Serial: The Daleks
Episode: 4 (The Ambush)
Doctor: William Hartnell
Companions: Barbara, Ian, and Susan
Writer: Terry Nation
Director: Christopher Barry
Producer: Verity Lambert
Original Air Date: 11/01/1964
INTERVENTIONISM...IN SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE (and other stories)
Well that was anticlimactic. Seems like that mutant claw isn’t going to be bothering anyone anytime soon.
Anyway, Susan and Babs are taking Dalek!Ian for a walk when he figures out how to work the controls. The Doctor moves up front, telling Ian to do as little talking as possible while they try to make it past the Dalek guard that’s blocking their path to the lift.
Ian’s bullshit story about someone wanting the prisoners for questioning isn’t going down well with the Dalek guard. Time for some quick thinking courtesy of Susan, who uses her screaming powers for the greater good, pretending to be screechily uncooperative so that the Real Dalek—who is about to contact some other Real Daleks to confirm/deny Dalek!Ian’s orders—has to help Dalek!Ian restrain her. She tips her pals an enormous wink to let them in on her plan, and it’s gorgeous.
Anyway, the Real Dalek helps herd them into the room with the lift, and there's some pretty funny early Dalek characterisation when said Real Dalek is all 'need any help getting them to the fourth floor, mate?'. Having been spurned by Dalek!Ian, the Real Dalek leaves and closes the door behind it; the Doctor promptly jams the door mechanism by pulling out a few wires, locking Team Tardis safely into the lift room. Well Done, Team.
There's a nice moment where you see Babs's inner schoolteacher coming out, as she makes a point of congratulating Susan on her Very Good Idea. WOMEN BEING SUPPORTIVE OF ONE ANOTHER HIGH-FIVE. But OH NO, Ian is now stuck inside the Dalek casing! And the Real Dalek outside has just cottoned on to what's going on and sounded the alarm. And now they're cutting through the door! And the Daleks have magnetised the floor so that they can't even shove Dalek!Ian inside the lift! SUCH PERIL!
Also, SUCH EMOTION! (Which, for dramatic effect, I will illustrate using gifs from 1997 blockbuster Titanic.) Because now Ian is telling the Doctor to leave him and take the others away in the lift; Bae, on the other hand, is having none of it, defying first Ian and then the Doctor, who seems only too happy to get out of there.
Susan is also (screamingly) reluctant to leave Ian in the lurch, and is pulled into the lift by the Doctor, who says they're wasting time and that he'll send the lift back down for Ian. This is actually pretty sensible: the sooner they get into the lift, the sooner they can send it back down for Ian, on the offchance that he manages to escape being poached alive in a giant kettle. Babs, rather worryingly, doesn't seem to be making any efforts to free Ian from the Dalek casing, but is standing her ground in what I can only assume is a willingness not to let Ian die alone, which is noble, but ultimately unhelpful.
Her death wish can't be that strong, though, because when Dalek!Ian tells her, rather sharply, 'Barbara, for goodness sake, go!', she does so without further protest.
YAY SURVIVAL INSTINCTS, but boo men-are-practical/women-are-emotional trope. The Doctor, Babs, and Susan ascend to safety, leaving Ian to struggle to escape the Dalek casing as the Real Daleks cut through the door.
The lift is sent back down; Babs and Susan experience some premature survivors' guilt. And OH NO, the Real Daleks are through the door and have blasted the Ian!Dalek inside it to smithereens. BUT WAIT! It's empty! Ian must have escaped!
The Daleks hurry to throw the emergency switch to stop the lift and bring it back down. Ian is still in the lift. TENSE TIMES. The lift is almost fully at the top (relief!) when the Daleks throw the switch (panic!) and Ian makes a swift, scrambling exit from the lift shaft...
..and into the waiting arms of Bae. Which makes a nice change. And makes these fools my new BrOTP. Have a real gif to celebrate.
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| Why you so stupid, |
But that's enough of that I literally cannot get enough of these guys being ludicrously cute whenever they're reunited it's like they're Lyra and Pantalaimon or something.
Anyway, they're right at the top of the building, and Babs spots someone moving in the city below. OH CRUMBS, IT'S THE THALS...AND THEY'RE WALKING INTO AN AMBUSH! Team Tardis hammers on the windows a bit but for all the good it does they may as well be shouting at the telly, because the windows are soundproof.
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| Trying to break through the glass |
I sure wish I could lipread.
But our heroes have bigger fish to fry right now, because the Daleks are on their way up in the lift with orders that the prisoners be EXTERMINATED. Which is a rare instance of the E-word in this first Dalek serial. Barbara, in an almost sarcastic moment of helpfulness, points out that there is a door in the room. But ARGH it's been magnetised. And the Daleks are still on the rise. Ian leaves the Doctor to prise the door open and gets a less-than-proactive Babs and Susan (who are just staring into the abyss—FAIL) to help him manoeuvre a convenient piece of giant Dalek sculpture (?) into the lift shaft, taking out the lift. Dalek interior design ex machina for the win.
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| Practising aggressive feng shui in an alien environment. |
Meanwhile, Temmosus (the Thal leader, remember?) is leading his band of merry men into a room full of gourds and squashes, which seem to be the Daleks' grow-your-own speciality. I feel really bad for Temmosus, actually, because his Yoda act ('fear breeds hatred and war') is ideologically gorgeous but so obviously meant to be seen as naive. He's like a right-wing cartoon of Jeremy Corbyn. Boo to you, Classic Who, for killing off the idealistic leader who believes that disarmament is the surest argument against war.
Enter Team Tardis, though considerably lacking in team spirit. The Doctor, who has reverted to self-preservation mode, is firmly against Susan's insistence that they stay and warn the Thals rather than getting back to the ship. Babs is glorious in Susan's (and the Thals') defence:
DOCTOR: The Thals are no concern of ours. We cannot jeopardise our lives getting involved in an affair which is none of our business.
BARBARA: (Angrily) Of course it’s our business! The Thals gave us the anti-radiation drug. Without that, we’d be dead.
Go Babs. (Also, fascinating early character development is fascinating.)
But OH LORD, Ian, clearly newly-invigorated by his return to full mobility and a post-narrow-escape-from-death cuddle with Babs, is turning this into the Ian Will Deal With This Shit show:
IAN: Yes, but the Doctor’s got a point. There’s no sense in risking our whole party.
SUSAN: No!
IAN: You go back to the ship and I’ll stay and warn the Thals.
SUSAN: No, we’re all in this together! We’re all going to stay here.
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| Ian, Barbara, the Doctor, and Susan. Because the Doctor is 100% Sharpay. |
Ian, however, has no time for Susan's invocation of the Spirit of High School Musical, which is So Last Episode. He gives her the full teacher treatment, and, soul-crushingly, Barbara chooses not to fuck the patriarchy at this time:
IAN: Susan, you do as I say! You go back to the ship with Barbara and your Grandfather. Go on!
SUSAN: But don’t you understand...
BARBARA: Susan, I know what Ian means. He stands a much better chance on his own if he doesn't have us to worry about. Now come on.
SUSAN: But don’t you understand...
BARBARA: Susan, I know what Ian means. He stands a much better chance on his own if he doesn't have us to worry about. Now come on.
Clearly everyone is buying into Ian being Head of the Space Family at the moment.
Temmosus gives a nice speech about building a future with the Daleks before telling his merry men to take the delicious gourds. Ian's cunning plan to help the Thals, it turns out, is...to yell that it's a trap and scarper. Chaos ensues: the Daleks start firing, Temmosus is killed, and the Thals run for it. Alydon makes it to safety and he and Ian have a Mutual Appreciation Moment before heading back to the jungle.
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| Alas poor Temmosus, who sleeps among the squashes. |
Back in the jungle, an unnamed Thal woman is told 'not yet' before she can even ask whether the rest of the merry men are back. She slinks back off into the background for her trouble. Dyoni is showing the Doctor half a million years' worth of her planet's history, through the medium of hexagons. Thals love hexagons.
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| The Doctor and Dyoni put together a research grant proposal to digitise the Thal history archives |
Then the other Thals are back; Antodus (Ganatus's potentially cowardly brother) is wounded and Babs makes herself useful tending to his shoulder with some ointment. Because basic First Aid skills are universal and woman are instinctive healers. Though all credit to her for mucking in.
Then there's some lovely dialogue between Alydon (who is the new leader), Ganatus, and Ian about why the Daleks hate the Thals so much, WHICH BY RIGHTS SHOULD INVOLVE BARBARA because she's the historian and so should be the go-to character for making the first vague parallels between Daleks and Nazis. Still, Ian has shown himself to have more left-leaning tendencies than our Babs, so perhaps we'll give him this character moment. Also, it's gorgeous whichever of our two humans gets to say it:
Tell me Classic Who isn't great right from the early serials. Go on, TELL ME.
(Having said that, it's interesting that Ian still chooses to refer to Thals and Daleks in terms of the human and the inhuman respectively, which is problematic given that Ian is very much aligning himself with those in his own likeness. You can take the human out of Earth...)
And now there's some really interesting stuff about interventionism and pacifism. Ian essentially tells the Thals they ought to stand up for themselves and earn the Daleks' respect through a show of strength. Dyoni, who THANK THE GODS has not been relegated to the role of Jealous Alien Lady this episode, essentially tells Ian to check his privilege, saying that he understands them 'as little as the Daleks do'. BURN.
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| You know nothing, Ian Chesterton. |
Then things get even more interesting, as Barbara and Ian have a conversation about the Thals' unwillingness to fight that speaks volumes about their humanity, by which I mean their inability to see past certain inherited truisms until faced with the possibility that innate human characteristics might be socially constructed, potentially overturning their understanding of nature/nurture:
BARBARA: I don't understand them. They're not cowards. They don't seem to be afraid. Can pacifism become a human instinct?
IAN: Pacifism? Is that it? Pacifism only works when everyone feels the same.
BARBARA: Yes but are they really pacifists? I mean, genuinely so? Or is it a belief that's become a reality because they've never had to prove it?
THIS IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. Proper meaty stuff from our two humans, who again seem to be projecting human characteristics onto other humanoid species as a means of trying to understand their actions, and in doing so reveal human prejudices (pacifism = cowardice, etc.). Babs in particular seems to really want to get down to the philosophical nitty-gritty with Ian, whose cynical side we don't often get to see. I also adore that we get a glimpse of these two in a quiet moment when they're not being menaced or fighting for immediate survival. You can imagine them back on Earth, chatting politics in the pub and getting heated over it. Also, if there isn't already a book about the politics of Cold War-era Doctor Who then there really should be.
Unfortunately, at this point, the Doctor shows up with some Thal History Hexagons, putting a stop to what might have been an interesting (and probably problematic) debate. Apparently, the Thals used to be a blonde, warrior race, but then they mutated; the mutation came full circle, and now they're a race of blonde, pacifist farmers. The Daleks, we learn, had some manner of forbears called Dals. I assume this continuity stuff gets cleared up by the time we get to Genesis of the Daleks.
As Ian wonders, wistfully, whether it would be any use to remind the Thals what great
OH YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.
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| Eff. Eff. Ess. |
RUDDY CRIPES WITH A CHERRY ON TOP THE DALEKS TOOK THE FLUID LINK FROM IAN WHEN THEY SEARCHED HIM BACK IN THE CITY AND HE DIDN'T NOTICE UNTIL NOW HOW WILL THEY EVER GET OFF THIS PLANET WITHOUT IT? WILL THEY MANAGE TO GET BACK TO THE DALEK CITY WITHOUT COMPROMISING THEIR OR ANYONE ELSE'S MORALITY? WILL THE DALEKS HAVE EVEN KEPT THE FLUID LINK ANYWHERE REMOTELY ACCESSIBLE? WILL THE THALS REVEAL EVEN MORE HITHERTO UNDREAMED-OF USES FOR HEXAGONAL THINGS?
Summary (as applicable to this episode)
Does it pass the Bechdel test? Oh...er...it's a point of contention for this episode. Barbara and Susan are involved in the same discussions, but the only time the two have anything like a conversation is when Babs tells Susan to be a good girl and listen to her father Ian. So...debate amongst yourselves.
Is the gaze problematic? Not particularly.
Is/are the woman companion(s) dressed 'for the Dads’? Not unless you're an insane, misogynistic prude who thinks all womanflesh on display is an abomination and an invitation to lustful thoughts and count the fact that Babs's shirt has a tendency to ride up at the back. In other words, no women were needlessly objectified in the wardrobe department any more than the men of their species this week.
Does a woman fall over/twist her ankle (whilst running from peril)? Nope.
Is/are the woman companion(s) captured? Nope.
Does the Doctor/a man companion/any other man have to rescue the woman companion(s) from peril? Nope. Ian has a moment of would-be self-sacrifice, but it's the others who then have to get him out of it, and it's Ian falling into Barbara's arms at the end of it. Though he does remain stuck in martyr mode, insisting on being the one to stay and warn the Thals.
Is/are the woman companion’s/s’ first/only reaction(s) to peril gratuitous screaming? Nope. Susan gets a bit hysterical in the lift/when she's arguing about staying to help the Thals, but otherwise it's a pretty scream-free episode. And she has that wonderful fake screaming moment, too, just to subvert things a bit.
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? Yeah, the Doctor has to stop Susan launching herself at the lift controls, and Ian gets very 'authoritative' when he's chiding Susan later in the episode.
Is a woman the first/only person to be (most gratuitously) menaced by the episode’s antagonist(s)? Nope. Ian's in a pretty tight spot, though.
Is a man shamed into doing/not doing something because the alternative is a woman doing/not doing something? 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? Not as such, but Ian hijacks Susan's attempt to help the Thals when they're walking into a trap.
Is the young, strong, straight, white male lead the person most often in control of the situation? Ian throws his weight around quite a bit this episode.
Is there past/future/alien sexism? It comes and it goes. The only woman Thal who speaks is Dyoni, and it's only the men who go to pick up the Dalek's organic gourds, but Dyoni gets some good moments this week.
Did a woman write/direct/produce this episode? No/No/Yes.
Verdict
Some lovely moments, especially from the two humans. A lot of the time, the two women are left standing about by the scriptwriters, but when they do get lines and things to do, they're generally good lines and good things to do, with the notable exception of Ian laying down the law and Babs going along with it. You could argue that Barbara is just being pragmatic, insofar as it doesn't take four people to shout a warning, but it still rankles. Barbara and Ian get to have the beginnings of a really interesting conversation, and despite a lot of the deeply-entrenched everyday sixties sexism in their relationship, you get the sense that theirs is a friendship founded not only on affection but also on their being intellectually a match for one another despite their not always being in agreement. I'd love to have seen them arguing 1960s politics over a glass of wine down the pub when on Earth. Speaking of which, the intervention/pacifism stuff is potentially very juicy, so let's see more of that, please. Susan gets a lovely moment where she uses her screaming powers for good, but is otherwise very much bossed-about this episode, which is a shame. The Doctor, meanwhile, continues to act from self-interest, and his character development is fascinating in this regard.
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