This story was so exciting and horrific to me as a kid and it was one of my absolute favourites for years. While I still think it's very enjoyable and good horror fun, today I can't help but now see how messy it all is.
Mainly from the main plot and it's tons of sub plots. While they are enjoyable if you really think about them alot don't work or even contradict itself. The Daleks plan to capture Davros and have him help cure the Movellan virus that's killing them. They swarm and attack the prison ship he's on and slowly kill everyone on board. It's incredibly creepy with the scenes of the gas causing a deformation of people's faces and we spend along time with a group of surviving crew who plan to destroy the base but the Dalek troopers get to them. It's sad and horrific however there moments of dialogue that mess with it, alot of these crew are young and inexperienced and while I agree it adds a horror to there society to make young people do these nasty jobs. But having young inexperienced crew on a prison ship holding Davros was bound to fail. It also really doesn't make sense that the Daleks wait so long to just blow up the base once they have Davros after part 2.
Davros here is played by Terry Molly and I do utterly love him, he has a great balance of creepy calm voice and high rages. Here he doesn't trust the Daleks and I really liked the little subtext of him warning them that he won't be easily killed. He then starts to possess people to make a little army and to eventually make two Daleks follow his orders. It makes sense to do this the quickest way possible to let all the other stuff happen, but considering how cleverly manipulative Davros can be I thought it was rather lazy to have him stick a needle in people. I'd love that false hope/lies that he tells/talks about to trick people into following him.
The Daleks have multiple plots here after Davros, they also slowly replace humans with Dalek puppets on earth for an invasion and trick/trapped the Dr to come here and help out Stien who's a secret agent. Now I love when the Daleks lure and trick the Dr and here it could of worked very well to use an innocent person as bait. However we spent too long with him acting like a good person when there are many opportunities to start playing with the audience to make us start thinking what if. But he just randomly becomes an agent when the story needs him to be. I personally think this way is lazy. It doesn't allow the actor to really work on it either and only have to make two characters and it's a shock Reveal nothing more. But even the shock doesn't work. But the main problems with this side Dalek plot is that by them tricking/involving the Dr cause there own downfall. If they didn't, the Dr wouldn't have even known about it.
There's alot of plot holes and things that just don't work here too. The story opens with a great cold mass killing of people by the undercover police, however were subtly told they escaped from the Dalek ship, so does this mean that Stien helped them? Because why would he need to runaway or run with a group. Surely the Daleks would start thinking he's breaking down. I understand it's not as exciting to have him wonder out and nod to the police and then lay on the floor waiting for the Dr to arrive. The opening is one of the many reasons why the violence (although shocking/cool) doesn't have a justification for it. It's just there to shock you. We see this later on with the female army nurse who for some stupid reason doesn't run away with Tegan and is killed. This woman was supposed to be one of the main reasons Tegan eventually leaves. But the two have no moments together that reveal more about her or make you feel for her. She just sits there and asks you ok?. Then the old man fishing is shot. It's the perfect example of doing pointless death for no reason. Why would they kill him? Witness? Well there was also about 5 boats who just saw you do it too. I love horror/death to doctor who and sometimes (like the Daleks) random people are there to be killed however Eric Saward tries make you feel there important to the plot when there not, its just to shock you. It's the equivalent of a cheap jump scare in a horror movie.
Theres others too like why are the Daleks taking back the bodies? There's never a reveal to that. I assume it's for making replicas but a reveal would of been nice or even better mention how the bodies will be used to make new Dalek mutants. There's also the case of the virus. It make sense in a way to put them on earth however what if earths people found out about this, your invasion would be pointless and why would they carry this in there ship. It's creates a dilemma in the story. Even towards the end it's quite annoying how the Daleks want Davros to find a cure and yet plan to kill him before even getting a cure. There is some good things, mainly Peter Davison. For me he's the saving grace with Davros. His Dr is often quite serious/smiles every now and then, but for this story you just feel instantly the drs hate, worry and slight fear about the Daleks. Part 1s cliffhanger as he looks at the screen as the Dalek screams is brilliant. He adds subtext when there is non. You feel like he's had a bloody enough with these gits. I really like the 5th drs final season/arc of him trying to save the day but fails, we see this in the beginning with "Warriors of the deep" and eventually in The caves of Androzani". He's the dr who can't catch a break, he cant make peace. This results in an incredible well performed scene by Davison and Terry Molloy when the dr plans to kill Davros. You really see the struggle of this dr as he tries to force himself to do it. Of course Davros tries to manipulates him and even teases him about his lack of courage to press the button. But while door fears pushing the trigger, Davros fears the death, which the Dr does not as he would save anyone if he can. It's creates a great relationship between them.
However sadly because of the script it doesn't feel justified. It works in the context of season 21 but there's no build up to this. You could say the death count here is why he does it, but he actually doesn't see much of it. It needed to be an arc of him contemplating what to do. Instead of Turlough seeing the dead bodies in the ship, the dr does. But well done to Peter here as he actually tried to add some build up here. Often times in this story he gets a gun but he doesn't use it, in fact he eventually gives it to the nurse in a slightly disgusting look and even looks at it alot in some scenes, this is a nice set up for that scene even though it's not focused on or built up on. I really loved Davros here in this scene. He actually does try to change the daleks by adding emotions to them but only as a way to use emotions to defeat there enemies. Terry molloy has such a creepy calm way of explaining his reasoning. Because the universe is full of death, war and races are trying to survive to the top, so we can't change it and the dr knows even he can't change that so it makes sense why Davros feels like "why can't my daleks be at the top then?". Its very enjoyable stuff. Lytton is a very enjoyable and quite intimidating character. While we don't learn to much about him he's great fun, and he's just a contract mercenary and I do really enjoy seeing him back with the 6th Dr in "Attack of the cybermen". But I do wish they'd of made a recurring character and really develop his story and ending.
Despite its problems there's some great scenes here. The Dalek eyestalk being shot at and then thrown out of a window. Great Dalek explosion revealing the mutants and my favourite were the Dalek mutant bites the soldiers neck. Something Chibnall would later do brilliantly in my eyes, was show you how deadly the mutant is without its shell. It really bites this poor guy and it's incredibly creepy/exciting and i was so amazed to see this, it's why i utterly love how Chibnall has brought this back. So yet again Moffat they don't need the suits. Theres yet another sub plot that doesn't go anywhere that I really liked the idea of. The Daleks plan to use the drs duplicates to destory the high council of gallifrey. Very similar to a Pertwee action comic. I'd love to see this idea someday. I also love the Supremes design here, being famous for its original blue colours in the Madame Tussauds museum. Always annoyed the hell out of me that CO figure is so inaccurate, just watch the episode you'd see how different the size and base is, it's why I adore the figurine collection one.
Finally this is Tegans last story and she sadly has nothing to do it's quite disappointing I think. She spends half the time with a bad head because a Dalek slightly knocked her over. It would of made more sense if it partly paralyzed her. Even as she goes to get another movellans virus the dr just take it off her and does it himself. She's does absolutely nothing and it's a disappointing exit. Im not the biggest fan of her final lines either, "when it stops being fun give it up. It's stopped being fun dr. It's a beautiful line yes that reflects a lot of companions journey in the show, but this a very Moffat line. Have a deep/sweet sounding quote but the context of it doesn't work. How did Tegan ever have fun? She spent nearly all her time moaning about it. I can only think of "Black orchid" when she looked like she was having fun. Now I love Janet fielding, shes awesome and i love her humor, but god the series wrote her poorly. Thankfully big finish has made her great. So overall fun and enjoyable but it's very very messy.
Rating 3/5 6/10.
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