What's Wrong With... Destiny of the Daleks

It should have been an epic. The sequel to Genesis of the Daleks... The return of Davros... The first Dalek story for half a decade...

So what went wrong?

Quite a few things, of course.

Davros:

David Gooderson is a fine actor, but he simply cannot vocalise like Michael Wisher. This Davros just isn't subtly malevolent enough. The original Davros believed wholeheartedly that what what he was doing was right - even in his hypothetical discussion with the Doctor about the virus. Arrogant and sociopathic, but honest and consistent in his world view.

The Gooderson Davros is more of a ranting megalomaniac - a more conventional villain.

He isn't helped by the deterioration of the mask - rotting away at one of the permanent Exhibitions. he also seems to have lacked the rehearsal time Wisher had with the wheelchair. He glided, whilst we can hardly keep a straight face when we see this Kaled scientist pedalling furiously along a corridor, rocking from side to side.

Daleks:

The story was made during a period of rocketing inflation, and there simply wasn't enough money to renovate the Dalek props. Bits are broken off, whilst others are stuck on with Sellotape*.

The paint scheme varies from prop to prop, with some grey and others more blue. There's a mismatch of tops and bottoms. When one blows up, the pieces of the skirt fall to the floor and clatter like they are made of wood. They are, of course, but they're not supposed to be.

The vacuum-formed plastic ones are visibly crudely made. On location, they can be seen to be lifted off the ground and carried, wobbling as they move. One of them has its top half misaligned with the base.

When the group blow up at the end, you can see the dowling rod supports left standing.

Movellans:

Horrible disco-outfits. Just because it's the late 1970's, it ought not to look like it. 

How could they possibly match the Daleks when all you have to do to incapacitate them is remove an easily detached device from their belts?

Their arms drop off rather too easily as well.

It looks like they can be reprogrammed with a conventional screwdriver set.

Why would coldly logical robots care if the Doctor knew that they were artificial? Why go to all the bother of deception, when one of them is going to turn up, after being thought dead, a short time later anyway?

Isn't it a bit risky testing a planet-destroying weapon when you're standing on that planet? What if something had gone wrong?

How did they know that the Doctor was going to walk past that area where Romana was held in the Nova Device cylinder, just as the countdown would melodramatically reach 000? Did they know a cliffhanger was due?

A Sequel?

Nation doesn't appear to have rewatched his previous Dalek story, or read through the script.

He suddenly thinks that the Daleks are purely robotic now - only having had an organic occupant in the past. 

At no point in the past have they ever been creatures of pure logic. They're always emotional - manically so.

The geography of the city doesn't match Genesis at all. 

Davros was "killed" in his bunker - not in the city anyway.

Has he been wheeled into a side room at some point in the interim? Why leave his corpse hanging around in the first place? What made the Daleks think he was still alive to resurrect?

Another issue of the city layout: the Daleks are mining for ages, yet Davros appears (on screen at least) to be on a level with a window onto the surface. They've got detailed maps of each level of their own city, which they ought to know inside out, yet have forgotten about the shortcut to the level they're after - one which the Doctor remembers, even though we never saw any evidence of it in Genesis.

Other stuff:

Where's the Dalek spaceship whilst all this is going on? We're led to believe there's a ship in orbit, but no reinforcements show up.

It's a bit odd that the Doctor and Romana recognise the galaxy of origin of the Movellan spaceship - but don't know anything about the Movellans themselves.

It's one thing to be relieved that you've just been saved from extermination, but having a laugh whilst you pick up the corpses of your comrades is going a wee bit too far.

Extermination is supposed to be excruciating, yet we see some people just gently lower themselves to the ground.

And the biggest question of all: why does the Movellan spaceship have upholstered seats...?

*Other adhesive tapes are available.