Saturday 24 June 2017

168 The Evil of the Daleks: Episode Six

EPISODE: The Evil of the Daleks: Episode Six
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 168
STORY NUMBER: 036
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 24 June 1967
WRITER: David Whitaker
DIRECTOR: Derek Martinus and Timothy Combe
SCRIPT EDITOR: Peter Bryant
PRODUCER: Innes Lloyd
RATINGS: 6.8 million viewers
FORMAT: CD: Doctor Who: The Lost TV Episodes Volume Four(1967)
TELESNAPS: The Evil of the Daleks: Episode Six

"You will take the Dalek factor. You will spread it to the entire history of Earth!"

The three new Daleks continue to play with the Doctor engaging him in a game of trains pushing him round the room. The Doctor explains that he and Jamie are their friends and gives them name & a marking: Alpha, Beta & Omega. All the Daleks are recalled to Skaro. Maxtible tells Waterfield Victoria has been released and Waterfield searches for her while Maxtible packs a bag. He discovers a device on the floor: a Dalek Time bomb. He is dismayed that the Daleks intend to destroy his lab. Waterfield returns and attacks Maxtible but Maxtible knocks him out and leaves with the last Dalek. The Doctor & Jamie find Waterfield and jury rig the time machine to follow the Daleks, disappearing as the bomb detonates. Victoria & Kemel are held in a cell on Skaro: Maxtible visits them before leaving with a Dalek. The Doctor, Jamie & Waterfield have arrived outside the city. The Doctor finds a tunnel to the interior. Maxtible encounters a black domed Dalek, angry at his failure to bring The Doctor to Skaro. An alarm sounds: intruders are detected. Dalek Omega is found by another black domed Dalek and taken away. Victoria is taken away by the Daleks and screams, attracting the attention of the Doctor's party who then meet Dalek Omega in the corridor. Dalek Omega is a fake, which the Doctor detects pushing it off a ledge to it's doom. The Doctor's party reach the Dalek control room where they encounter the giant Emperor Dalek.

EMPEROR: Doctor!
JAMIE: Look at the size of that thing.
EMPEROR: So, you are the Doctor.
DOCTOR: We meet at last. I wondered if we ever would.
EMPEROR: The experiment is over.
DOCTOR: Yes, I have implanted the human factor in the three Daleks that you gave me. When I say run, run!
EMPEROR: Speak louder.
DOCTOR: Promise me, Jamie. I was merely telling my friend that the day of the Daleks is coming to an end.
EMPEROR: Explain.
DOCTOR: It's very simple. Somewhere in the Dalek race there are three Daleks with the human factor. Gradually, they will come to question. They will persuade other Daleks to question. You will have a rebellion on your planet!
EMPEROR: No.
DOCTOR: I say yes. I've beaten you and I don't care what you do to me now.
EMPEROR: Silence. The human factor showed us what the Dalek factor was.
DOCTOR: What?
JAMIE: What does that mean?
EMPEROR: Without knowing, you have shown the Daleks what their own strength is.
WATERFIELD: While you were doing one thing, they were really making you do another.
EMPEROR: The human factor is useless.
DOCTOR: You still have those three Daleks to contend with.
EMPEROR: They will be impregnated with the Dalek factor. Your discovery, but your work is not over.
DOCTOR: I won't work for you.
EMPEROR: You will obey!
JAMIE: What is the Dalek factor?
DOCTOR: You want me to guess? It means to obey, to fight, to destroy, to exterminate. I won't do it.
EMPEROR: Watch!

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JAMIE: The Tardis, Doctor!
EMPEROR: You will take the Dalek factor. You will spread it to the entire history of Earth!

Thus does the Dalek plan stand revealed. It's a bit like a typical Cyberman plan: over complicated and a bit rubbish. Can't they can easily travel in time themselves distributing the Dalek factor? So what do they need the Doctor for?

The child Daleks are great, a contrast to the usual Dalek behaviour and unlike the servant Daleks in Power absolutely genuine. But no sooner are they introduced then they disappear, recalled to Skaro, Not Skaros, take note Mr Maxtible! In fact this whole episode is VERY fast moving and lots packed in with the Child Daleks, Bomb, arriving on Skaro, and meeting the Emperor. You feel some of this material could have been given a little bit more space and longer on screen compared to some of the things that dragged in earlier episodes.

And finally, after six episodes hunting for it, The Doctor & Jamie find the Tardis! Still a bit of work to do before they can get it back though!

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We get to see the Dalek Emperor on screen for the first time here. There's been a Dalek Emperor in the comics for ages, a gold Dalek with a sphere shaped dome replacing the existing dome and neck. Many people later speculated that the Emperor might be Davros, TV creator of the Daleks, and in a self fulfilling prophecy the white domed but armless Emperor of Remembrance of the Daleks is revealed to be Davros.

EmperorTV21 Emperoro Remembrance

A Dalek Emperor is seen in the new series too in Bad Wolf & Parting of the Ways but that one's obviously a Dalek. You can't be sure when this story is set in Dalek chronology but my guess is this Emperor isn't Davros. If I had to point a figure at someone I'd be looking at the Dalek leader in Genesis of the Daleks.

When I first blogged these episodes I had been listening to many of these audio only episode while out and about on buses and trains: Evil 6 was heard while travelling from Kingston to Richmond to get some lunch (very nice Dim Sum, thank you. Why can't you get Dim Sum in Swindon?) On the way back a chap sitting opposite me on the bus was wearing a Salvador Dalek T-Shirt, parodying the famous Dali painting of the melting clock! An odd coincidence!

So for the first time since The Daleks we're definitely back on Skaro. There's a chance it might have appeared in The Space Museum & The Chase but the Dalek's base planet is unnamed there and could easily be Kembel or something else. We get to see, both inside and out, a new version of the Daleks' city and because we get to see inside it it's a return for the familiar heartbeat sound of the Dalek control room noise.

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Skaro means yet more Daleks so we're joined by a fourth Dalek operator: Murphy Grumbar. Under his original acting name of Peter Murphy he appeared in the Daleks and the Dalek Invasion of Earth before appearing as a Mechanoid in the Chase under his revised name. He'll be back in Day of the Daleks, Frontier in Space, Planet of the Daleks and Death to the Daleks as well as playing Arcturus in Curse of Peladon.

vlcsnap-00029 There's a new type of Dalek here too: Silver ones with a Black dome. Their actual function isn't stated in the story but they're frequently described as Emperor Dalek Guards. When the Emperor returned in the new series he too had normal Daleks with Black domes as his guards! There's every indication these Black domes are a last minute decision. In fact the Last Dalek, an 8mm film of special effects sequences for this story that you can find on the Doctor Who - Lost In Time DVD, shows a normal coloured Dalek having it's dome painted black on set!

Saturday 17 June 2017

167 The Evil of the Daleks: Episode Five

EPISODE: The Evil of the Daleks: Episode Five
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 167
STORY NUMBER: 036
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 17 June 1967
WRITER: David Whitaker
DIRECTOR: Derek Martinus and Timothy Combe
SCRIPT EDITOR: Peter Bryant
PRODUCER: Innes Lloyd
RATINGS: 5.1 million viewers
FORMAT: CD: Doctor Who: The Lost TV Episodes Volume Four(1967)
TELESNAPS: The Evil of the Daleks: Episode Five

"No, Mister Terrall, I am not a student of human nature. I am a professor of a far wider academy, of which human nature is merely a part. All forms of life interest me."

Kemel & Jamie throw a rope round the Dalek and propel it off the balcony destroying it. They barricade themselves into Victoria's room. The Doctor takes a break and is found by Terrall sipping a glass of wine. They disagree, the Doctor observing that he's never seen Terrall eat or drink. Terrall threatens the Doctor with a sword that becomes magnetised when Terrall holds it. Jamie asks Victoria what has happened but her memory is hazy, as if she'd been hypnotised. Meanwhile Maxtible demonstrates hypnotic skills to Terrall using Molly. Maxtible orders Terrall to fetch Victoria. The Doctor has isolated elements of The Human Factor - courage, pity, chivalry, friendship and compassion - in a positronic brain to be added to each of the three inert Daleks that have been brought to the house. Victoria is abducted by Terrall using a secret passage, Jamie follows and engages Terrall in a sword fight. Terrall suddenly collapses. The Doctor appears and takes a Dalek control device off him. He orders Ruth and Molly to take him as far away as possible. Kemel finds Victoria in the lab but they are cornered by a Dalek he orders them into the Cabinet the Daleks are coming out of. They vanish, back to the Dalek home world Skaro. The brains are installed in three new Daleks which wake up and play with Doctor playfully pushing him round the room.

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Awww, that's a great sequence at the end as the Doctor activates the child like Daleks!

There's lots going on here. Terrall's been under Dalek control all along: he's freed, removing him, Molly & Ruth from the story. Maxtible's hypnotism is revealed to be the means behind Victoria's kidnap and the Doctor activates three child like Daleks. Even Victoria gets a little to do before being taken to Skaro.

I think my biggest problem with Evil of the Daleks concerns these middle 3 episodes of the story, three, four and five. There's four characters in here, Ruth, Molly, Toby and Terrall that don't really seem essential to what's going on. Terrall's only real function is in this episode where he grabs Victoria and takes her to the lab. Surely the same thing could have been easily achieved with Maxtible's hypnotism? I think another pass at Evil could eliminate those four characters and shorten the story by an episode in turn making Jamie's testing by the Daleks a lot shorter: it feels like it's gone on forever!

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The testing has effected Jamie and leads to them having a major disagreement:

DOCTOR: Well, Jamie, the experiment's nearly over. I've had no sleep. I've been up all night, but it's been worth it.
JAMIE: Och, don't touch me!
DOCTOR: Oh, now what's the matter?
JAMIE: Anyone would think this was a little game.
DOCTOR: No it is not a game.
JAMIE: Of course it isn't, Doctor. People have died. The Daleks are all over the place, fit to murder the lot of us, and all you can say is you've had a good night's work.
DOCTOR: Jamie.
JAMIE: No, Doctor. Look, I'm telling you this. You and me, we're finished. You're just too callous for me. Anything goes by the board. Anything at all.
DOCTOR: That's just not true, Jamie. I've never held that the end justifies the means.
JAMIE: Och, words. What do I care about words? You don't give that much for a living soul except yourself.
DOCTOR: I care about life. I care about human beings. Do you think I let you go through that Dalek test lightly?
JAMIE: I don't know. Did you? Look, Doctor, just whose side are you on?
The outcome of this is put on hold as the three Daleks are activated.

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A third Dalek means a third Dalek Operator so joining Robert Jewell, who's been in the story since the first episode, and Gerald Taylor, who was added to the cast in the third, is John Scott Martin. He'd made his Doctor Who début in The Web Planet as a Zarbi graduating to Dalek Operator in The Chase three stories later a role he'd repeated in Mission to the Unknown, The Dalek Masterplan and Power of the Daleks. He'll return as a Dalek in Day of the Daleks, Frontier in Space, Planet of the Daleks, Death to the Daleks, Genesis of the Daleks, The Five Doctors, Resurrection of the Daleks, Revelation of the Daleks and Remembrance of the Daleks. He also plays the Robot in Colony in Space, Charlie in the Daemons, a Mutant in the Mutants, Hughes in The Green Death, a guard in Robot and Kriz in Brain of Morbius. His distinctive hair makes him a familiar figure amongst bit part actors in many television roles.

Years ago there was a big fan debate about if the Doctor ate meat or drank alcohol. Well he has some wine here, and he's positively knocking it back in Day of the Daleks. Meat is a little harder but he has mutton stew in Planet of the Spiders as we recently saw when the DVD came out. We'll keep an eye out for more evidence for these two arguments.

Saturday 10 June 2017

166 The Evil of the Daleks: Episode Four

EPISODE: The Evil of the Daleks: Episode Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 166
STORY NUMBER: 036
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 10 June 1967
WRITER: David Whitaker
DIRECTOR: Derek Martinus
SCRIPT EDITOR: Peter Bryant
PRODUCER: Innes Lloyd
RATINGS: 5.3 million viewers
FORMAT: CD: Doctor Who: The Lost TV Episodes Volume Four(1967)
TELESNAPS: The Evil of the Daleks: Episode Four

"Obey the Daleks!"

Jamie and Kemel fight but Kemel falls off a roof. He then saves Jamie's life from a booby trapped blade and a truce is formed between them as they go together to rescue Victoria. The Doctor and the Daleks confer on what is the human factor. Waterfield & Maxtible discover Toby's body: Maxtible is appalled and refuses to co-operate. Maxtible is about to shoot him when Arthur Terrall appears and offers to dispose of the body. Terrall catches Molly wandering the house and is furious at her: Ruth Maxtible, Terrall's fiancée, protects Molly but wants to know why Terrall is so changed. Ruth comes to speak with her father who tells her how the Daleks are going to give him the secret of alchemical transmutation to gold. Jamie & Kemel near where Victoria is hidden but are cornered by Daleks.

A bit of an odd episode this week: lots of fighting and wandering through potentially trapped corridors, the sort of thing that probably works better with moving visuals. Troughton's off on holiday this week, his first break, so he appears only in brief pre filmed inserts observing the tests that Jamie & Kemel are enduring.

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Deborah Watling as Victoria is mostly absent too, in fact she's hardly appeared in any of the three episodes she's been in so far. It's very much the Jamie McCrimmon action half hour this week!

4b 4a

We do learn something interesting about Jamie this episode: He can read. He reads both Kemel's name and Victoria's initials. Given the time period Jamie is from I'd have thought literacy levels weren't that high. Is he well educated for the time or is the Tardis somehow giving him the ability to read?

In fact it's interesting that Kemel himself, a mute Turk, can write English. I suspect Maxtible's description of him in the previous episode does Kemel a severe disservice! Jamie befriending the mute giant that everyone, save possibly Victoria, has previously looked down on is one of the highlights of this episode.

Behind the scenes Peter Bryant makes his début in the script editor's chair this episode as the replacement for Gerry Davis. He'll be playing musical chairs for much of the next few months between this and the producer's role. His arrival lead Victor Pemberton, who'd been serving as assistant script editor, to believe chances of his advancement to full script editor would be blocked but things turn out differently as we shall see resulting in us needing another new script editor in the not too distant fut

Saturday 3 June 2017

165 The Evil of the Daleks: Episode Three

EPISODE: The Evil of the Daleks: Episode Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 165
STORY NUMBER: 036
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 03 June 1967
WRITER: David Whitaker
DIRECTOR: Derek Martinus
SCRIPT EDITOR: Gerry Davis
PRODUCER: Innes Lloyd
RATINGS: 6.1 million viewers
FORMAT: CD: Doctor Who: The Lost TV Episodes Volume Four(1967)
TELESNAPS: The Evil of the Daleks: Episode Three

"You will not be exterminated!"

Toby takes Jamie to Arthur Terrel, a man obviously suffering from a mental disorder of some kind. He denies asking Toby to do this and drives him away, but while talking to Jamie suffers mood swings, a mild fit and denies things he said a little while earlier. The Doctor finds Jamie and brings him back to the house. The Doctor is commanded by the Daleks to isolate The Human Factor, the element that allows them to defeat the Daleks. Jamie to be put to the test and forced to rescue Victoria. Maxtible's servant Kemmel is assigned too guard Victoria and prevent Jamie from succeeding. The Doctor assures Waterfield that Jamie will co-operate but Jamie overhears them and has an argument with the Doctor during which he storms off to rescue Victoria aided by Molly the Maid. Seeking recompense for his services Toby breaks into the house and is exterminated. Jamie, seeking Victoria, finds the huge mute Kemmel blocking his path.

Lots of bits to the episode, which interrupts it's flow somewhat. Terrall is odd as a character: something has happened to him beyond his soldiering experience but what? The Doctor & Jamie arguing doesn't work for me though it's clever how the Doctor steers him into doing what he was meant to do anyway. The episode does feature a superb line, as Victoria is moved to different accommodation by a Dalek:

You will not be exterminated
This episode marks the last credit for Gerry Davis as Script Editor. He'll be back as a writer for Tomb of the Cybermen then Revenge of the Cybermen and, with frequent Doctor Who co-author Kit Pedler, will be responsible for the creation of highly regarded science fiction series Doomwatch that was finally released on DVD in 2016.

Joining the cast in the last episode was Marius Goring, a very well established actor who helped found the Equity union and twice served as it's president. The previous year to this he'd appeared in the Out of the Unknown episode Too Many Cooks as Wattari. Like many episodes of this series, it is missing from the BBC archives.

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Playing Maxtible's daughter Ruth is Brigit Forsyth, later to find fame as Thelma in Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?. Future Doctor Who writer Russell T Davies' casts her in his first children's tv fantasy production Dark Season as Miss Maitland.

The Maxtible's maid Mollie Dawson is played by Jo Rowbottom, who had auditioned for the role of Victoria. Five years prior to this production she's appears in an episode of Out of This World, the ITV predecessor to Out of the Unknown, as Elaine in Immigrant. She also appears in I, Claudius as Calpurnia in Hail Who? & A God in Colchester and in The Professionals as Betty Marlow in It's Only a Beautiful Picture.

3 Molly 3 Sonny Caldinez

Playing the Maxtible's mute Turkish manservant is the great Sonny Caldinez, appearing in Doctor Who for the first time here. A tall Trinidadian, he'll find his true calling in Doctor Who in three stories time when he makes his début as an Ice Warrior. He's the only actor to appear in all four Ice Warrior stories playing Turoc in The Ice Warriors, an unnamed Warrior in The Seeds of Death, Ssorg in Curse of Peladon and Sskel in Monster of Peladon.

Gary Watson plays Ruth Maxtible's fiancée as Arthur Terrall. He too has an Out of This World to his name appearing in Pictures Don't Lie as Nathen. Some years later he plays a radio reporter in Chocky, which was dramatised by another Doctor Who script editor Anthony Read.

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One of the most famous faces in the story only ha a very brief role: playing the thug Toby is Windsor Davies some years before his starring role as Battery Sergeant-Major Williams in It Ain't Half Hot Mum. This isn't his only brush with science fiction: he appears in the UFO episode The Cat with Ten Lives as Morgan then supplied the voice for Sergeant Major Zero in Terrahawks.

Joining the cast this episode as a second Dalek Operator is Gerald Taylor. Taylor first appears in the sixth episode of Doctor, The Daleks 2: The Survivors as a Dalek, a role he repeats in Dalek Invasion of Earth, The Chase, Mission to the Unknown, Dalek Masterplan and Power of the Daleks. He was in The Web Planet as a Zarbi, The War Machines as a War Machine & the Voice of Wotan and as Damon's assistant in The Underwater Menace. He can be seen again as The Baker's Man in The Dæmons episode 2 and then heavily made up as Vega Nexos in Monster of Peladon episode 1. Outside of Doctor Who he's in one of the currently missing second season episode of Out of the Unknown, The Naked Sun, as a robot. We were joined last episode by Peter Hawkins as a Dalek Voice: he's supplied the voices for the Daleks, mainly alongside David Graham, for every single one of their appearances so far including the two movies. He's also supplied the voices for the Cybermen in Tenth Planet and The Moonbase. This story is the last time we'll hear him as a Dalek in Doctor Who but he returns as a Cyberman voice for Tomb of The Cybermen and Wheel in Space. Hawkins makes one last appearance voicing a Dalek in the missing Out of the Unknown third season episode Get Off Of My Cloud

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Some of the larger interiors at Maxtible's house are filmed at Grim's Dyke in Harrow Weald, near where some exterior location filming was done for episode 1. The house was previously owned by W.S Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan fame.