First of all, I'd like to apologise for the fact that this review is a week late. I've just got a new temporary job over the holiday period and I've been so busy I simply haven't had time. Thankfully, I got this weekend off, so you get two reviews from me this evening.
Lucky you.
And with that said..
.
This is Colin Baker's best episode(s)? Oh dear - hardly a golden moment in television, is it?
And I do SO enjoy him in the Big Finish audios. Ah well. On with the show and all that.
I did a bit of research (IE: I read it on some website) and this went out at 5:20 in the afternoon. Which is somewhat surprising when you consider how dark and violent it is - people are killed left right and center, there's an alcoholic, unrequited love (with a right old bag, thus ruining what would have been a much more sympathetic role), jokes about incest and no sympathetic characters at all (Takis seems to torture people just for fun). But enough of that - what's wrong with this?
For a start, the Doctor hardly does anything. Although that's not so much a bad thing as it is a relief, given that Colin Baker isn't the nicest Doctor - he makes some rather nasty jabs at Peri in the first episode. There's numberous detours, dead ends and one-scene subplots, an annoying DJ who, when he drops that irritating accent, is actually kinda likeable, an awful cliffhanger at the end of episode one and far too much reliance on cheap jokes and sudden shocks.
I really didn't like this. I kept waiting for something good to happen, but it never really did. Quite frankly, if faced with the choice of watching this again or viewing the teaser for the Christmas Invasion looped for an hour and a half, I'd take the Invasion anyday.
Which is funny, since that teaser probably cost about as much as the whole of Revelation...
And before I forget...
Someone, somewhere, wrote that Nicola Bryant is our revenge on the Yank's Dick Van Dike - something I think we can all agree on, hmm?
This review is a little late because I've been quite ill this week. Now, this wouldn't usually stop me, but when you are recovering from food poisoning the last thing you want to be faced with is the sixth Doctor's coat of many colours.
It's been known to induce nausea at the best of times, and if you're feeling a little peaky then it can bring on projectile vomiting and, in extremely rare cases, death.
I agree wholeheartedly with Sean: Revelation of the Daleks is Colin's finest hour as the Doctor - bar none. The really sad addendum to that statement is this: Revelation is merely OK .
In any other era of the show it would have been remembered as an above-average romp, but for the sixth Doctor it is a shinning beacon in a sea of misjudged tripe.
1) Eric Saward has been to some 'Write Like Robert' classes. This story boasts more double-acts than an Opportunity Knocks semi-final!
Then there's the gallows humour, the pervy villain, the body horror, the sadistic violence: all the ingredients of a classic Holmes story, filtered through the gung-ho pessimism of Eric Saward. And it works.
2) Part one is extremely coat-lite.
The Doctor's blue cloak looks fantastic; then again, a hessian sack would have looked great compared to the test-card that Colin was normally saddled with. The moment where the Doctor gets out of the cold and throws his blue coat off-screen should have been the cliffhanger in my opinion (it scared the crap out of me!).
3) Graeme Harper - one of the few 'Who' directors who actually gave a shit. While his low-angle shots of Colin Baker grabbing onto his crotch is probably a step too far, Graeme always manages to find an interesting angle or technique to bring the story to life.
4) It's packed full of tasty death scenes.
In fact, almost everybody gets killed in this story. Saward appears to be falling back on his tried-and-trusted 'Earthshock' template (which he managed to reheat in such an underwhelming manner for 'Resurrection' the previous year). Simply take a reoccurring villain, sprinkle liberally with a concoction of bizarre and larger-than-life characters - and then kill them all.
Mercilessly. The more disturbing the death the better.
5) The Daleks.
Given that they are hardly in this story the Daleks certainly make a good impression when they finally turn up. I like their new whiter-than-white livery (the BBC has spent some money on them!) and the civil war angle is both intriguing and unexpected.
The glass Dalek is an interesting (and chilling) addition to the pantheon of 'Doctor Who' nastiness, and barring a terrible mis-step (see below) they come out of the story reeking of evil.
6) The Supporting Cast. Almost every member of the cast gives an above-average performance.
William Gaunt is particularly impressive as the philosophical hit-man, Orcini (The Equaliser meets Shakespeare), but Eleanor Bron and Clive Swift are also incredibly memorable as the human manifestations of greed and evil. Again, you are left suspecting that this has more to do with Graeme Harper than anything else.
However, there are plenty of reasons to relegate Revelation to the dustbin of history:
1) It features the ugliest woman on the planet.
A woman so difficult to look at, she could give Pauline Quirke a run for her money. At one point we are supposed to feel sympathy for Taramasalata but she's so damn pig-ugly you just want to slap her.
2) The DJ.
Yet another excuse for JNT to indulge in some tabloid-friendly stunt casting. Now don't get me wrong, I love Alexi Sayle - his TV show 'Stuff' was groundbreaking in its use of postmodern comedy (especially the episode that begins with a BBC apology and ten minutes of what appears to be an episode of Juliet Bravo) - but he's just a pain in the arse, here.
While it's a nice idea to subvert his annoying Americanisms and over-the-top buffoonery with the reality that he is just a normal guy, it doesn't cut the mustard because we still have to endure endless scenes of the DJ chewing on the scenery, as he plays whooshy (it must be the future!
) music. It's hardly surprising that Peri wants to meet him - his accent is almost as unconvincing as hers!
This all leads to the cracking concept of destroying a Dalek with pure rock n roll .
Read it and weep.
3) Davros. I don't normally mind Davros per se.
Back in the day he was the only Dalek you could really talk to, and Terry Molloy always manages to inject just the right amount of venom and madness into his performances. But why does he spend most of the story as a swivelling head in a tank? I wouldn't mind quite so much but it turns out that the head in the tanks is just a decoy!
Does anyone here actually buy this? Why not make a decoy of him in his bath chair? I just don't get it.
Oh and Davros flies for a bit. Not that anyone will ever remember.
4) One of the the worst cliffhangers in the entire history of the show.
And if you watch the syndicated version of this story you get three of the worst cliffhangers ever seen in the history of the show. That has be some kind of record, surely? Everything about this scene is wrong - the execution, its relevance to the plot, and the clever reveal that it was all a fake.
I mean, where does all the blood come from - and why? Furthermore, why bother to lure the Doctor to Necros with this monument when he was coming to the planet for a completely unrelated reason anyway? However, it is very telling that Davros constructs a statue of the weakest Doctor (so far).
He probably didn't have the nerve to commission a likeness of Tom Baker...
And there you have it - a mixed bag of invention and irritation. Just think - if all of Colin Baker's stories had displayed this level of wit, imagination and level of commitment then all the other flaws might have been ignored for a little while longer. They may even have made it to Blackpool.
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