Production Code: 6P
First Transmitted
Cast The Doctor - Peter Davison
Crew
The year is 1984, and a group of humanoids are running down a London alley. As they attempt to escape, they are gunned down by two London policemen led by Commander Lytton. Two of the humanoids, Galloway and Quartermaster Sergeant Stien, escape and return to a warehouse where a time corridor is situated. Galloway is killed, leaving Stien alone. Lytton transports back to his battle cruiser and prepares to attack a prison space station. On the station, the crew are demoralised and the equipment is malfunctioning. The space station's only prisoner is Davros, the creator of the Daleks. A battle cruiser is approaching the station. Osborn the watch officer deploys the fighters only to be destroyed. Meanwhile, the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough are undergoing severe "turbulence" in the TARDIS; in the form of a time corridor. After a few dreadful minutes in which the Doctor and his companions are tossed around the TARDIS, the time machine lands at the end of the time corridor, in a London dock in 1984; to Tegan's immediate dismay and the Doctor's apparent joy. In the meantime, the Daleks try a direct frontal assault on the prison station; which yields poor results (and several Dalek casualties, as the station crew led by Dr Styles the CMO and Lt Mercer, fight back with considerable force). Lytton then persuades the Dalek Supreme to use poisonous gas to get the crew out of the way. The plan proves to be a success; and the Daleks have little trouble in taking over the station and exterminating the defence force and bridge crew. Lytton and his men siege the station and kill 2 officers using a flesh burning gas. Osborn and her guard go to Davros's cell to kill him. However the guard is exposed to the gas and Osborn shoots him. Lytton and an engineer break into the cells and kill Osborn before releasing Davros from his cryogenic imprisonment (into which he was placed following the events of Destiny of the Daleks). The Doctor and his friends have by now met a traumatised Stien, lamenting over the loss of Galloway. He begs the Doctor not to return to the warehouse, claiming that he is a coward and could not face seeing Galloway's body (or, worse still, his killers). The Doctor, on the other hand, realises that the warehouse is where this end of the time corridor is based; and is determined to get to the bottom of it. The group go up to the top floor and discover a military bomb disposal squad, who claim they were called in when construction workers uncovered what they thought to be unexploded bombs (which, as the Doctor rightly predicts, are in fact alien artifacts). While everyone is distracted by this, Turlough gets lost and travels through the time corridor, only to end up on the Dalek ship. Having learned that the Doctor is in the warehouse, the Supreme Dalek orders a Dalek to be dispatched, to detain the Doctor. The Dalek travels through the time corridor; and appears as if from nowhere. The Doctor yells at everyone to take cover; and soon the old battle cry is heard once more: "Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!" The Dalek kills several of the squad's men, before the Doctor tells them to aim their machine guns at the eyepiece, the stalk on the top of the dome. They do so; and the Dalek's vision is impaired. In the resulting struggle, the humans manage to push the Daleks out of the window, and it explodes; Tegan suffers a head injury and blacks out. Meanwhile, on the prison station, the crew are in deep trouble as the majority of them have been killed; either by Dalek or by gas. Styles, Mercer and 2 guards are left. They kill some guards and steal their uniforms. They come up with the idea of blowing up the station Styles takes the 2 guards with her to activate it. Speaking to Lytton, Davros explains that his cryogenic sentence lasted for "90 years of mind-numbing boredom". He then vows to take his revenge upon "that meddling Time Lord" — the Doctor. Lytton replies that he is within their grasp. While Davros's travel chair is undergoing maintenance by the engineer (Kiston), Lytton explains how the Daleks lost the war against the Movellans (to Davros's horror); and that the Movellans won by developing a virus that specifically attacks Dalek tissue. Davros muses gleefully upon how the struggling Daleks have come back for him to help them. He demands that he be allowed to work on the space station; as it may be necessary for him to be refrozen. When Lytton tells him that this would be impossible and impractical, Davros loses his temper and states that either he works on the space station or not at all. Lytton leaves the room to discuss this possibility with the Supreme Dalek; and Davros utilises a hypodermic device to take control of Kiston. When Lytton hears Kiston's scream and runs back into the cell Kiston claims that he had merely caught his hand on something. Meanwhile, the Doctor and the members of the bomb disposal squad, having taken all the pieces of the destroyed Dalek machine back inside to avoid paradoxes or anachronisms, are searching for the Kaled mutant that was housed inside the Dalek. They eventually find it and kill it; but only after it has attacked two of the squad's men (neither attack was fatal). While the medical officer of the squad looks after the recovering Tegan and the two victims of the Kaled mutant, the Doctor and Stien head into the TARDIS to find out what is happening at the other end of the time corridor. The TARDIS materialises inside the Dalek ship and the Doctor calls for Turlough; who has by now wandered away. He is charged by a guard, but trips him and takes his weapon, then tells Stien that they should find Turlough and make a swift exit. At this point Stien, no longer a stuttering coward, points his own weapon at the Doctor and makes the startling revelation that he is an agent of the Daleks.
At that moment a squadron of five Daleks enter and pin the Doctor against the wall: "Exterminate the Doctor! Exterminate the Doctor! Exterminate!..." Lytton, entering, informs the Daleks that the Supreme Dalek has ordered that the Doctor must not be killed - yet. The Daleks confirm this as the truth. The Daleks and Stien lead the Doctor away. In the meantime, Turlough has run into the survivors of the crew on the prison station, and is immediately suspected of being an enemy. However, he soon convinces them of his innocence and informs them of the time corridor. On Earth, the two men attacked by the Dalek creature are behaving very strangely; and seem to run away screaming at nothing. The group commander Colonel Archer decides to radio for help, although his own radio is dead. He heads outside and finds two policemen (unbeknownst to him, Lytton's associates) and asks for assistance. As he tries the radio, a policeman holds a gun to his head... The Daleks reveal their plan of cloning the Doctor and his companions, and to use the clones to assassinate the High Council of Time Lords on Gallifrey. Stien begins the mind-copying sequence while the Doctor tries to talk him into resisting his Dalek mind conditioning. While this is going on, Styles and the two station guards are killed when trying to activate the station's self-destruction system. Back on Earth Colonel Archer returns to the warehouse, obviously under Dalek control. Tegan makes an escape attempt, but is soon recaptured by the policemen and taken through the time corridor to the Dalek ship. The medical officer Professor Laird is shot while trying to flee the soldiers. Meanwhile, just as the mind-copying sequence nears completion, Stien is overcome with confusion, breaks his conditioning and stops the process, freeing the Doctor. The Doctor finds Turlough and Tegan, and they return to the TARDIS along with Stien and the last surviving station crew member. Rather than depart however the Doctor decides he must destroy Davros once and for all. With Stien and Lt Mercer he heads to the station lab, leaving Tegan and Turlough in the TARDIS, which he has surreptitiously programmed on time delay to return them to the warehouse. The Doctor confronts Davros in the lab, but his chance to kill him is lost when Stien's conditioning re-asserts itself long enough to let Lytton's troops kill Lt Mercer. Horrified by his actions Stien refuses to accompany the Doctor back to the time corridor, and runs off into the station. Davros' army (now including a biochemist, Kiston, a soldier and two Daleks) is growing; and he dispatches his Daleks to Earth. He then, anticipating resistance from the Daleks not loyal to him, opens a capsule of the Movellan virus and throws it at the door. Two Daleks then enter, and they die. Back at the warehouse, a huge battle is taking place between Davros' Daleks, and those loyal to the Supreme Dalek. The TARDIS arrives, and the Doctor (having returned through the time corridor) realises that the alien artifacts discovered earlier on were in fact canisters containing the Movellan virus. He opens a canister, and sneaks it behind the Daleks; soon they all start to die. Lytton has escaped, and gleefully watches the Daleks' demise. He swaps his Dalek uniform for that of a policeman, and joins his two fellow "bobbies" on their next vigil. Back on the station, Davros prepares to use an escape pod to flee from the station, but the Movellan virus attacks and seemingly kills him. The Daleks are dead, and Tegan is appalled at the deaths that have taken place. The Dalek Supreme appears on the TARDIS scanner and threatens the Doctor, claiming that the Daleks have duplicates of prominent humans all over Earth, and it is just a matter of time before Earth falls. Meanwhile, Stien (wounded) is trying to activate the self-destruct sequence. Just as he is about to finish, the Daleks enter and exterminate him. With his last ounce of life, he leaps onto the console, completing the sequence and destroying both the station and the Dalek ship. The Doctor calls for them all to leave, but Tegan says no — this has been one massacre too far. She no longer enjoys her adventures and wants to give it up; she runs away. The Doctor is saddened by this, and he and Turlough leave. As the TARDIS vanishes, Tegan runs back, remembering the Doctor's old admonishment: "Brave heart, Tegan." She calls out to the empty air that she will miss him.
Analysis by Cuisle Having regretted the deaths of the Sea Devils and Silurians and found a peaceful solution to the Gravis, this episode sees The Doctor actually pushed to the point of picking up a weapon and turning it on Davros. But The Doctor finds it impossible to kill in cold blood. He is quite capable of using a weapon when he has to. In the heat of battle he will do what he must to protect his friends. But to put the gun in Davros’s face and pull the trigger was too much for him. He couldn’t do it. And as a fan of The Doctor, I was glad he didn’t. that he even contemplated the idea went so against the grain. Just before he went to Davros’s chamber he HAD referred to the previous times when he had the opportunity to kill Davros, principally in Genesis of the Daleks, but no matter how many regenerations he goes through his principles are the same. And this was no exception. Curiously, the solution to the Daleks actually was not dissimilar to the solution to the Sea Devils and Silurions in Warriors of the Deep. Yet this time The Doctor had no objection to deploying the Movellan virus. The difference seems to be that the Daleks ARE ruthless monsters that must be killed or be killed, whereas the Silurians and Sea Devils were an honourable race that he had tried often to negotiate with. Much of the episode was about gunbattles between humans and Daleks and humans and other humans under Dalek control. It was confusing sometimes knowing who was on whose side with everyone stealing each other’s costumes. But there were memorable moments. Again, Tegan and Turlough showed real courage in the face of danger. But it was very much a bloodbath of an episode. There were countless deaths. Even the Dalek deaths were gruesome, with the acidlike substance seeping out like blood from their casings suggested that they were really suffering. No surprise then, when Tegan told The Doctor she had seen too much carnage and wanted to leave. Considering what she had been through in Kinda and Snakedance, and various other shocks, it had to be getting to her. What was surprising was the pained way that The Doctor told Turlough that he left his own world for much the same reason – that it had stopped being fun. The Doctor gives very few clues to his past, even less to his motives. That was a rare glimpse into his psyche. As for Tegan, when she watched the TARDIS dematerialise without her
it was an emotional moment. You could almost think that she regretted
it.
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