Doctor Who has long been my favorite show, but it’s been a couple of years since I’ve actually watched anything but the newest episodes. Before that, I was making a respectable run at getting through the original series, most of which I haven’t seen for decades. For various reasons, it feels like time to get back into it.
The Evil of the Daleks
Starring Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor.
Companions: Frazer Hines as Jamie McCrimmon and introducing Deborah Watling as Victoria Waterfield
Written by David Whitaker. Directed by Derek Martinus. Produced by Innes Lloyd. Script Edited by Gerry Davis and Peter Bryant. Animation recreation produced and directed by AnneMarie Walsh.
Format: 7 episodes, each about 25 minutes long.
Originally Aired: May – July 1967 (episodes 37-43 of Season 4)
Because of the BBC’s lamentable policy of junking old episodes of their shows that they thought they’d have no more use for, a lot of the Second Doctor’s stories are missing in whole or part. Back in the day when I was first watching the series, there were only five full stories still in the archives, and The Evil of the Daleks was not one of them. And at that time, out of all of them, I’d say that Evil had perhaps the greatest air of awe and mystique about it. We knew, for instance, that it featured what was intended to be the big final end of the Daleks (writer Terry Nation intended to spin-off his creation into the American TV market at the time, and so Doctor Who was asked not to use them anymore) and that it sounded absolutely epic. You couldn’t even read the story since various issues kept Target books from publishing a novelisation (as they did with much of the rest of the series).
When a book finally came out in 1993, I snatched it up–I checked my shelf recently to see if it was still there, but it looks like I got rid of it with a bunch of my other old Doctor Who books. And when they produced an animated re-creation a few years ago, I was quick to buy that on DVD as well, although it’s taken me some time to get around to actually watching it. But just this past few days, I finally have!
Spoilers Ahead!
Thankfully for all the expectations of my younger days, The Evil of the Daleks was a good watch. It might not be the absolute masterpiece I would have wished, but it’s a lot of fun, with a far-reaching plot that is paced out well over its seven-episode runtime. Things start in the modern day, with the drama picking up immediately after the cliffhanger ending of The Faceless Ones, when the TARDIS is abruptly stolen. After a few episodes, this turns out to be a plot to lure the Doctor to the 1800s, where the Daleks want to use him and his companion Jamie, supposedly to help isolate the “human factor” which the Daleks need to finally conquer the earth. Eventually the story takes us to Skaro, the homeworld of the Daleks (seen during their debut story and not since, at least not substantially) where the Doctor encounters the Dalek Emperor and discovers the Daleks’ real plan.
This progression in the story–from modern earth, to the Victorian era, to Skaro–helps keep the plot lively and prevents things from feeling stale. It also helps to build the tension, as things feel increasingly perilous for the characters. And setting the end of the story on Skaro, for what was intended at the time to be the Doctor’s final confrontation with the Daleks, feels particularly apt.
The true plot of the Daleks is quite the grand-scale overblown high-stakes drama that the show is great at, but is nicely different than the usual go-to of just killing everyone. The Doctor finds out that the Daleks have been secretly using the research they’ve been forcing him to do to isolate the “Dalek factor” (basically, unswerving obedience to the Daleks) with the intention that the Doctor use the TARDIS to spread it to humanity all through history. It’s quite the far-out idea for the show to go back in 1967.
The story’s high-stakes drama is elevated by the presence of the Emperor Dalek for the first time (on TV anyway–maybe a similar figure had appeared in comics before? I’m not sure). Something along these lines was in the novel for the first Dalek story (usually known as The Daleks) and I remember being disappointed that it didn’t show up in the serial.
The presence of this monstrous big-boss Dalek-leader in this adventure really helps to sell what a big deal this battle is.
Jamie is used excellently in The Evil of the Daleks–proving that he really is one of the show’s best ever companions. He gets lots of physical business and numerous action scenes, but he also gets to play both smitten and tender with newcomer Victoria. He also gets some strong moments of conflict with the Doctor, when he calls him out angrily for his suspicious behavior. It’s a great sequence, and when you remember it at the end of the story, when Jamie has to decide whether he can trust the Doctor when he claims the “Dalek factor” process hasn’t worked on him, it makes the later scene all the more meaningful.
It’s no wonder Jamie is uncertain–the Doctor spends a lot of time in this story being incredibly manipulative. We are used to seeing the Second Doctor play the fool with his enemies, but it’s kind of edgy and discomforting to have him deliberately tricking his friends in this way (in order to get him to play the Daleks’ “game” and try to rescue Victoria).
Of course, it’s understandable, given that the Doctor is trying to deceive the Daleks and their agents at the same time, but it adds a shadow to this iteration of the character that I appreciate.
Even darker is how directly the Doctor provokes the civil war amongst the Daleks. Things with his three “human factor” Daleks get a little silly, of course, with them spinning around and repeating “dizzy Daleks!” but there is nothing cute or sentimental in how the Doctor uses them. We watch him deliberately goading them into confrontations with “normal” Daleks in sequences which inevitably lead to Daleks on both sides blowing each other up and dying is hideous lingering Dalek-screams. This is a Doctor that isn’t showing any of the uncertainty that we’ll see in some later stories about whether he has the right to wipe out a whole race of Daleks–he is confident that he does. I don’t think we will see a Doctor this cold again until the Seventh Doctor tricks Davros into blowing up Skaro, some twenty years later.
The DVD I bought had a view different options–I could watch the animated episodes in black & white (like the original) or in color, and I could include the original episode 2 (the only one that we still have) or not. I opted for black & white, and to include the original second episode, and I was quickly aware of how much is lost in the animated versions. This isn’t a revolutionary thought, obviously–the story wasn’t designed to be animated–but there is a lot of nuance that the actors bring to their performances that the animation just doesn’t capture. This was immediately apparent with Patrick Troughton as the Doctor–there is almost always something going on with him that is interesting to watch, that I definitely missed when we ran out of live-action footage.
As a result it’s a bit hard to judge the performances. I can tell that the regulars are doing good jobs, and I found both John Bailey and Marius Goring as Edward Waterfield and Theodore Maxtible to be consistently interesting as well. I also liked the character of Mollie, Maxtible’s maid (apparently they briefly considered making her the new companion before settling on Victoria). I think it’s a shame, however, that we don’t have any actual footage of Sonny Caldinez as Kemel, the mute Turkish muscle-man. The character may have a “noble savage” overtone that is kind of problematic (considering how few non-white British characters appeared in the show during this time), but I would have been curious to see if the performance and direction transcend that at all.
As it is, Kemel is still a cool character to have running around, although he gets a lame death scene–being pushed off a cliff by an old man. Who knows–maybe the Dalek Factor makes you super-strong as well?
The Evil of the Daleks is kind of coming-of-age story for the Second Doctor era. With the full departure of Ben and Polly, there is nothing stopping Jamie from settling into the position of the show’s primary co-star. He really is one of the show’s best ever companions–funny, charming, and curious, and able to stand up for himself and fight. He and Patrick Troughton have an excellent on-screen dynamic. With Deborah Watling joining as the sweet but grief-stricken Victoria Waterfield, a cast has gathered who are really perfect for this Doctor. We don’t get to actually see the three of them function together very much (since Victoria only joins the team properly at the end) but in hindsight we can see that all the pieces are in place, and are looking bright for the future.
Other thoughts:
• The Doctor plays his recorder pretty extensively in this episode. I know it’s a bit of a trademark for Troughton’s version of the character, but I don’t recall him actually playing it all that much in other stories that I’ve seen.
• When discussing what he would do with everyone if they escape the Daleks, the Doctor muses, “I suppose I might try to take you to another universe. I might even try and take you to my own planet.” It’s interesting lore-hints to drop. This was two years before Gallifrey was introduced or the Doctor’s origins were revealed. And most of the time when we see the Doctor going to another universe, it’s by accident.
• This story has one of my favorite pieces of dialogue from the Doctor. He is told, sarcastically by an enemy: “No doubt you’re a keen student of human nature, but some things are better left alone.” The Doctor replies, “No…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.” That’s good stuff.
