Stairway to heaven

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• Publication: The Guardian
• Date: 2005-05-02
• Author: Rupert Smith
• Page: G2, p. 22
• Language: English

The Daleks are back on BBC1, Ian McKellen is starring in Coronation Street and beautiful people are ripping each other's clothes off for our entertainment on ITV1. If this isn't the golden age of TV, then what is?

After all the build-up, the return of everyone's favourite squawking pepperpot to Doctor Who (Saturday) could have been an anti-climax, and in truth it was a curiously subdued affair. But who could have guessed that the final confrontation between the last surviving Timelord and the only remaining Dalek would turn into a sci-fi Socratic dialogue? They came together, eyeball-to-bathroom-plunger, in a subterranean vault somewhere beneath Utah, lured there by a mad collector with designs on world domination - you know the sort. There were overtones of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay - men in orange suits, undesirable aliens in chains being tortured and photographed by Americans. But instead of blasting each other to smithereens and bringing down the western world, the old adversaries bickered. It was really much more entertaining.

Unafraid of politics as he currently appears to be, the Doctor described the Daleks' methods as "the ultimate in ethnic cleansing". The Dalek, no slouch in the metaphysical department, retorted "We are the same", and, when the Doctor tried to kill it, snapped back: "You would make a good Dalek." I never thought to hear bitchy repartee coming from a Dalek's speakerbox. Finally, there was little to choose between either side; both stood alone, spouting dead arguments that failed to cloak a simple desire for victory. I could make some glib remark here about the general election, but as we've already seen No 10 blown to smithereens in this series it would be redundant.

It all went fantastically Isaac Asimov when the Dalek, "infected" by human DNA, started questioning itself ("What am I?" sounds great through a vocoder) and finally revealed itself as a squashy, dripping pile of slime that just wanted to feel the sunshine. I used to live for those rare glimpses of naked Daleks in the 60s and 70s; they looked like very nasty school dinners. Now they look like Mike Wazowski, the walking eyeball from Monsters, Inc., after a heavy night out.

It wasn't all talk, though - the Dalek let rip with its exterminator, which now has excellent x-ray effects, and put paid once and for all to that silly myth that Daleks, like Mariah Carey, don't do stairs. With a single croak of "E-LE-VATE" it glided up a couple of flights; I almost expected it to wink at the camera.

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• APA 6th ed.: Smith, Rupert (2005-05-02). Stairway to heaven. The Guardian p. G2, p. 22.
• MLA 7th ed.: Smith, Rupert. "Stairway to heaven." The Guardian [add city] 2005-05-02, G2, p. 22. Print.
• Chicago 15th ed.: Smith, Rupert. "Stairway to heaven." The Guardian, edition, sec., 2005-05-02
• Turabian: Smith, Rupert. "Stairway to heaven." The Guardian, 2005-05-02, section, G2, p. 22 edition.
• Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=Stairway to heaven | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Stairway_to_heaven | work=The Guardian | pages=G2, p. 22 | date=2005-05-02 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=13 June 2025 }}</ref>
• Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=Stairway to heaven | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Stairway_to_heaven | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=13 June 2025}}</ref>