I prefer stories where Daleks blow shit up. Genesis has about a minute worth of Dalek material across the six parts and frankly I'm not fond of Wisher's Davros either.
Aw come on! By that logic the RTD Dalek stories should be the bestest evah then as they blow plenty of shit up in those. The Stolen Earth has more Dalek action than ANY classic era story including Remembrance. Hell the Parting of the Ways has more Daleks and Dalek fight scenes than the majority of classic who stories at least. Similarly by that logic the Hammer Dracula's are the worst as Christopher Lee only has a very little screen time across all of the movies, whilst Alien (1979) is worse than either Alien 3, Alien Resurrection or AVP as the monster has literally a minute of screen time in the first film.
Genesis uses the Daleks better than any other story. It does make the Daleks more formidable than ever before. A few of them take down the entire Thal city. Beyond that it also focuses on how evil they are, which a lot of Dalek stories don't do. Like the Eccelston story Dalek for instance. It focuses on how badass they are, but Genesis gets it right and shows you why they are so dangerous beyond just they can shoot lots of people.
At the end they are shown to be so monstrous they not only overthrow Davros, but also shock their own creator, a man who has carried out a double genocide, with how ruthless and evil they are.
Genesis is also the story that establishes that you cannot reason with the Daleks, that they truly are an always chaotic evil race, by showing you that they were conditioned that way. Unlike the Timeless Children however it doesn't f*ck up past stories. It actually explains the Daleks behaviour in them better. It explains why we never saw a benevolent Dalek, a Dalek that had its own ambitions, a Dalek that just wanted to survive.
In terms of how they are presented meanwhile, they've never been better. Their voices are also harsher and more powerful, they're filmed to look larger and more menacing (like when we see them slowly gliding from below in the trenches) and best of all they emphasis their inhumanity as well as their power by having them genuinely not being able to understand what pity is. This isn't like the Cybermen who understand it but think it is a weakness. A daleks brain just isn't hardwired that way. Sure they might be able to later learn about it for practical purposes, but even then they never truly understand it.
At the same time it also makes you feel sorry for the Daleks to some extent, as we see how they started out as a race like us who could feel compassion, love, mercy, decide their own path for themselves, but the vision of one twisted man, corrupted them forever. Also the story does raise the question of how perhaps they are a necessary evil, with the Doctors speech pointing out that worlds could end up being united by their hatred of the Daleks. For instance Earth and Draconia. Whilst we know both will be locked in a war with the Daleks for centuries, perhaps if the Daleks didn't exist then they would wipe each other out in say the 22nd century? Similarly for all we know some of the greatest advances in human society occur in our war with the Daleks. Maybe the discovery of a new spaceship that proves vital to human survival is only triggered during the 2nd Dalek war? Also who knows maybe one of the many races the Daleks conquered and destroyed, would grow up to be even worse than the Daleks, or maybe their occupation by the Daleks changes them for the better. Perhaps they were a war like culture, and the evil of the Daleks convinced them not to be, but without that they will be the worst of the worst?
Genesis raises all of these questions and shows you that it is never as simple as just get rid of the bad guys and everything will be okay. Even with monsters like the Daleks. To this day 50 years on, people STILL debate whether or not he did the right thing. Pretty incredible when you consider this story also shows the Daleks at their most malevolent.
Also Wishers Davros is arguably the best villain the show ever had. He's as evil as they come, but they still manage to give him a 3 dimensional personality, disproving that cliche that you don't have to have a villain cry on the inside to be menacing. He is someone who to the wider world is trying to find a way for his people to survive, though deep down he obviously wants to remake his race in his own image, though perhaps there is a bit of both, as he has deluded himself into believing that he is superior. At the same time however you can have some sympathy with him, not through his actions, but when you look at the world he grew up in. Not only have his people been locked in a war for centuries, but as a mutant in a society that casts them out, he obviously feels insecure, inferior and deep down wants the type of person he is to be the majority. Whilst he is a megalomaniac who wants power, at the same time he clearly does think that the Daleks are the best course of action for his people, as in his mind. He is not only making them follow his philosophy, but removing weaknesses like pity and compassion, which in Davros' mind is what stopped his people from destroying the Thals. You're just left to wonder throughout the story which is his greater motive.
The ending meanwhile is brilliant because Davros finally realises that pity and remorse aren't weaknesses after all, when he finally ends up showing compassion to people who have shown him genuine loyalty. In his final moments when he tries to kill them, Davros finally realises what a monster he has unleashed on the universe.
Also Wishers performance is perfect. He underplays it throughout most of the story. No Missy style OTT crap, yet when he has to he adds a hysterical aspect, that now and again does almost veer into Dalek territory, but never completely, which sets up the ending where even he isn't able to go as far as they are brilliantly.
The only complaints about Genesis are that the ending is a bit too neat, though even then the Doctors final words do set things up quite nicely for future stories and ideas. Still it doesn't drag as there is always something happening, from brutal torture scenes, to daring escapes up a rocket, to two genocides, to a political rebellion, to the Daleks turning on their master. Really it's perfect.
And this is before we get to its deeper political meaning. Unlike the Chinballs era, here it is done in a subtle way. The Thals working with the Daleks is a great metaphor for how certain people will work with groups and countries they know are evil, but don't care if they can benefit and often end up unleashing something they can't control. "They are hungry for victory Nyder". It's similar to how the US government backed people like the Khmer Rouge who they knew were psychopaths because they were hungry for victory, as well as an eerie foreshadowing of the way the US government would arm and support Osama Bin Laden and other Islamic extremists in the hopes that they could control the middle east through them, only for it to rebound on their country and the rest of the world, like Davros sending the Daleks to attack the Thals.
At the same time the Kaleds still trying to reason with Davros and not just locking him up also serves as quite a good metaphor of how people's inaction can lead to the rise of evil figures, like Hitler, who the Weimar republic stupidly put in a position of power.
Talons just can't measure up to any of this? What's it got? Another Jack the Ripper/Mad scientist villain? Greel's motives are just that he wants his experiments to succeed. That's fine, but it's not quite like Davros where we see how the world he came from shaped him to be what he is. Also he never has any moment of reflection, or anything like Davros trying to wipe out his life's work. He is just a shouty mad guy to the end and his death is more straight forward.
His supporting villain the magician meanwhile is actually a fairly complex villain, with his death scene being strangely moving, but sadly it's hard to appreciate him or hold him up as an example of a great villain as much as Davros as he is a racist caricature. Maybe not the worst by the standards of the time, sure, but you don't have to be an SJW, or want the story cancelld or anything like that to say "yeah that is unfortunate." And is ultimately something that Genesis doesn't suffer from with either Davros or Nyder.
Talons is also very slow in certain places. There are entire moments that are just the Doctor and Leela chit chatting or eating and yes the rat is worse than the clam, as the clam only appears once, is shrouded in darkness and that's it. The Dalek mutant meanwhile is fine. It's meant to look gross rather than formidable like a leech. Also some of the other bits of direction and production values in Talons are pretty poor too, like the fight scene. Louise Jameson is awful surprisingly at throwing punches when Leela is taking on the Chinese guys. Her punches are way too slow, even Tom normally quite good at doing the fights is a bit off here, when he kicks the guy after throwing him down it's pretty lame.
Again Talons is overall good, but just compared to Genesis there is no comparison.
