The Power of the Daleks episode 2 discussion:
Cz: SUCKER-STICK!
H: Riiiiight.
R: I get how the Dalek travel machines survived “uncounted millennia in the dark” but how did the Daleks themselves survive?
P: Hibernate? Stasis?
H: It’s a speculation that you can continue to have. Especially since I can’t remember if they answer it or not. While I remember a lot about this story, I don’t remember that.
Cz: <Dalek voice> I AM YOUR SERVANT.
E: That part terrified me.
R: It knew that was a good way to manipulate the humans.
E: <Dalek voice> WOULD YOU CARE FOR SOME TEA?
H: A lot of “Victory of the Daleks” from the new series <with Matt Smith> was a reference to this story with “I AM YOUR SOLDIER” So when I saw “Victory” I said “very clever Mr. Mark Gatiss, very clever.”
Cz: Ohhhhh, I get it now! Cool!
R: I really like the new Doctor.
K: Which one?
R: Patrick Troughton, duh. He’s scattered in a way that the old doctor never was.
P: On purpose.
K: The old doctor was always scattered.
H: Not the same thing.
R: Yeah.
H: The first doctor was not scattered, he just went off in a bunch of different directions. This doctor appears to go off in different directions while actually being very focused.
P: He’s being secretive.
Cz: He’s being body-looter-ishing.
H: Well that’s the same as the old Doctor.
Cz: But this one is more cool about it, not old about it.
H: Suuuure.
Cz: You don’t understand!
K: Well then help explain it to us.
Cz: He’s doing the same stuff, but he’s doing it COMPLETELY differently.
P: SO not the same.
Cz: But it’s the same stuff. Looting bodies. Being the Doctor.
K: Being all smart and stuff?
R: He seems to be two minds about the subject.
P: And two faces – pun intended.
R: I was referring to Ben’s line from the episode.
H: Getting back to the episode – one thing – I thought the incidental musical was really awesome.
P: Me too.
H: When they were examining the capsule at the beginning, I thought was really menacing.
K: I remember it from later Doctor Who, like Tom Baker era stuff. I’m pretty sure they reuse it many years later.
R: No, I don’t think it was from Tom Baker. I remember it from an earlier episode, but I don’t remember which one. I actually liked it better here because it wasn’t leaping out from behind the couch to attack you. “BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA”
H: To be fair, the children were all behind the sofa, so it couldn’t hide there. So, David Whitaker. Great writing, huh?
E: Absolutely.
Cz: Two thumbs up and two big toes.
K: Yeah, you actually went out of your way to watch this one, as opposed to just being in the room at the time.
Cz: Because this Doctor isn’t a stupid old coot.
H: But you liked William Hartnell. You talked about how much you liked him earlier.
Cz: I THOUGHT I liked him, but I didn’t have any other references.
K: I thought you had three other references.
Cz: The new ones don’t count. And I didn’t watch that Doctor Who for the Doctor, I watched it for Captain Jack.
P: Ahha.
Cz: And then they introduced some red heads.
H: So…
R: I agree, the writing was really ah… “Where are you going now Doctor?” “Oh, to see the Doctor.”
P: I liked the way he turned his ‘go anywhere pass’ into a true ‘go anywhere’ pass.
Cz: I like how they have to put into the plot how the Doctor gets in somewhere, whereas in the new ones he has the psychic paper.
P: I think this episode depends upon the viewer seeing the suspense of the Doctor trying to defeat the Daleks before the Daleks become dangerous.
Cz: Dead Daleks are dangerous. They cloud your mind with fear.
P: But this turning out to be more of a “Agatha Christie Murder” poured into the story.
H: You mean with the dead examiner?
P: And the cut wires.
H: Interesting observation, actually. It’s like the murder mystery is playing in the foreground and the Daleks are in the background. And there’s a third story as well with the political rivalry and upheaval. It’s a very complicated story.
P: Also this is more of a traditional radio show in that much of the telling is being made by the comments on each other, with the exception of the Dalek. That is to say, we see through the Dalek’s eye, literally.
H: That super-8 film clip with the Dalek tracking the Doctor at the end…
P: Which does not make sense.
H: May or may not.
K: The Dalek could be from the Doctor’s future and has already seen this incarnation of the Doctor. The Daleks and the Doctor both have time travel.
P: You don’t even need both to have it for that to work.
H: The film clip was really cool, and it was really pretty scary. And I loved how the line was a little obscured – the line was when several folks were talking at once – but Ben said “I guess if the Dalek thinks your the Doctor than you must be the Doctor.”
Cz: I miss Dodo.
H: No you don’t.
Cz: I think this Doctor would have just smacked her in the face or something.
H: Are we ready for final thoughts?
P: Okay, I’ll start. While I can believe that the Daleks are still alive in the ship, I can’t believe a Dalek will allow itself to become disarmed. And I also can’t believe a human being is secretly killing other human beings to get to the Daleks that they didn’t know about at the time of the killing. But maybe that’s the mystery.
K: Mavic Chen.
H: First of all, the Dalek was without power and dormant when they took away the gun.
P: Okay.
H: And secondly, we have absolutely no evidence that the summoning or killing of the examiner had anything to do with the Daleks whatsoever.
P: If he had no power, he should be dead.
K: No, Dalek live for AGES with basically nothing. I think they showed that in the first Dalek story?
H: The Daleks were deactivated and that was the end of it in the first Dalek story.
K: Well then it’s consistent with later Dalek stuff. This must have been when it was introduced.
R: It does surprise me a bit that the inside of a Dalek travel machine doesn’t have a manual door latch.
K: I think it does, actually.
H: I don’t know why Lesterson said he couldn’t open it.
K: Because the Dalek was holding the door shut!
R: It’s not that. It’s that I’m surprised that the Dalek didn’t get out.
P: True.
R: They’re dangerous just on their own. They can kill a human pretty easily.
H: But they can also die pretty easily on their own too.
R: True.
H: This is one of those things that we might want to see if they address it while we keep watching.
P: Maybe they got enough hate mail that they had to fix it the next episode.
H: They were filming things pretty close, but not week to week. There was a point in the Troughton years when they were finishing the editing and showing it the next week. I don’t remember exactly when it was, but I don’t think we’re there yet.
E: I have to say I was kind of amused by how the Doctor, in some parts of the episode, like randomly pulling the doorknob out of the door. And then in other instances it was serious time. I thought that worked well – it didn’t interrupt the flow of the story. They managed to put in a few chuckles, which stood out to me.
H: Another reason why it’s so sad that these episodes were lost. They don’t know a lot of these things because Troughton would ad lib a lot, so they couldn’t tell everything that happened from the scripts.
P: I wonder if the actor broke the knob by mistake and just kept rolling.
H: That’s quite possible.
A: Yeah, Ben and Polly’s laughter seemed very genuine.
H: Okay. Do you, who has been silent up until now, have a final thought?
A: No, I’m good.
Cz: Every time one of the pictures on the screen came up that looked like it was going to turn into a movie I was all excited!
H: Whenever we get to a moving bit in a recon I always gasp. I don’t know why, but every time it’s just so exciting.
K: I wonder where they all come from?
H: Most were super-8 clips. Fans pointing cameras at TVs.
K: I just wonder if it was all one or two fans that did all of this, and how we thank them.
H: I can find out the names if you want the names.
Cz: <singing> Thank you for being a nerd.
R: I wonder if the Doctor’s muddledness is part of what establishes the muddle they always get whenever they regenerate.
P: The story drove the process from then on.
H: You know, you have to wonder how muddled the Doctor really is, and how much…
Cz: I think he’s pretending.
K: On the TARDIS he had no reason to pretend. He didn’t have a reason until they ran into the murderer.
Cz: Does the Doctor really need a reason to do anything? I think he’s just entertaining himself. That’s what I would do.
H: He wasn’t exactly muddled in the TARDIS. It was more getting himself together. But I think a lot of him appearing to be muddled, as with the fruit scene, had a lot of motive in it.
R: That’s true, but I don’t think the doorknob had motive. And there have been other comments – like his inability to remember things he should remember. I agree that yes, he uses the act, and that’s a very Doctor thing to do. But there’s also a truth to it. There’s also him going “who am I now?” and I think still recovering a little bit. A little bit hung-over from the renewal. And I just really liked that line – one of the colonists says that examiner seems to be of two minds about this and Ben mutters under his breath “and two bodies.” I enjoyed the interplay between Ben, Polly, and the Doctor around the Doctor’s regeneration.
H: And we even got some great cockney rhyming slang there “me old China.”
<discussion about cockney rhyming slang… go Google it if you care.>
K: My turn? Not as much plot happened this week as last week. It is sometimes hard to follow the plot with the recons, which made things a little confusing. And I can’t help but to think of Bragan as a bad guy because of his trip to Mars with Sutekh about 10 years later. So it will be cool if he’s actually a good guy. I’m not sure which he is at this point.
H: I don’t think we have any clear cut at this point.
Cz: That chick? That’s the baddest one of all. She was like “no no no, we don’t need to tell them about the guy who almost died. Shhhhh.”
H: Okay, fair point. But we don’t know what she’s doing that right now.
Cz: Because she’s female. Females are always bad guys. She’s listening to the snake inside her mind.
<Cz is a girl, by the way.>
Cz: She’s giving Adam the apple.
<Cz also has minimal religious knowledge>
H: Okay. Interesting. Ketina?
K: I got nothing. I was too distracted by my sister. Take us home, Historian.
H: I’m enjoying watching everybody watch this almost as much as I’m enjoying the story myself, because I have seen this before with a different reconstruction. This is one of my two favorite Dalek stories and some of the things I really like about it haven’t come up yet. But some of them, like Lesterson’s absolute dedication…
R: To destroying the entire colony?
H: To his work.
R: Yeah, we could call it that.
H: Is an interesting thing to see developed. I don’t want to say any more about that. Some of the other things I like are all of the things that are currently in the background, like the civil unrest and the murder mystery. It’s a very layered script, and a lot more sophisticated than some of what we’ve seen before. I’m enjoying it, and enjoying everyone else enjoying it as well.
