304 Day of the Daleks: Episode One

EPISODE: Day of the Daleks: Episode One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 304
STORY NUMBER: 060
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 01 January 1972
WRITER: Louis Marks
DIRECTOR: Paul Bernard
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 9.9 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Day of the Daleks
EPISODE FORMAT: 625 video

"Jo, how would you like to spend the night in a haunted house?"

Sir Reginald Styles, organiser of the world peace conference, is working late at night when he's disturbed by a man dressed in combat gear who vanishes. The Doctor, working on the Tardis console with Jo, accidentally transports their future selves to this time for a brief while. The man returns hunting Styles but he is attacked by ape like Ogrons and left for dead. The Ogrons report back to their human controller in the future that the mission was a success. The injured man is taken to hospital by Unit but when the Doctor examines his gear he activates the time machine the man carried sending the man back to the future. This time transference is picked up by the controller's staff and he reports it to his masters.... As Styles leaves for China Jo & The Doctor elect to spend a night in his house. A squad of three humans from the future arrives to kill Styles. The Doctor works on the time machine activating it causing the squad to storm the house to try to get him to deactivate it. His use of the time machine is detected in the future by the rulers of Earth ...... The Daleks!

Ooooo, that was rather good, fabulously atmospheric.

When we meet The Doctor & Jo, The Doctor is at work on the Tardis once more, with the console removed from the ship like it was in Ambassadors of Death and Inferno. While he's at work something unexpected happens as a second Doctor and Jo walk into the lab!

JO: Doctor, why don't you take a break?
DOCTOR: It's maddening, you know. So nearly there. If I could only cut out their override on the dematerialisation circuit. Let me see those figures.
JO: Doctor? I thought the Tardis was working again.
DOCTOR: What gave you that idea?
JO: Oh, being dragged off to an alien planet five hundred years in the future, for example. Oh, you know, all that business with the miners and the colonists.
DOCTOR: My dear Jo, the Tardis was being operated then under remote control by the High Council of the Time Lords.
JO: Well, if it worked for them.
DOCTOR: I don't want it to work for them. I want it to work for me. No one's going to turn me into an interplanetary puppet. Yes, of course. Why didn't I think of that before?

DOCTOR 2: Yes, of course, I remember now. Look, don't worry, my dear. I know you're alarmed but you needn't be.
DOCTOR: Yes, well I think that should do it. Why on Earth I never realised that.
DOCTOR: Oh, no. What are you doing here?
DOCTOR 2: Well, I'm not here. Don't worry. Well, that is, in a sense I am here, but you are not there. Yes, well, it's a bit difficult to explain really.
DOCTOR: This won't do at all. We can't have two of us running about.
DOCTOR 2: Yes, well don't worry. It will all sort itself.

JO: Doctor? What happened?
DOCTOR: Well, it's a very complicated thing, time, Jo. Once you've begun tampering with it, the oddest things start happening.
JO: But there was another you and another me. Well, where've they gone?
DOCTOR: Back into their own time stream, of course. Or do I mean forward?
JO: But, Doctor, I don't understand.
DOCTOR: Look, Jo, don't worry about it. It was a freak affect. It's very unlikely to happen again.

This scene should have had a nice little pay off at the end of episode 4 as the unlikely thing happened again and the returning Doctor & Jo found their past selves working in the lab! The scene is still present in the book but had to be cut for time reason leaving the scene merely pre-empting some of the themes of the story.

Oddly, after visiting Auderley House and returning with the found gun, the Doctor refers to the scene occurring "a few moments ago"!

DOCTOR: Do you believe in ghosts, Brigadier?
BRIGADIER: Let's be serious, Doctor.
DOCTOR: I am.
BRIGADIER: Oh, come along, Doctor, come along.

DOCTOR: Oh, my mistake. I was forgetting the unimaginative nature of the military mind. But we saw a couple of amicas seperatas a few moments ago, didn't we, Jo?
JO: Did we?
DOCTOR: Yes, here in this laboratory.
JO: Oh, you mean when we
DOCTOR: Mind you, they were manifestations of a much more benevolent kind. None of your clanking chains and chilly fingers, but ghosts, none the less.
JO: That was because you were playing around with the time mechanism on the Tardis, wasn't it?
BRIGADIER: Still can't get it to work, eh?

Was there a rearrangement of the scene order in post production or an on set ad lib from Jon Pertwee referring to the scene they'd just shot?

Two stories exist about surrounding the Daleks return to Doctor Who for the first time since 1967' Evil of the Daleks: Terrance Dicks' version has them forgetting to ask Terry Nation's permission to use them, having to go to see Terry to apologise and being given a very nice, mainly liquid, lunch by him. Barry Letts' version is roughly the same, except they had the lunch when they went to see Terry Nation to ask permission to use the Daleks before work on the story started! Barry's version, while less of a good tale, is the one supported by the BBC paperwork. The meeting led to Robert Sloman, who wrote the Daemons with Barry Letts, being commissioned to write a storyline called “The Daleks In London” to close season 9.

Returning to the series after a considerable absence is script writer Louis Marks, who wrote the Hartnell tale The Planet of Giants and isn't the toy company that made Daleks. This is Marks' only Pertwee script but he'll be back for two more Tom Baker stories. His story originally titled “The Ghost Hunters”, later “Years Of Doom” and then “The Time Warriors”, was always designed to open season 9 but didn't feature the Daleks in it's original form which instead had a military dictatorship ruling Earth but retains the idea of rebels travelling back to this time.

Realising they needed a big event to hook the viewers in for the start of the new series, like the Master's debut and Autons return in Season 8's opener Terror of the Autons, Barry Letts & Terrance Dicks decide to use the Daleks as thee big villains in Louis Marks' story and instructed Sloman to write a different tale to close the season. The Daleks take a back seat in this episode, manipulating events behind the scenes through their human and Ogron allies.

My wife Liz laughed at the discontinuity between the two Ogrons who've been to the 20th century. One gives a slow monosyllabic report of their excursion:

CONTROLLER: Your report?
OGRON: We found and destroyed the enemy.
CONTROLLER: Any complications?
OGRON: No complications.
CONTROLLER: Good. They will be satisfied. I did not say dismiss. I want an intensified effort. There can be no relaxation. Not until we have found all those responsible for this menace and eliminated them too. Now you may go. Keep me informed of all developments.

The other Ogron dismisses enquiries as to if there were any problems with a quick No Complications! Did the director, first timer Paul Bernard, forget to tell one of them how they should be performing? It comes as no surprise o find this line cut from the special edition version on the Day of the Daleks DVD,

I do think there is one critical error in this episode: You see the Controller reporting to his masters halfway through the episode giving you a brief glimpse of them. I'd have saved the reveal of the Daleks until the end of the episode. It's tradition after all, and the intent to honour that is present in the dialogue with The Controller referring to the Ogrons' masters as "They"rather than by name! So when the Daleks do appear at the end of the episode, the reveal isn't really that dramatic. I'd have the voice appear earlier in the episode, perhaps distorted over an intercom, and then a big pull back and reveal at the end.

Aubrey Woods plays the Controller here and later was Krantor in Blake's 7: Gambit.

Deborah Brayshaw plays the speaking female Technician in the Daleks' future. Lurking in the back of these scenes is Brychan Powell as the Daleks' Guard. He's a Russian Aide in episode four, a Solonian in The Mutants, the Prime Minister in The Green Death, a Mentiad in The Pirate Planet, a Noble in The Androids of Tara, a Logopolitan in Logopolis, an Umpire in Black Orchid, a Business Passenger in Time Flight and a Citizen in Planet of Fire. He can also be seen in Doomwatch as a Man in Flood.

In amongst the other Female Technicians in the future we have Karen Burch who is a Woman Watching the Show in Snakedance and appears in Blake's 7 as a Pyroan in Volcano. Alison Daumler had been an extra in Doctor Who and the Silurians: Episode 6, which is the episode with people collapsing at the railway station while their numbers are rounded off by Scarlett O'Dare.

The time travelling Guerilla is played by Tim Condren who'd been in The Time Meddler as a Saxon warrior, The Web of Fear as a Soldier and Daleks - Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. as a Rebelling Roboman. He's also in a existing first season Out of the Unknown episode playing a Crewman in Sucker Bait and you can see that on the Out of the Unknown DVD Set. He appears in Space: 1999 as a Clansman in Journey to Where, a Star Wars as a Stormtrooper and not one but two Roger Moore James Bond films: The Spy Who Loved Me as a Russian Sub Crewman and A View to a Kill as a Thug at Stacey's House.

The music heard when the guerilla materialises in the 20th century is the first use of what will become the 70s Dalek theme!

Gypsie Kemp plays the U.N.I.T. Radio Operator: I wonder if they tried to get Fernanda Marlowe back as UNIT's Corporal Bell for this role which seems similar to the one she served in a few episodes last year?

Bara Chambers is the female U.N.I.T. Control Room Operator. She supplies the voice of Control in the first episode of the The Tomorrow People story The Vanishing Earth.

Leon Maybank plays the U.N.I.T. Male Operator with his back to the camera here! He was previously Scientist Ted Braun, crew number 12 in The Moonbase

Sir Reginald Styles is played by Wilfred Carter and his secretary Miss Paget by Jean McFarlane.

Carter returns as Styles towards the end of the story in episode 4 and it was planned for Jean McFarlane to return too. However the actress was taken ill and her lines in the studio session for that episode go to Styles’ Aide played by Desmond Verini.

You may remember during Evil of the Daleks 5 I mention the controversy amongst fans as to whether the Doctor ate meat or drank alcohol. Well here he's knocking back the wine here in an attempt to drink Styles' cellar dry!

DOCTOR: You know, one thing you can be certain of with politicians, is that whatever their political ideas, they always keep a well-stocked larder. Not to mention the cellar.
JO: Doctor, ought you just to help yourself like that?
DOCTOR: Well, you heard what Miss Paget said, Jo. We were to treat the place as our own.
JO: I wish you hadn't sent all the servants away.
DOCTOR: That's common sense. You can't expect a ghost to walk in a house full of people, can you? Come on, tuck in.
JO: Well, I'm not really hungry, thank you, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Well, you ought to eat something, you know. This is likely to be a very long night.
JO: What's that?
DOCTOR: It's a clock chiming. I say, you really ought to try this gorgonzola cheese. It's absolutely delicious!

DOCTOR: Yes. Yes, that's a most good humoured wine. A touch sardonic perhaps, but not cynical. Yes, a most civilised wine. One after my own heart.

By which point Jo's had enough of The Doctor's ruminations on food and goes for a wander, running into Sergeant Benton!

BENTON: Everything all right, miss?
JO: It was until you came along. You took years off my life creeping about like that.
BENTON: Well, I didn't want to disturb the Doc. What's he up to?
JO: Well, at the moment, he's carrying on rather like a one man food and wine society.
BENTON: Oh, talking of food, you, er, you couldn't get us a bite to eat, could you, miss? I'm famished.
JO: Hang on....

Jo then nicks the Doctor's late supper for Benton

BENTON: Ah, you've saved my life.
YATES: Sergeant Benton!
BENTON: Sir! No.
YATES: Just what do you think you're up to, Benton?
BENTON: I was just checking, sir.
YATES: Yes, well I want you to go and check on number three patrol. Move, Sergeant Benton.
BENTON: Sir.
YATES: Jo, how thoughtful.
JO: That wasn't very kind of you.
YATES: RHIP, Jo.
JO: Pardon?
YATES: Rank Has Its Privileges. Thank you.

One does feel sorry for Benton as his scavenged snack is purloined by his superior!

DOCTOR: And what was all that about?
JO: Feeding the troops.
DOCTOR: Oh, quite right. Do you know, I remember saying to old Napoleon. Boney, I said, always remember an army marches on its stomach.
JO: Well, Mike Yates certainly does.

Another bit of name dropping there from the Doctor!

Looking at the BBC's archive holdings now, this whole story is the earliest to completely exist on it's original 625 line video. Earlier episodes survive: The Ambassadors of Death 1, from 1970's Season 7, and The Claws of Axos 1 & 4 plus The Dæmons 4, from 1971's Season 8, but this is the first complete story to exist on it's original video, although 1970s Spearhead from Space was made, broadcast and retained on 16mm film. This is the only story from this season to survive on 625 line video but later stories his year, The Sea Devils and The Mutants, have some of their episodes surviving in their original format. Things improve drastically in 1973's season 10.