MR114. Brotherhood of the Daleks (SPOILERS)

Well, the Fourth Doctor does misquote Marx once or twice in The Sun Makers. Given that the French Revolution is one of his favourite periods in history and that most of his toppling of empires involves the workers rising up against their masters... It is in character and would likely be an ideology that makes sense to him. The Doctor's alien background likely means that he's seen non-human societies where genuine forms communism thrive. Everyone has ownership of production and class is a division that fundamentally does not exist.

That said, I don't think he would have condoned the senseless destruction that occurred through Mao's Cultural Revolution. He'd have probably been on the ground trying to preserve as much of their pre-revisionist history as he could. His dismissal of Leninism is probably because it ignores the reformist aspects of The Communist Manifesto (the original pamphlet written by Engels and Marx). The "bourgeoisie" (upper classes, royals, etc.) according to Lenin are to be destroyed rather than reincorporated into society.

Communism, as outlined in the Manifesto, is a nice idea. It's a curiously strong fixture of Utopian science fiction, probably in no small part thanks to Roddenberry's vision of Star Trek. Everyone gets their fair share and all are treated equally. No need to want or hunger. Unfortunately, like a lot of ideas, humans have a habit of using them as an excuse for their own self-serving aims. It gets put down in scripture or in a pamphlet and the text is subsequently cherry-picked for what they need to drive them to power.

Another good example is common perceptions of existentialism. Existentialism, contrary to popular culture, is not nihilism. Instead, it's a school of thought that says: "It's okay that there probably isn't an objective truth. More than okay, it's amazing. You get the ultimate freedom: to decide what it all means for you personally."

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Edit: I forgot to say something about Brotherhood itself. I think it comes from a really strong run of stories and has an unusually intricate "matryoshka doll" plot that's just lovely to untangle. Everything involved gets used extremely well -- from the Doctor to Charley to the titular biomechanical menace -- and the returning elements aren't used as the main draw of the story, which allows for the original material to come across rather strongly. Bolstered by its past memories, rather than engulphed by them like victims of the kyropites. I think it manages to do something almost totally new for the Daleks, which is impressive enough on its own, but it also deals with the ongoing arc buzzing away in the background. One of my favourites. Definitely recommended.

So complex that I remember having a hard time figuring out what the heck was going on, as I remember.

What's odd is Charley suddenly using words and references from her own time, when she should be avoiding them. She must have picked up enough from her travels with Eight to have a more varied reference pool.

True, but what Charley says is unique to this story, especially at the level she does. In Return of the Krotons and Raincloud Man she's back on the defensive. Might be an effect of the pollen.

Definitely one you need to focus on, and even knowing the twists ahead of time it's still mighty confusing!

I love the cliffhangers. The first one is so left field, out of the frying pan and into the (line of) fire. The second one really makes you hate cliffhangers, any resolution that wasn't Charley spilling the beans would be a cop-out (the ventilation system failing wasn't too bad a resolution though).

Amazing story - great fun and really thought provoking.

Challenges the idea of Daleks as robotic fascists. Not sure what Nation would have made of it. This is one that I would dearly love to see as a TV episode - against Capaldi's Doctor.