Andrew Jero shows some love for the Fifth Doctor's only Dalek encounter, 1984's Resurrection of the Daleks.
As far as Dalek stories in the 1980's go,
none of them are quite as good as Resurrection of the Daleks. While
Revelation and Remembrance may be GOOD stories they aren't quite of the
same caliber as Resurrection. Outside of the 1960's, the Daleks are
truly menacing twice. In Genesis they get to be fantastically
horrifying. But in Resurrection, they really get to go all out. Kill
everyone. 58 on screen deaths!
When
you take into consideration that Resurrection of the Daleks has more on
screen deaths than The Terminator (1984), a movie which sees an entire
police station slaughtered, it is truly a testament to the writing
abilities of the brilliant Eric Saward!
With
almost every death we see, we, as an audience, know that it's either
some random individual that dies for no good reason, or a character that
we've spent the last 100 minutes following. Building attachments with the
characters really hurts when we see their demise. Colonel Archer is one that I grew to admire. When we see him go to the policemen and
ask for the radio with the "... It's dead." The gun to his head is
their way of saying, "so are you."
Perhaps
the two most painful deaths are those of the man shot at the end of the
opening sequence after witnessing the deaths of six alien people just
for being there. The other is once the policemen corner Tegan, one raises
his gun and shoots a random stranger because she escaped. She feels as
if she caused his death, this a perhaps the biggest thing that
contributes to her departure at the end of the story.
Peter
Davison is on top form here, with the "I wouldn't know what to do with
an army" scene being one of his best. He is prepared to drop his morals
to stop the Daleks, to kill Davros. He truly is THE Doctor here. The
Daleks bring out the violent and reckless side of the Doctor which
provides some great internal conflict for the companions.
Tegan,
who had been with the show since Logopolis, has stayed with the Fifth
Doctor his entire life. They have a very strong friendship, one that
isn't easily broken. It's 58 deaths, the complete massacre they witness
that drives her away from him. The violence, the immense number of
innocent people that are killed just because of the Daleks' presence,
that pushes them apart. "It's stopped being fun Doctor." Still suffering
the loss of Adric, Nyssa's departure, and now the loss of Tegan, the
Fifth Doctor's era begins to unravel itself with only Turlough and
Kamelion remaining.
As
far as 80's Dalek stories go, Resurrection of the Daleks is the definitive one for me. It
shows the Daleks at their most menacing, their most destructive.
Andrew Jero is 17, lives in Iowa and has been watching Doctor Who since
the age of four. He enjoys acting and writing plays, television scripts,
and short stories. He has a very strong love of Red Dwarf as well. Follow Andrew on Twitter.
