I've got a bit of a soft spot for Remembrance of the Daleks. When I was a kid, the Daleks were the immediate draw card to Doctor Who, and I would instantly gravitate towards their stories. Chief among these was Remembrance of the Daleks, which is a story that I only relatively recently realised actually had a deep and meaningful concept behind it, because at the age of 10, all I saw was Dalek action.
And the most prevalent piece of Dalek action within this story is the cliffhanger to Part 1, where a Dalek climbs stairs and advances on the Doctor. It's an excellent cliffhanger, because it provides a great deal to the audience on different levels. On the one hand, it has the Doctor in immediate peril, which acts as a hook to get the audience to tune in the next week. On the next hand, it shows a development within the plot. These Daleks are clearly more advanced Daleks than the ones that we've previously seen, and so we should be a little worried about them than we already are. And finally, on a hitherto undiscovered third hand, it acts as a nod to the audience, acknowledging the joke that the Daleks can't climb stairs and using it to the story's dramatic advantage. And, to be perfectly honest, I just like it because it's pretty cool.
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