The Power of the Daleks Episode Six

The one where the Daleks massacre the colonists...

After weeks of plotting and scheming and biding their time, the Daleks finally put their plans for domination into action in the only way they know how - by exterminating every human they see. This sixth and final episode is a real bloodbath, directed with great energy and style by Christopher Barry. This is a finale 1960s Doctor Who should be proud of, in the vein of Destruction of Time, The Evil of the Daleks Episode 7 and The War Games Episode Ten.

The episode is packed with incident, set-pieces which sound phenomenal - if only we could watch it! Cartoons just aren't the same at all. There are pitched gunfights in the colony corridors between the rebels and the guards, and when the Daleks join in, nobody is safe. First Kebble, then Janley are massacred by the Daleks in a series of merciless killings which turn the Vulcan colony into a battlefield... and then a graveyard.

The Power of the Daleks Episode Five

The one where Lesterson snaps and Bragen takes control of the colony...

The Dalek production line has been very busy, reproducing creature after creature until there are at least 14 of them (you can hear the factory foreman Dalek counting that many amid the melee). These are very noisy Daleks too, trundling around like empty boxes on castors. Oh, hang on...

All this finally makes poor old Lesterson snap. He's seen too much, and the enormity of the situation is too great for him to process. Robert James makes Lesterson a gibbering wreck as he begins to make crazed plans to take back control from the Daleks and wipe them out. But it's all too little, too late. There's no going back now. "They're making themselves..." says Lesterson incredulously. It's an uncannily simplistic way of putting it, almost child-like. Well, you were warned...

The Power of the Daleks Episode Four

The one where the Daleks begin reproducing en masse...

Robert James's performance in The Power of the Daleks cannot be appreciated too much, he gives a knockout turn. This episode belongs to him as he portrays a man who slowly starts to realise that he has been blind to the truth, that what the Doctor has been telling him all along may well be right, and that he is not as in control of the situation as he thought. At the beginning of the episode Lesterson is trying to retain his control of the Dalek, insisting that it is he who controls it. He is met with a double-edged retort from the Dalek: "We understand the human mind!"

By the episode's end, Lesterson is beginning to become unravelled as his professional pride and achievement turns against him. He comes to realise that the materials he has been giving the Daleks to supposedly manufacture a meteor detecting machine have actually been used to mass reproduce their own kind. His already delicate mental state begins to break down as he realises what he has done, what he has facilitated. That he has been stupid and blind, and may now have endangered the very colony he was trying to progress. And now he finds himself at the mercy of blackmail by Janley, when she tells him he was responsible for the death of Resno. Lesterson is horrified by the loss of human life at the hands of the Dalek.

The Power of the Daleks Episode Three

The one where the Daleks will get their power...

The episode opens with the Dalek barking its repeated refrain from the end of last week - "I am your servant! I am your servant!" - giving the impression that everybody's been standing there listening to it bleat on for an entire seven days! Lesterson and Hensell are astonished that the Dalek can speak, and has some level of intelligence. It's frighteningly typical that the first thing the humans think of is using the Dalek to help and improve humankind - automation and enslavement spring to mind, using the Dalek machines in the mines for instance. It's true for all races - the Dalek is thinking of its own survival, as are the humans.

Troughton shoots a rare misfire in his delivery of the underpowered and rather naff line: "I shall stop you... I will...", but it is the Dalek (and voice artist Peter Hawkins) who steals this scene with its sheer malevolence. The Doctor orders it to immobilise itself, to prove it is a slave to the humans, but as soon as he leaves the room, it reactivates itself, explaining that the Doctor's order was simply wrong, and that it can only serve the humans if it is activated. "I serve you," it tells Lesterson, who is well and truly head over heels captivated by the creature and the potential it harbours.

The Power of the Daleks Episode Two

The one where the missing third Dalek is brought back to life...

Now this is more like it! Patrick Troughton manages to make the Doctor much more likeable and recognisable in this episode, and starts to become the Second Doctor we're more familiar with. He's not quite all the way there yet, as this post-regenerative version of the Doctor is still a little more serious and doomy than what we otherwise know, but there are tantalising hints at the mercurial vagabond ahead.

Having said that, Ben still isn't convinced that this new fella is the Doctor he knew before. "The real Doctor was always going on about the Daleks," he says. But by the end of the episode he seems to be more convinced of the new Doctor's veracity, moving from disbelief to partial acceptance when he mutters that the Doctor is in two minds "and two bodies".

The Power of the Daleks Episode One

The one where the Doctor becomes uncommunicative, but musical...

The Power of the Daleks marks the overdue, but much welcome, return of former Doctor Who script editor David Whitaker, whose last work for the series was writing The Crusade in 1965. Whitaker was a very capable and professional writer, particularly of character, and that skill is more than welcome after several serials where incident and spectacle often came before character.

Whitaker uses Ben and Polly's innately opposing outlooks on life to represent what the viewers at home would have been thinking. The characteristically optimistic and more open-minded Polly represents those watching who embrace change and renewal, whereas the more stubborn-headed and pessimistic Ben represents those at home who feel unsure about what's happened, those who aren't convinced about changing the actor playing the Doctor.