I sometimes marvel at how adept the human brain is at forming connections where none exist, converting coincidence to prescience. Case in point: Today I ended my treadmill session with a cumulative distance walked since the start of this project of 666 miles; this, on the same day I started watching the story that details the birth of the most evil entities in the history of the universe, the Daleks. Seriously. I think that David S. Pumpkins would agree that this is downright spooky.

On a less foreboding note, today I walked further than ever before in a single 55-minute session -- I passed the four mile mark for the first time ever. I also weighed in at my lowest weight since I started this project. What I'm saying is, I'm not gonna let a bunch of Space Nazis get me down, because life is awesome.

Even so, let's talk about those Space Nazis.

Genesis of the Daleks Parts 1 & 2

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

There's no question about it, this story begins with an absolutely horrifying sequence that could have been lifted right out of the Second World War. On a mist-covered battlefield (that does not at all look like an English rock quarry), soldiers wearing painted gas masks and carrying automatic rifles climb out of a trench and starts moving forward before they are systematically mowed down by a machine gun, after which a squad of opposing soldiers marches over their dead bodies. It is stark and brutal, and sets the scene immediately. 

The gist of the plot is that the Time Lords have decided that the Daleks are an existential threat to the universe, and so they hijack the Doctor and companions from their transmat jump back to Nerva Station, and instead redirect them to Skaro just before the birth of the Daleks. The Kaled/Thal war has been raging for a thousand years, and the Doctor has been instructed to either prevent the creation of the Daleks entirely or else to cripple them in some way with a weakness that can be exploited.

The imagery is not subtle at all. The Kaleds are very clearly modeled after the Nazis, from their uniforms right down to their mannerisms, salutes, and attitudes about genetic purity. Their military leader Nyder is essentially Heinrich Himmler under a different name, and Davros - the creator of the Daleks - is unquestionably based on Josef Mengele. Bear in mind that this was produced in 1975, barely twenty years after the end of WWII. This is powerful, powerful stuff that is presented with an unblinking gravity that underscores every single scene.

When Davros appears for the very first time at the end of part one, it is a chilling shock to the status quo. By giving the Daleks a paternal figurehead, their menace is ratcheted up tenfold. It is also particularly unsettling that, for a race that prides itself on strength and purity above all else, their creator is a deformed and mostly blind paraplegic cripple who only has the use of one withered hand. Davros cannot even support the weight of his own head, it must be bolted to a curved support beam running behind his entire cranium. He is evil personified, in all his pallid and wrinkled glory.

Also: a serious leather fetish

You would think that, with the Kaleds as evil as they are, the Thals on the other side of the battle must be saints. You would also be wrong. The Thals have decided that, in order to finally end the war, they are going to lob a rocket packed with radio active explosives at the domed Kaled city and wipe them out once and for all. To this end, the Thals have taken to conscripting slave labor from the poor mutated people who are only trying to eke out an existence away from the battlefield. These slaves are being forced to carry the explosives into the warhead, with no protective clothing whatsoever and under the full expectation that they will die in the process. Oh, and Sarah Jane Smith (who gets separated from the others early on) is caught up as a slave as well. By the end of part two she has helped to stage an escape attempt that goes poorly, and the last shot is her falling to her apparent doom from atop the missile scaffolding.

There is not an ounce of fat in this story. It is stark and brutal, and the peak of storytelling in the Classic Who era. If every Dalek story was as good as this one, I wouldn't be so annoyed by them. 

STATS:

Doctor(s): Fourth
Companion(s): Sarah Jane Smith, Harry Sullivan
Episode(s): Genesis of the Daleks - Parts 1 & 2
Steps Walked: 7,456 today, 1,337,844 total
Distance Walked: 4.03 miles today, 662.55 miles total
Weight: 260.94 lbs (five day moving average), net change -46.36 lbs