645 Revelation of the Daleks Part Two

EPISODE: Revelation of the Daleks Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 645
STORY NUMBER: 144
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 30 March 1985
WRITER: Eric Saward
DIRECTOR: Graeme Harper
SCRIPT EDITOR: Eric Saward
PRODUCER: John Nathan-Turner
RATINGS: 7.7 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks

A distraught Peri is found by the lecherous Jobel who tries to comfort her but both are astonished when the Doctor emerges from under the statue which turns out to be made of a lightweight material.

That's a very short reprise to start the episode off, just a matter of a few seconds!

Jobel is entry #11 on the "Lusting after Peri" list! 11! And we're not done yet!

Why the fake blood on the Doctor?

The Doctor & Peri go to Tranquil Repose and enquire who organised the Doctor's statue. Takis tracks the President's ship aproaching Necros and spots an unknown freighter moving towards the Planet.

I think the freighter is meant to be Orcini & Bostock, it's not 100% clear and the appearance of some other visitors later on in the episode throws further doubt.

Tasambeker gives the Doctor & Peri a full run down of Tranquil Repsose's services. Orcini & Bostock arrive at Tranquil Repose and are ambushed by a Dalek which they destroy, sounding an alert in Davros' lab.

The scenes of Orcini & Bostock aproaching Tranquil Repose were also filmed at Tangmere Aerodrome, used in the last episode. The intention was to feature a Dalek flying through the air at this stage somehow but weather conditions meant a change of plan and we had to settle for a large explosion instead.

Tasmabeker tells the Doctor she cannopt tell him who errected the sttue without the permission of the Great Healer. Davros sends Daleks to "protect" Kara who he suspects of treachery. Peri is taken by Jobel to see the DJ.

Now we get a clearer look at the set for the DJ's studio it becomes obvious that it's Kara's office redressed.

Tasambeker supposedly takes the Doctor to the Great Healer, but in fact turns him over to the Daleks who have Takis & Lilt secure him with Natasha & Grigory. As Kara recieves a signal indicating that Orcini has entered the cataconbs Daleks arrive taking her prisoner and exterminating Vogel. Takis & Lilt share their concerns about the Great Healer with Jobel, unaware that they are being observed. Davros offers Tasambeker imortality as a Dalek if she kills Jobel, who she has seen flirting with women on Davros' monitors, and she accepts. Orcini & Bostock, suspecting they have been set up, free the Doctor, Natasha & Grigory to provide a diversion for them. Tasambeker goes to see Jobel telling him that the Great Healer wishes to kill him and urging him to leave but when he refuses and insults her she kills him. She is pursued by Daleks and exterminated. Peri sees the Doctor on the DJ's monitors and he tells her to return to the Tardis to warn the president's ship about the Daleks. Davros orders Peri captured and the DJ killed.

Here's the break between episode 3 & 4 of the four part version, which was shown in the UK on 19th March to 9th April 1993 as part of a retrospectove season showing one story from each Doctor.... except there ended up being two Pertwee's when the Daemons got colour restored!

The DJ tries to protect Peri and lets her use his radio transmitter to contact the ship as Daleks aproach. Natasha & Grigory are sent by the Doctor to destroy the incubation area. Orcini & Bostock enter the lab and destroy Davros in his life support machine. Orcini suspects a trap and is proved right when the real Davros reveals himself and has Daleks shoot Bostock, destroying Orcini's artificial leg.

Ben Aaronovitch will also use the "so you think that's Davros" trick in the next Dalek story, Remembrance of the Daleks.

The reveal of Davros and the sequence that follows shows him hovering in mid air and shooting energy bolts at Orcini. Unfortunately a CSO error means that Orcini's leg ends up behind Davros. This effect is fixed for the alternative visual effects sequence on The Revelation of the Daleks DVD.

Natasha & Grigory are caught by a Dalek and exterminated just as the incubator explodes.

This sequence uses a Sevans model Dalek to try and show a Dalek in mid air. It doesn't work wonderfully well and has also been redone for the DVD. Not that it's the Dalek kit's fault, it looks fab. I had one, they were great if a little difficult to put together and not wonderfully stable or solid when built. I had mine painted as the Planet of the Daleks Black & Gold Dalek Supreme. One day my younger brother Tim left it behind a door so it would get broken when I opened it!

Kara is brought to Davros' lab. Orcini is instructed to operate his transmiter but she reveals it's a bomb. She insults Orcini who kills her for her treachery. The Daleks attack the DJ's studio and he destroys the first wave with a sonic cannon but is exterminated in a second assualt that takes Peri prisoner. The Doctor is recaptured by the Daleks. Takis & Lilt monitor a ship touching down at Tranquil Repose.

I wonder who that could be?

The Doctor is taken to Davros' lab as Davros reveals he has been using the powerful amongst the dead to make new Daleks and convertrting the rest into the miracle foodstuff that is feeding that part of the galaxy.

Script editor Eric Saward claims not to have seen the "classic" science fiction movie Soylent Green when he wrote Revelation of the Daleks.

The Doctor mocks Davros' attempts at building a new Dalek race saying "with you as their Emperor"? Watch Remembrance of the Daleks and it almost looks like Revelation was written to set up the next Dalek story!

Takis & Lilt greet a group of grey Daleks which have arrived demanding to be taken to Davros.

Now you know why Davros' Daleks are white! We don't want them getting confused with the grey ones!

Peri is reunited with the Doctor in Davros' lab. The wounded Bostock shoots Davros remaining hand off but is exterminated.

Davros has green blood. Is this usual for Kaleds?

Battles break out in the catacombs between white & grey Daleks with the grey Daleks winning and taking the wounded Davros prisoner. The Doctor, Peri, Takis, Lilt, and the wounded Orcini are held prisoner in the lab but destory their guard with the aid of a grenade taken from Bostock's body. The Doctor explains to Takis & Lilt that the plant on the planet can be farmed to provide a source of protein to replace that which Davros provided Orcini elects to stay behind to destroy Tranquil Repose with Kara's transmitter/bomb. Tranquil Repose is evacuated as the bomb is detonated but the Daleks escape with Davros. Peri pleads with the Doctor to be taken on a real holiday, somewhere fun and he comes up with an idea...

Oh that's fabulous stuff. It's like a snowball that keeps rolling a builds up momentum as it goes. The Doctor is a bit on the sidelines, yes, but it's his intervention that gets the President saved and gets everyone out of the lab at the end. Otherwise the episode is Davros' plans crumbling round him as first Kara and then the Tranquil Repose staff turn on him.

So where was The Doctor planning to take Peri? Blackpool is the line cut from the very end of the show and would have led into The Nightmare Fair, Graham Williams planned script to open the 23rd/1986 season that ended up being postponed. This story would have featured a return for the Celestial Toymaker, then a popular figure amongst Doctor Who fans. However episode 4 of his first aponymous appearance had been returned to the BBC the previous year and as copies escaped into the wild the "percieved wisdom" that this was a missing classic started to take a bashing! Other stories planned for the cancelled season were Wally K Daly's The Ultimate Evil and Philip Martin's Mission to Magnus returning both Sil and The Ice Warriors. However with the postponement of Season 23 and a reversion to 25 minute episodes these 3 stories were abandoned, but later novelised for Target books.

Doctor Who didn't completely disapear from the airwaves for 18 months though: A radio production of six ten minute episodes entitled Slipback writen by Eric Saward aired on Radio 4 from 25the July–8th August 1985. It's available on CD and as well as Colin Baker & Nicola Bryant it also features Valentine Dyall in the last role he undertook before his death on the 24 June.

So at this point I'm in my first year at secondary school. By the time I return I'll be in my third, I'll be reading Doctor Who Magazine, visited the Longleat exhibition, have seen stories on video and joined the DWAS. It'll be proper fan time!

There's lots of lasts associated with this episode. This is the last Doctor Who script credited to Eric Saward, but as we'll see he has considerable input into one more under another author's name. It's also the last time Graeme Harper directs for the original series, which is a huge loss because he looks head and shoulders better than the other directors working on the show at the time (the sidelined Peter Grimwade excepted). However Harper would be back in 2006 directing several episodes of the new series of Doctor Who. This is the last 45 minute episode in the original run of Doctor Who. This is possibly an odd decision as the number of 25 minute drama shows, bar soaps, were few and 45 minutes - 1 hour was now the standard. 45 minute episodes return for the 2005 revival of the show. This episode marks the last use of the Peter Howell version of the theme used since 1980 although the Colin Baker version of the accompanying title sequence survives fir another year yet. I have strong opinions on the replacement version of the theme tune! Finally this is the last time an original series Doctor Who episode was seen by more than 7 million people.

This also marks the end of John Nathan-Turner's fifth year as Doctor Who producer and he thus goes past Barry Letts to become the series longest serving producer.

As we've stated Revelation of the Daleks is the only story from this season, and indeed the only Colin Baker story, ever to be repeated in the UK when it was shown in 4 x 25 minute installments from 19th March to 9th April 1993. There's no Revelation of the Daleks novel - umour has it that no agreement could be reached between Eric Saward & Terry Nation's agent as to how the book's royalties should be split. A similar situation exists for Saward's first Dalek tale, Resurrection of the Daleks.

Revelation of the Daleks was released on video in a tinned boxset along with Planet of the Daleks in November 1999. This boxset is one of the harder to find UK releases selling out pretty fast. The same tape was reissued in September 2001 as part of the WHSmiths Davros boxset alongside Genesis of the Daleks, Destiny of the Daleks, Resurrection of the Daleks & Remembrance of the Daleks. Revelation of the Daleks was issued on DVD on 11th July 2004 and then again in the Davros Collection DVD Box Set which contained the DVD versions of the five stories in the VHS boxset above.