Revelation of the Daleks

Orcini and Bostock are two of the best side characters the show has ever had. Bostock - the smelly, instinctual genius. Orcini - the grizzled, old and honorable mercenary, hired to kill Davros. Their fate at the end of part two hits home because of how invested Eric Saward makes us in them, in his final script. Saward may be a lousy script editor,but he has always been an amazing writer - one of the 1980’s few true stars. This is matched by impeccable direction from legend Graeme Harper who makes every scene interesting, with a turn of the camera or an unexpected, dynamic shot.

It is the second fantastic story Davros has had in a row, with Terry Malloy selling the performance beautifully. The Daley menaces are handled well here too, though I think the details around the competing factors could have been drawn out a bit more. What we lose in that detail though we gain in skin infected zombies - which are pretty intimidating!

You can’t forget the engaging, doomed relationship between Jobel and Tasambeker, Clive Swift gives an excellent performance here and a total monster, Jenny Tomasin plays the screwed up abuse victim with shocking believability. My God Doctor Who is dark in this era. Even this strong story is negatively impacted by the fact that every character feels the need to argue with each other, a weird trait of this era equating vicious dialogue with drama. Everyone is nasty and hates each other. Ah well.

Similarly to Vengeance on Varos, if this was a 5th Doctor story it would be considered one of the all time greats. I suppose that sums up the issue with season 22, easily the worst season to date, no one had a clue what they were doing with The Doctor - including Colin Baker himself. Still - thank God there were two stories that didn’t impact too much!