Series 1 Episode 6: The Survivors

Serial: The Daleks
Episode: 2 (The Survivors)
Doctor: William Hartnell
Companions: Barbara, Ian, and Susan

Writer: Terry Nation
Director: Christopher Barry
Producer: Verity Lambert
Original Air Date: 28/12/1963

CLIFFORD CHATTERLEY'S DRUGS MULE (and other stories)

And we’re back with a recap of Babs being menaced by what we can only assume at this stage is some poor, unenlightened fool attempting to unblock a sink without the aid of Mr. Muscle. No screaming this time, though.

However, if any of us thought the opening of this episode would provide a satisfactory conclusion to last week’s cliffhanger, boy were we wrong. We’re left dangling as Ian, Susan, and the Doctor decide to go back into the city in search of the missing Barbara. Once inside, the intrepid trio is intrigued by a Mysterious Ticking Noise.

Singing a song, all day long, on SKAAAAAAAARO...

They follow the sound until they find a lab, in which is all sorts of equipment and, so Ian hopes, some mercury for the fluid link that will allow them to fly the Tardis the hell out of Dodge. The Doctor observes that the people who live in the city, whoever (or whatever) they are, must be very intelligent. Ian, however, seems more concerned as to how they use that intelligence, which, given that we know what we know about the Daleks, is actually a very good question. Well done, Ian. The Doctor, however, couldn't give a stuff. Meanwhile, Susan has made an important discovery...

It's a pipe bomb Geiger counter!

Oh dear. Also, can we take a moment to appreciate that someone at the Beeb was clearly on a budget, slapped a sticky label with the word 'DANGER' on it onto a random bit of technical equipment, and passed it off as an alien Geiger counter. TV on a shoestring is the best kind of TV.

I am willing to bet real money that this is a piece of BBC sound equipment.

Anyway, the Doctor seems to think that the radiation makes sense of the stone jungle, the barren soil, and the fact that they're all feeling unwell. (To which my response is, how does radiation explain a stone jungle? But never mind.) Ian is, understandably, rather horrified at the prospect of their all having radiation sickness. Which, now, I come to think of it, was probably a real concern in 1963 coming off the back of the Cuban Missile Crisis and all. However, he recovers quickly enough to fulfil the 'Doctor, please explain the alien stuff' role of the human companion, asking him to account for the buildings remaining in tact. The Doctor says it must have been the neutron bomb, which must be one of the earliest instances of the enduring (and not entirely accurate) tv trope of a nuclear bomb that causes relatively high levels of damage to people and relatively low levels of damage to property, seeing as how they only started working on it in 1958 (thank you, Wikipedia). Anyway, they're all going to need to locate some anti-radiation meds, sharpish. I, on the other hand, am going to need to locate some subtitles.

I swear to God this is what the Doctor actually says at this point.

Susan, to her credit, seems to be taking all this in her stride, which makes a nice change from her usual hysterical tendencies. To her, it's a no-brainer: simply take the Tardis to another time/place where they can get themselves some treatment. Ian, however shoots her down, saying they can't leave without the mercury for the fluid link. 

Ruh-roh, Doctor, you've been rumbled. Forced to come clean about the fact that there is nothing wrong whatsoever with the fluid link, the Doctor gets deservedly chastised by Susan and Ian. Susan's criticism of his behaviour is considerably more to the point (and considerably less ageist) than Ian's: 

SUSAN: Grandfather, do you mean to say you risked leaving the ship just to see this place?

IAN: You fool! You old fool!

The Doctor, however, doesn't seem particularly contrite, and, in a move that reveals just how early on this is in his character development, actually seems totally fine with the idea of going back to the ship without Barbara if it means getting out of immediate danger. I repeat, he wants them to leave without Barbara.

GPOI (Gratuitous Portrait Of Ian)

Ian, as one might expect, is very much Not Okay with this, and, in a classic teacher move, confiscates the fluid link, telling the Doctor it's about time he faced up to his responsibilities: 'You got us here', he growls, 'now I'm going to make sure that you get us back.' Susan, who has stood by like a lemon up to this point, seems to agree with Ian to the extent that she tells her grandfather that they are in fact wasting time standing about when they ought to be looking for Babs. In a continuation of his general infantilization of his granddaughter, the Doctor snaps at Susan, telling the 'child' that he wishes she would 'think as an adult sometimes'. Though presumably by 'adult' he means 'selfish git'. Wearily, he backs down, and the three of them exit the lab—only to find themselves confronted with...

Beyoncé!Dalek (right) says IF YOU LIKE IT THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE PUT A RING ON IT

It's the first full-length shot of a Dalek in the history of the show, and job's a goodun. Susan is squeaky rather than shrieky, and the Doctor seems unable to decide whether he's being protective or using her as some manner of shield as he steers her obediently in the direction indicated by one of the Daleks. Ian, however, is having none of it, and—unwisely, it turns out—decides to make a break for it.

Ian sees the negative side of messing with a Dalek.

I'll admit that my heart was in my mouth a little, here, because after all these years I'd forgotten that the first time the Daleks use their weapons on the show, they're not necessarily fatal. The negative effect is still ridiculously simple-yet-effective, and poor old Ian finds himself essentially paralysed from the waist down. In other news, I live for the day when New Who has a reprogrammed Dalek working as an anaesthetist on a maternity ward.

It's a really interesting change to the power dynamics of the group: Ian is usually the Action Man, throwing his weight around on the basis of his physical prowess (see his confiscation of the fluid link, where he literally holds the Tardis component out of the Doctor's reach and uses the unspoken threat of his ability to overpower the Doctor to force the older man to comply with his wish to go and look for Barbara). Now suddenly he can't feel his legs and has to rely on the Doctor and Susan to drag him about. How will his role within the group change now that he is no longer the muscle? 

The effect of the Dalek gun, it turns out, is temporary; the Daleks, however, leave him in no doubt that the condition could become a permanent one if he doesn't play his cards right. In the mean time, Ian faces a couple of hours as Clifford from Lady Chatterley's Lover.

Babs, on the other hand, has fully-functioning legs, though they don't seem to be helping her much. Don't let that crumpled-up, despairing-looking figure huddled against the wall fool you, though, because the moment the door opens she's up and flat against the wall in what looks like a prelude to an escape attempt.

Barbara Wright: a coiled spring

Enter the Doctor and Susan, holding Ian up between them. It's rather lovely to see them all reunited, though I doubt Barbara would be quite so pleased to see the Doctor if she knew he'd been willing to let her die alone in a Dalek cell only a few moments earlier.

Squad.

Ian is quick to point out to Bae that 'the feeling's coming back' to his legs, and that she's not to worry; incredibly, he manages to reach past the Doctor's shoulder on which he's leaning to give her the old Chesterton neck-pinch. He's incorrigible. But sweet...I guess.

Incredibly, at this point, Babs reverts instantly to her old habit of asking Ian questions he is in no position to answer:

ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?

It's interesting to note that newly-legless Ian is far less willing to humour his Bezzie Mate Babs now he's incapacitated, and when he asks her if she noticed anything that might help them while she was being moved about by the Daleks, her admittedly not-very-useful answer meets with a particularly honest reply:

Because clearly women are incapable of registering anything more significant than interior design when being shoved into lifts by hostile forces on an alien world. Christ.

Babs redeems herself, though, by being the first one to wonder whether there's actually anything inside a Dalek. Susan laughs at her, but Ian at least seems to take the idea seriously. Anyway, once Barbara has told him about how she thinks the Daleks must have drugged her because she feels like utter shit, it's Ian's job to break it to her that they've all got radiation sickness (the Doctor being particularly badly hit) and are probably going to die. Oh bloody nora.

The Daleks, it transpires, have been monitoring all this on their pie-chart machine. We learn that radiation levels on the planet are reduced since the last count but still fatally high; if the Thals (of which more anon) can live on the surface without succumbing to radiation, and if they are able to do so because of drugs, why are the prisoners showing signs of radiation sickness? The Doctor is interrogated to shed some light on the situation.

Dalexposition

Apparently the Daleks think the Doctor is one of the Thals, and that he and the others have come to the city in search of anti-radiation meds because their own drugs have failed them. The Doctor realises with a clang that the tin they found outside the Tardis earlier must have been full of lovely, lovely drugs. He persuades the Daleks to let one of them go and fetch them while the others remain as hostages. 

The Daleks tell the Doctor that they retreated into the city after a neutronic war with the Thals—the second race with whom they inhabited the planet 500 years ago, and who must be (or so the Daleks reckon) hideously mutated with all the radiation by now. Suddenly the idea of sending one of them outside amongst the Thals to go and get the drugs sounds less appealing to the Doctor.

Back in captivity, Barbara and Susan are walking Ian around the cell. Ian tries to stand, ignores Barbara's suggestion that he go and sit down, tries to walk, and promptly falls over. Barbara tells him it's going to take time as she and Susan walk him back over to his seat.

Still, Ian finds it in his heart to ask after the welfare of his companions. Babs still feels like shit; Susan seems not to be affected as badly as the rest of them. Enter the Doctor; Susan and Barbara catch him, too, and steer him over to the Seat of Incapacitated Men. The Doctor tells them that the tin left outside the Tardis contains 'anti-radiation gloves...drugs'. Oh Billy. Ian and Babs have a brief spat over who's going to get the drugs, fuelled by Ian's ongoing Chatterley angst:

IAN: Well, none of us are in very good shape to go and get them.

BARBARA: Oh, I could do it...

IAN: No, it must be me.

BARBARA: But you can't walk!

IAN: (Snaps) Oh, I'll be all right in a couple of hours!

Ian, you are fucking ridiculous. Seriously.

Restraining Cat is Ian's actual spirit animal

The Doctor is considerably worse for wear, and Babs isn't looking much better. Ian and Susan argue about her accompanying him back to the Tardis for the drugs. He's quite as irritable as the Doctor now that he's suffering from a a temporary disability, but Susan is insistent, telling him that unless he opens the Tardis door correctly, the whole lock mechanism will melt on the inside, locking them out for good. Reluctantly, he agrees, and decides to test his legs again. Barbara revives herself from her state of living death to try to help support him on the other side, but Ian, admittedly more out of consideration than out of pride, tells her to take a breather...and promptly falls back down again.

Enter a Dalek, telling Ian to get his skates on. Ian protests that he's not well enough, but the Dalek is insistent. Because of reasons. Ian tries to walk again and fails again, coming to rest once more next to Bae, who holds his hand; it's a sign of his acceptance of the situation that he doesn't snap at her like an injured pet but sits there and takes comfort from it. The Dalek points out, not unreasonably, that there are other people in the room. Babs tries to get up; it's impossible to tell whether Restraining Cat, who still hasn't let go of her hand, is trying to help her up or pull her back down, because she falls back almost instantly having got the mad spins. It's obvious where this is going, but still Ian looks towards the Doctor, who is out for the count, before turning to the only member of the group who can still stand on their own two feet.

Doctor 'Who, Me?'

It was always going to be Susan. The camera lingers on her face in a close-up, as she realises that she must be the one to make the perilous journey through potentially mutant-infested lands back to the Tardis. 'Must I?' she asks quietly, clearly petrified. 'Alone?' 

Babs revives long enough to protest (to Ian, rather than the Daleks) that Susan is just a child, asking him to 'plead with them...anything'. I know she was all for volunteering before the room started rotating around her head, but it's still disappointing to see her in a basic damsel-in-distress role after all the different shades of strength and vulnerability she's shown so far. Ian, however, continues to hold Susan's gaze (and Bae's hand), and it's nicely done: the expression on his face is impassive, but you sense that he's torn between compassion and ruthlessness as he sits there, knowing he can't do anything to help, with a half-delirious Barbara still pleading in his ear. It's only when he finally looks at Babs, who's really at the end of her tether at this point, that he comes to a decision; it seems that, far from swaying him in the direction of persuading the Daleks not to let Susan go, Barbara's pleas and the attendant realisation of just how ill she and the Doctor are has convinced him to persuade Susan to take his place as default knight-in-shining-armour and go it alone. An hour, he argues, might make all the difference: they just can't afford to wait until he can walk again. Susan, to her eternal credit, plucks up her courage and goes out into the unknown. 

A sucker for character development

It is at this point that Babs, rather unhelpfully, reminds Ian that there are mutants out there. Ian's frustration is palpable. He vents his feelings on his legs, which he begins to punch. Which I'm sure will help tremendously. All in all, he's not dealing at all well with being benched.

BUT WHAT'S THIS? Those dastardly Daleks plan to track Susan and to take the anti-radiation drugs for themselves once she returns to the city! THE ROGUES!

Meanwhile, Barbara is worried about the Doctor, who really looks rough. She herself can barely keep her eyes open, and Ian feels pretty-much the same. He channels his feelings of impotence into blaming the Doctor for their plight, and while he's not wrong, Barbara is also right when she says that this doesn't help. Nor is Ian wrong when he says they're now so utterly banxajed with the radiation sickness that they wouldn't be able to crawl through the doors if the Daleks left them wide open. 

Susan, your hour has come. Go and be brave. Save the day. Your friends really need you.

Or you could just blunder through the trees like a discount Snow White, shrieking at leaves. You could also do that.

Fucksake.

Back in captivity, Barbara tries to cure the Doctor's radiation sickness by placing his coat under his head. This is considerably better nursing than Ian is able to provide: having caught a swooning Babs, he then manages to get her into the Netflix Position and tells her to get some shut-eye. 

This is not how the human neck is meant to rest, Ian.

Ian's legs are back to normal. How about that. 'Hurry, Susan,' he whispers through the door. Hurry, Susan, indeed.

Finally, and after much tortured jogging, Susan is back in the Tardis. Relief. Blessed relief as she stands in the familiar surroundings of control room with the doors closing behind her, shutting out the terrors of the unfamiliar. She hugs the tin of drugs like it's a tin of drugs. And this is arguably the part where Susan has to be even braver than before: having made it through the jungle to the safety of the Tardis, she now has to leave that safety without delay and go and face her fears all over again. Pausing only to flinch slightly as a flash of lightning illuminates the great unknown, Susan steps outside the wobbly Tardis doors and into the storm once more. Go on, our kid.

WILL SUSAN MAKE IT BACK TO THE OTHERS IN TIME BEFORE THEY ALL DIE OF RADIATION SICKNESS? WILL BARBARA'S NECK BE OK AFTER A FEW HOURS OF SLEEPING IN SUCH AN UNCOMFORTABLE POSITION? WILL IAN LEARN FROM HIS EXPERIENCE OF PROLONGED HELPLESSNESS OR WILL HE SLIP UNTHINKINGLY BACK INTO HIS OLD MACHO ROLE? WILL THE DOCTOR WAKE UP WITH A PERSONALITY TRANSPLANT? ONLY TIME AND NEXT WEEK'S EPISODE WILL TELL.

Summary (as applicable to this episode)

Does it pass the Bechdel test? By the skin of its teeth. The only real exchange between the two named women is when Barbara asks how they know it’s radiation and Susan says they found a Geiger counter. And that’s pretty-much it.

[BUZZWORD DOUBLE-WHAMMY ALERT!!] Is the gaze problematic? It’s not fantastic in Susan’s sobbing-and-jogging-through-the-jungle scene, but it’s better than last week.

Is/are the woman companion(s) dressed 'for the Dads'? No.

Does a woman fall over/twist her ankle (whilst running from peril)? Yup. Susan. Though in fairness, Ian does a *lot* of falling over this episode.

Is/are the woman companion(s) captured? Yup. Barbara is joined by the others before too long, though.

Does the Doctor/a man companion/any other man have to rescue the woman companion(s) from peril? Yes. Though they’re not very successful at rescuing Babs (at Ian’s insistence). Later, however, it’s brave Susan who must rescue the others from a slow and certain death by radiation sickness.

Is/are the woman companion's/s' first/only reaction(s) to peril gratuitous screaming? Actually, Susan is really good about not screaming for most of the episode, but she does get a bit gratuitously screechy once she’s stumbling through the jungle.

Does a woman companion go into hysterics over something reasonably minor? Ish.

Does the woman companion have to be calmed down by the Doctor/a man companion/a man? Yup.

Is a woman the first/only person to be (most gratuitously) menaced by the episode's antagonist(s)? I’d say they’re all equally menaced by the Daleks in this episode, but it’s Susan who has to endure the most peril in the jungle.

Is a man shamed into doing/not doing something because the alternative is a woman doing/not doing something? No, but there’s a similar dynamic behind Ian’s temporary paralysis and the fact that Susan has to step into the breach.

Does a man come a cropper because of his 'manipulative' girlfriend/mother/significant woman other? No.

Does the woman companion come up with a plan? No.

Does the woman companion do something stupid/banal/weird which inspires a man to be a Man with a Plan? No.

Is the young, strong, straight, white male lead the person most often in control of the situation? Ish. Ian may be out of action, but he’s still calling the shots most of the time.

Is there past/future/alien sexism? Weirdly, sexism doesn’t seem to be among the Daleks’ manifold evils.

Did a woman write/direct/produce this episode? No/No/Yes.

Verdict

It's great to see Susan step up to the plate and get a crack at some decent character development, having spent the first part of the episode being snapped at and domineered by the Doctor. She's frightened, yes, but what's important is that she faces her fears and overcomes them in order to help her companions, even if she's pretty-much bullied into it by Ian. Her greatest moment to date is stepping from the Tardis, having just reached the all-too-brief safety of the console room, back out into a possibly mutant-filled jungle in the middle of a thunderstorm. You go, girl. Barbara has a weaker episode this week, but she still shows a lot of guts, and she's trying to help the Doctor right up until she passes out from radiation sickness. Ian is placed in an interesting situation, insofar as he suddenly and quite literally has his legs taken out from under him, and is unable to take a more physically active role in the episode. He's vulnerable for the first time, and although he doesn't deal with it terribly well, it's still interesting to see how this changes the dynamic of the group. It's also interesting to see how it affects his relationship with Barbara, towards whom he continues to be overly-protective to the extent that he's willing to send Susan out into the wilderness so that Babs and the Doctor will get treatment in time. Even though it's Susan's moment, it's still framed in terms of Ian's priorities. The Doctor, meanwhile, has a mixed episode, oscillating between selfishness and selflessness as he goes from devious to cantankerous to diplomatic to supportive to...er...unconscious. Generally speaking, I'm enjoying the fact that each episode has these moments of character development built into it, and look forward to more of it.