Season 2 Episode 5: The Daleks

Serial: The Dalek Invasion of Earth
Episode: 2 (The Daleks)
Doctor: William Hartnell
Companions: Barbara, Ian, and Susan

Writer: Terry Nation
Director: Richard Martin
Producer: Verity Lambert
Original Air Date: 28/11/1964

'DALEKS...I HATE THOSE GUYS' (and other stories)

In which Barbara meets a woman her own age who is even more Done With Everyone's Shit than she is, Susan gets involved, the Space Bros do Escaping with Science, and the Daleks do manoeuvres.

So a Dalek has just emerged from the Thames and the Space Bros are momentarily stunned. Ian, rather bizarrely, exclaims as though it’s only the voice of the Dalek that’s jogging his memory. No, Ian, that’s an actual Dalek and it’s pretty darn recognisable. In fairness, he is in shock. As the Dalek tells the Robopatrol to take the prisoners to landing area one, Ian starts freaking out about Daleks on Earth; the Doctor tells his Space Bro to leave it to him.

The Doctor’s big plan is to tell the Daleks to let them go. I forget how early Daleks do actually allow themselves to be argued-with. The Dalek tells the Doctor the Daleks are the Masters of the Earth, to which the Doctor responds thus:

In fact, he talks to the Daleks with cool contempt, and tells Ian they’d better put their wits against the Daleks and defeat them; hilariously, the Dalek tells him it can, y’know, hear what they’re saying.

Oh and thanks, InfoText, for alerting me to a cut Ian line: ‘When all the history of Earth is put together, the Daleks won’t occupy more than one half a page.’ WHY DID THEY CUT THIS it’s a lovely little line and indeed shows him thinking in Barbara’s terms.

Anyway, the Doctor doesn’t believe resistance is in any way futile (because of course) and that if the Daleks are going to conquer the Earth they’re going to have to destroy all living matter. Well, they probably will.

As the Space Bros are dragged off by the Robomen, the Dalek rather shakily repeats ‘WE ARE THE MASTERS OF EARTH’ to itself like it’s a therapist’s mantra. Daleks are hella insecure.

Back at the rebel base, everyone is listening to the Daleks broadcasting an ultimatum: survivors are to show themselves in the street and live or be killed horribly. Presumably Babs and Susan have already been briefed on the whole Dalek thing, because they seem unphased by this returning nightmare.

Dortmun (the scientist in the wheelchair) scoffs at what he refers to as the ‘motorised dustbins’ (which was a rehearsal ad lib—thanks, InfoText!), and Tyler tells Jenny—a defensively hardfaced woman in the resistance who is somewhere between my idol and my spirit animal—to go and find food for Babs and Susan and see to Susan’s ankle. Because this is what women do in the twenty-second century.

What she also does, fortunately, is command a certain level of respect: for one thing, when she goes around asking questions, they get sensible answers. She goes over and asks who the one with the bad ankle is, with the bluntest bedside manner ever; Susan is reasonably aggressive in identifying herself as the hobbler, and has her foot unceremoniously yanked about for her trouble. Hilariously, considering how Babs spent all that time mucking about in the diseased river last week, Jenny asks why nobody put a wet bandage on it (which seems to be the universal cure for a bad ankle in Classic Who), and an indignant Babs points out they’ve only just arrived. Jenny sees to the ankle, and continues to be brusque as hell sending Babs off for the food. Babs politely points out she doesn’t know where it is, and responds to Jenny’s instructions to sign them both up for work with indignation on account of the fact that Susan can’t work because of her bad ankle. Jenny points out that Susan could do something, y'know, sitting down. Then this happens:

Jenny, let me love you for doing my job; Babs, let me love you because WHAT an eyebrow.

I LOVE SEEING THESE TWO INTERACT. It’s so unusual for Barbara not to be the most capable woman (and let's face it, often the most capable human/person) in the room, so it’s a complete change of dynamic to have two incredibly capable older women (ugh I hate that phrase because they’re not old at all, so let’s just say women over thirty) onscreen. Jenny, although she radiates competence, is also prickly as hell and brusque to the point of rudeness—almost Doctor-like, actually, in the early days before Babs got to him. And you can see Barbara being ever-so polite and suddenly coming across as this rather prim sixties schoolteacher but also rolling her eyes like ‘here we go again’. Also, as I shall discuss later, I have complex-ish headcanons about Barbara identifying with Jenny simultaneously in terms of a pre-Barbara Doctor and a potential post-war, post-Ian-hypothetically-dying Barbara. But more of that anon.

Also I ship these two like crazy. Sorry not sorry, hashtag Bibara, hashtag Barbara loves a Dalek-fighting blonde, hashtag why the hell not.

Anyway, Dortmun is talking to Tyler about attacking the Daleks; Tyler gets in a quip about this not being the twentieth century where men with bayonets charged at machine guns. That’s two for two in terms of serials and references to WWI. Dortmun wheels himself over to a shelf where he’s apparently left his new bomb lying around. He puts it on the table and declares it finished. Tyler asks whether it’s been tested; it hasn’t. Dortmun is a terrible scientist/tactician. I mean I get it, he’s got a chip on his shoulder about being in the chair, but that doesn’t mean his blind faith in his own theoretical formula is an adequate substitute for an actual weapons test.

Enter David through the chute in the wall with a crate of apples. And corrects Jenny on something? I dunno, I still don’t like David (yet).

Meanwhile, Dortmun is yelling at Tyler for thinking like a worm. Ugh, do shut up, Dortmun. Tyler (I quite like Tyler) protests that they’ve got to have a decent chance of survival. Which is sensible. David rocks up and tells them about Ian and the Doctor being taken, and Dortmun reckons it’s a shame as they could’ve used those two. Dortmun has more than a touch of the Captain Ahabs.

At the saucer at the Chelsea heliport, Ian and the Doctor have been brought face to face with more Daleks. Ian, bless him, has some classic ‘Doctor, I don’t understand’ companion dialogue so the Doctor can do a spot of exposition. Ian doesn’t get how the Daleks can be here when Team Tardis saw them destroyed already; the Doctor tells Ian that what happened on Skaro was a million years in the future. (How does he know that when the Tardis controls are buggered? And how do the Daleks on Skaro not recognise Team Tardis? Ach, Dalek timelines are an omnishambles. But this is apparently the middle history of the Daleks.)

As more prisoners enter, Ian observes that the Daleks look different these days what with the discs on their backs, and reckons it might have something to do with their increased mobility—remember, they could only move on metal on Skaro. The Doctor reminds Ian that this is an invasion force and must adapt itself to local conditions. Though this doesn’t, as yet, include stairs.

One guy who killed two of the Robomen is brought forwards, and his friend decides to make a run for it…and is murdered by the Daleks. There’s a rather poignant moment where Ian stops the guy running to help his friend, yelling ‘you can’t help him now’. Because obviously Ian has seen the Daleks kill before. And it’s a nasty scene, actually. I sometimes get a teeny bit frustrated when Classic Who gets painfully slow, but actually it’s a hundred times more effective having the Daleks silently close in around the terrified man who yells for help he knows won’t come.

Anyway, the Dalek Supreme (who has ‘a different paint job’—thanks, InfoText!) tells the other prisoners to expect more of the same if they run, and the Space Bros are herded into the ship. (Is it just me, or does Dalek Supreme sound like a pizza? I’ve always thought this. Am I alone?)

Back at resistance HQ, Susan is holding David’s gun while he polishes it. And I don’t know just what to do with that image. David continues to earn my loathing by telling Susan about the men being at the saucer but insisting that they not tell Barbara. For reasons? Why is David a dick to Barbara? Why has Susan allowed herself to be taken in by the bullshit logic he offers when she protests?

Enter Jenny (a.k.a. Classic Who's new Queen of No Time For Your Shit) with a Roboman’s helmet and holds it out to David, who has apparently asked for a look at it. When he carries on with what he’s doing, this happens:

Jenny: Well here you are, then, take them. I’ve got better things to do.
David: Oh, you’re a model of charm and patience, aren’t you?
Jenny: Well I don’t believe in wasting time! And I don’t believe in sentiment either.

YES JENNY! SMASH HIM! Also, someone’s been Hurt Bad, haven’t they?

Enter Babs, breathless with admiration and looking eager to please, and in a weird reversal of the ‘apple for the teacher’ thing, brings Jenny some apples. When Jenny rather carelessly tells her to just put them down, Babs rolls her eyes yet again and lobs an apple at her Space Daughter and soon-to-be Space Son-in-Law. Who seems to have learned some manners at least and thanks her. But more importantly, Barbara, never ever stop pulling those faces.

Babs picks up the Roboman helmet and asks Susan what it is (hurrah!) but when Susan (correctly) tells Babs that they (meaning, I assume the beings from which they were taken) are called Robomen, David cuts across her and tells her she’s got it wrong, and proceeds to mansplain that the devices were taken from dead human beings. I mean, I suppose you could make the case for David trying to afford the mutilated human slaves some dignity in death, but Susan’s answer was more useful. Jenny chips in about the Daleks needing helpers and operating on prisoners; David explains about the Daleks controlling the brains for a bit. Babs, rather naively, asks whether the humans revert afterwards, and Jenny answers her with ruthless bleakness: ‘They die.’

David talks about the Robos going crazy and killing themselves, and Barbara realises just what she saw when she found that body in the river last week. Then, in a classic Babs move, she permits herself to wax lyrical: ‘Daleks…everything they touch turns into a horrible sort of nightmare.’ Well, quite.

Susan asks if they’re still making Robomen, and Jenny again answers: yes, and they got her brother last year. Well, that explains a lot. Oblivious to the fact that Ian and the Doctor are at a heliport, Jenny tells Susan that once the Daleks have you on board a saucer you haven’t got a hope; Susan looks horrified. As well she might.

Digression: this is what I meant when I said that for Babs looking at Jenny was probably like looking at one potential future self—a future self after ten years of war and having lost her Space Fam. I mean don’t get me wrong, Babs is a very different person if only because she tends to luxuriate in her morbid streak or fixate on the absurd when things get grim, whereas Jenny has been hardened by her experiences and uses that hardness as a defence mechanism. But I at least find it interesting that this is the first time Babs has met a woman her own age on her travels and instantly tries to reach out (who can blame her after all those weeks spent mothering Susan?) only to realise that she has another right pain-in-the-arse on her hands. Albeit one with whom she nevertheless empathises because of course Babs’s Space Fam is what keeps her grounded even as she develops in the face of extreme adversity, whereas Jenny has recently lost her brother.

Back on the saucer, the InfoText tells me of some cut dialogue in which Ian chides the Doctor for sounding like the secretary of the Dalek Fan Club and the Doctor retorts by saying ‘One can admire the ingenuity of a people without condoning their ethics’. He later calls the Daleks the most brutal but the most brilliant people in the universe. Which is interesting insofar as they clearly cut it to make his morals more human/less problematic. Anyway, the Doctor is pretty confident he can get them out of the cell into which they’ve been placed. The Daleks spy on them and think the Doctor’s spiel about resistance etc. means he’s more intelligent than other humans so they’re going to give him The Test. Whatever that is.

Inside the cell, the Doctor chides the new guy (Jack Craddock) for being pessimistic and Ian asks how the Daleks invaded and that. Craddock asks whether they’ve been on moon station; they hastily agree. Though I call bullshit on that, as surely ten years is enough time to figure out the Earth has been invaded. Anyway, ten years ago the Earth was bombarded with meteorites and everyone got the plague. The Daleks waited for everyone to get weak from the germ bombs and eventually the survivors were either too spread out or too few to resist effectively. There are some interesting alternative versions of this in the InfoText which has it begin in 1980 and sounds eerily like it had post-Trump USA and post-Brexit Britain in mind, because one is at war with Russia and China while the other is on the brink of war with Europe. Mankind forgets its differences and unites against the Daleks, proving that xenophobia always wins, it’s just a matter of scale. The other version has bacteria bombs and oh I don’t have to explain it because apparently Terry Nation reused the scenario for his 1975 TV series The Survivors. Which I’d like to see. Though it does sound a bit H.G. Wells.

Anyway, we cut back to David explaining what happened to Babs and Susan, who is (rather worryingly) holding the barrel of David’s gun to her chin. PUT THE GUN DOWN, SUSAN. ‘Divide and conquer,’ observes history teacher Babs, knowingly, and David agrees.

David starts to explain that it was at this point that the Dalek saucers arrived and they started killing people, but honestly I’m just distracted and mega impressed by the Dalek operators managing to zoom down the ramp and turn off like that. Oh though apparently on the first attempt one of them went smashing into a camera. I’m not surprised. Anyway, WELL DONE, DALEK OPERATORS.

Ahem. The Daleks turned people into Robomen, the end. I think? I’m sorry, I’m usually mega into post-apocalyptic world-building but I’m also mega into Dalek manoeuvres.

Craddock’s voice takes over saying how the Daleks knew full well the psychological impact of using their own people against them, and we’re treated to an image of a Roboman knocking a woman to the ground just so we know how bad stuff is. Then Ian asks what we’re all thinking: WHY? Oh Ian, you do NOT want to know.

Anyway, apparently the Daleks have turned the whole of Bedfordshire into a gigantic mine. The Doctor gives zero fucks about ‘all this blab about Bedfordshire’ because it’s escape time.

The Daleks issue a final warning, telling the resistance that if they come and work for them, they get life. Obvious and chilling Nazi parallels are both obvious and chilling. (Also, has anyone ever listened to the Dalek Empire stories from Big Finish? Because it’s one of the few things I have from Big Finish and it’s brilliant, if only because a lot of it is about Dalek labour camps and resistance and collaboration and it’s dead interesting. I mean I only have I-III, but I would absolutely recommend.)

Back at Resistance HQ, the Rebels of London are listening and a random lady extra has hysterics. Dortmun starts waving his untested bomb around saying they’ll come out of hiding…WITH THIS, claiming it will shatter the Daleks’ casing. Instant hubbub! Though through it I see Jenny sternly asking how many they’ve got, being told by Tyler ‘we’ve got enough’, and retorting ‘well, I hope so’. Heart eyes. I do like Tyler, too, actually.

Jenny objects strongly to a frontal attack, and oh I’m glad the InfoText is on because I can confirm that I’m not imagining things and Dortmun is indeed modelled a bit on Churchill, because the rhetoric he cracks out about just needing one victory is distinctly Churchillian. He stands for good measure.

Jenny still isn’t drinking the Kool Aid and asks how they get close enough to the heliport to throw the bombs; Tyler says they have plenty of cover from buildings; some guy (Baker?) says the Daleks will start firing on them; Dortmun says it will be a SURPRISE attack; Baker says as soon as the first bomb is thrown the surprise will be over. And then—brace yourselves for gushing—BARBARA ROLLS HER EYES AND PIPES UP: they can get right into the middle of the Daleks if they disguise themselves as Robomen! (Which apparently was what they were already doing in an earlier script but bless whoever changed it.) Tyler beams at her and tells her it’ll work; Susan pops up behind her Space Mum and hugs her delightedly and oh I do love how in this serial everyone falls in love with Babs whenever she has a good idea. Because this is essentially what I do. Anyway, they attack in one hour! Hurrah!

Back in the cell, there’s a crystal box thing and a magnifying glass and some bars and essentially it’s the test the Daleks were talking about but the Doctor reckons it’s there so Daleks can get out if they’re locked in and they do a Sciency thing with some sort of electromagnetism and get out of the cell. I’m sorry I can’t go into more detail because it makes no sense but there is a cute bit where the Doctor asks Ian whether he did three-dimensional graph geometry at his school and Ian rather sheepishly says he only ever did Boyle’s Law and the Doctor makes a terrible Dad Joke about having to Boyle this down and giggles like he’s been the wittiest man in the universe and Ian grins and yeah the Space Bros are just too much. Oh and this happens:

Ian: You know, Doctor, sometimes you astound me.
Doctor: Only sometimes, dear boy? What's happened to your memory?

Oh and the Doctor rather proudly tells Craddock they managed to outwit the Daleks once before and tells him to go away.

They open the door with magnets. Which is educational.

The Doctor tells everyone to get out of here ‘and be crafty’…only to run right into a Dalek patrol. The Robomen take the Doctor off to be Robotised, and Ian and Craddock are shoved back into the cell.

Outside, Barbara, David, and Susan are lurking. According to the InfoText, Susan, who feels super involved with the insurgents’ struggle, asks to go with David without telling Barbara, who remains behind at the rebel base. Again, I am enormously thankful that they changed this, though I’m sad that we don’t get to see more of Susan actually feeling involved at this point, which would make her thing with David make more sense. And give her a properly satisfying character arc. Nevertheless, the badass bouffant is here, too, and I am very glad about that.

The Doctor is being dragged over to the Robotising machine or whatever it’s called. There’s a bit that, much like the bit where the Daleks very slowly surround that extra and kill him, makes me feel super uncomfortable where the Daleks instruct the Robomen to take the Doctor’s coat off him, which they do by force. Which is really horrible. Not only because it makes the Doctor seem really, really vulnerable but also because he stretches his hand out towards his coat in genuine anguish, which only bolsters my headcanon about Gallifreyans deriving their health from fabulous clothing (see Susan’s apparent allergy to squalor in The Reign of Terror). They manhandle him onto the operating table.

Outside the saucer, the fake Robomen are trying to blag their way past the Daleks and are almost immediately rumbled, but who cares, because now the fabulous Babs and Susan are lobbing bombs at the Daleks!

Oh and here’s some InfoText: apparently Jacqueline Hill got a bit too into it and bruised her knuckles on the window frame in this scene, which caused the BBC’s head of serials to write her a letter about ‘being a big brave girl’. I hope she knew him well and he was being funny, because otherwise that’s just patronising as hell. Also, one day I will do a master post on Jacqueline Hill v Sets, beginning with that time she broke the rockface in the spelunking section on Skaro.

God this scene must’ve been bedlam to film. There’s smoke and extras and bangs and people being exterminated and Daleks whizzing down ramps. They really went for broke on this serial what with this and all the location shooting and I bloody love it.

Having said that, the Daleks don’t seem enormously affected by the bombs. Maybe Dortmun should’ve, y’know, ACTUALLY TESTED THEM.

Tyler is now in the saucer, and looking for prisoners to rescue. Maybe he should start with the Doctor, WHO IS ABOUT TO BE ROBOTISED!

SHIT THE BED WILL THE DOCTOR BECOME A DALEK ZOMBIE? WILL IAN BE RESCUED? WILL SUSAN AND DAVID STOP BEING DICKS AND PUT BARBARA IN THE LOOP? WHERE IS JENNY IN THIS FIGHT? AND WILL SUSAN'S NEWFOUND BADASSERY BE ALLOWED TO CONTINUE?

Summary (as applicable to this episode)

Does it pass the Bechdel test? With flying colours.

Is the gaze problematic? Nope.

Is/are the woman companion(s) dressed 'for the Dads'? Nope.

Save the girl or save the world? Whose decision is it? N/A.

Does a woman fall over/twist her ankle (whilst running from peril)? Nope. Though Susan's ankle is still twisted. However, it recovers in time for her to go out to fight the Daleks.

Does a woman wander off alone for the sole dramatic purpose of getting into trouble so she can be rescued later? Nope.

Is/are the woman companion(s) captured? Nope. The Doctor and Ian are captured this week.

Does the Doctor/a man companion/any other man have to rescue the woman companion(s) from peril? Nope, it's the Space Bros who need rescuing this week.

Is a woman placed under threat of actual bodily harm? Apart from that extra, no, though Babs and Susan are in the middle of a guerrilla battle.

Does a woman have to deal with a sexual predator? Nope.

Is/are the woman companion's/s' first/only reaction(s) to peril gratuitous screaming? No.

Does a woman faint at the sight of peril/horror or generally lose consciousness (discounting normal sleep)? Nope.

Does a woman companion go into hysterics over something reasonably minor? No.

Is a woman 'spared' the ordeal of having to do/witness something unpleasant by a man who makes a decision on her behalf/keeps her deliberately ignorant? YES. And Susan is complicit, which infuriates me. Why on Earth didn't they tell Barbara that Ian and the Doctor were at the heliport? What did they think she was going to do? Have a fit of the vapours and find herself incapable of bowling overarm?

Does a woman suffer in silence (to further the plot)? Nope.

Does a man automatically disbelieve or belittle something a woman (companion) says happened to her? No.

Does a man talk over a woman or talk about a woman as though she isn't there? No, and when David tries to blank Jenny she lets him know about it.

Does the woman companion have to be calmed/comforted by the Doctor/a man companion/a man? Nope.

Is a woman the first/only person to be (most gratuitously) menaced by the episode's antagonist(s)? Nope. That would be the Doctor himself.

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? YES. The Roboman disguise plan.

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

Does a woman come up with a theory and is it ridiculed by the Doctor/a man? No.

Does a woman call the Doctor out on his bullshit? N/A.

Does a woman get to be a badass? Yes indeed. Both Barbara and Susan get to throw bombs at Daleks.

Is the young, strong, straight, white male lead the person most often in control of the situation? Nope. 

Is there past/future/alien sexism? There is still this idea that women are mostly responsible for food and first aid, even though Barbara and Susan (and later Jenny, as we shall see) go on the attack.

Does a 'present'-day character call anybody out on past/future/alien sexism? Jenny responds to David's criticism of her lack of attractive feminine qualities (charm and patience) by calling him a sentimental time-waster.

Does an past/future/alien person have the hots for a woman companion and is it reciprocated? David and Susan no longer violently dislike each other, but I wouldn't call it the hots just yet.

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

Verdict

A good week for the women, who get stuck in with the rebellion. We also get to meet Jenny, who is one of my favourite side characters of all time...possibly because she gets a Doctor-style character development arc in the space of one serial. Also, isn't it nice when you have more than one speaking role for a woman over thirty and they get to interact? So that here you get to see two different reactions to having been catapulted into a crazy way of living from two different human women? So that you are allowed to enjoy their strengths and flaws as people rather than constantly having to analyse said strengths and flaws in terms of their being the single onscreen representative of adult womanhood? I warmed to David a little more this week (if only because he referred to the two women as women rather than girls and remembered his p's and q's) but he also infuriated me with his mansplaining and his inexplicable wish to keep Babs in the dark. I also feel like they could have given Susan the character development that comes with actively asking to go on the mission and kept it so that Barbara also went along, as some of Susan seemed to get lost in the cut. The Space Bros continue to be Science Dorks, which I love, and the Daleks were actually pretty chilling this week. Also Dalek manoeuvres. I love Dalek manoeuvres. Next week, RUNNING AROUND LONDON WITH DALEKS.