Revelation of the Daleks
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| 143 – Revelation of the Daleks | |
|---|---|
| Doctor Who serial | |
 The fake Davros and one of Davros's new Daleks |
|
| Cast | |
| Doctor | Colin Baker (Sixth Doctor) |
| Companion | Nicola Bryant (Peri Brown) |
| Production | |
| Writer | Eric Saward |
| Director | Graeme Harper |
| Script editor | Eric Saward |
| Producer | John Nathan-Turner |
| Executive producer(s) | None |
| Production code | 6Z |
| Series | Season 22 |
| Length | 2 episodes, 45 mins each |
| Originally broadcast | March 23–March 30, 1985 |
| Chronology | |
| ← Preceded by | Followed by → |
| Timelash | The Trial of a Time Lord: The Mysterious Planet |
Revelation of the Daleks is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in two weekly parts on March 23rd and March 30th 1985. This was the final serial of the original series to be broadcast in 45-minute episodes; this format would return 20 years later when the series resumed in 2005.
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
The Sixth Doctor and Peri encounter the Daleks on the planet Necros, where the mercenary Orcini is on a mission to kill Davros.
[edit] Plot
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The TARDIS lands on Necros, the location of the funeral home and suspended animation centre Tranquil Repose. The Sixth Doctor and Peri have come to visit a deceased scientist acquaintance. On the way, the Doctor points out great numbers of flowers that are similar to the soybean in terms of food versatility. The Doctor is attacked by a mutant, and Peri is forced to kill him to save the Doctor. Before he dies, the mutant tells the Doctor that the Great Healer used him as a genetic experiment and his appearance and hostility were a direct result of the experiments.
At Tranquil Repose, a disc jockey plays songs and chats as a form of entertainment to those who are in suspended animation. He notes privately cures for some were invented long ago.
A couple, Natasha and Grigory, have illegally entered Tranquil Repose, also looking for the man the Doctor is visiting — Arthur Stengos, Natasha's father. Upon finding his assigned suspended animation capsule, they discover it is empty. Shocked, they continue looking and head downward. They find a dark room filled with pulsating brains and other experiments. Grigory walks past a glass Dalek casing with a mutating red creature inside it. It opens its eye, and Grigory comments on how gruesome the thing is. When Natasha looks at it, the creature opens its mouth and starts saying "Na.. tasha? Natasha?" Natasha is shocked as she realises it is the head of her father, and he is being metamorphosed into a Dalek.
Kara, who owns a company that distributes food throughout the galaxy (though one of many), is a pawn of the Great Healer, who is in actuality Davros (now apparently reduced to a disembodied head in a tank as a result of being infected by the Movellan virus). Davros contacts Kara demanding more money for his research. He created the product manufactured by Kara's factories and already takes virtually all the profit she makes. To dissolve this arrangement, Kara has hired the mercenary Orcini and his squire, Bostock. She provides a transmitter to Orcini which has a five-button passcode. This must be entered when Orcini enters Davros's headquarters. Orcini accepts the contract solely for the honour of killing Davros. With Davros eliminated, she believes she will have the power and the capital necessary to control the galaxy's food supply.
Arthur Stengos, who is now just a head with red flesh growing over him, explains to Natasha and Grigory that the brains of everybody in Tranquil Repose are to be metamorphosed into new Dalek mutants. He says that his mind has been conditioned to serve 'The Great Healer', but he can't remember who 'The Great Healer' actually is. As a last request, he orders his daughter to kill him before he fully mutates. As she hesitates, Grigory pulls up his own gun to do it, but Natasha stops him and shoots her father herself. The two are then captured, thrown in a cell, and questioned by Takis and Lilt, who try rum on Grigory as a truth serum.
The Doctor and Peri arrive and are greeted by Tasambeker. Intrigued by the DJ's recordings, Peri wants to meet him and the Doctor urges her to do so, despite having Jobel as a companion. The Doctor wants to see the person who erected a statue dedicated to his passing and the Doctor suspects trouble.
Orcini destroys a Dalek and Davros is notified. He is convinced Kara has sent assassins, so he deploys some Daleks to bring her to him. They arrive, kill her secretary, and take her back.
Peri departs, and the Daleks capture the Doctor. He is thrown into a cell with the Natasha and Grigory who are soon rescued by Orcini as scapegoats. Orcini penetrates Davros's lair, and he and Bostock empty their guns into Davros' life-support system. Davros appears to be killed by the ensuing explosion, but Orcini realises that the kill was too easy. Sure enough, the real Davros - who in fact survived the virus unscathed - appears with a group of Daleks. Orcini and Bostock try to shoot their way out, but the two are quickly subdued, with one of Orcini's legs being blown off in the process. Kara is brought in and he betrays her motives to Davros. Shocked, Kara states that they are both dead. Orcini responds "You before me," and kills her for her betrayal — the "transmitter" was actually a bomb.
Natasha and Grigory infiltrate the incubator room yet again, and plan to destroy the brains that are scheduled for metamorphosis. When Natasha tries to fire her gun, it dies due to lack of power. Grigory reckons there's a self-destruct switch on the brain incubator console. He presses some buttons, but stops as Natasha spots a glass Dalek incubator materialise, and she cries "There's another Dalek!"
The Doctor, via communicator, warns Peri to get back to the TARDIS and hail the President's ship which is enroute for the internment of the body of the deceased First Lady. The DJ persuades Peri to use his equipment. Overhearing the transmission, Davros orders the DJ killed and Peri captured. The DJ produces a sonar weapon which blows up two Daleks as they enter his room, but is killed when a third Dalek enters. Peri is captured. The Doctor overhears the events via broadcast audio and rushes to save her but is caught by two Daleks en route. Both meet back in Davros' laboratory where he reveals that he has a new army of Daleks, hidden in catacombs somewhere underneath his laboratory.
Natasha and Grigory plan to escape the incubator room before the Dalek fully grows. They make their way to the door, but Natasha turns around and notices that the glass Dalek has disappeared. The two look up to spot a Dalek machine hovering high above the ground towards them. The two try to open the door, but the flying Dalek exterminates them before self destructing.
Daleks not loyal to Davros arrive from Skaro, called by Takis, who now realise what has been going on. The Skaro Daleks demand to be taken to Davros. Takis leads the way, and shortly some of Davros's Daleks appear and the two factions engage in battle. The Skaro Daleks win and progress toward Davros.
Davros is shocked when the Skaro Daleks enter the room and tries to persuade them that it is the Doctor who should be captured. However, the Skaro Daleks do not recognize the Doctor due to his regeneration. They take Davros back to Skaro to be executed for crimes committed against the Daleks. Upon learning of what Davros had established on Necros, the Skaro forces decide to continue what he began and control the galaxy's demand for famine releif.
Orcini wants to detonate the bomb before Davros's ship leaves - he hesitates and allows all to leave because of the Doctor. The Doctor wants to create a timer, but Orcini claims there is no time. They all rush out and Orcini blows the bomb after hugging the body of Bostock, who was exterminated by a Dalek a few minutes ago. The Doctor states that Orcini did die for something very honourable: the destruction of Davros's new generation of Daleks.
Peri wants a vacation, so the Doctor agrees: "All right, I'll take you to --"
[edit] Cast
- The Doctor — Colin Baker
- Peri — Nicola Bryant
- Davros — Terry Molloy
- Kara — Eleanor Bron
- Vogel — Hugh Walters
- Jobel — Clive Swift
- Tasambeker — Jenny Tomasin
- Takis — Trevor Cooper
- Lilt — Colin Spaull
- DJ — Alexei Sayle
- Orcini — William Gaunt
- Bostock — John Ogwen
- Grigory — Stephen Flynn
- Natasha — Bridget Lynch-Blosse
- Stengos — Alec Linstead
- Computer Voice — Penelope Lee
- Daleks — John Scott Martin, Cy Town, Tony Starr, Toby Byrne
- Dalek Voices — Royce Mills, Roy Skelton
- Mutant — Ken Barker
[edit] Cast notes
- Colin Spaull, who plays Lilt in this story, also appeared in "Rise of the Cybermen" and "The Age of Steel" as Mr Crane.
- Clive Swift, who plays Jobel in this story, appears as Mr Copper in "Voyage of the Damned"[1].
- Guest stars in this serial are William Gaunt, Eleanor Bron (who had previously appeared in the Fourth Doctor story City of Death) and Alexei Sayle. See also Celebrity appearances in Doctor Who.
[edit] Continuity
- For the first time, Davros and the Daleks are seen to hover some distance above ground. In the transmitted version, the camera angles chosen didn't make it entirely clear that the Dalek was flying (some fans commenting that it looked more like the Dalek was giant-sized), so the sequence was remade for the DVD release of the story.
- It is never explained how Davros survived the Movellan virus which he contracted at the end of Resurrection of the Daleks. Although Davros says that he managed to escape the Dalek ship via an escape pod, no mention is made of his condition. The Big Finish Productions audio adventure Davros portrays another encounter between the Sixth Doctor and Davros set between Resurrection and Revelation, which goes some way to explain the inconsistencies between the two serials. However, the canonicity of the audio plays is unclear. In particular, the Sixth Doctor insists in Revelation that this is their first meeting since Resurrection.
- The Doctor indicates he is 900 years old; this is the first firm indicator of his age since the Fourth Doctor's era, suggesting that approximately 250 years has passed for the Doctor since that time. In "Aliens of London", the Ninth Doctor would also claim to be 900 years old, despite the Seventh Doctor in the interim claiming an age of 953 in Time and the Rani, followed by the entire lifetime of both the Seventh and Eighth Doctors. The Tenth Doctor is also proclaimed as 900 years old in Last of the Time Lords, and 903 in Voyage of the Damned. See "The Doctor's age".
- In one of the rare instances of the Doctor actually using a firearm, he disables a Dalek by shooting it with a machine pistol.
- The Doctor's final word is edited out; he would have said "Blackpool", as the planned story The Nightmare Fair was to be set there. This would have been the first story of the next series, and would have been written by former producer Graham Williams. However, the programme was then put on an 18-month hiatus. The Nightmare Fair was later novelised by Williams for release by Target Books. Coincidentally, the official Doctor Who Exhibition Centre now resides along the Golden Mile in Blackpool; oddly enough, this same exhibition centre was advertised in one of the original continuity announcements following the end of the second part of the story (and thus only a few minutes after the unfinished line itself), as can be seen in one of the special features on the DVD release.
[edit] Production
- Upon translation into German, this story was renamed Planet der Toten (Planet of the Dead)[1].
- The story was inspired by novelist Evelyn Waugh's The Loved One, about a mortician and a girl with whom he falls in love.[2].
- The majority of this story was written while Eric Saward was on holiday on the island of Rhodes; and many of the names (such as Lilt and Orcini) come from places, products and people he encountered there [2].
- This story was director Graeme Harper's second Doctor Who story, (the first being the Fifth Doctor story The Caves of Androzani). He has also directed four episodes from the 2006 series ("Rise of the Cybermen", "The Age of Steel", "Army of Ghosts" and "Doomsday") and two from the 2007 series ("42" and "Utopia").
- Portions of the story were filmed at the IBM UK headquarters in Cosham, Portsmouth [2]
- Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant appear entirely on film in Part One and have no interaction with the actors portrayed in the video segments.
- Eric Saward thought up the idea of blue 'mourning' suits for Necros in order to cover up Colin Baker's costume, which he considered inappropriate for a drama series, for as long as possible.
- This was the final serial to use Peter Howell's arrangement of the "Doctor Who Theme" that had been introduced in 1980.
- This was the final Doctor Who serial to be produced using film for outdoor sequences and video for interior scenes. Beginning with The Trial of a Time Lord and continuing to the end of the original series, production moved to all-video.
- Following the broadcast of this serial, the BBC suspended work on the series for 18 months; production resumed a year later with the next new episode airing in September 1986.
[edit] In print
This is one of five Doctor Who serials that were never novelised by Target Books, as they were unable to come to an agreement with Eric Saward and Daleks creator Terry Nation that would have allowed Saward or another writer to adapt the script. Virgin Books (the successor to Target) did announce plans to publish a novelisation by Saward in the early 1990s, but this ultimately did not occur. A fan group in New Zealand published an unofficial novelisation of the story in 1992, later republishing it online as an eBook titled Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks.
[edit] Broadcast, VHS and DVD releases
- This story was released in 1999 on VHS and again in 2000 as part of a box set.
- The story was released on Region 2 DVD on 11th July 2005. The DVD release included the documentary Revelation Exhumed, produced by John Kelly and featuring interviews with Eric Saward, Graeme Harper, Alan Spalding, John Brace (Visual Effects), Roger Limb, Pat Godfrey (costumer designer), plus cast members Trevor Cooper, Clive Swift, Roy Skelton, Terry Molloy, William Gaunt, Hugh Walters and Colin Spaull.
- The DVD also includes a commentary with Eric Saward, Nicola Bryant, Terry Molloy and Graeme Harper & an option to view the story with CGI enhanced special effects sequences. Its available as a stand alone DVD or as part of the Davros box set also featuring Genesis of the Daleks, Destiny of the Daleks, Resurrection of the Daleks and Remembrance of the Daleks.
[edit] References
- ^ "Bucket now for Edinburgh treat", Jewish Telegraph, 2007-07-06. Retrieved on 2006-07-07.
- ^ a b c Revelation of the Daleks at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
[edit] External links
- Revelation of the Daleks at bbc.co.uk
- Revelation of the Daleks at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
- Revelation of the Daleks at Outpost Gallifrey
- Watch: Terry Molloy shares memories of Revelation Of The Daleks
[edit] Reviews
- Revelation of the Daleks reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
- Revelation of the Daleks reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
[edit] Fan novelisation
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