6 episodes
Aired between 5th November 1966 and 10th December 1966
Written by David Whittaker
Produced by Innes Lloyd
Directed by Christopher Barry
Synopsis
Ben and Polly look on in amazement as the man on the floor of the TARDIS gets up. They spend the next few minutes arguing over whether he is or isn't the Doctor.
The man has some kind of weird mental breakdown for a minute before it subsides and he is feeling better.
He wears different, yet similar clothes to the Doctor, and did wear the Doctor's ring, but it's too big for him now. Despite Polly's assurance that it is the Doctor, the man refers to the Doctor in the third person, but that doesn't stop him going through "the Doctor's" luggage chest, picking out odds and ends like a magnifying glass, a recorder (the musical instrument kind) and his 500 year diary.
As the discussion goes on, the TARDIS lands, and the Doctor decides to leave, seemingly uninterested in Ben or Polly; more concerned with reading the book. Ben even chastises him for not checking the readings before he left, but the man casually recounts the exact outdoor temperature etc.
The TARDIS has landed on Vulcan, a hot, desolate planet full of rocks and mercury swamps.
The man is content to simply wander off, jumping rocks and reading his book, until he hears someone calling to him.
He see's a man in white in the distance and decides to approach him. Out of nowhere, the man in white is shot dead, but his killer stays hidden. The man checks the victim's body, finding a badge that indicates he's an examiner from Earth.
Ben an Polly leave the TARDIS too, exploring the desolate landscape until they accidentally get too close to one of the mercury swamps, and get knocked unconscious by the fumes.
The man with the 500 year diary takes the Examiner's badge and is pursued by the murderer until he is knocked unconscious near the TARDIS. The murderer places a button in the mans hand and mysteriously leaves.
A little later, the man, Ben and Polly are found by colonists: Quinn (Deputy Governor) and Bragen (Head of Security). They mistake the man for the examiner, (a point which the man doesn't correct) and suppose he and his team are here to inspect "the space capsule".
Elsewhere in the colony two scientists: Lesterson and Janley are examining a strange non-corrosive metal. Janley informs her boss that the Examiner has arrived, but Lesterson has no knowledge of any such Examiner being called for. Janely shrugs it off and checks with her boss if she's ok to go to the lobby group meeting that night. Lesterson agrees but warns her not to get too involved.
The Examiner, Ben and Polly are taken to see Governor Henshell who greets them kindly and gives them free reign of the base. When the Governor is gone, the Examiner finally confides in Ben and Polly about the death of the real Examiner, and suggests they get to the bottom of it.
As Janley goes about her work, she sees Quinn in the corridor. She greets him and during their brief conversation, remarks that he's missing a button.
Eventually, The Examiner, Ben, and Polly are taken to see the capsule by Hensell, Quinn, and Bragen. They introduce Dr Lesterson, and Janley. The Examiner works his way around the lab, picking up the strange metal and comparing it to a similar piece that he drew out from the Doctor's luggage.
Lesterson asks for permission to open the capsule, which the Examiner grants. The door is opened, but it turns out to be only an outer door. The Examiner keenly sees a slight opening in the inner door, but keeps it quiet, forbidding Lesterson to go any further until the following day.
That night, the Examiner sneaks back to the capsule with Ben and Polly and opens the inner door. Inside, they find two inactive Daleks covered in cobwebs, and a space where a third one used to be.
Out of nowhere, a hideous tentacled creature scuttles across the floor.
The Examiner recognises the machines as Daleks and thinks that Lesterson may have already been in here and taken the missing one. He says that the Daleks can be revived by electricity.
Elsewhere, Quinn is looking for the Examiner who isn't in his quarters. Bragen finds Quinn and begins questioning him about his missing button, but Quinn is dismissive of the security chief.
In the lab, Lesterson turns up and finds the Examiner, Ben and Polly inside the capsule. He orders them out. The Examiner notes that Lesterson isn't the least bit surprised at the sight of the Dalek's and decides to challenge Lesterson. When Lesterson denies it and refuses to destroy the other Daleks,, the Examiner storms off to see the Governor. When they've gone, Lesterson retrieves the third Dalek from a hidden compartment in the lab and hurries to begin work to revive it before the Examiner can get approval to destroy them.
The group are led back to their quarters by Bragen, who agrees to arrange a meeting for them with the Governor. In the meantime, he advises the Examiner to be careful in his investigation as there are rebel factions among the people in the base. When Bragen leaves, Ben and Polly begin discussing the need to find the murderer, and work out who did call for the Examiner.
The Examiner finds a listening device in a piece of fruit. Once it's crushed they're free to talk. They believe that Lesterson isn't responsible because he wouldn't want the experiments messed up or stopped by Earth. Similarly, the Governor wouldn't voluntarily ask to be put under scrutiny. Ben gets fed up and just want's to go to the TARDIS, but the Examiner and Polly insist that they must stop Lesterson reviving the Daleks.
Bragen returns and tells them that they cannot see the Governor until the morning, but the Examiner isn't happy. He says he's just going to contact Earth directly and goes off to find the communications relay.
Back in the lab, Lesterson, Janley, and an assistant Resno are working on the Dalek. Janley and Resno seemingly hate each other, because Resno knows that Janley is a rebel. Lesterson chastises them both and tells them to keep politics out of the lab. They continue working and soon get the Dalek's eye stalk and sucker arm working.
The eye follows Resno wherever he goes, and when the gun comes online, it shoots Resno down. Lesterson is shocked but Janley assures him he's only unconscious. Lesterson rushes off to get help, leaving Janley to cover Resno's body over as if he were dead. She goes and fully revives the Dalek on her own.
The Examiner reaches the communications relay but finds the equipment smashed and the operator has been knocked out. Quinn appears from the shadows of the room and begins to talk to the Examiner, but Bragen turns up and decides to arrest Quinn for the whole lot of trouble including the murder (based on his missing button). Quinn obviously protests, but is carried away by the guards.
With nothing left to be done, the Examiner, Polly and Ben return to their quarters until the next day.
In the morning, they are all escorted to Quinn's trial but are interrupted when Lesterson rushes in with a fully functional Dalek. For safety he has removed the gun stick. To everyone's surprise, the Dalek seems to recognise the examiner and tires to shoot him, being ineffectual without a gun. Ben remarks that the Examiner must clearly be the Doctor because the Dalek recognised him.
The Doctor goes mental with Lesterson, saying it will kill them all, but to everyone's abject surprise, Lesterson shows that the Dalek is totally obedient, stating "I am your servant".
Despite the Doctor's insistence, the Governor see's the potential in keeping the Daleks functioning. The Doctor tries to break their charade by ordering the Dalek to immobilise itself.
The Dalek does as it's commanded, although begrudgingly. The Doctor vows to stop the Daleks and leaves. As soon as he's gone, the Dalek reactivates. When questioned as to why it did, the Dalek says that it obeys Lesterson, not the Doctor.
With all the disruption resolved, Quinn's trial continues. Quinn confesses that it was him that sent for the examiner to deal with the rebels, and asks the Governor why he would want to kill the man he's sent for?
Bragen suggests that Quinn did it to make the Governor look ineffectual and take the role for himself. The Governor believes the latter and imprisons Quinn, promoting Bragen to Deputy Governor.
The Doctor, Ben and Polly go back to their quarters where the Doctor jury rigs together a small electronic device.
They go to visit the lab, seeing Quinn being led away. Polly protests, but the Doctor says it's better to let Quinn get wrongly imprisoned if they can focus on destroying the Daleks.
Once at the lab, the Doctor convinces Lesterson that he might have been a bit hasty condemning the Daleks, and tries to act all sweet and innocent until he attaches the device to the power supply. The now two activated Daleks suddenly go bezerk, but luckily for them, Lesterson manages to stop it.
In shadowy corridors, Bragen and Janley meet. It is revealed that Janley is one of the rebel leaders, but is working for Bragen who is using her to lure them into a trap where they will be crushed when they've done their job of making the Governor seem ineffectual. Janley believes that they can use the Dalek gun technology to take over the colony and explains how potent it is, revealing that Resno, the assistant was actually killed by the Dalek, not wounded. Janley dumped the body in a mercury pool. Bragen congratulates her, but says he's unwilling to make a move on the colony whilst the Examiner is still around.
After leaving the meeting, Janley finds Polly snooping around and with the help of her assistant, kidnaps her.
Ben meets back up with the Doctor and is worries about Polly, but the Doctor casually dismisses his concerns. He's more worried about the Daleks. Ben gets angry and drags the Doctor off to confront Bragen about her disappearance.
In the lab, the experiments on the Daleks continue, and Lesterson is amazed at the amount of knowledge "the machines" have. The Dalek boasts that it can vastly improve the colony's technology level by creating a great computer that could predict meteor swarms with 100% accuracy, if the materials are supplied. Lesterson is most excited by this and immediately rushes off to get the materials.
Ben and the Doctor see Lesterson leave and waylay their trip to Bragen in order to look in the lab. When they enter, they see a power cable leading from the generator into the space capsule. As they try to turn the power off, they are confronted by two more fully armed Daleks who roll out of the ship.
The Doctor and Ben run out of the lab and straight to the Governor where they find Lesterson getting approval for the materials. The Doctor argues with the scientist, but the Governor makes it quite clear that the Daleks are to be kept alive. The Governor and Lesterson walk off, leaving Ben and the Doctor with Bragen. They tell the now Deputy Governor of Polly's disappearance, but instead of helping them, Bragen announces that he knows they're impostors. He makes a deal with them to keep their secret, so long as they leave the Daleks alone.
With little choice, the Doctor and Ben go back to their quarters, where a note is shoved under their door saying that also, Polly will be ok so long as they leave the Daleks alone.
Lesterson returns to the lab to see that the Daleks have now de-armed themselves. They ask if they will be given the materials, which Lesterson confirms. They begin chanting manically that "we will have our power" and begin closing in on Lesterson in a bit of a menacing way. Lesterson reacts by cutting the power, incapacitating most of the Daleks.
He keeps the power off until they submit to his will once more.
The day after, Bragen takes over the work as Governor, whilst Hensell goes out to inspect the other parts of the colony for a day or two. The Doctor and Ben turn up again, showing Bragen the note and reiterating their concerns about Polly. Bragen says that because they are impostors, he's not interested and they will have to look for Polly themselves.
As they leave, the Doctor turns his mind back to the Daleks, wondering how long they can survive without static electricity. As they walk, they count four Daleks moving about. This is very concerning as there were only ever three.
Lesterson meanwhile is becoming increasingly concerned about the amount of materials the Daleks are consuming in their construction project. He begins to doubt the voracity of the work and suggests that he might go and see the Examiner. Janley takes the chance to blackmail Lesterson, explaining about Resno's death and forcing the scientist to keep quiet.
The Doctor and Ben arrive at the lab, wanting to talk to Lesterson about the extra Dalek that's turned up. Lesterson bluffs and says they're just machines, but the Doctor assures him they are dangerous and if they're given enough resources, could cause major problems for the colony. Those words strike home to Lesterson and the shock cause's him to pass out. Janley calls a guard and makes up a story that the Examiner attacked Lesterson, forcing them out of the lab, leaving her to take over as a liaison with the Daleks.
Ejected from the lab, Ben and the Doctor go and examine a notice board that a shifty looking colonist was hanging around. They find a hidden message in one of the notices that says a secret meeting will be held that night in Rocket Room P. Together, the Doctor and Ben go and hide in the rocket room, hoping to find Polly's kidnappers.
Sure enough, that night, there is a meeting of the rebels. The Doctor and Ben listen in from hiding as Janley brings in one of the Daleks with a control pack attached to it's gun arm. She says that they can use the Dalek to take over the colony. Everyone is skeptical until she orders for the Dalek to shoot her, using the control pack to make sure it cannot.
In her outlining of their plan. Janley reveals that they are holding Polly which (god knows why) surprises Ben into accidentally making a noise and giving up his hiding place. He is knocked out and taken away. The silent leader of the rebels - Bragen, calls the Doctor out from hiding and the Doctor obeys. The Doctor threatens to tell the Governor about Bragen's treachery, but Bragen instead says that he intends to frame the Doctor and arrests him, placing in him in a cell next to Quinn.
Whilst in jail, the Doctor sees that the door is locked by sonics. He begins running his finger around a cup to try and mimic the noise the key made..
Lesterson awakes from his trauma and makes his way inside the space capsule. He find s a secret door that leads deeper inside, until he can see an expensive factory making Daleks (the monsters as well as the metal case's).
He rushes out of the capsule and blocks the door before shutting off the generator. He calls for the Doctor, but finds out he's been imprisoned.
The three usual Daleks emerge from the capsule and Lesterson is horrified. He asks them how they can move without power, and they say that they can store electricity. He runs off before the Daleks can do anything about him.
Janley turns up with Polly and instructs the Daleks that she's to be kept prisoner in the capsule.
Lesterson gets to the prison but he's told no one is to see the prisoners. He bursts in and tells the Doctor what's happened before guards haul the scientist away to face Bragen. As they reach his office, they see a Dalek laying power cables. Lesterson demands to know what the Daleks are doing. The Dalek replies that it's laying cable for a back up station, just like he ordered. Lesterson says he gave no such order, but when Janley turns up, she makes Lesterson out to be a madman, leading Bragen to arrest him.
Inside the capsule, Janley's rebel friends: Valmar and Kebble have been convinced to help the Daleks with their work whilst they keep watch on Polly. She ends up explaining how they're not really examiners, and that they should be more weary of the Daleks. Her words seem to get through to them and they are more cautious.
In jail, the Doctor is worried by what Lesterson told him, but he's still imprisoned. He gives up on the water idea, and plays his recorder. Luckily for him, one of the notes matches the pitch of the sonic key and it unlocks the cell doors. Finally free, Quinn disables the guard and they both sneak off.
Hensell returns from his trip, and begins questioning Bragen about all the cables around the complex, and asks where the Examiner is. Bragen is quite arrogant and says that he's been imprisoned. Hensell tries to take back his command, ordering the guards to arrest Bragen. They don't, and Bragen gloats that they're his guards. He offers the chance for Hensell to join him, but when he refuses, he is shot by a Dalek and killed.
The Doctor and Quinn rush to the lab, and free Polly. They all run from the lab, pursued by Daleks. The Doctor jams the door with a spanner to hold them for a while and run off to stop Bragen.
Inside the lab, the Daleks regroup in the capsule and decide to simply help the humans start their revolution and begin killing each other, then they will turn on them and wreak destruction in the chaos.
When they reach his office, the Doctor, Polly and Quinn find Hensell dead. They realise they're too late as Bragen has implemented marshal law, and captures the group again with his guards.
When the rebels give them the order to attack, the Daleks begin pouring out of the now open lab and begin chanting "Dalek's conquer and destroy".
Soon after, Janley meets with Bragen and says how happy she is that the Revolution is on. Bragen is unhappy, and reminds her that the real plan is to wipe out the rebels once they've committed to the attack. She reluctantly agrees. Unknown to them, Valmar overhears them. He takes their prisoner, Ben into the guest quarters and hides. There he tells Ben about what he heard and goes off to find the Doctor and Polly.
Not long after Valmar leaves, Quinn, the Doctor and Polly manage to escape their escort back to jail. The Doctor and Polly rush off and find Ben in the living quarters. Ben fills them in on Bragen's full plan, and the Doctor tells them to wait whilst he goes off and sorts the problem.
As he makes his way through the corridors, he is confronted by Kebble and two guards. They plan to capture the Doctor again, but Daleks turn up out of nowhere and begin firing on them. The Doctor saves kebble's life by helping him escape. Together they run off. They make it back to the quarters and regroup with Ben and Polly. They all try to escape out the window, but Kebble is killed in the process by the pursuing Daleks.
Elsewhere, Valmar has found his way back to the lab, and attaches three control units to the Dalek's weapons there. Janley enters and Valmar confronts her with what he heard. She convinces him that she wasn't going to betray the rebels, but Bragen. The Daleks too seem to be adamant that they are the servants of the humans and seem eager to fight for the rebels, if they are only shown where to go.
Janley and Valmar lead the Daleks into battle but soon find that their "robots" are firing upon all humans, not just guards. They luckily manage to escape before being exterminated themselves.
The Doctor and his friends make their way to the lab and find that Lesterson has gone there too, He's clearly gone insane with it all, but has enough sense to hide the group, just as more Daleks emerge from the capsule. When they're gone he tells the group that all is lost and that the Daleks are now the surpeme rulers of Vulcan. Their only chance is perhaps using a secret power cable that Valmar installed in the capsule that also powers the rebel base. The Doctor agrees and goes to find Valmar so he can reveal the location of the cable.
Out in the corridors, the Daleks continue their assault. Quinn saves Valmar as Janley is exterminated, and the Doctor meets them both.
Valmar readily tells the Doctor where the cable is, and the Doctor scoots off again, charging Quinn and Valmar with finding Bragen and getting him to distract the Daleks in some way.
Everything's gone to pot for Bragen, and he is desperate. Quinn enters and tells Bragen at gunpoint to order his guards back to the capitol, that should provide enough of a distraction. Bragen agrees and carries out the order.
The Doctor makes it back to the lab and quickly finds the cable and power supply for the Daleks operations. As the Doctor meddles with the supply, Polly yells that there are two Daleks approaching. Lesterson provides a distraction, and is killed for it, but buys enough time for the Doctor to overload the power supply, supercharging all the Daleks and causing them to explode. He also knocks himself out in the process.
Seeing the destroyed Daleks, Bragen seizes his opportunity and knocks the gun from Quinn's hand. He grabs the gun, but Valmar kills him.
In the aftermath, Quinn is appalled at the sheer loss of life, and the destruction of the colony's entire power supply. It will take months to repair. The now conscious Doctor smiles sheepishly and suggests to Ben and Polly that they scarper, quickly. They rush back to the TARDIS, which now has a destroyed Dalek by the side of it.
Ben asks if the Doctor really did know what he was doing when he destroyed the power supply, but the Doctor just smiles and remains tight lipped. As the TARDIS dematerialises, the Dalek's eye stalk slowly raises itself up.
Trivia
- Bernard Archard, the actor who played Bragen, is also Marcus Scarman from Pyramids of Mars. It was a very pleasant surprise to see him.
- As soon as Patrick Troughton turned up on set, the mood lightened massively. He was fun and a bit of a joker, even if he still wasn't sure about his choice to play the Doctor. As a bit of a prank one day, Annake Wills and Michael Craze (as well as some of the crew) decided to get T-shirts printed as a joke with the message "Come Back William Hartnell, All is Forgiven!" Patrick took one look at the shirts and his face dropped. He was really hurt by it, but soon perked up when they all explained.
- Originally, Patrick Troughton's Doctor was meant to be wearing a wig (possibly one of the reasons why he was having second thoughts about saying yes to the role). The decision on the hair style hadn't been fully agreed, even close to the film date, which is why the regeneration scene is so close up on his face, showing no hairline at all. Minutes before the initial shots were filmed for this story, Patrick borrowed Annake's comb, and combed his hair forward into a beatles style mop top. The rest, as they say, is history.
What worked
- They kept the same noise for the Dalek doors - that's pleasing
- The music brings a lot of suspense when the Doctor is sneaking about the base
- The cobwebs over the Daleks is a nice and scary image, but what spiders live on a Dalek saucer?
- The fact that the Doctor hardly takes the time to explain anything is a bit of a double edged sword, but the change is refreshing,
- Right off the bat, Troughton is being funny in a Norman Wisdom kind of way. Thankfully, it doesn't take anything away from the .tension of the story, because he does it in all the right places.
- Lesterson's scenes skulking about in the Daleks capsule
- In some ways, the complexity and agenda's of the supporting cast add a lot to the story
- The last episode where the Daleks begin to massacre everyone and Bragen takes power
What didn't work
- Because this is a lost episode, it's a bit difficult to understand who's doing what, especially when buttons are being handed out to people, it's just not clear at times who's doing what
- The loud chiming noise whenever something dramatic happens
- Spending seven minutes watching (or listening to) the Doctor go through an old chest whilst Ben rants and raves in the background. Seeing it in 1966 might have been more acceptable though because this was the first ever regeneration, so people just didn't know what was going to happen and probably said similar things to Ben
- The Daleks are a bit too obvious in wanting to take over the world. I mean, when one of them activates the others and removes their guns, they begin closing in on Lesterson in a threatening way, even though they've not got any weapons with which to deal with him and are still incredibly vulnerable to power loss.
- Why is there a rebellion anyway? What's so bad about the current rulers of Vulcan, other than they can't understand that these alien machines might be a threat?
- Lesterson isn't the least bit curious to turn the Daleks off and look inside one? Really?
- In fact, it's not only him, why doesn't anyone even ask the Daleks where they come from or who "built" them?
- Is the Dalek capsule really a DARDIS, because it's a hell of a lot bigger than the outside suggests.
Overall Feelings
This story is a complicated one. It's a story about hubris, self appeasing ambition, and its consequences.
Taking it from the start, I usually have problems on the inaugural story of a new Doctor, and this makes no exception. Troughton's acting is fine, but the character just feels uncomfortable, especially when he starts referring to the Doctor in the third person. I'm sure that feeling is what the production team was going for, to cast doubt in your mind as to if this person is the character you love. The problem is, doing all this deception makes you believe that it isn't, and therefore it makes me want to skip over the parts where he's bonkers and get to the bit where he's back to his old self.
This story isn't a nice easing in one for Patrick Troughton either. It is a complex web of intrigue and mystery. With more time, this could have really been a worthy contender for Game of Thrones, it's so complex, if not in ideas, then execution. There are tons of scenes where people are going backwards and forwards to the lab, to the living quarters, all over the place getting waylaid from the purpose they were even going for. It makes it confusing when we don't have the finished article to watch anymore.
The main problem with this story, isn't the plot. It's not even the acting, as there are some great actors in this; it's the inconsistency of things, and the incompetence of the base staff, who very quickly agreeing to let "robots" from an unknown civilisation have the run of the place. They give them all the materials they need for a project they know nothing about, and don't even oversee it!
It's inconsistent because from the Dalek Invasion of Earth onwards, we've established that the Daleks can move around independently, so why the need for electricity? Why are the rebels upset?
Despite all the confusion, inconsistency and obvious dialogue, then there's a much deeper vein of science fiction horror here. It has a feel of Terry Nation's attempt (see the Daleks). Vulcan has a decent rounded out history, and everyone seems to have their own agenda. The Dalek assault is as brutal and merciless as anything in the Daleks' Masterplan, and for that, a lot can be forgiven.
Rating
5 out of 10
Lots will irritate you about this story, but it's got a good tale at the heart of it, and the Daleks have rarely seemed so scary
Rewatchability Factor
4 out of 10
With the exception of the odd scene, episodes 2 - 5 are fillers but the story is worth an infrequent listen, because of the many character motivations
Watch this if you liked...
- Terror of the Vervoids
- The Victory of the Daleks (Doctor Who Series 5)
Consulting the Matrix
Did the sheer amount of sub-plots add to, or detract from the story for you?
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