"The Escape" - Season 1, Episode 7

Written by Terry Nation | Directed by Richard Martin | Produced by Verity Lambert | Original air date 01/04/64

When Susan leaves the ship, she immediately sees a tall, very serious looking man. She drops to her knees and asks him who he is - he tells her he's a Thal, apparently one of the race the Daleks said were mutants. Susan says they're not mutated, they're "perfect." Tall, blonde, white men are apparently perfect according to Terry Nation (and, as has been pointed out elsewhere, having a Jewish actress say that line is... weird, at best, especially considering how much of this story wraps itself in WWII themes). Both the Thals and Daleks were unaware the other race survived until the Doctor and friends showed up, apparently. The Daleks can't leave their city, so that I understand, but wouldn't the Thals have explored the city for food or something? Of course, it's been centuries since the war, apparently, so maybe they've been taught since birth to avoid the city. Where do they get their drugs from, anyway?


When Susan returns with the two sets of drugs Alydon the Thal gave her, the Daleks let her keep the extra set, even though in the last episode they said they'd let their prisoners die. Susan explains the Thal backstory in a lot of expository dialogue that I'm sure annoyed the hell out of Carole Ann Ford (you've got seven episodes to drip feed us these details, Terry, and you shove giant monologues in small scenes). She then says she wants to help the Thals, and I imagine it's because she fancies Alydon. We find out the Thals want a treaty with the Daleks. We're told by the Thals that the Daleks used to be philosophers (a weird origin story, especially considering Genesis of the Daleks later). A female Thal, Dyoni, complains when she hears that Alydon gave the drugs to Susan, "It would have been better to give them to a man," and she storms off. I read this as a sexist comment at first, but I think it's supposed to be jealousy. We then get the following:


Alydon: "We're all working towards the same end."
Ganatus: "Now there's a double meaning for you!"


Holy-! That's pretty ribald for Doctor Who of the classic series! Kudos to Terry Nation for working that one in.


To unite the two races, the plan is for Susan to write a note and sign it with her name, so the Thals know it's genuine and she's not being coerced. They dictate the note to Susan, in an amusing little scene where she writes the note as the Daleks dictate it. It's the first time the Daleks look a little silly, and they're charming as hell. When one Dalek asks what the last word on the page means, he says "Su... san?" and Susan laughs at him. Carole Ann Ford does not get enough chances to portray her character as "unearthly" outside of that first episode, but her laughing at wildly inappropriate times is pretty alien. I wish they developed her more in this direction rather than have her scream most of the time like she ends up doing. Anyway, the Daleks regain their composure with one of them saying "We have the note now," with a second Dalek slapping Susan with it's plunger (now there's a double meaning for you! ...nevermind) as if to say, "yeah, Susan. We're the bosses," which I loved.


The TARDIS team acts together to break the camera in their prison room, but are unable to convince the Daleks that it was an accident. Still, it allows them to come up with a plan of escape. The Doctor makes quite a logical leap and suggests the Daleks operate on static electricity they draw from the floor, and so the plan is to disable one by pushing it onto the plastic cloak Susan brought back from the Thals. This works perfectly - though I have no idea why the Dalek didn't fire off a bunch of shots before they powered him down, as he had ample opportunity to.


Barbara's suspicion from last episode proves correct as Ian and the Doctor remove the Dalek creature from its 'machine' (they aren't calling them 'casings,' yet) using the aforementioned cloak. Ian gets in the Dalek to try to further trick their captors - strangely, when he speaks, he doesn't just shout "Exterminate!" or "Silence!" like Clara does in "The Witch's Familiar." The group leaves the room as the Dalek creature - looking like a small, almost fist sized octopus-type creature begins crawling out of the cloak, and we cut to credits.


"Doctor Who" Puns: 2 | Tomorrow: "The Ambush"