It seems perfectly appropriate that I am watching another damned Dalek story on the same two days that I am on a clear liquids diet and then having a colonoscopy. There's a metaphor there somewhere. How stupid is this damned Dalek story? Have you looked that the picture above this post?

Let's talk about it.

Resurrection of the Daleks - Parts 1 & 2

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

There's a prison ship in space holding Davros, arguably the most dangerous criminal in the universe, and yet it is run down and falling to pieces from budget cuts and lack of maintenance. After decades of stalemate the Daleks have lost the Movellan war due to a virus. The surviving Supreme Dalek decides to spring Davros from jail in order to have him engineer a cure or vaccination for the virus. Somehow the super-clever Dalek rescue plan involves a time corridor running between the prison ship and 1984 London. The TARDIS gets sucked into said time corridor. Hijinks ensue.

Among those hijinks? Humans who are voluntarily fighting alongside the Daleks, and who do so wearing stupid Dalek helmets. Have I mentioned how stupid the Dalek helmets are? Really stupid. Even John Nathan-Turner didn't like them, but he didn't have time to change them.

On the scale of stupid Dalek stories, this one falls somewhere in the middle. It's not good enough to be anywhere near genuinely good like The Dalek Invasion of Earth or Genesis of the Daleks, but it's not bad enough to be laughably bad like The Chase or Death to the Daleks. Let me remind you how bad that one was:

No, this one just kind of sits there and behaves halfway competently while also spinning out pointless subplots that never amount to anything. The only historically interesting thing about this story is that, although it was filmed to be aired in four 25-minute parts, it was initially aired in two 45-minute parts in order to free up airtime for the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics. But the home video release split it back up into the original four parts, so whatever.

Part two ended on some kind of cliffhanger, but I can't even be bothered to remember what it was. Besides, my bowel prep medicine is just about to kick in, and dealing with that sounds more pleasant than spending any more time writing about damned Daleks.

Tomorrow: I have a colonoscopy, and I have to watch the second half of this damned Dalek story. I expect the colonoscopy will be more enjoyable.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Fifth
Companion(s): Tegan, Turlough
Episode(s): Resurrection of the Daleks - Parts 1 & 2 (or Part 1, depending on how you count)
Steps Walked: 7,671 today, 2,165,307 total
Distance Walked: 4.38 miles today, 1,110.77 miles total
Weight: 245.36 lbs (five day moving average), net change -61.94 lbs