It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that some writers on long-running TV series much prefer their own original characters to the regulars, who they feel they can't really do a lot with.
This is certainly the impression that Eric Saward seems to be giving during Season 22. We've already noted how the Doctor and Peri seem to take a very long time getting into the main plot - usually being left to argue in the TARDIS for much of the first episode.
In Revelation of the Daleks, the Doctor and Peri spend the entire first instalment walking towards the plot. And even then the Doctor gets held up outside Tranquil Repose at the cliffhanger, not even managing to get through the doors to where Davros is getting on with the plot. He doesn't even glimpse a Dalek. That's left for Peri to do, but she doesn't recognise it. Maybe the Doctor should have warned her about them, instead of showing her pictures of his old companions like Jo Grant.
We've spent most of the first 45 minutes in Davros' company, and meeting all the other grotesque characters who populate this story.
For a Dalek story, they don't feature very much in this - only really coming into their own in the last 10 minutes once the Imperial faction turn up.
We're told that Tranquil Repose is a fairly exclusive funerary complex, reserved for the rich and famous. Many of the bodies are being used by Davros to create his new Dalek army. So how can it be providing enough of Kara's foodstuff to alleviate famine in this corner of the galaxy?
Davros points out that the heirs to the people entombed there are hardly likely to ever want them back, so why hasn't everyone cottoned onto this? Surely the king of a planet, or the CEO of some big conglomerate, must know that the person taking over isn't going to do anything to haste them back in charge again, now that they're in control.
If the weed-plant is regarded as just that - a weed - why is it used to decorate the funerals of royalty? Isn't that a bit of an insult?
Peri states that the weed-plant is the only thing which grows on Necros, despite her and the Doctor walking through a forest at the time...
Can eating a sandwich ever really make a humanoid explode?
Davros is using a dummy head in a glass case to decoy potential assassins. Yet he seems to be able to see, hear and speak with it, and even fire electrical charges from it. He has controls in front of him and sits watching what's going on on a big screen. He's posing as the Great Healer, and is obviously afraid of assassination (or arrest as a war criminal and prison escapee). So why, if he's going to create a fake persona, did he make it look like Davros, the well-known war criminal and prison escapee? He could have had a fake head that looked like the Doctor, just to discredit him - or just for a laugh.
What's real Davros doing all this time anyway, and how does he communicate with his fake self?
Why hide away even when there's no-one but the odd Dalek in his control room? He also appears to have human guards. Why use them, instead of sticking with his new ultra-loyal Daleks to preserve his life?
(The idea of using a decoy is also far from original - having only just been seen in the previous story).
And talking of dummies, why replace Stengos' body with a fake? Just how often do relatives come looking to see their dear departed, and if it happens a lot then wouldn't much better fakes be best?
Why are Natasha and Grigory allowed to get so far into the complex - and what exactly are they homing in on? It can't be Stengos' body, as we know its been replaced with the dummy one.
As with the previous Davros story, he seems to have gathered an awful lot of information considering that he's been in hiding since being broken out of prison. How did he know what the Doctor looked like nowadays, to set up the fake tombstone? Why not just drop a real tombstone on the Doctor, instead of messing about with polystyrene ones?
The Doctor has defeated him three times already, so isn't he running a massive risk deliberately inviting him here to his latest base of operations.
When the real Davros finally shows up, we can see he is badly superimposed over Orcini's prostrate form - his leg waving about behind Davros' chair even though he's floating several feet away.
How do two lowly funeral technicians know so much about Davros and the Daleks, to the point that they can even contact Skaro and invite them over? So much for Davros' elaborate security measures.
What's the point of the glass incubator Dalek? Can't they just deposit the conditioned mutant directly into a Dalek shell?
When I reviewed this story, I said that it was the best of the Colin Baker era - but it wasn't the best Colin Baker story. That was because the Doctor hardly does anything until the final confrontation between Davros / Kara / Orcini. It's the Daleks who stop Davros, and Orcini who blows up the complex.
The Doctor need hardly have turned up at all...
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