Genesis of the Daleks (TV story)
Synopsis
Intercepted while travelling between Earth and the Ark, the Fourth Doctor and his companions are transported to the planet Skaro, thousands of years in the past, on a mission for the Time Lords — to prevent the creation of the Daleks.
Plot
Episode 1
On a foggy battlefield, men with painted gas masks and armed with archaic rifles advance out of a trench and are brutally cut down by machine gun fire. The enemy squad marches over their bodies.
The Fourth Doctor walks through the cold mist, wondering where he is. Suddenly, another Time Lord appears in front of him, and the Doctor realises who has intercepted the transmat beam he and his companions were riding at the conclusion of their last adventure. The Time Lords have foreseen a time where the Daleks will dominate the universe. They want the Doctor to travel back to the time of their creation to either avert it, make them less aggressive, or find some inherent weakness in their makeup. The Doctor agrees, and asks for the coordinates for Skaro, the Dalek homeworld. The Time Lord tells the Doctor that he is already there, and vanishes after giving him a Time Ring that will return him to the TARDIS when his mission is complete.
The Doctor finds Harry and Sarah a short distance away. As they explore the battlefield, they come across bodies equipped with a curious mix of archaic and modern technology. The Doctor theorises that the war has been going on for a long time, perhaps a thousand years or more, with technology regressing as resources get more scarce. In the distance, they see yet another sight — a protective dome large enough to cover an entire city.
The trio cross the lines into another trench, where the bodies of the fallen have been propped up to make the place appear more heavily guarded. Suddenly, gas shells drop as a squad of soldiers attacks. Another door bursts open, and black-uniformed soldiers emerge, counterattacking with submachine guns. Having dealt with the enemy, they drag Harry and the Doctor into their bunker, leaving an unconscious Sarah behind among the dead.
The soldiers, all very young men, take the Doctor and Harry to see General Ravon, who is in his early twenties. These are the Kaleds, who are fighting a war with the Thals for dominance of Skaro. Soon, Ravon boasts, they will exterminate the Thals from the face of the planet. The Doctor notices that "Kaled" is an anagram.
The Doctor and Harry manage to disarm Ravon, forcing him at gunpoint to take them back to the surface. However, they encounter Security Command Nyder, who becomes suspicious and orders his men to open fire. Releasing Nyder, Harry and the Doctor run for and reach the surface, but are soon captured by the Kaleds once more.
Ravon thinks the two are Mutos, the descendants of those mutated by chemical weapons early in the war and cast out into the wastelands to maintain Kaled racial purity. The Doctor tells Nyder they are aliens, but Nyder is sceptical, since the Kaleds' greatest scientist, Davros, has said there is no life on other planets. Nyder takes custody of the Doctor and Harry for interrogation.
Sarah has regained consciousness and, unable to enter the bunker, walks into the wastelands, where she is being followed by Mutos. She stumbles across a crumbling structure, and peeps through to see a old and crippled man — Davros — his lower body enclosed in what appears to be a sophisticated mobile chair that resembles the bottom half of a Dalek. The bald figure has a withered left arm, and his eyes are both closed over, with a third, electronic eye on his forehead blinking as he speaks.
His assistant, Gharman, sets up several man-sized targets, and Davros flicks a switch on his chair. To Sarah's horror, a Dalek trundles forward. Davros gives it some simple commands in a grating, half-synthesized voice, then tells it to "exterminate". The Dalek fires its weapon, obliterating the targets. Davros is pleased. His work can now begin...
Episode 2
After Gharman and Davros lead the Dalek away, Sarah is taken prisoner by the Mutos. In the Kaled bunker, Nyder orders that the Doctor and Harry be scanned. The scan detects the Time Ring, which is confiscated despite the Doctor's protests. It is placed with their other belongings as they are taken to Senior Researcher Ronson for questioning.
Two Mutos argue over Sarah's unconscious body. Gerill notes that she is a "Norm", and Norms are to be killed by Muto law. Sevrin, however, questions why the Mutos should always destroy beauty. The fight is interrupted by a squad of Thal soldiers, who shoot Gerill, but take Sevrin and Sarah to the Thal dome as slave labourers.
Ronson, a member of the Scientific Division, examines the results of the scan, and is startled to discover that the Doctor and Harry are indeed aliens. Before he can question them further, an alarm rings; Davros is arriving, bringing with him his "Mark III travel machine", which the Doctor identifies to Ronson as a Dalek. When Davros releases the primitive Dalek to independent control, it swivels around and pauses at the Doctor and Harry, detecting their non-Kaled physiology. It cries out that they are aliens and must be exterminated, but Ronson switches the Dalek off before it can fire.
Davros is furious that Ronson interceded when his creation showed a natural instinct to destroy. Ronson pleads with Davros that the prisoners might hold valuable information, and Davros relents. They will be used when the demonstration resumes, at first light, but Ronson may question them until then. The two are taken to the cells.
In the Thal dome, Sarah discovers that the Thals have placed all their remaining resources into a rocket that they hope will bring them victory in one decisive strike. The slaves are being used to pack the rocket's nose cone with distronic explosives. To reduce the weight, no shielding is provided, which means the slaves will get distronic toxaemia and die after a few hours' exposure.
The Doctor has learned that the bunker they are in is a few miles away from the Kaled dome. Years ago, the Kaled government decided to form a scientific elite for research, but over time the elite became more and more influential. Ronson tells them that Davros has just announced that the Mark III travel machine will now be known as a Dalek, and Ronson asks how the Doctor knew this in advance.
When the Doctor reveals that he is a time traveller, Ronson confides in him that he and a few others believe the direction of Davros' research has turned immoral and evil. The elite discovered that their race was already mutating. Davros believed that this mutation could not be reversed, and began experiments to determine the Kaleds' final mutated form, developing these "ultimate creatures" which he will put in travel machines.
Ronson believes that if the government were told about the experiments they would shut Davros down, but he is unable to get out of the bunker. The Doctor offers to contact the right men if Ronson helps them escape.
The first load over, Sarah and the other slaves return to their cell, exhausted. She tells them they must act before they are too weak from distronic exposure to do anything. She proposes they try to escape through the dome's exit at the top of the rocket. Overpowering their guard, the slaves rush out to the silo and start climbing, as Thal troops fire up at them.
Episode 3
Several are shot, falling to their deaths. Sarah and Sevrin make it to the nose cone of the rocket but are caught before they can escape. Meanwhile, Ronson has helped Harry and the Doctor escape, and they make their way to the Kaled dome. Back in the bunker, Davros orders further improvements to the Dalek shell's systems.
Another scientist, Kavell, tells Ronson that the Doctor and Harry have made contact with the Kaled leadership in the dome. There, the Doctor briefs the Kaled Councillors, including one named Mogran, on future events and how the name of the Daleks will terrorise the universe for generations to come.
Nyder tells Davros that his spies have reported a secret meeting with Mogran and some Councillors that oppose their work occurred in the dome with the two prisoners present. Davros tells Nyder to find out how they escaped and the details of the meeting; he will deal with Ronson in his own way.
Mogran and his Councillors have decided that an independent inquiry will look into Davros's experiments, and until then, all work at the bunker will cease. If the Doctor's allegations are borne out, the project will be shut down. When they leave to tell Davros their decision, Ravon tells Harry and the Doctor that Kaled agents in the Thal dome have reported that a girl led an attempted breakout. The Kaleds know about the rocket but are unconcerned because Davros has reinforced their dome. Ravon agrees to show the Doctor and Harry how to get to the Thal dome.
Davros seems to take Mogran's announcement of the inquiry well, but after they leave, he orders twenty mutants to be placed within the Dalek shells. Nyder protests that they are still unstable, but Davros replies that he will place them under a degree of computer control. He and Nyder are going on a journey...
Harry and the Doctor reach the Thal dome, and while making their way through the corridors manage to spy on a meeting between some Thals and Davros, with Nyder by his side. The Kaled chief scientist tells the Thals that he is only interested in peace. He adds that the Kaled dome is currently impenetrable, but gives them a chemical formula that will weaken the dome enough for the rocket to work. All he asks is that he be allowed to help in the reconstruction of Skaro when the war is over.
Harry and the Doctor continue their search for Sarah. They overpower two guards and steal their radiation suits. Entering the silo, they take care of the guard there and free the slaves. Harry, Sarah and Sevrin leave for the Kaled dome to warn them and advise an immediate offensive while the Doctor attempts to sabotage the rocket. However, before he can do so, the guard in the silo revives, and activates an electric grid, sending an electric surge through the Doctor's body, shocking him into unconsciousness.
Episode 4
The Doctor awakens in the control room of the Thal dome, where a screen shows the Thal chemical bombardment of the Kaled dome. The Thal leader gives the order to start the rocket countdown. In the bunker, the Kaled scientists watch the bombardment with disbelief; who could have given the Thals the right formula?
The Thal rocket fires, and blows up the Kaled dome. The Doctor ruefully observes that he sent Harry and Sarah in there. In the bunker, Davros vows "revenge" beginning with the "Thal spy" Ronson. With an order of "Exterminate!" from Davros, Ronson is shot down by the Daleks. Davros declares the Kaled race dead and the rise of the Daleks as the supreme being and ultimate conqueror of the universe.
The Thal leader is jubilant that the war has ended, and orders all prisoners to be freed, including the Doctor. The Doctor, however, is melancholy. A Thal woman, Bettan, asks him if he had friends in the dome and the Doctor replies yes. However, he intends to continue and try to stop the development of Davros's Daleks. Bettan says that Davros is a hero, despite the Doctor telling her that he only betrayed his people because they were about to stop his experiments.
In the bunker, Davros tells Gharman to implement new variations to the Dalek mutants' genetic structure. Gharman notices that this will produce mental defects, making them devoid of conscience, morality or pity. Davros calls them "improvements" and orders Gharman to carry out his orders without question, but Gharman is obviously disturbed by this development.
Under Davros's orders, Daleks enter the Thal dome and begin exterminating people. Bettan runs into the Doctor, and the two flee the dome. The Doctor tells her that she has to form what Thal survivors there are into a fighting force and destroy the Kaled bunker.
As the Doctor makes his way back to the bunker to retrieve the Time Ring, he is attacked by Mutos. However, he is saved by Harry, Sevrin and Sarah, who did not manage to reach the dome before it was destroyed. Before they return to the bunker, the Doctor asks Sevrin to join Bettan and help her organise the survivors.
In the bunker, Gharman quietly tries to convince Kavell that they have to stop the Daleks. However, they are overheard by Nyder. The Security Commander approaches Gharman and convinces him that he believes Davros has become a megalomaniac and has to be stopped. He arranges to meet Gharman in the detention rooms on the lower level where Davros never goes.
There, Gharman gives Nyder the names of those who oppose Davros, which is all that he really wanted. Davros appears, and Nyder knocks Gharman unconscious. At that moment, Sarah, Harry and the Doctor emerge from the ventilation shaft right in front of the two, and are captured.
Davros interrogates the Doctor, who tells him why he is here. Davros asks him if the Daleks always win in the future, and the Doctor tells him that they have been occasionally been defeated. Davros demands to know what mistakes the Daleks make, intending to correct them, but the Doctor refuses. Davros hooks Sarah and Harry up to his machines, and tells the Doctor that if he does not answer his questions or lies, his friends will suffer.
Episode 5
As Davros increases the power of the torture devices, the Doctor reluctantly answers Davros's questions. Over the course of the next few hours, he gives a litany of the Daleks' defeats and why they were defeated. The first session over, Sarah and Harry are taken to the detention area. Davros wants to speak to the Doctor, scientist to scientist.
The Doctor pleads with Davros to stop the development of the Daleks. The machines are not the problem — the evil creatures inside them are. Davros says that they are merely conditioned to survive, and to do so, they must become the dominant species. When all other life is suppressed, there will be universal peace.
The Doctor asks Davros a hypothetical question: if he had invented a virus that would destroy all other forms of life on contact, would he use it? Davros considers the question and observes that the power to make that choice would elevate him above the gods, and yes, he would do it. Convinced now that Davros is mad, the Doctor seizes his arm and threatens to turn off his life support chair unless he orders the Dalek mutants destroyed. However, Nyder enters and knocks the Doctor out before Davros can give the final order.
Nyder takes the Doctor back to the cells, but in the meantime, Kavell has managed to knock out a guard and free Sarah, Harry and Gharman. Harry, dressed as a guard, tries to stop Nyder, but he gets away. Gharman and Kavell go to organize the others against Davros, but the Doctor warns them to be careful: Davros knows what they are planning. The time travellers now have two things to retrieve: the Time Ring, and the tape recording with knowledge of the future.
The Daleks in the Thal dome eliminate the last of the Thals still inside and are ordered back to the bunker. Sevrin tells Bettan that there are no more survivors except those who managed to escape the city. In the bunker, fighting breaks out between Gharman's and Davros's supporters, with Gharman's side gaining the upper hand. To Nyder's surprise, Davros orders him to surrender.
Gharman and the rebels meet Davros and deliver their ultimatum: to destroy the Daleks and cease work on the project. Davros agrees, but he wants a meeting of both the military and scientific elite in an hour and a vote to be taken on the issue.
Searching through the lockers, the Doctor finds a chunk of plastic explosive and detonators. There is one option left to him to stop the Daleks: genocide. He enters the incubator room to set up the explosives, intending to destroy the Daleks forever. As Sarah and Harry wait, the Doctor staggers out, with several embryonic Dalek mutants wrapped around his throat, strangling him.
Episode 6
With Harry and Sarah's help, the Doctor manages to free himself and throw the mutants back into the room. All he has to do is touch two wires together and the Daleks are destroyed. However, the Doctor hesitates; does he have the right to commit genocide? He tells Sarah that many future worlds became allies because of their fear of the Daleks. If he wipes the Daleks out, he becomes no better than them.
Gharman approaches and tells them that Davros has agreed to the ultimatum, and the Doctor is grateful for not having to make the final decision. He disconnects the wires, and they go to the meeting. There, as Davros makes his case, the trio secretly pocket the Doctor's belongings that were confiscated earlier, including the Time Ring. Gharman proposes an alternative: to let the Daleks continue, not as Davros's genetically ruthless creatures, but with human strengths, weaknesses and emotions.
Meanwhile, the Daleks re-enter the bunker. Bettan's rebels follow them in unseen, and set up explosive charges to collapse the bunker and entomb the Daleks forever. She cannot afford to delay, and Sevrin goes deeper into the bunker to try and warn the Doctor and the others.
As the vote takes place, Nyder casually walks off. Suspicious, the TARDIS crew follow him. They grapple with him, and unknowingly drop the Time Ring in the corridor. The Doctor forces Nyder to bring them to where the tape recording is kept. The Doctor destroys the recording with a Dalek gun, but Nyder gets away again, locking them in the room. With the Time Ring gone, they can only watch on the monitor as Gharman and his rebels are exterminated by the Daleks.
Sevrin opens the door and warns them about the Thal explosives. The Doctor finds the Time Ring, and sends his friends with it to the main entrance, while he returns to the incubator room to finish what he started. The Doctor is unable to connect the wires due to a Dalek firing at him, but when the Dalek glides forward, its metal body forms a circuit with the wires and the incubator room explodes.
Davros suddenly notices that the Dalek automated assembly line has started, although he gave no such order. One of the Daleks says it gave the order, and refuses when Davros tells it to shut the line down. The Daleks exterminate Nyder when he tries to do so, and advance on Davros.
The Doctor runs towards the main entrance, a squad of Daleks in pursuit, just as Bettan is about to give the order to detonate the charges. He makes it through the doors as they go off, sealing the bunker.
Inside, the Daleks tell Davros that their programming does not allow them to acknowledge any creature as their superior. The crippled scientist begs them to have pity, but that word is not in the Daleks' vocabulary, and they exterminate him. The lead Dalek proclaims that, despite their entombment, this is only the beginning. The Daleks will prepare, grow stronger and when the time is right, they will emerge and become the supreme power in the universe.
The Doctor acknowledges that even with the incubator room gone, he has only managed to retard the Daleks' progress by a thousand years or so. The travellers say their good-byes to Bettan and the others, and prepare to use the Time Ring. Sarah asks the Doctor why he does not seem disappointed that he failed; as they are whisked away through time and space, the Doctor tells Sarah that although the Daleks will create havoc and destruction for millions of years, he knows that out of their evil must come something good...
Cast
Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen
Kaled Leader - Richard Reeves
Kaled Guard - Peter Mantle
Thal Politician – Michael Lynch
Thal Soldiers - Pat Gorman, Hilary Minster, John Gleeson
Thal Guard - Max Faulkner
Daleks – John Scott Martin, Cy Town, Keith Ashley
Dalek Voices – Roy Skelton
Time Lord - John Franklin-Robbins
Crew
Studio Lighting - Duncan Brown
Assistant Floor Manager - Karilyn Collier
Production Assistant - Rosemary Crowson
Davros Mask - John Friedlander
Production Unit Manager - George Gallacio
Title Music - Ron Grainer and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
Theme arrangement - Delia Derbyshire
Incidental Music - Dudley Simpson
References
2000, 17,000, Earth, Hyperion, Mars, Venusian , Kaled, Mark III Travel Machine, Skaro, Time Ring
- The Doctor's first visit to Skaro is said to occur some 500 years after a war between the Thals and the Daleks. Whether that visit comes 500 years after this story or some later conflict is unclear.
Story Notes
- Working titles for this story included Genesis of Terror and Daleks: Genesis of Terror.
- The opening scene was rewritten by David Maloney. Terry Nation felt the rewritten scene was too violent for young children; Mary Whitehouse concurred after the story's first broadcast.
- Genesis of the Daleks is the most-repeated Doctor Who story on BBC Television's analogue services, having been re-shown in edited form in 1975 and 1982 (on BBC1) and again in its full form in 1993 and 2000 (both on BBC2). It has also been regularly transmitted on satellite television station UK Gold. In a 1998 poll of readers by Doctor Who Magazine, over 2500 voters placed it top of a poll to find the greatest Doctor Who stories of all time, and it has regularly featured in the top-tens of other similar polls down the years.
- Some fans argue that the Doctor was more successful in his mission than he realized. In addition to entombing the Daleks for what he believed to be a thousand years, his intervention led to Davros surviving the betrayal of his creations. When Davros was later revived, his presence created a schism within the Daleks ranks and made them less effective as conquerors.
- The Dalek defeats that the Doctor mentions in his interrogation include an invasion in the year 2000 when the Daleks tried to mine the magnetic core of the Earth (a reference to "The Dalek Invasion of Earth," although that took place in the 22nd century). The Doctor also mentions a Dalek invasion of Mars (noted in the Virgin New Adventures novel "GodEngine" by Craig Hinton) and an invasion of Venus that was halted in the "Space Year 17,000" by a fleet of ships from the planet Hyperion.
- The novelisation of "The Evil of the Daleks" by John Peel suggests that the Dalek that exterminates Davros at the end of this story eventually becomes the Dalek Emperor seen in Evil.
- Guy Siner, who played Ravon, and Hilary Minster, who played a Thal soldier, both later became famous for leading roles in the situation comedy 'Allo 'Allo.
- The Daleks and the Time Lords are later involved in a destructive Time War, alluded to in the 2005 series. Executive producer Russell T. Davies commented in an episode of Doctor Who Confidential that the origins of the Time War date back to this story, where the Time Lords struck first. Davies also made reference to this attempted genocide as a root of the Time War in a text piece in the Doctor Who Annual 2006.
Ratings
- Ep. 1 - 10.7m viewers
- Ep. 2 - 10.5m viewers
- Ep. 3 - 8.5m viewers
- Ep. 4 - 8.8m viewers
- Ep. 5 - 9.8m viewers
- Ep. 6 - 9.1m viewers
Myths
to be added
Influences
- Dalek creator, Terry Nation, supposedly based the Daleks on the Nazis, and this episode abounds with parallels. A madman leads his own race to its destruction. He is supported by security services that ride roughshod over the military and anybody else that gets in their way. They dress wholly in black, and salute each other by raising their hands and clicking the heels of their boots together. Their bespectacled leader, Nyder, is cold-hearted and ruthless, and even wears an Iron Cross in earlier episodes before the medal later disappears from his costume. Much of the action takes place in "the Bunker".
- The idea of the Daleks being the creation of a scientist was first suggested in a TV 21 comic written by David Whitaker, but credited to Terry Nation. The scientist in that strip was named Yarvelling. Curiously, Yarvelling's people were also called "Daleks," although the term more properly describes the travel machines and not the creatures inhabiting them. The comic strip in question may be viewed here. In 1973 Terry Nation wrote a comic strip appearing in the Radio Times, entitled "We Are The Daleks!," in which the Daleks were created on Ameron by scientists from Halldon, who had captured and accelerated the evolution of early humans.
Location Filming
to be added
Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors
- The Doctor gives the date of the events of "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" as happening in 2000, although all other sources give it as the 22nd century.
- According to "The Daleks", the ancestral race of the Daleks were called "Dals." However, they are identified as Kaleds in this and all future appearances. Among the theories to explain this apparent discrepancy include that "Dal" is the name for the Kaleds in the Thal language, or that the Dals were an earlier evolutionary form of the Kaleds themselves.
- "The Daleks" implied that the Daleks evolved gradually into their mutated form over hundreds of years. This apparent discontinuity is usually explained by the Doctor's interference with their history in this story. Events set into motion by the Doctor's presence caused Davros to prematurely accelerate the development of the Daleks, creating unstable creatures which he could not control.
Continuity
- GodEngine features the initial stages of the Dalek's interest in Mars.
- This serial forms part of a continuous series of adventures for the TARDIS crew, beginning from the end of "Robot" and continuing through to "Terror of the Zygons." The Virgin Missing Adventure novel "A Device of Death" takes place in a possible gap between Genesis of the Daleks and "Revenge of the Cybermen," and the BBC Past Doctor Adventure novel "Wolfsbane" is set in another such gap between "Revenge" and "Zygons."
- This story established Davros as the creator of the Daleks, and all later Dalek stories in the original series feature him. Though apparently detsoryed in this story, he returns in "Destiny of the Daleks," having survived when his life-support systems placed him in a form of static hibernation.
- The Ninth Doctor alludes to Davros, but does not name him, when explaining the Daleks' origins to Henry van Statten in "Dalek."
- Time Rings, first introduced in this story, also figure prominently in "Who Killed Kennedy."
DVD, Video and Other Releases
DVD Releases
It was released by BBC DVD as Doctor Who: Genesis of the Daleks.
Released:
- Region 2 April 10th 2006
- PAL - BBC DVD BBCDVD1813
- PAL - Roadshow ????
- NTSC - Warner Video E2503
Video Releases
- First Release: Released as Doctor Who: The Sontaran Experiment & The Genesis of the Daleks.
Released:
- Second Release: As part of the Davros box set in 2002.
Audio Releases
- First Release: As an LP and cassette, Genesis of the Daleks, from the BBC, with narration by Tom Baker.
- Second Release: As a cassette as Genesis of the Daleks & Slipback, from the BBC Radio Collection; and as Genesis of the Daleks/Exploration Earth, also from the BBC Radio Collection.
Target Novelisations
Genesis of the Daleks Novelisation
