Last time we saw them, the Daleks were engaged in a terrible civil war on Skaro, and their city was in flames. The Doctor stated that this was the final end of the creatures - but was this just wishful thinking?
If they were wiped out then, how can they be here on Earth now? And especially this 'now', as this is supposed to be the 22nd Century - the very time period during which they had invaded the Earth in The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
At first glance, Day of the Daleks appears to be contradicting two previous Dalek stories.
As far as Evil of the Daleks is concerned, there was a line about the civil war which was cut. The Gold Dalek was to have said that the rebels were simply defeated, and the Emperor's forces won.
As the sequence was cut, we are left to decide for ourselves what happened. Did the Emperor win - or were the events of that story in the far future, and still to take place?
As for The Dalek Invasion of Earth, this is dealt with in the dialogue as broadcast, as the Gold Dalek states that they have invaded "again". In other words, these are time-travelling Daleks who have gone back into their own history and changed it. Rather than adopt their earlier plan to pilot the Earth through space, they are now simply content to mine it for its resources.
They timed this re-invasion to occur after the Earth had been weakened by nuclear war, and so later in this story they travel back in time once again to make sure that the war takes place.
This ability to time travel brings us to our first big issue. If they can travel to any point in history, why not just go to a period when humanity lacked any technology that might pose a threat to them, and invade then? All they want is labour and the mineral resources. They could have gotten these any time.
What's the obsession with the 22nd Century?
There are only three complete Dalek casings available to the director, who knows that there is going to be a big battle sequence in Part Four. He decides to paint one of them gold, to donate a leader.
This means, however, that we the audience can clearly see that there are only the three Daleks doing the invading, because you can never see more than two of the grey ones at a time, and the gold one is so noticeable.
It is claimed that no-one knew what settings to use on the ring modulator to get the Dalek voices right, but that doesn't explain why the two actors selected choose to break ev-er-y-word-down-in-to-its-sep-a-rate-syll-a-bles...
They take an age to say anything.
The director (Paul Bernard - who will go on to deliver the underwhelming The Time Monster, and screw up the ending to Frontier in Space) decided that the pay-off to the sequence where the Doctor and Jo see their doubles appear in the UNIT lab would be an anti-climax and so decided not to record it - failing totally to understand the concept of the wind-down. What would have been a neat bit of timey-wimeyness (before its time) gets ignored, and we are left with a scene which sets up a mystery that gets no pay-off.
Bernard also, for some unknown reason, decides to keep the closing music sting for the end of the reprise at the start of each episode. It comes across as sloppy editing - which it may well be.
You can only get a cuppa at UNIT HQ when the canteen is open. This is an organisation which deals with alien menaces who don't work 9 -5.
Why does the Brigadier allow the rearranged peace conference to take place at Styles' house when all sorts of things have already gone wrong there - what with vanishing guerrillas, assassination attempts and giant ape men etc. Why not hold it at some other venue that is easier to guard?
Why is Styles even being allowed to lead this conference? His refusal to accept the most blatant facts is bordering on the psychotic.
The climax Bernard does give us is of Styles telling everyone that they will strive for peace, after seeing what the alternative will be... He has seen only his house blowing up. Everyone was whisked away before the Daleks and Ogrons reached the house, and even if he did see them he's notoriously hard to convince of anything. How does he know who and what they are, and what relevance they have for the peace process? He suddenly seems to know all about stuff he can't possibly have been told about yet.
To stop Styles from blowing up his house the guerrillas bring along explosives that can blow up a house, yet it never clicks with them that the two events might be connected.
The bomb used by Shura is exactly the same size as the one that merely blows the top off a Dalek in another scene.
What kind of tactics are they taught when Anat says they should wait until it is light to make their move? Wait until the armed guards can see you?
Their time machines seem to operate differently for each character who uses them. Jo is transported when she operates one and is holding it - suggesting that this is how they work. But the guerrilla in the ambulance is transported when someone else uses the machine miles away and he's nowhere near the device.
This leads to another issue - what is the distance between Auderly House and UNIT HQ?
The Doctor and Jo manage to get back to UNIT HQ and mess about with guns and time machines, and the injured guerrilla is still only being placed in the ambulance.
The Doctor also mentions events at UNIT HQ having taken place "a few moments ago" when they are back at Auderly.
After the Doctor gets captured in the 22nd Century, he is interrogated by an official who is really working for the rebels. The man uses his radio after the Doctor has been taken away but gets caught doing so by the Ogrons and a human collaborator. Trouble is, the door to the room he is in makes a noise as it opens and closes - except when the Ogrons and human villain have to sneak up on him. The walls aren't solid, so it was a stupid place to radio the rebels from anyway.
The Daleks observe the Doctor on CCTV, but don't have any sound, so miss him identifying himself as their greatest enemy and planning an escape.
In the final episode the Doctor uses the tunnel to go back to the 20th Century, despite the fact that he already knows that the Controller and the Daleks now know all about the significance of this location. Sure enough, there's a trap waiting for them.
The Doctor has destroyed many aliens in the past, but in this episode we see him point a gun and personally shoot an alien life-form dead.
Jo lets us know that events in her time are taking place in September. We later hear that Styles has landed at an RAF base at 6pm, gone to Auderly with the delegates, been attacked by Daleks and Ogrons, and evacuated Auderly - yet it is daylight throughout.
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