Monster Mash Part 2: One Of These Things Is Just Like The Others.

In our last instalment I talked a little about the big monsters of Doctor Who. The ones that kept coming back. But there was one thing about this scant handful of monsters that I never really got into: What it is that makes them unique. And more worryingly, what it is that makes them same.

I should probably warn you know, I'm going to be doing yet more bitching about Asylum Of The Daleks in this post.

The new series has done a lot of good things for the classic monsters. The re imagining of both the Daleks and Cybermen has been largely very successful. But one major problem has been the increasing confluence of narrative elements in the two foes. Which is a rather roundabout way of saying that increasingly they're doing the exact same thing.

Now, obviously the role of any monster in a story is to BE THE MONSTER. But the question is why that particular monster? What qualities does it bring to the story that another monster wouldn't? What is it about their goals, methods and motivations that makes them unique?

The Cyberman redesign may have had a satisfying solidity, but there was an issue that they had lost the awesome body horror element of upgrading humans and replaced it with emotionally repressed lumps inside armoured suits. Which you may note is erring a little closer to the narrative space of the Daleks for comfort. But it wasn't really deal breaking. Even if they were given a wheelchair bound megalomaniac creator undone by his own hubris and betrayed by his creations.

FIRST!

No, the Cybermen were never even used enough for these elements to really become an overt problem for them. Rather the issue was that the Daleks became too much like the Cybermen. And in this we can lay the blame almost entirely with Asylum Of The Daleks. Suddenly the Daleks are assimilating humans and have a networked group consciousness. They're even putting their defective members into storage. It was quite shocking when I realised it but most of the problems with Asylum Of The Daleks stemmed from the fact that it was actually a Cyberman story. Think about it. You've got conversions, you've got tombs, you've got damaged and malfunctioning versions of the monster rampaging around uncontrollably. Hell, you've even got a sub plot dealing with threat of the aliens technology stripping a main character of their humanity. It couldn't be any more Cyberman themed if it tried. But you replace the Cybermen with Daleks and everything falls apart, because these are not easily exchangeable monsters. And in misunderstanding the Daleks in such a fundamental way the episode undermines both them AND the Cybermen as the whole universe takes a slide into genericness.

If you want a shining example of how poorly the episode understands the Daleks, and a good place to start in really defining how they work then there is one outstanding quote

"Hang on to scared. Scared isn't Dalek."

If there can be said to be one underlying universal trait that informs and motivates all Dalek actions it is ultimately that of fear. Hate is the Dalek modus operandi, but where does that hate come from?

Exactly. From fear. A Dalek is a very manly villain in many ways, because it is one that lives in constant denial of it's emotions. As much as they might like to pretend otherwise the Daleks are highly emotional creatures. The problem lies in the kinds of emotions they have. The great crime of Davros was not that he made a race of tank driving squids. It's that he stripped them of any ability to feel any kind of POSITIVE emotion. A Dalek lives it's whole life in a constant state of panicked, paranoid hysteria. They are genetically incapable of feeling good about anything. Even when they win they derive no satisfaction. A Dalek has no chance of redemption in any form, because to arrive at a point where it was capable of being redeemed it would no longer BE a Dalek. They go on killing and destroying because that's all they can ever know. That's why they're both tragic and utterly undeserving of sympathy. In terms of sheer unrepentant irredeemable evil bastardry the Dalek is unmatched. That's what makes them such a good villain.

The Cyberman conversely is a far more insidious threat. They're the threat of assimilation, not annihilation. Loss of identity and the fear of technology are the roots from whence they spring. The Daleks come to take our lives, but the Cybermen take away our souls. Unlike the Daleks the Cybermen are a lot closer to being truly unemotional than any other monster in the show, although not quite entirely. After all, a monster needs some sort of motivation for they're evil schemes. And it's tricky for there not to be a slight emotional trace in the writing. Indeed, what makes the Cybermen particularly interesting as a villain is the fact that their incursions do not stem from malice like the Daleks, but rather an almost altruistic attitude that the Cyber conversion process genuinely improves lives. That's why they're scary, because they've forgotten everything that they've lost and no longer understand the human condition in anything approaching human terms. For me though, one of the most interesting aspects of the Cybermen is one that I don't think has ever really been explored. The idea of a race that does not define itself through it's biology, or even it's culture, but purely through it's technology.

The Sontarans are, of course, a warlike, militaristic race. So are a lot of antagonists in a lot of scif-fi shows. But the thing that makes them unique is their focus on a very particular war. The Sontarans are concerned pretty much exclusively with the war with the Rutans, and only ever pay attention to the rest of the universe when it has some potential impact in this war. The threat in the Time Warrior wasn't that Linx was trying to take over the world. It was that he didn't care what damage he did to it whilst trying to get back to the front. It's in this light that they work best, and when you take them away from that you run the risk of them devolving into low rent Klingons. Unlike the Daleks & Cybermen however the Sontarans have an air of redeemability to them. Especially so since the introduction of Strax. Indeed, it's possibly easier to form an alliance with the Sontarans than any other race. All you need to do is convince them that helping you will hurt the Rutans.

And whilst we're talking about militaristic races of alien warriors who subscribe to a code of martial honour but are not above using sneaky underhanded tactics where necessary let's bring in that celebrated classic monster soon to return, the Ice Warriors.

It has to be said that the Ice Warriors occupy a rather precarious position in terms of distinctiveness. I've already used one description that could equally describe them and the Sontarans. But we could also describe them a race of technologically advanced reptilian creatures, antagonistic but not entirely unsympathetic to their close neighbour mankind. Oh, and they have something of a penchant for sleeping out the environmental disasters that beset their home world. Sound familiar?

It should. Because that's pretty much the Silurians bag right there. What's particularly odd is that whilst you could easily describe the Ice Warriors as a cross between Silurians and Sontarans they predate both races by a number of years. Timey Wimey indeed.

Of course one of the most interesting things about the Ice Warriors is the fact that they pioneered the concept of monster redeemability. All the third tier races share a degree of potential in this regard, but it was the Ice Warriors who went there first. Whilst humanity has, as yet, never really managed to reconcile with the Silurians the simple fact that at some point we know that we do make peace with the Ice Warriors lends them a certain weight. One that's been used rather well in audios and novels with the mighty martians appearing as both ally and antagonist. Indeed one of the best novels I've read was The Silent Stars Go By, as that managed to intelligently use the Ice Warriors as a villain without squandering any of that potential.

Of course, whilst Ice Warriors are a hostile force that we eventually make peace with, what the makes the Silurians work is that whilst we may never manage to make peace with them, their claim to the planet is just as valid as ours. Possibly more so. Personally I think that we eventually see a future setting where mankind and Silurians are living together in peace, because really there's only so many times you can do a story where psychotic idiots go out of their way to ruin everything for everyone.

We're talking about you, not to you. 

Quite where the Ice Warriors might fit into such a setting is unknown. But am I really the only one who dreams of an alliance between all the races of the solar system?