Revelation of the Daleks is the sixth and final serial of the 22nd season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in two weekly parts on 23 and 30 March 1985.
The galaxy is suffering from famine, but Davros (Terry Molloy) is masquerading as the Great Healer and has commandeered a funeral home, the high-tech facility Tranquil Repose, as a base from which he can convert humans into either food for the starving or into Daleks for his new secret army.
However, his manufacturing ally Kara (Eleanor Bron) wants his business and has hired the assassins Orcini (William Gaunt) and Bostock (John Ogwen) to kill him.
Arthur Stengos, who is now a head with red flesh growing over him, explains to Natasha and Grigory that the brains of everybody in Tranquil Repose are being used to metamorphosise into new Dalek mutants.
Moving in and out of moments of lucidity and Dalek-like hateful ranting, Stengos begs his daughter to kill him before he fully mutates.
Eric Saward thought up the idea of blue 'mourning' suits for Necros in order to cover up Colin Baker's costume, which he considered inappropriate for a drama series.
Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant appear entirely on film in Part One and have no interaction with the actors in the video segments.
[3] She also appeared in a Doctor Who radio drama, Loups-Garoux (2001), in which she played the wealthy heiress Ileana de Santos.
[4] Colin Spaull later appeared in the Tenth Doctor story "Rise of the Cybermen"/"The Age of Steel" (2006) also directed by Graeme Harper.
[6] Penelope Lee, who played the voice of the computer, had in 1963 auditioned for one of the original four regular leads in Doctor Who, "Miss McGovern".
[12] Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping gave the serial a positive review in The Discontinuity Guide (1995), saying that it "looks wonderful and the plot is just about consistent and straightforward."
They praised guest stars William Gaunt and Alexei Sayle, as well as how the Sixth Doctor "finally gets to be Doctorish, with proper doses of compassion.
[15] In Doctor Who: The Complete Guide, Mark Campbell awarded it eight out of ten, describing it as "an incredibly violent black comedy".
He added, "Harper's direction is visceral, the actors are having a whale of a time and it's all held together by Roger Limb's spine-chilling music.
Club, described it as "a grim, depressing slog", arguing that "Saward is simply not a strong enough writer to pull this off, failing to provide the clever dialogue, well-thought-out underlying concepts or basic plot mechanics that might have made this work, and also apparently actively hostile to the notion that anyone in Doctor Who, or watching it, should be having any fun."
It's nobody's finest hour and aside from introducing an instantly iconic glass model, it's a cynical and contrived runaround that does nothing to embellish either the Daleks or the Doctor.
"[20] Virgin Books (the successor to Target) announced plans to publish a novelisation by Saward in the early 1990s, but this ultimately did not occur.
A fan group in New Zealand published an unofficial novelisation of the story in 1992, later republishing it online as an e-book titled Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks.
[24] However, the Hendrix track was reinstated for the 2022 Season 22 blu-ray box set release (see below), so the story is now presented on home media in its original as-broadcast uncut version.