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| The Doctor tries to keep Group Captain Gilmore (Simon Williams) out of the line of fire. |
4 episodes. Approx. 98 minutes. Written by: Ben Aaronovitch. Directed by: Andrew Morgan. Produced by: John Nathan Turner.
THE PLOT
The Doctor returns to where it all began: London, 1963. He has returned to this time and place to retrieve the Hand of Omega, a powerful Gallifreyan artifact that he left behind during his sudden departure. He is not the only one seeking The Hand. An Imperial Dalek mother ship orbits the Earth, dispatching forces to search for it. Oddly enough, the Doctor does not want to stop them - He wants them to have it.
He hasn't taken everything into account, however. A military unit under the command of Group Captain Gilmore (Simon Williams) is tracks the Daleks' strange readings right into a deadly confrontation - leaving the Doctor to do his best to keep Gilmore's men out of the line of fire. Worse still, there's another group of Daleks: A renegade group, seen as racially impure by the Imperial Daleks. And if the wrong Daleks end up with the Hand of Omega, then the Doctor's plan will have ended in disaster!
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: There's little denying that Season 24 portrayed Sylvester McCoy's Doctor as a broad comedy character. The occasional serious moment showed that he had the potential to do more, but such opportunities were severely limited. In this story, his characterization is effectively rebooted. The physical comedy is still there, but it's a secondary element. Instead, we see a Doctor who's a remote figure, concentrating on a big picture while trying to limit the destruction caused by the immediate situation. He has a warm relationship with Ace, but is often cranky when she interrupts him in mid-thought; and, as Professor Jensen (Pamela Salem) observes, everyone has to be reliant on him simply because he won't reveal the full truth. This is the version Doctor we would see for the rest of McCoy's time - on television, and in the decades' worth of novels and audios thereafter.
Ace: My reaction to her debut in Dragonfire was... not positive. I found both the character and Sophie Aldred's performance to be aggravatingly over-the-top. Even more than the Seventh Doctor did, Ace needed a reinvention. Thankfully, she gets one. She retains her enthusiasm for explosives, but it's no longer an idiot's delight in things that go "Boom." Instead, we see her observing the soldiers' artillery and making comments that show that she understands how it works and how it could be further refined. In this way, even her love of explosives is used to demonstrate a quick mind. She remains emotional (all the more important, with the Doctor becoming more remote), but now gets at least as many quiet moments as loud ones. Most important of all, she gets a chance to show real chemistry opposite McCoy's Doctor, an opportunity Dragonfire did not afford.
Daleks: Their final television appearance in the series' original run is a good one. With Davros (Terry Molloy) reduced to a cameo, the mutant pepperpots get to take center stage. The Dalek civil war, which was a major plot point in Resurrection of the Daleks and Revelation of the Daleks, is revisited, with each side seeing the other as genetically unacceptable: The Imperial Daleks are "impure," having been modified by Davros; the renegade Daleks are inferior, precisely because they lack those modifications. This is paralleled with white supremacist Ratcliffe (George Sewell), who collaborates with them in hopes of using their power to impose his views on the world - and who, when told that this will result in casualties, gives a shrug of his shoulders as he mildly observes, "War is hell."
THOUGHTS
Remembrance of the Daleks feels less like the start of a new season and more like a complete relaunch. From the very first shot, a well-executed pullback from the Earth that ends with the revelation of a Dalek spaceship, there's a new sense of ambition and confidence. Gone is the cheap, frenetic desperation of Season 24. The series is once again willing and able to pace itself, moving quickly at the dramatic high points but slowing down for moments of reflection. It's almost as if Season 24 was a rushed dress rehearsal, with the true Seventh Doctor era starting here.
Ben Aaronovitch's script is complex, juggling: warring Dalek factions; an ambitious deception on the part of the Doctor; and multiple call-backs to the series' past, including visits to Coal Hill School and Totter's Lane and a military group that's a sort of proto-UNIT, complete with stand-ins for the Brigadier and Liz Shaw in the form of Group Captain Gilmore and scientific adviser Rachel Jensen. These references are just right, celebrating the series' past in a way that will draw smiles from old fans who will catch the references without causing any slow-down or confusion for casual viewers.
The action unfolds at a rapid pace, but that pace does pause for some scenes showing a reflective side to both Doctor and series unseen for far too long. Particularly good is a scene in Episode Two. Just before retrieving the Hand of Omega and putting his plan irrevocably into action, the Doctor stops at a cafe for a cup of tea. When the attendant offers him sugar, the Doctor reflects on the unintended consequences of even minor decisions. "Every great decision creates ripples, like a huge boulder dropped in a lake. The ripples merge, rebound off the banks in unforeseeable ways. The heavier the decision, the larger the waves, the more uncertain the consequences."
Andrew Morgan's visual direction milks the most of the budget. Much as Graeme Harper did in Revelation of the Daleks, Morgan shoots the metal pepperpots from low angles to make them seem powerful. In an early scene in which Group Captain Gilmore calls for reinforcements, the camera tracks through lines of soldiers to disguise how few uniformed extras are actually on-hand. Throughout the serial, he shoots the characters through foreground objects, with further background details behind them, lending a sense of dimension. I won't say there's nothing here that looks cheap: The Daleks wobble a bit in location footage, and long shots betray the meager number of soldiers on-hand as Group Captain Gilmore barks his orders. But it's clear that thougth has gone into making this look as good as possible, and the result is the best-looking Doctor Who story since... well, since Revelation.
For the first three episodes, I was leaning toward awarding full marks. But it does weaken in the final episode. While for most of the serial McCoy is splendid, finally able to be the Doctor in a way his debut season never allowed, he just isn't able to gather the weight and screen presence to pull off his confrontation scene with Davros. This leaves the ending falling just a bit flat, which is one of the main reasons why instead of a "10" this story gets a still very strong...
Overall Rating: 9/10.
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