Forty Years Of Doctor Who: 393 Genesis of the Daleks: Part Two

EPISODE: Genesis of the Daleks: Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 393
STORY NUMBER: 078
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 15 March 1975
WRITER: Terry Nation
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
RATINGS: 10.5 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Genesis of the Daleks

"A Dalek. Very primitive but undeniably a Dalek!"

After successfully hiding from Davros, Gharman and their Dalek, Sarah is found in the wasteland a group of Mutos

It's amazing how little coincidences crop up: There's lots of stuff to do with the ends of episodes connected with this part of the story!
The start of this episode is odd as there's no reprise of the end of the previous episode, with the Dalek opening fire on it's Targets. Instead we start with them leaving the site. This is generally unusual for the show but Director David Maloney also did it on Planet of the Daleks.

The Doctor & Harry are taken to the bunker by Nyder.

DOCTOR: Good. Well, now he's gone, any chance of a cup of tea?
TANE: What!
DOCTOR: Or coffee. My friend and I have had a very trying experience. Haven't we had a trying experience, Harry?
HARRY: Very trying, Doctor.
TANE: Step into the security scan.
DOCTOR: What, no tea?
TANE: Let me point out to you that you have no rights whatsoever. I have full authority to torture and kill any prisoner who does not comply absolutely with my orders. That is your first and last warning.
DOCTOR: No tea, Harry.
Kaled hospitality not up to scratch then Doctor?

The Time Ring is confiscated along with the Doctor's other possessions and they handed over to Senior Researcher Ronson for questioning.

DOCTOR: You can't have that. That bracelet could have no possible use as a weapon.
TANE: It remains with the other confiscated items.
HARRY: Let's not make a fuss, Doctor.
DOCTOR: The Time Ring is our only hope of getting back to the Tardis. Recovering it has got to be our number one priority. Do you understand, Harry? It's vital.
HARRY: Yes, I know it's vital, but we don't want them to know that, do we?
The Time Lord told the Doctor not to loose the Time Ring and sure enough one episode later it's gone! So on top of everything else they now need to get the time ring back!

The Mutos argue about killing Sarah....

SEVRIN: She's beautiful. No deformities, no imperfections.
GERRILL: She is a norm. All norms are our enemies. Kill her now for what she's done to our kind.
SEVRIN: No, why? Why must we always destroy beauty? Why kill another creature because it is not in our image?
GERRILL: Kill her! It is the law. All norms must die. They are our enemies. And if you won't, I will.
Here in the wasteland it's no longer Thal vs Kaled, it's Norm vs Muto.

Playing the Muto Sevrin is Stephen Yardley who'll return as Arak in Vengeance on Varos. He's probably best known for his role as Ken Masters in Howards' Way alongside many other Doctor Who participants. We'll look at that either during Resurrection of the Daleks or Attack of the Cybermen.
His fellow Muto, unnamed in the episode but credited as Gerrill, is played Jeremy Chandler.

.... but they are in turn found by Thals who shoot one when he tries to escape and capture the other, Sevrin, and Sarah.

MUTO: There's something over there.
SEVRIN: It's a patrol, very close.
GERRILL: Let's get away from here.
SEVRIN: No. No, they're too near. If you move, they'll see you.
GERRILL: They're coming this way. I'm going. Come on.
SEVRIN: No, I tell you they'll see you.
THAL: Halt! Stay where you are. Stand where you are and don't move.
THAL: Oh, it's only a muto. What a waste of good ammunition. There's a couple more of them.
THAL: Hold it. If they're not too badly mutated, we might be able to use them. They still need expendable labour for the rocket loader. This one looks all right. Got all it needs to carry and walk. There's no reason why this one shouldn't work. Why, it's almost a norm. Come on, get up. Up! Oh, kill it off, it's too slow.
SEVRIN: No, it's all right. I'll help her.
THAL: Then move, and move quietly. There are Kaled patrols out tonight.
Bear in mind the Mutos find Sarah in the ruins where Davros & Gharman were testing the Dalek. That makes their little trip into the wastelands all the more risky. Then again they did have a fully armed Dalek with them!
Since he's the only speaking Thal in this episode it's reasonable to assume, even though we can't see him properly, that this soldier, on the right, is regular extra Pat Gorman, credited on the titles as Thal Soldier. We last saw him in robot part 1 as a gate guard and he'll next be in, and had already filmed, Revenge of the Cybermen where he's a dead crewmember and a Cyberman.
I'm pretty certain his non speaking mate on the left is regular stuntman Terry Walsh, who fulfilled a similar role in the last episode. He's a guard later on and I think I've clocked him there too!

The Doctor is questioned by Ronson.

RONSON: Sit down.
DOCTOR: Thank you. You're not with the military, I assume?
RONSON: I'm with the Science Division.
DOCTOR: Oh, good, good. Then perhaps we can talk without interruption from rifle butts.
RONSON: That depends. If you don't answer my questions, I shall hand you back to the military. They take a pride in loosening tongues. Now, where did you get these things?
DOCTOR: Oh, here and there.
RONSON: If I didn't know better, I should have to assume that these were made by some intelligence on another planet.
DOCTOR: If you didn't know better.
RONSON: It is an established scientific fact that in the seven galaxies only Skaro is capable of supporting intelligent life.
DOCTOR: It is also an established scientific fact that there are more than seven galaxies.
RONSON: Indeed.
DOCTOR: Yes.
RONSON: Well, when you passed through our security scan our instruments ran a complete check on your blood and chemical make up, encephalographic patterns and so on. Physiological compositions. And so, if you are from another planet....
DOCTOR: You were saying?
RONSON: There's nothing. Nothing conforms to any known life on this planet apart from external appearances.
DOCTOR: You can't always judge from external appearances.
RONSON: Who are you? Where are you from?
DOCTOR: It's a long story.
RONSON: Then tell me.
DOCTOR: Do you have any inkling of the theory of space dimension correlated to relative time?

Kaled science had annoyed the Doctor in the previous episode's exchange with Nyder. He takes great fun here in proving Ronson wrong!
Playing Ronson, by far the most reasonable Kaled we've met so far, is James Garbutt in his only Doctor who appearance.

The Doctor & Harry are present when Davros arrives to demonstrates his Mark 3 Travel machine

Davros is a towering design triumph though. we saw a little of him in the half light at the end of last episode & start of this. He enters in semi darkness here too, flanked by both Gharman and Nyder, before being fully revealed
Half human, well half Kaled, and effectively half Dalek thanks to the black base housing his life support machine. His scarred and twisted features are one of the best masks the show has made and Michael Wisher's performance brings the character to life . Reputedly he rehearsed the role with a paper bag over his head before the mask was made. Wisher was previously been seen in The Ambassadors of Death as John Wakefield, Terror of the Autons as Rex Farrel and Carnival of Monsters as Kalik. Before this story was filmed he recorded the following story, Revenge of the Cybermen, in which he played Magrik. He'll return in Planet of Evil as Morelli and voice of Ranjit.
Gharman is played by Dennis Chinnery who was Albert C. Richardson in The Chase and will be Sylvest in The Twin Dilemma. His CV includes many noted cult shows including The Prisoner & Survivors. I'd always assumed Gharman was a scientist but he's wearing black, like Nyder & Ravon, not white, like Ronson, so he must be something security/war related.
DAVROS: If I may have your attention. For some time I have been experimenting with the Mark Three project. Details of modifications will be distributed later. However, I am anxious that you should see immediately the remarkable results that I have achieved, and to that end I have arranged this demonstration.

DOCTOR: A Dalek.
HARRY: What?
DOCTOR: A Dalek. Very primitive but undeniably a Dalek.
RONSON: You're mistaken. It's a Mark Three travel machine.
DOCTOR: If you say so.
This bit annoys me. If it's a primitive Dalek why isn't it silver, like the earliest ones we saw, and why has it got the upright Powerslats covering the wastebands, which were unadorned in the first Dalek story? If they've been there from the start, which is likely given that you see the prototype Dalek in the wasteland with Davros & Gharman, then what happened to those Daleks in the city which caused them to loose the power slats and thus their mobility and become confined to the city?
Inside the Dalek here, and the one we saw earlier, is lead Dalek operator John Scott Martin, who first appeared as a Zarbi in The web Planet before playing a Dalek in The Chase, Mission to the Unknown, The Dalek Masterplan, Power of the Daleks, Evil of the Daleks, Day of the Daleks, Frontier in Space, Planet of the Daleks & most recently Death to the Daleks. He's been seen on screen since then as a security guard in Robot.
DAVROS: Halt. Turn left. Move forward.
RONSON: That's magnificent. He's perfected voice control.
DAVROS: Turn right. Move forward and circle left. You will agree, I think, that voice control represents an enormous step forward, however the best is yet to come. Nyder.
Up until this point the Dalek has been operating with just one limb, a sucker arm. The Dalek we saw earlier also had one limb but then it was a gunstick. It's almost as if Davros is concealing the purpose of the Travel Machine, it's intended as a weapon but the world thinks it is a survival suit.

DAVROS: Our machine is now equipped with a weapon for self-defence. Now, I am going to turn the machine over to total self-control. It will be entirely independent of all outside influences. A living, thinking, self-supporting creature.
DAVROS: Brilliant. Brilliant! It has detected the non-conformity.
DALEK: Aliens! I must exterminate! Exterminate!
Slap bang in the middle of the action is a scene that aught to have been an episode cliffhanger but isn't as the Dalek points it's gunstick at the Doctor and says exterminate. It's a fabulous scene, and the tension as the Doctor is about to be gunned down would have made a superb end to an episode.

There's no Dalek voice artist credited for this episode! Regular Roy Skelton only turns up next episode for the second recording block so the honour of uttering the first words ever spoken by a Dalek goes to Michael Wisher, Davros, who'd performed the role before in Frontier in Space, Planet of the Daleks and Death to the Daleks.
The sequence in the lab introduces a number of uncredited Kaled Scientists who appear in this episode, the next and the sixth: William Ashley, who's also in episode 4, Charles Rayford John Timberlake, who was previously a Shelterer in The Enemy of the World episode 3 to 6, Patrick Travis and Harry Van Engel, who later appears as the Disintegrating Dorian in Rescue, the opening episode of the fourth season of Blake's 7. It's nice to see the same people used repeatedly in the same roles! He can identify Van Engel in episode 5: he's the only one of the recurring scientists in that episode!

The Dalek is stopped by Ronson who deactivates the machine earning Davros' wrath. Sarah & Sevrin are locked up with other prisoners.

SARAH: Where are we?
SEVRIN: We're inside the Thal dome. We should be lucky to be alive. The Thals normally kill on sight.
SARAH: Then why the change? Why bring us here?
SEVRIN: Perhaps they need slave workers for some project.
KALED: The muto is right. The work they're making us do kills with the same certainty as a bullet between the eyes.
SARAH: What work?
KALED: The Thals have built a rocket. They've used up all their manpower and resources. They're gambling that it's going to bring them victory in one blow. And if they can make the launch successfully, I don't see how they're going to fail. My race, the whole of the Kaled people, will be wiped out in seconds.
SEVRIN: Perhaps we should be happy to welcome such a weapon if it ends a thousand years of war.
KALED: You won't be when you find out what it is.
SARAH: Well, what is it?
KALED: The nose cone of the rocket is being packed with distronic explosive. We have to put it in position.
SARAH: So?
KALED: To reduce weight, they're using no protective shielding. Every load we carry exposes us to distronic toxaemia. After a few hours exposure, we'll all be dead.

The radiation suited Thal guard on the door, who I'm pretty sure is Terry Walsh again, is clutching what is actually a gun first used by the Drahvins in Galaxy Four ten years earlier!

It's at this point that Sarah leaves behind the yellow waterproof jacket she's been wearing since Ark in Space.
Do you recognise the Kaled with them? It's the officer that captured the Doctor & Harry in the trench in the previous episode!
The other Kaled Prisoner in the cell is played by Ken Tracey who has been, all uncredited, a Dispatch Rider / Golden Age Man in Invasion of the Dinosaurs and a Villager in Planet of the Spiders. He'll later be a Guard / Courtier in The Masque of Mandragora part one and a Masquer in part four of the same story. He was in Barry Letts & Terrance Dicks's Moonbase 3 as a Technician in Castor and Pollux as was James Muir, one of the Mutos. Muir had been a Soldier in The Time Monster and a UNIT Soldier in Invasion of the Dinosaurs. He'll return as a Soldier in Terror of the Zygons, a Brother in The Masque of Mandragora, a Worker & a technician in The Sun Makers, a technician in The Pirate Planet, a Druid in The Stones of Blood, a Louvre Detective in City of Death, a Mandrel in Nightmare of Eden, a Foamasi in The Leisure Hive, a Gaztak in Meglos, a Tharil in Warriors' Gate and the Police Driver in Black Orchid part two. He has Blake's 7 to his name appearing as a Federation Trooper in Seek-Locate-Destroy, a Phibian in Orac for which he's actually credited, a Rebel in Pressure Point, a Monster in Dawn of the Gods, a Link in Rescue, a Helot in Traitor, a Pirate Guard in Assassin and a Federation Trooper in Blake. He's also the Vl'Hurg Leader in Episode 4 of the TV version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy! Another Muto Stephen Calcutt returns as a Mute in The Armageddon Factor parts five and six, a Marshman in Full Circle, a Tribe member in Kinda and, infamously, the Snake in Kinda part four.
Several other extras in this episode have Who form: Christopher Holmes was a UNIT Soldier in Day of the Daleks episode four and a Miner in The Monster of Peladon part three. He's a Peasant villager in part one and a Brother in part three of The Masque of Mandragora, followed by a Citizen in Full Circle and a Genii in Time and the Rani part four. John Sarbutt later becomes one of the Grecian Wrestlers in Four to Doomsday. IMDB credits both of them for both episodes 1 & 2, and I've not got a clue where, if at all, they appear in either! Given that episode 1 of IMDB seems to be used as a pot to drop all the extras for a serial into my guess is if they're listed as appearing in episode two then they probably do and the scenes showing those imprisoned by the Thals are the largest crowd scenes so here they go!

They are taken to the rocket silo to begin work

Sarah's glance upwards reveals the scale of what the Thals are doing. It also hangs a useful sword on the wall for later....

Is that little car the same one we saw used in episode 1? And indeed in The Ark many years ago? Either way I suspect it is, once again, a scene shifters vehicle dressed for the occasion!

It's entry, carrying the explosives, provides a demonstration of how dangerous what the prisoners are doing is courtesy of the monitor on the wall.

Having been interrogated the Doctor is flung into a cell with Harry

DOCTOR: Yes. And I learnt a great deal more from them than they did from me.
HARRY: About this bunker?
DOCTOR: Yes.
HARRY: It is underground, isn't it.
DOCTOR: Yes, and bomb proof. Impregnable from attack from the outside and about three or four miles from the Kaled dome.
HARRY: What are they doing down here?
DOCTOR: Years ago the Kaled government decided to form an Elite group. The best scientific brains in every field.
HARRY: A sort of Think Tank.
DOCTOR: Yes. But over the years the Elite has become more and more powerful, and now they can demand whatever they like.
Harry went undercover to investigate the earthbound Thinktank in his first appearance in Robot.

Ronson visits the Doctor & Harry in the cells expressing his concern for Davros' experiments which Davros announces shall henceforth be known as a Dalek.

RONSON: I'm sorry if they hurt you. I lack the courage to interfere.
DOCTOR: But you did save me from becoming the very first victim of a Dalek, thank you.
There is a certain amount of irony to this statement found at the start of the fourth episode!
RONSON: Yes, now you used that word earlier. It had never been heard before. And yet only an hour ago, Davros announced that henceforth his Mark Three travel machine would be referred to as a Dalek. Now how could you have known that?
DOCTOR: Well, I have an advantage in terms of time. You see, we've come here at this time because of future concern about the development of the Dalek. I think you're concerned too, aren't you?
DOCTOR: I think he's going to bite.
RONSON: Yes, I am concerned, and there are a few other who think the same as I. But we're powerless.
DOCTOR: Then let us help you.
RONSON: You see, we believe that Davros has changed the direction of our research into something which is immoral, evil. You see, the Elite was formed to produce weapons that would end this war. We soon saw that this was futile and changed the direction of our research into the survival of our race. But our chemical weapons had already started to produce genetic mutations.
HARRY: And the mutations were banished out into the wastelands.
RONSON: Yes.
DOCTOR: The mutos.
RONSON: Now Davros, he believed that there was no way to reverse this trend and so he started experiments to establish our final mutational form. He took living cells, treated them with chemicals and produced the ultimate creature.

He shows them where Davros is incubating the Dalek creatures.

All you see of the mutants is the green glow from within their room!

RONSON: Well, knowing our ultimate form, Davros had to devise a travel machine. The Dalek.
DOCTOR: Now he's trying to change that into a weapon.
RONSON: And he's succeeding. He's created a monster, utterly devoid of conscience.
HARRY: And you want to stop him.
RONSON: Well, I must. There are a few in the Kaled government who still have the power to act. If they knew the truth, they would end Davros' power, close down this bunker, finish the Elite.
DOCTOR: Then go to them, Ronson, go to them.
RONSON: But I'm not allowed in the city. Security here is absolute.
DOCTOR: Then help us to escape. Give us the names of the men who have the power.
HARRY: Could you get us out of here?
RONSON: Well, there is a way through one of the secondary ducts in the ventilation system that leads to a cave at the edge of the wasteland.
HARRY: Well?
RONSON: The entrance is barred. And there's something else. Davros' early experiments were with animals. Some of the things that he created were horrific, and they're still alive.
DOCTOR: And I have an uneasy feeling you're going to tell me they're in that cave.

Ronson helps the Doctor & Harry escape so they can reach the Kaled city and warn their leaders what Davros is doing.

The thing seen through the tunnel grill looks suspiciously like an Ice Warrior carapace!

Sarah leads an escape attempt climbing up the gantry supporting the rocket....

A nice upward shot of the rocket quickly re-establishes the size of the task in hand and as they begin climbing, a sequence pre filmed at Ealing, those of use with vertigo will start to get that bad feeling....

.... but the Thals discover what's happening and open fire on the escapees.

I think the trio of soldiers here are David Cleeve, who is described as a Thal Guard, and David Billa & Timothy Blackstone, who are both extras. All three were Thal Soldiers in episode 1! Since Billa & Blackstone return in episode 6, alongside Reg Turner another uncredited extra in this episode, and all are playing Thal survivors there, probability suggests he too is a Thal here. Turner has got several uncredited Blake's 7 roles in his future: a Prisoner in The Way Back & Space Fall, a Federation Trooper in Weapon, Voice from the Past & The Harvest of Kairos< and a Rebel in Rumours of Death.

A struggling Sarah is assisted by the Kaled officer who pays with his life

A truly horrible death even by Doctor Who's standards: someone pays for their act of kindness with their life. They are shot, fall and *THEN* you see their body lying on the floor!