Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 411: Genesis of the Daleks, Episode One

Dear diary,

I’m always very weary of any story which gets described as a ‘classic’ for Doctor Who. You know the type - those stories which can do no wrong in the eyes of fandom, and which always appear near the top of ‘favourite stories’ lists. There’s a few titles that spring to mind (The Evil of the Daleks, Fury From the Deep, Inferno, The Dæmons), including this story. Throughout my time doing The 50 Year Diary, I’ve often found that I don’t really agree with the general consensus (Inferno is the only one of those stories which rated very well with me), and usually the knowledge that a story is supposed to be one of The Very Best is enough to ruin it a little bit for me. Ergo, I’m often let down by the finished product.

Over the years, I’ve found that my friend Nick Mellish and I tend to have some very similar tastes when it comes to Doctor Who stories, and he’s always been of the same opinion as me that many of these supposed ‘flawless’ stories are just that bit over sold. I mentioned to him the other day that I was gearing up for another of them - Genesis of the Daleks - and he replied with some encouraging words: “Ah, now I love Genesis! One of the few that lives up to the hype. Avoided it for years and then watched it: marvellous.” Now, I tend to trust Nick’s opinion on Doctor Who more than anyone else’s, so this was a positive sign. I’d been instantly turned from dreading another six-part Dalek story into actually looking forward to it.

Right from the moment the titles faded away and the episode started, I knew that he was right. For a start, we’re back on good old film for the location footage. I know I’ve moaned on about it an excessive amount recently, what with Robot and The Sontaran Experiment shooting all their exteriors on video, but it really is wonderful to be back in this format again. It just adds so much more depth and atmosphere to the proceedings, and I don’t think that this episode would have been quite so wonderful were it shot on plain old video. Those opening shots of the misty wastelands, into which the gas-mask-clad figures emerge is stunning. Watching them go ‘over the top’ and then get gunned down in slow-motion was genuinely gripping, and then to see the Doctor emerge from the smoke looking just as lost and confused as we are… beautiful.

And then it doesn’t let up from there. While there’s plenty to love from the studio scenes, the highlights of this episode really are all the film sequences. We get a real sense of space during these scenes that I can’t remember ever seeing in the programme before - there’s one shot when the Doctor and Harry make their escape from the Kaled dome that’s shot from a very high angle, and the location seems to stretch out for ages in all directions. Equally, there’s shots early on with our three regulars exploring the landscape and you can see bodies, weapons, and rubble strewn everywhere. There seems to be more effort put into this than we often see - it’s certainly one of the best location shoots that Doctor Who has ever seen.

To some extent, it also adds credence to my complaint in an earlier Dalek tale, Planet of the Daleks that adding in more smoke would help the atmosphere of the tale, because this story is dripping in it. When we switch from location to studio, while the change is still evident, the use of such a thick coating of smoke really helps to make it all feel like one shared world. I was going to say that it reminded me very much of The War Games, not just because it has a similar setting, but because of the style of the direction, and it wasn’t until the end credits rolled that I realised we’ve got David Maloney back behind the cameras. He was also responsible for the earlier Planet story, but I’m much preferring his work here.

I think this may also be the best use of the ‘Dalek reveal’ cliffhanger since possibly as far back as The Dalek Invasion of Earth. I’d planned to say that once again their presence in the title (and being mentioned early on by the Time Lord) ruins their reveal, and destroys a lot of the subtle hints and piecing together that we get throughout the episode - A particular favourite is the Doctor musing that K-A-L-E-D is an anagram of… well, yes - but actually, it means that we’re actually anticipating them once again. Watching Sarah Jane’s reaction at the end as once of the pepper pots follows orders is lovely, and I’m surprised by how pleased I am to have them back, considering how little time we’ve had since their last appearance in the programme.

Once again, and I fear this may become a running theme in the Diary over the coming months, you can really see the darker tone the programme has inherited. I’ve already mentioned the opening shot in which we witness people’s deaths in slow motion, but this entire episode is laced with death. They’re scattered around the wasteland. They’re propped up against the sides of the trenches. Following a gas attack, Sarah Jane wakes up amongst a pile of corpses! Can you imagine a scene like that occurring at any previous point in the programme’s history? Doctor Who is actively embracing the new horrifying image that it’s taken on, and it’s not difficult to see why Mary Whitehouse started sitting up and taking real notice around this time.

The last few Dalek stories have been set against a background of super-intelligent touch-screen cities, jungles where the plant-life is more animal than vegetation, and a futuristic world in which they use gorillas to do their bidding. Here, they’re simply pitted against a completely bleak background of death, and destruction, and there really is no feeling of hope to be found anywhere at this stage. As with the programme itself, the production team are trying to make the Daleks scary again, and if the tone of the story continues on in this style, then there’s a good chance that they may well succeed!

It has to be mentioned at some point, and here is as good as anywhere else. In recent years, it has been suggested that this story represents the first shots of the Time War being fired - thus making the Time Lords responsible for their own later destruction (or not, as the events of Day of the Doctor now show us). Although I’ve not watched the story before, I’ve always known that Genesis involves the Doctor being sent back to Skaro’s past by the Time Lords to avert the Daleks creation, but I’ve never really given it so much as a second thought.

Having now watched through the Pertwee years, in which missions for the Time Lords became something of a common plot device (even though some stories didn’t mention it directly, there was usually enough evidence to suggest their hand in events), it’s quite interesting to see where we’ve ended up. All their previous missions seems decidedly low-key in comparison to this one, and were it not for the presence of the Daleks lurking in the background, the Doctor would have been completely against it. But this now marks the start of yet another ‘loose story arc’ that I’ll be tracing fro now on - the build up of the Time War. Obviously, it wasn’t the intention at the time, but with retrospect, it is hard not to see this as a declaration of war against the Daleks, even if it’s being done in a slightly sneaky way and somewhat under the table.

So… One of those stone-cold, Doctor Who classics… And perhaps the first one to really resonate with me. This episode is the first non-Troughton one to achieve a perfect score - 10/10. I’m stunned by how much I’ve enjoyed today’s episode, and I was really tempted to simply move right onto Episode Two, without even pausing to write up this entry! I’ll be a good boy, though, and hope that the next few days will prove to be very enjoyable indeed…