Le Panda du Mal
Well-Known Member
I rewatched this for the first time since my teens. I always enjoyed this story. I still do. It's great fun, well-paced, with lots of cool little details and weird stuff. The Dalek civil war angle is a great idea. By 80's Doctor Who production standards it's very well put together, wobbly Daleks aside.
BUT
Like some other entries in the McCoy era, this story is a blueprint for the worst tendencies that re-emerged in NuWho with a vengeance. The Doctor is this godlike cosmic chessmaster and everyone, including not one but two Dalek empires, is just a toy in his sandbox. He commands deference, including barging in on, and eventually taking command of, a top secret military operation, simply by being the Doctor. He basically wins simply by being the Doctor. I see no reason why he couldn't have just launched the Hand of Omega at the beginning and prevented all the needless human deaths.
The Daleks look great and the warring factions have a lot of potential but in the execution they are just silly, stupid cardboard villains. The idea that they need to use a kid for their battle computer just reinforces the (mis)perception that they are robots. And Davros in this episode is just all-around garbage. He looks awful, sounds awful, and has nothing but stupid lines. What a terrible insult to the amazing character work that was done in Genesis of the Daleks.
BUT
Like some other entries in the McCoy era, this story is a blueprint for the worst tendencies that re-emerged in NuWho with a vengeance. The Doctor is this godlike cosmic chessmaster and everyone, including not one but two Dalek empires, is just a toy in his sandbox. He commands deference, including barging in on, and eventually taking command of, a top secret military operation, simply by being the Doctor. He basically wins simply by being the Doctor. I see no reason why he couldn't have just launched the Hand of Omega at the beginning and prevented all the needless human deaths.
The Daleks look great and the warring factions have a lot of potential but in the execution they are just silly, stupid cardboard villains. The idea that they need to use a kid for their battle computer just reinforces the (mis)perception that they are robots. And Davros in this episode is just all-around garbage. He looks awful, sounds awful, and has nothing but stupid lines. What a terrible insult to the amazing character work that was done in Genesis of the Daleks.
