Ooh, 45-minute episodes.

 

It’s a bold move which will prove distinctly foolhardy in the coming years. But here – as a one-off mid-season statement – it contributes to this story’s undeniable sense of grandeur.

 

While we won’t go so far as to call Resurrection of the Daleks an epic (anything shy of The War Games’ girth won’t live up to such hefty claims), it displays a gravitas that’s sorely absent in much of the Davison years.

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And it’s not just because Davros and his troublesome offspring are on their A-game again.

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“They take themselves so seriously,” the Doctor moans at one point in a moment we like to think is a thinly-veiled swipe from the writers at those running the show.

 

But in fairness to the producers, at this stage of Doctor Who’s life – and let’s accept we’ve now entered its twilight years – there’s so much unintentional comedy on screen anyway (courtesy of the poor acting, costumes, production design, scores…) that the only route to success is via Serious Street.

 

Any attempt at levity or self-awareness just comes across as cheap. For evidence, see every other Davison story except this one and Caves.

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And Resurrection of the Daleks is a seriously serious serial.

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Numerous characters are gunned down in agony, smothered by facehuggers or endure their features being melted by poison gas.

 

The brutality on display is off the chart - when watching it with subtitles, every other sentence is AAAAARRRGGH!

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Yet this Rambo-esque violence isn’t the hardest-hitting aspect of the story.

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There’s something utterly terrifying about the emotionless duplicate British Bobbies, patrolling the mean streets with their Bodysnatchers vibes.

 

It must be the unshakeable trust in the police that’s ingrained into the subconscious of all us good middle-class Little Englanders, and the earth-shattering realisation of that trust being misplaced.

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Following closely behind in the sinister stakes is Lytton, the ultimate scumbag-for-hire who’ll pally up with the Cybermen in a few stories’ time (and my word, we’ll cheer when he gets his hands crushed).

 

Genesis taught us much about how to get the best out of Dalek stories, and one lesson was they thrive with a strong human character on their payroll.

 

Lytton takes the Nyder role here and is a suitably treacherous weasel.

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This serial is wonderfully gritty and mysterious from the get-go.

 

It opens with a group of space dudes fleeing for their lives into the alleys of a grubby Docklands in the 1980s, setting the tone straight away.

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And when they rock up, the Daleks don’t disappoint either. Which, let's be honest, ain't always the case by a long chalk.

 

As our teachers always taught us, if you're gonna steal, steal from the best. The build-up to the Daleks' grand entrance, with the mysterious craft disabling the Earthlings’ ship and then forcibly docking, riffs heavily on Star Wars. And is all the stronger for it.

 

The drama with the Earthlings pulling down the shield door ramps up the tension and ekes out the inevitable, until the famous foes themselves blast through. And f*** everyone up.

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Excellent stuff.

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The sense of an inevitable arrival extends, of course, to their crazed creator.

 

Ever since he was ignominiously carted off at the end of Destiny, we knew Davros would be popping up again before Peter’s time was over.

 

He’s been in cold storage for a heck of a time (or to be precise, “90 years of mind-numbing boredom”) and our first glimpse of him – a double-take moment as he creeps into view in the background when Osborn* is fiddling with the tech – is superb. And mimics how we always make sure we arrive at parties.

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*aka the nice girl we’re gutted about being unceremoniously gunned down. Also, Bond fact fans: the actress survived being leched over by Roger when playing a hotel worker in Octopussy. Not sure which is worse.

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Davros wakes in a heck of a strop too.

 

He’s a parody of himself throughout, unable to contain his propensity for manic shrillness (his “deranged child” act, roasts the Doctor). Then lures Dirty Den into his clutches for good measure.

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Still, Davros is front and centre of one of the two classic scenes that Resurrection vastly improves our lives with.

 

His standoff with the Doctor is captivating.

 

And while it’s an ultimately emasculating experience for Doc Five (as are most things), there wasn’t a better way of rounding off the confrontation: our hero gunning down a wheelchair-bound cripple – even a manically evil one – in cold blood wouldn’t have been a great look.

 

Plus, the call-backs to Genesis are spot on.

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In the most obvious statement we’ve uttered in our Doctor Who dynasty so far, the other classic scene here is when the Doctor shoves a Dalek out of the first-floor warehouse door.

 

It’s an image for the ages. And gives Davison a punch-the-air moment before he slopes off into an early retirement in forgettable British TV roles.

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Thankfully, there's no going quietly for Five McWheezy.

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​Resurrection of the Daleks is the best outing in the role for Peter Malcolm Gordon Moffett. By a country mile.​

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​Here at Sophisticated Idiots we don’t subscribe to the fandom whining that his self-confessed cowardice in the Big Davros Face-Off (“I’m an imbecile!”) shows weakness.

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For us, he faces up to his nemesis in a way his character wouldn’t have done in his Kinda days, when he was having to babysit Adric.

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Davison's performance is infinitely helped by not having to mediate between bickering companions anymore, which affords him the space to be goddam assertive.

 

​​It might all be too late to rescue his legacy from beneath its super-beige fate but we're given the impression Pete is determined to go out with a bang, for which we doff our caps to him and the writers.

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​​You can tend to judge a Classic Who story by the strength of the supporting cast. And here it’s great.

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​In addition to those we’ve already mentioned, the stammering Stien is brilliant – we didn’t see the twist of him being a Dalek agent coming – and the soldiers who are systematically turned into bland duplicates all manage to carve some character into their fleeting roles.

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​Sadly, we’re going to be less generous about the young captain, Mercer, whose performance has us campaigning for the return of the Frontios hat stand.

 

Note how he reports half his crew being wiped out with all the emotion of a Cyberman.

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​But we guess only being subjected to one sub-standard performance is in itself a triumph.

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​And what of those perennial millstones round Peter's neck, the companions?…

 

This is Tegan’s final story, which was news to us going into this one until her abrupt announcement at the end.

 

​It's a nicely played gut-wrench of a farewell which, thankfully, isn't tossed away sans emotional wallop.

 

And we're generous enough not to overthink her departing comments that somewhat suggest “all the death” had indeed been jolly good fun in her earlier TARDIS days.

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It’s a shame Janet had so little to do in her swansong, spending 90% of this story laid up in bed.

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​​​​Turlough is similarly ill-served, without much of a role here.

 

It’s pretty clear the writers have run out of ideas with these two - but at least the over-stuffed TARDIS of the earlier Davison era has finally come to an end.

 

On the glass-half-full side of all this, it gives Peter a chance to shine.

 

And he does so in spades, putting the grand in grandeur as his era reaches his (non-Five Doctors) highlight in an absolute ruddy corker of a story.

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