The Daleks

After escaping from the distant past, the TARDIS makes planetfall on a dead world where the plants are petrified, the animal life is gone and a vast alien city sits, apparently empty. Unbeknownst to the crew the planet is polluted with fallout from a neutron bomb, and when the Doctor engineers an expedition into the city they meet in its depths some of the survivors - the Daleks. The radiation from the war has caused the Daleks to mutate and retreat into well armed metal shells for survival, but their opponents in the war, the Thals, have mutated back into perfect humanoids and only desire to live in peace. With the Daleks ready to wage another war and exterminate the whole Thal race, the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan must join with the Thals and help them, or it is certain death for all.

It's no secret that An Unearthly Child was very promising, yet the series still lacked the big punch to get noticed and drag in the viewers. As soon as the first Daleks were seen on screen, the viewing figures skyrocketed to 10 million, and the series came into its own. Nowadays the Daleks of the current series are not as menacing as their 1960s ancestors, but at the time when nothing like them had ever been seen before their air of menace was new, their cruelty evoked not so distant memories of the German army of World War II.

When dealing with robots or species who have adopted a robotic guise it is always assumed that they have removed all emotions and that will be their downfall, blah blah blah... but with the Daleks it is not the case. They are not compassionate and loving by any stretch but they are filled with hatred and fear to motivate them to mercilessly wipe out an entire race. And they're clever, too; they use Susan and her connection to the Thal people to engineer a clever ruse to lead the Thals into a trap - a cowardly move by any stretch. The Daleks are the new schoolyard bully of the universe. They need someone to stand up to them.

Having already dealt with cave men Barbara and Ian are starting to adjust to the unusual and fantastic
- although Ian has accepted that the Doctor may not be able to return them to their own time. Barbara isn't going into crazy panic anymore but when the Doctor announces that they are definitely not on Earth, the look of defeat on her face says it all. But the group is starting to come together a bit more as they accept that they are companions "whether we like it or not" according to Ian. And while he and the Doctor argue and puff up their egos, the Doctor seems to be developing an admiration for Barbara and her clear-headed approach to things. She was the first to accept that they had traveled in time, and now she sides with the Doctor when it comes to the decision to convince the Thals to abandon their pacifist ways and fight the Daleks.  And while the crew spend time together on board the TARDIS we get to see some of what lies beyond the console room and the fault locator - the corridors and hallways go on at great length, and there is random furniture placed here and there (maybe in case someone needs a rest from walking all over the ship), and the fantastic food machine which is nothing less than pure convenience sci-fi, but better than taking pills or having a messy kitchen to clean up.

The Daleks introduces us to not one but two alien species; in contrast to the harsh machines with the grating voices are the soft-spoken, gentle and very fit Thals. Well, fit by 1960s standards anyways. In this age they'd all have abs on display no doubt but they are all blond and attractive - the ideal that Mr Hitler himself believed to be the vision of perfection, but the Daleks refer to them as "disgustingly mutated". We do get a teasing glimpse of the thing that lives inside a Dalek - a small clawed hand reaching out from under a cloak after the creature is pulled out of its machine and dumped on the floor. This isn't the visual we will come to associate with the Daleks in the future as we see more and more of them outside their cases, but they are a mutant race and as such will change, as will the appearance of their machines. And the Thals will be back, too, but not for quite some time. And they won't be as good looking.


NEXT EPISODE : THE EDGE OF DESTRUCTION