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Revelation of the Daleks Format Reviewed: DVD Review Revelation of the Daleks is often regarded to be one the high water marks of the, albeit short, reign of Colin Baker. Dalek stories always generate a great deal of public interest, and they are generally quite closely scritinised by the fan community. They generally stand up though as good stories in their own right, and with Davros returning for another adventure with his creations, Colin Baker has his work cut out. The story sees the Doctor taking Peri to Necros to attend the funeral of Professor Stengos and are soon confronted by a mutant outside Tranquil Repose. The mutant mentions 'The Great Healer', who runs Tranquil Repose now. Stengos' daughter and a friend are trying to recover his corpse but discover it to be missing. They find it in a forming Dalek case, thus revealing the Great Healers plan of turning the inhabitants into Daleks. The owner of a put upon foodstuff distributor has meanwhile hired an assassin to deal with the Great Healer, who has now been revealed to be Davros. The hired gun, Orcini, assassinates what he believes to be Davros but it turns out to be a puppet. Imperial Daleks then arrive and Davros' plan of creating a new Dalek army from the inhabitants of Tranquil Repose whilst being funded by using the rest and the remains as a foodstuff for a starving galaxy is foiled. As a story, Revelation of the Daleks picks up where Resurrection of the Daleks left off, and continues the Imperial - Davros Dalek battle shown there. This takes the Daleks in a different direction, as effectively a Dalek civil war is an interesting idea after the Dalek - Movellan war. Having Davros pulling the strings of a major galactic organisation, and 'solving' a crisis of starvation in the manner presented are also interesting ideas. The main plot line here though that separates out this story is the one of the DJ. Whilst this is really very unneccessary, it provides a light edge to the bleak themes presented, and quite a unique style of showing the story. Having the running commentary at times from the DJ gives an interlude and an opportunity to get concepts accross quickly to the viewer that could have taken minutes in screen time dramatisation. Regulars Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant seem very comfortable now in their characters, something that wasn't neccessarily the case in previous stories. Both give good performances and some of the interplay between the two is a delight, especially early on discussing the apparant weight gain of both. The guest cast is generally solid, but there are a few weak performances. The weakest are probably Eleanor Brown as Kara and in particular Jenny Tomasin as Tasembaker give forced, wooden performances. There are some good performances to counteract this, as exemplified by Alexei Sayle as the DJ and William Gaunt as Orcini who never slip from their roles throughout. Of note elsewhere is the Dalek voices provided by Roy Skelton, who more so that at any other times manages to make it sound as though Zippy from the kids show Rainbow (for which he also provided the voice) is insde the Daleks. This takes the edge off them a bit but isn't disasterous. The main thing to be said about this story is that it seems so out of context from the stories surrounding it. Granted, the following Trial of a Time Lord series was different in itself, but the quality of production seems so much higher here than the preceeding stories. Everything seems polished, correct and established in a way you wouldn't have expected from this turbulent time in Doctor Who's history. The series that Revelation of the Daleks falls in can be therefore seen to go from the sublime to the rediculous. The overly camp Timelash counterbalanced by the sinister Vengeance on Varos. The damp squib of The Mark of the Rani balanced by the exciting and dramatic Revelation of the Daleks. This story therefore probably stands out more than if it were surrounded by other worthy tales, but in its own right Revelation of the Daleks is good television. Overall, Revelation of the Daleks manages to raise itself from some of the surrounding dross to stand out as probably the best story of the Colin Baker era. This is quite remarkable as the show was at its most turbulent around this time and it is a real credit to everyone involved that such a good story was produced. There are novel story telling mechanisms, good performances and a strong script backed by some very good production values. Revelation of the Daleks is definitely a story everyone should clamour to have in their collection. Rating:  |