Resurrection of the Daleks

Despite its success, the Peter Davison era needed a little something extra to fully validate it in viewers' eyes- an appearance by the show's most iconic adversaries. It had been five years since the last, somewhat disappointing Dalek story, which is probably why writer Eric Saward sees fit to cram as many plot points into it as possible. We have the Daleks losing a war to the Movellans, which prompts them to resurrect Davros. We have the Daleks also planning an attack on Gallifrey. We have Dalek agents, who are duplicates. We have Davros plotting secretly to gain control of the Daleks. This does read like it could be a Byzantine plot of power struggles and intrigue. Instead, what we are given is a series of set pieces that are so clumsily joined together it makes one wonder at Saward's appointment as script editor on a basic level- for example, the Doctor never meets Styles, a major character and only shares one scene with Lytton, in which they don't actually converse. The dialogue is generic and uninspired and the characterisation is so bad, that if this were a radio script, the listener would totally lose track of who was who. Most seriously, Saward gives the Doctor virtually no role in the resolution of the plot- he is carried along by events almost as much as the supporting characters.

What makes this story watchable is the realisation. Matthew Robinson creates many memorable scenes- the wonderfully shot opening sequence on the Shad Thames, the memorable first appearance of the Daleks (lovingly ripped off from Darth Vader's entrance in Star Wars), the horrific scenes of the faces of the space station crew dissolving. Even the special effects, which are not much better technically than with other stories of the era, seem better due to the direction. This, combined with effective production design make this story very nice to look at.

The guest performances contain a few standouts, most notably Maurice Colburne as Lytton, who is utterly compelling from the first moment he appears. Rula Lenska also does good work as Styles and Rodney Bewes manages to rescue his badly written, poorly thought out character. However, some of the other actors are not as successful. Jim Findley is not exactly bad as Mercer, but he is clearly out of his depth and Sneh Gupta, whilst being very good looking, lacks the chops to fully realise her character. Matthew Robinson marshals these variable talents to the best possible level, although he makes Chloe Ashcroft scream in a very feral way, for some reason and Del Henney's death scene is ridiculous. Terry Molloy makes a far better Davros than David Gooderson, although the subtlety of Michael Wisher's portrayal has largely been lost.

This is the final story for Janet Fielding. Tegan was often poorly characterised, but Fielding always managed to make Tegan interesting to watch and made her, in my opinion, one of the great companions. Her leaving scene is the only unqualified success of the story, beautifully written, acted and shot. Mark Strickson again makes Turlough shine, but it is Davison who takes the laurels again. As said before, the Doctor is treated worse in the script than any previous story, but Davison manages to make us believe that it is the character we know and love.

They say you can't polish a turd, but Resurrection of the Daleks proves that you can, at least, varnish one. It works as entertainment if you watch it once, but the more you watch it, the more the sheer incompetence of the script becomes evident.

NEXT: Planet of Fire