Remembrance of the Daleks

Remembrance of the Daleks is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which originally aired in four weekly parts from October 5 to October 26, 1988. The serial opened the 25th anniversary year of the series, and revisited the locations of the very first Doctor Who episode, An Unearthly Child, specifically the Coal Hill School and the junkyard at 76 Totter's Lane.

Synopsis

The Seventh Doctor returns to London in 1963 to deal with some loose ends involving an ancient and powerful Time Lord device. Things, however, get messy very quickly when two competing factions of Daleks are also after the same thing.

Plot

The Seventh Doctor and Ace land the TARDIS in London, 1963, where the Doctor has unfinished business: The Hand of Omega, an ancient relic of the Time Lord civilization that the Doctor hid on Earth on a previous visit to 1963.

Unfortunately, the Daleks have also heard about the Hand of Omega, and are trying to find it before the Doctor does. To complicate matters, there are two groups of Daleks at work - the Daleks are currently in the midst of a civil war between those that accept and those that reject the leadership of their creator Davros, and each side wants the Hand for themselves. The Imperial Daleks have set up an outpost at the Coal Hill School.

In the meantime, the alien activity around the Coal Hill area has attracted the attention of the military. Group Captain Gilmore and his unit engage a Renegade Dalek at the junkyard, destroying it with the help of the Doctor and Ace. The Doctor tries to convince Gilmore and his scientific advisor, Dr Rachel Jensen, that human weapons are no match for the Daleks and the best thing they can do is just stay out of the crossfire. The Doctor, however, is playing a deeper game - he wants the "right" Daleks to take possession of the Hand.

The Renegade Daleks enlist the help of a local fascist, Ratcliffe, in first obtaining the Hand, but they are soon attacked by the Imperial Daleks, who retrieve the Hand. Determining that the Imperial Daleks are from Skaro, the Dalek homeworld, the Doctor allows them to return to their mothership with it. The Imperial Daleks plan to use the Hand to create a power source that will give them mastery of time travel, a technology that the Daleks only have in the crudest sense.

However, when the Dalek Emperor, a much deteriorated Davros, activates the Hand, he also triggers a boobytrap that the Doctor has programmed into it. The Hand transports itself to the future which the Imperial Daleks have come from and turns Skaro's sun into a supernova, destroying the star system and Dalek homeworld, and then returns itself to Gallifrey. The resulting feedback blows up the Imperial Dalek mothership, but Davros manages to escape. The last Renegade Dalek on Earth, told by the Doctor that it is the last of its kind, destroys itself.

Notes

1. A meta-reference to the show happens in one scene. A television screen shows a BBC Television caption of the period with a continuity announcer saying "This is BBC television, the time is quarter past five and Saturday viewing continues with an adventure in the new science fiction series Doc—", but is cut off by a scene change before completing the title.
2. In a deleted scene, the Doctor claims to be "more than just another Time Lord." This was part of a plan by the producers to restore some mystery back to the Doctor's background and motivations. The Seventh Doctor, from this point on, also grew darker and more manipulative.
3. In one scene, Dr. Rachel Jensen makes mention of a "Bernard" from the "British Rocket Group". This is a reference to Bernard Quatermass, of the Nigel Kneale-penned Quatermass science-fiction television serials.
4. In the spin-off BBC novel, War of the Daleks, it is revealed that Skaro had not been destroyed after all.
5. The episode appears to take place at some point soon after the first story of the series, 100,000 BC. We see the Coal Hill School again and one of Susan's textbooks.
6. The Doctor is asked to sign a document and clearly does so with a question mark.

External links

• Cast and Crew list, on the BBC website