Destiny of the Daleks Episode Four

The one where the Daleks turn kamikaze...

Davros, ever the self-preservationist, demands that the Daleks call him a cab in the form of a deep space cruiser to take him away from Skaro and to safety. Unfortunately, the cruiser (which I'd love to see) will take six hours to get to Skaro, which just isn't quick enough for Davros's liking. The Kaled crackpot is also annoyed that there's such a thing as a Dalek Supreme ruling the roost, and insists that as Dalek creator, he should be the one deciding the Daleks' destiny. It's a fascinating set-up for Dalek stories to come, in which the Daleks are factionalised and start fighting among themselves. The fact the Dalek battle computers are too logical in their stratagems also hints at gruesome developments seen in Remembrance of the Daleks and Bad Wolf, where we see human beings wired into Dalek tech to outwit the constraints of logic.

Davros continues to jiggle his way around in his little wheelchair spouting about his personal supremacy and how the Daleks will thrive under his command. But at the end of the day - and this isn't really any fault of David Gooderson's - Davros just isn't up to scratch here. Gooderson doesn't do a bad job of portraying Davros, he's just different to Michael Wisher, and different in a way that isn't as good, sadly. There's nothing specific about Gooderson's Davros that's wrong, it's just that he's not Michael Wisher, and you can't really criticise him too much for that!

So the Daleks have reached a logical impasse with the robotic Movellans, both sides unable to make the next move because logic advises against it. I don't like the Daleks becoming robots all of a sudden, and I'm not sure whether it is a massive mistake on the production team's part to assume they are robots, or a genuine narrative "development". Either way, it means the entire crux of the story (that two robotic races cannot out-think each other) is based on a false notion that the Daleks are robots. They're not, they never were, and never should be. This story is a real aberration in that regard, because if the Daleks hadn't been made robots in this story, it wouldn't be happening at all!

And just what are the Movellans anyway? How did these pretty robots come about, because robots certainly cannot evolve out of nowhere. Some sentience has to create them in the first place (and in the case of the Movellans, someone who loves Boney M). As ever, it's time to turn to Doctor Who's expansive spin-off fiction for the answer, and it seems the Movellans originated on the planet Movella (where else?) and were created by a humanoid race in their own image, before the androids turned on their masters and destroyed them. You can find all this in the 1995 novel The Also People, but if you're not particularly enamoured with that origin story, try an alternative and much wackier one presented in the 1997 book War of the Daleks in which the Dalek Supreme claims his lot created the Movellans in order to convince Davros he was in danger! There's yet another origin story hinted at in 1997's book A Device of Death in which a force of synthonic robots are created by the people of Landor which would contribute significantly to the Daleks' demise, and in the 1985 Doctor Who role-playing game it's suggested the Movellans were android slaves given independence by a computer virus.

So, take your pick. But none of these origin stories explain why the Movellans have silver dreadlocks, skintight costumes and a penchant for lippy and mascara. Or why they have a need for comfy chairs and sofas.

Back to the story at hand. While Davros intends to break the robotic impasse by becoming the Daleks' war strategist himself, the Doctor shows the Movellans why robotic logic is failing them by playing Paper Scissors Stone. It's a very clever way to make the point, and one that can be easily grasped by younger viewers. Seeing the Doctor use a playground game they might use themselves in order explain a scientific point is very canny. Also, the way Tom Baker glares unblinkingly at Peter Straker during the Paper Scissors Stone demo is mesmerisingly disconcerting!

The Movellans finally have a plan: they're going to retreat into space and blow up Skaro (and Davros with it) using their devastating Nova Device, and get the Doctor to reprogramme their battle computers to enable them to out-think the Daleks and win their endless war. It's a good, solid idea, but the only trouble is the Daleks have their own plan to stop the Movellans leaving Skaro in the shape of a squad of kamikaze Daleks. Davros attaches explosives to these suicidal Daleks' casings and instructs them to press themselves against the hull of the Movellan ship before he detonates them. I'm not sure how this act of self-sacrifice by the Daleks matches their belief that self-sacrifice is illogical, so therefore impossible, as expressed in episode 3!

The Daleks set out armed to the fenders with half a megaton of explosives. That's quite a lot of TNT they have there. A megaton is 1,000,000 tonnes of blast energy, so these suicidal Daleks are carrying the equivalent of 500,000 tonnes between them. To put that into perspective, the bomb that wiped out Hiroshima was about 15 kilotons (15,000 tonnes of TNT equivalent), so I really do think Davros is overcompensating here.

The Movellans, meanwhile, are very easily overcome by the marauding human slaves, some dressed up in Draconian robes, others wearing uniforms last seen in Planet of Evil, and one chap even wearing SV7's culottes. One of the slaves is played by Ron Tarr, a perennial supporting actor in TV shows of the 1970s and 80s best known as Big Ron in EastEnders (and latterly, Dimensions in Time). The Movellans prove themselves to be utterly pathetic, and nothing like a worthy adversary for the Daleks, simply because they're so easily disabled. Why do they wear their obviously vital and vulnerable power packs so proudly on their belts, where they can easily be snatched away, resulting in them falling gracefully to the ground accompanied by a silly bibbly sound effect? The power packs are the Movellans' single greatest weakness, so why don't they cook up a way to fix that, instead of striding around like catwalk models backstage at New York Fashion Week?

The Movellans pose very little threat to the humans when they raid the ship, they can be easily reprogrammed to turn against their own kind, and their robotic minds are easily scrambled by K-9's dog whistle. To be plain, they're completely rubbish.

The kamikaze Daleks have a bit of trouble trundling across the sands of Skaro and more than once it's possible to catch the Dalek operators tip-toeing their way across the shot, their feet obscured by a sand dune, but it's still very obvious they're "walking" the Dalek casings! Also, why do they all seem to be travelling in opposite directions, some going from left to right, others from right to left!

The shoot-out between Daleks and slaves is exciting, with humans being cut down but still failing to react in any way to the fact they're dying. The multiple Dalek explosions is also greatly satisfying, as is the desperate grapple between Romana and Sharrel with the Nova Device. At last, Romana gets to do something heroic instead of scream, cry, run or collapse.

The Doctor slips back to Dalek control to have a chat with Davros, who has made himself a big button to press when the suicide squad is ready to blow. There's a half-hearted attempt to recreate the intelligent to-and-fro dialogue between the two seen in Genesis of the Daleks, but it's over before it's really started, and neither Gooderson or Baker seem that invested. There then follows a little arm wrestle as Davros tries to press the button and the Doctor tries to stop him, and the scene where a Dalek creeps up silently behind the Doctor before screeching "Do not move!" and making both him and the viewer jump is masterfully shot by Ken Grieve.

The Doctor manages to outwit Davros's Dalek guard by chucking his hat on its eyestalk, which seems to render it utterly incapable of retaliation. It keeps claiming it's got a malfunction, when actually, you've just got a hat on, pal! This is made even sillier when Davros starts directing the Dalek - "Behind you! To your right!" - like they're playing Blind Man's Bluff, and it all results in the Doctor pushing the Dalek down a passage and it blowing up. You can see where Terrance Dicks got his inspiration for the Dalek scene in The Five Doctors from!

Finally - the Daleks having blown up, and the Movellans having had their power packs confiscated - the humans can return to Earth in the Movellan ship, rendezvousing with a security ship along the way to hand over a cryogenically frozen Davros so that he may stand trial for his crimes against "the whole of sentient creation". And surely non-sentient creation too?

Destiny of the Daleks has an interesting idea at its heart, of two robotic races at an impasse and needing a human element to get them out of it, but it shouldn't really have been a Dalek story. The Daleks are not robots; they weren't robots before this, and they won't be again either. It'd make an interesting Cyberman story (Cybermen vs Movellans anyone?). The return of Davros is a nice idea, but again, it's not executed as well as it could be because David Gooderson just isn't as successful as Michael Wisher at playing the part, and he's not nearly as well written.

Overall, the story is quite an exciting, colourful adventure, there's always something going on, and Ken Grieve does a fine job of directing, using steadicam and low angles to accentuate the tension. Tom Baker is taking things a little more seriously (perhaps the most serious since early Season 15) but the introduction of Lalla Ward as Romana has yet to be validated. So far she's done little with the character that Mary Tamm, or indeed any equivalent actress, could do, but there's plenty of time yet for the character to evolve.

The Movellans would make an explosive return to our screens 38 years later when the Doctor took a brief trip to the Dalek/ Movellan war in The Pilot. It wasn't worth the wait.

First broadcast: September 22nd, 1979

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The suicide Daleks are impressively blown up, and the struggle between Romana and Sharrel (shot using steadicam) is suitably tense.
The Bad: The Movellans - a race equal in intelligence and might to the Daleks - can be disabled by a dog whistle. Oh puh-lease.
verall score for episode: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ (story average: 7.3 out of 10)

"Would you like a jelly baby?" tally: 20 - the Doctor offers Romana a jelly baby during the Paper Scissors Stone game.

NEXT TIME: City of Death...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode One; Episode Two; Episode Three

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: https://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/08/destiny-of-daleks.html

Destiny of the Daleks is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Destiny-Daleks-DVD/dp/B000VA3JLQ