"Come in, won’t you?" calls the Doctor, "I’ve been waiting to talk to you."
Koquillion answers the invitation.
"This used to be the Peoples’ Hall of Judgement," remarks the Doctor, regarding the empty chamber sadly, "Fitting, in the
present circumstances don’t you think? Mr Bennett, may I
remind you that masks and robes such as you are wearing are only used
on absolutely ceremonial occasions, hmm?"
Koquillion removes his face. Bennett is beneath.
He explains that he is a murderer.
"I killed a crewmember on the spaceship to
Astra. I was arrested. The ship crashed. My crime hadn’t been radioed to
Earth. I knew if I could get rid of the other crewmembers..."
"Get rid of the other crewmembers and blame their deaths on the Dido people, hmm?"
"When we crash landed, the inhabitants invited us all to a
grand meeting. It was simple. I just arranged an explosive, using the
ships armaments. The whole thing went up. All the inhabitants, the
crew, the whole race."
"You destroyed a whole planet to save your own skin. You’re insane."
"The girl didn’t know I’d been arrested. When we get back to
Earth, she’d support my story. I dressed up as Koquillion to show her
how terrible the people here were."
According to the Doctor they were actually hospitable and sociable people, the few hundred that used to live there anyway. The ones that survived Bennett's explosion, and who turn up to get him, are pretty pissed off however. Understandably. But Bennet never had a moment's doubt that his fable of their murderous fierceness would be believed.
Implicit in the very fabric of the story is the assumption that 'Earth' or 'humanity' means Whitey. Caucasians. Westerners. This is something that is far from unproblematic, and it occurs again and again, even - perhaps especially - in SF satires of colonialism. And, when the "Dido people" appear, they're not represented as people of colour, which tends to rub people of colour out of their own story. And yet, as ever, there's a double bind here. To represent them as people of colour would be for the culture industries Western imperialism to take it upon themselves to represent the kinds of people their own societies decimated. The solution isn't to be found within the culture industries, or within the creation of TV texts. The necessary solution is a dialectical and political one that changes society, not just the attitudes of society, or the way society makes television.
And yet, all that being said... also implicit in this particular story is the assumption that Bennett would be believed without question when he dishonestly blamed the aboriginal inhabitants of an uncolonised 'New World' for a senseless massacre of his fellow passengers and crew. Also implicit is the assumption on the part of Bennett that the culture and sophistication of the Didoans counts for nothing, that their People's Hall of Judgement is just another place that he can use and abuse them without being judged.
They key figure here is the mask. In ceremonies, masks are objects of immense social significance and complexity. Bennett takes it upon himself to use the Didoan masks as a fetish outfit to scare a teenager; as a monster costume. He sees their culture and sees menace and horror in its otherness. He expects Vicki to be terrified of the mask... but isn't it the cruel and abusive behaviour of the man behind the mask that frightens Vicki? After all, the mask depicts an insect... presumably an insect native to Dido. Sandy the Sandbeast, who resembles the insect (being part of the same evolutionary pattern... as well as also being designed by Ray Cusick) is her friend. There's a whole subplot about how Barbara kills Sandy, not realising what Vicki realises: that he is not something to be feared simply because of his otherness, his 'Didoanness'.
The cermonial animal mask suggests West African and Sub-Saharan tribal cultures: the very regions among those decimated by Western encroachment and violence. These masks are one of the aspects of African culture that the West has adopted... but they still carry a sinister charge in our imperialist fantasies. Even in great art, such as that of Picasso, the mask-like faces suggest and imply something terrifying. Think of the accusing stares of the Demoiselles. The story uses the idea of the frightening mask, uses the fact of its being frightening to some... but seemingly with an awareness that the greater threat is usually the white colonialist who has appropriated it and worn it.
Without Bennett behind it, the Koquillion mask actually looks rather beautiful.
ideas are icepickproof
Showing posts with label david whittaker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label david whittaker. Show all posts
Wednesday, 13 November 2013
Monday, 14 October 2013
The Obligatory Returned-Episodes Post
Hurrah, etc.
As Lawrence Miles says, there's no point trying act all cool at a time like this. It's great news and I'm very happy about it. Sincerely. You'd have to be a miserablist of a more perverse and determined stamp than I not to be as pleased as punch.
Of course, I could whinge about some things.
And will.
This blog has a USP after all.
I could, for instance, mention the way Nigeria - where the episodes were found - has suddenly swung briefly onto the mental radars of people who, until a few days ago, probably had only a dim idea that it existed at all. It's ironic because, at more or less the time when those missing episodes were made, the Wilson government was helping the corrupt Nigerian military dictatorship crush Biafra. Britain continued arming the junta for years, despite government denials. The regime was engaged in a longstanding war against the Ogoni people - one of the forgotten persecuted peoples in the world. Shell's exploitation of oil reserves in their region has had untold environmental and human costs, making the Niger Delta one of the most petroleum-impacted regions on Earth. In 1995, the Nigerian government - utterly in thrall to and bound up with Shell - began a campaign of ruthless repression against the growing anti-Shell protest movement. The 'Ogoni Nine', including Ken Saro-Wiwa, were arrested and executed, causing a (brief) international outcry. Nigeria achieved formal democracy in 1999 but the corrupt government still wages war against the living standards and rights of the Nigerian people in the service of international oil profits. Indeed, as in so many places, this war is a condition of IMF debt relief and loans. The American government occasionally declares itself troubled by the rigged elections and violence in Nigeria, but Nigeria supplies them with large amounts of oil - the country is up there with Saudi Arabia when it comes to oil exports - so they never do anything beyond the pious declarations. The crippling economic situation in Nigeria, with a huge portion of the population living in slums, is the root cause of ongoing ethnic and religious violence. Even the BBC is capable of making the connection between the violence and the poverty rate (above 60% and rising). Boko Haram, an Islamic fundamentalist group responsible for many attacks - including this last month - are based in the predominantly Muslim north-east, hardest hit by poverty. Go figure.
But they also had 'The Enemy of the World' and 'The Web of Fear' on a shelf somewhere, so I guess its swings and roundabouts, yeah?
Back in what I like to call my TARDIS Whingeorium, I could also mention the relative importance given by some to the release of these old episodes and the wanton sell-off of Royal Mail, which was announced on the same day and which constitutes a swindle on the taxpayer to the tune of millions, possibly billions... with much of the benefit available only to huge international 'sovereign wealth funds'. And that's without mentioning all the inevitable good stuff that always comes with privatisation (i.e. downsizing and spiralling inefficiency, etc).
On the subject of huxterism and profiteering, there's also the BBC's grubby co-operation with iTunes (*spit*) and the cynical decision to release the episodes as DRM-laden m4v files before the hasty (and reputedly extras-thin) DVD releases which will shortly follow, and which fans with disposable income will buy even though they already downloaded the eps from iTunes. Shame about anyone without access to iTunes. Luckily, however, the internet is one commons that can never be entirely enclosed, so torrents of people will get to see the stories anyway, one way or another. Meanwhile, the BBC suck on Steve Jobs' nasty, hard software and swallow the money shot that ensues.
Buuuuuut... sooner or later I'm going to drop all this bellyaching and start talking about the episodes themselves, right? I just have to run through stuff like the above to make myself feel better about it... as you, Constant Reader, know full well. We know each other pretty thoroughly by now, don't we?
The Enemy of the World
Capitalism. See above.
Har-de-har. Sorry. I'm such a kidder.
Okay, 'The Enemy of the World', as in the Troughton serial in which the Troutmeister plays two roles: the Doctor (as usual) and machiavellian mariachi Salamander, dictator-of-the-world-in-waiting.
Well, first things first. Troughton is darked-up to play an evil Mexican who, natch, dresses in quasi-Mariachi clothes and says things like "da son he don fall oudda da sky". So. Um. That's unfortunate. Especially since there are no non-evil Mexicans in it. (This isn't the first time we've had a problem regarding the portrayal of Mexicans.)
Also on the racefail radar is Fariah. She's... debateable. She's there to bolster the serial's attempt - in quintessential 60s style - to depict the future as an international melting-pot. Because racial equality is a dream to aspire to, a distant and way-out possibility, the next generation's project, something to put off until we have hovercars and moving pavements. But kudos for i) putting a black person on TV at all, ii) putting a sympathetic black person on TV, and iii) finding an actual black person to play the black person on TV. It's sad that such bare minimums should warrant kudos but they probably do. She's a bit of an Angry Black Woman, but her resemblance to the stereotype is actually pretty tenuous. The ABW thing rests on the notion that black women are domineering ballbusters whereas Fariah is shown to be clearly in the power of Salamander. But this does lead us into the most serious possible objection to the character: she's a slave. A black slave. A black woman represented as still trapped in that role. Asked what she does, she replies "I serve". This could be seen as an acknowledgement of racism continuing even in the future. After all, we're not meant to pass over her servitude without a qualm, the way we clearly are with Toberman. She's not happy about it and the story supports her discontent and rebellion. The anti-racist reading is a bit compromised by the fact that her 'master' is a Mexican (and not a real one at that) and also by the way nobody actually seems to notice that she's black. That cuts both ways. It pushes the idea that, in the future, race is no longer an issue... which seems progressive, within limits. However, it also undercuts the idea that institutionalised racism is why she's in a subordinate position. In the absence of this critical notion, her enslavement starts to just look like a black woman's destiny. Hmm. Also, like so many black supporting characters in TV/film, she dies. She at least makes it a good way through instead of dying almost immediately (of course, you could say that about Toberman). The other potential issue is that she's a victim of blackmail. We don't find out what she did wrong (if anything) because the Doctor, charmingly, instantly comes to her defence when she is questioned about it, saying "we're none of us perfect". It doesn't end up looking like a smear on her character so much as a facet of her character. On the whole, I think that there are problems but that they're not egregious, certainly not by comparison with a lot of other TV - Who included - from the same era... or ours.
Fariah is a Strong Female Character™, despite her victim-status, as is Astrid. Astrid is, in many ways, the hero(ine) of this story. (Mary Peach is great, but what a shame Astrid couldn't have been played by the equally good Carmen Munroe instead... indeed, the fact that the role of Astrid goes to a white woman and the role of Fariah goes to a black woman - as a matter of course - is the clearest indication of an underlying problem.) Astrid is, wonderfully, defined by her ethical/political commitments... which makes her quite different to most Strong Female Characters™ today, most of whom are defined by their ability to sassily kick ass, and their slavish emotional dependence on a wonderful impossible man. So, things are fairly good genderwise, I think. Of course, Astrid does wear unnecessary skin-tight PVC trousers... in fact, the back view of those skin-tight PVC trousers is pretty much the first thing we see after the TARDIS-arrival scene on the beach (by the way, how 'bout them longjohns?). But today the Doctor would spend all his scenes with Astrid indulging in innuendo about her plastic breeches, so I guess progress goes both ways.
Of course, I'm a white dude, so I'm not going to take upon myself to tell anyone that there definitely aren't any serious problems here. I don't want to whitesplain or mansplain if I can avoid it. My positionality could well make me wrong.
On the subject of Fariah... her death is one of the many scenes which is definitely enhanced by having the visuals. It comes over as genuinely savage and tragic. Carmen Munroe gives a good performance, as does Milton Johns as the loathsome sadist Benik. Completing the scene is Elliot Cairnes as Benik's Guard Captain. He gives an excellent little performance as a man reluctant to obey the nastier orders of a superior he obviously finds contemptible. He looks on as Benik enjoys tormenting the dying woman and objects to the more wanton cruelty... but then what good is that? The man is decent enough to be bothered by it but not bothered enough to do anything? (Plenty of those guys, of course. We all fall into that category sometimes. I haven't personally done much about Nigeria or Apple lately.) It's a lovely touch from David Whittaker, yet another example of the social texture that runs through this story, the concentration on character. And the Cairnes does it well... something that you only really realise when you can watch him.
Milton Johns too is fun to watch. He plays Benik like a rat with oedipal issues impersonating Josef Goebbels (which is a bit redundant actually because 'a rat with oedipal issues' is just a description of Josef Goebbels). His lank hair flies about as he gets more and more excited by any opportunity to hurt people. He simpers over Salamander and clearly relishes the smile of gratitude he gets when handing him Fedorin's file (again, this scene is enhanced immeasurably by being able to see the performances).
While we're talking about performances, we have to pause to crawl on the floor making 'we are not worthy' gestures towards the shade of Patrick Troughton. This is an ensemble piece but, when Troughton's on screen, you can't look at anything else. His Salamander is totally different to his Doctor (he reminds me a bit of Tony Montana from Scarface... I always half expect him to conclude one of his threats to Fedorin with "... you fockin' cuckaroach"). Of course, the Doctor and the Leader are both larger-than-life characters painted in broad strokes... but that sort of thing isn't necessarily easy to do just because it is BIG. It needs an accomplished character actor to pull it off. Fortunately, they had Patrick Troughton, who is pretty much the definition of an accomplished character actor. Charlie Chaplin pulls off very much the same trick in The Great Dictator (an obvious influence on this story) but that was comedy; Troughton has a harder job in some ways - he has to play it nominally straight. And he does. He doesn't send it up. And he gets away with it. Think about that: he doesn't send up this material and he still gets away with it. Phil Sandifer has pointed out (amidst loads of other good points) the brilliance of Troughton in the scene where the Doctor has to improvise a hurried impersonation for the benefit of Bruce. It takes a helluvanactor to play a non-actor acting just well enough to pass muster.
The visuals are, for the most part, enriching rather than embarassing. You have to take the dated style as read, of course, but that shouldn't be a problem for us. Like other stories from this era, 'Enemy' is decorated with deliciously overripe op-art pop-futurism. And yet, there's an awareness of history in various instances of something archaic being repackaged or held-over into the future. The most striking is Astrid's kinky PVC Regency costume (already mentioned), but there's also the entropic mansion in which Salamander stays while in Hungary, Griffin's old fashioned kitchen, the disused and rotting jetty, the monitor screen in the Records Room which looks like a submarine periscope, etc. Something similar is seen in the previous story 'The Ice Warriors'. This seems to be an idea that was around at the time: the future as built upon and around the remains of the past.
Some of the visuals are astonishingly confident. There's a lovely bit where Jamie approaches in the distance... and he's part of the back projection! Salamander's speech to the UN (or whatever it is) and his journey down into his secret bunker are strikingly well done. You get a true feeling of depth and verticality in the depiction of the shuttle going up and down the mine shaft. Sadly the bunker itself could've been done better. It's altogether too roomy and bright, and the people down there are far too clean and healthy-looking.
All in all, though, this looks damn good. Barry Letts treats it like the character-piece it is, letting the camera get close in on faces at crucial moments of drama. The snappy editing helps too. Both techniques (combined with Troughton's performance) contribute to adding a genuine dramatic frisson to the scene at the conclusion when Salamander swings round to see the double (whose existence he has deduced... though nothing much is made of this in the story) standing behind him. Holding back the meeting between the Doctor and Salamander until the end is very effective. It's all over a bit quickly, but it has an impact above its fleeting, tacked-on position.
Beyond the visuals, there's a real sense of a global society here. Of course, we're mostly concerned with the relations between various members of what I'd call the ruling class. Kent, Salamander, Denes, Fedorin, etc are all global politicians or ex-politicians. Benik and Bruce seem to be global policemen. But we do have Fariah and the wonderfully miserable Griffin representing the lesser-mortals caught in the midst of it all, and it helps that they're both such vivid individuals. There's a texture of character and social relation in this story. Even the baddies' coppers seem like real people. Even a guard is likely to have a repressed conscience, a tendency to roll his eyes at superiors (another little present that the restored pictures give us) or a name and a penchant for charmingly-inept chat-up lines. It brings the proceedings above much of the James Bond stuff on which they so clearly riff.
Politically, it ain't progressive, to be honest. As in 'Power of the Daleks', Whittaker's depiction of politics is nebulous, deliberately vague, all about structure rather than ideology or policy. Less of an allegorical space is opened by such vagueness in 'Enemy' than in 'Power', sadly. This global society is hierarchical, run by professional politicians and policemen, formally utilitarian, prosperous and apparently based on some kind of workable settlement of imperial competition. In a way, the specifics don't matter much. This is a pretty simple story about one man's (or two men's) corruption and lust for power destabilising a more-or-less smooth functionalist framework. As such, it fits happily into a nice, simple bourgeois schema of political normality and villainy. Things are pretty much okay until a Salamander comes along ("like Napoleon" as Victoria puts it, recalling a symbol of revolution who became an Emperor) promising things, giving charismatic speeches, getting popular with the people by giving them stuff, manipulating the paranoia of a dissatisfied minority (the bunker people), etc. The absence of democracy in the Zone system doesn't seem to be a problem for Whittaker as long as the people have the good sense to like the right boss (Denes) rather than the wrong one (El Mariachi)... which, sadly, can't be counted upon. Just look at the peaceniks isolated in their little bunker. Deluded by a cynical political machiavel, they pass judgement on the nuke-using world and, with callous self-righteousness, set about their own revolution from below. In so doing, they turn the world into a fiery mess and help bring a populist dictator to power. It's not their fault, of course... the swarthy firebrand outsider has tricked them. The Mexican bastard.
This is, essentially, a response to the ferment of the 60s which says "calm down guys, there's not going to be a nuclear holocaust and we're gonna work things out for the best... there's no need to throw hierarchy and bourgeois order out of the window... and there's certainly no need to be idolising any Latin revolutionaries because they'll just become the new boss, worse than the old boss". We were just talking the other day about how 'The Space Museum' opened up a potential within Doctor Who for revolutionary energy... well, much as I love it - and I genuinely do adore it - 'Enemy' doesn't grab hold of that potential, I'm afraid.
Luckily it has all the good stuff already mentioned, plus a pacey plot and lots of lovely, crackly dialogue like:
and
Back in the Whingeorium... why wasn't more of Season 5 like this?
Oh, and did you see how the BBC blew the plot twists in the trailer they released? Okay, people like me have listened to the CDs about 40,000 times... but what if there'd been someone watching who didn't know? Y'know, a kid or something. Boo.
The Web of Fear
Blah blah... sets the stage for the UNIT era... blah blah... first appearance of the Brigadier... blah blah... the audience at the time didn't know he'd become a regular goodie... blah blah... he's supposed to be suspicious... blah blah... London Underground refused them permission... blah blah... so they built their own sets... blah blah... London Underground found them so convincing that they... blah blah blah.
Less thrilled by this one, though I'm delighted to have most of it back of course. This is considerably less interesting, less fun and - despite some bravura Camfieldian effort - less well done than 'Enemy'. Lots of it is just people in dull uniforms discussing technical stuff about train stations, or walking around in the dark. It doesn't really matter that the Yeti look daft (though their new, big, round, bright eyes look appropriately like train headlights) but it does matter that we spend two episodes too many watching them wandering around doing nothing much besides looking daft.
When they do swing into action, things get better. There's a superb battle sequence in Episode Two. Camfield stages it beautifully - with lots of quick cuts and even what looks like some very modern shakey camera stuff - and adroitly choses some excellent stock music which really enhances things, the way adroitly chosen stock music sometimes can. Some of the bits where soldiers get webbing full in the face are quite effectively nasty. It's great to have this stuff back. The brightly lit outdoor battle set-piece later on works less well because you can actually see the Yeti properly.
It's a shame that Episode Three is still missing. Episode Three has Troughton, unlike Episode Two (when he was on his hols), and Two is paddingtastic. Two does have that first Yeti battle I mentioned though, and the spooky cliffhanger with the foam pulsing in the Underground tunnels. I'm a sucker for spooky London Underground stuff (i.e. An American Werewolf in London, Creep) so this pleases me. Episode One is the best of the bunch, with the scenes in the museum at the start, accompanied by Bartok... but we already had that one.
On the subject of Episode One, I suppose we have to talk about Julius Silverstein. Well, there, I've said it. Julius Silverstein. Just saying it covers it. Makes Fariah look breezily unproblematic.
On the subject of offensive stereotypes, we also have to talk about Evans. I must confess that I've always been a bit dubious on this one. I've never been aware of a particular stereotype about the Welsh that they're cowardly. Of course, there is more to it than that. Evans is still a comedy idiot, boyo-ing and there's-lovely-ing it all over the place... which ties in with the perennial patronising infantilisation and quaintification of the Welsh in English culture, the culture of the nation that conquered Wales. Indeed, such depictions of the Welsh as hilarious "baa lambs" (to use Arnold's phrase) were the favoured way of degrading them before jokes about sheep-shagging and the chavviness of Splott were discovered.
Thing is... Evans is kind of my hero (at least until he actively starts trying to sell other people down the river). Yes, I know he's untrustworthy and selfish, just interested in number one, but there's something Yossarian-esque about him too. He's the little guy, utterly unimpressed by the conception of duty and honour peddled by the stiff-upper-lip brigade, or the obedience of their willing subordinates.
Too bloody right, mate... especially since the whole situation turns out to be a personal grudge match between two big wheels, the Doctor and the Intelligence. If the little guys of the world all just got some chocolate and pissed off and let the big wheels duke it out... well, the world would be a better place. The lunatics would have no asylum to rule, no pawns to play chess with, no troops to send into battle against each other. I realise that the standard, piss-obvious objection to this would be "well, what if all the little guys had refused to fight Hitler?" to which it might be responded "well, what if all the German little guys had refused to fight for Hitler in the first place?" Don't get me wrong, I'm not putting this forward as a practical plan for ending war; it's just that there is a part of my soul that is incapable of not cheering for a Private who tells a Captain or a Colonel to get stuffed when they order him to risk his neck for them.
Next to Evans, the most authorially frowned-upon character is Chorley, the reporter. The script tries to tell us that he's despicable. However, while I'm no fan of slimey, sensationalist journos (see the above picture), nor am I a fan of the axiomatic assumption that the Press should keep out of anything the military says is none of their business. I like the way that the Robin Day/David Frost analogue Chorley is ostensibly a populist but betrays an elitist contempt for Anne because she's a "smug little red brick university..." something-or-other. But I'm supposed to hate this guy - and automatically suspect him of being the traitor - because he has the temerity to be down there trying to get the story for me to read about? Piss off.
As I say, a lot of this actually looks a bit dull... though it's worth having the visuals back for three scenes that are heavy with effective character stuff and great acting. The first is the lovely scene where Anne Travers deals with Knight's rather awkward, cheesy and patronising attempt to chat her up. Who never did enough of this kind of thing. (Anne, by the way, is another Strong Female Character™ from the 60s who puts modern ones to shame. She has some scenes after the Yeti attack on HQ that get perilously close to sobby dishrag territory, but otherwise she's a forceful, expert and necessary presence all the way through.) The second is the strangely affecting scene where Professor Travers meets Victoria and Jamie again after 40 years. Who never did enough of this kind of thing either. The third is the scene where the Intelligence, in possession of Professor Travers, abducts Victoria. Troughton and Hines react splendidly, with Hines giving a particularly passionate rendering of anger and distress.
End of the day, this is saved from being just another Season 5 base/monsters runaround by the sheer arbitrariness of it all. Yeti. In the London Underground. Armed with cobwebs. I'm not the kind of dickhat who says things like "they must've been on drugs when they wrote this" about classic kids' TV, but there is a hallucinatory randomness about much of what goes on here. It has the jumbled quality of a dream... which even holds true for the silly reveal of the arbitrary and illogical traitor.
Also, it contributes to the overall feel of stream-of-consciousness free-association that the actors playing Captain Knight and Driver Evans look uncannily like the young Terry Jones and Michael Palin.
*
So there you go. There's my response, for what it's worth. My response now, that is. When the announcement was made, my response was simpler: pure delight... and, everything above notwithstanding, it fundamentally still is.
EDIT: Thanks to Al No for reminding me that Splott has two 't's.
As Lawrence Miles says, there's no point trying act all cool at a time like this. It's great news and I'm very happy about it. Sincerely. You'd have to be a miserablist of a more perverse and determined stamp than I not to be as pleased as punch.
Of course, I could whinge about some things.
And will.
This blog has a USP after all.
I could, for instance, mention the way Nigeria - where the episodes were found - has suddenly swung briefly onto the mental radars of people who, until a few days ago, probably had only a dim idea that it existed at all. It's ironic because, at more or less the time when those missing episodes were made, the Wilson government was helping the corrupt Nigerian military dictatorship crush Biafra. Britain continued arming the junta for years, despite government denials. The regime was engaged in a longstanding war against the Ogoni people - one of the forgotten persecuted peoples in the world. Shell's exploitation of oil reserves in their region has had untold environmental and human costs, making the Niger Delta one of the most petroleum-impacted regions on Earth. In 1995, the Nigerian government - utterly in thrall to and bound up with Shell - began a campaign of ruthless repression against the growing anti-Shell protest movement. The 'Ogoni Nine', including Ken Saro-Wiwa, were arrested and executed, causing a (brief) international outcry. Nigeria achieved formal democracy in 1999 but the corrupt government still wages war against the living standards and rights of the Nigerian people in the service of international oil profits. Indeed, as in so many places, this war is a condition of IMF debt relief and loans. The American government occasionally declares itself troubled by the rigged elections and violence in Nigeria, but Nigeria supplies them with large amounts of oil - the country is up there with Saudi Arabia when it comes to oil exports - so they never do anything beyond the pious declarations. The crippling economic situation in Nigeria, with a huge portion of the population living in slums, is the root cause of ongoing ethnic and religious violence. Even the BBC is capable of making the connection between the violence and the poverty rate (above 60% and rising). Boko Haram, an Islamic fundamentalist group responsible for many attacks - including this last month - are based in the predominantly Muslim north-east, hardest hit by poverty. Go figure.
But they also had 'The Enemy of the World' and 'The Web of Fear' on a shelf somewhere, so I guess its swings and roundabouts, yeah?
Back in what I like to call my TARDIS Whingeorium, I could also mention the relative importance given by some to the release of these old episodes and the wanton sell-off of Royal Mail, which was announced on the same day and which constitutes a swindle on the taxpayer to the tune of millions, possibly billions... with much of the benefit available only to huge international 'sovereign wealth funds'. And that's without mentioning all the inevitable good stuff that always comes with privatisation (i.e. downsizing and spiralling inefficiency, etc).
On the subject of huxterism and profiteering, there's also the BBC's grubby co-operation with iTunes (*spit*) and the cynical decision to release the episodes as DRM-laden m4v files before the hasty (and reputedly extras-thin) DVD releases which will shortly follow, and which fans with disposable income will buy even though they already downloaded the eps from iTunes. Shame about anyone without access to iTunes. Luckily, however, the internet is one commons that can never be entirely enclosed, so torrents of people will get to see the stories anyway, one way or another. Meanwhile, the BBC suck on Steve Jobs' nasty, hard software and swallow the money shot that ensues.
Buuuuuut... sooner or later I'm going to drop all this bellyaching and start talking about the episodes themselves, right? I just have to run through stuff like the above to make myself feel better about it... as you, Constant Reader, know full well. We know each other pretty thoroughly by now, don't we?
The Enemy of the World
Capitalism. See above.
Har-de-har. Sorry. I'm such a kidder.
 |
| The Enemy of the World |
Well, first things first. Troughton is darked-up to play an evil Mexican who, natch, dresses in quasi-Mariachi clothes and says things like "da son he don fall oudda da sky". So. Um. That's unfortunate. Especially since there are no non-evil Mexicans in it. (This isn't the first time we've had a problem regarding the portrayal of Mexicans.)
Also on the racefail radar is Fariah. She's... debateable. She's there to bolster the serial's attempt - in quintessential 60s style - to depict the future as an international melting-pot. Because racial equality is a dream to aspire to, a distant and way-out possibility, the next generation's project, something to put off until we have hovercars and moving pavements. But kudos for i) putting a black person on TV at all, ii) putting a sympathetic black person on TV, and iii) finding an actual black person to play the black person on TV. It's sad that such bare minimums should warrant kudos but they probably do. She's a bit of an Angry Black Woman, but her resemblance to the stereotype is actually pretty tenuous. The ABW thing rests on the notion that black women are domineering ballbusters whereas Fariah is shown to be clearly in the power of Salamander. But this does lead us into the most serious possible objection to the character: she's a slave. A black slave. A black woman represented as still trapped in that role. Asked what she does, she replies "I serve". This could be seen as an acknowledgement of racism continuing even in the future. After all, we're not meant to pass over her servitude without a qualm, the way we clearly are with Toberman. She's not happy about it and the story supports her discontent and rebellion. The anti-racist reading is a bit compromised by the fact that her 'master' is a Mexican (and not a real one at that) and also by the way nobody actually seems to notice that she's black. That cuts both ways. It pushes the idea that, in the future, race is no longer an issue... which seems progressive, within limits. However, it also undercuts the idea that institutionalised racism is why she's in a subordinate position. In the absence of this critical notion, her enslavement starts to just look like a black woman's destiny. Hmm. Also, like so many black supporting characters in TV/film, she dies. She at least makes it a good way through instead of dying almost immediately (of course, you could say that about Toberman). The other potential issue is that she's a victim of blackmail. We don't find out what she did wrong (if anything) because the Doctor, charmingly, instantly comes to her defence when she is questioned about it, saying "we're none of us perfect". It doesn't end up looking like a smear on her character so much as a facet of her character. On the whole, I think that there are problems but that they're not egregious, certainly not by comparison with a lot of other TV - Who included - from the same era... or ours.
Fariah is a Strong Female Character™, despite her victim-status, as is Astrid. Astrid is, in many ways, the hero(ine) of this story. (Mary Peach is great, but what a shame Astrid couldn't have been played by the equally good Carmen Munroe instead... indeed, the fact that the role of Astrid goes to a white woman and the role of Fariah goes to a black woman - as a matter of course - is the clearest indication of an underlying problem.) Astrid is, wonderfully, defined by her ethical/political commitments... which makes her quite different to most Strong Female Characters™ today, most of whom are defined by their ability to sassily kick ass, and their slavish emotional dependence on a wonderful impossible man. So, things are fairly good genderwise, I think. Of course, Astrid does wear unnecessary skin-tight PVC trousers... in fact, the back view of those skin-tight PVC trousers is pretty much the first thing we see after the TARDIS-arrival scene on the beach (by the way, how 'bout them longjohns?). But today the Doctor would spend all his scenes with Astrid indulging in innuendo about her plastic breeches, so I guess progress goes both ways.
Of course, I'm a white dude, so I'm not going to take upon myself to tell anyone that there definitely aren't any serious problems here. I don't want to whitesplain or mansplain if I can avoid it. My positionality could well make me wrong.
On the subject of Fariah... her death is one of the many scenes which is definitely enhanced by having the visuals. It comes over as genuinely savage and tragic. Carmen Munroe gives a good performance, as does Milton Johns as the loathsome sadist Benik. Completing the scene is Elliot Cairnes as Benik's Guard Captain. He gives an excellent little performance as a man reluctant to obey the nastier orders of a superior he obviously finds contemptible. He looks on as Benik enjoys tormenting the dying woman and objects to the more wanton cruelty... but then what good is that? The man is decent enough to be bothered by it but not bothered enough to do anything? (Plenty of those guys, of course. We all fall into that category sometimes. I haven't personally done much about Nigeria or Apple lately.) It's a lovely touch from David Whittaker, yet another example of the social texture that runs through this story, the concentration on character. And the Cairnes does it well... something that you only really realise when you can watch him.
Milton Johns too is fun to watch. He plays Benik like a rat with oedipal issues impersonating Josef Goebbels (which is a bit redundant actually because 'a rat with oedipal issues' is just a description of Josef Goebbels). His lank hair flies about as he gets more and more excited by any opportunity to hurt people. He simpers over Salamander and clearly relishes the smile of gratitude he gets when handing him Fedorin's file (again, this scene is enhanced immeasurably by being able to see the performances).
While we're talking about performances, we have to pause to crawl on the floor making 'we are not worthy' gestures towards the shade of Patrick Troughton. This is an ensemble piece but, when Troughton's on screen, you can't look at anything else. His Salamander is totally different to his Doctor (he reminds me a bit of Tony Montana from Scarface... I always half expect him to conclude one of his threats to Fedorin with "... you fockin' cuckaroach"). Of course, the Doctor and the Leader are both larger-than-life characters painted in broad strokes... but that sort of thing isn't necessarily easy to do just because it is BIG. It needs an accomplished character actor to pull it off. Fortunately, they had Patrick Troughton, who is pretty much the definition of an accomplished character actor. Charlie Chaplin pulls off very much the same trick in The Great Dictator (an obvious influence on this story) but that was comedy; Troughton has a harder job in some ways - he has to play it nominally straight. And he does. He doesn't send it up. And he gets away with it. Think about that: he doesn't send up this material and he still gets away with it. Phil Sandifer has pointed out (amidst loads of other good points) the brilliance of Troughton in the scene where the Doctor has to improvise a hurried impersonation for the benefit of Bruce. It takes a helluvanactor to play a non-actor acting just well enough to pass muster.
The visuals are, for the most part, enriching rather than embarassing. You have to take the dated style as read, of course, but that shouldn't be a problem for us. Like other stories from this era, 'Enemy' is decorated with deliciously overripe op-art pop-futurism. And yet, there's an awareness of history in various instances of something archaic being repackaged or held-over into the future. The most striking is Astrid's kinky PVC Regency costume (already mentioned), but there's also the entropic mansion in which Salamander stays while in Hungary, Griffin's old fashioned kitchen, the disused and rotting jetty, the monitor screen in the Records Room which looks like a submarine periscope, etc. Something similar is seen in the previous story 'The Ice Warriors'. This seems to be an idea that was around at the time: the future as built upon and around the remains of the past.
Some of the visuals are astonishingly confident. There's a lovely bit where Jamie approaches in the distance... and he's part of the back projection! Salamander's speech to the UN (or whatever it is) and his journey down into his secret bunker are strikingly well done. You get a true feeling of depth and verticality in the depiction of the shuttle going up and down the mine shaft. Sadly the bunker itself could've been done better. It's altogether too roomy and bright, and the people down there are far too clean and healthy-looking.
All in all, though, this looks damn good. Barry Letts treats it like the character-piece it is, letting the camera get close in on faces at crucial moments of drama. The snappy editing helps too. Both techniques (combined with Troughton's performance) contribute to adding a genuine dramatic frisson to the scene at the conclusion when Salamander swings round to see the double (whose existence he has deduced... though nothing much is made of this in the story) standing behind him. Holding back the meeting between the Doctor and Salamander until the end is very effective. It's all over a bit quickly, but it has an impact above its fleeting, tacked-on position.
Beyond the visuals, there's a real sense of a global society here. Of course, we're mostly concerned with the relations between various members of what I'd call the ruling class. Kent, Salamander, Denes, Fedorin, etc are all global politicians or ex-politicians. Benik and Bruce seem to be global policemen. But we do have Fariah and the wonderfully miserable Griffin representing the lesser-mortals caught in the midst of it all, and it helps that they're both such vivid individuals. There's a texture of character and social relation in this story. Even the baddies' coppers seem like real people. Even a guard is likely to have a repressed conscience, a tendency to roll his eyes at superiors (another little present that the restored pictures give us) or a name and a penchant for charmingly-inept chat-up lines. It brings the proceedings above much of the James Bond stuff on which they so clearly riff.
Politically, it ain't progressive, to be honest. As in 'Power of the Daleks', Whittaker's depiction of politics is nebulous, deliberately vague, all about structure rather than ideology or policy. Less of an allegorical space is opened by such vagueness in 'Enemy' than in 'Power', sadly. This global society is hierarchical, run by professional politicians and policemen, formally utilitarian, prosperous and apparently based on some kind of workable settlement of imperial competition. In a way, the specifics don't matter much. This is a pretty simple story about one man's (or two men's) corruption and lust for power destabilising a more-or-less smooth functionalist framework. As such, it fits happily into a nice, simple bourgeois schema of political normality and villainy. Things are pretty much okay until a Salamander comes along ("like Napoleon" as Victoria puts it, recalling a symbol of revolution who became an Emperor) promising things, giving charismatic speeches, getting popular with the people by giving them stuff, manipulating the paranoia of a dissatisfied minority (the bunker people), etc. The absence of democracy in the Zone system doesn't seem to be a problem for Whittaker as long as the people have the good sense to like the right boss (Denes) rather than the wrong one (El Mariachi)... which, sadly, can't be counted upon. Just look at the peaceniks isolated in their little bunker. Deluded by a cynical political machiavel, they pass judgement on the nuke-using world and, with callous self-righteousness, set about their own revolution from below. In so doing, they turn the world into a fiery mess and help bring a populist dictator to power. It's not their fault, of course... the swarthy firebrand outsider has tricked them. The Mexican bastard.
This is, essentially, a response to the ferment of the 60s which says "calm down guys, there's not going to be a nuclear holocaust and we're gonna work things out for the best... there's no need to throw hierarchy and bourgeois order out of the window... and there's certainly no need to be idolising any Latin revolutionaries because they'll just become the new boss, worse than the old boss". We were just talking the other day about how 'The Space Museum' opened up a potential within Doctor Who for revolutionary energy... well, much as I love it - and I genuinely do adore it - 'Enemy' doesn't grab hold of that potential, I'm afraid.
Luckily it has all the good stuff already mentioned, plus a pacey plot and lots of lovely, crackly dialogue like:
"Whatever made you take a job as a food taster?"
"She was hungry."
and
"You must have been a nasty little boy."
"Oh, I was. But I had a very enjoyable childhood."
Back in the Whingeorium... why wasn't more of Season 5 like this?
Oh, and did you see how the BBC blew the plot twists in the trailer they released? Okay, people like me have listened to the CDs about 40,000 times... but what if there'd been someone watching who didn't know? Y'know, a kid or something. Boo.
The Web of Fear
 |
| The Web of Fear |
Less thrilled by this one, though I'm delighted to have most of it back of course. This is considerably less interesting, less fun and - despite some bravura Camfieldian effort - less well done than 'Enemy'. Lots of it is just people in dull uniforms discussing technical stuff about train stations, or walking around in the dark. It doesn't really matter that the Yeti look daft (though their new, big, round, bright eyes look appropriately like train headlights) but it does matter that we spend two episodes too many watching them wandering around doing nothing much besides looking daft.
When they do swing into action, things get better. There's a superb battle sequence in Episode Two. Camfield stages it beautifully - with lots of quick cuts and even what looks like some very modern shakey camera stuff - and adroitly choses some excellent stock music which really enhances things, the way adroitly chosen stock music sometimes can. Some of the bits where soldiers get webbing full in the face are quite effectively nasty. It's great to have this stuff back. The brightly lit outdoor battle set-piece later on works less well because you can actually see the Yeti properly.
It's a shame that Episode Three is still missing. Episode Three has Troughton, unlike Episode Two (when he was on his hols), and Two is paddingtastic. Two does have that first Yeti battle I mentioned though, and the spooky cliffhanger with the foam pulsing in the Underground tunnels. I'm a sucker for spooky London Underground stuff (i.e. An American Werewolf in London, Creep) so this pleases me. Episode One is the best of the bunch, with the scenes in the museum at the start, accompanied by Bartok... but we already had that one.
On the subject of Episode One, I suppose we have to talk about Julius Silverstein. Well, there, I've said it. Julius Silverstein. Just saying it covers it. Makes Fariah look breezily unproblematic.
On the subject of offensive stereotypes, we also have to talk about Evans. I must confess that I've always been a bit dubious on this one. I've never been aware of a particular stereotype about the Welsh that they're cowardly. Of course, there is more to it than that. Evans is still a comedy idiot, boyo-ing and there's-lovely-ing it all over the place... which ties in with the perennial patronising infantilisation and quaintification of the Welsh in English culture, the culture of the nation that conquered Wales. Indeed, such depictions of the Welsh as hilarious "baa lambs" (to use Arnold's phrase) were the favoured way of degrading them before jokes about sheep-shagging and the chavviness of Splott were discovered.
Thing is... Evans is kind of my hero (at least until he actively starts trying to sell other people down the river). Yes, I know he's untrustworthy and selfish, just interested in number one, but there's something Yossarian-esque about him too. He's the little guy, utterly unimpressed by the conception of duty and honour peddled by the stiff-upper-lip brigade, or the obedience of their willing subordinates.
"You're just trying to save your own skin!"
"Well it's the only one I got!"
Too bloody right, mate... especially since the whole situation turns out to be a personal grudge match between two big wheels, the Doctor and the Intelligence. If the little guys of the world all just got some chocolate and pissed off and let the big wheels duke it out... well, the world would be a better place. The lunatics would have no asylum to rule, no pawns to play chess with, no troops to send into battle against each other. I realise that the standard, piss-obvious objection to this would be "well, what if all the little guys had refused to fight Hitler?" to which it might be responded "well, what if all the German little guys had refused to fight for Hitler in the first place?" Don't get me wrong, I'm not putting this forward as a practical plan for ending war; it's just that there is a part of my soul that is incapable of not cheering for a Private who tells a Captain or a Colonel to get stuffed when they order him to risk his neck for them.
Next to Evans, the most authorially frowned-upon character is Chorley, the reporter. The script tries to tell us that he's despicable. However, while I'm no fan of slimey, sensationalist journos (see the above picture), nor am I a fan of the axiomatic assumption that the Press should keep out of anything the military says is none of their business. I like the way that the Robin Day/David Frost analogue Chorley is ostensibly a populist but betrays an elitist contempt for Anne because she's a "smug little red brick university..." something-or-other. But I'm supposed to hate this guy - and automatically suspect him of being the traitor - because he has the temerity to be down there trying to get the story for me to read about? Piss off.
As I say, a lot of this actually looks a bit dull... though it's worth having the visuals back for three scenes that are heavy with effective character stuff and great acting. The first is the lovely scene where Anne Travers deals with Knight's rather awkward, cheesy and patronising attempt to chat her up. Who never did enough of this kind of thing. (Anne, by the way, is another Strong Female Character™ from the 60s who puts modern ones to shame. She has some scenes after the Yeti attack on HQ that get perilously close to sobby dishrag territory, but otherwise she's a forceful, expert and necessary presence all the way through.) The second is the strangely affecting scene where Professor Travers meets Victoria and Jamie again after 40 years. Who never did enough of this kind of thing either. The third is the scene where the Intelligence, in possession of Professor Travers, abducts Victoria. Troughton and Hines react splendidly, with Hines giving a particularly passionate rendering of anger and distress.
End of the day, this is saved from being just another Season 5 base/monsters runaround by the sheer arbitrariness of it all. Yeti. In the London Underground. Armed with cobwebs. I'm not the kind of dickhat who says things like "they must've been on drugs when they wrote this" about classic kids' TV, but there is a hallucinatory randomness about much of what goes on here. It has the jumbled quality of a dream... which even holds true for the silly reveal of the arbitrary and illogical traitor.
Also, it contributes to the overall feel of stream-of-consciousness free-association that the actors playing Captain Knight and Driver Evans look uncannily like the young Terry Jones and Michael Palin.
*
So there you go. There's my response, for what it's worth. My response now, that is. When the announcement was made, my response was simpler: pure delight... and, everything above notwithstanding, it fundamentally still is.
EDIT: Thanks to Al No for reminding me that Splott has two 't's.
Monday, 27 September 2010
The Power of the Zargoids (Reconstructed)
What follows is a substantially rewritten version of something I wrote AGES ago and originally posted at my old site. The original version struck me as woefully inadequate (and embarassingly gushy... which is a fault of mine) when I reread it recently.
Is ‘The Power of the Daleks’ a parable about a democracy destabilised by fascists or about an authoritarian society destabilised by liberals, or even people who think of themselves as leftists? Well… the answer is, of course, yes.
If this is about the rise of fascism, there are some problems with it. Bragen works as a sort of fascist, scheming to replace a relatively soft regime with an authoritarian one which he will rule with an iron fist. But the presence of the Daleks muddies this, separating the barbarism of fascism from fascism as a political movement. The Daleks have always been symbols of totalitarianism so, when they turn on the astonished rebels, it makes it hard to see the rebels as analogous to the Nazi party. If the rebels are Nazis, it should be they who are persecuting the ethnic minority in the colony… and that’s the Daleks! And the depiction of fascism is inadequate anyway because it is depicted as the work of one man acting on his own psychological motives. The story manages to notice that fascism emerges from social democracy, that it is a mass movement which can mobilise some popular support and appear radical… but predicates it on one man’s ambition and offers no context for it, no recognition of the fact that it is a form of class war waged at times when the capitalist system is (or perceives itself to be) under intense threat from crisis, instability and rising working class resistance and mobilisation.
But a full analysis of fascism as an actual historical phenomenon isn’t what the story is trying to do. And, in any case, the rebels are never conclusively identified as a fascist movement… and nor is the Governor’s regime ever conclusively identified as democratic. It might be an unelected oligarchy, for all we know. It has military undertones, almost like the colony’s social superstructure is built upon the ranks and hierarchies of a military expedition. Hensall seems happy for Bragen to acquire more and more police muscle as long as he thinks they’re his to call upon. Hensall’s government certainly seems to operate very much behind closed doors amongst small groups of plummy-voiced men… but then so does ours and we’d call ours a “democracy”, meaningfully enough as long as all we’re doing is distinguishing it from places like Saudi Arabia. In any case, it’s perfectly possible that the rebels are a liberal or leftist movement reacting to an authoritarian regime.
The rebels don't seem to be an ideologically revolutionary organisation. They certainly behave like one… although they may simply be a non-revolutionary organisation forced into clandestine meetings by authoritarian repression… though, the guards who’d do the repressing are commanded by the rebel leader, so…. hmm, it’s all a bit confusing. In any case, if they are ‘left-wing’ then they’re unusually uninterested in class or exploitation. It’s hard to say what they’re motivation is, beyond purely pragmatic objections to Hensall’s style of leadership, or his husbandry and management of resources. Such concerns are the real interest of social-democratic parties, though historically they have tended to cloak their managerial leanings behind nice rhetoric about reform and rights and freedom and equality… which the rebels don’t do. Janley makes it clear to Lesterson that the rebels would not radically alter the status quo when she assures him that he’d do better for resources under their regime. The rebels are reformists who start a revolution in order to make reforms. Whittaker is a little confused here, perhaps. I know I am.
One problem we have is that we never really get a sense of what sort of economy the colony has. Private property doesn’t seem to exist in the capitalist sense, but this certainly isn’t feudalism or communism either. The invisibility of economic relations creates difficulties analysing quite a few of the most superficially political Doctor Who stories, ‘The Savages’ for example. The key is to realise when a story is disinterested in specifics and is working with generalities; ‘The Savages’ offers an essentialised portrait of exploitation… and ‘Power’ offers an essentialised picture of power politics.
Fundamentally, the title holds the key. The story is about power. It's not about specific ideologies but about how people fall into power relationships, how such relationships fall apart, how power is linked to both survival and violence, how violence becomes a deciding factor in politics, how violence becomes the continuation of politics by other means. From Janley's moral blackmail of Lesterson over Resno's death, to the way the rebels are fetishistically fascinated by the Dalek gun, the story is full of themes and moments that revolve around the concepts of power, control and survival. Even the Doctor is concerned with his own personal survival, recovering as he is from a regeneration. Interestingly, in this story, it is hinted that the Doctor's change was triggered by (and powered by?) the TARDIS. "Without it I couldn't survive!" declares the Doctor. The TARDIS is a survival machine for him, feeding him power. Like the colony complex to the humans; like the Dalek machine to the creature within.
There are many Dalek stories in which the barking little Skarosian bastards are almost bit-players, or could be substituted by the Zargoids of Splarg for all it would matter. This isn’t one of them. This is one of the few stories that not only really thinks about what Daleks are, how their minds work, etc. but also thinks about what they highlight about the people they bully and zap.
The Daleks want to enforce their will, their dominance. The Daleks, as ever, are a figurative representation of military/totalitarian cruelty. They are a reflection of Bragen, just as Bragen is a reflection of them. But they are seen as fundamentally worse than Bragen, as inimical to all human life. This is how they work within the rather confused politics of the piece. They are the mirror in which Bragen the fascist sees himself both reflected and magnified. Confronting them, he confronts his own values writ large and espoused by beings with bigger guns than him. But this goes for the rest of the colony too.
The Daleks need power - like the humans. The Daleks have to scheme, deceive and manipulate because, at the outset, they are weak and outnumbered – like the rebels. The Daleks know, instinctively, that their survival depends on their domination of the humans. True to their nature, they instantly see that they and the humans are two species trapped in the same survival situation. They must dominate and destroy in order to be resurrected. They realise that the best way to charm a human is to grovel, to serve "LIQUID" and profess servitude – just as Janley serves Lesterson to start with, just as Bragen defers to Hensall while he has to. The Daleks claim to be servants... but the concept of self-submission is so unfamiliar to them that they don't even quite know how to inflect the words. By the end of the story it is Lesterson who, in his childlike insanity, declares to the Daleks "I am your servant". Full circle. Like the Daleks, Lesterson wanted to use and exploit another life form, like the Daleks he recognises that the superior race must survive and the inferior be eliminated. He starts out taking his own superiority for granted. By the end - awestruck by the Dalek production line - he is quivering before the Daleks, his evolutionary superiors.
The entire story picks over the ways that the Daleks both differ from and, crucially, resemble the humans. The Daleks personify the pitiless quest for literal power, political power, evolutionary power. To the extent that the humans resemble them, they contribute towards turning their colony into a tyranny and then a slaughterhouse.
But the ways in which the races differ are also interesting. In perhaps the greatest moment of the story, a puzzled Dalek asks Bragen, who has just murdered the Governor, "WHY-DO-HUMAN-BEINGS-KILL-HUMAN-BEINGS?". The Dalek, a member of a race that exists to kill, is genuinely astonished by Bragen's action. Bragen has acted to decrease the numbers of his species, thus lessening their chances of survival (the exact opposite of what the Daleks have been up to throughout the story). To the Daleks - the great social-Darwinists of the cosmos - ideology and personal feuds are irrelevant (this is before the 80s when they got bogged down in their own civil war). Only race matters; race, power and survival. To a Dalek, a member of a species that are all the same and are implacable in their sense of purpose, the murder of a fellow Dalek is ridiculous. It's our individuality that makes it thinkable for us kill each other. Of course, that doesn't answer the Dalek's question. Neither does Bragen. He doesn't know. Hyperbole alert... but I find the irony of this almost Swiftian.
Is ‘The Power of the Daleks’ a parable about a democracy destabilised by fascists or about an authoritarian society destabilised by liberals, or even people who think of themselves as leftists? Well… the answer is, of course, yes.
If this is about the rise of fascism, there are some problems with it. Bragen works as a sort of fascist, scheming to replace a relatively soft regime with an authoritarian one which he will rule with an iron fist. But the presence of the Daleks muddies this, separating the barbarism of fascism from fascism as a political movement. The Daleks have always been symbols of totalitarianism so, when they turn on the astonished rebels, it makes it hard to see the rebels as analogous to the Nazi party. If the rebels are Nazis, it should be they who are persecuting the ethnic minority in the colony… and that’s the Daleks! And the depiction of fascism is inadequate anyway because it is depicted as the work of one man acting on his own psychological motives. The story manages to notice that fascism emerges from social democracy, that it is a mass movement which can mobilise some popular support and appear radical… but predicates it on one man’s ambition and offers no context for it, no recognition of the fact that it is a form of class war waged at times when the capitalist system is (or perceives itself to be) under intense threat from crisis, instability and rising working class resistance and mobilisation.
But a full analysis of fascism as an actual historical phenomenon isn’t what the story is trying to do. And, in any case, the rebels are never conclusively identified as a fascist movement… and nor is the Governor’s regime ever conclusively identified as democratic. It might be an unelected oligarchy, for all we know. It has military undertones, almost like the colony’s social superstructure is built upon the ranks and hierarchies of a military expedition. Hensall seems happy for Bragen to acquire more and more police muscle as long as he thinks they’re his to call upon. Hensall’s government certainly seems to operate very much behind closed doors amongst small groups of plummy-voiced men… but then so does ours and we’d call ours a “democracy”, meaningfully enough as long as all we’re doing is distinguishing it from places like Saudi Arabia. In any case, it’s perfectly possible that the rebels are a liberal or leftist movement reacting to an authoritarian regime.
The rebels don't seem to be an ideologically revolutionary organisation. They certainly behave like one… although they may simply be a non-revolutionary organisation forced into clandestine meetings by authoritarian repression… though, the guards who’d do the repressing are commanded by the rebel leader, so…. hmm, it’s all a bit confusing. In any case, if they are ‘left-wing’ then they’re unusually uninterested in class or exploitation. It’s hard to say what they’re motivation is, beyond purely pragmatic objections to Hensall’s style of leadership, or his husbandry and management of resources. Such concerns are the real interest of social-democratic parties, though historically they have tended to cloak their managerial leanings behind nice rhetoric about reform and rights and freedom and equality… which the rebels don’t do. Janley makes it clear to Lesterson that the rebels would not radically alter the status quo when she assures him that he’d do better for resources under their regime. The rebels are reformists who start a revolution in order to make reforms. Whittaker is a little confused here, perhaps. I know I am.
One problem we have is that we never really get a sense of what sort of economy the colony has. Private property doesn’t seem to exist in the capitalist sense, but this certainly isn’t feudalism or communism either. The invisibility of economic relations creates difficulties analysing quite a few of the most superficially political Doctor Who stories, ‘The Savages’ for example. The key is to realise when a story is disinterested in specifics and is working with generalities; ‘The Savages’ offers an essentialised portrait of exploitation… and ‘Power’ offers an essentialised picture of power politics.
Fundamentally, the title holds the key. The story is about power. It's not about specific ideologies but about how people fall into power relationships, how such relationships fall apart, how power is linked to both survival and violence, how violence becomes a deciding factor in politics, how violence becomes the continuation of politics by other means. From Janley's moral blackmail of Lesterson over Resno's death, to the way the rebels are fetishistically fascinated by the Dalek gun, the story is full of themes and moments that revolve around the concepts of power, control and survival. Even the Doctor is concerned with his own personal survival, recovering as he is from a regeneration. Interestingly, in this story, it is hinted that the Doctor's change was triggered by (and powered by?) the TARDIS. "Without it I couldn't survive!" declares the Doctor. The TARDIS is a survival machine for him, feeding him power. Like the colony complex to the humans; like the Dalek machine to the creature within.
There are many Dalek stories in which the barking little Skarosian bastards are almost bit-players, or could be substituted by the Zargoids of Splarg for all it would matter. This isn’t one of them. This is one of the few stories that not only really thinks about what Daleks are, how their minds work, etc. but also thinks about what they highlight about the people they bully and zap.
The Daleks want to enforce their will, their dominance. The Daleks, as ever, are a figurative representation of military/totalitarian cruelty. They are a reflection of Bragen, just as Bragen is a reflection of them. But they are seen as fundamentally worse than Bragen, as inimical to all human life. This is how they work within the rather confused politics of the piece. They are the mirror in which Bragen the fascist sees himself both reflected and magnified. Confronting them, he confronts his own values writ large and espoused by beings with bigger guns than him. But this goes for the rest of the colony too.
The Daleks need power - like the humans. The Daleks have to scheme, deceive and manipulate because, at the outset, they are weak and outnumbered – like the rebels. The Daleks know, instinctively, that their survival depends on their domination of the humans. True to their nature, they instantly see that they and the humans are two species trapped in the same survival situation. They must dominate and destroy in order to be resurrected. They realise that the best way to charm a human is to grovel, to serve "LIQUID" and profess servitude – just as Janley serves Lesterson to start with, just as Bragen defers to Hensall while he has to. The Daleks claim to be servants... but the concept of self-submission is so unfamiliar to them that they don't even quite know how to inflect the words. By the end of the story it is Lesterson who, in his childlike insanity, declares to the Daleks "I am your servant". Full circle. Like the Daleks, Lesterson wanted to use and exploit another life form, like the Daleks he recognises that the superior race must survive and the inferior be eliminated. He starts out taking his own superiority for granted. By the end - awestruck by the Dalek production line - he is quivering before the Daleks, his evolutionary superiors.
The entire story picks over the ways that the Daleks both differ from and, crucially, resemble the humans. The Daleks personify the pitiless quest for literal power, political power, evolutionary power. To the extent that the humans resemble them, they contribute towards turning their colony into a tyranny and then a slaughterhouse.
But the ways in which the races differ are also interesting. In perhaps the greatest moment of the story, a puzzled Dalek asks Bragen, who has just murdered the Governor, "WHY-DO-HUMAN-BEINGS-KILL-HUMAN-BEINGS?". The Dalek, a member of a race that exists to kill, is genuinely astonished by Bragen's action. Bragen has acted to decrease the numbers of his species, thus lessening their chances of survival (the exact opposite of what the Daleks have been up to throughout the story). To the Daleks - the great social-Darwinists of the cosmos - ideology and personal feuds are irrelevant (this is before the 80s when they got bogged down in their own civil war). Only race matters; race, power and survival. To a Dalek, a member of a species that are all the same and are implacable in their sense of purpose, the murder of a fellow Dalek is ridiculous. It's our individuality that makes it thinkable for us kill each other. Of course, that doesn't answer the Dalek's question. Neither does Bragen. He doesn't know. Hyperbole alert... but I find the irony of this almost Swiftian.
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