Inspirations - Death to the Daleks

Death to the Daleks marks the latest of Terry Nation's annual contributions to the series. We didn't know it at the time, but it would be the last Dalek story before Davros came along, so in many ways it is the end of the line for the Skarosians as a menace in their own right. We won't see them like this again until 2005.
Nation submitted a fairly standard and routine plot. Daleks and human(oid)s turn up on the same planet, and fight it out. Daleks lose. In his original submission it was going to be yet another jungle planet, but that would look too similar to the previous season's contribution - Planet of the Daleks.
As with that story, the humanoids are a military outfit, here on a mission. In this instance, it is a team from Earth, who have come to this world in search of a cure for a terrible space plague. A preoccupation with plague had begun for Nation with Planet, as the Daleks had brewed up something nasty in their laboratory which they planned to release into the jungles of Spiridon. Nation would soon devise a whole series centred around a plague which wipes out most of the population of Earth - Survivors. And one of Davros' defining moments will be his conversation with the Fourth Doctor where he is asked if he would release a virus that would destroy every living thing. (He would. That power would set him up above the gods. And through the Daleks he will get that power. In case you didn't know).
The cure for the plague would be an elixir - which is where the name of this planet, Exxilon, comes from. Yet again, Nation can't resist a planet name that fits the plot, or comes from some distinctive feature of the place.

The story opens with the Doctor and Sarah on their way to the planet Florana (which presumably has lots of flowers, as well as an effervescent ocean you can't sink in). This means it follows directly on from the closing scene of the last story - cos that's where the Doctor said he was taking Sarah. That means we have had three stories which have run consecutively, with no gaps in between for other adventures.
The TARDIS flies too close to Exxilon, and suffers a catastrophic power failure. As with his previous script, Nation seems to have a view of the TARDIS which is unlike any of the other writers of this era. He seems to be stuck in the early Hartnell days, when the ship is just that - a spaceship. Last time he introduced us to the ship's oxygen supply, and this time we learn that the doors can be cranked open with something that looks like an old car's starting handle. It is never explained how the TARDIS, travelling through the Vortex, can be affected by the power drain in the first place.
The Doctor and Sarah venture outside and are fairly quickly separated. He is captured by the Exxilon people, who wear camouflaging cloaks and have skull-like faces, only to escape easily and encounter the Earth party. Sarah is also captured by the Exxilons, as she has strayed too close to their city. This is a forbidden zone, so she faces being sacrificed to the complex.

It transpires that the Exxilons were once a highly advanced, space-faring race, who visited many planets. They built a huge city to act as a repository for all their accumulated knowledge, giving it an artificial intelligence and means to defend itself. It promptly decided that it was superior to its makers and cast them out. On top of the city is a beacon which is the source of the power drain - designed to feed the city, as well as to stunt any future technological development which might come to threaten it. The Exxilons turned their backs on technology and degenerated into primitive, superstitious people over time.
Mention is made that the city looks like something from Central or South America - similar to an ancient Mayan building. The Doctor then goes on to say that he thinks this shows that we were once visited by the Exxilons.
This brings us to one of the chief inspirations for this aspect of the story - what is commonly known as "Ancient Astronauts" these days.
In order to explain structures which were built by the ancient Egyptians and peoples like the Mayans, a theory was formulated that they had outside help. How else could they have achieved what they did, with little technology and basic tools? Their modern descendants lacked the skills and technology to do it, so someone else must have helped. Back in the 19th Century, some writers began to point the finger at the lost city of Atlantis. This civilisation was supposed to have had advanced tech, so survivors from Atlantis must have traveled across the globe and lent their expertise.
Over time, Atlantis itself mutated to become something more than just a human civilisation. It must also have had some external help in its development. That help was extraterrestrial.

They arrived thousands of years ago and helped primitive humans to develop. Some say they are still here, having bred into the human gene pool as a means of survival. Others posit that they left, but will be back one day to check on our progress. Others, of course, say that they have done nothing but come back and check on us - giving rise to countless stories of UFO sightings and alien abductions. The two most common homes cited for these aliens are Sirius, and a Mondas-like tenth planet called Nibiru, or Planet X, which is hidden out there in deep space but is going to return to the solar system any day soon. There are those who claim that it will actually crash into the Earth, so its return will mark doomsday.
Go on-line and you will find a plethora of theories about Nibiru or aliens from Sirius, the former tied in with End of the World scenarios.
One of the people who helped popularise the whole ancient astronaut thing was a Swiss writer named Erich Von Daniken. In 1968 he published the best-selling book Chariots of the Gods?. This looked at the pyramids of Egypt and Central / South America, and other landmarks such as the Nazca Lines, and proposed that these had all been created by, or for, alien visitors. The Nazca Lines in Peru, for instance, are runways - making it an ancient spaceport. The giant animal figures in the desert nearby were designed to be seen from the air, and could not have been created by people on the ground. Some stone carvings, of people apparently wearing space helmets, and surrounded by strange patterns which looked like machinery, were clearly images of these ancient astronauts.
It might be worth mentioning at this point that Von Daniken once served time in prison for fraud and embezzlement, so it's up to you to decide if his views should be lent any sort of credence. Millions of people believe he and others to have the right idea - Ancient Aliens is currently on its 13th season on the History Channel, after all.
Personally, I think it a load of nonsense, and agree that such theories are totally ethnocentric, if not downright racist.

Anyhow, back to Doctor Who. Into this mix of Exxilons and humans, the Daleks arrive in time for their End of Episode One appearance. They also suffer from the power drain, so we have them weaponless for the first time. The cliffhanger is spoiled somewhat by their guns firing for far too long before the credits roll - showing us that they don't work. Ever resourceful, they will later switch to projectile firing weapons - which afford us the sight of them testing them on little TARDIS models. The implication is that these things come as standard on all Dalek saucers - showing us just what an impact the Doctor has had on their culture. The Daleks claim that the space plague is afflicting planets in their empire as well, but we will later learn that they have plague-missiles on board their ship - suggesting that they might have been responsible for the whole disease in the first place.
One of the humans - the gruff Scotsman Galloway - cheats his nice colleague Peter out of getting command of the mission once its commander dies, and he later tries to ally himself with the Daleks. Traitorous humans are a staple of most Terry Nation scripts.
The Doctor gets an ally once he has saved Sarah from sacrifice - a member of a subterranean faction of Exxilons who shun superstition. This is Bellal, and actor Arnold Yarrow went to London Zoo to observe bush babies as part of his preparation for the role.
The Doctor and Bellal break into the city, to knock out the beacon from within. The Daleks, meanwhile, send Galloway and Nice Peter to nobble it from the outside - planting bombs to destroy it.

We should mention that this story has been script edited by Robert Holmes, though he isn't getting any credit just yet. (Terrance Dicks is still knocking Monster of Peladon into shape). Holmes had a habit of padding under-running scripts with deadly puzzle challenges. He may have got the idea from here, if this section of the story isn't actually his to begin with. For the Doctor and Bellal have to spend an episode working their way through the city's interior, facing a number of deadly booby-traps and having to solve puzzles (mazes and odd-one's out).
We know the episodes were under-running because they had to re-edit them - moving material from one part to another. This is why we get what is probably the worst cliffhanger of all time at the end of Part Three - the Doctor being alarmed by some floor tiles. The episode should have ended with the Daleks rounding the exterior corner of the building to exterminate the Doctor and Bellal - the audience thinking them unable to get in.
The Doctor and Bellal finally get to the control centre and sabotage the city's "brain", but Galloway and Nice Peter blow up the beacon anyway. Seems odd that the city, with many defence mechanisms, should have nothing whatsoever to protect its exterior, and be susceptible to a single bomb.
Sarah and Earth girl Jill Tarrant (a permutation of that name yet again), meanwhile, have been swapping the Daleks' supply of plague-curing minerals for bags of sand. When their Skarosian guard discovers this, he promptly has a nervous breakdown and self-destructs. If this is common practice then it is a wonder that there are many Daleks at all, so often are they defeated.
Galloway comes good in the end, and keeps one of the bombs for himself - stowing away on the departing Dalek saucer to blow it, and himself, up.
The city crumbles to dust, causing the Doctor to lament that now the universe only has 699 Wonders.
This is a reference to the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World - the Great Pyramid (the only one left), the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Temple of Artemis, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, and the Lighthouse of Alexandria. Nation may have been thinking of the latter when he came up with the idea of the big flashing beacon on top of the Exxilon city.
Next time: A proper sequel, as we return to Peladon, where the miners are badgering the toffs for a pay rise. The industrial action of the mid-1970's finds its way into the programme - even if the producer and script editor deny it...