Doctor Who Week: "The Daleks" (1963)

Although it follows the first serial -- “An Unearthly Child” -- in terms of continuity, the second ever installment of this British cult-TV series might very well be tagged as the “true” beginning of Doctor Who.    

“The Daleks” by Terry Nation establishes that the series’ real bread-and-butter is not time travel to Earth’s various historical time periods, but rather adventures set on faraway worlds in which the (sometimes unreliable?) protagonist must choose between warring opponents, and in doing so, validate humanity over more sinister “alien”  people and qualities.

In addition to serving as a template for the long-lived series as a whole,  Terry Nation's“The Daleks” does a remarkable job diagramming the eccentricity, and often dangerous eccentricity of its titular character. 

The Doctor in this story as played by the late William Hartnell is a stubborn and selfish sort, one whose heroic qualities only come to the forefront under duress and in conflict.  He is crafty and intelligent, but not warm and cuddly (like many latter day Doctors).

The most delightful quality about Hartnell’s portrayal, perhaps, is that, on retrospect, we can view it not as being indicative of “old age” and cantankerousness -- as was once believed -- but of intemperate, self-centered youth instead. 

In other words, this Doctor, despite his elderly appearance, is not quite yet grown-up, and is quite fallible and mercurial.

In "The Daleks," the TARDIS lands in a creepy petrified forest on a dead planet and the Doctor (William Hartnell) theorizes that the condition of the wooded glade must be the result of a terrible nuclear war.  

Although Barbara (Jacqueline Hill), Ian (William Russell), and Susan (Carole Ann Ford) all want to leave the planet immediately, the Doctor desires to explore a nearby city.  To that end, he knowingly sabotages the TARDIS’s fluid link so that the group is stranded. 

Then the Doctor explains to his companions that he requires mercury to get the fluid link working again, and hopefully they will find some in the fantastically advanced city…

Inside the alien metropolis, however, Barbara and the others are promptly captured by the Daleks, sinister armored beings in tank-like “radiation” or protective suits.  Completely mobile within the confines of the city, the Daleks are not robots, but tentacled mutants with an aversion to all living creatures not like them.

With the Doctor and his companions suffering from radiation sickness, the Daleks plan to destroy their longtime enemy, the humanoid Thals, and gain total control of the planet once and for all.

The Doctor and the others realize they must destroy the Daleks, even though the Thals desire only peace…

The “Time Machine Syndrome” I wrote about some in the Doctor Who series primer is in full effect in “The Daleks.” 

In this case, the Morlock/Eloi schism imagined by H.G. Wells has become the Daleks/Thal conflict. And again, one side in the ongoing war represents cold or heartless technology while the other side seems to represent total innocence.  

Doctor Who would re-play this central scenario again and again over its first two-and-half decades, though the story has fallen out of favor on New Who, perhaps because of the paradigm’s overuse circa 1963 – 1989.  The Doctor makes for an intriguing middle-man, to be certain.  As a man of science, he understands the value of technology, but as a rebel and a renegade, he also understands the value of resistance, and fighting.  He thus helps the Thals stand up against the Daleks in this story-line.

Although it is tempting to write about the introduction of the visually-impressive Daleks as the most crucial element of this sophomore serial, I found upon re-watch that it is the character touches which are actually among the best aspects of the tale. 

For instance, Barbara misses “seeing things” that she recognizes and she knows she can trust.  She is an unwilling adventurer, then, and again, this is a quality that modern Who has not often highlighted.  

Rose, Martha, Donna, Amy, and even Clara in the new series hear the clarion call of a life “bigger” than one on Earth, and travel with the doctor quite willingly.   By contrast, Ian and Barbara are trapped with the doctor, and acknowledge the plain fact that he may not even know how to get them home.  It's clear from this early serial that The Doctor and his school-teacher companions do not yet trust one-another

The Doctor himself is really a fascinating character in these early stories because only generously could he be described as kindly, or courageous.  

On the contrary, Ian and Barbara correctly peg this incarnation of the Doctor as being one with a “knack for getting himself into danger.”  More than that, this Doctor is selfish and deceitful.  He lies to his companions and arranges to get his way, exposing them, in the process, to radiation sickness and, of course, the Daleks.

When questioned about his behavior, the Doctor is prickly and defensive.  “I would not be questioned,” he warns at one point.  “I shall do what I want to do,” he imperiously declares at another juncture.  

Again, fans of the new Doctor Who are accustomed to a Doctor who, in the words of River Song, “lies,” but this first iteration of the character doesn’t even put on a smile or a cheery façade when he does so.  It isn't clear, in other words, that the Doctor is lying to execute any grand strategy beyond satisfying his own curiosity.  

Frankly, I appreciate the unconventional nature of Hartnell’s “hero,” and would love to see Peter Capaldi’s incarnation of the character take on some of these prickly characteristics.  The danger, of course, is that audience tastes have changed so much since the 1960s.  I have often defended Colin Baker’s portrayal of the Doctor from other fans as a deliberate throw-back to Hartnell’s less-than-jolly incarnation, but to little avail.  So if he goes a similar route, Capaldi may face the same push-back and criticism.

In terms of its actual narrative, “The Daleks” is strong, compelling work for three of its six segments, and a dull run-around for the rest.  There’s a lot of wasted time here, particularly in a Thal march through a dark cavern.  In this sense, the series early days have not aged well.  It’s not that long stories are bad, per se it’s that for long spells, “The Daleks” involves capture, escape, rescue, and then capture, escape, and another rescue.  Parts One through Three, and Part Six actually move the narrative well, and the rest plays like filler.  This is no doubt heresy to many Doctor Who fans, yet it’s hard to deny that “The Daleks” could tell the same story more concisely and effectively in four parts rather than in six.

Of course, “The Daleks” introduces the series’ most famous, most long-lived villains.  I always find it amazing to ponder that Doctor Who introduced a non-humanoid alien design to the world before Star Trek ran, before 2001: A Space Odyssey premiered, and when even the James Bond film franchise was in its infancy.  Today, we might judge the tennis balls and toilet plungers of the Daleks to be rather humorous in appearance, but I can imagine how chilling their first appearance must have been…when it was unclear completely who or what these…things…might be.  

It is largely on the basis of that first appearance (a point-of-view-style shot stalking a cornered Barbara) that the Dalek legacy rests.  

Had the Daleks been presented, initially, in less fearsome and less mysterious terms, they might not have triggered such a powerful, and long-lasting reputation.  

I make that claim not to diminish the creature design and construction, but to note that in film and television the choice of camera angles is crucial.  If shot poorly, even the best suits or costumes can fail to convince.  

One of my perpetual joys with black-and-white Doctor Who involves the visual aesthetics, which hark back to German Expressionism.  The angles, sets and production design all express a feeling of doom, or approaching dread.

Also, I would be remiss if I didn't point out another fact about this serial. The first appearance of the Daleks seconds before the end credits is meticulously prepared for.  The first twenty minutes or so, in the petrified forest, are downright creepy, and the moment when Susan feels the touch of a mysterious stranger is unnerving to say the least.  The episode works hard to generate terror before we ever get to the famous P.O.V. shot.  The P.O.V. Dalek shot is merely the zenith, the pay-off, for all the carefully-wrought tension.

In terms of its themes, “The Daleks” is very clearly anti-war in nature.  The Daleks discuss a five hundred year conflict, here called “The Neutronic Wars” and yet are determined to continue the blood-shed and violence, only this time in their mechanical suits and shells.  

The fear expressed here is of humanity’s unchanging, self-destructive nature.  His technology may develop and improve, but until his nature also changes, war will always be with us.  "The Daleks" expresses the idea with frightening simplicity.  

The Daleks take a path that we, as human beings, must not...or we'll be every bit as monstrous as they are.