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Production Code: 6Z
First Transmitted
Plot Outline from Wikipedia The TARDIS lands on Necros, the location of the funeral home and suspended animation centre Tranquil Repose. The Sixth Doctor and Peri have come to visit a deceased scientist acquaintance. On the way, the Doctor points out great numbers of flowers that are similar to the soybean in terms of food versatility. The Doctor is attacked by a mutant, and Peri is forced to kill him to save the Doctor. Before he dies, the mutant tells the Doctor that the Great Healer used him as a genetic experiment and his appearance and hostility were a direct result of the experiments. At Tranquil Repose, a disc jockey plays songs and chats as a form of entertainment to those who are in suspended animation. He keeps the asleep aware of current events, but saves for moments of private reflection the fact that cures for some of the afflicted have been perfected decades ago. A couple, Natasha and Grigory, have illegally entered Tranquil Repose, also looking for the man the Doctor is visiting — Arthur Stengos, Natasha's father. Upon finding his assigned suspended animation capsule, they discover it is empty. Shocked, they continue looking and head downward. They find a dark room filled with pulsating brains and other experiments. Grigory walks past a glass dalek casing with a mutating red creature inside it. It opens its eye, and Grigory comments on how gruesome the thing is. When Natasha looks at it, the creature opens its mouth and starts saying "Na.. tasha? Natasha?". Natasha is shocked as she realises it is the head of her father, and he is being metamorphosised into a Dalek. Kara, who owns a company which distributes food throughout the galaxy (though one of many), is a pawn of the Great Healer, who is in actuality Davros (now apparently reduced to a disembodied head in a tank as a result of being infected by the Movellan virus). He takes virtually all the money she makes. To dissolve this arrangement, she has hired the mercenary Orcini and his squire, Bostock. She provides a transmitter to Orcini which has a five-button passcode. This must be entered when Orcini enters Davros's headquarters. Orcini accepts the contract solely for the honour of killing Davros. With Davros eliminated, she believes she will have the power and the capital necessary to control the galaxy. Arthur Stengos, who is now just a head with red flesh growing over him, explains to Natasha and Grigory what's going on. He tells them that the brains of everybody in Tranquil Repose are being used to metamorphosise into new Dalek mutants. He says that his mind has been conditioned to serve 'The Great Healer', but he can't remember who 'The Great Healer' actually is. As a last request, he orders his daughter to kill him before he fully mutates. While hesitating, Grigory pulls up his own gun willing to do it, but Natasha stops him and shoots her father herself. The two are then captured, thrown in a cell, and questioned by Takis and Lilt, who try rum on Grigory as a truth serum. The Doctor and Peri arrive and are greeted by Tasambeker. Intrigued by the DJ's recordings, Peri wants to meet him and the Doctor urges her to do so, despite having Jobel as a companion. The Doctor wants to see the person who erected a statue dedicated to his passing and the Doctor suspects trouble. Orcini destroys a Dalek and Davros is notified. He is convinced Kara has sent assassins, so he deploys some Daleks to bring her to him. They arrive, kill her secretary, and take her back. Peri departs, and the Daleks capture the Doctor. He is thrown into a cell with the Natasha and Grigory who are soon rescued by Orcini as scapegoats. Orcini penetrates Davros's lair, and he and Bostock empty their guns into Davros' life-support system. Davros appears to be killed by the ensuing explosion, but Orcini realises that the kill was too easy. Sure enough, the real Davros - who in fact survived the virus unscathed - appears with a group of Daleks. Orcini and Bostock try to shoot their way out, but the two are quickly subdued, with one of Orcini's legs being blown off in the process. Kara is brought in and he betrays her motives to Davros. Shocked, Kara states that they are both dead. Orcini responds "You before me," and kills her for her betrayal — the "transmitter" was actually a bomb. Natasha and Grigory infiltrate the incubator room yet again, and plan to destroy the brains that are scheduled for metamorphosis. When Natasha tries to fire her gun, it dies due to lack of power. Grigory reckons there's a self-destruct switch on the brain incubator console. He presses some buttons, but stops as Natasha spots a glass Dalek incubator materialise, and she cries "There's another Dalek!" The Doctor, via communicator, warns Peri to get back to the TARDIS and hail the President's ship which is on en route carrying the body of the deceased First Lady. The DJ persuades Peri to use his equipment. Overhearing the transmission, Davros orders the DJ killed and Peri captured. The DJ produces a sonar weapon which blows up two Daleks as they enter his room, but is killed when a third Dalek enters. Peri is captured. The Doctor overhears the events via broadcast audio and rushes to save her but is caught by two Daleks en route. Both meet back in Davros' laboratory where he reveals that he has a new army of Daleks, hidden in catacombs somewhere underneath his laboratory. Natasha and Grigory plan to escape the incubator room before the Dalek fully grows. They make their way to the door, but Natasha turns around and notices that the glass Dalek has disappeared. The two look up to spot a Dalek machine hovering high above the ground towards them. The two try to open the door, but the flying Dalek exterminates them before self destructing. Daleks not loyal to Davros arrive from Skaro, called by Takis, who now realise what has been going on. The Skaro Daleks demand to be taken to Davros. Takis leads the way, and shortly some of Davros's Daleks appear and the two factions engage in battle. The Skaro Daleks win and progress toward Davros. Davros is shocked when the Skaro Daleks enter the room and tries to persuade them that it is the Doctor who should be captured. However, the Skaro Daleks do not recognize the Doctor due to his regeneration. They take Davros back to Skaro to be executed for crimes committed against the Daleks. Orcini wants to explode the bomb before Davros's ship leaves - he hesitates and allows all to leave only because of the Doctor. The Doctor wants to create a timer, but Orcini claims there is no time. They all rush out and Orcini blows the bomb after hugging the body of Bostock, who was exterminated by a Dalek a few minutes ago. The Doctor states that Orcini did die for something very honourable: the destruction of Davros's new generation of Daleks. Peri wants a vacation, so the Doctor agrees: "All right, I'll
take you to --"
Analysis by Cuisle What I remember most about seeing this the first time was how cringingly horrible the DJ played by Alexi Sayle was. Watching it again, he is STILL cringingly horrible, but I was able to put him into perspective. In fact, that dreadful fake American accent is a clever parody of British DJ’s long before Harry Enfield got the idea for Smashie and Nicie. (Maybe he got it from Revelation of the Daleks?) And the purpose of the DJ is not to annoy the viewing public, but to provide a narrative from within the story itself that cuts across the need for a lot of the exposition that pads out many Doctor Who stories. His view of everything going on around Necros provides an insider view much like the couple on Varos watching events unfold on their TV screens, except the DJ has much more of a bead on what is going on. It is actually a clever plot device if you can stop being irritated by the mid-Atlantic accent. Meanwhile, cue Peri and The Doctor, and what seems a rather pointlessly extended scene in which they have to get over a wall. It isn’t as tedious as it seems. There is a lot about both of their characters revealed in the banter between them. And switch to the morticians, and a rather peculiar and underdeveloped part of the story involving a young trainee mortician, Tasambeker, who is secretly in love with the chief mortician. This part of the story was actually the core inspiration. Eric Saward adapted a short story by Evelyn Waugh called The Loved Ones, which is about a young girl who falls in love with a mortician. There was, quite possibly, room to make this story into an episode of its own with the question of exactly what is happening to the bodies taking central stage rather than being sidelined to the Dalek/Davros tale. Another plotline that gets lost is that Kara, the businesswoman with a shady deal with Davros, is actually using the BODIES of the people in suspended animation for food processing while their heads are taken for transformation into Daleks. Of course, science fiction fans are going to scream ‘Soylent Green’. And why not? There was ample space for a story revolving around a pastiche of the Loved Ones and Soylent Green, skilfully worked together by a good scriptwriter. Meanwhile, the Daleks and Davros would have made a separate story. As it was, both those elements lost out to another instalment of Davros’s battle with the Skaro Daleks who want him destroyed. This is a topic that began in the Tom Baker era with Destiny of The Daleks, continued through in Peter Davison’s Resurrection of The Daleks and continued after THIS story in the Seventh Doctor’s Remembrance of The Daleks. Even then the story did not seem completely resolved, and with the Cult of Skaro appearing in Doomsday at the end of the 2006 season, we don’t know if it’s done yet. Is DAVROS still around the universe somewhere? An ongoing theme with the Daleks is no bad thing as long as each story is original. The idea of mixing them up with the already strange situation on Necros was meant to do that, and its not a bad story. Yet again, as in Resurrection, The Doctor is forced to use a weapon. Many of the most memorable occasions when he has used a gun have involved Daleks. In the 2005 series, it was noted that the only two occasions Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor used a gun was in episodes involving Daleks. They do something to him deep inside that forces him to forget his preference for peaceful solutions. For preference I WOULD have made two separate stories of the material in this episode. But as it was, it worked, more or less, and didn’t fail to hold the attention. I still hate Mid-Atlantic fake accents and I’m really not keen
on DJ’s generally.
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