Synopsis:
Jamie and Kemel have reached the gallery where Victoria's room is located. They see a Dalek enter the great hall below them, and the door opens to reveal a second...
Throwing a rope around the emerging Dalek, they cause it to tumble through the railing so that it crashes onto the floor below.
Jamie introduces himself to Victoria, who is delighted to see Kemel again.
The Doctor is dining in the trophy room of the mansion when Terrall walks in. He offers him food and wine but he declines, and the Doctor points out that he has never seen him eat or drink since he came into the house, nor, apparently, has Waterfield. Terrall becomes defensive then threatening, brandishing a sword in his direction.
However, the Doctor notices that in his hands it appears to have become magnetised and deduces that his body must contain a lot of electricity.
They are interrupted by the arrival of Waterfield who has come to fetch the Doctor. After they have gone, Terrall attempts to take some wine, but finds it impossible to drink.
A powerful voice in his head commands him to obey...
Jamie and Kemel have barricaded themselves in - but this leaves them trapped. Jamie questions Victoria as to how she came to be abducted, but she can only recall falling into a deep sleep.
It transpires that Maxtible has hypnotic skills, as he is currently using them on Mollie to make her forget having heard Victoria's voice coming from the south wing.
Terrall is observing and questions him about the progress of the Dalek experiment. Maxtible admits that he has come close to disposing of Waterfield, feeling his usefulness is over, but Terrall is continuing to have conflicting thoughts. The voice commands him to obey Maxtible, who orders that Terrall bring Victoria to him.
In the laboratory, the "Human Factor" has been downloaded into three small positronic circuits which are then installed into the brains of the three dormant Daleks which were sent from Skaro.
Waterfield tries to talk the Doctor into refusing to co-operate further as it will make the Daleks invincible, but he angrily rounds on him - pointing out how he has been instrumental in them being in this predicament. Waterfield even considers harming the Doctor, but this is noticed and the Doctor reminds him that his daughter is currently safe with Jamie.
The Daleks attempt to break into the room where Jamie, Kemel and Victoria are located. Jamie is suspicious as to how one of the Daleks got into the room earlier and, whilst they are distracted at the door, Terrall emerges from a panel leading to a secret passageway and abducts Victoria.
Realising what has happened, the two men quickly search for the panel and find it as the Daleks break in.
They split up to look for Victoria and Jamie finds himself in the trophy room where Terrall is waiting, sword in hand. Jamie arms himself and the two men fight.
Ruth rushes in and her presence causes Terrall to break free of the mental influence which has been commanding him. The Doctor arrives and finds a small black box attached to his neck - a device which has been controlling his actions. Removing it, Terrall is able to warn the Doctor about the Daleks.
The Doctor has Ruth take Terrall away from the house with Mollie.
Kemel emerges from the passage by the laboratory where he finds an unconscious Victoria. A Dalek appears and orders him to pick her up and carry her into the mirrored time cabinet.
The Doctor, Jamie and Waterfield enter after they have gone. Jamie is once again furious with the Doctor, believing him to have no feelings for anyone. Victoria is in peril once again. He states that once this is all over he will leave.
They are interrupted by the emergence of the three Daleks from their packing cases, just as Maxtible arrives. They begin pushing the Doctor around the room. He realises they are playing with him.
He is pleasantly surprised to find that the trio of Daleks have adopted a playful friendliness - taking him for a ride as they play at "trains".
A bemused Maxtible looks on...
Written by David Whitaker
Recorded: Saturday 10th June - Lime Grove Studio D
First broadcast: 5.45pm, Saturday 17th June 1967
Ratings: 5.1 million / AI 53
VFX: Michealjohn Harris & Peter Day
Designer: Chris Thompson
Director: Derek Martinus
Critique:
David Whitaker gave this episode the title "The Human Factor".
The episode opens with the remainder of the filming which took place at Grim's Dyke on Tuesday 25th April, involving scenes around the minstrels gallery and great hall.
Some filming also took place at Ealing on Thursday 27th - model shots for the sequence where the Dalek is propelled from the gallery.
Friday 9th June saw Peter Hawkins record more Dalek voices for the later episodes of the serial.
John Scott Martin joined Gerald Taylor and Robert Jewell in studio on Saturday 10th June to operate a third Dalek prop, and Peter Diamond was on hand once more to arrange the sword fight between Frazer Hines and Gary Watson.
Special magnetised props were supplied by VFX which could be picked up by Terrall's sword, alerting the Doctor that his body contained static electricity.
Hawkins' Dalek vocal repeating the word "Obey" was overlaid on itself several times to provide the booming voice in Terrall's head.
It was decided that he would provide the vocals for Daleks Alpha and Omega, whilst Roy Skelton would voice Beta. Hawkins had provided all the Dalek voices for the story up until now. This story would mark Skelton's debut as a Dalek voice artist, and he would go on to take over from Hawkins, providing voices on most Dalek adventures right up until Comic Relief's The Curse of Fatal Death.
The only scheduled recording break was just before the scene in which the Doctor and Waterfield argue in the laboratory over what they are about to.
Arthur Terrall gets a bit more to do this week rather than simply wander in and out of scenes being a bit confused about things. In hindsight we know that he is under the mental control of the Dalek Emperor, which makes you wonder why some of the things he has been contradictory about went against what the Emperor wanted - like preventing Jamie from undergoing his quest to save Victoria, which is what was required to ascertain the "Human Factor". If this contradictory behaviour is supposed to be due to him fighting against his mental conditioning, then it hasn't been terribly clear, and viewers at the time would have been none the wiser.
As far as we can see, the Doctor has only met Terrall briefly once, in the stables at the beginning of Episode 3, so we have to ask how he comes to know that the man hasn't been eating or drinking lately. He states that Waterfield has also noticed this, yet the Doctor and Waterfield have never once mentioned him, let alone had a conversation about him.
The lengthy sequence with Maxtible hypnotising Mollie is pointless, as the character is about to exit the story anyway and the experiment is pretty much over by this stage. Presumably this is present just to give Marius Goring something to do this week.
Terrall, Mollie and, especially, Ruth have contributed little to the story so far, beyond helping pad it up to 7 episodes, and they are hastily written out here.
At one point, whilst they are arguing together in the laboratory, Waterfield tells the Doctor that their actions may lead to the destruction of an entire race. The Doctor says that it may well come to that. Of course, Waterfield is fearing for the human race, but it foreshadows the (apparent) fate of the Daleks at the conclusion of the story.
This episode contains one of the Second Doctor's most memorable lines. After Terrall has told him that he assumes him to be "a keen student of human nature", the Doctor replies:
"No Mister Terrall. I am not a student of human nature. I am a professor of a far wider academy, of which human nature is merely a part. All forms of life interest me".
- The ratings continue to slip away, hovering just above the 5 million mark - the lowest they'll go for this story.
- At 25' 23" this is the longest of the 7 episodes.
- The episode was repeated on Saturday 20th July 1968 at 5.15pm, when it was seen by an audience of 5.1 million - the same number as watched first time round - and with an appreciation index of 50.
- The Doctor refers to the sword which Terrall is wielding as being Circassian. Circassia is a region of the northern Caucasus which was involved in a notorious war with the Russian Empire, the conflict running for over a century (1763 - 1864). The Russians targeted civilians throughout, an estimated 3.5 million perishing, with many others forcibly resettled to the Ottoman Empire. Many ethnic Circassians now live in Turkey and Israel.
- Around the time he was commissioned to write this story, Whitaker was also working on a movie called Attack on the Iron Coast. This WWII movie starred Lloyd Bridges and Andrew Keir and was released in 1968 - in UK cinemas on a double bill with The Beatles' Yellow Submarine. Cast members with a Doctor Who connection included Maurice Denham, Mark Eden and Glyn Owen.
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