Remembrance of the Daleks

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152 - Remembrance of the Daleks
Doctor Sylvester McCoy (Seventh Doctor)
Writer Ben Aaronovitch
Director Andrew Morgan
John Nathan-Turner (uncredited)
Script Editor Andrew Cartmel
Producer John Nathan-Turner
Executive producer(s) None
Production code 7H
Series Season 25
Length 4 episodes, 25 mins each
Transmission date October 5–October 26, 1988
Preceded by Dragonfire
Followed by The Happiness Patrol

Remembrance of the Daleks is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from October 5 to October 26, 1988. The serial opened the 25th anniversary year of the series, and revisited the locations of the very first Doctor Who episode, "An Unearthly Child", specifically the Coal Hill School and the junkyard at 76 Totter's Lane.

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

The Seventh Doctor returns to London in 1963 to deal with some loose ends involving an ancient and powerful Time Lord device. Things, however, get messy very quickly when two competing factions of Daleks are also after the same thing.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
A Dalek proving that stairs are no obstacle.
Enlarge
A Dalek proving that stairs are no obstacle.

The Seventh Doctor and his companion Ace land the TARDIS in London, 1963, where the Doctor has unfinished business: The Hand of Omega, an ancient relic of the Time Lord civilization that the Doctor hid on Earth on a previous visit to 1963.

Unfortunately, the Daleks have also heard about the Hand of Omega, and are trying to find it before the Doctor does. To complicate matters, there are two groups of Daleks at work — the Daleks are currently in the midst of a civil war between those that accept and those that reject the leadership of their creator Davros, and each side wants the Hand for itself. The Imperial Daleks have set up an outpost at the Coal Hill School.

In the meantime, the alien activity around the Coal Hill area has attracted the attention of the military. Group Captain Gilmore and his unit engage a Renegade Dalek at the junkyard, destroying it with the help of the Doctor and Ace. The Doctor tries to convince Gilmore and his scientific advisor, Dr Rachel Jensen, that human weapons are no match for the Daleks and the best thing they can do is just stay out of the crossfire. The Doctor, however, is playing a deeper game — he wants the "right" Daleks to take possession of the Hand.

The Renegade Daleks enlist the help of a local fascist, Ratcliffe, in first obtaining the Hand, but they are soon attacked by the Imperial Daleks, who retrieve the Hand. Determining that the Imperial Daleks are from Skaro, the Dalek homeworld, the Doctor allows them to return to their mothership with it. The Imperial Daleks plan to use the Hand to create a power source that will give them mastery of time travel, a technology that the Daleks only have in the crudest sense.

However, when the Dalek Emperor, a much deteriorated Davros, activates the Hand, he also triggers a booby-trap that the Doctor has programmed into it. The Hand transports itself to the future which the Imperial Daleks have come from and turns Skaro's sun into a supernova, destroying the star system and Dalek homeworld, and then returns itself to Gallifrey. The resulting feedback blows up the Imperial Dalek mothership, but Davros manages to flee in an escape pod before its destruction. The Dalek Supreme, the last Renegade Dalek on Earth, destroys itself when told by the Doctor that it is the last of its kind.

[edit] Cast

[edit] In print

A novelisation of this serial, written by Ben Aaronovitch, was published by Target Books in June 1990. This was the first Daleks serial to be novelised since Destiny of the Daleks in 1979. The book also has a noticeably higher word count than most previous novelisations. Aaronovitch's novelisation contains a reference to Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart, the granddaughter of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Kadiatu's own great-granddaughter and namesake was a recurring character in the Virgin New Adventures, including Aaronovitch's own Transit and The Also People.

The novelisation also stated that the troops seen in this story were from a unit known as the "Intrusion Counter-Measures Group". UNIT Exposed, the 1991 Doctor Who Magazine Winter Special, suggested that the ICMG was a forerunner of UNIT. This was picked up on and expanded in the spin-off novel Who Killed Kennedy by David Bishop, which provides a fictional history of UNIT from an investigative journalist's perspective. Who Killed Kennedy also stated that Dr Rachel Jensen was drafted from the British Rocket Group.

[edit] Trivia

  • Working titles for this story included Nemesis of the Doctor.[1]
  • The first episode begins with a short pre-credits teaser, a rarity for the series at this point (the other examples being Castrovalva, The Five Doctors and Time and the Rani). The pre-credits teaser would become a regular part of the show's format in the 2000s revival, starting in the second episode of 2005, The End of the World.
  • A meta-reference to the show happens in one scene, the first and so far only one in the show's history. A television screen shows a BBC Television caption of the period with a continuity announcer saying "This is BBC television, the time is quarter past five and Saturday viewing continues with an adventure in the new science fiction series Doc—", but is cut off by a scene change before completing the title.
  • Although the above seems to strongly imply the events of this serial occur on November 23, 1963 (the day the first episode of Doctor Who was broadcast) the complete lack of reference to the November 22 assassination of John F. Kennedy and the fact that there is still daylight at a quarter past five would suggest it takes place at another time.
  • It is often claimed that this is the first time a Dalek is seen to hover above ground. However, the Daleks' ability to defy gravity was first implied as far back as The Chase (1965), and both Davros and the Daleks were seen to hover in Revelation of the Daleks (1985).
  • In one scene, Dr Rachel Jensen makes mention of a "Bernard" from the "British Rocket Group". This is a reference to Bernard Quatermass and his British Experimental Rocket Group, of the Nigel Kneale-penned Quatermass science-fiction television serials. The British Rocket Group is mentioned again, in a website tying in to the 2005 Christmas special, The Christmas Invasion, as the creators of the Guinevere One Mars probe.[2]
  • The serial appears to take place at some point soon after "An Unearthly Child", the first episode of the very first Doctor Who serial. We see the Coal Hill School again and one of Susan's textbooks. A scene also takes place in I.M. Foreman's scrap yard, although it does not resemble the location as seen in "An Unearthly Child" or Attack of the Cybermen.
  • The name on the scrap yard sign is misspelled I.M. Forman. Originally, the sign painter mistakenly painted "L.M. Forman". However, while the "L" was easily changed into an "I", the rest could not be altered in time for the recording of the story[1].
  • The Doctor is asked to sign a document and clearly does so with a question mark.
  • The Doctor describes himself to Davros as "President Elect of the Time Lords". While the Doctor did become President in The Deadly Assassin, assumed the role in The Invasion of Time and was appointed once again as President in The Five Doctors, by the time of his sixth incarnation's trial in The Trial of a Time Lord he had been removed from office due to his absence.
  • In a scene deleted from the original broadcast, the Doctor also tells Davros that he is "more than just another Time Lord"[1]. This, along with the Doctor's hints that he was present at the creation of the Hand of Omega, was part of the so-called Cartmel Masterplan by script editor Andrew Cartmel to restore some of the mystery to the Doctor's origins. More hints would surface over the next two seasons (for example, in Silver Nemesis), but as the programme ceased production in 1989, the intended revelations never came to pass (see Other (Doctor Who)). The Seventh Doctor, from this point on, also grew darker and more manipulative.
  • William Thomas, who appears in the story as Martin the undertaker, appeared again in the series in the 2005 episode Boom Town, making him the first actor to appear in both the classic and new series of Doctor Who.
  • For the final battle sequence between the Renegade and Imperial Daleks, the BBC Effects Department's pyrotechnics were so loud and the explosions so realistic that the London Fire Brigade was despatched to the scene by local residents who feared that an IRA bomb had gone off. Sylvester McCoy, in Episode 6 of the documentary series Doctor Who Confidential, told the story of how after the first explosions, a number of car alarms in the neighbourhood went off, and how surprised the emergency services drivers were when they arrived to see three Daleks coming at them from out of the smoke.
  • Several elements in the plot are structured so as to surprise viewers familiar with previous Dalek serials. The story initially leads the informed viewer to identify the figure speaking to Ratcliffe and commanding the renegade faction as Davros, and to identify the imperial faction with the Daleks who captured Davros at the end of Revelation of the Daleks, with the stated intention of taking him to Skaro for trial. However, the figure is revealed to be a kidnapped schoolgirl, and the imperial faction are commanded by Davros. The Skaro Daleks of Revelation become the Renegade Daleks in this story, and the story does not explain how Davros went from being their prisoner to being the Emperor of a rival Dalek faction. The Doctor Who Magazine comic strip story Emperor of the Daleks (DWM #197-#202) attempts to fill in this gap, with Davros conquering Skaro. The Big Finish Productions audio adventure The Juggernauts presents an alternate version of Davros's activities in the period between Revelation and Remembrance.
  • The Eighth Doctor Adventures novel, War of the Daleks by John Peel, claimed that Skaro had not been destroyed after all. The later Big Finish Productions audio play Terror Firma contradicted this and also gave an alternate account of what Davros did after the events of this story. As with all non-televised stories, including the comic strip, the canonicity of these stories are unclear.
  • The story was the first time the programme was transmitted — albeit only in the London broadcast region — with NICAM stereo sound[3].
  • This story was released on DVD in the United Kingdom on February 26, 2001. One scene included among the deleted scenes on the DVD release is the extended version of a scene in the café where the Doctor muses on the consequences of choices on history to a man played by Joseph Marcell, better known in the United States for playing Geoffrey Butler on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The episode also features guest appearances by Pamela Salem and Michael Sheard. See also Celebrity appearances in Doctor Who.
  • Davros's threats to destroy Gallifrey and the Time Lords are referenced in the Doctor Who Annual 2006, where it is claimed that "one of the Dalek Puppet Emperors openly declared his hostility".

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Remembrance of the Daleks at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
  2. ^ http://www.guinevere.org.uk
  3. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/remembrancedaleks/trivia.shtml

[edit] External links

[edit] Reviews

[edit] Target novelisation


Dalek television stories
First Doctor: The Daleks | The Dalek Invasion of Earth | The Chase | Mission to the Unknown | The Daleks' Master Plan
Second Doctor: The Power of the Daleks | The Evil of the Daleks
Third Doctor: Day of the Daleks | Frontier in Space | Planet of the Daleks | Death to the Daleks
Fourth Doctor: Genesis of the Daleks | Destiny of the Daleks
Fifth Doctor: Resurrection of the Daleks
Sixth Doctor: Revelation of the Daleks
Seventh Doctor: Remembrance of the Daleks
Ninth Doctor: Dalek | Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways
Tenth Doctor: Army of Ghosts/Doomsday
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