We are sometimes told that the Time Lords have a strict law forbidding them from interfering in the affairs of other planets, and the Doctor has at times found himself in trouble with his own race for breaking this law. So what are we to make of "Genesis of the Daleks" in which the Doctor is ordered by the Time Lords to travel back in time to prevent the creation of the Daleks? It would appear that the supposed "law" can be broken with impunity if the scriptwriter feels that to do so would make for a more interesting storyline.
In the "The Daleks", the second-ever "Doctor Who" serial, we learned that the planet Skaro was in the distant past devastated by a nuclear and chemical war between the Thals and the ancestors of the Daleks. In this serial we learn something of that war and of how it ended. It is often said that writer Terry Nation intentionally modelled the Daleks on the Nazis, and this serial makes the analogy more explicit. At this period the Kaleds, the predecessors of the Daleks, were still a humanoid race, ruled by a fascist dictatorship. (You can tell they're fascists because they wear black uniforms, give open-hand salutes and are obsessed with racial purity). They have an obsessive hatred of the Thals, from whom they are visually indistinguishable. Not that the Thals, at this point in history, were any less fanatical and ruthless than the Kaleds. (The Thals' olive-green uniforms may have been intended to suggest Stalin's Russia).
The Daleks may have been Nation's creation, but in the context of the series they were invented by an evil Kaled scientist named Davros who wanted to create a protective armour and travelling vehicle for what he believed the Kaleds would eventually evolve into. (This scenario does not make much sense scientifically; one cannot predict the future course of evolution unless one can predict what environmental conditions will be on the planet over a timeline of millions of years, and the idea of evolution producing a creature so maladapted to its environment that it needs a protective suit in order to survive makes no sense at all). Nation was not, however, the first sci-fi writer to play around with the concept of evolution for entertainment purposes. The basic idea of the Daleks is supported by the Kaled elite, but Davros also intends his creations to be totally devoid of pity, compassion or morality. This is too much for even a bunch of fascist dictators to stomach, and some of the leading Kaleds are therefore willing to cooperate with the Doctor against Davros.
This serial formed part of the programme's twelfth season and the Doctor therefore has, in addition to his regular female companion Sarah Jane Smith, a male one, Harry Sullivan, who only appeared in this season and the first serial of the thirteenth. It appears that the Fourth Doctor was originally envisaged as an elderly man similar to William Hartnell's First, so it was felt a younger man would be needed to handle the action sequences, but when the relatively youthful Tom Baker was cast Ian Marter was left with little to do.
"Doctor Who" adventures normally end with the Doctor triumphing over his enemies and foiling their schemes; even if he sacrifices his own life to do so we know that he will be reincarnated in a new body. Here, however, his mission ends in failure, as we have known from the beginning that it would. If he had succeeded in preventing the birth of the Daleks, this would have made nonsense of all those earlier serials in which they appear, and it would have prevented the BBC from using his most iconic adversaries in future episodes. Moreover, the Doctor is not so much defeated by the power of the Daleks or by the cunning of Davros; he is defeated by his own moral weakness when he fails to take an opportunity to destroy the entire Dalek race once and for all.
Alternatively, it could be argued that the Doctor is defeated by his own moral strength rather than weakness. By refusing this opportunity he shows that he is himself capable of mercy and pity and is not prepared to descend to the same moral level as his enemies. The Doctor is, of course, quite prepared to kill individual Daleks if necessary in self- defence, but in his view genocide, even if committed in what could be regarded as self-defence, is qualitatively, not merely quantitatively, different from killing. It seems to me that Nation was deliberately introducing an element of moral ambiguity into "Genesis of the Daleks"; do we applaud the Doctor for his act of mercy; or do we simply regard him as a "catastrophically incompetent secret agent", as one reviewer described him? I suspect that every viewer will have his or her own answer to this question.
The serial does not address some of the paradoxes of time travel, such as "what would happen if the Doctor's actions in the past give rise to a future in which he does not exist?", or even "why didn't the Time Lords, once they realised the Doctor had failed, send another, more ruthless, agent back to destroy the Daleks?" Nation's readiness to explore moral issues, however, combined with some excellent dialogue and the skillful use of cliff-hangers to create an exciting story, make "Genesis of the Daleks" one of the most memorable "Doctor Who" serials.
In the "The Daleks", the second-ever "Doctor Who" serial, we learned that the planet Skaro was in the distant past devastated by a nuclear and chemical war between the Thals and the ancestors of the Daleks. In this serial we learn something of that war and of how it ended. It is often said that writer Terry Nation intentionally modelled the Daleks on the Nazis, and this serial makes the analogy more explicit. At this period the Kaleds, the predecessors of the Daleks, were still a humanoid race, ruled by a fascist dictatorship. (You can tell they're fascists because they wear black uniforms, give open-hand salutes and are obsessed with racial purity). They have an obsessive hatred of the Thals, from whom they are visually indistinguishable. Not that the Thals, at this point in history, were any less fanatical and ruthless than the Kaleds. (The Thals' olive-green uniforms may have been intended to suggest Stalin's Russia).
The Daleks may have been Nation's creation, but in the context of the series they were invented by an evil Kaled scientist named Davros who wanted to create a protective armour and travelling vehicle for what he believed the Kaleds would eventually evolve into. (This scenario does not make much sense scientifically; one cannot predict the future course of evolution unless one can predict what environmental conditions will be on the planet over a timeline of millions of years, and the idea of evolution producing a creature so maladapted to its environment that it needs a protective suit in order to survive makes no sense at all). Nation was not, however, the first sci-fi writer to play around with the concept of evolution for entertainment purposes. The basic idea of the Daleks is supported by the Kaled elite, but Davros also intends his creations to be totally devoid of pity, compassion or morality. This is too much for even a bunch of fascist dictators to stomach, and some of the leading Kaleds are therefore willing to cooperate with the Doctor against Davros.
This serial formed part of the programme's twelfth season and the Doctor therefore has, in addition to his regular female companion Sarah Jane Smith, a male one, Harry Sullivan, who only appeared in this season and the first serial of the thirteenth. It appears that the Fourth Doctor was originally envisaged as an elderly man similar to William Hartnell's First, so it was felt a younger man would be needed to handle the action sequences, but when the relatively youthful Tom Baker was cast Ian Marter was left with little to do.
"Doctor Who" adventures normally end with the Doctor triumphing over his enemies and foiling their schemes; even if he sacrifices his own life to do so we know that he will be reincarnated in a new body. Here, however, his mission ends in failure, as we have known from the beginning that it would. If he had succeeded in preventing the birth of the Daleks, this would have made nonsense of all those earlier serials in which they appear, and it would have prevented the BBC from using his most iconic adversaries in future episodes. Moreover, the Doctor is not so much defeated by the power of the Daleks or by the cunning of Davros; he is defeated by his own moral weakness when he fails to take an opportunity to destroy the entire Dalek race once and for all.
Alternatively, it could be argued that the Doctor is defeated by his own moral strength rather than weakness. By refusing this opportunity he shows that he is himself capable of mercy and pity and is not prepared to descend to the same moral level as his enemies. The Doctor is, of course, quite prepared to kill individual Daleks if necessary in self- defence, but in his view genocide, even if committed in what could be regarded as self-defence, is qualitatively, not merely quantitatively, different from killing. It seems to me that Nation was deliberately introducing an element of moral ambiguity into "Genesis of the Daleks"; do we applaud the Doctor for his act of mercy; or do we simply regard him as a "catastrophically incompetent secret agent", as one reviewer described him? I suspect that every viewer will have his or her own answer to this question.
The serial does not address some of the paradoxes of time travel, such as "what would happen if the Doctor's actions in the past give rise to a future in which he does not exist?", or even "why didn't the Time Lords, once they realised the Doctor had failed, send another, more ruthless, agent back to destroy the Daleks?" Nation's readiness to explore moral issues, however, combined with some excellent dialogue and the skillful use of cliff-hangers to create an exciting story, make "Genesis of the Daleks" one of the most memorable "Doctor Who" serials.