What's Wrong With... Death to the Daleks

 

The title for this story came from the new Script Editor, Robert Holmes. He hated the Daleks - finding them terribly dull - and wished death upon them. This was a view shared by the person playing the Doctor in this story, as well as his successor. Even Terry Nation was realising their deficiencies by now - which is why he introduced Davros in the very next story he wrote.

As the writer is Nation, we have yet another militaristic expedition having a bad time on a hostile planet, which is named after a plot point (before it became a mineral, the expedition had come to the planet Exxilon in search of an elixir). The expedition members squabble amongst themselves over what to do next - one urging caution and the other hot-headed. A mysterious figure stalks the companion - only to turn out to be a friend. A pyramid full of death traps. The Daleks turn up at the end of the first episode, to no-one's surprise.

All that's missing is a jungle setting... Oh look - it was set in a jungle, but the director and script editor had it moved to a quarry planet.

The TARDIS interior is supposed to exist in a totally different dimension, so how can the Exxilon beacon possibly affect it? Also, this is the era when the TARDIS was supposed to be of infinite size, so surely the beacon could never have drained all the power without overloading itself. Terry Nation always treats the ship as if it were a conventional spacecraft.

The last time the Doctor had to open the main doors during a power loss, he used his ring and a device in the ship (The Web Planet) - but here we see that he has to use an old-fashioned, very low-tech hand crank to manually open and close them.

Once again Nation comes up with a number which he thinks is really, really big - but isn't at all when you think about it. 10 million people will die on some planets. That's not very many in planetary terms.

If parrinium is so vital, why did Earth send such a small mission?

With a beacon capable of draining every bit of energy from a TARDIS, how did the Earth people find out about the mineral in the first place?

In normal circumstances we can understand why the commander might not want Galloway to take over - but, in their current dire straits, surely he would make for a more effective commander than the wet Hamilton?

Saying that, Galloway attacks the Doctor long after he already knows what Exxilons look like. Did any previous ones have velvet jackets, frilly shirts and bouffant hairstyles?

A couple of very poor cliff-hangers, one due to some drastic reordering of scenes, and another due to the editor not cutting in time.

The latter is the end of Part One. We know that the Dalek guns don't work as we see one firing away far too long with nothing happening.

The third episode ending is regarded by fans as one of the Top 10 worst - "the floor tiles of doom". The Doctor stops Bellal stepping on a patterned bit of flooring for no discernible reason - thanks to this scene being shunted out of sequence and the real cliff-hanger being moved into the body of an episode.

You have to ask why the Exxilons made this bit of floor different in the first place - thus drawing attention to it.

Things aren't helped by the fact that the Doctor's description of the tiles doesn't match what we see. Bellal clearly steps out of the tiles the Doctor tells him to step on, and he doesn't copy the Doctor's steps (no doubt because Bellal actor Arnold Yarrow couldn't see a thing).

The Exxilon city has its ways of stopping people accessing it. We see that to get inside in the first place, you have to touch the wall to light up the hidden symbols. In the first chamber are a load of skeletons. To have got there they must have worked out the technique of touching the wall etc. How then did they fail to find and solve the much simpler maze puzzle?

There are automated defences in the cave system, and in a pool of water - but there don't seem to be any similar defences around the city itself. Anyone can just walk right up to it.

And who was it that lit all the candles in that underground tunnel which is guarded by a lethal defence mechanism?

What's worst about the city defences is that you can simply climb up the exterior and plant a bomb, encountering zero defences.

Inside the city we see an Exxilon who appears to be observing events but turns out to be long dead. It is implied that the Exxilons look like they do because they degenerated - yet this one looks the same.

The Doctor attacks the city via its electronics. The city responds by producing "anti-bodies" - but instead of attacking the person doing the actual damage, they just go after the Daleks.

How have the Daleks ever managed to conquer galaxies and gain the reputation they have when they self-destruct every time they do something wrong? They are always being beaten by the Doctor, so there shouldn't be all that many left by now. And in committing suicide, the Dalek guard actually makes matters far worse, as it allows Sarah and Jill more time to steal back all that parrinium.

The Daleks decide to launch a plague bomb to stop later humans landing on the planet - despite the fact that, with the beacon now destroyed, they could just land robot miners to do the work, or people in biohazard suits.

Not something wrong - just an annoyance. All the Daleks look the same apart from one which has orange dome lights instead of clear ones - yet they don't make something of this like making him the leader.