Dalek (Doctor Who episode)

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165 - Dalek
Doctor Christopher Eccleston (Ninth Doctor)
Writer Robert Shearman
Director Joe Ahearne
Script editor Helen Raynor
Producer Phil Collinson
Executive producer(s) Russell T. Davies
Julie Gardner
Mal Young
Production code 1.6
Length 1 episode, 45 mins
Transmission date April 30, 2005
Preceded by World War Three
Followed by The Long Game
IMDb profile
Series 1
March 26, 2005 – June 18, 2005
  1. Rose
  2. The End of the World
  3. The Unquiet Dead
  4. Aliens of London
  5. World War Three
  6. Dalek
  7. The Long Game
  8. Father's Day
  9. The Empty Child
  10. The Doctor Dances
  11. Boom Town
  12. Bad Wolf
  13. The Parting of the Ways

Dalek is an episode in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who that was first broadcast on April 30, 2005. It should not be confused with the first Dalek serial, The Daleks. This episode is the first appearance of Bruno Langley as companion Adam Mitchell.

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

In an underground bunker in Utah, 2012, billionaire Henry van Statten keeps an exclusive collection of alien artefacts with one very special exhibit: A "Metaltron", apparently the last of an alien race. The Doctor's greatest enemy is back, out to wreck chaos, and Rose is about to be caught in the crossfire.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
"EL-E-VATE!"
"EL-E-VATE!"

The TARDIS is drawn off course by a signal, and materalises underground in a bunker located in Utah in the year 2012. As the Ninth Doctor and Rose step out to investigate, they find that the bunker is a very special sort of museum, full of alien artefacts, including a mileometer from the Roswell crash, a stuffed Raxacoricofallapatorian arm, and even the head of a Cyberman. As the Doctor muses over the fact that he's getting old, he touches the glass casing of the Cyberman exhibit and sets off an alarm. Immediately, he and Rose are surrounded by armed guards.

They are taken to see the owner of the Vault — Henry van Statten, a billionaire who claims to own the Internet. He has been collecting alien artefacts for years, and is impressed when the Doctor manages to identify a new piece that one of his assistants, a young English researcher named Adam Mitchell has acquired in an auction. The Doctor shows Van Statten how to play the alien musical instrument, but is disturbed when he tosses it aside carelessly. Van Statten asks the Doctor if he would like to see his one living specimen, which is locked up in a part of the Vault called the Cage. Van Statten calls it a "metaltron", and his scientists have been trying to get it to talk, torturing it, but it has so far remained silent except for screaming.

The Doctor enters the darkened Cage, and begins by saying that he is here to help. When he introduces himself, however, a grating, familiar screech repeats his name, synchronised with flashing lights. The Doctor is shocked at the impossibility of the sight before him as the lights come up. It is a Dalek, in chains, declaring him an enemy of the Daleks and crying its intent to exterminate. The Doctor, panicked, bangs on the door and demands to be let out, until he realises that the Dalek's casing is cracked and worn and its weapon stalk does not work. Delighted, the Doctor rounds on the Dalek, who is demanding orders. The Doctor says that no orders will be forthcoming; the Dalek race is dead, all ten million ships of its fleet burning, and the Doctor was the one who destroyed them. The Dalek asks what happened to the Time Lords, and the Doctor grimly acknowledges that all of them are dead as well, casualties of the last Time War. The two of them are the last of their kind, but he is going to finish the job. In a fury, he pulls a lever, sending electricity coursing through the Dalek, but Van Statten sends his guards to stop the Doctor.

As they ride up to the upper levels, Van Statten's assistant, Diana Goddard, tells the Doctor that the Dalek fell to Earth fifty years before, on Ascension Island, where it burned in a crater for three days before anyone could approach it. It then passed through the hands of several collectors before Van Statten bought it at an auction. The Doctor concludes it must have fallen through time somehow, and Van Statten notes that the Dalek is not the only alien on Earth now. The Doctor is chained up, stripped to the waist and painfully scanned. As Van Statten gleefully observes that he can patent the Doctor's bicardial circulatory system, the Doctor realises that Van Statten is not just a collector. He scavenges technology from the artefacts and then sells them. Van Statten proudly admits this, revealing that broadband was derived from Roswell technology, and that recently his scientists found the cure to the common cold in bacteria recovered from the "Russian crater".

Meanwhile, Adam is showing Rose (who is unaware of the Doctor's predicament) around the base. When Adam shows her the Dalek on the monitor, they see one of the technicians, Simmons, torturing it, trying to get it to speak again as per Van Statten's orders. Rose asks to be taken down to the Cage so she can stop Simmons. There, Rose talks to the Dalek, offering to help. The Dalek feigns haplessness, getting Rose to approach it. In sympathy, Rose touches the Dalek casing, and immediately the Dalek absorbs some of her DNA, which allows it to regenerate part of its casing and break free of its chains. When Simmons approaches it, the Dalek uses its plunger-shaped manipulator arm to crush his face. The Cage is sealed, and Van Statten alerted. The Doctor calmly tells Van Statten to release him if they want to live.

Although the lock to the Cage has a billion combinations, the Dalek easily runs through them in a matter of seconds. It then smashes a computer terminal with its manipulator arm, absorbing electricity from the Vault and seven states in the Western United States to completely repair itself, as well as absorbing the collective information of the Internet. Rose and Adam are evacuated from the level as Van Statten's guards surround the Dalek, firing at it. However, a force field melts the bullets before they hit its casing, and its middle section can swivel around, giving its energy weapon a 360-degree field of fire. Van Statten shouts over the guards' communicators that he does not want the Dalek damaged, but there is no answer — the Dalek has killed all of them. The Doctor tells Diana to have weapons distributed to everyone.

Adam, Rose and a female guard named De Maggio are climbing the stairs to the upper levels, hoping to escape the Dalek, but it hovers up after them, killing De Maggio. Van Statten still thinks the Dalek can be negotiated with, but the Doctor bluntly tells him that the Dalek will kill everyone who is different from a Dalek, because it honestly believes they should die. It is the ultimate in racial cleansing, and Van Statten let it loose.

In the Vault's weapons testing range, another group of guards takes up a firing position. Once Rose and Adam are clear, they open fire on the Dalek, but it sits there, impervious, even allowing the Doctor to see this on the monitors to prove it. It then hovers in the air, triggering the sprinklers. With one shot, it electrifies the water on the floor and kills the guards there. A second shot runs through a metal walkway, taking care of those guards. It demands to speak to the Doctor, and reveals that absorbing Rose's DNA — the genetic code of a time traveller — allowed it to "extrapolate her biomass" and regenerate itself. Its search through the world's satellite and radio telescope systems revealed no Daleks anywhere, and without orders, it intends to carry out the default Dalek function — to destroy and conquer. The Doctor suggests, with almost uncharacteristic venom, that if it wants an order, it should just kill itself. The Dalek observes that the Doctor would make a good Dalek.

Van Statten has managed to restore some power to the bulkheads, but not for long. The Doctor holds off activating the doors for as long as he can to allow Rose and Adam to get to safety, but the power is failing, and he has no choice but to shut them. Adam makes it to the other side, but Rose is trapped. Over her "superphone", Rose tells the Doctor it was not his fault, and the Doctor hears the Dalek cry, "Exterminate!" and the sound of the Dalek weapon firing. Furious with grief, he blames Van Statten for all the deaths that have transpired, especially Rose's.

The Dalek, however, has not killed Rose. The DNA it absorbed from her is making it hesitant, and it can feel Rose's fear, something that a Dalek should not be able to do. It contacts the Doctor, holding Rose hostage and demanding that the bulkheads be opened or it will kill her this time. It taunts the Doctor, saying, "What use are emotions if you will not save the woman you love?" The Doctor tells Van Statten that he already killed Rose once; he cannot do it again. He then unseals the doors. Adam informs the Doctor that, while the alien weapons Van Statten has collected are down in the lower levels, there are some uncatalogued ones in his laboratory. Van Statten mindwipes his employees after he terminates their service, and Adam wanted to keep some aside in case he had to fight his way out. The Doctor sorts through the pile and finds a large weapon not unlike a handheld cannon. After sorting through the rest of them, which are all "broken" & one is a "hairdryer".

The Dalek reaches Van Statten's office, and threatens to kill Van Statten for torturing it. Rose stops it, and the Dalek hesitates once more. Rose tells the Dalek that it does not have to kill anymore and asks it what it wants. The Dalek replies that it wants freedom. They ride up to Level 1, and there, the Dalek blows a hole in the roof of the Vault, letting the sunlight stream through. It opens up its casing to reveal the mutated creature inside, a tentacle waving up to capture the warmth of the Sun. The Doctor appears, weapon in hand, telling Rose to get out of the way, but Rose refuses to let the Doctor kill it. The Dalek did not kill Van Statten — it is changing. But what, Rose asks, is the Doctor changing into?

The Doctor, appalled at his own actions, lowers the weapon. Thinking on Rose's words, he realises that the DNA the Dalek absorbed from Rose is mutating it further. The Dalek also realises this, as its mind is filled with so many new ideas, and it cannot reconcile it with the Dalek notion of species purity. It asks Rose to order it to die, which Rose reluctantly does. The Dalek rises into the air, the globes on its shell disengaging to form a sphere formation around it. The spheres emit energy and it implodes, completely disintegrating. Goddard orders the guards to take Van Statten away and mindwipe him for causing the events that resulted in the death of 200 people. She also orders the Vault to be filled in with cement.

Rose and the Doctor make it back to the TARDIS, where the Doctor ruefully observes that the Time War is finished, and as the last survivor he "wins", although this obviously does not fill him with joy. Rose asks whether it is possible, since the Dalek survived, that some of the Time Lords did as well, but the Doctor says he would feel it if they had, and it feels like there is no one. Adam comes by, saying that they have to leave as Goddard is sealing the base, and Rose hints to the Doctor that they should take Adam along, as he always wanted to see the stars. The Doctor is sceptical, but does not object. Adam, not knowing what they are really saying, follows the Doctor and Rose into the TARDIS with a puzzled expression, and it dematerialises.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Cast notes

  • Nicholas Briggs, who provides the voice of the Dalek here and in the Big Finish audios, has also played the Doctor in the Audio Visuals line of audio plays. He also wrote several of the AV plays, some of which have been adapted by Big Finish. In the 2005 series, he also provided the voice of the Nestene Consciousness in Rose.
  • Features a guest appearance by Bruno Langley (see also Celebrity appearances in Doctor Who), who also guests in the next episode. Langley's character, Adam Mitchell, becomes the first on-screen male companion of the Doctor since Turlough in the 1980s.
  • Anna-Louise Plowman, who plays Diana Goddard, is known to American science fiction television viewers for her role in Stargate SG-1 as Sarah Gardner, host of Osiris and Daniel Jackson's former girlfriend and colleague. While Goddard is an American, Gardner is English (as is Plowman herself).

[edit] Continuity

  • Continuing the "Bad Wolf" theme of this season is the code name for Van Statten's personal helicopter; "Bad Wolf One". This scene was included when Rose is remembering previous Bad Wolf references in the series in Bad Wolf, even though it is never made clear on screen if she or the Doctor actually heard the callsign. See also Bad Wolf references in Doctor Who.
  • The Cyberman head seen in the pre-credits sequence presumably comes from the 1968 serial The Invasion, and its display plate, visible in the Whospy feature on the BBC website, indicating that the head was found in 1975 in the London sewers would seem to bear this out.[1] However, the corrugated piping on the sides of the head and the small gun ports in its forehead were not used in The Invasion design, but in 1975's Revenge of the Cybermen, which took place in the late 29th century.
  • In the April 28, 2005 issue of Doctor Who Magazine, executive producer and chief writer Russell T. Davies stated that the Time War referred to in the 2005 series and the War of the BBC Books Eighth Doctor Adventures novels are unrelated.
  • Mickey's website, http://www.whoisdoctorwho.co.uk, features an interview with "Henry VanStatten (sic)". In the interview, Van Statten describes a grey market that exists in alien artefacts. GeoComTex.net is another mock website run by the BBC for Van Statten's fictional company.

[edit] Daleks

  • This is the first episode in which the creature inside a Dalek is seen in detail for a substantial length of time. It is also the first Dalek occupant to have a visible eye, and is unusual in being blue (almost all Dalek mutants seen previously were green).
  • The Dalek ability to fly or hover dates back to The Chase (1965), where a Dalek was implied to have taken flight. In Planet of the Daleks (1973), a Dalek used an anti-gravity platform to rise up a ventilation shaft. In Revelation of the Daleks (1985), a Dalek hovered to exterminate two victims, but this was not very clearly depicted on screen (although Davros was clearly seen hovering in the story). Finally, a Dalek was clearly seen to hover up stairs in Remembrance of the Daleks (1988). In the Dalek comic strips of the 1960s, Daleks flew on platforms called "transsolar discs".
  • Diana Goddard mentions that the Dalek landed on Earth roughly 50 years prior to the episode, which would place at around 1962. This roughly coincides with the events of Remembrance of the Daleks (1988), a story set in 1963 which also coincidentally features the apparent annihilation of the Daleks.
  • The ability for the Dalek to absorb "the DNA of a time traveller" in order to effect repairs to its systems is referenced again (and this scene repeated as a flashback) in the 2006 episode Doomsday. In that story the DNA-absorbing device is of Time Lord design (albeit in Dalek possession). The nature of this process has yet to be clarified.
  • The Dalek absorbs Rose's DNA and her ability to experience emotions. However, the Dalek mutant considers this a form of contamination. In The Evil of the Daleks, the infusion of the "Human Factor" into some Daleks made them more friendly to humans and rebel against the Dalek Emperor. In some later stories, the Human Factor was actively sought by the Daleks to overcome the limitations of their rigid logic.
  • A Dalek is seen attempting to open a digital lock with its manipulator arm in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip story Children of the Revolution (DWM #312-#317).
  • The point-of-view angle of the Dalek approaching Rose and backing her up against the sealed bulkhead is reminiscent of the cliffhanger to episode one of The Daleks, where a Dalek backs Barbara up against a wall of the Dalek City on Skaro. The later episode Bad Wolf features an almost identical shot to this one.
  • A Dalek appeared in a museum in the story The Space Museum, albeit as an empty casing, in 1965. In this episode, it is a Cyberman who is seen as an empty casing. Both The Space Museum and Dalek foreshadowed major Dalek-related storylines that occurred not long after (The Chase in the case of The Space Museum and the Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways season finale in the case of Dalek).
  • The scene where the Doctor taunts the Dalek about its inability to kill without the use of its weapon echoes a similar scene in Death to the Daleks (1974) where the Third Doctor uses similar dialogue to taunt a group of Daleks rendered powerless by an energy dampening field on the planet Exxilon.
  • The scene where Rose and Adam taunt a Dalek for its (apparent) inability to climb stairs is similar to a taunt the Fourth Doctor delivers in Destiny of the Daleks.
  • When the Dalek tells Rose, "I feel your fear," she replies, "What do you expect?" This is the same answer Victoria Waterfield gives a Dalek who makes a similar statement in The Evil of the Daleks.
  • As the Doctor electrocutes the Dalek, it cries out "Have pity!" In Genesis of the Daleks (1975), one of the first Daleks states that "pity" is not registered in its vocabulary banks and it has no understanding of the word.
  • When the Doctor tells the Dalek that the Time Lords perished with the Daleks, it replies "...and the coward survived." The Doctor was accused of cowardice in Resurrection of the Daleks by Davros, as he could not kill. (How in the case of the Time War the Doctor was cowardly — assuming the Dalek was not just taunting him — has yet to be revealed.)
  • Simmons's line, "What are you gonna do - sucker me to death?" echoes a similar line previously used by Abslom Daak, Dalek Killer in the eponymous comic strip.

[edit] Production

  • The working title for this story was Creature of Lies, as revealed in the Telos Publishing Ltd. book Back to the Vortex by Shaun Lyon; the book also cites Return of the Daleks as a working title.
  • The episode was shot primarily on location in the underground areas of the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.
  • Rob Shearman previously wrote the Big Finish Productions Doctor Who audio play Jubilee, which also featured a lone Dalek that was chained and tortured and who develops a relationship with the Sixth Doctor's companion Evelyn Smythe. Russell T. Davies's brief to Shearman was for him to take the basic idea of Jubilee, set it in Utah and introduce Adam Mitchell, with the rest up to Shearman. One of the pictures on the BBC website shows a prop pizza box with the words "Jubilee Pizza" on it as a reference to the episode's audio predecessor. Jubilee Pizza would later appear as a Welsh pizza chain in the Torchwood episode Everything Changes.
  • On the DVD audio commentary for this episode, Shearman mentions that in early drafts Van Statten had a wife, who featured in the episode, and Adam was their son.
  • The episode had to be rewritten when negotiations with Terry Nation's estate for the use of the Daleks (who are jointly owned by the estate and the BBC) fell through. A new villain created by Davies was substituted for the Dalek, but the rewrites were extensive to accommodate different dialogue, action and motivations. When permission to use the Daleks was obtained, the script was rewritten again, although the core story remained the same. The new creature was described by Shearman as a malevolent baby-like creature. In an interview with the Canadian Doctor Who fanzine Enlightenment (issue #128), Shearman referred to the Dalek-free version of the script as "Absence of the Daleks". An interview with Shearman included in the DVD release of the 2005 series was taped during the interregnum when it was not known if the Daleks could be used in the episode.
  • The character of Simmons (Nigel Whitmey), the Dalek torturer who is killed by the Dalek "plunger", was named after Kai Simmons, who played a similar role in Jubilee and is a university friend of Shearman's. Goddard is the maiden name of Shearman's wife, Jane Goddard, who has appeared in many Big Finish Productions audio stories; including The One Doctor).
  • According to the Production Notes column in Doctor Who Magazine #361, script editor Helen Raynor spent a long time coming up with the name GeoComTex as she had to make sure it did not coincide with a real-world company name.
  • This is the first episode of the revived series, and the only episode in the Ninth Doctor's era, not to feature any scenes set in the interior of the TARDIS.

[edit] Outside references

  • Van Statten mentions that his scientists recovered bacteria from the "Russian crater". This may refer to the Tunguska event of 1908, although the event left no crater.
  • Van Statten's guards wear tags saying "US ARMY". However the three different designs of badges on their caps, possibly badges of rank, are not from the US Army.
  • Although the episode is set in the US, close-up shots of Van Statten's computer keyboard show that they conform to the UK standard layout as opposed to the US one.

[edit] Broadcast and DVD release

  • Before the broadcast, media watchdog organisation Mediawatch-uk (the successor to Mary Whitehouse's National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association) complained about certain elements of the episode, characterising Van Statten's chaining and invasive scan of the Doctor as a "sado-masochistic" torture scene. Mediawatch also objected to Van Statten's invitation to Adam and Rose to "canoodle or spoon, or whatever you Brits do," as inappropriate sexual language, a view that was ridiculed by fans on internet forums, and by celebrity fan Mitch Benn on The Now Show. The use of the expletive "goddamn", a first in televised Doctor Who, was not mentioned (though this is not seen as particularly strong language in Britain).
  • In the week leading up to the original broadcast, "bingo99", a user on the Outpost Gallifrey fan forum posted links to a live unicast test of BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Four and BBC News 24.[2] Many fans from around the world tuned in over the Internet and saw Dalek as it was broadcast in the UK. The test was taken off line once BBC technicians discovered that the test feed was publicly accessible.
  • The scenes of the Dalek being tortured contributed to the BBFC's decision to give the DVD release containing Dalek a "12" rating.
  • This episode together with Aliens of London and World War Three were the first released on the UMD format for the PlayStation Portable.

[edit] Awards

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/making/whospy/images/warning.jpg
  2. ^ http://www.gallifreyone.net/forum/showthread.php?t=33999
  3. ^ Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form. 2006 Hugo Award & Campbell Award Winners (2006-08-26). Retrieved on 2006-08-28.

[edit] External links

[edit] Reviews

 v • d • e 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 | Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks
Minor appearances: The Space Museum | Frontier in Space | The Five Doctors | Doctor Who (1996 movie)
See also: Dr. Who and the Daleks | Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD | The Curse of Fatal Death
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