Diary of a Who Addict - Genesis of the Daleks recommendation

Currently, I have just reached Genesis of the Daleks in my Who watch. I fucking love this story. I've watched it so many times, and it’s still wonderfully enjoyable: dark, gritty, full of great characters and the occasional dash of wit, this is a classic. Watching it in context helps me appreciate it even more, as a Dalek fan: after being rather unimpressed with the last couple of Dalek stories, this is wonderfully refreshing by comparison, even if they do kind of get regulated to mere servants in this story, their creator Davros is a brilliant creation (even if he does get overused afterwards by appearing in every single Dalek story afterwards).

More importantly though is, well, this story’s importance. If you consider yourself a fan of Doctor Who at all, even if it’s just the new series, this is a story you have to watch. With the creation of Davros, this had quite the impact on the classic series, but arguably, its impact on the new series was even bigger. It’s all to do with the very beginning of the story, when the Doctor meets another Time Lord who has a mission for him: go back to the very creation of the Daleks and either prevent their creation or change them fundamentally at their earliest stage - either way, directly changing history. Considering how the Time Lords exiled the Doctor for merely getting involved in events, the fact that they’re desperate enough to want to change history not only makes them hypocritical, it’s the starting point of a conflict between the Daleks and the Time Lords that eventually breaks out into a War across the whole of time itself and leaves both races nearly wiped out.

Something I also love is there’s a key moment when the Doctor has the chance to wipe out the Daleks forever, and he hesitates. He’s afraid of becoming even remotely like them, and he doesn’t want that to happen – he doesn’t want to wipe out another race because it’s a threat, even if he genuinely knows how much devastation they will cause in the centuries to come. Not only is it a moment that he will come back to in his later years, when he suffers a lot more at the Daleks hands (especially in the 8^th Doctor audio stories Terror Firma and To The Death), it also symbolises a crucial moment – that the Doctor may finally be learning to accept that he will be fighting the Daleks for the rest of his life, that he will always be their enemy, that it will always be his fate, and, for better or worse, he has absolutely no right to change that. 12 years after first meeting them, this story really crystallizes the Doctor’s relationship with the Daleks like no other.

These aren’t the only reasons to watch the story, though: as I mentioned before, it’s also a great story in its own right. Davros is a brilliant character, very much like his Daleks – ruthless, calculating and without mercy. However, he’s also much more of a distinct individual than any of his race – a man with ambition, with dreams of power, a man considerably more intelligent than his own creations…and even more insane. All of these qualities make him even more dangerous than his pepperpot creations and, despite being very overused over the years, tending to overshadow the Daleks too often, in this story he is absolutely brilliant, especially when played by the great Michael Wisher, whose heavy make-up and use of only one arm makes it even more impressive how much emotion and personality he was able to put into the character.

There’s also another great villain of the story: Davros’s henchman, Nyder. What makes him such a great character is how completely loyal he is to Davros, how much he really believes in what he’s doing, even when he learns that he’s willing to sacrifice his own race, the Kaleds, just so the Daleks themselves could go on. This unquestioning devotion makes him even more horrifyingly believeable than if he were made to be “three-dimensional” – if he were given doubts and reasons of why he believes that what he was doing the right thing, in my opinion it could’ve cheapened it. But no – Nyder is like many men in history who committed truly horrible acts for their leaders – intelligent but also unquestioning and totally obedient. Again, this is a role that’s brilliantly portrayed by Peter Miles, and when he returned in audio prequel story I, Davros, playing exactly the same role nearly 30 years later so perfectly,  I was absolutely thrilled.

There’s numerous other reasons why I love this story – the gritty realism of war, the drama, the performances of the regular cast etc. – but I think I’ll let you discover that for yourself. It’s not a perfect story by any means – at six episodes it can feel a little padded at times, and like many Who stories, it tends to suffer from its low budget from time to time, but overall, it’s a seriously high quality story that not only left its mark in Who history as being one of the most important stories since arguably The War Games, but it’s also one of the best.