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.

We can finally spend some time with Anat, Shura and Boaz, three very pretty freedom fighters who have travelled back in time 200 years to assassinate Sir Reginald Styles, who they seem to have something against. Incidentally, Shura actor Jimmy Winston was an early member of the band the Small Faces, but left (reportedly under a cloud) before they had their biggest hit with Itchycoo Park. Winston went on to form the UK's earliest psychedelia band, Winston's Fumbs, which released just one single, Real Crazy Apartment, in 1967!

These three freedom fighters decide to tie the Doctor and Jo up in the cellar, although blood-thirsty Boaz is keen on just killing them. It's refreshing to have a woman as the leader for once, and Anna Barry's Anat makes for a steely but fair adversary. "We're soldiers, not murderers!" she claims, despite the fact they've travelled 200 years back in time to murder someone.

Jo asks why Anat et al don't just try again to get back to September 12th and kill Sir Reginald, but the Doctor explains that the Blinovitch Limitation Effect prevents that. Sadly, he doesn't get to expand on what the effect is, but in Invasion of the Dinosaurs it is mentioned again as something which "tends to limit research into time travel". It essentially prevents a time traveller going back a second time to redo what they have done before, but try telling the Ninth Doctor and Rose that! As for Blinovitch, according to the Invasion of the Dinosaurs novelisation, he was a "great bear of a man from Russia" who reversed his own timestream and reverted to infancy (he also gains the name Aaron in the New Adventure Timewyrm: Revelation). The Blinovitch Limitation Effect reared its puzzling head again in Mawdryn Undead, becoming the catalyst for the Brigadier's breakdown, and he also gets a namecheck in Kill the Moon. Aaron Blinovitch also gets mentions in the 2000 film Happy Accidents, and the 2010 Supergirl Annual #2!

Frustratingly, we know that these events have taken place between September 12th-13th, but not what year, because of an annoying scene where the Controller claims Jo has already told him the year she is from, even though she hasn't (on screen). If only they'd shown Jo stating the year, the entire UNIT dating controversy would be so much easier to work out!

Some praise here for Aubrey Woods as the mysterious Controller, who dresses in svelte black but has a curiously pearlescent skin tone and silver-painted fingernails. Woods is reassuringly suave and effacing and has quite a memorable screen presence, despite his very ordered and calm demeanour. The Controller (whose comfy armchair looks like a toilet from behind) rather naughtily seeds fake news into Jo's mind by painting the freedom fighters as dangerous criminals, and making out that the thuggish Ogrons are volitional servants, "higher anthropoids" who live in communities on the outer worlds. Fascinating world-building, I want to know more!

The end of the episode sees Anat and Boaz escaping from an Ogron attack at Auderly, shooting at them with their disappointing ray guns which don't fire rays. When the Doctor picked up a ray gun and disintegrates an Ogron, my jaw dropped! Surely this is the very thing the Doctor would not do? He has no idea what these Ogrons are - OK, he knows they're aggressive, but surely that doesn't negate their right to live? He kills that Ogron without a second thought and it really grates on me. The Doctor should not be a mindless murderer, but Louis Marks paints him as a gun-toting killer like he's Dan Dare or something. Plain wrong.

At the end the Doctor finally discovers that the Daleks are involved when he sees a rather twitchy example materialise in the railway tunnel. Frustratingly, director Paul Bernard drops the ball again by not having the Dalek advance toward the Doctor threateningly, or scream "EXTERMINATE!", which would have been pretty perfect.

First broadcast: January 8th, 1972

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: It's refreshing to have a woman in charge of the freedom fighters.
The Bad: The Doctor killing the Ogron in cold blood is one of the most shocking missteps in Doctor Who history. That is #NotMyDoctor
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆

"Now listen to me" tally: 13
Neck-rub tally: 5

NEXT TIME: Episode Three...

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

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.com/2014/05/day-of-daleks.html

Day of the Daleks is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Day-Daleks-DVD/dp/B004VRO89C