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There’s a famous quote attributed to Franklin D. Roosevelt: “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.” Or, as it tends to be paraphrased these days, courage is being afraid and then doing the right thing anyway.
Cowardice, then, could be being afraid and letting that compel you to do the wrong thing. The Doctor, of course, is never cruel or cowardly. That’s from The Making of Doctor Who, a 1972 behind-the-scenes reference book by Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke, two men who certainly have a right to a say in what the Doctor’s defining characteristics should be. The “never cruel” part, I’m not so sure about. Tell that to Za, the unconscious caveman from An Unearthly Child who the Doctor almost brained with a rock, or Kid, the villain of The Interstellar Song Contest, who the Doctor kept electrocuting long after he’d been defeated. Cruel? Sometimes. But cowardly? The Doctor? Never.
Now, is the Doctor ever afraid? Of course. Referring back to An Unearthly Child again, he said, “Fear makes companions of all of us, Miss Wright… Fear is with all of us, and always will be.” He’s reassuring her that it’s alright to be afraid, and letting her know that he’s afraid too. Fear is not something to be ashamed of. That’s from the very first story, and I think it’s fair to say it’s become one of the core precepts of Doctor Who, most clearly expressed by the Twelfth Doctor and Clara in Listen, with their “scared/fear is a superpower” speeches.
But while Doctor Who tells us there’s no shame in being afraid, it also tells us there’s deep, deep shame in being a coward. In that light, let’s look at “The Ordeal,” the sixth episode of The Daleks, and a character who has the dubious honor of being Doctor Who’s first ever coward: Antodus, the cowardly Thal.
Antodus is the brother of Ganatus, the Thal that Barbara bangs, and the first thing we learn about him is that he’s afraid of the dark. The next thing we learn is that Ganatus is deeply ashamed of his brother’s fear. In the third episode, the Thals learned they could recharge their hand lights from a magnetic dead animal they found in the jungle (and why not), and Ganatus said he’d tell Antodus. Dyoni made a teasing joke about Antodus being afraid of the dark, and Ganatus snapped at her that his brother wasn’t afraid of anything, in a clear “the Thal doth protest too much, methinks” situation.
Antodus and Ganatus are both part of the expedition to find a way into the Dalek city through the mountains. When they reach the Lake of Mutations, Antodus wants to go back, reminding Ganatus of how they watched a fellow Thal get killed by one of the lake’s monstrosities. Ganatus hushes him, and tells him to keep his fears to himself. It’s Ganatus’ shame where I think the writer’s opinions are breaking through, and it’s a harsher attitude towards being afraid than we find in most other stories. Ganatus’ embarrassment is presented to us as the understandable reaction, not Antodus’ fear. Ganatus is protecting his brother from being viewed as a coward.
Up to this point in the story, it’s a rather unfair assessment. Antodus is afraid, yes. Almost constantly so. But he still volunteered for the mission into the mountains. And he’s proven correct in his apprehension of the lake – by morning, it’ll have claimed another Thal.
Nevertheless, the narrative weight is against Antodus, conflating his understandable fear with unjustifiable cowardice. It’s a muddier view than the story has previously taken. Susan was frightened by Alydon in an earlier episode, and was downright terrified at the thought of running through the jungle alone to fetch the anti-radiation drugs, but was never condemned for it. Of course she conquered her fears and did what was expected of her, but so has Antodus, so far.
When they’re inside the mountain, navigating the tunnels, Antodus pulls Ganatus aside and says he wants to go back. Though obviously afraid, his reasoning isn’t unsound. He says they don’t need him – they don’t – and he could tell the other group about the progress they’ve made. But Ganatus refuses to listen, insisting Antodus remain. It’s here that Antodus’ fear gets the better of him – believing that anyone who continues on is doomed, he says they could return together, and tell everyone that the rest of the expedition had been killed by the Daleks.
That lie, or that offer to lie, is the only truly cowardly thing Antodus does. Ganatus physically restrains him from leaving, and then a rockfall takes the option of retreat away. Shortly thereafter, the group is faced with making a jump across a chasm. Antodus goes last, and while he’s terrified, he takes the leap anyway. Sadly, he doesn’t make it, and is left dangling by a rope tied to Ian, threatening to pull the human down with him. This episode ends there, but let’s spoil the start of the next to wrap up Antodus’ story: he cuts the rope, heroically sacrificing himself to save Ian’s life. A coward can only redeem himself in death.
Poor Antodus. Terry Nation, the writer of this story, saw him as a coward, but I’m not sure I do. In fact, it’s Ganatus’ fear that’s the problem. He’s afraid his brother’s cowardice will be known, and this fear causes him to shame his brother rather than help him. In the mountain, Antodus even asked Ganatus, “Why are you making me do all these things?” Ganatus doesn’t answer.
Antodus knows he’s not suited for risky adventures, but Ganatus forces him into them. If Antodus had instead gotten words of understanding from his brother, like those the Doctor gave a frightened Barbara last story, would things have turned out differently? Maybe a little more confidence in his jump would have saved his life.
I’m changing my earlier assessment. Doctor Who’s first coward is Ganatus. Being afraid to risk death is understandable. Forcing your own brother to risk death because you’re afraid of what others will think? That’s real cowardice.
Sorry, Barbara.
When writing these essays I try to focus in on one aspect of each episode. I’m not doing reviews or recaps, after all, and going episode by episode, rather than story to story, gives me room to explore one particular idea, find my own point of view on it, and follow that thread wherever it leads. It hasn’t been too hard, so far, to find something weighty to ponder, and there’s a very obvious theme that “The Expedition,” the fifth episode of The Daleks, is tackling, with a lot to chew on – pacifism: the Thal’s embodiment of it, and the TARDIS travelers’ disdain of it. That’s what I should talk about. But what I want to talk about is how, at some point between scenes in this episode, Barbara bangs a Thal.
Specifically, she bangs Ganatus, one of the story’s leading Thals. Well, I say bangs, but obviously Doctor Who in its original run was not explicit about such things. They don’t come right out and say that they bang. The dialogue as written doesn’t even show any sign of romance or attraction between them. But it’s there. The first time we see them interact, they’re already comfortable with each other. It’s late, and almost everyone is asleep, but they’re slipping away to have a private chat. Ganatus lays down his jacket for them both to sit on, very close together, and they look up at the stars and talk. It’s only a ten-line scene, and plot-wise its function is for Ganatus to tell Barbara how deadly the lake behind the Dalek city is so we’re aware of the danger when they have to travel around it later in the episode. But actors Jacqueline Hill and Philip Bond play a subtle intimacy between the two, letting us know they’ve somehow managed to become fast friends in the short time the travelers’ have been stranded on Skaro. The scene ends and suddenly it’s morning, but who knows what they get up to for the remainder of that night?
We know what. They banged. We know this because by the next day (well, probably the next day – it’s a little hard to tell how much time passes in this story), Barbara and Ganatus are part of a titular expedition to the Dalek city’s back entrance, and when they stop for the night, Ganatus goes to sleep with his head resting on Barbara’s leg. It’s a surprisingly intimate gesture, suggesting they’re already very physically comfortable with each other. They’d probably be spooning if the rest of the expedition weren’t packed in around the fire with them. They’re inches from Ian, but if you’re worried about jealousy, don’t be. We’ve seen no sign (yet) of Ian and Barbara being anything but friends, and Ian doesn’t react in the slightest to Ganatus getting cozy with Barbara’s calf. Neither do any of the Thals. Which suggests something else – not only did Barbara and Ganatus bang, but everybody knows they banged.
I don’t have an opinion on this, beyond, “Good for her!” Barbara’s a favorite of mine, and Ganatus is hot. I’m glad that in the middle of a radioactive wasteland, Barbara found some alien loving to get her through.
Okay. Let’s get to it. Pacifism. You know, it’s actually a little ironic that Barbara’s getting so cozy with a Thal, because earlier in this episode, she argued quite fervently that the travelers needed to use any means necessary to convince the pacifists to risk their lives for them to recover the TARDIS’ fluid link (confiscated from Ian by the Daleks in a prior episode), so that they can get home. It’s an uncharacteristically Machiavellian argument from Barbara, who we’ve seen previously risk her own life to help a caveman who’d been trying to kill her. She’s in total agreement with the Doctor here, who goes so far as to say, “This is no time for morals.”
(Once again we see that the Doctor is not yet the hero of this story. By Spyfall, many, many years later, the Doctor’s views on pacifism will have softened to the point that she identifies herself as one. That sounds like an improvement, although you need to stretch the definition of “pacifist” to include “someone who lets others die on her behalf,” so perhaps she hasn’t changed as much as we’d think.)
It’s Ian that Barbara’s arguing with. He’s asked the Thals for help in attacking the Dalek city to recover the stolen component, but they’ve refused. He’s unwilling to push them too hard, knowing he’s asking some of them to die solely for the travelers’ gain, and Barbara is furious.
Interestingly, the moral question here is whether it’s right for Ian to ask the Thals to help them fight when there’s no benefit to the Thals in doing so. There’s no question about whether it’s right to ask pacifists to fight at all. The TARDIS quartet are unified on that front – the Thals’ pacifism is an obstacle to be overcome, not a belief to be respected. In the last episode, Ian laughed at the idea, saying, “Pacifism only works when everybody feels the same.” With all four of our heroes in agreement, the narrative of the episode is strongly aligned against pacifism as a valid belief system. Perhaps that’s not too surprising: pacifism, as a movement, had waned in the UK after World War II, and while the sixties would see it make a resurgence, Terry Nation’s writing of this story was influenced heavily by the Nazis. It’s understandable that he takes a condescending attitude towards pacifism, painting it as a natural response to a world-destroying war, but not an effective or admirable one.
But setting aside the simplistic ideas about pacifism, the four-way fight among the TARDIS travelers is morally murky in the best possible way. This era of Doctor Who is at its best when it explores the interpersonal dynamics between its leads, and the Doctor’s ethical dubiousness means he’s not the pinnacle of unarguable righteousness he’ll later become. It’s not so easy to say who’s right or wrong, and that’s what makes this episode so compelling.
For me, I fall somewhere in the middle. I’m not a pacifist, and the Daleks have shown that they’re unlikely to rest until all the Thals are dead, so violent resistance is a must. But the travelers’ attitudes towards the Thals’ ideals are reprehensible, as is Ian’s deception in goading Alydon into punching him. Ian tells himself it’s for the Thals’ own good, but that’s not for him to decide.
That’s my personal interpretation, anyway. You may disagree. The story leaves room for doubt as to whether Ian is rationalizing away his morality when he decides to force the issue with the Thals. The Thals toss their pacifism aside, but whether the TARDIS team was right or wrong to ask them to do so is never resolved. That’s good writing.
You know what’s even better writing? A ten-line scene and a head on a leg to subtly suggest that Barbara banged a Thal. Philosophical arguments and an alien booty call, in one twenty-five minute episode. Doctor Who truly can do anything.
In “The Ambush”, the fourth episode of The Daleks, the Thals and the Daleks, centuries after the war that divided them, finally reunite. It does not go well. The Daleks have laid out food for the starving Thals, but it’s a trap. The Daleks are lying in wait, in the titular ambush, to blast the Thals as soon as they approach the spread. (Which, incidentally, contains several objects that I think are cylindrical white cannisters but which look an awful lot like rolls of toilet paper. Truly ingenious bait for a people who’ve just spent years hiking through the wilderness.)
Temmosus, the Thal leader, argues with Alydon, the Thal who Susan met last episode. Alydon is wary and fearful, mistrusting the Daleks’ offer. He wonders what reason the Daleks would have to help them, and worries that they might have been horrified or jealous to find that they were not the only survivors of the long-past war. Temmosus dismisses his concerns, saying his suspicions are “based on fear, and fear breeds hatred and war.” Not to mention, the Thals won’t last much longer without food – they have to accept the Daleks’ generosity. Temmosus believes that if they approach the Daleks peacefully, then the Thals’ good intentions will be clear, and friendship between the two peoples might grow.
Objectively, Temmosus is right. Forget everything we know about the Daleks from watching decades of cries for extermination. Temmosus’ people are starving, and another group is offering them help. There used to be conflict between them, but that was more than half a millennium ago. He has no reason not to take their offer at face value; in fact, to not do so risks the end of his species.
But narratively, Alydon is right. We, the viewers, know how evil the Daleks are, and we’re meant to see Temmosus as naive for ignoring Alydon’s warnings. Alydon is the wise one for listening to his instincts, which tell him that the Daleks mean them harm. Temmosus is punished for his foolishness with death; he’s the first one killed when the Daleks attack. The moral of this story is clear – don’t trust strangers. Beware of Daleks bearing gifts.
Wait, now. Is Doctor Who really telling its viewers that they should be suspicious of people who are different from them?
Sure seems like it! Later, the surviving Thals are mystified by the Daleks’ behavior. Alydon believes that if they can understand why the Daleks hate them, they can approach them differently and perhaps still make peace. But Ian already knows why – the Daleks dislike anyone unlike them. It won’t make a difference what the Thals do; the Daleks will always hate them. The Thals have difficulty believing this, but the narrative isn’t on Alydon’s side this time. Ian’s correct, of course. The Daleks are space-Nazis, remember, and he’s dead on when he says that their unblinking prejudice is irrational and evil. It’s wrong to dislike the unlike!
Except… wasn’t that Temmosus’ point of view in the prior scene? That Alydon was wrong to mistrust the Daleks just because of their differences? And didn’t the story lead us to believe that Temmosus was mistaken?
So Alydon was right to mistrust another people because they’re different, but the Daleks are wrong to do so. It’s a bit contradictory. I mean, yes, of course, you should definitely mistrust space-Nazis, but Alydon didn’t know they were space-Nazis until they started shooting.
Maybe we can untangle it by hearkening back to what I wrote about the last episode. The Thals are good because they look like idealized versions of us. The Daleks are bad because they don’t. Alydon had learned of the Daleks’ likely horrific appearance from Susan. If Temmosus had been wise enough to judge them based on that, like Alydon was, he’d have survived. It’s wrong to hate others because they’re different, unless they’re very different. In that case, they’re going to hate you, so it’s okay to hate them back first.
Geez. That’s a terrible lesson. I’m not saying it’s intentional; I don’t think Terry Nation was trying to “both sides” the space-Nazis. The intent is clearly that good-hearted Temmosus is deceived by the evil Daleks, and we’re not supposed to see Alydon’s worries as in any way similar to the Daleks’ bigotries. But that reading depends on us ascribing our own external knowledge to the characters. Alydon suspects what we know to be true about the Daleks; Temmosus should too.
It’s hardly uncommon for writers to assume (consciously or not) that viewers or readers will judge characters based on knowledge about the text that the viewers/readers have but the characters don’t. It’s very easy to gloss over that without thinking about it, but if you do, you might be absorbing a message the writers didn’t intend. Yes, the Daleks are killers, and we can feel sorry for poor Temmosus while wishing he had listened to Alydon. But in real life, it’s far more common for people to assume, based on little or incorrect information, that someone is a Dalek when they’re really a Thal. We know the Daleks are evil before they fire a shot, and within the bounds of this fiction, that’s not bigotry. But how many people believe they know some other group is evil, based on nothing more substantial than Alydon’s gut instinct? Isn’t that bigotry?
The real Nazis aren’t waiting in ambush; they let us know who they are, proudly, every day, and they’re the ones who want you to be suspicious of others. When it comes to judging people you don’t yet understand, be a Temmosus, not an Alydon. Like the Thal said, suspicion is based on fear, and fear breeds hatred and war.
In “The Escape,” the third episode of The Daleks, we meet the Thals, the other inhabitants of the planet Skaro, old enemies of the titular monsters. The Daleks had warned Susan that the Thals would be hideously mutated as a result of the fallout from the neutronic war, but when she meets the Thal named Alydon, she’s struck by how perfect he is. He’s tall, white, blond, handsome, and wearing a groovy puffy vest. Though frightened of the stranger at first, she comes to trust him within moments of meeting him. Admittedly, he’s acted in a friendly manner and given her life-saving anti-radiation drugs, but still, from here on out none of the TARDIS team will doubt the Thal’s good intentions. Being hot never hurts.
We never get more than a glimpse of a Dalek outside its casing, but the story makes clear how hideous they are. Alydon says, “If they call us mutations, what must they be like?” (Which strikes me as somewhat shoddy writing, just as an aside – from his tone he obviously means the Daleks must be ugly, but that turn of phrase suggests he means they must be even more beautiful than the Thals. I’ll forgive Terry Nation – he didn’t always have the best attention to detail, but he more than made up for it in other ways.) When Ian and the Doctor get a look at one, they act instantly to stop Barbara and Susan from seeing it; they can barely stand to look at it as they scoop it out of its casing. We only see a single claw sticking out of the coat they’ve wrapped it in, but it’s enough to show us that whatever the Daleks look like, they’re no Thals.
To recap: ugly aliens, bad; pretty aliens, good. It’s… not a great message, and I’d like to think it wasn’t a conscious one on Nation’s part. It’s hardly uncommon to make the evil monsters revolting, after all. But… the Thals aren’t just a group of normal people. They’re all like Alydon – white, blond, hot. (Well, tastes vary, but they’re all intended to be hot.) And they all wear clothing showing off lots of skin. (Stupid sexy Thals.) Why did Nation make a point of the Thals being physically perfect? Or to get more specific, and more troubling, why did he make a point of the Thals being physically perfect according to racist Aryan ideals?
Nation has said that the creation of the Daleks was influenced by the Nazis, and their goal of extermination of anyone who did not live up to their ideas of physical purity. It’s a striking choice, then, to make the Nazi-analogues’ enemies look exactly like the actual Nazi’s self-image (whether that specific choice was made by Nation himself, or someone else on the production team). I’m struggling to figure out if there’s some deeper meaning to it. On the face of it, the theme might be, “The Nazi were wrong about genocide, but they were right about some people being better than others based on physical characteristics.”
Do I think anyone involved in making this story literally thought that? Uh… maybe? The show’s lead actor would have probably vigorously agreed with that statement, since William Hartnell was, by most accounts, racist as hell. And antisemitism was sadly rampant in the UK in the sixties, so making sure the Space Nazis’ enemies looked as non-Jewish as possible might have been a consideration. The most gracious reading of the story is that nobody really thought it through; that making the übermensch the good guys was an unconscious choice. The Thals are the opposite of the ugly Daleks, so let’s make them attractive, and white blond people are attractive. I’m sure you can see the problem with that line of thought – unconscious racism is still racism.
So are the Thals racist? Yes. The show will have worse moments in the future – much, much worse. But making the perfect specimens of goodness based on their physical characteristics all white and blond is racist, whether that was the intent or not.
But these essays are supposed to be exploring what it is I love about Doctor Who. (When I remember that that’s what they’re supposed to be doing, anyhow.) And one of those things is its longevity, and how that allows the show to contradict itself. Doctor Who is large, it contains multitudes. Two seasons after The Daleks, Galaxy 4 will convey the opposite message: the hot blond aliens, the Drahvins, are bad, and the hideous aliens, the Rills, are good. There! Racism solved! Until The Celestial Toymaker a few stories later, when a character says the n-word. (They wisely took that out of the recent animation.) And back and forth it’ll go, throughout its long history.
No easy answers, then. I won’t excuse The Daleks as being a product of its time – that’s always a cop out when talking about past examples of racism, and assumes nobody of that time could have recognized it, much less been impacted by it. I still think it’s a great story, and this is a great episode, but it’s dishonest to acknowledge that without also acknowledging its murky, problematic messaging. So I’ll be troubled by the casting choices, while also enjoying how well Thal Ganatus fills out his puffy vast. I can contradict myself. I’m large, too.
