Emissary of the Daleks written by Andrew Smith and directed by John Ainsworth

What’s it about: On the planet Omnia, a young man leads the Doctor and Peri through the battle-scarred ruins of a city. Among the rubble he shows them proof that their invaders and new masters, thought to be invincible, can be defeated. The proof is the blasted, burnt-out remains of a Dalek. But this is a Dalek-occupied world like few others. For one thing, there are few Daleks to be seen. And for another, the Daleks have appointed an Omnian, Magister Carmen Rega, to govern the planet as their emissary. Why are the Daleks not present in force? And can the Doctor and Peri risk helping the Omnians, when the least show of resistance will be met with devastating reprisals from space?

Softer Six: How things have changed. I have recently watched an episode of The Twin Dilemma for a new YouTube project of mine and was aghast to recall just how toxic the sixth Doctor and Peri’s relationship was at the beginning. I have been so spoilt by their continued adventures with Big Finish that I have practically been tricked into believing that they were always made for each other. I forget that what I am listening to is the kind of rapport that Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant would have liked to have developed over time if they had had the chance. He’s the surrogate stepfather, the teacher, the mentor. And she’s the intrepid young botanist, exploring the universe and basking in his wisdom. And I say this without any hint of irony whatsoever, there is little that gives me more pleasure than listening to these two adventuring together; their warm, occasionally spiky and always caring relationship growing all the while. It’s something that Andrew Smith taps into in the first scene of this story. The Doctor is hardly surprised to find that the Masters turn out to be the Daleks and immediately sets about taking the lid off a dead one to make sure that the creature inside has croaked it. When he is accused of being the fugitive, the Doctor he cries out in a sing-song voice ‘hel-lo!’ There’s that rebel in him, that kicked off with Troughton. It’s been a while since he was last on Skaro, and it wouldn’t be long before he wipes the planet out.

Busty Babe: Back home in Baltimore Peri would wander the church graveyards and read the inscriptions. I didn’t realise she had so much emo in her. Peri is appalled that the resistance seems to consist of people with entire books stored in their brains reciting those volumes for other people to learn from. I suppose that’s what Martha Jones did in last of the Time Lords. Tell stories and build a resistance and support for the Doctor. Poor Peri resists the Daleks during interrogation and almost kills herself in the process, screaming like a banshee as they torture her to extract information. Nicola Bryant could always let rip a scream but this is something quite different. When Peri says ‘goodbye for now, Doctor’ it is in a fashion that she thinks that she will never see him again.

Standout Performance: You’ve got a fabulous performance here from Nicholas Briggs as the Dalek Supreme. One of the most prissy, clipped, bitchy Daleks in recent history. It’s scenes with Saskia Reeves’ Rega are fuelled by pure hatred. It’s rare to hear a prolonged humanoid/Dalek bitch fight of this nature (essentially, it’s a power struggle between them) and it’s gloriously entertaining to listen to.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘It’s my first time ruling a Dalek occupied world, Doctor!’
‘You will want your revenge on me and you will have it.’

Great Ideas: Reading and writing is forbidden on this world. Omnia’s previous history was irradiated after the war. The calendar began again at the Masters insistence: Day One, Year One. I loved the dialogue surrounding the names ‘Magister’ and ‘Masters’, it’s almost as if Andrew Smith is taking the piss out of the Doctor Who traditional of hiding its central monster/villain behind a grand title. It might be a bit grisly for me to say but I really enjoyed the sequence where the Daleks massacred all of the insurgents in a sequence that recalled Blakes’ 7’s The Way Back. Just as those scenes started to get a little wordy, the writer cut through it all with a shocking flurry of mass murder.

Audio Landscape: Some of the direction in episode one lacks finesse, a surprise from John Ainsworth. You’ve got an overly melodramatic score, lots of running about with people shouting and a dearth od sound design to back up what is happening. It sounds like a fan made production in parts, not a professional one.

Musical Cues: It’s a very strange score because for the most part I found it suspenseful and mood-inducing…and yet there were bursts of insane melodrama during action sequences that quite took me out of the atmosphere the rest of the score was generating.

Isn’t it Odd: Daleks started as irradiated mutations and the nuclei radiation at the heart of Omnia attacks their cell structure very aggressively. That’s the reason why there as so few Daleks on this planet. They need radiation shielding to land here, hence the psychological attack on the planet. It’s a shame that there is a physical reason that the Daleks are taking this stance because I think it makes them so much more exciting to be playing mind games to keep people in check. For them to have done this just because they can’t land on the planet and subjugate in force blunts that Whitaker-esque approach to writing for them. When I think it is just a smart thing to do, saving resources and getting the same results. I actually think that it would have been more intense for Rega to have killed her own son rather than disobey the Daleks. But I suppose the story had to come to a conclusion at some point and her speech to her people, knowing that she will persecuted after they have finished dealing with the Daleks, has a ring of truth to it. Her sacrifice at the end is too easy an answer to what has been a complex character.

Standout Scene: The conversation between the Doctor and Rega is fantastic because he comes to it with all those centuries of hatred for the Daleks and those who work with them and Rega is able to fight back with the knowledge of what the planet went through and the atrocities she has managed to stop by collaborating. There are no easy answers. She cannot be entirely condemned or entirely praised. It’s a morally grey area that Doctor Who rarely steps into. I also really liked the end of episode three, which isn’t couched in melodrama. The Daleks simply live up to their promise of punishing the Omnions if they try to resist them in any way. Half of the population will be exterminated. Not an exclamation of intent, just a cold, hard fact.

Result: The concept at the heart of Emissary of the Daleks is a really classy one. If the Daleks threaten to exterminate a planet full of innocents unless they stay in check, what good can the Doctor possibly do if stirring up rebellion will lead to genocide? It’s bizarre to have such a sophisticated idea emerge from this story because I cannot imagine a more stripped back episode one of Doctor Who. The Doctor and Peri are already on the planet that their adventure will take place on, meet a citizen who spells out the entire situation on the planet and then stumble on the rebels almost immediately. All in time to realise that the ‘Masters’ on this planet are the Doctor’s oldest and deadliest of enemies. It’s complete lack of intricacy is remarkable, and enjoyable. I was waiting for some twist to reveal that this is all some simulation, or a test scenario for somebody who might want to join the Doctor and Peri on their adventures. It’s pure, unsophisticated Doctor Who. Even the first cliff-hanger is utterly guessable given what you would expect from a traditional Dalek story. It’s almost like Smith is trying lull you into a false sense of security because something much more interesting starts happening in the trenches of episode two. The Controller was by far the most thought-provoking character in Day of the Daleks and we have a terrific equivalent in this story; a woman who has been given an exalted position by the Daleks and rather enjoys the power enslaving her people at their whim. John Ainsworth direction is mostly excellent, and he lets the performances and the dialogue do a lot of the work but during moments of action I feel like he took his eye of the ball. I’m not sure there is enough incident to justify a two-hour release but it would also be the work of a better reviewer than me to point to any individual scene as written and say that it doesn’t work. I don’t think Emissary of the Daleks is a seamless Doctor Who adventure but it takes an unusual approach to a Dalek story in that it barely features them and focuses on the psychological ramifications of one of their invasions rather than just the death count. I was impressed by the tough dialogue with no easy answers. Much like Memories of a Tyrant, it has substance and that makes this trilogy a real tonic after the gothic naffness of the Mags trilogy. I just wish it had been slaved to a more succinct, punchier narrative: 6/10