Revelation of the Daleks - Is the Doctor's lack of involvement a problem...

...and if so, how would you fix it?

I know most members here are fans of this story just the way it is.

But it has been suggested in some quarters that it could've done with more involvement in the plot from the Doctor earlier on, or maybe a little less of the DJ.

I suppose what I really wanted to ask is, if you wanted to involve the Doctor in it more, how would you go about it?

For that matter, is there anything else you'd change or fix about the story?

A big problem with Season 22 is The Doctor is sometimes sidelined for the first half an hour or so. This isn't the case all of the time, but if you look at stories like Varos, Timelash and Revelation he arrives very late on the scene. If Varos and Timelash were four part stories then The Doctor doesn't arrive at the main location until the beginning of the second part.

No, it isn't. It would be a problem today, because today's writers can't make side characters interesting for the life of them, but they had a bit more talent back in the day.

Pepsi Maxil Foley wrote:A big problem with Season 22 is The Doctor is sometimes sidelined for the first half an hour or so. This isn't the case all of the time, but if you look at stories like Varos, Timelash and Revelation he arrives very late on the scene.

Resurrection has a similar problem, but in a strange way, much of Season 22 feels like it's Saward reeling back a bit too much from his mistake of having too much incident happening in Resurrection, by going to the other extreme of having long stretches of nothing for the Sixth Doctor to deal with.

But again I think it's just that Saward didn't like the Doctor and now saw him as an inconvenience.

If Varos and Timelash were four part stories then The Doctor doesn't arrive at the main location until the beginning of the second part.

Well, when I first watched Revelation, aged 11, back in the BBC's 1993 repeat season, it was broadcast in four parts, so in the whole first episode, the most progress the Doctor and Peri had made into the plot was finally managing to climb over a wall.

I must admit, thinking back to that first time, it does feel like a cheap exercise in false advertising. Like "The Doctor's gonna have a new exciting adventure with the Daleks this episode..... like really soon he will.... any moment now..... haha! just kidding, I've been spending 45 minutes stalling him as best I can."

The mutant attack does throw us a bone early on, but otherwise gets forgotten about for most of the first episode, and the aforementioned wall-climbing scene is just taking the piss.

I will say that things are kept interesting enough elsewhere to disguise that, as Harper's direction maintains a thick atmosphere, but I can see the kids getting frustrated and bored with wondering why their hero's not involved in it all yet or why there's no-one to latch onto.

The Doctor vs the Daleks should be a big event. How is he going to fight them, how's he going to survive and win against them? And that's an anticipation the story ends up botching by having other characters largely fight his battles for him whilst he traipses in the snow.

But I think the main thing lost by his delayed involvement is that if you're not paying attention to every single second of dialogue, you could completely miss that the Doctor's name-dropped friend Arthur Stengos, and Natasha's father are actually meant to be the same person.

If he was more proactively involved from the start in the action, that link might've been made more lucid. Hell, it might've made more sense if there was even a scene where the Doctor actually recognized Natasha. Maybe even saw her image on the "wanted" security bulletins and pointed out to Peri that he knows her. Or maybe he could've come across Natasha's ship en route, and found evidence of what she was planning to do. Maybe she could've left him a pre-recorded message.

I suppose if I was to amend it, I'd still probably keep everything up to the Mutant's attack the same. And then try and build on that.

Then I think I'd have to have various encounters with Daleks along the way. Hell, maybe the Doctor and Peri get into a chase and firefight in the woods, and are nearly killed, until Orcini arrives in the nick of time and takes it out.

Another possibility is that he actually, whilst searching Natasha's ship, finds a radar contact from an approaching ship, and realizes it's a Dalek ship coming from Skaro.

Or maybe both happen at once.

This gives him an incentive to momentarily forget the mystery of the Mutant or Stengos as a secondary concern, and rush to Tranquil Repose and warn them they could be under attack by Daleks very soon, only for it to later emerge that the Daleks are already there as part of the facility.

Maybe Peri runs when she sees the Daleks, and finds herself taking refuge in the DJ's studio.

I suppose that largely covers it.

Significant changes I'd make.

I'd want to have a go at some explanation of how the humans came to work with Davros and allow the Daleks to be bred, given human history with them. Maybe some way he held people to ransom here. Maybe an important figure in cryostasis he could always threaten the life of if his demands weren't met.

I was tempted for a moment to suggest cutting Tasambeker out completely, as her sub-plot didn't really seem to go anywhere that relevant.... but on the other hand her death does provide a dramatic shift where Tranquil Repose suddenly becomes a more lethal place and the Daleks begin showing their true colours.

But I'd maybe make her manipulation by Davros more lucid than just a sudden bout of psychosis.

Natasha and Grigory's death I thought was too nastily set up. It never being questioned that Orcini deliberately gives them an exhausted lazer blaster for reasons that can only be sheer malice. A change I might make is showing Natasha use it several times to overcome hunting guards/Daleks or blast through security locks, so there's a reason it's out of power by the time they're at the incubator room.

I'd be somewhat tempted not to kill them at all though, and infact I would've preferred if Natasha had stayed on as the new companion to replace Peri. It would make sense the Doctor would take Stengos' daughter under his wing. Through travelling with him, she could at once work through the guilt of having taken a life, whilst the Doctor teaches her better ways, but she'd also have a motivation in hoping to avenge her father by helping the Doctor's next fight with the Daleks. Plus, again she'd be more likely to stand up to Coin's Doctor and hold her own than Peri was.

I would've maybe added a few more thrills to the final chase to escape Tranquil Repose. I think we should've seen much more of the emerging new Dalek army, and the Doctor and friends having to evade their fire until they're all hopefully destroyed in the explosion. Plus they would've given some sense of the galactic stakes here.

I'd say that's about it for my amendments really.

Tanmann wrote:

Pepsi Maxil Foley wrote:A big problem with Season 22 is The Doctor is sometimes sidelined for the first half an hour or so. This isn't the case all of the time, but if you look at stories like Varos, Timelash and Revelation he arrives very late on the scene.

Resurrection has a similar problem, but in a strange way, much of Season 22 feels like it's Saward reeling back a bit too much from his mistake of having too much incident happening in Resurrection, by going to the other extreme of having long stretches of nothing for the Sixth Doctor to deal with.

But again I think it's just that Saward didn't like the Doctor and now saw him as an inconvenience.

If Varos and Timelash were four part stories then The Doctor doesn't arrive at the main location until the beginning of the second part.

Well, when I first watched Revelation, aged 11, back in the BBC's 1993 repeat season, it was broadcast in four parts, so in the whole first episode, the most progress the Doctor and Peri had made into the plot was finally managing to climb over a wall.

I must admit, thinking back to that first time, it does feel like a cheap exercise in false advertising. Like "The Doctor's gonna have a new exciting adventure with the Daleks this episode..... like really soon he will.... any moment now..... haha! just kidding, I've been spending 45 minutes stalling him as best I can."

The mutant attack does throw us a bone early on, but otherwise gets forgotten about for most of the first episode, and the aforementioned wall-climbing scene is just taking the piss.

I will say that things are kept interesting enough elsewhere to disguise that, as Harper's direction maintains a thick atmosphere, but I can see the kids getting frustrated and bored with wondering why their hero's not involved in it all yet or why there's no-one to latch onto.

The Doctor vs the Daleks should be a big event. How is he going to fight them, how's he going to survive and win against them? And that's an anticipation the story ends up botching by having other characters largely fight his battles for him whilst he traipses in the snow.

But I think the main thing lost by his delayed involvement is that if you're not paying attention to every single second of dialogue, you could completely miss that the Doctor's name-dropped friend Arthur Stengos, and Natasha's father are actually meant to be the same person.

If he was more proactively involved from the start in the action, that link might've been made more lucid. Hell, it might've made more sense if there was even a scene where the Doctor actually recognized Natasha. Maybe even saw her image on the "wanted" security bulletins and pointed out to Peri that he knows her. Or maybe he could've come across Natasha's ship en route, and found evidence of what she was planning to do. Maybe she could've left him a pre-recorded message.

I suppose if I was to amend it, I'd still probably keep everything up to the Mutant's attack the same. And then try and build on that.

Then I think I'd have to have various encounters with Daleks along the way. Hell, maybe the Doctor and Peri get into a chase and firefight in the woods, and are nearly killed, until Orcini arrives in the nick of time and takes it out.

Another possibility is that he actually, whilst searching Natasha's ship, finds a radar contact from an approaching ship, and realizes it's a Dalek ship coming from Skaro.

Or maybe both happen at once.

This gives him an incentive to momentarily forget the mystery of the Mutant or Stengos as a secondary concern, and rush to Tranquil Repose and warn them they could be under attack by Daleks very soon, only for it to later emerge that the Daleks are already there as part of the facility.

Maybe Peri runs when she sees the Daleks, and finds herself taking refuge in the DJ's studio.

I suppose that largely covers it.

Significant changes I'd make.

I'd want to have a go at some explanation of how the humans came to work with Davros and allow the Daleks to be bred, given human history with them. Maybe some way he held people to ransom here. Maybe an important figure in cryostasis he could always threaten the life of if his demands weren't met.

I was tempted for a moment to suggest cutting Tasambeker out completely, as her sub-plot didn't really seem to go anywhere that relevant.... but on the other hand her death does provide a dramatic shift where Tranquil Repose suddenly becomes a more lethal place and the Daleks begin showing their true colours.

But I'd maybe make her manipulation by Davros more lucid than just a sudden bout of psychosis.

Natasha and Grigory's death I thought was too nastily set up. It never being questioned that Orcini deliberately gives them an exhausted lazer blaster for reasons that can only be sheer malice. A change I might make is showing Natasha use it several times to overcome hunting guards/Daleks or blast through security locks, so there's a reason it's out of power by the time they're at the incubator room.

I'd be somewhat tempted not to kill them at all though, and infact I would've preferred if Natasha had stayed on as the new companion to replace Peri. It would make sense the Doctor would take Stengos' daughter under his wing. Through travelling with him, she could at once work through the guilt of having taken a life, whilst the Doctor teaches her better ways, but she'd also have a motivation in hoping to avenge her father by helping the Doctor's next fight with the Daleks. Plus, again she'd be more likely to stand up to Coin's Doctor and hold her own than Peri was.

I would've maybe added a few more thrills to the final chase to escape Tranquil Repose. I think we should've seen much more of the emerging new Dalek army, and the Doctor and friends having to evade their fire until they're all hopefully destroyed in the explosion. Plus they would've given some sense of the galactic stakes here.

I'd say that's about it for my amendments really.

It isn't polite to hack people, Burrunjor.

Very droll, Max

I'm not sure I'd change much apart from losing the DJ altogether, and recasting Tasambeker and Jobel.

Recast Tasamkember and keep the originally scripted scene of the Daleks attacking Orcini and Bostock outside.

"Revelation of the Daleks - Is the Doctor's lack of involvement a problem...?"

No. It isn't.

It REALLY isn't.

Get the fuck over it and move on.

I've never seen a grown man cry so much over a photo of Eric Saward.

Indrid Mercury wrote:Recast Tasamkember and keep the originally scripted scene of the Daleks attacking Orcini and Bostock outside.

I was fine with that Dalek scene the way it was, personally.

But yeah, I'd probably welcome a better fit for Tasambeker. Maybe that 'She-Devil', Julie T Wallace, if they could rope her in.

She'd be *very* believable as a lonely woman turned psycho.

I was on here badmouthing this story a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't seen it in a few years. I think it's time to revisit it. I used to like it a lot, then the last time I watched it about 2 years ago I just wasn't into it.

Yes to recasting Tasembecker. No disrespect to the actress, she just wasn't right for the part.  She impaired every scene she was in, sucking the drama out of it and unintentionally focusing the viewers attention on her for all the wrong reasons. Especially the scene where she stabbed Jobel.

The other actor i would cull from this masterpiece is Alexei Sayle. His DJ commentaries were totally pointless and interrupted the mood of every scene they interferred with - even his own death.He was also one of the shitiest comedians of that generation. Just being anti-Thatcher was never a badge of comedy brilliance, despite the fact that many alternative comedians thought it was.

I personally thought Clive Swift was fine as Jobel. He perfectly portrayed the pathetic, vain, middle aged, fawning saddo the character was.

Finally, i really don't see a problem with having the doctor not appear early on in the production. Eric simply sought to establish the scene and create a sense of mystery and drama before introducing the Doctor - which he (Eric) did brilliantly. Thus the Doctor walked into a situation already evolving, with characters and situations partly established. It also allowed Saward to write some great character work between Colin and Peri. It worked okay for me. I watch loads of programmes where the lead character "walks in late" - e.g., Columbo sometimes never used to appear for 20 minutes. It never hurt those programmes.

stengos wrote:Finally, i really don't see a problem with having the doctor not appear early on in the production. Eric simply sought to establish the scene and create a sense of mystery and drama before introducing the Doctor - which he (Eric) did brilliantly. Thus the Doctor walked into a situation already evolving, with characters and situations partly established. It also allowed Saward to write some great character work between Colin and Peri. It worked okay for me. I watch loads of programmes where the lead character "walks in late" - e.g., Columbo sometimes never used to appear for 20 minutes. It never hurt those programmes.

For me, I'd say the difference is that when Columbo arrived late, he usually very quickly established himself as the maverick and the hero of the piece that everyone who'd assumed he was a clueless johnny-come-lately was shown to have underestimated him.

At the height of his powers, the Doctor could come across as that kind of maverick. But in the 80's I think that aspect of him was severely undermined, and he only really came across as a maverick when a select few were writing him exceptionally well (Ben Aaronovitch, Terrance Dicks, Barbara Clegg). I've rarely felt Saward quite had that knack.

I can get behind the idea of a long stretch of showing the terrible things that can happen in the Doctor's absence, if it's in the service of showing him finally arrive, pumped up to right those wrongs. I always have the suspicion Saward wasn't interested in that though, even if the audience were.

Orcini is the one who comes across as the late arriving maverick in Revelation. The Doctor, I suppose you could say in passing Orcini his gun again, he does 'the right kind of a little', but those are moments that you kind of have to rewatch and look for rather than his heroism being center stage as a memorable takeaway.

stengos wrote:The other actor i would cull from this masterpiece is Alexei Sayle. His DJ commentaries were totally pointless and interrupted the mood of every scene they interferred with - even his own death.He was also one of the shitiest comedians of that generation. Just being anti-Thatcher was never a badge of comedy brilliance, despite the fact that many alternative comedians thought it was.

I think Ben Elton was the worst offender there.

Personally I've looked back on Sayle's comedy material of late, and saw more merit in it than was first apparent, partly because he was actually willing to be reflective and take the piss out of the annoying deficiencies of his own political camp (describing the Trotskyite left: "They live in the place where the people from cloud cuckoo land go to get away from it all."), so that his line of attack wasn't always insufferably 'right-on' and one-way like a lot of his contemporaries were.

I've never had a problem with the DJ. Some of the music is a bit too loud and The Doctor's scuffle with the mutant is a bit silly. I would also pay good money for someone to dub Nicola's voice in all of her stories. The rest of the story is fine.

I liked Sayle until I read interview of him where he slagged off Hale and Pace. He just came across as bitter.

Tanmann wrote:...and if so, how would you fix it?

I know most members here are fans of this story just the way it is.

But it has been suggested in some quarters that it could've done with more involvement in the plot from the Doctor earlier on, or maybe a little less of the DJ.

I suppose what I really wanted to ask is, if you wanted to involve the Doctor in it more, how would you go about it?

For that matter, is there anything else you'd change or fix about the story?

I don't think it's a problem as long as you don't think the Doctor should necessarily be the star of his own show.

Saward was never interested in writing for the Doctor as much he was for writing for his own characters. Take the Visitation as a much earlier example.
All the best lines and scenes go to Richard Mace. And the Doctor for the most part is simply a bystander.

I like The Visitation and I really like Revelation of the Daleks but as Scifi stories not as episodes of Doctor Who. Same can be said for Blink in nuwho.

One of the reasons I like The Visitation so much is that it does a good job dealing with all 3 companions, which is something I think other stories in the era struggled with. You often hear that Nyssa really didn't get much to do, and I think this story is a real exception to that. Compare it to Kinda (which is generally more highly regarded) where she just slept the whole time. I think Saward does an exceptional job of writing for 5 major characters at once (Nyssa, Tegan, Adric, the Doctor, and Mace), and in the process created a character in Mace that was developed enough that I would have liked to have seen more of him.

For the past 5 years or so The Visitation has been in my regular rotation of Doctor Who (I watch it at least a few times a month), but I've never really gotten that into his other stories (unless you count Attack), but who knows who actually wrote that. I've been meaning to rewatch Revelation, but the past few days I've been watching Star Trek TNG and original series Outer Limits episodes instead of Who.

The Brigade Leader wrote:I don't think it's a problem as long as you don't think the Doctor should necessarily be the star of his own show.

Saward was never interested in writing for the Doctor as much he was for writing for his own characters. Take the Visitation as a much earlier example.
All the best lines and scenes go to Richard Mace. And the Doctor for the most part is simply a bystander.

I like The Visitation and I really like Revelation of the Daleks but as Scifi stories not as episodes of Doctor Who. Same can be said for Blink in nuwho.

It's more perhaps the missed opportunity that bothers me. That there could've been a great showdown for Colin with the Daleks here, if that had interested Saward. Instead we get bits of one and a lot of false advertising.

Plus maybe it wouldn't be an issue if Revelation had just been a one-off Doctor-lite story. Instead it's just the latest in an overlong trend of ineffectual showings of the Doctor, that just happens to be one of the better ones.

In all honesty though, I would certainly take Saward marginalizing the Doctor over him outright character-assassinating him (a la Warriors of the Deep).

Though in regards marginalizing the Doctor I would say morally speaking it especially bothered me in the case of Resurrection of the Daleks. Because there it became akin to the Saw movies. Namely, in that the long-running villain was almost overdeveloped and overindulged, and everyone 'good' was either marginalized or an undeveloped cipher, which almost perversely saw the villains' mean-spirited moral philosophy dominate and triumph over the hero's, who is hardly even present or effective enough to convey an affirming counter-case.

I didn't understand any of that, all I heard was "boo hoo hoo hoo hoo"

Pepsi Maxil Foley wrote:I liked Sayle until I read interview of him where he slagged off Hale and Pace. He just came across as bitter.

H&P were funny. Their show was "must see" entertainment.

Sayle was a humourless pratt.

IMHO.

Rob Filth wrote:I didn't understand any of that

I'm not prepared to dumb it down to you Rob, and I wasn't talking to you there anyway.

all I heard was "boo hoo hoo hoo hoo"

Says the guy who was throwing a pathetic tantrum earlier in the thread out of desperation for me to notice him.

Tanmann wrote:

Rob Filth wrote:I didn't understand any of that

I'm not prepared to dumb it down to you Rob, and I wasn't talking to you there anyway.

all I heard was "boo hoo hoo hoo hoo"

Says the guy who was throwing a pathetic tantrum earlier in the thread out of desperation for me to notice him.  

I thought you had me on block?

To quote Simon Pegg in "The Long Game":

"LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLIAR!!"

Rob Filth wrote:

Tanmann wrote:

Rob Filth wrote:I didn't understand any of that

I'm not prepared to dumb it down to you Rob, and I wasn't talking to you there anyway.

all I heard was "boo hoo hoo hoo hoo"

Says the guy who was throwing a pathetic tantrum earlier in the thread out of desperation for me to notice him.  

I thought you had me on block?

To quote Simon Pegg in "The Long Game":

"LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLIAR!!"

I did have you on block.

But I realized no-one becomes resilient to life's adversities simply by ignoring them. And it’s not like there aren’t scarier things to deal with in life than freaks like you.

Besides, I was curious to see just how much of a fool you're determined to make of yourself when you're desperate to get noticed by me again.

I see you've been shouting at the winds.

Tanmann wrote:

Rob Filth wrote:

Tanmann wrote:

Rob Filth wrote:I didn't understand any of that

I'm not prepared to dumb it down to you Rob, and I wasn't talking to you there anyway.

all I heard was "boo hoo hoo hoo hoo"

Says the guy who was throwing a pathetic tantrum earlier in the thread out of desperation for me to notice him.  

I thought you had me on block?

To quote Simon Pegg in "The Long Game":

"LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLIAR!!"

I did have you on block.

But I realized no-one becomes resilient to life's adversities simply by ignoring them. And it’s not like there aren’t scarier things to deal with in life than freaks like you.

Besides, I was curious to see just how much of a fool you're determined to make of yourself when you're desperate to get noticed by me again.

I see you've been shouting at the winds.

Oh boy, the saga continues.....