6P1 - Resurrection of the Daleks 1

Just a note: this marathon of Doctor Who reviews is relying on DVD releases, mostly, for each story, so what's usually released on shiny discs is taken as read over what was originally broadcast. This has yet to affect many reviews, but it will for Resurrection of the Daleks, which was made as a normal four-part episode, but edited together and originally broadcast as two 50-minute episodes. This review will cover the four-part version.

As a kid first watching this story, I was enthralled. For about a year and a half, precisely the time covering my first viewing of this story, the rebroadcast when my local PBS station looped the whole run of classic Who around again, and my second viewing of The Caves of Androzani (about which more, later), Resurrection of the Daleks was hands down my favourite Doctor Who story ever. It, and mostly Episode One, has everything that an 11-year-old boy would want - gun battles and death galore.

In fact, Episode One might be the most grim, bloody, and violent episode of Doctor Who in its long history. Several people are gunned down by policemen in the story's opening scene, including an innocent bystander (I'm always slightly upset when innocent bystanders are killed in Doctor Who). The Daleks make their first appearance in a battle in which they gun down several guards at a prison in space, but the Daleks also rely on horrible gas bombs that leave their victims with some dreadful facial fungus. Death and destruction are everywhere, and yet most shocking in this day and age seems to be when a character on the bridge of the prison ship is seen smoking a cigarette.

Along side all this death and violence, the story's many characters are also introduced, almost of all of them unnecessarily butch. Including Rula Lenska.