The Evil of the Daleks Episode 6

The one where the Doctor makes a return visit to Skaro...

It's just weird hearing Daleks saying normal words, isn't it? Everybody says that the Daleks who offer tea and refreshments in The Power of the Daleks and Victory of the Daleks sound more sinister because they're saying things which are so out of character, but to hear the three "humanised" Daleks mention trains and friends here is very bizarre. They retain those grating voices, but Peter Hawkins and Roy Skelton use more intonation, adding a humanity to the dialogue. I don't find it disturbing or scary, just weird.

And when they start playing trains and reciting "Dizzy Doctor", I also find it rather silly. If you're averse to your Doctor Who embracing camp, then you'd probably hate this scene on transmission. Personally, I'm all for camp (Delta and the Bannermen is one of my favourite stories ever), but here, in the moody regions of black and white Troughton, it just feels a bit embarrassing; the same sort of embarrassment I felt listening to the camper aspects of The Macra Terror. I'm just not used to it in monochrome Doctor Who. I'm fine with silly and camp in Season 24 because I've come to expect it, but here it just feels wrong.

It doesn't take long for writer David Whitaker to slip what now feels like a contractually compulsory explosion into the story. So far the Troughton era has been resplendent with fireworks, often lazily used to bring an end to proceedings (The Power of the Daleks, The Underwater Menace, The Macra Terror), and although we've got another episode to go, blowing up Maxtible's house feels a little unnecessary and unoriginal.

Still, it means the Doctor and friends are forced to go to Skaro, which is really very exciting. The Doctor was last on the Dalek home planet in their debut adventure, The Daleks, five years previously, and director Derek Martinus and designer Chris Thompson manage to recreate the look and feel of that earlier serial wonderfully (there's even a narrow ledge and plunging chasm, as in The Daleks. Could even be the same one, seeing as the Doctor seems to know of it). And thanks to Brian Hodgson's legendary work, we have the familiar sounds of Skaro too, including that weird metallic wind chime sound, and the Dalek bomb countdown noise. Aurally, it all sounds quite epic, as if the television production team had learnt something from the recent cinema films.

Marius Goring really dials his mad professor performance up a notch or three as Maxtible becomes more unhinged by events around him. The loss of his laboratory (he's not so bothered about the house as a whole) is what really sends him over the edge, but even before that, Goring chews the wood-panelled scenery when he's searching for the Doctor. Goring (who was only 55 here, which just makes Gillian James's make-up work all the more impressive) is clearly having a whale of a time, and the bit where he wanders into the darkened control room and screams in terror is pure horror film territory. He could've done with reading his script a little closer at times - earlier in the story he referred to Waterfield as "Whitefield", and here calls the Dalek planet "Skaros".

I love the contradiction of Waterfield and Maxtible's Victorian costumes against the futuristic lines of the Dalek city. It has the same uncanny feel of seeing the Daleks glide along the hallways of a Victorian manor house. One of the things Doctor Who does best is to make the familiar feel unfamiliar or strange, which this clash of aesthetics achieves. It's that little niggle your brain gets while watching such scenes, that something's not quite right but you're not altogether sure what it is...

The Daleks themselves are magnificently Machiavellian here. I adore the scene where the Black Dalek and his cronies menace - basically, bully - Maxtible, repeatedly grating "Right? Right? Right?" and pushing him to the floor. It's a cacophony of vindictiveness and makes the Daleks as wonderfully nasty as they should be. Whitaker also reintroduces that element of cunning that he did so well in The Power of the Daleks, by having a "proper" Dalek pretend to be the humanised Omega to try and trick the Doctor. The scene where the Doctor works out that "Omega" is not Omega at all, and pushes the Dalek into the chasm, is fantastic. I'm not sure how the Daleks managed to scribble the Omega symbol onto the casing though!

The big reveal of the Dalek Emperor at the end is wonderful, and I'm sure it looked amazing directed by Martinus. With a bit of luck, lighting director Wally Whitmore would have milked the big reveal for all it's worth, but sadly we'll never know that until somebody finds the episode. The Emperor's booming voice is magnificent too, and I'm intrigued that the Doctor appears to be fully aware of its existence, and it of his. "We meet at last!" It has the feel of a grand season climax of 21st century proportions, and you're left on the edge of your seat in readiness for the seventh and final episode. The Doctor is triumphant at the thought that he has defeated the Daleks - "I've beaten you! I don't care what you do to me now!" - but the Daleks have one more twist up their skirts...

One thing though: Why do the Daleks need the Doctor to distribute their Dalek Factor through the entire history of Earth (and why just Earth?). We already know they have their own time technology, evident both in this story and in The Chase and The Daleks' Master Plan. Why can't they do it themselves?

First broadcast: June 24th, 1967

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The return to Skaro is exhilarating, and looks and sounds great, while the Emperor Dalek's reveal is epic.
The Bad: Bring it down just a little bit, Marius!
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★★☆

NEXT TIME: Episode 7...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode 1; Episode 2; Episode 3; Episode 4; Episode 5; Episode 7

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-evil-of-daleks.html

The Evil of the Daleks is available on BBC soundtrack CD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Original-Television-Soundtrack/dp/0563525975. Episode 2 is the only surviving episode, and can be found on the Lost in Time DVD box set here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Lost-Time-DVD/dp/B0002XOZW4