Revelation of the Daleks

142 – Revelation of the Daleks
Doctor Who serial
The damaged Davros and one of his new Daleks
Cast
Doctor Colin Baker (Sixth Doctor)
Companion Nicola Bryant (Peri Brown)
Others Terry Molloy — Davros Eleanor Bron — Kara Hugh Walters — Vogel Clive Swift — Jobel Jenny Tomasin — Tasambeker Trevor Cooper — Takis Colin Spaull — Lilt Alexei Sayle — DJ William Gaunt — Orcini John Ogwen — Bostock Stephen Flynn — Grigory Bridget Lynch-Blosse — Natasha Alec Linstead — Stengos Penelope Lee — Computer Voice John Scott Martin, Cy Town, Tony Starr, Toby Byrne — Daleks Royce Mills, Roy Skelton — Dalek Voices Ken Barker — Mutant
Production
Writer	Eric Saward
Director	Graeme Harper
Script editor	Eric Saward
Producer	John Nathan-Turner
Executive producer(s)	None
Production code	6Z
Series	Season 22
Length	2 episodes, 45 minutes each
Originally broadcast	23 March–30 March 1985
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by → Timelash The Trial of a Time Lord: The Mysterious Planet

Revelation of the Daleks is the sixth and final serial of the 22nd season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in two weekly parts on 23 March and 30 March 1985. This was the final serial of the original series to be broadcast in 45-minute episodes; this format would return 20 years later when the series resumed in 2005.

Plot

The TARDIS lands on Necros, the location of the funeral home Tranquil Repose. The 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, 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. When Natasha looks at it, the creature opens its mouth and starts saying "Na.. tasha? Natasha?". Natasha 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, is a pawn of the Great Healer, who is in actuality Davros, now apparently reduced to a disembodied head in a tank. 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 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' 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. As they are about to enter the Tranquil Repose, the Doctor and Peri find a giant statue of the Doctor, which suddenly collapses on him.

Peri is worried about the Doctor, and asks the Chief Embalmer Mr Jobel if he will be alright. But Mr Jobel says the Doctor might be dead from the fall of the monument. However, the monument is a lightweight fake, and the Doctor is unharmed.

The Doctor and Peri are met by Mr. Jobel and his subservient assistant Tasembeker. Peri is intrigued by the centre's DJ, whose American accent reminds her of home. The Doctor sends her off with Jobel to meet the DJ, so that he can meet the person who erected the statue.

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. Meanwhile Tasembeker, who has been coerced by Davros to spy on Jobel, attempts to warn the Chief Embalmber out of misplaced love for him. When Jobel cruelly spurns her offer, Tasembeker fatally stabs him with a syringe. She is then exterminated by a patrol of Daleks.

The Daleks capture the Doctor, and throw him into a cell with Natasha and Grigory who are soon rescued by Orcini. Orcini penetrates Davros's lair, and apparently kills Davros, but Orcini realises that the kill was too easy. The real Davros appears with a group of Daleks, and quickly subdue Orcini and Bostock. When Kara is brought in, Orcini betrays her motives to Davros then stabs her to death.

Natasha and Grigory infiltrate the incubator room again, and plan to destroy the brains that are scheduled for metamorphosis. Natasha's gun dies due to lack of power, so Grigory attempts to arm the self-destruct switch on the brain incubator console. A glass Dalek incubator materialises and exterminates them, then in turn explodes.

The Doctor tells Peri to get back to the TARDIS and hail the President's ship, which is enroute for the internment of 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 underneath his laboratory.

Daleks loyal to the Supreme Dalek arrive from Skaro, called by Takis, who now realise what has been going on. Takis leads the Skaro Daleks to Davros' lab, but they are met by a group of Davros's Daleks. The Skaro Daleks win, arrest Davros and take him Skaro to stand trial. Davros tries to get the Daleks to take the Doctor as well, but they do not recognise him in this regeneration. Upon learning of what Davros had established on Necros, the Skaro forces decide to continue to control the galaxy's demand for famine relief.

Orcini wants to detonate his bomb before Davros's ship leaves, refusing the Doctor's offer to build a timer. They all rush out and Orcini blows the bomb. The Dalek ship manages to take off before the blast, but the Doctor states that Orcini did die for something very honourable: the destruction of Davros's new generation of Daleks.

Takis, looking over the destruction, complains to the Doctor that they are all out of a job. The Doctor tells him that they can harvest the flowers that grow on the planet and use them as a new food source to replace the product Davros had created from dead bodies.

Continuity

• For the first time, Davros and the Daleks are seen to hover some distance above ground. In the transmitted version, the camera angles chosen didn't make it entirely clear that the Dalek was flying (some fans commenting that it looked more like the Dalek was giant-sized), so the sequence was remade for the DVD release of the story. All subsequent Dalek stories until Victory of the Daleks also feature levitation.
• It is never explained how Davros survived the Movellan virus which he contracted at the end of Resurrection of the Daleks. Although Davros says that he managed to escape the space station via an escape pod, no mention is made of his condition. The Big Finish Productions audio adventure Davros portrays another encounter between the Sixth Doctor and Davros set between Resurrection and Revelation.
• Davros creating a new race of Daleks using human tissue is similar to the Dalek Emperor creating a new race of Daleks from human contestants killed on the Game Station, in The Parting of the Ways.
• The Doctor indicates he is 900 years old; this is the first firm indicator of his age since the Fourth Doctor's era, suggesting that approximately 150 years has passed for the Doctor since that time. In Aliens of London, the Ninth Doctor would also claim to be 900 years old, despite the Seventh Doctor in the interim claiming an age of 953 in Time and the Rani, followed by the entire lifetime of both the Seventh and Eighth Doctors. See "The Doctor's age".
• In one of the rare instances of the Doctor actually using a firearm, he disables a Dalek by shooting it with a machine pistol.
• The Doctor's final word is edited out; he would have said "Blackpool", as the planned story The Nightmare Fair was to be set there. This would have been the first story of the next series, and would have been written by former producer Graham Williams. However, the programme was then put on an 18-month hiatus.

Production

Serial details by episode

Episode	Broadcast date	Run time	Viewership (in millions)
"Part One"	23 March 1985 (1985-03-23)	44:31	7.4
"Part Two"	30 March 1985 (1985-03-30)	45:27	7.7

• Eric Saward got around the BBC's policy against script editors commission stories from themselves by writing the script during a six-week period between his contracts. Saward was on holiday on Rhodes at the time and many of the names (such as Lilt and Orcini) come from places, products and people he encountered there. Tasambeker was named after a Greek saint.
• The story is loosely based on the book The Loved One and the information text on the DVD release of the story also states that Soylent Green was also an influence to it. However, writer/script editor Eric Saward has said in the DVD commentary that he had not seen Soylent Green when he wrote Revelation of the Daleks.
• Eric Saward thought up the idea of blue 'mourning' suits for Necros in order to cover up Colin Baker's costume, which he considered inappropriate for a drama series, for as long as possible.
• Portions of the story were filmed at the IBM UK headquarters in Cosham, Portsmouth
• This was the final Doctor Who serial to be produced using film for outdoor sequences and video for interior scenes. Beginning with The Trial of a Time Lord, production moved to all-video. Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant appear entirely on film in Part One and have no interaction with the actors portrayed in the video segments.
• This was the final serial to use Peter Howell's arrangement of the "Doctor Who Theme" that had been introduced in 1980.
• Following the broadcast of this serial, the BBC suspended work on the series for 18 months; production resumed a year later with the next new episode airing in September 1986.
• This story was first aired in the U.S. and some other countries in four 25-minute episodes. The first cliffhanger sees Natasha and Grigory hiding in the catacombs as Takis and Lilt are wheeling a body through the tunnels, while the cliffhanger in "Part Three" features either the Doctor telling Peri that she's in great danger, or, in some edits of the story, Davros ordering his Daleks to kill the DJ. All VHS and DVD releases of the story have been in its original two-part form.

Cast notes

Clive Swift later appeared in the Tenth Doctor story Voyage of the Damned as Mr. Copper.

In print

The unofficial novelisation by Jon Preddle

This is one of five Doctor Who serials that were never novelised by Target Books, as they were unable to come to an agreement with Eric Saward and Daleks creator Terry Nation that would have allowed Saward or another writer to adapt the script. Virgin Books (the successor to Target) did announce plans to publish a novelisation by Saward in the early 1990s, but this ultimately did not occur. A fan group in New Zealand published an unofficial novelisation of the story in 1992, later republishing it online as an eBook titled Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks.

Broadcast, VHS and DVD releases

• The story was repeated on BBC 2 in March/April 1993 on consecutive Fridays (19/3/1993 to 9/4/1993) in its 4-part version (sold for overseas transmissions) to represent the Colin Baker years in a series of repeats featuring the original seven Doctors.
• This story was released in 1999 on VHS together with Planet of the Daleks in a special Dalek tin set, and again in 2001 as part another box set, the WHSmith exclusive, The Davros Box Set. The stories were released on VHS individually in North America.
• The story was released on Region 2 DVD on 11 July 2005. An authoring error with Region 2 copies causes some makes of DVD player to freeze at around 8 minutes 32 seconds into episode one, unless certain precautions are taken.

External links

• Revelation of the Daleks at BBC Online
• Revelation of the Daleks on TARDIS Index File, an external wiki
• Revelation of the Daleks at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• Watch: Terry Molloy shares memories of Revelation Of The Daleks

Reviews

• Revelation of the Daleks reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
• Revelation of the Daleks reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide

Fan novelisation

• Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks eBook