The Doctor, Susan, Barbara and Ian arrive on the planet Skaro, where war has been raging between the Thal and the Daleks for 500 years.
A Karl Marx lookalike delivers spiffing technobabble while time travel goes straight down the drain in this senseless yet hugely compelling serial.
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Ok, I’m going to bullet point this serial’s blurb, because the plot of Evil of The Daleks makes so little sense to me, it actually hurts a little:
So that’s the basic gist of this serial. That being said, man, oh, man, I sort of liked it nonetheless. Plot logic goes straight out the window in this one, but there’s time travel and great technobabble and the first appearance of the Dalek Emperor, not to mention of future companion Victoria Waterfield as well! What’s not to like? Well, quite a lot, I suppose, and you’ll have to listen to this podcast episode for the juicy details.
Screenshots from The Evil of The Daleks:
Screenshots of Sonny Caldinez in other stuff, including Doctor Who:
Here’s the mini production featurette mentioned in this podcast episode:
Here’s the Loose Cannon Productions interview with Colin Baker that I mention in this podcast episode:
And here’s the interview with Sonny Caldinez:
Lastly, do yourselves a favour and check out this super interesting interview with Doctor Who author John Peel:
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The Evil of the Daleks is the second and last Dalek story of Troughton’s era. There won’t be Daleks again for about one Doctor and four companions.
I want to say, right off the bat, that I really enjoyed this story. One of the bigger issues with Classic Who, the pacing, didn’t really feel present here as I felt something was almost always happening. It helped that we never spent too long in a single place. One thing that caught my attention in the early episodes was how mundane everything actually was until the Daleks took over the plot. It was the Doctor and Jamie trying to solve a mystery through completely normal means. I personally found it an interesting change.
I particularly liked this serial’s secondary cast. Starting with Edward Waterfield, I liked how his eccentricities in the initial episodes, like referring to a cab as a “handsome” or not understanding slang terms, can in hindsight be seen as foreshadowing for his actual origin rather than an antique seller’s eccentricities. Maxtible, like Mavic Chen before him and many others after, never realizes until it’s far too late that he’s just the pawn. That realization and the gradual breakdown that follows was the kind of fallen arrogance that the Chameleons lacked in “The Faceless Ones.”
I’m genuinely curious, Ponken, to hear your opinion on Kemmel. On the one hand, the only non-British human character is a big, mute, brute of a man. On the other, he’s the single most valiant character in the entire secondary cast. A similar character will appear in “Tomb of the Cybermen”, incidentally.
We have a new companion in Victoria Waterfield, though she doesn’t get much spotlight until late in the story. The Troughton stories I’ve seen, listened to, and (in one case) read paint her more as a companion in the vein of Susan, Vicki, and Dodo rather than in the caliber of Barbara or Polly. Still, she does begin the only time in all of Who I can think of where the Doctor has multiple Earthling companions each from Earth’s past rather than the current present day.
The Daleks and their Emperor give a good showing. It’s not often we see them so thoroughly outwit the Doctor, as they did here by using his Human Factor studies to discover the Dalek Factor. Not to mention trying to trick the Doctor by posing as one of the humanized Daleks. On the other hand, trying to hypnotize the Doctor into walking into his doom was not a stroke of genius. One question that occurred to me though, is in assuming the Dalek-Factor archway would affect him, could that mean that the Daleks before now never realized the Doctor was not actually a human being?
It’s Jamie, however, who is the highlight of the story to me. Much of the story focuses on him and his basic humanity. He plays the gallant knight going off to rescue Victoria, defeats and befriends Kemmel, and even calls out the Doctor for his perceived callousness in a way much like Ian and Steven before him. Only when it seems like the Doctor himself has been taken down does he himself begin to feel any kind of despair.
I really enjoyed the Evil of the Daleks and, with that in mind, am giving it a 4.3 out of 5.
So the Evil of the Daleks picks up where the Faceless Ones episode 6 ended with a relatively nonplussed Doc telling Jaime “we lost the TARDIS.” And Evil…begins with them not only finding it but chasing it. They do some snooping, get a small lead, and then we find out about other people in the serial (where we get information that DJ don’t yet have, and then DJ keep snooping. This pattern repeats for a bit. It would have been a fun surprise when the Dalek appeared if the serial wasn’t called the Evil of the Daleks. I didn’t really buy into the acting of the grumpy Santa-doppelganger that is helping the Daleks.
Waterfield and Kemel are both was a fairly interesting character who have a little more depth to them than the once off characters of other serials. Which in my opinion is interesting considering that Victoria’s character is just a useless and helpless girl (not another one in Doctor Who – I’m looking at you Dodo and Vicki).
The Daleks want the human-factor and I love the playful Daleks, which is fun while it lasts. So it should be a quite memorable serial, but I always forget about it until I watch in. Which in a way makes my score go up slightly because when I watch it I feel like I’m rediscovering it. Side not – in this already longer than I planned “Mini-Review” How come the Daleks are looking for a human factor when we all know that the real reason that the humans defeat them is “The Doctor.” Shouldn’t they be looking for the Time Lord Factor or The Doctor Factor. If we wait about a decade (I can’t be bothered to do the math) Who Back When will review “The Witch’s Familiar” where we’ll kind of see that.
All and all a fun serial it has it’s fun parts and it has it’s ‘will this scene ever end’ moments. But in the end it still is still a serial that I often forget about despite love, love, love -ing the second Doctor. He’s usually the one I call my favorite doctor. (Sometimes I flip flop to Davison.)
Last notes before my score: It’s an odd feeling to root for the Human Factor Daleks. I give it a middle of the road: 2.9. Really only a hair off from a three, but I can’t quite put it there. For context I gave The Chase a 2.9 as well (before I started submitting Mini-Reviews). It’s a fair score, like The Chase it was a little too silly at times, but not without it’s great moments.
Ps In Dalek voice: “Dizzy, Dizzy, Dizzy, Daleks! Why? Why? Why obey without question?”
Hello once again, Podcastland! I’m here to take a look at the final story of Season 4, “The Evil of the Daleks”. As always, here’s a quick fact file (I do quite like these fact files. Gives you some more Whovian Knowledge, you know?):
~Written by former Doctor Who script editor David Whitaker, The Evil of the Daleks was initially intended to be the last Dalek story on Doctor Who. Writer Terry Nation, the creator of the Daleks, was busily trying to sell the Daleks to American television at the time, to produce a spin-off series featuring them, and it was intended to give them a big send off from the series. Of course, despite the Doctor’s pronouncement, this was not to be his last encounter with these most famous of his adversaries. In addition, despite the intention to “kill off” the Daleks, Lloyd was told, at the last moment before filming the final scene, not to. He did this inserting a light globe inside one of the wrecked Daleks in the Emperor Dalek’s chamber. This light glowed, suggesting that something within remained alive.
~The Evil of the Daleks was wiped from the BBC’s archives in the early 1970s. Only a telerecording of episode two remains, which was returned to the BBC archive in May 1987 after being found at a car boot sale a few years earlier. A copy of the soundtrack was released in 1992. A second version with alternative narration was released in 2003. A home movie of the filming of the Dalek battle sequence exists and is included on the DVD of The Tomb of the Cybermen.
~Patrick Troughton and Deborah Watling appear only in film inserts in episode four, as they were both on holiday during the week when it was recorded.
~This story picks up where The Faceless Ones left off. The first two episodes take place contemporaneously with part four of The War Machines, which may go some way to explaining why the First Doctor said at the start of the earlier story that he had the same feeling he had when Daleks were around.
~The Evil of the Daleks was the first Doctor Who serial to be repeated in its entirety. This occurred between June and August of 1968, when the serial was aired to fill the gap between seasons 5 and 6, with a two-week break between episodes three and four to accommodate the BBC’s extended coverage of the Wimbledon tennis tournament. Unlike most reruns, the repeat was actually worked into the narrative of the series, by having new companion Zoe Heriot watching the events unfold via a telepathic projector hidden behind one of the roundels of the console room. For the repeats, episode one had an added voice-over by Patrick Troughton and Wendy Padbury immediately after the opening title sequence that referred back to the fact that this was being “shown” to Zoe:
The Doctor: “Now as I remember, Zoe, it all started when Jamie and I spotted someone making off with the TARDIS.”
Zoe: “But what about those Daleks you showed me?”
The Doctor: “We’re coming to that, Zoe. Just let me show you the story from the beginning…”
Now that we got this massive fact file out of the way, let’s get onto the review.
Alchemy is the key motif to David Whitaker’s majestic seven-parter. The transmutation of base metal into gold is the obsession driving Theodore Maxtible, as we eventually discover, but the theme resonates in subtler ways throughout. Troughton’s whimsical Doctor exhibits a far darker side. Previously eclipsed Jamie is at last allowed to shine with Ben and Polly now gone. A few Daleks develop human characteristics. One human even becomes a Dalek. 60’s Britain shimmers with a puff of gas into Victorian times. That setting – with an explosion – sublimes into a far-flung world. And underscoring it all, the incidental music segues seamlessly between instrumental and electronic.
Like most of the Dalek serials before it, the Daleks were once again after universal domination. We also get the Dalek Emperor and the fall of the Dalek Empire at the end of the serial. I thought this was the Daleks at their best. Heck, even the Daleks with the Human factor were great. I thought it was funny how those Daleks acted, but it at times could be a little annoying. (Insert soundbyte of “Dizzy Daleks” here)
As in “The Moonbase”, the Doctor was dead serious when dealing with the Daleks. I would be too. Of course, the Doctor had no choice but to help the Daleks with their experiment.
As noted above, Jamie is finally used fully and is one of the best parts of this story. Victoria Waterfield, who makes her debut in Episode 2, was a nice addition to the TARDIS team. However, she wouldn’t have her “Bigger on the Inside” moment until the following story (Spoilers). Victoria is maybe my second favorite companion of the Second Doctor, next to Jamie, of course. You really feel for her at the end of the serial. She’s lost everything. Her father killed by the Daleks, she’s millions of light years and centuries away from her own time and place. She’s just a scared girl who ends up joining the Doctor and Jamie on their travels.
Maxtible was made a villain through his greed. He wanted to figure out how to turn metals like iron and lead into gold. In the end, he was tricked and the Daleks gave him the Dalek Factor. In the end, we can only assume that Maxtible was either killed or went missing on Skaro when the Human Factor Daleks started fighting the Empire Daleks. I thought Maxtible was great. On the subject of villains, Marxtible and Waterfield were mere pawns of the Emperor Dalek. The Emperor Dalek steals the show in episode seven, and even though he get only moments of screen time, he asserts himself in that position of authority through that menacing deeper, booming Dalek voice. Even as he was being destroyed, yelling “Do not fight in here! I am your Emperor!” and such, he was a powerful character to the end.
The Loose Canon recons were pretty good. The CGI effects in the recons (For example, the traps in Karl Marxtible’s house and a CGI Dalek Emperor in episode 6’s recon) helped make them a little more interesting, and at least Episode 2 survives in its entirety, featuring almost every principal character in this serial besides Kemel. Oh, and let’s not forget the scenes from episode 7 where the Empire Daleks and the Human Factor Daleks fight it out. It’s quite funny how they used the 60’s Dalek toys in the model shots, and I’m glad you can actually watch that (If you want to watch it, but don’t feel like slogging through a recon to see it, it’s available on the “Tomb of the Cybermen” DVD as an extra).
So, overall, how was this serial? Well, I loved it. I can see why most Whovians in 1993 voted it the “Best Doctor Who Serial of All Time”. But, as Ponken pointed out, it’s got a few plot points that don’t go anywhere or aren’t used to their full potential. I think if Ponken’s version of the story were told, I’d be giving this serial an easy 4.0/5. So, I’m giving this serial a 3.95/5. To some, this could be considered the definite article when it comes to a good Dalek story, and it put all the previous Dalek stories (With the exception of “The Daleks’ Master Plan, of course.) to shame. I think that the Classic Series Dalek stories that followed aren’t as good as this one, with the exception of “Remembrance of the Daleks” and “Genesis of the Daleks”. Only two NuWho stories can compare to this story: “Dalek” and the opening two parter of Series 9, “The Magician’s Apprentice” & “The Witch’s Familiar”. The Doctor may think this serial brings a “final end” to the Daleks, but his encounters with the Daleks are far from being all over.
The Doctor and Jamie escape the battle with the now orphaned Victoria and watch the city burn, apparently witnesses to the final end of the Daleks. Jamie expresses concern about Victoria being left alone, to which the Doctor replies that she’ll be going with them as they leave.
In the Emperor Dalek’s burning chamber, a light pulses inside an overturned, wrecked Dalek casing…
Since I only started writing reviews for WhoBackWhen, here are my ratings for the entirety of Season 4 of the Classic Series:
“The Smugglers”: 2.9/5
“The Tenth Planet”: 4.3/5
“The Power of the Daleks”: 3.9/5
“The Highlanders”: 3.0/5
“The Underwater Menace”: 3.0/5
“The Moonbase”: 3.8/5
“The Macra Terror”: 3.7/5
“The Faceless Ones”:3.7/5
“The Evil of the Daleks”: Were you not listening? I gave it a 3.95/5
I look forward to the next review, and I’m sure all of you are, too, as Doc Hammer, Jamie and Victoria travel to the planet Telos, where a great evil lies in sleep, and some foolish archeologists are about to wake them up! We kick off Season 5 of Classic Who next time, as Ponken and Co. reviews “The Tomb of the Cybermen”! I’ll see you all then!
The Evil of The Daleks – https://t.co/4HcmNjvZOU #GoogleAlerts
Sorry guys but I think you mark very harshly. I only know Evil from the BBC audio version but surely this is one of the pillars of the Who pantheon? I feel similarly about the next one up, Tomb. I can never believe the middling marks people accord these episodes. Evil is 4-4.5/5. I’m going with the latter mark.
Anyway, love the WBW podcasts – right up there with best. My personal favourites are your Dalek Invasion and War Machines.
What-ho, Scorby!
Thanks for writing in. I hate to say it, but I kind of agree with you. About us being too harsh, that is. There are plenty of serials that – you’re absolutely right – we have judged unfairly and that – in hindsight – even on this podcast, we’ve said that we’d rate higher if given the choice. When we’ve finished reviewing all of Classic Who, perhaps we should make a completely fresh rating and ranking of all serials to see where they stand in the perfect totality of Classic Who. Hold up. Strike that ‘perhaps’. That’s a brilliant idea! Yes, we’re totally doing that!
As for The Evil of The Daleks, well, its flaws are still too fresh in my mind for me to regret the score I gave it, but I look forward to looking back on it fondly. Thanks for listening!
(Our Dalek Invasion of Earth review is one of my favs, too!)
First off, I originally had an old copy of the Loose Canon recon. I appreciated it, but the copy I had was down so many VHS generations I could barely see the pictures. It may as well have been an audio drama with no narrator and no explanation of the dialog pauses.
This time I found a new recon with computer animation for much of the Dalek scenes and even some stand-ins for shots when you couldn’t see people’s faces. It was brilliant and made all the difference in the world.
While I agree that for some reason I tend to forget about this story in the grand scheme of Dr Who, I found myself really interested this time and quite enjoyed it. It is flawed in more than a few ways, but that didn’t ruin my enjoyment of it this time.
What makes this story better (and I don’t know if this is “allowed” in the world of reviews, but I’m doing it anyway), is if one comes back to this story after seeing some of the future Dalek stories, especially Genesis. Consider that the “human factor” is what makes humans able to overcome adversity in the face of total hopelessness. When the Daleks are defeated, they leave and make new plans. When the humans are defeated, they fight harder. The Daleks fatal flaw is their inflexibility. They can make plans and provisions, and alternate plans, but if they all fail, they have nowhere to go from there. This is what they need from humans. The rest of it is something they can never have. Human compassion, forgiveness, morals, friendship. These are the things that allow Jamie to overcome the tests. When all hope was lost, this is what got him through. As we see, if the Daleks acquire these traits, then they are no longer Daleks. The humans succeed because of these things, and the sense of comradery it inspires in them and potential allies, and together they triumph. This was done much better here than it was in the awful “Evolution of the Daleks”.
Now what about the Dalek factor? It’s not their unquestioning obedience alone. As Genesis points out, they’ve had pity, sympathy, morals removed from their genetic makeup. They are obedient because they cannot conceive of any other way. There is no emotion. It is this that make them so ruthless and “evil” as we come to learn in this episode.
The evil of the Daleks is that they feel nothing for anyone (including each other). Allies, promises, truths mean nothing to them. They purposefully deceive and take pride in denying what is promised to those who serve them. They are evil not because they conquer, but because of how they do it.
As for the time travel, my personal observation is that Maxtible and Waterfield didn’t invent time travel. They invented, “something” that caught the attention of the Daleks. The daleks then allowed them to think their invention worked while all the while they were using Dalek time travel technology. Thus they used their time tracker to find the doctor and set their trap. The fact that he was in one place and time for so long (the airport) allowed this to happen. There are some vague clues here and there, but perhaps I’m fan-xplaining too much here. Again though, it makes much more sense.
Suggested changes: There’s a lot of stuff here that one needs to not only read between the lines, but write their own chapter or two. It’s a flaw of the script I think. More could have been examined in place of some of the filler scenes. The whole guy in the barn wanting his money seemed useless and out of place. It should be deleted. Most missed footage would be the fight scene with Jamie and the brute (or any scene with Victoria in it).
Overall though all characters were well acted and the story, for 7 parts, did keep a good pace. In the end though it missed some character interaction and motivation scenes that would have made it great.
Dizzy Daleks were kept to a minimum, and it is supposed to be at least geared towards kids after all. I found this story fun. 3.6
The Doctor and Jamie chased the TARDIS from Gatwick Airport and consulted a suspicious man, Hall, in a garage. They followed him to a rendezvous as Kennedy watched, reporting to Edward Waterfield. Once paid off, Hall refused to attack the Doctor and Jamie. So, Kennedy sandbagged Hall and fled. The Doctor and Jamie found a box of cigarettes; matches used by a left handed smoker; and Hall, who told them “Ken” had paid him before taking his money and running away. Meanwhile, Perry delivered the TARDIS to Waterfield’s antique shop and was told to invite the Doctor and Jamie to his shop that night. Their pictures enabled Perry to identify them at the coffee shop, where he delivered the invitation. Kennedy reported the Doctor had followed his matchbook clue and that Hall had left town. A Dalek, with whom Waterfield pleaded he’d done as instructed demanded to know who Kennedy was when Waterfield’s minion found the secret room at the shop, tried to operate a strange machine, and opened a safe.
Kennedy was exterminated as he fled before the Dalek dismissed Waterfield’s dismay at the murder, considering Kennedy’s life unimportant. The Doctor and Jamie entered the shop stealthily before their appointment and noted Waterfield’s 19th century antiques were brand new. They questioned Perry about the theft of the TARDIS and the clues that brought them to their appointment. They found Kennedy’s body and Perry tried unsuccessfully to call the police before going for help. Too curious about the murder to search for the TARDIS, the Doctor found Waterfield’s secret room. Inside, Jamie triggered knockout gas trap and Waterfield used the time machine, which interfered with his phone, to take them to Theodore Maxtible’s mansion in 1866. The Doctor, and later Jamie, recovered in a room where a portrait of Edward Waterfield’s late wife, who resembled his daughter, hung for reasons that were never revealed. Maxtible and Waterfield took the Doctor to a lab and explained they used mirrors and electromagnetism to build a time machine and inadvertently unleashed powerful, inhuman creatures. Daleks had kidnapped Waterfield’s daughter, Victoria, who was not obeying their orders to eat, and forced Waterfield to steal the TARDIS in order to lure the Doctor back in time so he could perform a test on Jamie. Maxtible believed the Daleks wanted to discover why humans always defeated them. Jamie met Maxtible’s daughter, Ruth, and was kidnapped by a man who left the unconscious maid, Mollie, behind.
While Waterfield aided Mollie, a piece of straw led the Doctor to the stables, where Arthur Terrell paid Jamie’s kidnapper, Toby. Terrell asked Jamie about Victoria Waterfield and said she was in Paris after his face contorted with pain. The Doctor found them and brought Jamie back to the house, where he assured Waterfield his companion would do as instructed. Jamie overheard them and became angry. To facilitate the test, Daleks moved Victoria and Maxtible showed them a large, mute wrestler. This man, Kemel, bent a metal bar and broke a board before Maxtible told him to prevent Jamie from entering the South wing of the house. He also revealed a spike trap guarding the area. Meanwhile, three dormant Daleks awaited positronic brains which the Doctor would infuse with “the Human Factor” by monitoring Jamie as he tried to rescue Victoria. Daleks considered the Doctor “more then human” because he traveled extensively in time and was therefore unsuitable for their purposes. Ruth introduced Jamie and Terrell who were frosty toward one another until Terrell suffered a painful attack and stepped away. Ruth followed, concerned. Mollie told Jamie Masxtible’s house was haunted before he confronted the Doctor about working with Waterfeld and Maxtible. The Doctor revealed Daleks held Victoria and warned Jamie not to rescue her. Toby and Terrell argued about Toby’s work for Terrell, who suffered another attack before being robbed. Mollie helped Jamie make his way through the house to rescue Victoria as the Doctor monitored him and selected human elements to be recorded. Toby discovered the Daleks and was exterminated while Jamie sent Mollie to the safety of her room. In the South wing, Jamie survived the spike trap before Kemel confronted him.
Jamie and Kemel fought evenly until Jamie retreated and dodged, causing Kemel to fly through an open window onto the roof. Jamie prevented him from falling to his death. After Kemel prevented an axe from killing Jamie, they became friends as each realized the other intended to save Victoria. Meanwhile, the Doctor, under close Dalek scrutiny, isolated and recorded human characteristics like courage, mercy, gut instinct, and self preservation from Jamie, as he and Kemel avoided Daleks and their traps. Maxtible and Waterfield were ordered to dispose of Toby’s body, but Waterfield just wanted to save Victoria. Terrell saved Waterfield when Maxtible prepared to kill him. Mollie told Terrell she’d heard Victoria’s voice and Ruth, concerned about him, urged him to come away with her, but he refused. Maxtible understood his relationship with the Daleks to be an agreement. They ordered him to obey when he asked them to hold up their end. Jamie and Kemel destroyed a Dalek, flinging it into a banquet hall’s fireplace using a rope with which they climbed to the balcony upon which the’d seen Victoria presented twice. When they found her, another Dalek guarded Victoria.
Jamie and Kemel used their rope to lasso the Dalek and draw it over the balcony’s edge. It exploded. They barricaded themselves in the room where Victoria was held and talked with her about her experiences with the Daleks. She could not recall, though, specifically how they began. The Doctor, meanwhile, offered Terrell refreshments, explaining Ruth’s guest had eaten nothing since arriving at the house. Terrell declined, threatening the Doctor with a sword and revealing his body was magnetized. The Doctor left and Terrell would have tasted some wine if a voice in his head had not ordered him not to. Maxtible, meanwhile, mesmerized Mollie, convincing her she had heard Victoria’s voice in a dream and sent her to bed. Terrell asked Maxtible for help against the Daleks, whom they both served. Maxtible insisted he would be fine and sent him to get Victoria. The Doctor showed Waterfield a positronic brain infused with positive human traits intended for the dormant Daleks. Waterfield expressed concern over what was happening and the Doctor mused there might be more going on than they imagined. The Daleks, he felt, wanted him. He also urged Waterfield to free Victoria from the Daleks’ power. Jamie told Victoria the story of her rescue before Daleks seemed about to break in before Terrell arrived and took Victoria through a secret passage. Jamie and Kemel followed as she escaped. At the other end of the passage, Jamie and Terrell dueled evenly. The noise drew Ruth; Mollie; and, after a moment, the Doctor. The fight ended as Terrell collapsed, clutching his head in pain. The Doctor urged Ruth to take him far away and assured Terrell Victoria was safe. In the lab, Kemel found Victoria and a Dalek ordered him to take her into the mirrored cabinet, where both vanished. Jamie angrily confronted the Doctor, claiming they were through. Moments later, the three dormant Daleks emerged from their crates to surround the Doctor. He joyfully realized they were playing a game as they took him for a ride.
Maxtible congratulated the delighted Doctor, who had infused the three Daleks with “The Human Factor”. The Daleks played games of trains and roundabout in which the Doctor joined and became dizzy, which the Daleks enjoyed. He was pleased the childlike Daleks had a sense of humor and introduced Jamie as a friend before naming them Alpha, Beta, and Omega. All the Daleks were summoned to Skaro as the humans, except Maxtible, looked for Victoria, whom they believed the Daleks had released. He found something the Daleks told him to leave alone. He was also ordered to obey and bring the Doctor and Jamie to Skaro. Waterfield overheard and challenged Maxtible, who knocked him out. The Doctor and Jamie helped him and realized the device Maxtible discovered was a bomb they could neither get rid of nor disarm. Maxtible locked the mirror cabinet after following the Daleks. The Doctor, Jamie, and Waterfield used the Daleks time machine to escape to Skaro as Maxtible’s house blew up. There, a black Dalek guided Maxtible to Kemell and Victoria, who were prisoners, explaining they were all in the Dalek city. Daleks also detected the Doctor guiding Jamie and Waterfield there. Until this revelation, they menaced Maxtible, believing he had not brought them the Doctor. Another Dalek met Omega Dalek, who explained his friend the Doctor had given him his name. The Doctor, Jamie, and Waterfield were close enough to Maxtible, Victoria, and Kemel, to hear the Daleks order Maxtible taken away. Dalek Omega greeted the Doctor’s party on a ledge and offered to guide them. The Doctor realized it was not Omega Dalek and pushed it over the edge. Maxtible made Victoria scream, drawing the Doctor to the Emperor Dalek. It told the Doctor “the Human Factor” with which the Doctor had infused three Daleks was useless because of “the Dalek factor”, which will make the named Daleks behave like Daleks again. The TARDIS was revealed and the Emperor told the Doctor he would spread “the Dalek factor” throughout time and space.
The Doctor wondered why the Daleks believed he would take the Dalek Factor to Earth when he knew they knew he would never do so willingly. In fact, he would rather die than do so and planned to avoid the Earth in future travels, if necessary. A black Dalek supervised an experiment in the weapons room as a Dalek questioned an order elsewhere. The supervising Dalek reported the question and the Emperor Dalek ordered the Dalek with the Human Factor found. The Daleks invited Maxtible through an arch and into the weapons room to learn the secret of transmuting metal into gold. Entering the room, he received the Dalek Factor. As the prisoners slept, Maxtible adjusted an arch and invited the Doctor to pass through on his way to the TARDIS. Jamie woke up and watched both behaving like Daleks. Maxtible showed the Doctor a machine that would introduce the Dalek Factor into the Earth’s atmosphere. Returning to the prisoners alone, the Doctor exchanged the capsule connected with the arch to one he carried and told Jamie to have all the prisoners walk through. At an audience, the Doctor reminded the Emperor Dalek an order had been questioned and suggested all Daleks pass through the arch so the Daleks with the Human Factor would be given the Dalek Factor as Maxtible and the Doctor had. Maxtible was ordered to deal with the prisoners. Meanwhile, Jamie passed through the arch without being adversely affected and later asked the Doctor why it had made neither act like Daleks. The Doctor explained he’d tampered with the arch after passing through and had not been affected because he is not human himself. The Daleks passing through the arch were given the Human Factor and one questioned a black Dalek’s order, only to be immediately exterminated. Two other Daleks shot the black Dalek and the Doctor encouraged the humanized Daleks to question orders and fight. They agreed to question their Emperor. A black Dalek shot at the Doctor, but Waterfield shoved him aside and took the hit. The Doctor promised to look after Victoria before Waterfield died. Massive Dalek on Dalek extermination ensued. Maxtible attacked and killed Kemel before going to the Emperor Dalek as the Dalek city was destroyed. After Victoria learned about her father’s death, the Doctor and Jamie took her with them. Had the Daleks indeed reached, “the final end”?
Daleks became unavailable to DOCTOR WHO because their real life creator, Terry Nation, envisioned them in an American television show. The British show’s producers felt the aliens who enabled the Doctor’s adventures to continue beyond 1963 deserved a grand finale in 1966. Script editors Gerry Davis and Peter Bryant, who also produced with Innes Lloyd, turned to original DOCTOR WHO Story Editor David Whitaker to write a sequel to the William Hartnell epic “The Daleks Master Plan”. It began as the Doctor told Jamie the TARDIS had been stolen from Gatwick Airport at the end of “The Faceless Ones” and ended on the Daleks’ home planet, Skaro, with their destruction since it was planned as the final Dalek story.
Its changing settings, 19th and 20th century Earth as well as Skaro, paralleled basic story structure. Opening in 1966, the Doctor and Jamie began following the stolen TARDIS from Gatwick Airport to Waterfield’s antique shop. Kennedy’s murder drew them to Maxtible’s home in 1866 for the middle of the story, which involved the Daleks testing brawny Jamie so the Doctor could extract the Human Factor. Their plan introduced new companion, Victoria, who served as their hostage the entire time and explained why Waterfield was working with them. A subplot with Terrell and Toby padded this part of the tale, making no more sense than the portrait of Waterfield’s late wife hanging in Maxtible’s home. Jamie befriended Mollie the maid and the mute Kemell, with whom he rescued Victoria from the Daleks while the Doctor isolated the Human Factor and gave it to three dormant Daleks. The story concluded on Skaro, where the Daleks’ plan to transform humans with the Dalek Factor, as well as Maxtible’s motivation was revealed. The brainy Doctor cleverly engineered his greatest enemies’ destruction. In the end, they both got the girl, who joined them for more adventures in the TARDIS.
The story was the first entire serial to be rebroadcast. It was slipped into the schedule at the end of the fifth season, ostensibly to show Zoe what traveling with the Doctor and Jamie might be like. The first episode of DOCTOR WHO, “An Unearthly Child” had been revised to tone down the Doctor’s antiheroic character and introduce viewers focused on American President Kennedy’s assassination to the new show. For this reason, one of Edward Waterfield’s henchmen in the first episode of “Evil of the Daleks” was named Kennedy. The BBC Archives hold only the second episode of this serial. It was released on videocassette in “The Patrick Troughton Years” and as part of the Lost in Time DVD release. The entire soundtrack exists and Frazier Hines provided narration around the dialogue for it’s BBC Radio release on CD. Tom Baker did the same for a previous cassette tape release. John Peel also novelized the story.