Sunday 8 May 2011

167 The Evil of the Daleks: Episode Five

EPISODE: The Evil of the Daleks: Episode Five
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 167
STORY NUMBER: 036
TRANSMITTED: 17 June 1967
WRITER: David Whitaker
DIRECTOR: Derek Martinus and Timothy Combe
SCRIPT EDITOR: Peter Bryant
PRODUCER: Innes Lloyd
FORMAT: CD: Doctor Who: The Evil of the Daleks
TELESNAPS: The Evil of the Daleks: Episode Five

Kemel & Jamie throw a rope round the Dalek and propel it off the balcony destroying it. They barricade themselves into Victoria's room. The Doctor takes a break and is found by Terrall sipping a glass of wine. They disagree, the Doctor observing that he's never seen Terrall eat or drink. Terrall threatens the Doctor with a sword that becomes magnetised when Terrall holds it. Jamie asks Victoria what has happened but her memory is hazy, as if she'd been hypnotised. Meanwhile Maxtible demonstrates hypnotic skills to Terrall using Molly. Maxtible orders Terrall to fetch Victoria. The Doctor has isolated elements of The Human Factor - courage, pity, chivalry, friendship and compassion - in a positronic brain to be added to each of the three inert Daleks that have been brought to the house. Victoria is abducted by Terrall using a secret passage, Jamie follows and engages Terrall in a sword fight. Terrall suddenly collapses. The Doctor appears and takes a Dalek control device off him. He orders Ruth and Molly to take him as far away as possible. Kemel finds Victoria in the lab but they are cornered by a Dalek he orders them into the Cabinet the Daleks are coming out of. They vanish, back to the Dalek home world Skaro. The brains are installed in three new Daleks which wake up and play with Doctor playfully pushing him round the room.

Lots going on here. Terrall's been under Dalek control all along: he's freed, removing him, Molly & Ruth from the story. Maxtible's hypnotism is revealed to be the means behind Victoria's kidnap and the Doctor activates three child like Daleks. Even Victoria gets a little to do before being taken to Skaro.

Years ago there was a big fan debate about if the Doctor ate meat or drank alcohol. Well he has some wine here, and he's positively knocking it back in Day of the Daleks. Meat is a little harder but he has mutton stew in Planet of the Spiders as we recently saw when the DVD came out. We'll keep an eye out for more evidence for these two arguments.

1 comment:

  1. Karl Thurgood9 May 2011 at 21:02

    I love the cliffhanger to this story. Normally a cliffhanger would involve a monster doing something scary. Instead we have one that revolves around Daleks doing something friendly, and it still manages to be unnerving simply because it is so unexpected. Even allowing for the fact that we can only hear it and not see it I still think this is one of the most memorable Doctor Who cliffhangers.

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