Classic Capitology continues their relentless run before the new season takes them out-of-season with a revised set of caps for Resurrection of the Daleks. A story originally meant to cap off Season 20 (where it would have been a much better fit) but delayed due to ‘industrial action’ at the Beeb until Season 21, tonally this can be viewed as something of a companion piece to Eric Saward’s work on Earthshock. The grim tone in Earthshock is even more amplified in Resurrection with a lot of gruesome deaths not only hinted at but shown, and not just with the humans. Little wonder that Tegan finally wanted out.
But Resurrection is also the story which properly brought back Davros. The previous Dalek story Destiny of the Daleks was supposed to do that but somehow the mix, especially amidst the chaos of Season 17, didn’t work.
Davros here certainly worked well enough to be further indulged in Revelation of the Daleks and finally Remembrance of the Daleks. Without these stories would Davros have come back in Journey’s End? Perhaps not.
Another character which Saward obviously felt great affinity for was Lytton played by Maurice Colbourne. Not only was he a ‘very hard man’ as the parlance goes, he was also the human mastermind for the Daleks. A survivor most of all Lytton always had a backup plan, and consequently would be one of the very few human opponents of the Doctor to repeat from one story to another.
Classic Capitology stays on the case next time. As a new era of Doctor Who dawns, the Tour itself prepares to ‘close out’ another, and hit the back half of a doubleheader, of a sort.
