DWM 629

I know a lot of people have given up on DWM but if you are one of those people who still buy the occasional one because there's something specific in it, then I'd recommend the latest issue. Too late to be included in last month's, other than a small news item, this one has a major amount of material about the return of the two missing episodes of The Daleks' Master Plan. 39 pages of it as a matter of fact. As well as the story behind the recovery, and the work done to conserve the episodes, we have an interview with Peter Purves as well as a piece about how he came to see them again recently - tricked, in a nice way, into thinking he was going to be discussing something else - and reviews of the episodes. A number of Doctor Who figures also give their reactions. Quite a few screengrabs from the episodes illustrate the articles, as well as images we may have seen before - though a number of these have been colourised.

If you're a fan of the classic era in general, and the monochrome years in particular, then I'd certainly seek this one out.

Devil's Planet - a Review

The interim episode of The Daleks Master Plan already exists in the archives, so we move on to the Doctor's escape from Kembel in Mavic Chen's purloined Spar 7-40 space yacht. Bret is at the controls, with Steven and Katarina also on board.

The Daleks use a device to randomise the ship's controls, causing it to crash land on the planet Desperus - the "Devil's Planet" of the title, as it is a hellish penal colony.

This is the first of the "adventures within the adventure", helping the story span its 12 weeks. Terry Nation had previously given us the quest story The Keys of Marinus, in which the travellers encountered mini-adventures in different locations across the planet in search of the titular keys; and The Chase, which again saw self-contained incidents within the larger narrative of the Dalek pursuit. (Episodes 5 - 10 of this story will end up following the same pattern as The Chase, with a Dalek time machine pursuing the TARDIS).

In this episode, the Doctor is separated from the TARDIS and having to rely on Bret's piloting of the Spar, before the Daleks intervene.

This was more of a mystery, visually, than The Nightmare Begins. We do have a bit of a clue as to the ending of the episode, as the shocking resolution to the cliff-hanger survives thanks to Blue Peter (though it was nice to see more of the ship's interior. I liked that huge round porthole / screen, and there was our old friend, the Morok Freezing Machine prop, as well).

There was also a lengthy clip of the Daleks first attacking the Spar with their randomiser, as its occupants are told by Bret about the planet they are being diverted towards.

The bulk of the instalment takes place on Desperus, and we have always had very little idea about this world. 

One thing I wanted to know was just how different they had managed to make the sets look from those of Kembel (bearing in mind that Mira is also just around the corner). 

There's one photograph of a Screamer I know of, but it's just a black shape at the top of a blurry image, and there are only a handful of images of the hirsute convicts themselves.

I wanted to see how the Screamers were realised, and also if the episode featured any model shots.

Mavic Chen gets to appear in two scenes - the execution of Zephon, and a later one where he first starts letting slip his arrogant attitude towards the Daleks before returning to Earth.

When the Master of the Fifth Galaxy perishes, we see Chen casually leaning nearby, studying a Dalek monitor - not even bothering with what's just happened. 

The Dalek control room contains lots of equipment dating back to their first appearance.

For some reason I felt sure that at least some of the other Planetarians featured this week, witnessing Zephon's demise, but it's another episode in which they don't appear.

Sadly the Screamers turn out to be just wing shapes being flapped about above the actors' heads.

And as for all the spaceship action in this episode, we do get a shot of the Spar in space, but all the other stuff is simply 'noises off'.

Desperus is rendered different from Kembel, being more sparsely forested. 

One nice shot is a landscape view of the planet as seen by the Doctor and Katarina - a painting of mountainous terrain with three small lights superimposed, indicating the torches of the approaching convicts. I noticed they all have a big letter "D" on the back of their overalls, to indicate their destination.

Courtney has less to do this week but I do enjoy his sardonic humour, and it's very much a pity that he couldn't have been retained for more of the story. 

Hartnell is still great to watch, though he does have a little difficulty with his lines in this episode.

"The Daleks will stop at anything to prevent us..." for instance.

There's a little silent character moment for the doomed Katarina, as she is fascinated by the stars on one of the monitors.

The interplay between Steven and the Doctor, and between Steven and Bret, is also nice to observe.

Overall, whilst it's fantastic that these two episodes are safely back, and that we have been able to enjoy them so quickly, you do come away with a disappointment - because you really, really want to watch the rest of the story even more now. At least these episodes come from the start of the story, and can be linked by the already surviving second instalment. For me the first half of The Daleks' Master Plan is by far the superior half. 

Oh, for The Traitors...

The Nightmare Begins - a Review

The Nightmare Begins has the task of setting up a  a 12 part epic, though it has been helped on its way by the prequel episode Mission to the Unknown. That laid the groundwork as to the Dalek plan to invade the Solar System, aided and abetted by an alliance of beings from the Outer Galaxies. (They go by various names, but we'll go with Planetarians).

 

This episode follows on 6 months or so later, bringing the Doctor into events and introducing us to the agent who came looking for Marc Cory - killed in the stand-alone instalment. Bret Vyon is played by Nicholas Courtney, the future Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and so this marks his very first appearance in the series.

We also get to spend some time with short-lived companion Katarina, who only joined the series in the (now lost) previous episode. There's another direct link to that episode as Steven has contracted blood poisoning from a sword wound inflicted during the fall of Troy, and he's seriously injured.

We're back on the densely jungled planet of Kembel, where the Daleks have assembled their invasion force and where their alliance meets.

Having sat out Mission to the Unknown, the Doctor is unaware of what is going on here, and is simply looking for medical help for his companion. We know far more about this place than he does.

The Dalek Master Plan is shown to have expanded to include an enemy working within the Solar System itself - its Guardian, Mavic Chen. 

His appearance is certainly one of the things I was most looking forward to seeing when it was announced that this was one of the two episodes recently recovered from a private collection by Film is Fabulous. Kevin Stoney is superb, and he is responsible for two of the greatest villains in the history of Doctor Who - Chen and Tobias Vaughn.

Despite the absence of telesnaps, we did know a little about what this episode looked like. Three clips survived - the TARDIS materialisation, the landing of the Spar 7-40 at the space-port, and the longer sequence showing the ambush and death of Bret's colleague Kert Gantry. Also, the jungle and some sets for the Dalek city are seen throughout the surviving second episode.

What we have been missing are the TARDIS interior sequences, and the Communications Centre scenes on Earth.

We can now see Chen's introduction, via a couple of incidental characters - Lizan and Roald - watching a news broadcast featuring him. The bald-headed Technix, who featured prominently in publicity images back in 1966, have only been seen very briefly (crewing the Spar).

They're one of the more obscure characters in the series thanks to all those photos - but a lack of actual footage. And no-one talks about them in dialogue. Is it simply policy that these workers have to shave their heads, like part of a uniform, or are they - as I suspect - some sort of genetically engineered drone workers, or clones. (Spin-off literature goes with them being clones in one place, and cyborgs in another). Sadly we still don't know, but at least we now get to see them.

One thing which strikes you even more is how the Earth of the year 4000 resembles a fascist technocracy. We had already seen the literal uniformity of its people - everyone seems to wear tabards - and the jackbooted security forces which police it, but this episode certainly reinforces the image.

Unfortunately, we don't get to see any more of the Planetarians here - they aren't introduced until The Day of Armageddon.

The Daleks themselves don't show up until quite late on in the episode - the ambush on Gantry - and are merely shown waiting to welcome Chen later on. (One thing I didn't know was that the Dalek Supreme doesn't feature in this instalment). 

The episode concentrates instead on Bret and the TARDIS crew.

Despite playing another character of military bearing, Bret is a very different character to the Brigadier, which demonstrates just how good an actor Courtney was.

Things we wouldn't have known about without the visuals include Bret's communicator resembling the ones later used by the Cybermen.

Whilst he and Kert mention Varga Plants, they don't actually feature in the action - but we see a couple of them lurking in the jungle. 

I certainly had no idea that Steven spent the entire episode shirtless and in modern trousers. I had expected him to still be wearing his ancient Greek gear.

One rather shocking image is a lingering shot of the dead Kert's face, eyes wide open and mouth agape.

Something else I wasn't aware of from the soundtrack was the way Roald mouthed the words of Chen's speech, clearly having heard it all before. 

It's these little details which we lose out on by only having the audio.

As well as being a very good episode for Courtney, William Hartnell is at the top of his game here, even though he spends most of the episode talking to himself.

I think you can also see, very clearly, why new companion Katarina simply wasn't sustainable. 

The Nightmare Begins Early...

Originally said to be arriving on the BBC iPlayer on Saturday 4th April, it has been announced that the two recently recovered episodes will be available from 6am on Friday 3rd. I'll be posting my thoughts on the Saturday, as I won't get a chance to watch them until Friday evening.

DWM Terry Nation Special

 

According to the Cultbox site, the next DWM special edition is dedicated to Dalek and Blake's 7 creator Terry Nation.

It is due out on Thursday 6th November. 

That "Legends" subheading suggests this might be the first of a series. They are running out of more general subjects to cover after all, which the bookazines seem to have taken over.

I have read elsewhere that the next bookazine will be dedicated to UNIT, but nothing confirmed so far.

Inspirations: The Magician's Apprentice / The Witch's Familiar

In planning the next series of Doctor Who, Steven Moffat decided to revisit the two-parter format. He had been generally dissatisfied with these, feeling that the only way to do them was to have the second half going off in a new direction - sometimes having little bearing on what went before. He had recently cut back on these, ending Series 6 and 7 with single episode finales.

For this series he thought that they might try some big two-parters which could act as a selling point, as they allowed him to tell bigger stories that might not fit a 45 minute timeframe. How these worked might be different, however, and he was keen to see them used as more than simply two halves of a single storyline.

Rather than end the series on a blockbuster, Moffat also decided to kick the series off with one.

He hadn't written a substantial Dalek story by himself since Asylum of the Daleks, and saw this as the ideal opportunity to have another go. He was keen to experiment further with the notion of Daleks assembling from different eras of the series' history. This led to the setting of Skaro.

Looking back, his favourite Dalek story had been Genesis of the Daleks. Indeed, he thought it one of the best Doctor Who stories ever.

This led him to include Davros in his new story - not seen since Series 4's Journey's End - and he considered a certain sequence in the 1975 story as a powerful inspiration. This is the scene where the Doctor anguishes over destroying the Dalek nursery, and asks his companions if they could kill a child, even knowing it would grow up to be an evil dictator.

This led to the Doctor having the opportunity to kill Davros as a child. Moffat looked back at all the Davros stories and saw how the big confrontations between him and the Doctor worked really well - with the narrative gradually building towards them. He envisaged scenes of the pair debating their respective moral values.

Missy's inclusion did not feature in the initial plans for the story, but Moffat wanted to develop the character further. The Master had worked with the Daleks in the past - in Frontier in Space - so had their own history with them.

The Magician's Apprentice / The Witch's Familiar had two prologues. The one showing the Doctor living with Medieval  characters, constructing a well, was the intended one. The other - in which the Doctor is seen hiding on Karn as Colony Sarff comes looking for him, was actually supposed to be part of the first episode, but was shifted to form a stand-alone prequel.

Sarff is Welsh for "serpent", hinting at his true nature.

Karn was first seen in The Brain of Morbius - a bleak planet  in the same region of the universe as Gallifrey and home to the mystical Sisterhood, who had historic links with the Time Lords. The planet had been revisited briefly in another prequel - Night of the Doctor. Leader of the Sisterhood, Ohila, had also been seen in this.

UNIT use temporal paradoxes to help look for the missing Doctor across Earth's history. They identify a trio of these surrounding Atlantis. This is reference to the three different versions of the fall of the city state, as seen in The Underwater Menace and The Time Monster, and mentioned by Azal in The Daemons. Other locations mentioned include 15th Century San Martino (The Masque of Mandragora) and Troy (The Myth Makers).

Peter Capaldi sent Moffat an email following Series 8, suggesting certain things he'd like to see the Doctor do in the next season. One of these was him playing an electric guitar, and he was surprised Moffat agreed to it.

The Dalek slaves like Bors (a name first used in The Daleks' Master Plan) were introduced in Asylum of the Daleks.

The action moves from Medieval England to Skaro, and we see a city whose design was inspired by the one which featured in The Daleks. The first sight of a Dalek here has the general silver / blue livery of the ones seen in that story, as we know from colour photographs of its production.

Inside are a number of Daleks with different colour schemes, including black domed ones seen in The Evil of the Daleks and gunmetal grey ones first introduced in Day of the Daleks.

In charge is the red / gold Supreme first introduced in The Stolen Earth.

Also present is the Special Weapons Dalek, introduced in Remembrance of the Daleks.

Skaro was said to have been destroyed in Remembrance of the Daleks, but was present in the 1996 TV Movie. The city was last seen, in ruins, in Asylum of the Daleks. It is claimed that the Daleks simply rebuild what they lose, to get round these inconsistencies.

Friends of the Doctor hiding in Dalek casings have been seen in The Daleks and The Planet of the Daleks, and the Doctor himself hid in one in The Space Museum.

The episode titles are a reference to The Sorcerer's Apprentice - the 1897 classical composition by Paul Dukas. This is best known for its inclusion in Disney's Fantasia (1940) - originally intended as a stand-alone piece for Mickey Mouse.

Sarff's search for the Doctor takes in a number of locations seen in the series before - the Maldovarium (The Pandorica Opens) and the Shadow Proclamation (The Stolen Earth). The latter sees the same actress - Kelly Hunter - playing the Shadow Architect, and Judoon are present as before.

In a Star Wars cantina-style bar we see a Sycorax, an Ood, a Hath, a Khaler, a Skullion (from the last of The Sarah Jane Adventures, The Man Who Wasn't There) and a Blowfish (first seen in Torchwood's Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang).

A cultural reference which younger people, and those from outside the UK, would have missed was Missy's declaration that she would speak to UNIT "through the square window". This comes from the classic pre-school children's series Play School (1964 - 1988). Each week viewers were asked to guess through which window - square, round or arched - the next filmed item would appear.

Musical references include Missy's "Oh Missy you so fine..." paraphrased from Toni Basil's 1982 hit Mickey and Mott the Hoople's All The Young Dudes (1972).

Next time: Timey-wimey ghostly goings-on, at the bottom of a lake...

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

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that some writers on long-running TV series much prefer their own original characters to the regulars, who they feel they can't really do a lot with. 

This is certainly the impression that Eric Saward seems to be giving during Season 22. We've already noted how the Doctor and Peri seem to take a very long time getting into the main plot - usually being left to argue in the TARDIS for much of the first episode.

In Revelation of the Daleks, the Doctor and Peri spend the entire first instalment walking towards the plot. And even then the Doctor gets held up outside Tranquil Repose at the cliffhanger, not even managing to get through the doors to where Davros is getting on with the plot. He doesn't even glimpse a Dalek. That's left for Peri to do, but she doesn't recognise it. Maybe the Doctor should have warned her about them, instead of showing her pictures of his old companions like Jo Grant.

We've spent most of the first 45 minutes in Davros' company, and meeting all the other grotesque characters who populate this story.

For a Dalek story, they don't feature very much in this - only really coming into their own in the last 10 minutes once the Imperial faction turn up.

We're told that Tranquil Repose is a fairly exclusive funerary complex, reserved for the rich and famous. Many of the bodies are being used by Davros to create his new Dalek army. So how can it be providing enough of Kara's foodstuff to alleviate famine in this corner of the galaxy?

Davros points out that the heirs to the people entombed there are hardly likely to ever want them back, so why hasn't everyone cottoned onto this? Surely the king of a planet, or the CEO of some big conglomerate, must know that the person taking over isn't going to do anything to haste them back in charge again, now that they're in control.

If the weed-plant is regarded as just that - a weed - why is it used to decorate the funerals of royalty? Isn't that a bit of an insult?

Peri states that the weed-plant is the only thing which grows on Necros, despite her and the Doctor walking through a forest at the time...

Can eating a sandwich ever really make a humanoid explode?

Davros is using a dummy head in a glass case to decoy potential assassins. Yet he seems to be able to see, hear and speak with it, and even fire electrical charges from it. He has controls in front of him and sits watching what's going on on a big screen. He's posing as the Great Healer, and is obviously afraid of assassination (or arrest as a war criminal and prison escapee). So why, if he's going to create a fake persona, did he make it look like Davros, the well-known war criminal and prison escapee? He could have had a fake head that looked like the Doctor, just to discredit him - or just for a laugh.

What's real Davros doing all this time anyway, and how does he communicate with his fake self?

Why hide away even when there's no-one but the odd Dalek in his control room? He also appears to have human guards. Why use them, instead of sticking with his new ultra-loyal Daleks to preserve his life?

(The idea of using a decoy is also far from original - having only just been seen in the previous story).

And talking of dummies, why replace Stengos' body with a fake? Just how often do relatives come looking to see their dear departed, and if it happens a lot then wouldn't much better fakes be best?

Why are Natasha and Grigory allowed to get so far into the complex - and what exactly are they homing in on? It can't be Stengos' body, as we know its been replaced with the dummy one.

As with the previous Davros story, he seems to have gathered an awful lot of information considering that he's been in hiding since being broken out of prison. How did he know what the Doctor looked like nowadays, to set up the fake tombstone? Why not just drop a real tombstone on the Doctor, instead of messing about with polystyrene ones?

The Doctor has defeated him three times already, so isn't he running a massive risk deliberately inviting him here to his latest base of operations.

When the real Davros finally shows up, we can see he is badly superimposed over Orcini's prostrate form - his leg waving about behind Davros' chair even though he's floating several feet away.

How do two lowly funeral technicians know so much about Davros and the Daleks, to the point that they can even contact Skaro and invite them over? So much for Davros' elaborate security measures.

What's the point of the glass incubator Dalek? Can't they just deposit the conditioned mutant directly into a Dalek shell?

When I reviewed this story, I said that it was the best of the Colin Baker era - but it wasn't the best Colin Baker story. That was because the Doctor hardly does anything until the final confrontation between Davros / Kara / Orcini. It's the Daleks who stop Davros, and Orcini who blows up the complex.

The Doctor need hardly have turned up at all...

Episode 169: The Evil of the Daleks (7)

Synopsis:

The Emperor of the Daleks informs the Doctor that he will be forced to take the "Dalek Factor" and spread it throughout all of human history using the TARDIS...

In a special weapons room nearby, the Daleks prepare a machine.

In their cell, Maxtible is telling his fellow captives about the promise made to him by the Daleks, to provide him with the secret of turning base metals into gold. When Jamie threatens him, a Dalek guard orders that he is not to be harmed.

Waterfield attempts to get Maxtible to use his apparent influence with the creatures to help them but he refuses. The Doctor tells Victoria that he may have to sacrifice everyone to avoid doing what the Emperor has demanded. He cannot see the whole human race destroyed just to save their lives. At one point he considers taking them away in the TARDIS, possibly to his own planet.

In the weapons room, a Black Dalek is shocked when one of the worker Daleks questions an order. It goes to report this to the Emperor.

A panel opens in the cell, and the prisoners are able to see into the weapons room where the machine is ready. Maxtible then witnesses a quantity of iron being turned into gold. He is encouraged to move forward to see the device more clearly, but as he passes under the door arch his body is enveloped in a strange forcefield.

The Doctor realises that he has been subjected to the "Dalek Factor" and now, mentally, he is one of them.

The Emperor meanwhile insists that the Black Dalek to identify the test Dalek which had questioned its orders.

That night, Maxtible hypnotises the Doctor and has him pass under the archway - promising that he will be reunited with the TARDIS which has been placed outside the city. This is a ruse to turn him into a mental Dalek like himself. They will now work together to refine the "Factor".

Maxtible shows him the equipment they will use, but the Doctor secretly tampers with it - swapping a glass vial for another he had in his pocket. He indicates to Jamie with a wink that he has not been transformed. he then insists on being taken to see the Emperor.

In the control centre he explains that the Daleks who have been infected with the "Human Factor" can be cured with exposure to the "Dalek Factor". All Daleks must pass through the arch to ensure that no rebellious element remains to sow dissent.

The Emperor agrees, and the Daleks begin to file under the arch.

The Doctor admits to the prisoners that he has swapped the "Factors" and the Daleks are actually being humanised. He was not affected by the arch as he is not human.

He sends the others to the tunnel system so they can escape the city, though Waterfield insists on staying to look for Maxtible.

Throughout the city, the Black Daleks come across humanised Daleks. When they begin to destroy them, they fight back. Seeing this, the Doctor encourages the humanised ones to rebel.

He finds himself trapped in a corridor as Black Daleks bear down on him and open fire - but Waterfield throws himself into their path, knowing that only the Doctor can save everyone. As he dies, he asks that he look after his daughter.

The Emperor recalls all loyal Daleks to the control centre to defend it as battle rages through the city. 

As they pass along the tunnel, Maxtible attacks the fleeing prisoners. He kills Kemel by throwing him over a precipice, but then withdraws due to the Emperor's recall order.

The Doctor sees him heading into the midst of the fighting, before making his own escape.

Soon the conflict reaches the control centre and the Emperor itself is attacked.

The Doctor heads for the hillside where the TARDIS is located, and where Victoria and Jamie are now waiting. He tells her of her father's sacrifice, and informs Jamie that they will take her with them.

As they stand overlooking the burning city, the Doctor tells them both that they have just witnessed the final end of the Daleks...

Next time: The Tomb of the Cybermen

Data:

Written by David Whitaker

Recorded: Saturday 24th June 1967 - Lime Grove Studio D

First broadcast: 6.25pm, Saturday 1st July 1967

Ratings: 6.1 million / AI 56

VFX: Michealjohn Harris & Peter Day

Designer: Chris Thompson

Director: Derek Martinus

Critique:

And so Season 4 comes to an end with what could be described as the first ever proper season finale. The series hasn't done anything really special to close its seasons so far - or to open a new one - but here we see the final destruction of the Doctor's arch-enemies after four long years, something akin to the type of finale we have been given since 2005.

As we've previously noted, Terry Nation was seeking to launch the Daleks in their own TV series and interest from the BBC had not been forthcoming. He was still adamant that such a series could be a success and so was now looking to the US for a production partnership.

Unhappy with the way Whitaker treated his creations, and the complication of their ownership being shared with the BBC, Nation had elected to withdraw permission to use them in Doctor Who.

The Evil of the Daleks would therefore see the Daleks being written out of the series with the Doctor finally defeating them by triggering a cataclysmic civil war.

This pleased Innes Lloyd as he now had the popular Cybermen as the new recurring menace for the Doctor to encounter - and the BBC did not have to pay extra for their use as they had with the Daleks.

Whitaker titled this episode "The End of the Daleks".

For the Dalek weapons room he included in his script references to a number of specific machines, all of which had featured in the 1965 publication The Dalek Pocketbook and Space-Travellers Guide from Souvenir Press - mostly his own work. These devices included a Dust Gun, capable of spraying deadly dust throughout the cosmos; the Magnetron, which can attract spaceships out of the sky and force them to land on Skaro to be examined and retro-engineered; and the Dreamwave, capable of transmitting images into the minds of their enemies at great distances. 

A Magnetron device had actually featured in the TV series, in The Daleks' Master Plan.

Filming for the final episode took place on Wednesday 26th and Thursday 27th April, when some 15 Louis Marx toy Daleks were filmed at Ealing for the battle sequences. Some had their domes painted black but otherwise they had not been adapted, unlike the ones used in The Power of the Daleks for the production line sequences.

They had small explosive charges built in and some contained packets of a gooey substance. These were shot on silent 16mm film.

The destruction of the Dalek city model was also captured during these sessions.

More substantial filming too place at Ealing between the studio recording of Episodes 1 and 2, for the live action battle scenes. These were directed by Timothy Combe, who was given a credit for these on this episode. He had been working on the series as a Production Assistant since 1964, and would go on to direct two Jon Pertwee adventures.

This took place on Tuesday 16th and Wednesday 17th May. Footage was again silent, but on 35mm film this time, using two cameras. 

Peter Day and Michealjohn Harris provided lightweight Dalek props, made of balsa-wood and polystyrene to be blown up, their casings filled with green foam. A lightweight version of the Emperor was also created for scenes where it is apparently wrecked. This had removeable panels, with electronics installed behind. The molten foam caused problems as the studio staff refused to clean up the mess afterwards. Three of the Daleks had been given black domes, with two silver. Sound effects included pouring water onto hot metal to produce a sizzling noise.

As the Emperor prop was about to be exploded, word came down from Sydney Newman, via Innes Lloyd, that there was to be some hint that the Daleks might survive - leaving the door open for their potential return at some later date. Once the Emperor blew up, Combe arranged for a small light to continue to pulse within it, suggesting that it still lived.

This filming was captured by studio designer Tony Cornell on 8mm and, along with some of the city model filming and the off-air audio recording, has subsequently been released as "The Last Dalek" on DVD / Blu-ray, giving us a taste of the story's epic conclusion. Another version on DVD features a commentary track by the VFX staff in place of the soundtrack.

The final episode was recorded at Lime Grove on Saturday 24th June when Patrick Troughton's son Michael, who would go on to appear in Last Christmas, was in attendance as a visitor. He got to sit inside a Black Dalek. Two of the props had black domes and the other three silver, though once again the domes were interchangeable if necessary. The fifth Dalek was operated by Ken Tyllsen, who had once played a Sensorite and had operated a Dalek before in The Dalek Invasion of Earth.

Two recording breaks were planned - the first coming after Maxtible had been to report to the Emperor, accompanied by a Black Dalek, and the other after the Doctor encouraged his friends to leave the cell through the transforming arch.

The inlay effect was used for people passing under the arch, as their bodies were seen to ripple and distort.

One sequence planned but never filmed was when a Dalek went out of control in the weapons room, smashing into various glass tubes and bottles. Unfortunately these had already been broken during the day through careless handling, so the shot had to be dropped.

As with the end of the previous episode, the set was composed of lattice-like elements which could be rearranged to form different rooms and corridors. This required careful lighting as other sets might show beyond them.

There were a number of small cuts made for timing reasons - six in all. The first was just after the reprise as the Doctor, Jamie and Waterfield are led from the control centre to the cell. The Doctor ponders why the Dalek Emperor is so sure he will help them. The second was a scene of Daleks checking their machines in the weapons room. The third was the end of a scene in which the Doctor and Maxtible discuss the control device which had been used on Terrall.

Next was a sequence just after Maxtible had been transformed, where the Doctor attempts to speak with Alpha before it is sent away. Jamie asked if it really was Alpha, but the Doctor wasn't sure.

The fifth cut came in the scene where Maxtible reports back to the Emperor that the experiment has been successful. The final edit came with a cell scene in which Victoria tried to reassure Jamie, after he believes that the Doctor has been transformed.

Interestingly, the Doctor at one point talks about taking his fellow prisoners away in the TARDIS, to either another universe or to his home planet - the first time he has mentioned this since his personal musings alone in the TARDIS at the end of The Massacre. Then he had talked of going home himself, before accepting that he somehow cannot. All we know of his home is that it is "a long, long way from Earth". We'll learn a little more about the Doctor in another quiet scene between him and Victoria in the next story.

The talk of going to another universe seems to be a throwback to the earliest days of the series, when the writers - Whitaker included - demonstrated a rather shaky grasp of cosmology. We'll later discover that there is only one prime universe, with others being only rarely visited alternative dimensions, accessed accidentally. Basically, the writers confuse universes with galaxies.

Some questions we need to ask: if the Daleks know that the test subjects had marks placed on their casings by the Doctor, why do they need to subject every one to the "Factor"? Surely they could just look for the marks - yet the Black Dalek claims they have searched "without success".

Also, why is the TARDIS moved outside the city, when Maxtible only needs to make the Doctor think it's there? If he believes his hypnotism is effective, why move it at all? It's a bit of a contrivance that the ship is safely outside the city when it is destroyed. 

Season 4 had seen the biggest shake-up in the series' history to date, with the high risk strategy of changing the lead actor at the conclusion of its second story; the arrival of the Cybermen as a popular new menace; and the introduction of a highly popular companion in Jamie. After initially wanting to have contemporary companions reflecting Swinging London, Lloyd had cooled on the idea and now gone for a pair of companions who both came from Earth's history (though he had tried to retain a contemporary companion had Pauline Collins agreed to stay on as Samantha Briggs). The issue that people from the past would need to have everything explained to them - as previously argued by John Wiles and Donald Tosh - had been resolved by simply ignoring the problem.

Behind the scenes there had been some consistency, in that Lloyd remained producer throughout, and Gerry Davis only stepped down part way through the final story. And whilst Lloyd was keen to move on, his successor was already working on the series and being groomed to take over, helping to make for a smooth transition when the time came - a time which was rapidly approaching...

Whilst it was the end of the season for the viewers, the production team would go straight into the next story, which would then be held back to open the fifth season.

Trivia:

• The ratings see a slight dip for this final episode, though it manages to achieve the highest appreciation figure of the serial.
• The episode was broadcast at a later time due to live coverage of the Wimbledon tennis tournament, which placed it against the popular talent show Opportunity Knocks! on ITV.
• The episode was repeated at 5.15pm on Saturday 23rd August 1968, when it was watched by an audience of 5.5 million - a huge increase on the previous week. The AI was 49.
• An Audience Research Report was commissioned  for this episode in early August. There were 180 respondents, some of whom hoped that the Daleks were gone for good. A small number hoped that the entire series would not return. Positives included a general satisfaction with Patrick Troughton's performance, and the "absolutely wonderful" special effects.
• For some reason the story was sold to Australia later than most, so that it was first broadcast between The Web of Fear and Fury From The Deep. 
• It was shown in August 1969 in Hong Kong, Singapore in December that year, and New Zealand in the summer of 1970. By the mid 1970's all copies were believed destroyed, until Episode 2 turned up at a car boot sale in 1983.
• The story was released in animated form in 2021, along with the orphan episode. A couple of easter eggs to look out for are the names of later Doctor actors on the shields in the trophy room, and Maxtible has candlesticks in the form of Weeping Angels.
• The story generated a DWM comic strip sequel featuring the Eighth Doctor - Children of the Revolution - which depicts Dalek Alpha and the humanised Dalek survivors living secretly underwater.
• Cut lines from Day of the Daleks would have revealed that the rebellion on Skaro was eventually quashed.
• You could get your photograph taken with a Black Dalek at Dudley Zoo in 1967...

• And pop group The Troggs (best known for Wild Thing) had themselves pictured with one of the props...

• Finally, another wonderful retro movie-style poster from Oliver Arkinstall-Jones:

Episode 168: The Evil of the Daleks (6)

Synopsis:

The three Daleks sent to Maxtible's home from Skaro have had the "Human Factor" added to their brains. Instead of lethal cunning, they exhibit playful friendliness...

Maxtible leaves the laboratory, satisfied that the experiment has been a success.

After their game of "trains", the Doctor marks each of them with a symbol - naming them Alpha, Beta and Omega. He tells them that he and Jamie are their friends.

After spending some time with the trio, they suddenly announce that they must return to Skaro. All of the Daleks in the house have been recalled.

The Doctor and Jamie set off to look for Victoria as Maxtible returns with Waterfield, who wants to know where his daughter is now that the Dalek experiment is completed. Waterfield lies, claiming she is probably out in the garden. He goes to look for her as a Dalek sets a large box in the middle of the floor.

Maxtible wants to know what this is but is ordered not to touch it. He demands that the Daleks give him the formula they promised him but is only ordered to fetch the Doctor and Jamie. This is overheard by Waterfield as he returns.

Not trusting his old acquaintance and realising that there is more going on here than he has been told, he tries to force Maxtible into telling him the truth. Maxtible knocks him out, then tells a newly arrived Dalek that he hasn't been able to find the Doctor and Jamie.

It tells him that the device on the floor is a powerful bomb which is timed to go off in a few minutes. He is horrified at the thought of losing his home - especially his laboratory, as he believes that without it the knowledge they will give him will be useless as he will not be able to exploit it.

He is forced to enter the time cabinet and leave with the Dalek.

Waterfield has revived and heard them speak about about the bomb, and he warns the Doctor and Jamie as they return, having found no trace of Victoria. 

Unable to deactivate the device, they are unable to use the time cabinet either as it is now simply an empty shell.

The Doctor then recalls the time travel machine which Waterfield had used to travel to 1966. They quickly set it up and activate it as the bomb detonates, destroying the house.

Victoria and Kemel are being held captive in a cell in the Dalek city on Skaro. Maxtible joins them briefly, before being escorted away by a Dalek.

The Doctor, Jamie and Waterfield have arrived on a plateau overlooking the city. The Doctor recalls a cave system nearby which will allow them to enter unobserved.

Maxtible, meanwhile, is having to answer to a black-domed Dalek why he did not bring the Doctor with him.

One of these Black Daleks has noticed a mark on another's casing, and it explains that it was made by the Doctor. It is Omega.

Victoria and Kemel hear an alarm sound as the Daleks announce intruders detected in their city, and she hopes that it is her father come to rescue them.

She is then taken from the cell to join Maxtible in a darkened chamber. She hears him scream out, then is made to do so herself. This is a ruse by the Daleks to lure the intruders into a trap.

They, meanwhile, are moving along a narrow ledge when they are confronted by a Dalek. It proves to be Omega, come to escort them the rest of the way. The Doctor suddenly pushes it off the ledge into a deep chasm, as he has noted that it is not his writing on the casing.

They enter the city and are confronted by two Black Daleks which force them to accompany it.

They enter a darkened chamber and hear a voice booming out from the shadows. A light comes on and a massive static Dalek is revealed. The Doctor identifies it as their Emperor.

He tells it that the day of the Daleks is coming to an end. Somewhere in the city are three Daleks with the "Human Factor". They will come to question their orders and this will sow discontent which will spread. Rebellion will follow.

The Emperor reveals that the TARDIS is here, then explains that the "Human Factor" was merely a means to an end. It has helped to identify a "Dalek Factor". 

The Doctor will be forced to take this to Earth in the TARDIS and spread it throughout the whole of human history...

Data:

Written by David Whitaker

Recorded: Saturday 17th June, 1967 - Lime Grove Studio D

First broadcast: 5.45pm, Saturday 24th June 1967

Ratings: 6.8 million / AI 49

VFX: Michealjohn Harris & Peter Day

Designer: Chris Thompson

Director: Derek Martinus

Critique:

Unlike the other six instalments, there is no record of any working title for this episode from its writer. The novelisation of the repeat showing, by Frazer Hines, which uses these working titles as chapter headings employs "Escape to Danger".

One of the things which Terry Nation disliked about this story was the introduction of an Emperor. He had been content with the Black Dalek Supreme.

We all know that the comic strips published in TV Century 21 comic were the work of David Whitaker, and not Nation, and he had introduced an Emperor there. That had been a distinctive (flidor) gold one, with a spherical upper half and multiple dome lights. It was the Dalek which had confronted the last two natural Dal people when they emerged after the nuclear disaster which befell Skaro, and which forced them to create more of its kind before they succumbed to radiation sickness. As the first, it elected to make itself their ruler and had a special casing built for itself.

Also introduced this week are the Emperor's special retinue which have senior status over the normal silver Daleks. The script refers to them as "Black Daleks", though they obviously only have a black dome and are otherwise identical to the standard model. This is the only story in which this colour scheme appears. 

There were five Daleks available for the whole serial, which had easily replaceable domes to switch from silver to black as the scenes dictated.

In the draft script for Episode 6, the Doctor told Jamie and Waterfield that he had found a way to destroy the Daleks for good - "by making them all like us".

Their city was described as "piercing out of the sand of the desert, with a mountain range to the side... its weird shaped buildings, pillars and projections making up a kind of alien symmetry". No doubt Whitaker was recalling the model city designed by Ray Cusick for their debut, which had featured a mountainous backdrop.

The model was mainly built from balsa wood.

Filming for this episode was limited to model shots, recorded at Ealing on Wednesday 26th April. These were establishing shots of the city, to be seen by the Doctor and his friends as they first arrive on Skaro, plus the use of a Louis Marx toy Dalek for the sequence where the Doctor pushes the fake Omega into the chasm.

On Friday 16th June, Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines and Deborah Watling were released from rehearsals to film the opening sequence for the next story, where Victoria is introduced to the TARDIS.

Recording seems to have been a mix of tension and humour. Some of the younger cast members raced around the studio in the Dalek bases during the afternoon, and apparently it was whilst making this episode that Hines, trying out one of the props, overheard certain cast members slagging off the director in particular and the programme in general. 

Hines devised the double-entendre "Look at the size of those balls, Doctor!" when first seeing the Emperor. Comments on size would become a running joke with him, sometimes even making it to broadcast, unlike here.

Murphy Grumbar joined Robert Jewell, Gerald Taylor and John Scott Martin to operate a fourth Dalek prop.

As previously mentioned, Peter Hawkins had his voice duplicated and overlaid to provide the deep booming vocals of the Emperor -  the voice previously heard in Arthur Terrall's head.

To relieve a moment of tension in studio, Roy Skelton decided to sing "What's it all about, Alpha?" in Dalek voice - a play on the Cilla Black song which accompanied the Michael Caine movie Alfie, which had opened in March the year before.

There were three recording breaks scheduled. The first after the action leaves the laboratory, the second following the Doctor's destruction of the Dalek on the cave tunnel set, and the third just before the final scene with the Emperor.

This large static prop was initially kept in shadow, then illuminated by a spotlight. The Dalek city interior was composed mainly of white angular supports, which could be rearranged into different permutations to represent various chambers and corridors, set against black drapes.

The Emperor had as part of its dome a segment of a Chumbley, from Galaxy 4.

The TARDIS prop had its doors hung the wrong way round.

There were two small trims made during editing. The first was a shot of the Doctor's party moving through the tunnel system, and the other was a model shot of a toy Dalek moving along the bottom of the chasm.

After an enjoyable instalment which saw the Doctor and Jamie as fish-out-of-water visitors to contemporary Chelsea, the story had moved to Victorian Kent, restricted to the confines of Theodore Maxtible's country house, where Jamie's rescue of Victoria was certainly the most exciting part. If there was padding, it has been well and truly ditched with the departure of those extraneous characters who inhabited the house.

Episode Six now sees the action shift to the Dalek homeworld of Skaro. It's this final section of the story which is best remembered by fans who saw it at the time (on first or repeat broadcast) and it could be argued that it's the bit which most of us would like to see found. The Daleks have worked well in the gothic environs of the house, mainly because many of their scenes were filmed on location at night, but a high tech environment like their city does seem to be their natural habitat.

Before we get there we have the humorous opening scenes of the playful Daleks, making the Doctor play "trains" with them. Nation would not doubt have cringed at scenes of them playing and chanting about "Dizzy Daleks", or the sing-song "Alpha, Beta, Omega. Alpha, Beta, Omega...".

This episode gives guest star Marius Goring more to do at last. John Bailey's Waterfield has had more of a presence up to now, whilst Maxtible has tended to merely flit in and out of the laboratory, fluffing lines - calling Waterfield "Whitefield" at one point, and claiming the Daleks hail from a planet named Skarov. With the experiment out of the way, and those other characters jettisoned, the story can concentrate more on him and his obsession with alchemical secrets, and the relationship which he believes he has with the Daleks.

The city clearly does not resemble the one seen in The Daleks. Not just in its architecture, which can obviously change over the centuries, but also in the geographical location. The city seen previously sat on a plain, with mountains behind, whilst this one has higher ground all around it. 

The Doctor also seems to know all about the tunnel system leading into it, which he claims he recalls from his previous visit. If it's the tunnels which Ian's party used to infiltrate the city then they don't look the same, and he was never seen to enter them anyway. It may well be that he explored off camera between the defeat of the Daleks and the farewell scenes by the TARDIS. An alternative is that this is another city altogether (an idea which some fans have raised to explain how the Daleks could all be destroyed in their debut, and yet still be around later). If this is the case, then the Doctor can't possibly know about the secret tunnel entrance - unless there has been some unseen adventure on Skaro in the interim.

We have to question why, if the Daleks know about the tunnel (and they do, as they send the fake Omega along it) it isn't properly guarded.

Trivia:

• After a gradual decline, the ratings show a massive improvement this week - up 1.7 million viewers. The appreciation figure drops below 50, however.
• The repeat screening was at 5.15pm on Saturday 27th July 1968, when it was watched by an audience of 4.2 million - the lowest of the run - but with a higher AI of 51.
• When Russell T Davies introduced a new Emperor Dalek in Parting of the Ways, he had it served by black-domed versions of the standard bronze Daleks as a nod to this story. There was also a visual clue to the Emperor in the previous episode as we see the Controller of the Game Station permanently wired into its systems, and there's a familiar hexagonal pattern left behind when she gets teleported away.
• A Black Dalek was amongst the inmates of the Asylum of the Daleks, not that you could actually spot it very well. Matt Smith and Karen Gillan actually claimed it as their favourite of the classic models and were photographed with it.
• Radio Times this week featured a piece on Marius Goring, to tie in with the broadcast of this sixth episode:

• There is a recreation of the Dalek Emperor on display at the Adventures in Time and Space exhibition in Peterborough's art gallery and museum, running to October 2025.

• And a Black Dalek was a regular fixture of the Doctor Who Experience throughout its run. Presumably this was the prop which, dirtied down, had featured in Asylum of the Daleks...

Episode 167: The Evil of the Daleks (5)

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...

Data:

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".

Trivia:

• 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.

The Art of... The Evil of the Daleks

For many years a number of Doctor Who stories remained to be novelised. Three writers were responsible for this - Eric Saward, Douglas Adams and Terry Nation. In the case of the latter, Nation had never novelised any of his stories anyway, content to allow Terrance Dicks to cover them once the Target imprint started up, but he was in no rush to see anyone work on any of the David Whitaker scripted stories. 

Apparently this was due to his dislike of them, as he felt that Whitaker never handled his creations properly. He was especially annoyed at the introduction of a Dalek Emperor, as well as anything which did not show the creatures as anything other than ruthless and threatening. In the case of The Evil of the Daleks, he really did not like the three humanised Daleks - Alpha, Beta and Omega.

Nation would eventually allow the outstanding Dalek stories to be novelised, and selected John Peel to do so. Peel had emigrated to the USA from the UK and was very active in organised fandom, including editing and contributing to a number of fanzine publications. He got to know Nation after arranging a convention appearance and the two went on to become friends.

The novel Doctor Who - The Evil of the Daleks was published in 1993 with a cover by Alister Pearson.

For his artwork, the Doctor derives from a publicity shot from The Ice Warriors, whilst the black-domed Dalek comes from a shot of the Gold Dalek in Day of the Daleks.

The book uses the same chapter heading - "The Net Tightens..." - for both Chapters 2 and 7. Despite coming out after the main Target range had finished, it was given a series book number.

Peel included a prologue featuring the Emperor.

The story was first released in audio form on double cassette. This comprised an abridged version of the soundtrack with narration by Tom Baker, in character as the Fourth Doctor remembering this old adventure. The Dalek is clearly the wrong kind for this story, coming as it does from The Dalek Invasion of Earth, whilst the Troughton image was taken during a later season.

This is the only release for the story in any format not to highlight the distinctive Emperor Dalek somewhere on its cover.

This was released in July 1992. The scenes in The Tricolour coffee bar were omitted as the BBC elected to avoid the expense of music clearances.

The soundtrack was remastered and released in unabridged form on CD in November 2003, this time narrated by Frazer Hines. This had the usual photomontage cover, with images appropriate to the story other than the Troughton publicity portrait which derives from the early days of his tenure.

This one also makes use of the publicity shots taken at Grim's Dyke of Hines and Watling posing with a Dalek.

Once again there was an issue with the music in the coffee bar sequences. Whilst The Seekers song could be cleared, the Beatles track could not. Rather than omit the scene, a track by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich - Hold Tight - was used.

The third and most recent audio release of the soundtrack came in July 2019, when the story arrived on vinyl from Demon Records. This also went for a striking image of the climactic scenes from the final episode. (In the same way that some people accuse The War Games of being nine episodes waiting for the Time Lords to show up, so critics of The Evil of the Daleks will claim it's six episodes of running around waiting for the big battle). On the rear and inside we have other images relating to the final episode.

The vinyl pattern is described by the company as "Orange & Black Haze (Skaro Swirl)".

The surviving second episode of The Evil of the Daleks was released on VHS as part of the Daleks - The Early Years tape, hosted by Peter Davison, and later on DVD as part of the Lost in Time set.

The orphan episode was also included when the story was released in animated form on DVD and Blu-ray in September 2021. The 7 instalments could be viewed either in colour or in B&W. The Tom Baker-narrated audiobook was included as an extra. Unfortunately, the animation is in the usual very basic style, with characters possessing unfeasibly long arms. Likenesses are okay and the Daleks themselves always come across well in animation. 

As usual, a steelbook version was also available:

As you will no doubt be aware, The Evil of the Daleks was repeated in the summer of 1968, and this screening was made to form part of the on-going series narrative by having the Doctor recall these events for the benefit of Zoe at the conclusion to The Wheel in Space, to give her an idea of what she is letting herself in for.

In 2023 Frazer Hines authored a new novelisation of The Evil of the Daleks - the version being related to Zoe by the Doctor, so basically the book of the repeat screening.

The cover design was by Lee Binding, and naturally Jamie takes centre stage as it is written from his perspective. 

Free copies of this new iteration of the story were given away the following year - with an inferior new cover - by Doctor Who Magazine (Issue 609). This also used the new 60th Anniversary version of the logo, and tied in with a number of newer stories being released as Target books. The reason for my dislike of the cover? The Doctor's head and hand are totally out of proportion to his body. It's like a really bad photoshop.

Whilst the cover only credits Hines as writer, inside the credit is shared between him and Mike Tucker & Steve Cole. It contradicts the earlier Peel novelisation by giving Kemel a different origins story.

Finally, prior to the animated DVD release, the missing story was represented on the movie database site (moviedb) with a strikingly colourful photomontage image.