Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks: Part 2 starts as the Doctor (Colin Baker) realises that something is wrong on Necros, entering the Tranquil Repose his companion Peri (Nicola Bryant) is sent to see the DJ (Alexi Sayle) while the Doctor is captured by Daleks. The Doctor confronts Davros (Terry Molloy) who reveals his plans to create anew even more powerful generation of Daleks which he intends to use to take control of the Universe, that is unless the Doctor can stop him...
Episode 13 from season 22 this Doctor Who adventure originally aired here in the UK during March 1985 & was the final story from Colin Baker's first full season as the Doctor & was the only time he faced the Daleks, it was also infamously the last story before the show was put on hiatus for a year after the people that mattered at the BBC decided the show was awful & judging by this & the previous story Timelash (1985) you can see where they were coming from. Directed by Graeme Harper I thought Part 1 to revelation of the Daleks was alright but this second episode is absolutely awful, the script by Eric Saward is terrible as it goes nowhere & leaves many questions unanswered. For a start what the hell was that statue all about? It's never explained & whose blood did the Doctor get on his cape? I'm really trying to think about some sort of explanation but I can't. Why did Davros lure the Doctor to Necros? I don't understand why he just doesn't keep a low profile & set his plan in motion, it just doesn't make any reasonable logical sense for a character who is meant to be some kind of genius. The Doctor & Peri barely do anything, the DJ is still awful but at least he gets killed & the Daleks are just awful in this. Their voices are terrible, they sound like guy's trying to sound like robots, they never seem to just kill anyone anymore & what's this crap about putting Davros on trial? Wouldn't they just blast him? This is just terrible with huge plot holes (what happens to Grigory & Natasha? They just suddenly disappear from the story), narrative that makes no sense, horrible dialogue & a boring pace as all the 'action' seems to take place within the last 10 minutes. The ending has the Doctor tell Peri 'I'll take you to..' & then it ends on a freeze frame which is a direct result of the show being canned, originally he said 'I'll take you to Blackpool' for a story called Nightmare Fair which would have kicked off season 23 before the rethink.
I am not of the opinion that terrible special effects add a certain charm to Doctor Who & there's nothing like an embarrassingly poor effect to 'pull me out' of a story & Revelation of the Daleks has plenty of them. I won't go into detail but the laser effects, the explosions & it just looks awful when Davros hovers above the ground. Last night I watched this on DVD as it was broadcast & the special effects are awful, then I watched it again with certain scenes replaced with new CGI effects & it looks so much better, in fact I almost believed a Dalek could fire a laser beam! I hope every Doctor Who story released on DVD gets new CGI effects because the ones used originally are just so bad I literally cringe at some of them. The direction is often annoying here as well with all the scenes involving the DJ shot in soft focus which gives the picture a horrible blurred appearance & I just don't see any worthwhile purpose for it as it looks terrible. Daleks are thin on the ground here, they only had about five & to make this story the makers had to borrow two from a BBC exhibition! I've never been a fan of the Daleks, to me they are just over-sized pepper-pots with a sink plunger although I think Davros is a great villain & he looks really good here with an impressive mask even if his dialogue is a little inaudible at times. The sets aren't anything special, the make-up & hair-dos are silly & it's just a shoddy poorly made story & it comes as no surprise the show was canned for a bit. This also marked the end of outside location shooting for Doctor Who using film, from after this all location filming was done on videotape which is a shame because I've always liked the look of film over tinny videotape.
Again I watched this on DVD with the commentary track running & no-one really says anything of any note although writer Saward confesses he named the character of Kara after a type of potato from which some chips he was eating were made from!
Revelation of the Daleks: Part 2 is an absolute embarrassment as far as I'm concerned, I'm sorry but I just think it's terrible & after a decent Part 1 goes nowhere. Overall across it's two episodes I'll give Revelation of the Daleks a disappointing but still generous 4 out of 5 stars, the second worst story from season 22 after Timelash.
Episode 13 from season 22 this Doctor Who adventure originally aired here in the UK during March 1985 & was the final story from Colin Baker's first full season as the Doctor & was the only time he faced the Daleks, it was also infamously the last story before the show was put on hiatus for a year after the people that mattered at the BBC decided the show was awful & judging by this & the previous story Timelash (1985) you can see where they were coming from. Directed by Graeme Harper I thought Part 1 to revelation of the Daleks was alright but this second episode is absolutely awful, the script by Eric Saward is terrible as it goes nowhere & leaves many questions unanswered. For a start what the hell was that statue all about? It's never explained & whose blood did the Doctor get on his cape? I'm really trying to think about some sort of explanation but I can't. Why did Davros lure the Doctor to Necros? I don't understand why he just doesn't keep a low profile & set his plan in motion, it just doesn't make any reasonable logical sense for a character who is meant to be some kind of genius. The Doctor & Peri barely do anything, the DJ is still awful but at least he gets killed & the Daleks are just awful in this. Their voices are terrible, they sound like guy's trying to sound like robots, they never seem to just kill anyone anymore & what's this crap about putting Davros on trial? Wouldn't they just blast him? This is just terrible with huge plot holes (what happens to Grigory & Natasha? They just suddenly disappear from the story), narrative that makes no sense, horrible dialogue & a boring pace as all the 'action' seems to take place within the last 10 minutes. The ending has the Doctor tell Peri 'I'll take you to..' & then it ends on a freeze frame which is a direct result of the show being canned, originally he said 'I'll take you to Blackpool' for a story called Nightmare Fair which would have kicked off season 23 before the rethink.
I am not of the opinion that terrible special effects add a certain charm to Doctor Who & there's nothing like an embarrassingly poor effect to 'pull me out' of a story & Revelation of the Daleks has plenty of them. I won't go into detail but the laser effects, the explosions & it just looks awful when Davros hovers above the ground. Last night I watched this on DVD as it was broadcast & the special effects are awful, then I watched it again with certain scenes replaced with new CGI effects & it looks so much better, in fact I almost believed a Dalek could fire a laser beam! I hope every Doctor Who story released on DVD gets new CGI effects because the ones used originally are just so bad I literally cringe at some of them. The direction is often annoying here as well with all the scenes involving the DJ shot in soft focus which gives the picture a horrible blurred appearance & I just don't see any worthwhile purpose for it as it looks terrible. Daleks are thin on the ground here, they only had about five & to make this story the makers had to borrow two from a BBC exhibition! I've never been a fan of the Daleks, to me they are just over-sized pepper-pots with a sink plunger although I think Davros is a great villain & he looks really good here with an impressive mask even if his dialogue is a little inaudible at times. The sets aren't anything special, the make-up & hair-dos are silly & it's just a shoddy poorly made story & it comes as no surprise the show was canned for a bit. This also marked the end of outside location shooting for Doctor Who using film, from after this all location filming was done on videotape which is a shame because I've always liked the look of film over tinny videotape.
Again I watched this on DVD with the commentary track running & no-one really says anything of any note although writer Saward confesses he named the character of Kara after a type of potato from which some chips he was eating were made from!
Revelation of the Daleks: Part 2 is an absolute embarrassment as far as I'm concerned, I'm sorry but I just think it's terrible & after a decent Part 1 goes nowhere. Overall across it's two episodes I'll give Revelation of the Daleks a disappointing but still generous 4 out of 5 stars, the second worst story from season 22 after Timelash.
