Dalek

Dear Gary—

Dalek. There could not be a Doctor Who revival without a reboot of the Daleks. Classic Who Daleks ran the gamut from terrifying to laughable; kids hid from them behind sofas and taunted them as pepper pots. How do Daleks fit in with this New Who for a new age?

The new Doctor for a new age first meets this new Dalek and he is terrified. This might be the one and only time that the Doctor is at a complete loss, totally petrified, you could almost say cowardly. He does not throw a hat over the eyepiece or stand defiantly before him with hands on lapels. He bangs on the door begging to be let out.

“You are the enemy of the Daleks; you must be destroyed,” the Dalek says, speaking for the first time upon recognizing his age old foe. But this Dalek is helpless; chained and helpless; weaponry useless.

“Fantastic,” the Doctor exults, “the great space dustbin.”

Terrifying and laughable in the space of a minute.

And then we get the news: “You’re race is dead! You all burned, all of you. Ten million ships on fire. The entire Dalek race wiped out in one second.”

The devastation of the Time War that haunts this new Doctor also haunts the sole Dalek who has survived. Something new: terrifying, laughable, and now pitiable.

“We are the same,” the Dalek declares.

“We’re not the same! I’m not  . . .” The Doctor pauses. He stops to think. “No, wait; maybe we are,” the Doctor considers. The same? The Doctor the same as a Dalek? “Yeah, okay. You’ve got a point,” the Doctor continues in this line of thought, “’cause I know what to do. I know what should happen. I know what you deserve.” The Doctor stands triumphant. “Exterminate.”

The Doctor and the Dalek relationship of Classic Who turned on its head.

It’s rather an ugly moment for the Doctor. What it does, this moment, is shine a spotlight on those missing years between the Eighth Doctor and the Ninth. “I watched it happen,” the Doctor tells the Dalek. “I made it happen.” The great Time War that saw everyone die, Dalek and Time Lord alike. When he is confronted with the lone survivor of his most ancient and despised enemy, the massive survivor’s guilt he has been carrying with him manifests in hatred and vengeance and all of the emotions usually alien to him. “Why don’t you just die,” he demands of this reminder of all that is lost.

“You would make a good Dalek.”

The trauma of the Time War has left its mark on this new Doctor. Rose is slowly reviving his faith in life but his brush with the past starts to drag him back.

The Dalek undergoes a similar arc. His encounter with the Doctor awakens old rivalries; his absorption of Rose’s DNA transforms him; news of the Time War’s destruction overwhelms him.

Mixtures of Classic, Missing, and New in both the Doctor and the Dalek, with Rose as the reagent.

“I am waiting for orders,” the Dalek says. He is one lone soldier Dalek in need of orders, in the absence of which he reverts to his primary order to exterminate. He is chilling, this lone Dalek; single minded, calculating, manipulative. The Doctor’s assertion that this solitary Dalek can kill the entire population of Salt Lake City is entirely credible. Daleks of old were able to maneuver stairs and navigate through water; Daleks of old were ruthless and merciless; Daleks of old were brilliant engineers and tacticians; Daleks of old conquered entire civilizations and turned on their creator; yet Daleks of old were always vaguely absurd. This Dalek, this one lone single solitary Dalek makes us believe he could take on the Earth and win.

(Except, Gary, if the Dalek downloaded the entire internet it doesn’t necessarily know everything as the Doctor claims; amongst all of the meaningful data it has learned, it has also soaked up a wealth of useless, false, and conflicting information, and good luck, Dalek, sorting that lot out.)

But when it comes time to kill Rose this new Dalek cannot act. He begins to question himself. Rose’s genetic code has not only revived him, it has regenerated him and he starts to feel new feelings and think new thoughts. This is madness for a Dalek, or in the Dalek’s own words, “This is not life; this is sickness.” Even the Doctor has pity for his mortal enemy; the Doctor who had been willing to sacrifice Rose to stop the Dalek; the Doctor who went against all he stands for and armed himself with the biggest gun he could find; the Doctor who uttered that one word that exemplifies a Dalek, “Exterminate;” the Doctor who lost everything and everyone and who has nothing left except bitter hatred. “I’m sorry,” he says.

Pity, mercy, empathy. A new Dalek and a new Doctor. The classic, the missing, and the new jumbled up with Rose as the reagent.

It is too much for this new Dalek; he sees suicide as his only option, the final extermination. The Doctor, on the other hand, drops his weapon, sheds his anger, and returns to his TARDIS: “A little piece of home; better than nothing.” The end of the Time War; the last of the Time Lords. With Rose by his side.

It is a fascinating new perspective on this most classic of Doctor Who rivalries.

I wish I could say that I liked the story of Dalek as much. It’s not that I dislike it; it is just that I cannot warm up to it. Perhaps it is the fault of the dark, claustrophobic, and sterile world of Henry van Statten’s underground bunker; or perhaps it is Henry van Statten himself, along with the other human players in this story, Diana Goddard and Adam Mitchell.

I’ll start with van Statten. Now this is a thoroughly unlikeable guy. I spend most of my time despising him and wondering if a person like this could really exist. There is nothing redeemable about his character, and while that is the point of the character, I find it overpowering; I don’t want to know this guy much less watch him for 45 minutes of TV. As a result, I tend to overlook some of the finer points of development, like the delicate alien instrument that the Doctor has such joy in and that van Statten tosses aside, tired of his new toy already. It is all nicely done, however by now van Statten’s insufferable insensitivity has been rammed down my throat; the finesse doesn’t blend well with the ham-fisted.

Next there is Diana Goddard. She isn’t much better. Sidekicks like this work best if they have some level of sympathy or entertainment value (off of the top of my head from Classic Who—Packer, Marn, Scorby). Diana Goddard has neither. Diana Goddard is a bland mercenary opportunist who well deserves a boss like van Statten (and he an employee like her). The only thing separating her from van Statten is her objection to the loss of life amongst the ranks of her fellow workers. However even this is negated when she orders van Statten’s memory wiped and him abandoned in some random city. She is as callous at that moment as van Statten ever was. I can’t feel any sense of justice at van Statten’s fate and I can’t feel any vindication for Diana Goddard.

Finally there is Adam. Adam, a know-it-all punk, is only bearable by comparison to van Statten and Goddard.  And I find the instant attraction between him and Rose a bit off-putting. The Doctor’s encounter with the Dalek has changed him so much that he allows this braggart aboard the TARDIS, and I have to mention that Rose fights more for Adam than she ever did for her actual boyfriend Mickey.

Despite my best efforts I am finding that I dislike Rose more and more during this current round of viewings. This is actually a strong episode for her, what with her connection with the Dalek and all; yet I continue to find fault with her. For instance, when informed that she is in the year 2012 her first reaction is, “So I should be 26.” Thanks for putting things in perspective for us, Rose. In contrast, the Doctor’s heartfelt reflection on a Cyberman head mounted in a display case: “An old friend of mine. Well, enemy. The stuff of nightmares reduced to an exhibit. I’m getting old.”

This is indicative of a dichotomy in Dalek that I can’t seem to get past. The finesse vs. the ham-fisted; the sincere vs. the disingenuous; the credible vs. the unbelievable. The Doctor and the Dalek are mainly on the side of finesse, sincere, credible. All of the rest tend to fall on the other, except for Rose who falls someplace in the middle.

Let me cite an example, for my own edification if nothing else. The Doctor informs the Commander of the Dalek’s defenses and advises him to have his men concentrate their fire, aiming for the eyepiece which is the Dalek’s weak spot. The Commander replies, “Thank you, Doctor, but I think I know how to fight one single tin robot.” How did this guy rise to his level? This is perfectly sound advice and even if the Doctor had never said a word anybody would come to the same common sense conclusion that a concentration of firepower would be the best defense; furthermore the knowledge of an enemy’s weak point would be welcomed by any commander and exploited, not ignored. This is just an incredibly clumsy way of hitting the audience over the head with the idea that the Doctor is right and van Statten and his men are not only wrong but stupid. In contrast we have the simple but powerful scene of the Dalek withstanding the rain of bullets (that is not being concentrated on his eyepiece or anywhere else for that matter), slowly taking stock of his situation, calmly calculating his best move, and then elevating and brutally electrocuting the entire room; this after restoring the visual and deliberately allowing the Doctor to witness the massacre.

Rather ironic when I think about it. Dalek being beset by this dichotomy given that Classic Who Daleks long have been beset by the terrifying vs. laughable dichotomy. Perhaps it was deliberate. Or perhaps it is just inherent in anything Dalek.

I’ll leave you with that thought, Gary . . .