The Evil of the Daleks Episode 7

The one where the Daleks meet their final end...

It's such a pity we can't see these later episodes because the return to Skaro is really very exciting. That spine-tingling heartbeat thrum, the sparse, angular sets against the black backdrops, the short-tempered Black Daleks! Almost 40 years later, the Emperor Dalek made a reappearance in Doctor Who in the Eccleston series finale, and Nicholas Briggs did a grand job of reproducing its grandiosity and booming god-like tones. I also love it when a Dalek snaps "Moo-oove!"

Maxtible really isn't letting go of his dream to turn metal into gold, the secret of which has been promised to him by the Daleks. Now, I'd normally scoff at Maxtible's obviously misplaced faith, but it seems that Dalek science can indeed transmute base metals into gold, and invent a machine to coax Maxtible with. Why they go to all that trouble just to get him to walk through a doorway I'm not sure, but still... it seems that alchemy is possible. Even the Doctor admits it is considered "scientifically possible" in the 20th century.

Of course, he's saying this as scripted by David Whitaker in 1967, but the truth is, the Doctor knows more than we do, because in the 1980s, nuclear scientists in California managed to extract tiny amounts of gold from bismuth. It seems alchemy is indeed scientifically possible, as long as you've got a particle accelerator, a vast supply of energy, and an extremely low expectation of how much gold you'll end up with! I guess the Daleks have the means, it's just that gold is of very little value to them as a race (unless they're planning on a war with the Cybermen!).

But I digress. Maxtible goes through a magical archway reminiscent of the Navarino conversion arch in Delta and the Bannermen, and is infected with pure Dalek Factor, becoming the first ever human Dalek (the Daleks wouldn't let this idea go, however, as it's something they return to in Daleks in Manhattan/ Evolution of the Daleks 40 years later). Marius Goring has been stumbling around for the last couple of episodes with a mouthful of scenery, but once he's possessed by the Dalek Factor, he doesn't crank it up even more (thankfully), he actually pitches his performance just right, as a staccato-voiced zombie with glassy eyes and a stiff walk. Richard Briers tried similar in Paradise Towers, but was nowhere near as effective (I always thought T P McKenna managed it just right in The Greatest Show in the Galaxy).

Maxtible's demise is the only real outcome for a character who was never totally hinged in the first place. His obsession with scientific breakthroughs was his downfall, but the crazy old fool takes others down with him, namely poor Kemel, who is thrown to his death into a ravine in a scene that gave me chills listening to it. Coupled with the surviving telesnap of a wide-eyed Maxtible gripping Kemel by the throat, the audio is truly chilling: "Kill! Kill! Kill!" recites Maxtible obsessively, faster and faster. Maxtible is blind to humanity, and hellbent on destroying it. The fact he singles out Kemel is strange but rewardingly tragic. Poor Kemel, as Deborah Watling says with such little emotion...

Another major loss is that of Edward Waterfield, a man who's taken something of a back seat since the trip to Skaro. He sacrifices himself to save the Doctor from Dalek firepower, and although his demise is sad and nicely played by John Bailey and Patrick Troughton, the death feels pointless. The Doctor later tells Victoria that her father did not die in vain, but I reckon he did. He saved the Doctor's life ("a good life to save"), but after he'd already set events in motion to bring about the downfall of the Daleks. Saving the Doctor at that point made no real difference to the final end...

The relationship between Edward Waterfield and his daughter Victoria hasn't been one of the best handled by Whitaker. The two don't share any scenes until episode 7, and even then, the viewer is deprived of that all-important reunion. One moment, the Doctor, Jamie and Waterfield are in the Dalek control room, the next they're in a cell with Victoria, Maxtible and Kemel, and that potentially emotion-packed bit in between is missing. That seems a shame, because seeing father and daughter reunited after all these weeks would have added so much more to Waterfield's eventual demise.

The Doctor and Jamie both separately agree with Waterfield to look after Victoria, which adds an extra bond between the travelling companions and their latest recruit. The men have vowed to take care of young orphan Victoria, and this should give a new dimension to Season 5. It's interesting that the Doctor ponders taking Victoria to his home planet, suggesting that he can do such a thing. His TARDIS may be aimless, but all he needs to do is get that Time Lord cube out of his pocket...

The final end is suitably apocalyptic in tone, with Hawkins's booming Emperor Dalek, various extremely angry Black Daleks, and the disputatious humanised Daleks all battling it out for supremacy in a "kill or be killed" finale. We know from telesnaps and surviving modelwork footage that a lot of the battle scenes involved toy Daleks which looked noticeably different to real Daleks, so in many ways I'm glad I can't see that, because I think it would spoil it (the toy Daleks don't look good on the production line in The Power of the Daleks either, but better in the ice caves of Planet of the Daleks).

And so at the end, the Doctor watches the destruction of the Dalek city from a safe vantage point in the desert, perhaps the same spot from where he first saw the city in The Dead Planet? The symmetry is beautiful, placing the Doctor (a different model) and his companions (different models also) in the same spot where their endless battle with the Daleks began, all those years before. This was intended by the production team as the final appearance of the Daleks in Doctor Who, as creator Terry Nation wanted to take them to the United States to try and get their own TV show. He failed, and although the Daleks would be absent from Doctor Who for the next four and a half years, they would be back. And in colour!

The Evil of the Daleks is a true epic, taking in airports, antiques shops, coffee bars, Victorian country houses and far-flung alien worlds. It's the first Doctor Who season finale which actually appears as the finale to a season (The Daleks' Master Plan is a mid-season epic). It's big and bold and ambitious, it's intelligent and creative and scary. It's not perfect, but it very nearly is, and I controversially think fandom would benefit from having more episodes of this back in the archive than any number from The Power of the Daleks. I feel we know all that Power can be just from the telesnaps and clips, but Evil has so much more yet to give.

Doctor Who went off-air for nine weeks after this episode, ending its fifth series with a bang. It's Saturday teatime slot was soaked up by the traditional Laurel and Hardy repeats, and Juke Box Jury (one week including panellists and future Doctor Who alumnae Pik-Sen Lim and Beryl Reid!).

First broadcast: July 1st, 1967

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The scene where Maxtible murders Kemel is really creepy ("Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!")
The Bad: I feel cheated by not seeing the reunion between Waterfield and his daughter. It's such an obvious scene to have that it feels like a major mis-step to omit it.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★★☆ (story average: 8.6 out of 10)

NEXT TIME: The Tomb of the Cybermen...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode 1; Episode 2; Episode 3; Episode 4; Episode 5; Episode 6

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