Episode #151 : Remembrance of the Daleks

"Do you remember the Zygon gambit with the Loch Ness Monster? Or the Yeti in the Underground? Your species has an amazing capacity for self-deception."

Episode 151:     Remembrance of the Daleks.
Companions:    7th Doctor and Ace.
Air Date:          5th to 26th October 1988.

The TARDIS arrives in London in November 1963, where the Doctor and Ace discover that two rival factions of Daleks - one loyal to the Dalek Emperor and one to the Dalek Supreme - are seeking the Hand of Omega, a powerful Time Lord device that the first Doctor hid there during an earlier sojourn on Earth. The Daleks are focusing their search around Coal Hill School - the school that the Doctor's grand-daughter Susan attended - while a military unit led by Group Captain Gilmore is attempting to resist their incursions.

Remembrance of the Daleks is by far my most favourite story of the entire classic series. Everything about this story is just spot on from the script, the production values and the acting. It continues the Dalek civil war plot line that first started back in Destiny of the Daleks. We see the two different Dalek factions actually fighting in the streets of 1963 Earth and the first appearance of the special weapons Dalek. There are also a couple references to the British Rocket Group from the Quartermass series and films.

The 7th Doctor has become a rather manipulative character now and it suits him far better than the clownish figure he started his time as. This starts the first references to what would become known as the Cartmel Masterplan, a direction for the show that would have gone into the background of the Doctor. Unfortunately due to the shows cancellation it was never completed.

This story is the first to show that Daleks can actually levitate and thus "climb" stairs. For years many jokes were made about how you could just go upstairs to escape them. Not any more and their levitation/flight capabilities continue in the new series of the show.

In this story the Doctor uses the powerful Hand of Omega to trick the Daleks and Davros, and has the artifact destroy the Daleks home world of Skaro. This event has been considered to be another shot in the early events of the Time War by Russel T Davis.

Remembrance of the Daleks is so good that I cannot rate it high enough.