Doctor Who review: Dalek is still a brilliant revival of the show’s most iconic monsters
By James Aggas
Following the recent watchalong, we look back on the major Doctor Who episode Dalek. Why did it work so well at re-establishing the show’s most iconic monsters?
Robert Shearman had quite the task with Dalek. While he had written for Doctor Who several times already, this was a little different. It wasn’t just that he was writing it for a new medium (he had previously written for Big Finish and given us several of the best audio stories). But there was also the huge task that he had to perform: reintroduce the Daleks to a new TV audience for the 21st century.
Again, this wasn’t exactly an easy task. Outside of parodies and commercials, the Daleks hadn’t been seen on-screen in over sixteen years. Shearman had to tell his story in just a single episode, and he had to re-establish the Daleks as a clear threat. More than that: he had to do it with a story focused on just one Dalek.
Shearman did use one of his earlier audios as a key inspiration for this episode. But, as highlighted in our review, Jubilee is an extremely different story to Dalek, one far darker and far more complex. Make no mistake: Dalek wasn’t a direct adaptation, but essentially a brand new story. Of course, as we all know, it was also a great one.
One single Dalek
There are several reasons why Dalek works extremely well. For one thing, there’s the simplicity of the episode in terms of plot. I mentioned that Jubilee is a lot more complicated, filled with many distinctive characters and shocking twists in an alternate timeline. But here, Shearman keeps his story simple and focused, which definitely works when the story is only forty-five minutes long as opposed to two hours.
More than that: Shearman gets to show off the damage that just a single Dalek can do. The moment we see the Dalek caged and chained, we know that it’s going to find some way of escaping and do a lot of damage.
When it’s finally unleashed, it’s not only horrifying to watch, but also admittedly satisfying. Many of the Dalek stories in the Eighties had the threat of the Daleks somewhat reduced, and they were often overshadowed by their creator Davros. (Admittedly, their last story, Remembrance of the Daleks, was definitely an exception to this.) So it’s nice to see them hit the ground running in the New Series by showing the audience exactly how dangerous just one of them is.
Strong villains
Casting Nicholas Briggs as the voice of the Dalek was a smart move. Even at this point, Briggs had been voicing the Daleks for years in many Big Finish stories – including Dalek Empire, a spin-off series Briggs himself created. This isn’t Briggs at his most impressive (that’s when you see several Daleks on-screen at once with Briggs voicing all of them), but it’s definitely a strong start.
However, the Dalek itself isn’t the only villain in this story. We also have Henry van Statten, a man with large wealth, power, and an even larger ego. Corey Johnson has a lot of fun with the role, but he also makes sure to make the character come across as human, too. In some ways, van Statten is one of the more interesting antagonists of Series 1: not evil, just incredibly misguided, and thanks to both Shearman’s writing and Johnson’s performance, he stands out as a distinctive and believable character.
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Raw performance
Of course, the best performance of this episode is Christopher Eccleston’s. At this point, while we had seen hints of the darkness and vulnerability of his Doctor, it’s in this episode that they’re both unleashed. The moment the Doctor realizes what he’s trapped in a cage with, we start seeing completely different sides to him: fear, anger, even pure rage.
In many ways, this was a crucial episode in terms of establishing the Time War. We’d known that the Doctor’s race had been destroyed in the war, (well, we did then,) but it’s only with this episode that we found out which race they were fighting. It’s a major episode that adds a lot more weight to the Daleks and their importance to the Doctor.
But more than that: it allows Christopher Eccleston to show off what he can really do with the role. This is a Doctor that’s fundamentally changed by the Time War, a man who’s lost everything. It’s fascinating to explore a deeper, more raw side to the Doctor, and Eccleston portrays that brilliantly.
Fifteen years on, and Dalek is still a phenomenal episode. It’s focused, thrilling, emotional and a fantastic return for Doctor Who‘s most iconic monster. A fantastic story, and a huge turning point for Series 1.
The Power of the Daleks to get updated animated release on DVD and Blu-Ray. dark. Next
What are your thoughts on Dalek? Is it one of your favorites from Series 1? Do you think it was a strong return for Doctor Who‘s greatest monsters? Let us know in the comments below.
