Written by Terry Nation | Durected by Christopher Barry | Produced by Verity Lambert | Original air date 02/01/64
The episode opens with Antodus cutting his rope and falling to his death, saving Ian's life. Ian pulls the rope up and looks at the frayed end, shaking in fear. We cut to the Dalek city, where the Doctor and Susan are chained to a wall. "This senseless, evil killing," the Doctor rages, as the Daleks prepare to irradiate Skaro. Pretty entertaining opening few scenes after the last episode's faffing about!
The torch that Ian, Barbara, and the remaining Thals are using is going out, and to preserve its power, they turn it off. Ian notices some natural light filtering through the cave and follows it to the exit to the Dalek city. This scene is very well lit - when the light goes out, the cast is almost - but not quite - silhouetted. Praising Doctor Who's lighting is not something I'll be doing much of in the classic era, outside some episodes of the black and white 1960s and early Fourth Doctor eras, mostly, so don't get used to it (the lighting is such a problem later on that it almost singlehandedly ruins some stories, or just about ruins them, anyway).
The Doctor, desperate to escape, tells the Daleks of his space/time ship. He offers to show the Daleks the TARDIS and to even help them build one! Whether he's serious or not, the Daleks don't believe him to be and tell him they will investigate his ship themselves after the Doctor is dead. The Doctor claims they'll need his help, and the Dalek, confident in his race's intelligence, tells him they'll figure it out, and the Doctor remains locked up. "Stop it, please!" the Doctor begs as a last resort. "Nothing can stop the Daleks!" is the reply he gets as the Daleks start their (somewhat comically overlong) 100 second countdown. I am trying to not read anything 'epic' into anything in these episodes, since they weren't created to set up some epic fight between the Doctor and the Daleks, but a scene where the Doctor reveals the nature of his travels to the Daleks, who in turn respond by basically saying "cool, we'll have that too, then," makes it hard not to think this series of episodes is the first shot in a long, terrible war (a time war, perhaps?).
The Daleks had detected Ian and the Thals' intrusion into the city, but aren't sure where they all are. Ian, Barbara, and the other Thals, desperate to get to the Dalek control room but unable to find it, are relieved when the Daleks announce, seemingly to the whole city, for all Daleks to go to the control room on level 10. Thanks, guys! They start sealing corridors, though, in an effort to trap Ian and his friends, and a few minutes are spent not trying to get crushed by doors as everyone tries to squeeze under it to get to the control room. They persevere, though, and as Ian and friends approach the control room, dodging Daleks as they go, I can't help but notice that the Daleks, who we've been told have excellent peripheral vision, do not seem to notice the humans or Thals as they hide in crevices in the wall that barely - and in some cases, don't at all - conceal them. Perhaps the Daleks get tunnel vision when panicked or stressed? That actually sounds believable, actually.
Upon reaching the control room, Barbara throws a rock at a Dalek (so awesome. I love Barbara) to get their attention while the others file in from behind. The Dalek hit by the rock barely misses his shot at Barbara, but a few of the Thals are shot down in the fracas. Weirdly, the group is able to overpower the Daleks with their bare hands (something we only see in this episode, as I'm pretty sure you need at least an electrified baseball bat to do any damage to Daleks in future episodes), by grabbing the eyestalks and plungers and trying to pry them off. The Daleks don't seem to want - or be able - to fire when this happens, because if they were, they'd have been able to easily kill most of their attackers, Ian and Barbara included. The humans and Thals are able to disable the Daleks power supply, ending the countdown and stopping the Daleks in their tracks. One Dalek begs the Doctor: "Stop our power from wasting or it will be the end of the Daleks!" The Doctor tells it he doesn't know how. The Dalek whimpers as the last of his power drains. "It's the end. The final war," Alydon says, as he examines a dead Dalek. Not by a long shot, Alydon. Your fellow Skarosans are going to terrorize the universe for a long time, and give the Doctor no end of trouble.
Later, outside the TARDIS, Alydon realizes he doesn't know who the Doctor actually is, and asks him. The Doctor dodges the question immediately, saying, "To rebuild a whole world, how I envy you." It's hard to imagine any other incarnation of the Doctor uttering that line, hm? Especially his immediate successor, who this first Doctor will eventually refer to as "the clown," who leaves as soon as he's either saved the day or tore down the oppressors of the world he's on. The Doctor goes on to mention how he used to be a pioneer amongst his own people once, but those days are behind him and he and his granddaughter are too far from home, so he must leave. I'm inclined to believe the Doctor is just lying, here, boasting to make himself seem more mysterious and important to the Thals, but part of me wants to think of this as a reference to the Doctor having been the Other, an idea that the New Adventures novels of the 1990s put forward, suggesting that the Doctor, along with Omega and Rassilon (two Time Lords we haven't seen yet - hell, we're more than five years from even hearing the words "Time Lords" on this show), all created Time Lord society and invented time travel together. No, no one working in the 1960s had any inkling of that idea, of course, but the Doctor, for all we know at this point, built the TARDIS and invented time travel anyway. Perhaps that's all what he meant. It fits with the "Other" retcon, anyway, even if it's utter nonsense considering the production of the time. Though I don't know if I'm 100% convinced this is the case, I just love indulging myself this bit of fanwank.
The Doctor then says "I never give advice. Never," and immediately proceeds to advise the Thals to search for truth, which they will find on Skaro, whereas the Doctor will find his truth out in the stars. We get a surprisingly intimate goodbye scene between Barbara and Ganatus, where he kisses her on her hand and she quickly kisses him on the lips before entering the TARDIS. Saucy!
The ship dematerializes, the Thals looking on in wonder at the ship just disappearing before their eyes. Inside, the ship seems to suffer a small explosion, knocking the four travelers off their feet, as the episode cuts to credits.
For all the stick I've given him, Terry Nation really knocks this episode out of the park, and I can see why the producers of the show keep coming back to him based on these. When he's not forced to pad out his episodes (which he's absolutely terrible at - some writers can do okay with it, Nation, not so much), he does a very good job. This serial ensured Doctor Who's popularity in the 1960s, and is probably the reason why we still have this show to this day. Though it drags in parts (mostly episode six and whenever the Thals are on screen, generally), it's easy to see why it was upon these seven episodes that the show built its legacy.
"Doctor Who" puns so far: 2 | Tomorrow: "The Edge of Destruction"
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