12x4. Genesis of the Daleks
Writer: Terry Nation
Director: David Maloney
Script Editor: Robert Holmes
Producer: Philip Hinchcliffe
Synopsis: The Time Lords
intercept the transmat beam from Earth, redirecting the Doctor, Sarah,
and Harry to Skaro in the time of the Daleks' initial creation, and
charge them with preventing the Daleks from emerging as a threat,
either by destroying them outright or otherwise tampering with their
development. The trio quickly find themselves in the middle of a war
between the Thals and the Kaleds (the Daleks' ancestors), while Davros,
the Daleks' creator, seeks to manipulate the situation for his own
purposes.
Review: I always approach the
renowned Doctor Who
"classics" with a certain trepidation. Normally I sit down simply
hoping for an interesting story, but with a serial like "Genesis of the
Daleks," I'm inevitably forced to ask if it lives up to all the hype
and thus risk setting myself up for disappointment. Fortunately,
"Genesis of the Daleks" is, for the most part, Really That Good, though
there are ways in which the nuts and bolts of the narrative might
have been improved.
It seems to be a matter of routine to snicker at Doctor Who for subpar production
values, but the series' limitations are barely noticeable in "Genesis
of the Daleks." This is the closest the series has come to doing a war
movie since, well, "The War Games," and the landscape and interiors are
appropriately bleak and drained of color. This is a convincing portrait
of two societies strained to the breaking point by war -- as the Doctor
observes, they have reverted to primitive technologies in some areas
simply because they can no longer manufacture more sophisticated
products -- and in that sense it returns to the themes of the Daleks'
very first appearance. It is easy to see how the Thals may have become
pacifists out of revulsion at their own moral lapses (here we find them
using prisoners and genetically abnormal "mutos" as slave labor,
exposing them to lethal toxins in the process), while the Daleks' later
unchecked aggression is both part of their nature as designed by Davros
and a result of the Kaleds' remaining voices of conscience being wiped
out. And while it's hard to separate this from the fact
that I'd seen the serial before, I can't help but think that the gloomy
tone of "Genesis of the Daleks" was meant to foreshadow that the Doctor
would not be successful at stopping the Daleks altogether. The scene in
the dark cave where Davros conducts the first Dalek weapons test is
particularly striking, effectively conveying the sense that something
profoundly evil with long-lasting consequences is taking place.
One particularly disturbing aspect of "Genesis of the Daleks" is that
most of the characters do not seem like inherently bad people; rather,
they seem like average people who have done a lot of bad things. The
Thals' treatment of their prisoners may have been deplorable, but their
leader is quick to decide on a general amnesty once the war appears to
be over, and although there is a certain institutional racism in Kaled
society, the fact that many of their scientists object to Davros'
experiments shows that they have not lost their moral compass
altogether. Kaled society also reflects the way that wartime propaganda
and secrecy can get out of control: those who espouse a racial
supremacist ideology genuinely seem to believe it, and meanwhile
Davros' scientific operation has become accountable to no one and is no
longer acting in the Kaleds' best interests (Davros, after all,
facilitates the destruction of the Kaled city when his Dalek project is
threatened by the leadership). Characters like Nyder, who is
sufficiently cynical that he delivers a pointed and on-target
denunciation of Davros as a megalomaniac in order to flush out the real
dissidents, aptly illustrate how this sort of totalitarianism is
possible.
I said in my review of "The Ark in Space" that I wasn't always sure if
the script completely understood the issues that it was raising. No
such thing can be said of "Genesis of the Daleks," which is pretty
frank in acknowledging that sometimes such virtues as a strong
conscience and a sense of empathy can, in fact, hinder one's capacity
for survival. The Doctor, for example, is coerced into "betraying the
future" (as he himself puts it) and revealing how the Daleks would
eventually suffer defeats because he can't stand to see Sarah and Harry
tortured. (Granted, this may not threaten the Doctor's own survival,
but it threatens that of the many innocents whom he would eventually
save from the Daleks, most of whom probably would have also buckled in
a similar situation.) And though we recoil morally at Davros'
insistence that survival can only be assured through domination, it's
hard not to acknowledge that he may be right in some circumstances.
After all, the story ends with almost everyone placed their hopes in an
end to the violence and the Daleks still alive. The Kaled scientist who
insists that "our race will survive if it deserves -- we cannot allow
it to become heartless and unfeeling" turns out to be only half-right:
the Kaleds rebel against the Dalek project, but they almost all wind up
dead. And yet, the script does not embrace Davros' moral nihilism,
instead taking the stance that sometimes you have to do the right thing
even if it has no material benefit and could actually get you killed.
If you think about it, this is actually the strongest possible
rejection of Davros' point of view -- the fact that the Daleks turn
against him at the end is almost beside the point, because he'd have
been wrong even if they hadn't.
At the same time, Terry Nation's script recognizes that it's not always
easy to draw the line in individual situations, and in doing so he
delivers the most thorough exploration of the new Doctor that we've had
thus far. I've noted previously that this Doctor seems less outwardly
hesitant about using force than his predecessor, but "Genesis" gives us
a pretty good look at his internal ethics and even his doubts regarding
this question. The "Do I have the right?" scene is perhaps what
"Genesis" is best remembered for, and though the Doctor's hesitation is
arguably somewhat muddled, it's also perfectly plausible that he'd be
conflicted for more than one reason -- the hesitancy to commit
genocide, the fact that the nascent Daleks haven't yet evolved into a
galactic force of destruction, and the alliances that
their future aggression would necessitate all seem to be weighing on
his mind.
It's partly the whole "Would you kill Hitler in his crib?" debate, but
it's also the Doctor's larger perspective coming into play. What's just
as fascinating to me, however, is the scene in which the Doctor tries,
even after Sarah and Harry have been tortured, to convince Davros to
make the Daleks into a force for good instead, leading to him posing
the hypothetical question of whether Davros would invent a virus
capable of wiping out all life in the universe if he could. It's only
after Davros answers that he would, confirming to the Doctor that he's
beyond reason or conscience, that the Doctor threatens
his life to try to coerce him into stopping the Dalek project. Though
he has a somewhat aloof manner and doesn't lay everything on the table
like Pertwee's Doctor, Baker's version of the character is just as
reluctant to use violence to solve a problem when an alternative is
possible.
I don't hold the sort of outright hostility towards Terry Nation found
in some corners of Doctor Who
fandom, but at the same time I recognize that there are certain
clichés that tend to spring up in his writing and can sometimes
be annoying, and unfortunately some of them are present in "Genesis of
the Daleks." First and foremost is the infamous "capture and escape"
formula, which occurs several times and lends a certain sameness to the
sequences in between the more compelling dramatic scenes. Later there's
a chase scene in Episode 2 premised around Sarah's and the Mutos' need
to escape radiation poisoning (another Nation cliché), but
nobody actually seems to suffer from it when they're recaptured and
presumably exposed again, and there's a brief appearance by a monster
deformed by radiation (echoing the incredibly lame "Slyther" from "The
Dalek Invasion of Earth") that doesn't add much to the story. There are
also other instances where the logic doesn't hold up: for all the
legitimate drama of the "Do I have the right?" scene, its effect is
somewhat muted by the fact that a Dalek later sets off the bomb by
accident and presumably destroys most if not all of the nascent Daleks
in the birth chamber (though it's deliberately left unclear how much
effect all this has on the Daleks' future development). In a way,
"Genesis" reminded me a bit of "Planet of the Spiders" with its mix of
some excellent scenes and interesting characters, backed up by some
flimsy plotting (though, to be fair, it's not as sloppy as "Planet of
the Spiders").
Is "Genesis of the Daleks" the best Doctor
Who serial ever, as it has been voted by some surveys of fandom?
I'd have to say no, though again it's possible that I was just let down
by overblown expectations. But it's certainly the best for the Fourth
Doctor so far and the best preserved Dalek serial since "Invasion of
Earth," and it deserves its status as a classic.
Rating: ***1/2 (out of four)
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