Ace how the Daleks were created (albeit briefly and a bit awkwardly in a sequence which isn't very good) and swaps seats inexplicably and wonderfully.
On that note, what I really think shines through in this story is the complete deviousness of the Doctor, and how that affects those around him. McCoy (and the rest of the cast too) have nothing short of a stellar script to work by, courtesy of now successful (but somehow not as good?) author Ben Aaronovitch, but we can talk about him more when we come to 'Battlefield'. We can talk about him here too, and we will, I just think that now is more of an appropriate time to discuss somebody else - Script Editor Andrew Cartmel. Now Cartmel only came to Doctor Who around about here, but immediately began beginning to mould the character of the Doctor into one much darker and more mysterious than previously suspected. Slowly but surely, Cartmel's grand designs began taking shape as he started implementing the notorious 'Cartmel Plan'.
Where or when the Cartmel Plan was going to end up nobody knows, but, through tiny moments in the script and then large chunks of tense dialogue in the climaxes of later stories ('Silver Nemesis' and 'The Curse of Fenric' spring to mind), a much darker, older side to the Doctor we all know and love was working its way in. This was a Doctor who manipulated companions, who changed events around him like pieces on a chessboard and worked from his own, ancient guidelines. This was a Doctor who had had enough, of the Daleks, the Cybermen, of Fenric and of the evils of the Universe, somebody who was going to fight, but to his own rules - a far cry from the clowning buffoon of Season 24. It's to this end that Cartmel added tiny slips of the tongue for the Doctor, like when talking to Ace later on about Omega and Rassilon, and the Hand of Omega. In Aaronovitch's novel, flashbacks to the Dark Times of Gallifrey and the Triumvirate - Omega, Rassilon and the Other. And who could this 'Other' be? Perhaps, speak voices, a previous incarnation of everybody's favourite Time Lord...
But that's all speculative, for now. Back in the story, Ace and the Doctor have found the school, the interior sets of which are believably realistic, and the headmaster of which seems, um, familiar. Because he is! From his first appearance in 'The Krotons' to his caring Dr. Summers in Jon Pertwee's 'The Mind of Evil' to his tragically human performance as Lawrence Scarman in 'Pyramids of Mars', and now here, Michael Sheard is one of those actors Doctor Who fans will never forget (others include Bernard Horsefall and, to an extent, Pamela Salem again - there are others but the list is long). Anyway, in this he's a headmaster who's possessed by the Daleks, so that's.. that. According to the wills of his masters, he allows Ace and the Doctor to investigate the school, and the pair head for the cellar, as the Doctor points out that a cellar is a good place to hide things. In said cellar, all is dark and damp and brickwork, with piping on the walls and some chunky Dalek tech in the middle of the floor - a transmat, allowing the Daleks to hop between the cellar and... another place. As the Doctor is fiddling around, a Dalek begins to appear, giving some cool special effects and letting us see the inside of a Dalek again, because Doctor Who likes showing us the inside of a Dalek. But this one looks different...
Through some nifty science improv, the Doctor manages to blow up the half-formed Dalek and all seems well. He mentions that the delay probably won't last long, as the Daleks usually leave an operator on the scene to take care of things. Ace frowns and asks if that would be another Dalek. The Doctor agrees. Everyone at home goes 'awh naw'.
So there's another Dalek. The entrance is a bit sloppy, but that can't be helped. Ace makes the stairs first, the Doctor close behind, and Ace is only just out of the door above when the headmaster knees her in the stomach, nasty, rendering her pretty useless on the floor. He proceeds to lock the door to the cellar, trapping the Doctor at the top of the stairs and shouting to be let out. Then it happens. The big one. The awesome, most shocking and exciting cliffhanger the Daleks, nay any monster has had for ages; the Dalek flies up the stairs.
And oh my god. I'm sorry but holy god this cliffhanger is good. It's more than good - it's a revelation, and suddenly these Daleks are about ten times more scary because they can get upstairs and exterminate you, something denied to them for so long. What a genius decision. I rewound this bit when I watched it first time, just to get it again. The Doctor, scared out of his wits, the Dalek, merciless and loud, and Ace helpless on the floor. It's dark, it's shocking, it's hopeless, but what's most affecting is that it's basically a giant middle finger to 'Destiny of the Daleks'. No, seriously. Remember at the beginning, when I said that the Daleks in that story are basically turned into jokes? Well there's a bit there when Tom Baker chides the Daleks for their inability to climb stairs, rendering the Daleks.. well... just punchlines. Honestly, truly. After that sequence, what possible chance is there of taking the Daleks seriously as villains? The MAIN CHARACTER just unironically laughed at them for something that most Whovians joke about but get along with. It's an awful scripting choice, it really is. But now it's been recognised. And the Daleks can climb stairs. So chew on that.
Into part two, we find out that Ace isn't as winded as we were led to believe and frees the Doctor so that the pair can go Dalek hunting with a bazooka that the man outside the gates for some reason gives them. Because the Doctor has a trustworthy face, must be. Anyway, they aren't really going Dalek hunting, they're going transmat hunting, but it amounts to the same thing, which is a lot of Daleks shouting and shooting and blowing up doors and then finally being blown up by Ace. I think it's right that the Doctor is so disappointed by Ace's approach to using a rocket launcher, and you can really see it on his face. It's like he's been trying to teach her other things than blowing stuff up, and now it's back to square one. Apparently Sylvester McCoy was originally told it was he that was to use the launcher, but insisted that is was un-Doctorly and gave the role to Ace, so points to McCoy. But the Dalek is dead.
Immediate threat dispelled, Allison, Mike, Rachel and Gilmore arrive with soldiers, and there is some more flirtatious behaviour between Ace and Mike while Rachel does some inspector Rachel Dalek-inspecting. Rachel notes that these new cream and gold Daleks look different on the inside, with 'vestigial limbs and sensory organs'. So we're dealing with two sets of Daleks? Again?
It's now that it really strikes me that we are watching the culmination of Dalek evolution. We've all seen the 'one faction of Daleks fighting the other' paradigm, but here it's really taken to the logical extreme, with one faction even coloured differently from the other and led by the Emperor (returned after all these years?) rather than the new Supreme Dalek. I enjoy entertaining the idea of an army of new Daleks up against a handful of Dalek veterans from the front lines, acting opposed to the Emperor. It shows all too well, come the delightful battle sequences between the Renegades and the Imperials, that the Renegades hopelessly outclass the Imperials with tactics and brute strength, and it's only after the introduction of the Special Weapons Dalek (or the Abomination to readers of Aaronovitch's novelisation) that the tables start to turn. It's a bitter irony that a weapon created by the Emperor and resented by his forces is the one to first bring victory to the Daleks, then destroy them forever. That's ahead of us yet, but it's an interesting message.
Also cool are the Imperial Daleks themselves, their designs and all their tech. The aesthetics of their spacecraft and armour are definite and defined, which helps them appear more tangible as villains. The Renegades, as shown by the one in Totters Lane, are really just your bog-standard grey and black Daleks, but there's something new and invigorating about seeing Imperial Daleks so different to what we know. Sure, we got the same thing in 'Revelation of the Daleks', but then they seemed much more temporary, much more Davros's than their own. Which is foreshadowing.
It's quite a way into this story, or it always seems quite a way in, that we finally find out that Sgt. Mike Smith, Ace's new love interest and general all-round good guy, is in fact a traitor. Having read the book first, I knew this was coming, but from about halfway through the second episode, we start to see him doing stuff he shouldn't necessarily be doing. He's sneaking around churchyards and spying on the Doctor, he's taking calls from Mr Ratcliffe, who we'll talking about in a minute, he's working, it seems, with the Renegade Daleks. Not that Daleks can tell that, they'd just as soon kill him. But something about the whole pattern of events reeks familiarly. And it's only recently that I realised Mike Smith is pretty much a total proto- of the character of Mike Yates from UNIT, years in the future. Think about it - both have a romantic interest in the Doctor's companion, both are with the military, both are called Mike (although that's probably not as big a thing), and both end up betraying their friends to a cause they really, truly believe in. In Yates's case, this cause is operation Golden Age, the purifying of humanity. In Smith's case, it's Ratcliffe's 'Association's ultimate aim, which is, shall we say, much closer to home. To Ratcliffe, a shady businessman who was a quisling during the war, everything's about keeping Britain, the world, pure, or fascist, if you will. This correlates directly with the origins of the Daleks - a race of paranoid xenophobes based very firmly on the Nazis. It's fascinating to see the real-life equivalents of the Daleks working alongside the Daleks themselves, or working with what we are led to believe is Davros. It's a callback to the roots of the Daleks before the Daleks themselves are destroyed, which, to me, seems elegant and ties up the story arc that was launched all that time ago in 1963. The Daleks are going out knowing exactly what they are.
Referencing back to that point about purism or fascism, the most significant element of 'Remembrance of the Daleks' has to be its approach to racism and the anti-racist undertones we receive throughout. The Daleks themselves personify xenophobia - a race bent on the destruction of all other life in the Universe, terrified of anything rising above their power. Then Ratcliffe, the pseudo-Nazi who believes he can turn Britain back to its former 'purity', and Mike under him, who was practically brought up on this stuff over the war and into the fifties. Aaronovitch clearly underlines the non-progressive atmosphere of the era towards immigration and race, and channels his disgust at such themes through Ace, who's friend Manisha was maimed in a firebomb attack because of her ethnic background. Such bold advances in acceptance are wonderfully freeing and new to see in Doctor Who, and give the story a quality it wouldn't necessarily have otherwise. To see Mike protesting his innocence to Ace by saying 'we have to keep the outsiders out so our own can have a shot', and then Ace spitting that right back in his face is such a victory for modern viewers, and even more the moment at which Ace discovers the 'no coloureds' sign on Mrs Smith's window, and her reaction to that. It's... beautiful and a step forwards, one that Doctor Who could certainly have done with at that point. The mutual hatred shared by the Renegade and Imperial Daleks is just another example of racism or xenophobia, and seeing the racist motives projected onto the Daleks rather than our protagonists for once is a triumph in itself.
So I suppose I should mention how the bulk of the story in this is made up of the Doctor striving to find the Hand of Omega, an ancient Time Lord device created to engineer stars, which both factions of Daleks believe will give them access to the time travel experiments the Time Lords carried out, making them lords of time. While the first half of the story is put together around the Doctor getting the Hand, the second half centres around him keeping himself and his friends out of the way as the Imperial Daleks race to reclaim it from the Renegades. The Doctor also has his own motives - as he didn't expect the Renegade Daleks to turn up, he must stop them from escaping with the Hand of Omega or his plans will have failed. What follows in parts three and four is a nice, criss-crossing web of deceit and destruction, as the Imperials assault the Renegades through the streets of an evacuated Shoreditch after landing in their shuttle. Oh, and when I say they arrived in their shuttle, I don't mean they trundled out of a five-centimetre-long shuttle made of fibreglass and had to contend with blue-screen and bad cutting, I mean that the production team actually made a twenty-foot Imperial Dalek shuttle and craned it into a playground. I mean, seriously. They made a twenty-foot Dalek shuttle. And craned it in. And had Daleks come out of it. It's majestically impressive, similar but different to the Menoptera in 'The Web Planet' as they spread their wings and fight the Zarbi off Vortis. It's unexpected in the best ways possible.
One of the things I find myself noticing more than ever now is the hugely successful use of special effects in this story, and how that affects the viewing experience. The battle sequences, delicious though they are, simply wouldn't click as well without the new and improved laser bolts, the electricity of Ace's baseball bat. The slower parts of this story are made more interesting as we see the Hand of Omega's coffin lifted from the ground, the excellent model shots of the Dalek mothership and the final destruction of the Daleks. The static that crackles from the hands of the battle computer girl is shocking (ha) and sudden and powerful. Everything just goes into place. It's a sexy sixties story.
Of course, that isn't to say that there aren't a few odd choices here. The wink to the audience about Doctor Who being on television at the time of Ace and the Doctor's visit is more boggling than it is funny, some of the direction is a little static, perhaps some of the lines are garbled. It's true, however, that no Doctor Who story comes without faults, and it's always nice to see one with very few.
All that said, there are some truly delightful little scenes in this. Most notable is probably the coffee shoppe scene, which is just so unbelievably atmospheric and charming I feel it could be an entire episode all of its own. The noises of river barges out in the London darkness and the cosiness of it just hits me right where it needs to. Its little comic/contemplative sequences like this that really make Doctor Who stories sing for me, and there isn't any shortage of them here. We have the funeral parlour scene, the graveside sequence, the Doctor and Ace's discussions and then the everyone-involved breakfast sequence in Harry's Café, a few minutes that let Rachel and Allison shine as a double-act.
Oh yeah, and all the way through this story is this motif of a little girl who seems to know a lot of what's going on. She skips, sings nursery rhymes and does the hopscotch, but on top of that she always seems to appear at the most dramatic moments, then wink out of existence. Throughout the story we, as viewers, get glimpses of her, and wonder who she is, what connection she might have to the shady figure in the corner of Ratcliffe's office who we take to be Davros? What we find out, of course, is a complete subversion of our expectations - the little girl is the Davros figure, suspended in a chair with a control helmet over her head. She acts as the Daleks' battle computer - a device that links the imagination of a child to the Dalek tactical systems, allowing them to become unpredictable. As an concept it is both creepy and interesting, and lends to a certain new-series trope of children being used by aliens. Empowered by the battle computer, the girl is capable of shooting electricity from her hands (yeah, Palpatine style) and has a mental link with the Supreme Dalek, which (and this is expanded upon more in the book than onscreen) is turned insane by its link with a child. As the Supreme spins, dying, at the end of the story, so does the girl. It's like symbiosis.
And so, finally, to the endgame of 'Remembrance of the Daleks'. Through use of the Special Weapons Dalek (which is damn cool, by the way), the Imperials have gained control of the Hand of Omega a la the Doctor's plan, and returned to their mothership in the shuttle. The Renegade Daleks are all dead save the Supreme, and Mike's stolen his Time Controller, in a last-ditch attempt to bargain for his freedom. Ace has gone searching for Mike, the girl for Ace, and the Doctor has returned to the Coal Hill School cellar with Allison, Rachel and Gilmore to open a video-link with the Emperor. The Doctor opens by stating his Time Lord credentials and requesting rather vehemently that the Daleks go back where they came from, bastards. The Emperor Dalek seems to recognise the Doctor (as it would, right?), but then, through the shouted and cracked voice comes another, softer and more dangerous... do we recognise it?
Yes, it's Davros. Davros, who we last saw packed off on a ship bound for Skaro, his career and dreams in tatters and his execution not far away. And now, through devious shenanigans not explained in this story, he is the Emperor of all Daleks. Good for him.
Now, I don't so much have a problem with this as I have a problem with why I don't have as big a problem with this as I should. I should, in all seriousness, have a big problem with this. See, whenever Davros appears on the scene, the Daleks are reduced to mindless drones acting under a higher power. That's not the Daleks. The Daleks are meant to be scheming, malevolent, creations that killed their master after he presented a threat to their superiority. Then their master returned, and in the infamous 'Destiny of the Daleks' became their lord and master once again. Afterwards he was imprisoned, and the Daleks came to him for help again, before turning on him completely. As Davros saw their true intentions, he infected some with a virus that would bend them to his will, and a new faction of the Daleks was born - the earliest Imperial Daleks. Beyond the happenings of 'Resurrection of the Daleks', he created an entirely separate race, fundamentally the same but in one, tiny way different from their predecessors. As Ace puts it in the third part of this story, blobs fighting blobs. The two factions hate each other's chromosomes - war to the death. So it makes sense for Davros to be here, right?
See, that's where it should fall down. Many people have said it over the years, and I know that I really should agree with them. We'll get to why I do and why I don't in a minute, but the point is, from the opinions of a lot of other Whovians, they should have put Davros to rest in 'Revelation' and continued 'Remembrance' without him. And I agree with that. While Davros is obviously powerful and, by then, an infamous enemy of the Doctor's, I've always thought that, this being the last Dalek story of the classic series, Doctor Who should have returned to its roots and made this a pure, through-and-through Dalek adventure, without the presence of Davros to 'dilute' it. That the Dalek Emperor should have just been the Dalek Emperor and that that should have been that. But at the same time as me disputing his appearance here, I think it had to happen, and here's why: my opinion is, and this is only my opinion, that Davros had to appear here to make sense of the story to viewers who hadn't seen 'The Evil of the Daleks' or had any mention of the Emperor before. Without Davros, this story, while it might have fared better standalone, would have appeared jarring in the loose quintilogy of Davros/Dalek stories that had aired since 'Genesis'. As it stands, 'Remembrance of the Daleks' serves well as a final confrontation between the Doctor and his arch-nemesis, and does a good job of tying up the loose ends of the Davros story arc. This is my humble view.
Anyway. This story ends. Davros uses the Hand of Omega, but, under the Doctor's prior programming, it flies into the heart of Skaro's sun and turns it supernova, destroying the Daleks' home world forever, which is, I guess, a big deal. It then adjusts course and returns to the Dalek mothership with malicious intent. Davros pleads with the Doctor, but, being a Doctor who gets shit done, the Doctor merely signs off and lets the mothership explode (after Davros has escaped in an escape pod, that is - thanks for ruining my 'closure of story arc' speech, Aaronovitch). Ace, meanwhile, has found Mike at the same time as the girl has; the girl kills Mike, then loses it at Ace. The Doctor, acting alongside the military, has located the Supreme Dalek and confronts it, mercilessly tearing into it with the information that its race is dead, which is dark and very McCoy as we grow to know him after this. The Supreme Dalek spins (the girl spins), screams (the girl screams), and finally explodes (don't worry, she just faints and then starts crying. What a let down). We tie up with the Doctor and Ace at Mike's funeral, not going in but lingering outside. Morality is questioned and answered with one of the Seventh Doctor's famous final lines - 'Time will tell - it always does.'
Last words?
Woof. That was long.
'Remembrance of the Daleks' is one of those stories that will always stick out to me as one that carries the poignance and relevance of events at the time and reflects back on less enlightened eras with nostalgia and regret in equal measure. At the same time as expanding on the future of the series and enriching the characters of the Doctor and Ace, it takes time to call back fond memories of the origins of Doctor Who, and also the way that the programme had developed over the twenty-five years of its broadcast. Strong, challenging themes make 'Remembrance' not only a romp through Shoreditch with a baseball bat and Daleks, but also a piece of elegant social commentary on the development of society and how that affects television. Whether it be the harsh contrast between Renegade and Imperial Daleks, or Ace's clear aversion to discrimination or racism, this story is undeniably one of those that sticks in the public eye for its relevance and revelations. The character of the Doctor takes on a new form, as a master planner as well as a clown, and Ace is given a depth of history not afforded to previous companions. All the supporting cast shine in their respective roles, and it is a testament to the success of the series that it feels itself able to develop on its own mythology in more ways than reviving a popular foe. Of course it isn't perfect, but whichever way you look at it, 'Remembrance of the Daleks' is unmissable as one of the high points and turning points of the McCoy era, a story to be discussed and adored by fans for a good time yet.
But aside from all that, we have to return to the big question I asked at the beginning - were the Daleks returned to their former glory? Was their relevance as villains reinvigorated once again? Did we get our favourite foes back from the edge of incompetence? Well, yes and no. 'Remembrance of the Daleks', significant and cynical and fun though it is, was never, never going to match stories like 'Genesis of the Daleks' or 'Power of the Daleks'. It might have come close (relative to the three stories preceding it), but Davros and Terry Nation had done their work, and the Daleks, although scarier and newer and more exciting here, couldn't have avoided slipping back into the much-vaunted 'mindless drone' stencil once again, especially once Emperor Davros had entered the fray. Which is a shame.
But then, say I, compare this to 'Destiny of the Daleks', or 'Resurrection of the Daleks', and consider its poignancy and what it achieved in picking up a dying monster and elevating it to the heights once more. Where in 'Revelation of the Daleks' the Daleks were, indeed, made scarier again (in my opinion), what 'Remembrance' achieved was available on a far broader spectrum, and took us back to the roots of the Daleks themselves, and even Doctor Who as a programme. It gave us the Supreme Dalek back, and the Emperor (before we found out it wasn't the Emperor), and before those the recurring theme of Dalek civil war, echoing back from the sixties and earlier eighties. It even gave us the return of the Daleks to Earth, no longer involved in petty space conflicts but hitting home, albeit home in the past. So, I mean, no. No, the Daleks were never going to break the limits of greatness they had scratched at before, with 'Genesis' and 'Evil' and 'Power'. But in 'Remembrance of the Daleks', they had a damn good shot at it, and all the people who had grown up with the Daleks, been terrified by them and hidden from them behind the sofa, once again felt comfortable in the knowledge that they would never be entirely safe from Britain's most popular foes. Even if they hid upstairs. The end.
