“Isolation and loneliness are not the same. I can be isolated – that is in a situation in which I cannot act, because there is nobody who will act with me – without being lonely; and I can be lonely – that is in a situation in which I as a person feel myself deserted by all human companionship – without being isolated. Isolation is that impasse into which men are driven when the political sphere of their lives. Where they act together in the pursuit of a common concern, is destroyed. Yet isolation, though destructive of power and the capacity for action, not only leaves intact but is required for all so-called productive activities of men (…)
While isolation concerns only the political realm of life, loneliness concerns human life as a whole (…)
Loneliness, the common ground for terror, the essence of totalitarian government, and for ideology or logicality, the preparation of its executioners and victims, is closely connected with uprootedness and superfluousness which have been the curse of modern masses since the beginning of the industrial revolution and have become acute with the rise of imperialism at the end of the last century and the break-down of political institutions and social traditions in our own time. To be uprooted means to have no place in the world, recognized and guaranteed by others; to be superfluous means not to belong to the world at all (…)
What makes loneliness so unbearable is the loss of one’s own self which can be realized in solitude, but confirmed in its identity only by the trusting and trustworthy company of my equals. In this situation, man loses trust in himself as partner of his thoughts and that elementary confidence in the world which is necessary to make experiences at all. Self and world, capacity for thought and experience are lost at the same time”
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
„(…) this motif [„kiss and tell”] emphasizes the importance of feelings or emotions in understanding, expressing, and maintaining our sense of humanity, especially in light of an ascendant technological regime; even in the most highly technologized environment, this motif suggests, our feelings or emotions remain the ’telling’ marks of human nature, a stable foundation on which we can rely”
J.P. Telotte, Science Fiction Film
I miss brown bread, unobtainable at the local supermarket. Soft, white slices of Hovis substitute for putative wholemeal goodness on my plate. Sometimes I even lick my thumb and salvage the crumbs. I always prefer staying at hotels back home where the simple joy of choice is self-evident and toast can be ordered by the rack along with treacly coffee. In continental hostelries from the family run hospitality of the humblest to the cold, marble-clad impersonal formality of the grandest, croissants and pastries fill the baskets to overflowing with the occasional concession to the undereducated, vulgar British palate left to go stale on a chopping board, leaving it up to the guest to determine thickness (and advertise lowly background), the very conspicuousness of reaching for the knife with its serrated blade and the associated wait by the toaster (discovering the correct setting to avoid charring and scraping off to obtain the perfect combination of crispness and soft yielding an art best practiced in the intimacy of one’s own kitchen), holding up the queue always sufficient to deter me. I have always been highly sensitive to the wrinkling of noses, all the more so prior to imbibing my morning stimulant. Forget the bacon and sausages, forget the porridge, give me marmalade, finest orange shred, or a soft-boiled egg, so that I can cut the toast into strips and dip them in the yolk (“soldiers”).
From one institution to another, Dr. Who. Critical reception of the new series was on the whole positive, the verdict that the overhaul for a new generation had been successful, that emotional depth had been added. Just when we thought it was safe to come out from behind the sofa (the extent to which the character and his adventures have become embedded in the cultural consciousness succinctly encapsulated in this phrase, the defining myth of shared viewing experience during childhood) fresh thrills had been fabricated for us. Although I do not consider myself a diehard fan (and my knowledge is relatively insubstantial), I long ago decided that if my son were to be immersed in British lore then the time traveller in his successive incarnations had to be incorporated into his upbringing (facilitated by video and DVD, technologies, which either did not exist or had not yet dropped in price sufficiently to be affordable to us when I was of a similar age. I remember the consternation that I felt on hearing the wicked rumours concerning another regular indulgence on the verge of adolescence in the five minute animation slot before the early evening news, Captain Pugwash, according to which the crew of the Black Pig included Seaman Staines and Master Bates. I treated the revelation with scepticism since Auntie Beeb’s tolerance for innuendo was notoriously low, as if the Director-General cringed in perpetual fear at being on the receiving end of a scolding by the redoubtable Mary Whitehouse. Only technology could provide corroboration of my memories, which I had erroneously begun to mistrust as unreliable). I awaited the first episode with apprehension and impatience, as the BBC has evinced callous disregard for its money-spinner, beloved of so many, in the past (in the television world, what crime could be worse than wiping the original, irreplaceable tapes, precious beyond measure?). Too eager to court favour amongst TV executives across the Pond, the Paul McGann feature length revival was sadly misconceived – the interior of the Tardis too bombastic, my main objection pertaining to the sexualization of the relationship with the female sidekick. The chaste nature of the bond once taken for granted had apparently lost credibility (the age gap, approximately between a grandfather and his granddaughter, no longer self-evidently precluding carnal entanglement), yet the wilful abandonment of one of the unspoken conventions ruined it for me (and I would have been delighted to see Mr. McGann, a fine actor, given another chance). The current production and writing team, however, pulled off the most impressive feat, namely of acknowledging that certain features ought not to be tampered with merely for the sake of innovation, thereby respecting the feelings of the older audience segment. The Tardis sound effect was (rightly) deemed sacrosanct. Any alternative to this brilliant, evocative and iconic signature would have been reviled as a travesty. Having become attached to the cliff-hanger endings over the years I do not quite see the justification for ditching them in favour of single-parters (which are slightly too fast-paced) interspersed with the odd two-parter. Unless you suffer from attention deficit disorder, why attempt to compress so much into forty-five minutes? Why sacrifice character development for non-stop action? Perhaps this is a symptom of having turning forty myself today…
Christopher Ecclestone had the unenviable (in terms of the responsibility) yet infinitely rewarding (having thereby guaranteed himself a niche in the pantheon) task of bringing the Doctor back to the living room. My initial doubts were dispelled almost immediately. His Northern accent (itself the object of a joke early on) made a refreshing change (David Dimbleby, whose entire life has unfolded before the eyes of the British public in his capacity as presenter, recently admitted to a Welsh choir that he was a dying breed with his patrician pronunciation. The hoity-toity RP twang, so grating in the ears of a Scot and, I suspect, of anyone outside the Home Counties, has been ousted by the rise of regional programming and the demise of the openly elitist and patronising “the BBC knows best” attitude, bemoaned by publications such as the Daily Mail in its sanctimonious crusade against modernity – in this instance in the guise of “dumbing down” – whereas the Hungarian dips into it occasionally, I find a more suitable purpose for it as lining for the Guinea pig cage. As the definitive public service broadcaster in the UK, the BBC does have to project a caring, sensible – staid – image and its every offering is rigorously scrutinised. Complaints abound, some of which amaze me with their pettiness, such as, for example, the woman who wrote in castigating the Tweenies for singing a ditty, which glorified the consumption of sweets as opposed to healthier alternatives, pontificating about the obesity epidemic. Not only does this reveal the extent of fat phobia and hysteria in contemporary Britain, but her accusations were factually incorrect, as the BBC spokesperson painstakingly pointed out with the utmost courtesy: in context, the brightly coloured Teletubbies Ersatz had been warned against the perils of gorging himself on sugary treats, had wantonly defied the injunctions, celebrating the act of rebellion in the song, which had caused such offence and promptly fallen prey to cautionary queasiness. I wonder if the same individual watched The Make Shift this week with its subversive papier-mâché apple maliciously conceived to contain – horror of horrors! – sweets and fooling parents into believing their precious darlings are resisting peer pressure, the little paragons of – smug smile across adult faces – virtue).
I had ignored the controversy surrounding Billie Piper as his companion, long since having lost touch with pop music, celebrity cults and gossip likewise failing to engage my interest. Unburdened by preconceived notions about her persona or abilities was able to assess her solely in the role of Rose Tyler, which she plays with competence and assurance. My favourite incumbent is still Jo Grant, self-confessed women’s libber who accompanied Jon Pertwee. I admired her spirit, her feminist pluck and 70s optimism. She brought a freshness to what has too often been a thankless part as narrative facilitator (for which read asking all the stupid questions on our behalf), foil to the Doctor’s scientific rationality (Sarah Jane’s shrill scream rings in my ears to this day) and motivation for his heroism (a latter-day damsel in distress). I was terrified by the spectacle of the giant maggot creeping up behind her ready to fasten its hideous teeth into the flesh of her back exposed by a low-cut dress as she sat on the rug engrossed in her book, the tension of her vulnerability unbearable. The Green Death, set in the Welsh mining valleys, gripped my imagination is likely to remain unchallenged in my affections. Jo falls in love with environmentally conscious Professor Jones, who carries out research in a self-contained community (their lodgings self-deprecatingly dubbed the Nut Hatch) to solve famine by producing a protein-rich fungus when he isn’t protesting against the activities of the polluting Global Chemicals, leaving the Doctor to drive off into the sunset in Bessie (presumably being absorbed into the domestic bliss of the patriarchy for good as soon as he slips the ring on her finger). My crush was on the Brigadier in my youth where authority and establishment figures exerted an attraction that has long since metamorphosed into its opposite. Rose has been granted far greater leeway for development as well as plot significance as evidenced by the season climax, a real companion with attitude to suit girl power sensibilities (the fact that she fails to notice her boyfriend has been replaced by a lump of animated plastic less an indictment of her powers of observation than of the inarticulacy and self-absorption of the young men of today).
Episodes varied in quality, the Slitheen most obviously catering for the less mature with its farting aliens disguised in unzippable human skins (one of numerous instances of genre and self-referentiality typical of science-fiction output, in this case the camouflage adopted by Men in Black’s angry “cosmic cockroach”). For me, the stand-out was Dalek.
Of all the Doctor’s foes, I have always been most fond of the posturing pepper pots. Their values consist of an utter repudiation of every principle I subscribe to, their “civilization” a negation of tolerance and diversity, they are, quite simply, morally repulsive, unshakeably convinced of their own superiority and determined to subdue the universe, enslaving all beings they encounter, eradicating those who resist, untroubled by such mundanities as remorse. “Exterminate!” the verb most frequently employed within the Dalek vocabulary as famous as Tom Baker’s “Would you like a jelly baby?” delivered with his slightly manic trademark grin. As the Doctor explains to an incredulous Van Statten:
Doctor: What’s the nearest town?
Van Statten: Salt Lake City.
Doctor: Population?
Van Statten: One million.
Doctor: All dead. If the Dalek gets out, it’ll murder every living creature, that’s all it needs.
Van Statten: But why would it do that?
Doctor: Because it honestly believes they should die. Human beings are different and anything different is wrong. It’s the ultimate in racial cleansing and you, Van Statten, you’ve let it loose.
A distress signal lures the Tardis off course and it dematerialises in a soulless bunker 53 floors beneath the surface of Utah in 2012. Artefacts in glass cases (including the preserved arm of a Slitheen and the head of a Cyberman, which prompts the Doctor to comment wryly: “The stuff of nightmares, reduced to an exhibit. I’m getting old”) surround the Doctor and Rose. He reaches out to touch the glass, simultaneously triggering an alarm and heralding the arrival of a troop of heavily armed guards. We are then introduced to Mr. Henry Van Statten, multi-billionaire owner of the Internet (when Rose objects that it is nobody’s personal property, he retorts: “then let’s just keep the whole world thinking that way, right kids?”), surrounded by minions (who are so far beneath his lofty contempt that he does not even bother to learn their names). Van Statten, displeased with the performance of one of his flunkeys, barks that his memory be wiped and that he be dumped by the roadside somewhere, in Memphis, Minneapolis or something beginning with M (cf. Men in Black). When informed by Diana Goddard, new top dog in his entourage (the fawning attention and furious mental note taking reminiscent of the scene in Brazil when Sam is finally promoted to Information Retrieval) that the President had called to wish him happy birthday, he brushes the conveyed greeting aside, the President is “ten points down” and should therefore be retired from office forthwith. He magnanimously deigns to allow her to decide which party the new occupant should belong to (the formalities of democratic consultation presumably having been dispensed with). The ultimate entrepreneur and collector of the exotic and extraterrestrial, Van Statten is as overweeningly arrogant, brash and loud as any Dalek.
Van Statten enquires after his “little pet” and we switch to a view of a sparse and cheerless vault through blue-filtered lens, which we learn is the Dalek’s point of view. A man in a protective orange suit, face contorting with effort behind what looks like a welder’s mask as he drills. Simmons is the Dalek’s appointed tormentor. The Dalek perspective elicits our sympathy from the outset.
The Doctor and Rose are escorted to Van Statten’s office where the latter sits at a desk, his lack of modesty symbolised by the painting of him (adapted from Tamara de Lempicka’s Unfinished Portrait of Tadeusz Lempicki from 1928) behind his chair. Having just spent 800,000 dollars on a piece of alien hardware via his resident expert Adam, whom he disparagingly refers to as Lord Fauntleroy at one stage, but for the most part impinges on his consciousness as the “English kid”, he is eager to find out about its function. Only the Doctor can enlighten him. It turns out to be an exquisite instrument, which calls for dexterity as well as delicacy to play. Once Van Statten has mastered the technique, he tosses it casually to one side: haven taken possession of it, its mystery dispelled, the novelty wears off. Van Statten turns to Rose, the “little cat burglar accomplice”, assuming that the Doctor has “collected” her in the same way as he, Van Statten, has accumulated the objects that grace the walls of the otherwise gloomily austere complex. Rose refuses to be addressed in the third person (“She’s going to smack you if you keep calling her ‘she’”), singularly unintimidated by his status or his bluster. As he and the Doctor slip into a bout of verbal sparring, she sighs: “Blimey! You can smell the testosterone!” Van Statten does not take her seriously, she is a mere irrelevance, an encumbrance and he can envisage no other use for her than a sexual one, instructing Adam to look after her: “Go and canoodle or spoon or whatever it is you English do”.
The others proceed to the isolation chamber, clearly marked off as a dangerous place with its thick blast doors and yellow warning lights. Van Statten is peeved that his one and only live specimen is so disappointing and hopes that the Doctor can persuade it to break its silence.
“The Metaltron is resting,” Simmons reports by way of accounting for why the power had been switched off.
The designation could hardly be more preposterous, devised to sound completely naff. Van Staten boasts: “Thought of it myself. Good, isn’t it?”
Simmons urges the Doctor to don thick black gloves as the previous person who had touched the Metaltron had burst into flames. As Van Statten and Goddard observe the interior the Doctor crosses the threshold, the doors closed behind him. What follows is a scene whose dramatic impact was softened by its seemingly endless repetition as a trailer prior to screening, but which in context is unsettling and extremely effective. In the almost complete darkness, punctured by a single blue light, the Doctor advances, his facial features illuminated from below in a ghostly outline: “Mr. Van Statten might think he’s clever, but never mind him. I’ve come to help. I’m the Doctor”.
As the Dalek speaks, the twin lights on either side of its dome blink. It at first refuses to admit the possibility, as the four neon columns to which it is attached by restraints (the atmosphere of menace evoked by the psychopath at such close quarters biding his time for an opportunity to strike owes much to The Silence of the Lambs). We see the Doctor’s face in close-up, disbelief and shock registering in equal measure. As his adversary enunciates the famous word, the Doctor visibly panics (a sight we are not accustomed to), his composure evaporating as he pounds impotently at the steel.
“You must be destroyed!”
The Dalek’s weapon, however, has depleted so badly it cannot fire, its generally tatty and neglected condition rendering it pathetic.
“It’s not working!” the Doctor cries triumphantly. “Fantastic, oh fantastic, powerless, look at you! The great space dustbin! How does it feel?” His undignified gloating prompts the Dalek to lower its eye slightly in dejection. Emboldened by the Dalek’s captive and helpless state, the Doctor moves towards it.
“Keep back!” it retreats as far as the chains will permit, the equivalent of flinching, also uncharacteristic (one of the major themes of the instalment is precisely this confounding of our expectations). The Doctor can barely contain his glee: “If you can’t kill, then what are you good for, Dalek? What’s the point of you?”
It rotates its dome to track his movements as he circles around it.
“You’re nothing! What the hell are you here for?” the Doctor taunts, staying just out of reach, like a boy baiting a slavering guard dog.
“I am waiting for orders”.
“What does that mean?”
“I am a soldier. I was bred to receive orders”.
(A smile plays on Van Statten’s lips as he eavesdrops on the exchange).
“Well, you’re never gonna get any. Not ever”.
“I demand orders!”
“They’re never gonna come. Your race is dead. You all burned. All of you. Ten million ships on fire. The entire Dalek race, wiped out in one second”, the Doctor passes on these tidings with cruel relish.
“You lie!”
“I watched it happen. I made it happen!” (As the Doctor delivers this line, we see his face through the Dalek’s lens, his nose exaggerated in proportion, his hatred palpably manifested in the distortion).
“You destroyed us?”
The Doctor stares down the Dalek’s eye, so close that its blue glow reflects off his skin.
“I had no choice”. The Doctor’s voice loses its stridency as he succumbs to a twinge of guilt (he has, after all, perpetrated genocide, author of the kind of mass extinction the Daleks themselves wished to carry out, an irony that is surely not lost on him).
“And what of the Time Lords?”
“Dead. They burned with you. The end of the last great Time War. Everyone lost”.
“And the coward survived”. The Dalek’s jibe breaks the Time Lord’s sombre mood.
“Oh, and I caught your little signal. Help me! Poor little thing. But there’s no one else coming, ‘cause there’s no one else left”.
“I am alone in the universe”.
“Yep,” the Doctor smiles.
“So are you”.
The Doctor is so enraged by this blasphemous comparison that he is goaded into emulating the worst conduct of his enemy, pulling the lever on the console at the back of the room and electrocuting the helpless prisoner.
“Have pity!” it implores.
“Why should I? You never did!”
At this juncture, Van Statten’s men intervene to save the Dalek, but the businessman does not receive the reward of gratitude and obsequiousness he had anticipated. Slighted, he commands Simmons to extract compliance. The latter complies with zeal.
Meanwhile Rose persuades Adam to let her watch what is going on in the chamber, reacting with disgust and indignation at Simmons’ behaviour. She sets off to put a stop to it.
In the lift, Van Statten, Goddard and the Doctor discuss Van Statten’s charge.
Doctor: The metal’s just battle armour, the real Dalek creature is inside.
Van Statten: What does it look like?
Doctor: A nightmare. It’s a mutation. The Dalek race was genetically engineered. Every single emotion was removed except hate.
Van Statten: Genetically engineered? By whom?
Doctor: By a genius, Van Statten, by a man who was king of his own little world. You’d like him.
Goddard elucidates that the Dalek has been on Earth for fifty years, changing hands at one auction after another: “Records say it came from the sky like a meteorite. It fell to Earth on the Ascension Islands, burned in its crater for three days before anyone could get near it and all that time, it was screaming. It must have gone insane”.
Van Statten, devoid of compassion and driven by his insatiable appetite for profit, scans the Doctor’s body as the Gallifreyan is tied to a frame in a pose resembling a crucifixion. Van Staten is delighted to note that the Doctor has two hearts.
Van Statten: “Oh, I am so gonna patent this!
Doctor: So that’s your secret. You don’t just collect this stuff, you scavenge it.
Van Staten: This technology has been falling to Earth for centuries. All it took was the right mind to use it properly. Oh, the advances I’ve made from alien junk. You have no idea, Doctor. Broadband? Roswell. Just last year, my scientists cultivated bacteria from the Russian crater and do you know what we found? The cure for the common cold. Kept it strictly within the laboratory, of course. No need to get people excited. Why sell one cure when I can sell a thousand palliatives?
Doctor: Do you know what a Dalek is, Van Statten? A Dalek is honest. It does what it was born to do for the survival of its species. That creature in your dungeon is better than you.
Rose and Adam enter the Dalek’s cell. Rose gazes at it, her distress at its plight clearly communicated by her expression. She asks its name, announcing that she is a friend of the Doctor’s and would happily do what she could to alleviate its distress.
Dalek: Yes.
Rose: What?
Dalek: I am in pain. They torture me. But still they fear me. Do you fear me?
Rose: No.
Dalek: I am dying.
Rose: No, we can help.
Dalek: I welcome death. But I am glad…that before I die I have met a human who was not afraid.
Rose: Isn’t there anything I can do?
Dalek: My race is dead. I shall die alone.
She attempts to comfort the Dalek by resting her hand on its metal plating (I could lament the fact that yet again we are being regaled with the old myth that the mischievous interference of an emotional female brings disaster in its wake, yet Rose’s motives were pure and untaintedly altruistic). Withdrawing it as it burns her, the outline of her pal and digits shines gold. The Dalek commences cellular reconstruction, the chains snapping and the equipment short-circuiting. Simmons gawps at its sink plunger-like extension and hisses sarcastically: “What are you gonna do? Sucker me to death?” His come-uppance, too gruesome for the pre-watershed entertainment, is largely left for us to picture for ourselves, as the rubber dilates to enclose his entire face.
Van Statten releases the Doctor to take charge of the emergency situation, although he initially insists that nothing can break through the compartment once it has been sealed. The Doctor dismisses the argument that the lock is foolproof because it has over a billion combinations: “The Dalek’s a genius. It can calculate a thousand billion combinations in one second flat”. Indeed, the Dalek has already placed its plunger over the panel and sequences of red numbers jumble faster then we can read them. At long last we are able to marvel at the true potential of Terry Nation’s brainchild with the benefit of decent special effects (in one sense much of the charm of BBC science fiction productions was derived from the rickety sets and the ingenious solutions to the shoestring budgets and the dictatorship of deadlines. The uncharitable response to the proliferation of painted cardboard egg boxes and other amateurish models was captured to perfection in a Dead Ringers sketch where Greg Dyke was being impersonated issuing a denial that Blake’s Seven would be back soon, as “washing up liquid bottles have become far too expensive”). We always knew the Daleks could do more, that they were infinitely more formidable. The company had a chance to show off, to prove to us that they could overcome our prejudices. Which they did. Resoundingly.
Having drained not only the base, but the entire West coast of power, the Dalek repairs itself, its outer shell restored to its pristine state. Downloading and absorbing every piece of information on the Internet it sets off on its killing spree, proclaiming proudly “The Daleks survive in me!” As Adam and Rose flee in the care of De Maggio, a woman soldier entrusted with evacuating the civilians the Dalek blasts everything in its path, its ray cutting the troops down effortlessly whilst their bullets dissolve in its invisible force field (we are shown this happening in slow motion, Matrix-style) before reaching their target. Van Statten once again shows total indifference towards the welfare of his staff, demanding that they stop shooting (“They’re dispensable. That Dalek is unique. I don’t want a scratch on its body work. Do you hear me? Do you hear me?”). We are shown the bodies of the defenders (no wounds in keeping with the strict regulations on the depiction of violence in the early evening) amongst the spent ammunition cartridges.
Rose, Adam and De Maggio take shelter in a stairwell. “Stairs! That’s more like it! It hasn’t got legs! It’s stuck!” Rose’s relief is short-lived, however. Although it never occurred to me whilst glued to the box in my tender years, the Davros’ fatal design flaw spawned a thousand witticisms about how the Dalek invasion was thwarted by everyone running upstairs. In Remembrance of the Daleks with Sylvester McCoy (the highlight of which for me was the marvellous Special Weapons Dalek with its awesome firepower) the Daleks’ presumed inability to pursue their intended victims had already been addressed, albeit not quite so spectacularly. Unimpressed by De Maggio’s entreaties that it surrender, it floats gracefully upwards after intoning “Elevate!” De Maggio stays behind in an attempt to arrest its progress. In vain.
Having regrouped his forces in a large warehouse-like space the commander awaits the Dalek. Even the scientists in their white lab coats have been issued guns. Crouched behind barrels for cover and perched strategically on a metal structure all barrels converge on the one entrance. Rose and Adam rush into view, urged to make their escape. Hesitating in the doorway, Rose notices the Dalek peering at her (“It’s like there’s something inside, looking at me, like…like it knows me”). She cannot dwell on such thoughts as the guards open fire. Once again the Dalek levitates, seemingly oblivious to the frenzy directed towards it. Taking aim at the fire alarm, it smashes the glass with devastating accuracy, setting off the sprinklers before electrocuting everyone (in retribution for the agony inflicted upon it by the same means).
As the Doctor, Van Statten and Goddard plan their next move, the Dalek interrupts them.
Dalek: I shall speak only to the Doctor.
Doctor: You’re gonna get rusty.
Dalek: I fed off the DNA of Rose Tyler. Extrapolating the biomass of a time traveller regenerated me.
Doctor: What’s your next trick?
Dalek: I have been searching for the Daleks.
Doctor: Yeah, I saw, downloading the Internet. What did you find?
Dalek: I scanned your satellites and radio telescopes.
Doctor: And?
Dalek: Nothing. Where shall I get my orders now?
Doctor: You’re just a soldier without commands.
Dalek: Then I shall follow the primary order – the Dalek instinct to destroy, to conquer.
Doctor: What for? What’s the point? Don’t you see, it’s all gone? Everything you were; everything you stood for.
Dalek: Then what should I do?
Doctor: All right, then. If you want orders, follow this one. Kill yourself.
Dalek: The Daleks must survive.
Doctor: The Daleks have failed. Why don’t you finish the job and make the Daleks extinct. Rid the universe of your filth. Why don’t you just die?
Dalek: You would make a good Dalek.
Adam and Rose, still trapped in the lower levels, desperately hurtle through the corridors in a bid to exit before falling into the Dalek’s clutches. Rose cannot keep up with Adam who selfishly rolls beneath the bulkhead before it clangs shut. As the Dalek appears, Rose absolves the Doctor of blame in a brief, but emotionally charged conversation on her mobile. She has no regrets. We hear the Dalek discharging the ray that leaves flesh intact, yet banishes life. In Van Statten’s office, recriminations fly. Down below, however, the drama is not yet over.
Rose: Go on then, kill me. Why are you doing this?
Dalek: I am armed. I will kill. It is my purpose.
Rose: They’re all dead because of you.
Dalek: They are dead because of us.
Rose: And now what? What are you waiting for?
Dalek: I feel your fear.
Rose: What do you expect?
Dalek: Daleks do not fear, must not fear [it fires at random around Rose, careful not to hit her]. You gave me life. What else have you given me? I am contaminated.
As the Doctor vents his spleen against Adam for leaving Rose behind, the camera-feed on the monitor shows the Dalek and his hostage.
Dalek: Open the bulkhead or Rose Tyler dies.
Doctor: You’re alive.
Rose: Can’t get rid of me.
Doctor: I thought you were dead.
Dalek: Open the bulkhead.
Rose: Don’t do it.
Dalek: What use are emotions if you will not save the woman you love?
Doctor: I killed her once. I can’t do it again.
The Doctor rummages through the bits and pieces Adam has hoarded in his den in hope of acquiring some serious counterattack capacity.
In the lift, the Dalek twitches its gun nervously. Rose begs it not to increase the death toll further. The Dalek’s reply betrays a trace of self-doubt: “But why not? Why are you alive? My function is to kill. What am I? What am I?” The lift doors slide open in Van Statten’s centre of operations.
Rose: Don’t move. Don’t do anything, it’s beginning to question itself.
Dalek: Van Statten, you tortured me. Why?
Van Statten [cringing and backing away, splutters excuses]: I wanted to help you, I just, I don’t know, ah, I was trying to help. I thought if we could get through to you, if we could mend you…I wanted you better, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I swear, I just wanted you to talk.
Dalek: Then hear me talk now! Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!
Rose: Don’t do it! Don’t kill him! You don’t have to do this any more – there must be something else, not just killing. What else is there? What do you want?
[The Dalek’s eye swivels back towards Van Statten who looks petrified. I do not believe for one second that I was the only viewer who harboured an ardent desire for the Dalek to succumb to its instincts].
Dalek: I want freedom.
Rose now escorts the Dalek towards ground level of her own volition. The Dalek blasts a hole in the ceiling and a brilliant shaft of sunlight illuminates its chassis.
Rose: You’re out. You made it. I never thought I’d feel the sunlight again.
Dalek [choking]: How – does – it – feel?
[It opens its casing. Inside we see a fragile, squid-like being with a single large yellow eye. It holds out a tentacle].
Doctor: Get out of the way! [Rose is startled and the Doctor aims a huge contraption at the Dalek] Rose, get out of the way, now!
Rose [interposing herself between the Doctor and the Dalek]: No, because I won’t let you do this!
Doctor: That thing killed hundreds of people.
Rose: It’s not the one pointing the gun at me.
Doctor: I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to end it. The Daleks destroyed my home, my people. I’ve got nothing left [the Doctor again appears inhumane and ruthless, surrendering himself to the emotions welling up inside whilst Rose stays calm and rational].
Rose: Look at it.
Doctor: What’s it doing?
Rose: It’s the sunlight, that’s all it wants.
Doctor: But it can’t…
Rose: It couldn’t kill Van Staten, it couldn’t kill me. It’s changing. What about you, Doctor? What the hell are you changing into? [Ashamed, the Doctor lowers the barrel, momentarily robbed of his usual clever repartee]
Doctor: I couldn’t…I wasn’t…Oh, Rose, they’re all dead.
Dalek: Why do we survive?
Doctor: I don’t know.
Dalek: I am the last of the Daleks.
Doctor: You’re not even that. Rose did more than regenerate you. You’ve absorbed her DNA. You’re mutating.
Dalek: Into what?
Doctor: Something new. I’m sorry.
Rose: Isn’t that better?
Doctor: Not for a Dalek.
Dalek: I can feel. So many ideas. So much darkness. Rose, give me orders. Order me to die.
Rose: I can’t do that.
Dalek: This is not life. This is sickness. I shall not be like you. Order my destruction! Obey! Obey! Obey!
Rose: Do it.
Dalek: Are you frightened, Rose Tyler?
Rose: Yeah.
Dalek: So am I. Exterminate!
The Dalek closes its armour, raises itself from the floor, the spherical protrusions detach, enclosing it in a shimmering ball of energy and it commits suicide, imploding.
By way of a coda, Goddard clicks her fingers at the two guards flanking Van Statten.
Goddard: Two hundred personnel dead and all because of you, sir. Take him away, wipe his memory and leave him by the road someplace.
Van Statten: You can’t do this to me, I’m Henry Van Statten!
Goddard: And by tonight, Henry Van Statten will be a homeless, brainless junkie living on the streets of San Diego, Seattle, Sacramento, someplace beginning with S!
Until this chapter in the Doctor’s dealings with the Daleks, I had not appreciated how integral to the adversary’s character the vocal artist’s performance was. Instead I had assumed that the abrasive, metallic tones, the sound wave equivalent of a Brillo pad, scouring out the ear, could be achieved without too much effort (until I listened to the Blue Peter presenter’s feeble stab at it as part of stoking interest in the show). Dalek speech, although polysyllabic, is monotonous and completely predictable, devoid of all extraneous adjectives or other qualifiers. Much of the gut-wrenching impact of the episode is down to the inspired sparkle of the anonymous man behind the mike (and distorter).
I must confess, the poignancy of the Dalek’s demise left the tears flowing abundantly. It transcended its limitations, rendering its pre-programmed role meaningless, the shiver of loneliness, from which our culture generally succeeds in insulating us, piercing through it. Its new insights reduced it to a repulsive anomaly by the standards it had been inculcated with: it perceived itself as diseased and defective, unworthy of life. Confronted with its own redundancy in a context in which it could not fit in and where its actions could make no sense it sacrificed itself, nobly. Acknowledging its futility, fear gnawed at it, a rational response to the imminence (and immanence) of death. Our own survival roots us irrevocably in death: we kill to live, creation in destruction. The hectic consolation afforded by culture distracts us from our transience. Our predicament is identical. We are all enslaved.
I am often numbed by a feeling that I am merely marking time until I soil the lining of a coffin (most of my family do not even have graves, their remains cremated or, like my Grandfather, donated to medical science. Descriptions of corpses flailing about in the heat of the ovens as they are incinerated have dissuaded me from following suit, although I know that as I will have ceased to inhabit my fleshly carriage by then the method of its disposal will be immaterial), having scattered my parents’ ashes from the peak of Schiehallion, the wind dispersing them over the lichen-dappled rocks and the heather.
