Day of the Daleks Episode Four

The one where the Daleks invade the past from the future...

The Daleks are on the cusp of exterminating their arch enemy the Doctor once and for all, gunsticks poised, and at the very last moment, the Controller barges in, shouting: "Stop! You mustn't kill him!" It's one of those age-old devices that writers use to ramp up false peril, but diffuse it with the laziest of get-outs. I hate it when this happens. Also, where's the sting reprise gone?

There's a lot of info-dumping in this fourth episode, but it finally helps to colour in the sketchy grasp we've had so far as to what's going on. We've known that the freedom fighters have been trying to go back in time to kill Styles, but not why. Here, we learn that the Daleks have discovered time travel technology (which contradicts The Chase and The Daleks' Master Plan, but whatevs) and invaded Earth a second time, thus changing the pattern of history (the first time they tried they were defeated by the Doctor in The Dalek Invasion of Earth).

Day of the Daleks Episode Three

The one where the Doctor is roughed up by Ogrons...

That railway tunnel is a strange thing, isn't it? On the inside it's like a maze of tunnels going this way and that, with off-shoot tunnels and archways all over the place. It's more like a sewer system than a railway tunnel, plus it has the smoothest tiled floor ever constructed (so that the Daleks can glide effortlessly along!). It's designed in such a way as to resemble the old Dalek city sets from the 1960s, even down to the curved archways.

The Doctor's arrival on 22nd century Earth should allow us to see what the Daleks have done to the future, what the year c.2172 actually looks like, but the most we really get to see is a rather clean and pleasant looking white tower block. It looks more utopian than dystopian, although director Paul Bernard does portray some form of oppression in the line of jackbooted Ogrons and the CCTV camera. Still, I'd like to have had clearer examples of this future Earth, which was better achieved in the 2011 Special Edition using slightly computer gamey CGI. But whichever version of Earth we look at, someone needs to do some weeding...

Day of the Daleks Episode Two

The one where Jo travels forward to the 22nd century...

It's an odd decision to have the Doctor Who sting at the end of the cliffhanger reprise, like a half-hearted attempt to do a New Who style cold open. It's quite jarring and baffling, and I'm glad they didn't keep it beyond this story. It's a funny one, because it's almost like the production team had temporarily forgotten how to make Doctor Who or do the Daleks. I suppose director Paul Bernard was new to the programme, and writer Louis Marks hadn't worked for the show since the Hartnell era, but Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts were veterans by this stage.

We get a bit more Dalek action in episode 2, although when I say action, I actually mean inaction, because they're very static Daleks, hardly moving at all for most of the time. Coupled with their very stilted delivery, and squat stature, they make for underwhelming returning enemies. They seem very short in comparison to Aubrey Woods' Controller (unless he was very tall!) and spend most of the time gazing at his sternum. The credit of "Dalek operator" is something of a misnomer! Still, it's great to have that familiar Dalek heartbeat sound effect back.

Day of the Daleks Episode One

The one where the Doctor and Jo spend the night in a "haunted house"...

Season 9 began on the first day of a new year, and it meant business from the outset, flashing up the spoilerific story title DAY OF THE DALEKS and promising the return of the Doctor's most famous enemies after an absence of four-and-a-half years (barring cameos and repeats). The first shots make for a spooky scene-setter, accompanied by a doomy, bass-heavy underscore and low lighting. An official looking man is working hard into the night, and you get the feeling something is about to happen. Something bad.

There's a breeze at the French windows, and straightaway you're expecting a Dalek to come crashing through, screaming "EXTERMINATE!" and gunning the man down in its wake. But no, our expectations are thwarted with the appearance of a grey-looking stranger who tries, and fails, to kill the official looking man, and promptly fades away... like a ghost! I do find it amusing that, later in the story, this guerilla is described as being about "35 years old", when he looks anything but (actor Tim Condren was ten years older at the time!).

The Dæmons Episode Five

The one where Jo saves the day by offering to sacrifice herself...

It's an interesting idea that what we classify as magic is actually just a form of alien science that we don't understand. It sort of matches the belief that anything supernatural or paranormal is actually just the result of some kind of scientific discovery we have yet to make. It's an ingenious idea to have Azal awoken by psychokinetic power, the gathering of violent emotions such as greed and fear, which forms the basis of the Daemons' science. To us, psychokinesis is a paranormal mystery yet to be cracked, but to the Daemons, it's E=MC².

So you'd think that the Doctor might try and defeat Azal using the power of his own science, harnessing the collective psychokinetic energy of the villagers and UNIT personnel to fight back against him. But instead, he plans to use some dodgy gadget he's got Osgood to lash up, and which actually blows up before it can be of any use. The Doctor's very last resort is to just walk into the cavern and hope he can reason with Azal.

The Dæmons Episode Four

The one where the Doctor is attacked by Morris dancers...

"Eee-ooo-evaway! Eee-ooo-evaway, Azal!" intones the Master at the top of the episode, causing me to momentarily think I'd accidentally turned on a foreign language dub on the DVD. It's remarkable how the scenes with Roger Delgado in flowing Pagan robes, summoning the Daemon Azal in a cavern beneath the local church, could come straight out of a Dennis Wheatley novel. It's obvious the writers and director were influenced by Terence Fisher's Hammer adaptation of The Devil Rides Out three years previously.

The second coming of Azal causes more earth tremors and freak weather conditions, waking Jo from her unconscious slumber and somehow instilling in her a powerful need to go to the cavern. I'm not clear on why Jo has this sudden compulsion to go to the cavern, because when she was last conscious she was accompanying the Doctor to meet the Brigadier at the heat barrier. So obsessed is she with getting to the cavern that she decides to elude her colleagues downstairs in the bar and climb out of the bedroom window, using one of those Very Convenient Ladders you see about all the time.

The Dæmons Episode Three

The one where the Master bends an entire village to his will (so mote it be)...

The Doctor fends off the savage living gargoyle (named Bok) by wielding an iron trowel and reciting a line from an old Venusian lullaby: "Klokleda partha menin klatch." Which apparently translates as: "Close your eyes, my darling (well three of them at least)"! What a gorgeous little exchange this is between the Doctor and Jo (of course, the lullaby will be used again to placate another roaring nasty in the very next season...).

Bok is actually rather sweet. I love how, just before he flees by wing back to his Master, he has one last little snarl at the Doctor and Jo, by way of a parting fright. He may be compact, but Bok's got plenty of fire in him, as we shall see!

The Dæmons Episode Two

The one where the Doctor spends most of the episode in a refrigerated coma...

The Doctor and Professor Horner have been engulfed in a strange icy storm released when the first stone in the tomb is moved. While Jo goes to great lengths to make sure her Doctor is cared for properly, the fate of poor Professor Horner is sadly glossed over. Yes, he dies, but nobody seems very bothered. In fact, BBC crewman Harry is very laid back when it comes to health and safety, insisting that the Doctor's "had it" and that's that. No call to the emergency services, nothing.

Luckily, Devil's End has its own medical professional, and once the Doctor's been transferred to the Cloven Hoof pub, Dr Reeves gives him a thorough examination, identifying that he has two hearts along the way. After initially believing the Doctor to be dead ("very nearly a solid block of ice", in fact), Dr Reeves then believes there's life in the old Doc yet and calls for plenty of blankets to warm him up. And still nobody thinks to call an ambulance. Later we learn that Dr Reeves says it's best not to move the Doctor to hospital. But that's what ambulances are for - they have wheels and they can come to you, full of medicines and machinery which may be able to help! In their efforts to keep this story a "village under siege", writers Barry Letts and Robert Sloman are overlooking some pretty obvious plot holes.

The Dæmons Episode One

The one where the Horned Beast is woken from his slumber live on BBC Television...

The Dæmons opens like one of the best Hammer horror films. It's got rolling thunder and sheet lightning, torrential rain and howling wind, a churchyard, spewing gargoyles, toads, cats, owls and rats. As a mission statement for what's to come, you couldn't get more explicit.

And to top it all, a lonesome man and his dog tumble out of the local inn and fight their way through the driving wind and rain into the churchyard, where the poor dog is killed by something terrible off-screen, and we get a fantastic close-up of Jim's horrified face just before he is bumped off too. Now that would make a damn good cold open (I often wish some clever YouTuber would re-edit classic stories to give them New Series style cold opens).

Colony in Space Episode Six

The one where everything goes boom...

In keeping with the pace of the rest of the story, episode 6 is in no hurry to get anywhere fast. The first ten minutes is basically made up of people getting onto a rocket, people talking about not wanting to get onto a rocket, and the Doctor and the Master recreating a scene between the Doctor and Jo from episode 4. I think that's the problem with this story: there's potential in it, but it's all told at a leisurely, genial pace, with only occasional pockets of action to lift it out of talky melodrama into space adventure.

The Master's plan seems to be to take control of the long dormant doomsday weapon which the advanced people of Uxarieus developed generations ago, but never used properly. He aims to use this super-weapon to hold the galaxy to ransom (or the universe, he's vague on the details) so that he becomes supreme ruler. And the automatic response to this is voiced succinctly by our hero: what for?

Colony in Space Episode Five

The one where we see inside the Master's TARDIS properly...

This episode is all about the Master's TARDIS. It's quite exciting, getting to see inside a TARDIS other than the Doctor's, for the first time since 1965's The Time Meddler (there have been glimpses before this, but it was just a plain backdrop). The Master's TARDIS obviously has a fully functioning chameleon circuit, and is currently disguised as the Adjudicator's spaceship. It's rather amusing when Jo says she hasn't seen the Master's horsebox (from Terror of the Autons), and the Doctor reveals that a TARDIS can "change its shape". Yeah, except for yours, Doctor (but Jo doesn't think to question this).

Entry into the Master's TARDIS is somewhat laborious, as there is an alarm beam across the doors which, if broken, warns the Master that his ship has been infiltrated (and I love his little handheld compact with in-built CCTV!). The sight of Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning wriggling their way along the floor to get under the beam is very silly!