Why has Zoe Heriot been having nightmares about the Daleks? A new adventure for the Second Doctor as told by his companion Zoe.
Why has Zoe Heriot been having nightmares about the Daleks? A new adventure for the Second Doctor as told by his companion Zoe.
THE COMPANION CHRONICLES: FEAR OF THE DALEKS
After a successful debut for the Companion Chronicles in “Frostfire,” the series moved on to its second story and the Troughton era with Patrick Chapman’s “Fear of the Daleks.” Unfortunately, in almost every area in which “Frostfire” succeeded, “Fear of the Daleks” fails. It’s poorly written, poorly produced, and rightfully poorly received.
The framing device goes as follows: Zoe Heriot, years after her travels with the Doctor and Jamie, is having vivid dreams about the Daleks. Unable to reconcile them with her eidetic memory, she consults with a counselor in the hope of explaining them. This is fertile ground for exploration, but Chapman rigidly sticks to the format, not allowing the framing scenes to appear anywhere but the beginning and the end of the story. Without even the voice of the counselor, there’s really no point to the framing scene – it’s simply there to justify why the story is narrated in first person instead of third.
That wouldn’t be a wasted opportunity in itself if the bulk of the play were in any way compelling. Unfortunately, Chapman manages to conjure up one of the least interesting Doctor Who stories in recent memory. Two alien races are engaging in peace talks, but a renegade member of one group is planning to sabotage them and take his place as the ruler of all? Stop the presses! He’s partnered up with the Daleks out of the staggeringly ignorant belief that they won’t simply betray and murder him at the first opportunity? You don’t say! He realizes the error of his ways after about 30 seconds of conversation with the Doctor, but by then it’s too late and he has to heroically sacrifice his own life at the climax in a final act of redemption? Well, I suppose you can’t say the story didn’t try to recapture its era.
Of course, it’d be uncharitable to heavily criticize a Doctor Who story purely for being clichéd. So let’s turn our attention to the dialogue, which is little more than a series of hackneyed, unbelievable lines crowbarred together in haphazard fashion. “Talking of sartorial lapses, be quiet, skirt boy!” is the example that springs most readily to mind, but a five minute sampling at any point in the story will yield something equally terrible. Did nobody raise a curious eyebrow at any point in the production process? Did nobody burst out laughing in the recording studio? And what of the characters? The Doctor gets flustered and yells a lot, but doesn’t really do much. Jamie might as well not even be in the story – maybe this was trying to capture Frazer Hines taking a vacation? Even Zoe is largely unrecognizable: when was she ever this terrified on screen? It’d be one thing if the story took pains to demonstrate how this was one of Zoe’s most terrifying TARDIS experiences, but it doesn’t – indeed, it’s hard to understand why this left Zoe with recurrent nightmares. Nice retcon in the title, too: I don’t recall Zoe almost wetting herself in fear of the Daleks at the start of “The Dominators,” but apparently the show glossed over that part.
At least Wendy Padbury herself isn’t bad. She’s a fairly dynamic narrator in spite of her propensity to rush through scenes, and it’s fun to hear the energy she injects into her voice when recapturing her younger self. She really doesn’t try to impersonate Troughton or Hines, but it doesn’t detract from the story at all. Nicholas Briggs is along to provide the voices of the Daleks, and while I’ve occasionally joined those complaining about his ubiquity, he’s an absolute breath of fresh air in this story. When the Daleks spoke, I sat up and listened, which marked quite a change from the rest of the time! The production is similar to “Frostfire:” competent direction from Mark J. Thompson, minimal sound design from Lawrence Oakely and Robert Dunlop, and an inappropriately discordant score from Oakely that sometimes actively distracts from the drama. Overall, “Fear of the Daleks” is a colossal failure. I suppose a slipup is to be expected at the start of any range, but this is one hell of a slip.
Terrible.
2/10