Doctor Who Is CLASSIC!: Remembrance of the Daleks

I got spoiled with those 4 Doctor Who specials all close together like that and writing posts for Doctor Who Is NEW!.

But the new season of Doctor Who with Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson is a few months away (possibly as late as May) so no more installments of  Doctor Who Is NEW!  for awhile at least.

So today I am starting Doctor Who Is CLASSIC!, a companion piece to Doctor Who Is NEW!

These post will focus on episodes of the classic series and today, we launch Doctor Who Is CLASSIC! with a post about "Remembrance of the Daleks".  

I recently added the streaming service Tubi which has all the classic Doctor Who episodes and while our son was home for the Christmas break, we watched this one at his suggestion.

"I did NOT fall asleep during this story!" raved Dean! 

OK, a little context. Dean has nothing against classic Doctor Who but has admitted a propensity to doze off when watching a classic serial. And I get that. 

Back in the day, a typical Doctor Who story ran as 4 half hour installments with stories that would probably fit a tight hour long episode in the modern era. Stretched out to nearly 2 hours, there could be a lot of padding which could make the show feel slow sometimes.   

Also classic Who did not spend a lot of time character building for the companions or working towards a season arc theme like we're accustomed to in modern Who.  

But "Remembrance of the Daleks" hits pretty close to the sensibilities of the modern series. 

Companion Ace encounters a British soldier named Mike and the two of them kind of hit it off. Until she finds out Mike is a neo-Nazi white supremacists which royally pisses her off.

And speaking of being pissed off, this is the story where Ace beats the shit out of a Dalek with a super powered baseball bat. 

Dalek: SMALL HUMAN FEMALE SIGHTED ON LEVEL THREE-

Ace: Who are you calling small?! 

And she takes out another Dalek by aiming at it's eyestalk... with a frickin' rocket launcher!  

And there's the Doctor himself. Most classic stories have the TARDIS randomly depositing the Doctor somewhere in time and/or space to deal with whatever problem he found there. 

In this story, the Doctor is on a mission! 

And the Doctor ain't telling Ace or us about it! 

Sylvester McCoy had come to the role of the Doctor from a background in comedy and some of that informed his performances in his first season with physical slapstick and goofy malapropisms. By the show's 25th year and McCoy's 2nd season, he was adopting a slightly darker edge, a sinister hint that he may not always be trustworthy, that he has a secret agenda that the audience is not privy to. 

Remember in "Twice Upon a Time" where the 1st Doctor is perplexed by the 12th Doctor's bravado speeches? It was not something that came up a lot in classic Doctor Who like it does in the modern era. 

But the 7th Doctor gets off a couple in "Remembrance of the Daleks".  He boasts of his credentials to the Daleks: 

"President Elect of the High Council of Gallifrey, 

Keeper of the Legacy of Rassilon, 

Defender of the Laws of Time, 

Protector of Gallifrey." 

Or his mocking of the Daleks for their supposed superiority:  

"Crush the lesser races! 

Conquer the galaxy! 

Unimaginable power! 

Unlimited rice pudding! 

Et cetera! Et cetera!"

The episode builds on the show's mythology. Why was the 1st Doctor parked in that junkyard way back in the first episode? 

The Doctor was hiding a secret Time Lord weapon, the Hand of Omega.  It is a weapon of unimaginable power that two competing factions of Daleks want to get their hands (plungers?) on. 

The 7th Doctor has returned to London 1963 presumably to keep the Hand of Omega away from the Daleks. Well, you may presume that, it seems only reasonable. But the Doctor's machinations are more complex than that, more insidious even.  

"Remembrance of the Daleks" is a harbinger of the type of storytelling that Russell T Davies would introduce when he brought Doctor Who into the 21st century.  Which makes it a great classic series episode to introduce to a fan of the modern series.  

I will have more posts of Doctor Who Is CLASSIC! coming up in the future! 

Next time, a classic 3rd Doctor serial that introduces a beloved companion and the Doctor's greatest single adversary.