Remembrance of the Daleks - Part One
The episode opens, before the opening credits, with a view of a spaceship approaching Earth. Bits of speeches from 1963 by John F. Kennedy, Charles de Gaulle, Martin Luther King can be heard as the view from space fades and the credits begin
The Doctor and Ace are walking through London in 1963 looking for something. They arrive at the Coal Hill Road Shoreditch Secondary School (Headmaster H. Parson). They spot a girl watching them from the gate to the school but suddenly she isn't there anymore. The Doctor takes an interest in a van that is parked across the street from the school. He investigates the van while Ace goes looking for a bite to eat.
Ace finds a cafe and orders some food. There she meets Smith who notices that there's something different about her, starting with the fact that she is carrying a boom box, a device that won't be invented until the early 1980s.
The Doctor walks into the schoolyard after looking at the van. The schoolgirl is there playing hopscotch but she runs off when the Doctor approaches. The Doctor leaves the schoolyard and goes back to the van. He opens the back of the van and climbs in. There he meets Professor Rachel Jensen. She starts to ask him questions but gets interrupted by a call on the radio.
Ace and Sergeant Smith get back to the van just in time. They jump in with the Doctor and Professor Jensen and take off for Totter's Lane where there has been some sort of disturbance. They arrive there only to find one soldier dead. Group Captain Gilmore, the commander on the scene, shows them the body. The Doctor's assessment is that soldier was killed by beam of concentrated energy, a death ray as Professor Jensen puts it.
Reinforcements arrive in the form of more soldiers. Two men are detailed to move the body but whatever killed the dead man zaps one of the soldiers. The Doctor tries to advise Group Captain Gilmore but he won't listen and has his men fire grenades at the spot where the thing that has killed two soldiers is holed up.
The thing isn't destroyed. It comes out into the open. It is a Dalek. The soldiers open fire but are unable to damage it. The Doctor intervenes and, using some explosives (Nitro 9) that Ace had in her backpack, he kills it. The Doctor and Ace take off in one of the vans and head back to the school while Professor Jensen examines what remains of the Dalek.
The Doctor explains to Ace, while they are driving to the school, about the origins of the Daleks. He also tells her that the Daleks are on Earth to recover the hand of Omega. The Doctor asks the headmaster of the school if they can look around. The headmaster is reluctant at first but then quickly changes his mind.
The military gets some help from Mr. Ratcliffe, owner of Ratcliffe Builders Merchants. Ratcliffe and his men retrieve the Dalek from Totter Lane.
The Doctor and Ace look around the school. The Doctor explains that he thinks he has been here before and that he left the Hand of Omega behind, the last time he was at the school. In the basement the Doctor and Ace find a transmat device. A Dalek surprises them while they are talking. They run up the stairs. Ace makes it through the door. The headmaster is there. He knocks Ace out and locks the door leaving the Doctor in the basement with the Dalek which has levitated and is still moving upwards towards him at the top of the stairs.
Thoughts
This is my first time viewing this story, to the best of my knowledge. I watched this episode twice. I enjoyed it the first time around but there were a lot of details that went right past me on the first viewing.
The beginning of this story feels very abrupt. The Doctor and Ace are already in London, walking around. The TARDIS can be seen in the background, on the sidewalk, in a couple scenes, but they don't interact with it. I feel like I may have missed something by not watching the previous episode, which would have been the final episode of Season 24, but I could be wrong.
Professor Jensen has an assistant, Allison Williams. She doesn't play a very big role in this episode. Professor Jensen strikes me a bit as the Doctor's predecessor in that she seems to be the scientific adviser to the something resembling UNIT.
Totter's Lane is where the TARDIS was parked in An Unearthly Child in Nov 1963 when Ian and Barbara met the Doctor for the first time. The school which Susan attended and where Barbara and Ian worked in An Unearthly Child was Coal Hill School. That isn't the name of the school in this story but it does look like they are trying to make it seem like it is the same school from the very first Doctor Who story.
I'm intrigued by this story. There is a good collection of supporting characters, a definite plus. I'm curious to see where things go from here. There is one character who has only been seen from behind who I think might be Davros but I don't recall if he is in this story.
Notes
Group Captain Gilmore was played by Simon Williams. This is the only Doctor Who story in which he appears. I also saw him in Upstairs Downstairs where he played James Bellamy.
Professor Rachel Jensen was played by Pamela Salem. She was also in Robots of Death where she played Toos. Among her many other roles she played the part of Miss Moneypenny in Never Say Never Again.
The headmaster was played by Michael Sheard. This is the sixth and final Doctor Who story in which he appeared. He was also in The Ark, The Mind of Evil, Pyramids of Mars, The Invisible Enemy, and Castrovalva. He was also in a fairly memorable scene in The Empire Strikes Back.
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