This was the first episode of the 25th Season of Doctor Who, the 25th Anniversary of the show itself, and the production team decided to kick things off with a bang.
Part 1
We begin with a cold open - a rare occurrence in pre-2005 Doctor Who - of the Earth with the recording of speeches by various figures in 1963 playing as a spaceship approaches ominously. With that, we kick into the title sequence. I didn't really talk about the opening credits for An Unearthly Child, mostly because I don't really find them all that interesting. While it has the original version of the Doctor Who theme by Ron Grainer and Delia Derbyshire, it has kind of that strange 60's effect with a bunch of swirling shapes that would look really good in color. Alas, no such luck...at least until the Pertwee Era, but that's another story.
And apparently color TVs were not a very common thing in 1963. Or so I'm told, I wasn't actually there.
And yes, we are at "Part 1", "Part 2", and so on for episode subtitles, as I did talk about in my An Unearthly Child review. I guess at some point the writing staff just got tired to coming up with names for individual episodes. I can't blame them.
In any case, I like the McCoy title sequence. The theme is very late 80's and synthesized to Hell and back and I love it.
Part 1 kicks off, after the title sequence, at the now-familiar Coal Hill School. The Seventh Doctor and Ace (the latter carrying a boombox) emerge from the TARDIS and the Doctor starts taking note of a not at all suspicious black van. Ace is a young woman from 20th century England, specifically the town of Perivale. She is an underachiever and more than a little bit of a miscreant, but is far smarter than she allows others to think she is - being an expert at chemistry, even to the point where she's developed a specialized explosive called Nitro-9.
She also happens to be one of my favorite companions of the entire show, Old or New. One of the biggest reasons is because of this episode...but we'll get to that in a bit.
The dynamic between the Doctor and Ace was more of a teacher-student one (with Ace even nicknaming the Doctor "Professor" much to his irritation), with the Doctor attempting to teach Ace and help her realize her full potential for a plotline that sadly never got realized due to the show going off the air in 1989, but that doesn't enter into this episode. On that note, the Doctor tells Ace to go ahead and go get food as she is hungry - while he studies the van that has so escaped her notice, even giving her some money to do so.
As she leaves, a blonde schoolgirl observes the Doctor with a menacing scowl.
In the cafe, Ace has some issues with pre-decimalization British money and meets a man named Mike, who will become more important later.
The Doctor, meanwhile, investigates the playground and finds what look like landing craters around a hopscotch grid. The little girl from earlier runs off upon seeing him and, once the Doctor has left, she re-emerges to give a Freddy Kruger-esque nursery rhyme about there being a Doctor at the gate...
The Doctor then invites himself into a van, meeting Professor Rachel Jensen and generally acting like he owns the place because that's the Doctor's M.O. in general. She's planning to turn him in, but they are informed of an attack.
Ace and Mike, coming back the other way, are pulled in as well - Mike apparently being a "Sergeant" within whatever organization they're in. Getting into the van, they head off to 76 Totter's Lane, where Group Captain Gilmore is pulling a shroud over a fallen soldier. The Doctor comes, examines the body, and diagnoses the death - insides scrambled by a projected energy weapon. The cause? Something that is trapped in a room with no escape but the door out into the junkyard.
The Doctor knows. He's been here before.
Reinforcements arrive and Gilmore arranges them into an attack pattern despite the Doctor's insistence that they have no idea what they're dealing with. And indeed, the Dalek attacks and all hell breaks loose. Unfortunately, because of the timeline being before the UNIT dating controversy (regardless of when you think the UNIT stories are set), Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart isn't here to hand the Daleks their pepperpot asses, so the Doctor has to step in because the military is useless. Well, technically, the Doctor handles it with two cans of the Nitro-9 that Ace definitely wasn't carrying.
...did I mention I love Ace? Because, yeah.
Anyway, the Dalek is blown up and the day is saved...or at least it would be if we didn't have three more parts to this episode.
The Doctor and Ace steal a van while Gilmore orders Coal Hill School to be manned with soldiers and for them to be equipped with anti-tank rockets. As they drive off, the Doctor gives Ace a very abridged version of Dalek history as well as some of the future events that were covered in earlier episodes (such as the Dalek Invasion of Earth in the 22nd century). Also, the Doctor pulls a magic trick where he's able to switch seats with Ace in mid-drive.
I'd say that's impressive, but he's going to repair Ace's broken leg by tugging on her ear in a bit.
At any rate, Ace gets the important details and a new one: the Daleks want something called the Hand of Omega.
At the Coal Hill School, Mike introduces a Mr. Ratcliffe to Gilmore. Gilmore totally does not notice the Nazi-esque boots clicking together introduction Ratcliffe makes and totally believes that Ratcliffe and his men will be useful to them. There's also a short scene where Jansen and her assistant Allison postulate on who the Doctor might be and how they'll definitely get answers out of him.
Arriving at the school, the Doctor and Ace meet Scottish character actor Michael Sheard, who made six appearances on Doctor Who between 1966 and 1988 (this being the last of them) as various characters. In this instance, he's the Headmaster of the Coal Hill School.
You also will probably remember him as either Admiral Ozzel from The Empire Strikes Back or Hitler from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Sheard sadly passed away in 2005, so he had no appearances on the Revived Show, although he did work with Paul McGann on one of the Big Finish stories during the Gap Years.
At any rate, he's here, and the Doctor and Ace question him. He believes the Doctor is applying for the job of Caretaker...which will be funny when we get to the Capaldi era. When the Doctor asks to look around, he refuses at first...and then gets a distant look and touches his ear, saying that it wouldn't do any harm for them to have a quick look around.
...and indeed it is.
Elsewhere, Ratcliffe and his men are taking the destroyed Dalek away from 76 Totter's Lane.
In one of the chemistry labs, Ace finds a book on the French Revolution (obviously meant to be the one that Barbara gave to Susan...which raises more questions than it answers) before Doctor asks Ace to look at the burn marks from earlier, asking her what she thinks of them. Ace reasons that they're the landing burns from a spacecraft, but can't fathom how this could be - if there were aliens in 1963, she surely would have heard of them coming from 1987.
The Doctor points out the Zygon Gambit with the Loch Ness Monster and the Yetis in the London Underground, much to Ace's complete obliviousness.
He also explains that, when he was last in Shoreditch, he left something behind: the Hand of Omega, something very dangerous.
Back at Ratcliffe's, Ratcliffe reports to a not at all Davros-like figure. It seems that Ratcliffe is working with the Daleks, who are aware that the Doctor is involved and want to know about his movements.
The Doctor and Ace find their way into the basement, finding a transmat as the Headmaster looks on. A Dalek is transmatting in, the Doctor using a bit of jiggery-pokery to cause the Dalek's insides and outsides to occupy the same space. This just makes it explode rather than result in a chunky soup of squid bits and metal. This also damages the transmat...the Doctor mentioning that an operator will probably come to repair it, Ace mentioning that it's another Dalek...and it emerges.
The two bolt, Ace getting upstairs and out just in time to get knocked unconscious by the Headmaster, who closes the door and locks it. The Doctor, trapped inside, beats on the door, and we get one of the most iconic shots of the McCoy era as the Dalek literally hovers up the stairs toward the Doctor, who is backed against the wall as the Dalek declares that he is the enemy of the Daleks and he will be exterminated...
Part 2
So, the Doctor's stuck in a staircase with a Dalek ready to exterminate him. Ace is unconscious and the door is locked. How will the Doctor get out of this one?!
...
...okay, c'mon, I know we've covered episodes that came after this one, but just go with me here.
Ace actually is not unconscious, but recovers in time to get the jump on the Headmaster and take him down before getting the Doctor out of the death trap. Whether it's 1988 or 2020, the Daleks have not learned the vitally important lesson of "Gloat later". Examining him quickly, the Doctor finds a microchip behind the Headmaster's ear. They escape, and the Headmaster is sent to repair the transmat.
Outside, the Doctor and Ace find those ATRs that Gilmore had moved to the School. The Doctor signs for them, he and Ace going to dismantle the transmat with a boom. The Dalek stops them, however, and Ace stops it...with a rocket to the eyepiece.
...I have mentioned I love Ace, right?
Gilmore and his military squad come in as the Doctor rants about having made a terrible mistake. Gilmore refuses to withdraw his troops, however, even after Jansen confirms that the Daleks are non-terrestrial in origin. It seems there are two groups of Daleks out there - one in white armor and the other in the traditional black/grey armor.
The Doctor leaves, taking Ace's baseball bat with him. Jansen questions Ace on a comment the Doctor made about Ace not having been born yet. Ace just gives a coy smile in response.
The Doctor heads back to the cafe from earlier, meeting Geoffrey from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Here the Doctor ponders decisions, talking about how every decision creates ripples like a huge boulder dropped into a lake. They are things that can lead to other events happening because of those events that so on.
There's also some blunt force trauma about slavery being bad.
Which, yes, slavery is bad. That's not in question.
Geoffrey gives the Doctor the best advice, though: best to just get on with it.
Also, because everyone forgot the transmat, Daleks start coming through it.
The next morning, the Doctor arrives at an undertaker's. Said undertaker hears some strange noises from a certain casket before the Doctor arrives. The Doctor is left alone with it, and McCoy's performance takes on a more enigmatic and sinister edge as he gets the casket to open and puts Ace's baseball bat inside it - the first real appearance of Time's Champion. Meanwhile, the Undertaker talks to his boss on the phone, being sure that the Doctor was an old geezer with white hair.
He, predictably, passes out from shock as the Doctor walks out...with the casket floating after him. Taking it to the graveyard, the Doctor chats with a blind priest as the casket lowers itself into the grave - the priest mentioning that he notes the Doctor's voice has changed...and that his pall bearers must be silent as ghosts, the Doctor just smiling knowingly.
During this all, Not-Davros and Ratcliffe have been discussing future plans and Ratcliffe gets a phone call from someone tailing the Doctor and we learn that it is Mike, working for Ratcliffe, who is indeed working for one of the two groups of Daleks. The only problem with this is that Mike has also been found out by the other group of Daleks. The Headmaster goes after Mike and attempts to subdue him. Unfortunately, the Headmaster is an old man and Mike is a trained soldier and so takes him down. The Daleks puppeting the Headmaster decide to cut their losses and he dies.
Despite being in the same graveyard, the Doctor and the Blind Priest either don't hear what's going on or don't really care. In the case of the Doctor, given that Seven is a bit of a bastard at times, possibly both.
Ace, meanwhile, is at Mike's Mother's boarding house with him, Jensen, and Allison. Mike gets a message that the Group Captain wants them to meet him just as the Doctor arrives and gives Ace the bat of...well, okay, it's coming. I don't want to spoil it yet. Mike manipulates things to keep Ace at the boarding house and throws on a dollop of sexism for good measure because he's a dick as well as a racist, but we'll get to that later.
Ace implores the Doctor to let her go with him, but he asks that she trust him.
Ratcliffe gets revealed as a Nazi sympathizer, by the way. Just to drive the Nazi-Dalek connection home.
The Doctor gets into the war room and takes charge, because he's the Doctor. Back at the Boarding House, after finding a "No Coloured" sign, Ace takes off and we get a Fourth Wall breaking joke that writer Ben Aaronvitch swears to this day was not meant to be taken seriously.
And I don't, but it's kind of a weird meta joke.
Ace makes her way to the school to get her tape deck and unfortunately gets caught by one, having to escape. The Doctor is alerted to the fact that Ace is gone and that the transmat is working again, putting two and two together and mounting up for a rescue.
The Dalek enters the chemistry lab and blasts Ace's radio apart...and gets...
...hang on, I'm gonna need a second here.
Gets beaten senseless with the Hand of Omega-empowered baseball bat for its trouble.
...I'm gonna need a cigarette after that. It was literally just that good.
Ace manages to escape, but is soon cornered by three Daleks. Ducking down as they scream at her, the episode ends with Ace gritting her teeth as she loads an ATR into the launcher...
Part 3
Part 3 kicks off with Ace still cornered by the three Daleks and facing what must be certain doom. The Doctor arrives with a gadget that sprays 80's stardust all over the Daleks and the military takes them out with plastic explosives. The Doctor gets too close to one and nearly gets strangled, though Allison saves him with Ace's baseball bat and the Doctor goes on to help Ace with her leg. Apparently my memory was bad and the ear tug to fix Ace's leg was a deleted scene...but the Doctor still did it, but never mind.
In the basement, the Doctor does what he should have done earlier and destroys the Imperial Dalek transmat with Ace's bat, sadly ultimately destroying it along with the transmat.
Ratcliffe, meanwhile, comes across the grave site of the Hand of Omega and brings his men to dig it up, though not before he stabs it with a bar and some energy is sent out...which gets the attention of the Imperial Daleks. The Emperor Dalek orders the assault shuttle to be sent down.
The blonde school girl from earlier shows up and stares menacingly at Ratcliffe for a while before leaving.
The Doctor gets Gilmore to move his forces into the school to get them out of the way, he reasons to Ace that as long as the Renegade Daleks have the Hand, the Imperial Daleks will be focused on them. They get to the school to check up on things, and the Doctor brings Ace aside and fulfills his promise to explain what's going on.
He tells her of Omega creating the power of the Time Lords, specifically remote stellar manipulation using a device (the Hand) and that was how Rassilon founded Time Lord society. The Daleks have crude time travel, but they want the more accurate and precise style that the Time Lords have. With two Dalek factions, though, the Doctor has to make sure the right faction gets the Hand.
Ratcliffe's men bring the Hand back to his base just in time for the Daleks to turn on them and Not-Davros being revealed...to be not Davros! It's the blonde school girl, who is apparently a Dalek controller! Ratcliffe's men are all killed off, and he is threatened with extermination as well if he does not obey the Daleks. Blonde School Girl activates a plasma ball that she claims to be the time controller and the Daleks move out onto the streets of Shoreditch...which is probably just as terrifying in 1988 as it was in 1964.
The Doctor and Ace sneak into Ratcliffe's warehouse, where the Doctor fiddles about with the plasma ball and leaves his calling card for the Daleks to find. They escape just in time for BSG and the Dalek Supreme to come in and find the card. They get back to Coal Hill in time for Mike to out himself as a member of the Association, and thus working with one of the factions of Daleks...but he manages to smooth talk his way through Gilmore. Ace, however, is less than impressed - particularly when he attempts to blame her for him knowing about the Hand of Omega.
The Renegade Daleks return to base suddenly without waging a full attack on the school, with no clear reason why. At least, until Jensen reports something dropping into the atmosphere from low orbit, the Doctor reasons it to be the Imperial Dalek shuttlecraft. He isn't worried, though...the Daleks won't possibly land this far away from the main action. Cue them witnessing the Dalek ship descending from orbit...and the Doctor breaking the Fourth Wall as he admits he might have miscalculated...
Part 4
The Doctor, Ace, Gilmore, Jensen, and Allison are all still cooped up in the science lab after the Dalek shuttlecraft lands.
The Imperial Daleks disembark immediately to claim the Hand.
Ace, meanwhile, gets a halfhearted pile of bullshit from Mike as an explanation for his behavior and she tells him to stow it. She rightly calls him out as a traitor and leaves him for Gilmore, who begins disciplinary action.
We have Daleks vs. Daleks. It goes about as you'd expect for the Imperial Daleks...until they bring out the single coolest Dalek specialist design - the Special Weapons Dalek. You might think "Oh, the Daleks, they're already a violent and gun happy race". You'd be right, of course, but the Special Weapons Dalek has no plunger, no funny headpiece - it's literally a cannon on wheels. In supplementary materials, they are Daleks that have become so deranged and mutated that other Daleks are afraid of them to the point of staying as far behind them as possible in battle.
Let me repeat that: they are too deranged and mutated for the Daleks.
And they make an impressive first appearance here, absolutely turning the tide against the Renegade Daleks with a literal bang. Actually, a literal series of bangs.
The Doctor, meanwhile, is putting to use all the hours he spent playing Thief and slides along a wire from the window onto an unguarded service hatch on top of the Dalek shuttle. He covers the Dalek's eyepiece with his hat and proceeds to kill it using Christmas lights. He then uses the technology on the ship to allow them to monitor the Imperial Daleks. Ace points out that he can't, and the Doctor counters that he can do whatever he likes.
He's right, of course.
Mike escapes where he's being held because of reasons. He gets back to Ratcliffe's warehouse just in time to get captured by the Daleks. Ratcliffe attempts to bargain with the Daleks for their lives, but before the Renegade Daleks can kill off their prisoners, the Imperial Daleks show up for another fight. Ratcliffe gets 86'd and Mike escapes, taking the Renegade Dalek's time controller with him.
In the basement, while the Doctor rigs a communication system with the transmat, Christmas lights, and television, Jensen asks him to explain why two Dalek factions are fighting each other. Ace is told to explain by the Doctor, and she does so pretty succinctly: each Dalek faction believes the other isn't pure enough and, given the nature of the Daleks, they fight.
Ace goes after Mike while the Doctor resumes his place in the basement. The Imperial Daleks take the Hand of Omega and head back to their mother ship. The Doctor takes to his MacGuyver'd machinery to call out the Imperial Daleks, demanding that they return the Hand of Omega. The Dalek Emperor takes the path of umbrage and mocks him, revealing himself to be...Davros.
Davros is the Creator of the Daleks and, in this instance, is played by Terry Molloy. He's the third actor to play the role of Davros and by far gives the best performance of all of them in the Old or New Series. Until Julian Bleach's Davros showed back up again in Peter Capaldi's second season, Terry had the distinction of being the only actor to play Davros more than once. He still plays Davros in Big Finish audio productions to this day.
The Doctor mentions Davros has thrown off the last vestiges of his human form...which is kind of ignored in later stories, but never mind. Basically, the two engage in a little bit of old fashioned smack talk. There's also a really cool deleted scene here, but since it's not in the episode I won't cover it...and I'll save it for something later.
Ace returns to Mike's mother's boarding house and Mike puts her at gun point.
Davros reveals the full extent of his plan - using the Hand of Omega to turn Skaro's sun into a source of power, eventually leading into the Daleks destroying the Time Lords and becoming the New Lords of Time. The Doctor taunts Davros into a frenzy, but seems to go far too far...Davros activating the Hand to destroy the Earth and the Doctor with it.
The Doctor begs him to not do so...and the ploy is revealed as the Hand of Omega is sent off and causes Skaro's sun to go supernova, vaporizing the planet. The Doctor booby trapped the Hand, and upon destroying Skaro, the Hand returns to Davros' ship...at full power. Davros begs for the Doctor to show mercy, but the Doctor has none and bids him farewell - "It hasn't been pleasant". Davros gets to an escape pod...and the Imperial Dalek ship is obliterated by the Hand.
The Doctor tells Jensen, Allison, and Gilmore what he'd planned all along: using the Hand to destroy Skaro's sun. Now, it's returning to Gallifrey and out of the hands of both factions of Daleks.
BSG shows up at the boarding house and kills Mike with Emperor Palpatine's lightning, stalking in after Ace.
In one of the most badass scenes in Doctor Who history - Old or Revived - the Doctor faces against the Renegade Supreme Dalek and tells it what he's done, destroyed the Daleks, Skaro, and even the Dalek's creator - Davros. He literally talks it into committing suicide.
The destruction of the Supreme frees BSG from its control in one of Doctor Who's many, many hilariously overacted scenes.
The Doctor pokes his umbrella through the ashes of the Supreme, declaring "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust".
A funeral is held for Mike, the Doctor and Ace holding back as the others go into the chapel for the service. Ace asks the Doctor if they did good. The Doctor replies, "Perhaps...time will tell. Always does."
And that was Remembrance of the Daleks. It's a fun episode that digs deep into Doctor Who lore. It has call backs to An Unearthly Child, pretty much ever Dalek episode made up until that point, and hints at things that Russell T. Davies would use for cannon fodder in the future. It follows up on a plot line started all the way back in Genesis of the Daleks, where the fears of the Time Lords that the Daleks could grow more powerful than they were was very nearly realized.
Remembrance of the Daleks also drives the Nazi parallels to the Daleks home in ways that hadn't really been touched upon since Genesis of the Daleks, with Ratcliffe being a Nazi sympathizer and Jensen and Allison making Nazi jokes at Gilmore's expense, and so on. We also see racism that still existed in 1960's England - such as Mike's mother refusing coloured people at her boarding house, though it admittedly doesn't get too much deeper than that.
This episode is, I cringe at using the term, but "action packed". There's a lot going on here, and it overall has a pretty good pace to balance out the rest. There's just enough exposition, just enough to keep the story going. It's pretty awesome and a front runner for not only one of the best episodes of the Sylvester McCoy era, but of Doctor Who in general.
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Part 1
We begin with a cold open - a rare occurrence in pre-2005 Doctor Who - of the Earth with the recording of speeches by various figures in 1963 playing as a spaceship approaches ominously. With that, we kick into the title sequence. I didn't really talk about the opening credits for An Unearthly Child, mostly because I don't really find them all that interesting. While it has the original version of the Doctor Who theme by Ron Grainer and Delia Derbyshire, it has kind of that strange 60's effect with a bunch of swirling shapes that would look really good in color. Alas, no such luck...at least until the Pertwee Era, but that's another story.
And apparently color TVs were not a very common thing in 1963. Or so I'm told, I wasn't actually there.
And yes, we are at "Part 1", "Part 2", and so on for episode subtitles, as I did talk about in my An Unearthly Child review. I guess at some point the writing staff just got tired to coming up with names for individual episodes. I can't blame them.
In any case, I like the McCoy title sequence. The theme is very late 80's and synthesized to Hell and back and I love it.
Part 1 kicks off, after the title sequence, at the now-familiar Coal Hill School. The Seventh Doctor and Ace (the latter carrying a boombox) emerge from the TARDIS and the Doctor starts taking note of a not at all suspicious black van. Ace is a young woman from 20th century England, specifically the town of Perivale. She is an underachiever and more than a little bit of a miscreant, but is far smarter than she allows others to think she is - being an expert at chemistry, even to the point where she's developed a specialized explosive called Nitro-9.
She also happens to be one of my favorite companions of the entire show, Old or New. One of the biggest reasons is because of this episode...but we'll get to that in a bit.
The dynamic between the Doctor and Ace was more of a teacher-student one (with Ace even nicknaming the Doctor "Professor" much to his irritation), with the Doctor attempting to teach Ace and help her realize her full potential for a plotline that sadly never got realized due to the show going off the air in 1989, but that doesn't enter into this episode. On that note, the Doctor tells Ace to go ahead and go get food as she is hungry - while he studies the van that has so escaped her notice, even giving her some money to do so.
As she leaves, a blonde schoolgirl observes the Doctor with a menacing scowl.
In the cafe, Ace has some issues with pre-decimalization British money and meets a man named Mike, who will become more important later.
The Doctor, meanwhile, investigates the playground and finds what look like landing craters around a hopscotch grid. The little girl from earlier runs off upon seeing him and, once the Doctor has left, she re-emerges to give a Freddy Kruger-esque nursery rhyme about there being a Doctor at the gate...
The Doctor then invites himself into a van, meeting Professor Rachel Jensen and generally acting like he owns the place because that's the Doctor's M.O. in general. She's planning to turn him in, but they are informed of an attack.
 |
| Little trivia here: first instance of the Dalek gun x-ray effect. |
Ace and Mike, coming back the other way, are pulled in as well - Mike apparently being a "Sergeant" within whatever organization they're in. Getting into the van, they head off to 76 Totter's Lane, where Group Captain Gilmore is pulling a shroud over a fallen soldier. The Doctor comes, examines the body, and diagnoses the death - insides scrambled by a projected energy weapon. The cause? Something that is trapped in a room with no escape but the door out into the junkyard.
The Doctor knows. He's been here before.
Reinforcements arrive and Gilmore arranges them into an attack pattern despite the Doctor's insistence that they have no idea what they're dealing with. And indeed, the Dalek attacks and all hell breaks loose. Unfortunately, because of the timeline being before the UNIT dating controversy (regardless of when you think the UNIT stories are set), Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart isn't here to hand the Daleks their pepperpot asses, so the Doctor has to step in because the military is useless. Well, technically, the Doctor handles it with two cans of the Nitro-9 that Ace definitely wasn't carrying.
...did I mention I love Ace? Because, yeah.
Anyway, the Dalek is blown up and the day is saved...or at least it would be if we didn't have three more parts to this episode.
The Doctor and Ace steal a van while Gilmore orders Coal Hill School to be manned with soldiers and for them to be equipped with anti-tank rockets. As they drive off, the Doctor gives Ace a very abridged version of Dalek history as well as some of the future events that were covered in earlier episodes (such as the Dalek Invasion of Earth in the 22nd century). Also, the Doctor pulls a magic trick where he's able to switch seats with Ace in mid-drive.
I'd say that's impressive, but he's going to repair Ace's broken leg by tugging on her ear in a bit.
At any rate, Ace gets the important details and a new one: the Daleks want something called the Hand of Omega.
At the Coal Hill School, Mike introduces a Mr. Ratcliffe to Gilmore. Gilmore totally does not notice the Nazi-esque boots clicking together introduction Ratcliffe makes and totally believes that Ratcliffe and his men will be useful to them. There's also a short scene where Jansen and her assistant Allison postulate on who the Doctor might be and how they'll definitely get answers out of him.
Arriving at the school, the Doctor and Ace meet Scottish character actor Michael Sheard, who made six appearances on Doctor Who between 1966 and 1988 (this being the last of them) as various characters. In this instance, he's the Headmaster of the Coal Hill School.
You also will probably remember him as either Admiral Ozzel from The Empire Strikes Back or Hitler from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Sheard sadly passed away in 2005, so he had no appearances on the Revived Show, although he did work with Paul McGann on one of the Big Finish stories during the Gap Years.
At any rate, he's here, and the Doctor and Ace question him. He believes the Doctor is applying for the job of Caretaker...which will be funny when we get to the Capaldi era. When the Doctor asks to look around, he refuses at first...and then gets a distant look and touches his ear, saying that it wouldn't do any harm for them to have a quick look around.
...and indeed it is.
Elsewhere, Ratcliffe and his men are taking the destroyed Dalek away from 76 Totter's Lane.
In one of the chemistry labs, Ace finds a book on the French Revolution (obviously meant to be the one that Barbara gave to Susan...which raises more questions than it answers) before Doctor asks Ace to look at the burn marks from earlier, asking her what she thinks of them. Ace reasons that they're the landing burns from a spacecraft, but can't fathom how this could be - if there were aliens in 1963, she surely would have heard of them coming from 1987.
The Doctor points out the Zygon Gambit with the Loch Ness Monster and the Yetis in the London Underground, much to Ace's complete obliviousness.
He also explains that, when he was last in Shoreditch, he left something behind: the Hand of Omega, something very dangerous.
Back at Ratcliffe's, Ratcliffe reports to a not at all Davros-like figure. It seems that Ratcliffe is working with the Daleks, who are aware that the Doctor is involved and want to know about his movements.
The Doctor and Ace find their way into the basement, finding a transmat as the Headmaster looks on. A Dalek is transmatting in, the Doctor using a bit of jiggery-pokery to cause the Dalek's insides and outsides to occupy the same space. This just makes it explode rather than result in a chunky soup of squid bits and metal. This also damages the transmat...the Doctor mentioning that an operator will probably come to repair it, Ace mentioning that it's another Dalek...and it emerges.
The two bolt, Ace getting upstairs and out just in time to get knocked unconscious by the Headmaster, who closes the door and locks it. The Doctor, trapped inside, beats on the door, and we get one of the most iconic shots of the McCoy era as the Dalek literally hovers up the stairs toward the Doctor, who is backed against the wall as the Dalek declares that he is the enemy of the Daleks and he will be exterminated...
Part 2
So, the Doctor's stuck in a staircase with a Dalek ready to exterminate him. Ace is unconscious and the door is locked. How will the Doctor get out of this one?!
...
...okay, c'mon, I know we've covered episodes that came after this one, but just go with me here.
Ace actually is not unconscious, but recovers in time to get the jump on the Headmaster and take him down before getting the Doctor out of the death trap. Whether it's 1988 or 2020, the Daleks have not learned the vitally important lesson of "Gloat later". Examining him quickly, the Doctor finds a microchip behind the Headmaster's ear. They escape, and the Headmaster is sent to repair the transmat.
Outside, the Doctor and Ace find those ATRs that Gilmore had moved to the School. The Doctor signs for them, he and Ace going to dismantle the transmat with a boom. The Dalek stops them, however, and Ace stops it...with a rocket to the eyepiece.
...I have mentioned I love Ace, right?
 |
| "Bitches love cannons!" |
Gilmore and his military squad come in as the Doctor rants about having made a terrible mistake. Gilmore refuses to withdraw his troops, however, even after Jansen confirms that the Daleks are non-terrestrial in origin. It seems there are two groups of Daleks out there - one in white armor and the other in the traditional black/grey armor.
The Doctor leaves, taking Ace's baseball bat with him. Jansen questions Ace on a comment the Doctor made about Ace not having been born yet. Ace just gives a coy smile in response.
The Doctor heads back to the cafe from earlier, meeting Geoffrey from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Here the Doctor ponders decisions, talking about how every decision creates ripples like a huge boulder dropped into a lake. They are things that can lead to other events happening because of those events that so on.
There's also some blunt force trauma about slavery being bad.
Which, yes, slavery is bad. That's not in question.
Geoffrey gives the Doctor the best advice, though: best to just get on with it.
Also, because everyone forgot the transmat, Daleks start coming through it.
The next morning, the Doctor arrives at an undertaker's. Said undertaker hears some strange noises from a certain casket before the Doctor arrives. The Doctor is left alone with it, and McCoy's performance takes on a more enigmatic and sinister edge as he gets the casket to open and puts Ace's baseball bat inside it - the first real appearance of Time's Champion. Meanwhile, the Undertaker talks to his boss on the phone, being sure that the Doctor was an old geezer with white hair.
He, predictably, passes out from shock as the Doctor walks out...with the casket floating after him. Taking it to the graveyard, the Doctor chats with a blind priest as the casket lowers itself into the grave - the priest mentioning that he notes the Doctor's voice has changed...and that his pall bearers must be silent as ghosts, the Doctor just smiling knowingly.
During this all, Not-Davros and Ratcliffe have been discussing future plans and Ratcliffe gets a phone call from someone tailing the Doctor and we learn that it is Mike, working for Ratcliffe, who is indeed working for one of the two groups of Daleks. The only problem with this is that Mike has also been found out by the other group of Daleks. The Headmaster goes after Mike and attempts to subdue him. Unfortunately, the Headmaster is an old man and Mike is a trained soldier and so takes him down. The Daleks puppeting the Headmaster decide to cut their losses and he dies.
Despite being in the same graveyard, the Doctor and the Blind Priest either don't hear what's going on or don't really care. In the case of the Doctor, given that Seven is a bit of a bastard at times, possibly both.
Ace, meanwhile, is at Mike's Mother's boarding house with him, Jensen, and Allison. Mike gets a message that the Group Captain wants them to meet him just as the Doctor arrives and gives Ace the bat of...well, okay, it's coming. I don't want to spoil it yet. Mike manipulates things to keep Ace at the boarding house and throws on a dollop of sexism for good measure because he's a dick as well as a racist, but we'll get to that later.
Ace implores the Doctor to let her go with him, but he asks that she trust him.
Ratcliffe gets revealed as a Nazi sympathizer, by the way. Just to drive the Nazi-Dalek connection home.
The Doctor gets into the war room and takes charge, because he's the Doctor. Back at the Boarding House, after finding a "No Coloured" sign, Ace takes off and we get a Fourth Wall breaking joke that writer Ben Aaronvitch swears to this day was not meant to be taken seriously.
And I don't, but it's kind of a weird meta joke.
Ace makes her way to the school to get her tape deck and unfortunately gets caught by one, having to escape. The Doctor is alerted to the fact that Ace is gone and that the transmat is working again, putting two and two together and mounting up for a rescue.
The Dalek enters the chemistry lab and blasts Ace's radio apart...and gets...
...hang on, I'm gonna need a second here.
Gets beaten senseless with the Hand of Omega-empowered baseball bat for its trouble.
...I'm gonna need a cigarette after that. It was literally just that good.
Ace manages to escape, but is soon cornered by three Daleks. Ducking down as they scream at her, the episode ends with Ace gritting her teeth as she loads an ATR into the launcher...
Part 3
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| To be fair, it was a cool effect for 1988... |
Part 3 kicks off with Ace still cornered by the three Daleks and facing what must be certain doom. The Doctor arrives with a gadget that sprays 80's stardust all over the Daleks and the military takes them out with plastic explosives. The Doctor gets too close to one and nearly gets strangled, though Allison saves him with Ace's baseball bat and the Doctor goes on to help Ace with her leg. Apparently my memory was bad and the ear tug to fix Ace's leg was a deleted scene...but the Doctor still did it, but never mind.
In the basement, the Doctor does what he should have done earlier and destroys the Imperial Dalek transmat with Ace's bat, sadly ultimately destroying it along with the transmat.
RIP Ace's Bat 1988 - 1988
The blonde school girl from earlier shows up and stares menacingly at Ratcliffe for a while before leaving.
The Doctor gets Gilmore to move his forces into the school to get them out of the way, he reasons to Ace that as long as the Renegade Daleks have the Hand, the Imperial Daleks will be focused on them. They get to the school to check up on things, and the Doctor brings Ace aside and fulfills his promise to explain what's going on.
He tells her of Omega creating the power of the Time Lords, specifically remote stellar manipulation using a device (the Hand) and that was how Rassilon founded Time Lord society. The Daleks have crude time travel, but they want the more accurate and precise style that the Time Lords have. With two Dalek factions, though, the Doctor has to make sure the right faction gets the Hand.
Ratcliffe's men bring the Hand back to his base just in time for the Daleks to turn on them and Not-Davros being revealed...to be not Davros! It's the blonde school girl, who is apparently a Dalek controller! Ratcliffe's men are all killed off, and he is threatened with extermination as well if he does not obey the Daleks. Blonde School Girl activates a plasma ball that she claims to be the time controller and the Daleks move out onto the streets of Shoreditch...which is probably just as terrifying in 1988 as it was in 1964.
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| Mind you, the music helps... |
The Doctor and Ace sneak into Ratcliffe's warehouse, where the Doctor fiddles about with the plasma ball and leaves his calling card for the Daleks to find. They escape just in time for BSG and the Dalek Supreme to come in and find the card. They get back to Coal Hill in time for Mike to out himself as a member of the Association, and thus working with one of the factions of Daleks...but he manages to smooth talk his way through Gilmore. Ace, however, is less than impressed - particularly when he attempts to blame her for him knowing about the Hand of Omega.
The Renegade Daleks return to base suddenly without waging a full attack on the school, with no clear reason why. At least, until Jensen reports something dropping into the atmosphere from low orbit, the Doctor reasons it to be the Imperial Dalek shuttlecraft. He isn't worried, though...the Daleks won't possibly land this far away from the main action. Cue them witnessing the Dalek ship descending from orbit...and the Doctor breaking the Fourth Wall as he admits he might have miscalculated...
Part 4
The Doctor, Ace, Gilmore, Jensen, and Allison are all still cooped up in the science lab after the Dalek shuttlecraft lands.
The Imperial Daleks disembark immediately to claim the Hand.
Ace, meanwhile, gets a halfhearted pile of bullshit from Mike as an explanation for his behavior and she tells him to stow it. She rightly calls him out as a traitor and leaves him for Gilmore, who begins disciplinary action.
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| The Doctor used "Late 80's Glitter Attack!" It's Super Effective! |
We have Daleks vs. Daleks. It goes about as you'd expect for the Imperial Daleks...until they bring out the single coolest Dalek specialist design - the Special Weapons Dalek. You might think "Oh, the Daleks, they're already a violent and gun happy race". You'd be right, of course, but the Special Weapons Dalek has no plunger, no funny headpiece - it's literally a cannon on wheels. In supplementary materials, they are Daleks that have become so deranged and mutated that other Daleks are afraid of them to the point of staying as far behind them as possible in battle.
Let me repeat that: they are too deranged and mutated for the Daleks.
And they make an impressive first appearance here, absolutely turning the tide against the Renegade Daleks with a literal bang. Actually, a literal series of bangs.
The Doctor, meanwhile, is putting to use all the hours he spent playing Thief and slides along a wire from the window onto an unguarded service hatch on top of the Dalek shuttle. He covers the Dalek's eyepiece with his hat and proceeds to kill it using Christmas lights. He then uses the technology on the ship to allow them to monitor the Imperial Daleks. Ace points out that he can't, and the Doctor counters that he can do whatever he likes.
He's right, of course.
Mike escapes where he's being held because of reasons. He gets back to Ratcliffe's warehouse just in time to get captured by the Daleks. Ratcliffe attempts to bargain with the Daleks for their lives, but before the Renegade Daleks can kill off their prisoners, the Imperial Daleks show up for another fight. Ratcliffe gets 86'd and Mike escapes, taking the Renegade Dalek's time controller with him.
In the basement, while the Doctor rigs a communication system with the transmat, Christmas lights, and television, Jensen asks him to explain why two Dalek factions are fighting each other. Ace is told to explain by the Doctor, and she does so pretty succinctly: each Dalek faction believes the other isn't pure enough and, given the nature of the Daleks, they fight.
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| The Imperial Daleks are good looking, but I prefer the classic. |
Ace goes after Mike while the Doctor resumes his place in the basement. The Imperial Daleks take the Hand of Omega and head back to their mother ship. The Doctor takes to his MacGuyver'd machinery to call out the Imperial Daleks, demanding that they return the Hand of Omega. The Dalek Emperor takes the path of umbrage and mocks him, revealing himself to be...Davros.
Davros is the Creator of the Daleks and, in this instance, is played by Terry Molloy. He's the third actor to play the role of Davros and by far gives the best performance of all of them in the Old or New Series. Until Julian Bleach's Davros showed back up again in Peter Capaldi's second season, Terry had the distinction of being the only actor to play Davros more than once. He still plays Davros in Big Finish audio productions to this day.
The Doctor mentions Davros has thrown off the last vestiges of his human form...which is kind of ignored in later stories, but never mind. Basically, the two engage in a little bit of old fashioned smack talk. There's also a really cool deleted scene here, but since it's not in the episode I won't cover it...and I'll save it for something later.
Ace returns to Mike's mother's boarding house and Mike puts her at gun point.
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| "Pull the lever, Kronk!" |
Davros reveals the full extent of his plan - using the Hand of Omega to turn Skaro's sun into a source of power, eventually leading into the Daleks destroying the Time Lords and becoming the New Lords of Time. The Doctor taunts Davros into a frenzy, but seems to go far too far...Davros activating the Hand to destroy the Earth and the Doctor with it.
The Doctor begs him to not do so...and the ploy is revealed as the Hand of Omega is sent off and causes Skaro's sun to go supernova, vaporizing the planet. The Doctor booby trapped the Hand, and upon destroying Skaro, the Hand returns to Davros' ship...at full power. Davros begs for the Doctor to show mercy, but the Doctor has none and bids him farewell - "It hasn't been pleasant". Davros gets to an escape pod...and the Imperial Dalek ship is obliterated by the Hand.
The Doctor tells Jensen, Allison, and Gilmore what he'd planned all along: using the Hand to destroy Skaro's sun. Now, it's returning to Gallifrey and out of the hands of both factions of Daleks.
BSG shows up at the boarding house and kills Mike with Emperor Palpatine's lightning, stalking in after Ace.
In one of the most badass scenes in Doctor Who history - Old or Revived - the Doctor faces against the Renegade Supreme Dalek and tells it what he's done, destroyed the Daleks, Skaro, and even the Dalek's creator - Davros. He literally talks it into committing suicide.
The destruction of the Supreme frees BSG from its control in one of Doctor Who's many, many hilariously overacted scenes.
The Doctor pokes his umbrella through the ashes of the Supreme, declaring "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust".
A funeral is held for Mike, the Doctor and Ace holding back as the others go into the chapel for the service. Ace asks the Doctor if they did good. The Doctor replies, "Perhaps...time will tell. Always does."
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| BOOM! |
And that was Remembrance of the Daleks. It's a fun episode that digs deep into Doctor Who lore. It has call backs to An Unearthly Child, pretty much ever Dalek episode made up until that point, and hints at things that Russell T. Davies would use for cannon fodder in the future. It follows up on a plot line started all the way back in Genesis of the Daleks, where the fears of the Time Lords that the Daleks could grow more powerful than they were was very nearly realized.
Remembrance of the Daleks also drives the Nazi parallels to the Daleks home in ways that hadn't really been touched upon since Genesis of the Daleks, with Ratcliffe being a Nazi sympathizer and Jensen and Allison making Nazi jokes at Gilmore's expense, and so on. We also see racism that still existed in 1960's England - such as Mike's mother refusing coloured people at her boarding house, though it admittedly doesn't get too much deeper than that.
This episode is, I cringe at using the term, but "action packed". There's a lot going on here, and it overall has a pretty good pace to balance out the rest. There's just enough exposition, just enough to keep the story going. It's pretty awesome and a front runner for not only one of the best episodes of the Sylvester McCoy era, but of Doctor Who in general.
Doctor Who is the property of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
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