Regroup | the m0vie blog

Doctor Who: Resurrection of the Daleks (Review)

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the longest-running science-fiction show in the world, I’ll be taking weekly looks at some of my own personal favourite stories and arcs, from the old and new series, with a view to encapsulating the sublime, the clever and the fiendishly odd of the BBC’s Doctor Who.

Resurrection of the Daleks originally aired in 1984.

The universe is at war, Doctor. Name one planet whose history is not littered with atrocities and ambition for empire. It is a universal way of life.

Which I do not accept.

Then you deny what is real.

– yes, in case you’re wondering, the show did let Davros win a philosophical debate with the Doctor

It’s a bit of a cliché to suggest that writer and script editor Eric Saward didn’t actually like Doctor Who. It’s a bit of sensationalist nonsense that appears quite frequently in discussing his contributions to the series. The evidence most often cited in favour of this admittedly exaggerated position points out that Saward had a tendency to marginalise the Doctor within his stories, to portray the character as inefficient or ineffective within the context of an increasingly cynical universe. This characterisation of the Doctor as inherently weak really came to a head during the Colin Baker period of the show, but you can see traces of it during the Peter Davison era, most notably in Earthshock.

However, Resurrection of the Daleks also provides a pretty compelling case study, if only because it makes a compelling case for the Doctor as a massive hypocrite and a coward. You have to worry when the script seems to side more with Davros’ outlook on life than with that of the title character.